Legends

by Deborah Smith

  The gleam in her eyes told him she was thinking that London was close to home. “And then?”

  “I have some work to do at my London office. I need to meet with a few people about a chain of department stores I want to acquire in Europe.” Where they’ll sell woolens by Elgiva MacRoth, he added silently.

  Douglas jiggled her and cheerfully ogled her bouncing breasts. “You can spend the day shopping. I’ll have a chauffeur take you to the best boutiques in the city. You can buy anything you want.”

  “I don’t want to spend your money, Douglas. It would make me feel like a kept woman.”

  “So? I was your kept man for almost two weeks. Can’t I get even?”

  “You’re twisting the meaning of the word, you beastie.”

  He tried not to push too hard, but her refusal to be drawn into his lifestyle worried him. “You’re depriving me of the pleasure of sending you shopping. At least go window-shopping, if your independent little heart refuses to let you spend a pittance of my enormous fortune.”

  “Hah! You’ll tell the chauffeur to make notes about everything that interests me, and you’ll send someone to buy it for me later.”

  He gave her an exasperated look. “You know me too well.”

  “No.” She kissed him. “Not well enough. But I’m studying you.”

  Douglas regarded her somberly. Patience, Kincaid, patience. “Then you probably know that I’ll fly you up to Scotland after my business is finished in London.”

  “Aye!” She smiled brightly. “I’ll show you around. We’ll go to MacRoth Hall, and you and my brother can make friends. Oh, Douglas, thank you, thank you. This has all turned out so well! I can’t wait to go home!”

  She snuggled her head on his shoulder and hugged him. He held her tightly, feeling jealous of a place and a heritage that might take her away from him if he weren’t very careful.

  Ten

  “I’ve visited London before,” she told him the next morning. “But never like this.”

  Douglas watched with serene, smiling love as she moved about the main room of their enormous hotel suite, her artistic fingers absorbing the gilt and brocade of old-world elegance. She was particularly happy today—she’d called her brother and convinced him to meet them in Scotland tomorrow. Douglas nodded to himself. He’d win Rob MacRoth’s friendship as his next step in the permanent acquisition of Elgiva’s affections.

  But for now he didn’t want to think about that. He simply wanted to enjoy looking at her. A floor-length dressing gown whispered around her ankles. The morning light filtered through the silk sheers covering a tall window and made a reddish-gold halo at the crown of her head.

  She was her own best creation, her own work of art, and if he never wanted to share this view of her with anyone else, who could blame him? A connoisseur had a right to be selfish about a masterpiece.

  Douglas fiddled with his gold cuff links and took extra time straightening his black vest. He slipped into the black jacket of an exquisitely tailored suit and sighed in dismay. He was already late for the 9:00 A.M. meeting at his London office building, headquarters of British Kincaid. For the first time in years he wanted to skip work.

  “The chauffeur will be waiting at ten,” he reminded Elgiva. “I wish you’d go shopping.”

  She came to him and kissed his mouth firmly. “Off to work with you, dear man. I’m going to the museums.”

  “All right. But when you get to the Fordham, at least let the curator be your personal guide. It’s all set up. Do that much for me. I mean, I ought to get something in return for all the money I donated to his place.”

  “You’re a charitable man, Douglas,” she said with a slightly taunting smile, both amused and rebuking.

  He grunted. “Unsentimental.”

  “We’ll see about that.” She kissed him again, using her tongue in delicate, delicious ways, and by the time he left the suite, he was so distracted that he bumped into a waiter in the hallway and knocked him down.

  Douglas helped the man rise, waved his humble apologies aside, and pressed a hundred-pound note into his astonished hand. Then he strode away, whistling the strains of a Scottish jig.

  “You admire the legends connected with these gems more than the gems themselves,” the dapper little curator at the Fordham told her.

  Elgiva smiled. “Oh, I’ve got naught against fine jewelry, but the legends are safer to carry about.” She nodded at the thick glass cases anchored in marble. “Wouldn’t you say?”

  The tweedy little man chuckled. “Indeed.” They walked farther along the museum’s display. “This is one of the world’s finest collections of famous gems,” the curator mentioned.

  They arrived at a case that held a glittering necklace of teardrop-shaped diamonds. “They’re incredible,” Elgiva whispered in awe.

  “They’re the Tears of Simone. Commissioned by the father of a French baroness, as a consolation gift for forcing her to marry a man she disliked. There’s a companion necklace called the Smiles of Simone. Her husband had it created to commemorate their tenth anniversary—a happy one, as it turned out. The Smiles of Simone are magnificent sapphires.”

  Elgiva looked up quickly. Sapphires. She struggled not to grimace. “Do you have the Smiles of Simone here?”

  The curator looked puzzled. “Why, no. I thought you knew. Mr. Kincaid has been negotiating to purchase them from an Arabian collector, a patron of ours. I believe the sale was finalized last week.”

  Elgiva stared at him. A hollow, distraught feeling began to grow inside her chest, even as she told herself not to read too much into Douglas’s deal. But her enjoyment of London and her bright hopes for the future had dimmed. So he was still adding to his collection.

  He still wanted sapphires for a blond, blue-eyed wife. She touched a fingertip to the corner of one amber eye. Douglas had become color-blind, but not for long, it seemed.

  She delayed returning to the hotel. She had the chauffeur take her to famous sites in the city, where she wandered about and pretended to be intrigued. But her thoughts were riveted painfully to the news that Douglas had purchased more sapphires.

  She was no daydreaming child, she told herself; she was thirty-four, a widow, a self-supporting businesswoman, and a practical person who knew better than to weave bold threads when gossamer ones were expected. Douglas cared for her—there was no doubt of it. But he didn’t necessarily love her. People didn’t have to love each other to become lovers—even when to one of them the love was all consuming.

  “Monsieur, Dr. MacCannon is here.” Gert’s voice was soft and dulcet toned, which meant that the doctor was standing nearby. Otherwise Gert would have made the announcement like a brusque little general.

  Douglas set a stack of paperwork aside on a gleaming rosewood desk and punched a button on the phone console. “Refresh my memory, Gert.”

  “The Kincaid genealogy research. You have an appointment to discuss his findings. I hired him from the university of Scotland. He’s an expert on Scottish history.”

  Excitement surged through Douglas’s veins. “Send him in!”

  A short, rotund man who resembled a Scottish Dr. Watson tromped into the darkly paneled office, stocky arms pumping exuberantly inside a plaid coat. Douglas stood and extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Dr. MacCannon. I’m Douglas Kincaid.”

  Dr. MacCannon bounced Douglas’s hand vigorously and grinned. Then he bellowed, “ ’Tis nice to meet the thirty-fifth Duke of Talrigh, direct descendant of Gregory the Wolf, distant relative of half the ancient kings of Scotland, and by rights the chief of the Kincaid clan.” He paused, frowning solemnly, then added, “Of which a cruel fate left none but the American branch.”

  Stunned, Douglas asked slowly, “Then it’s true? The Kincaids were an important clan in Scotland? And they were all killed except one who went to America?”

  “Aye.”

  Douglas gestured to an armchair. “Please, have a seat. And tell me everything.” As the historian dropped into the
chair, Douglas stared at him in continuing astonishment. Guilt assailed him as he recalled how he’d doubted Elgiva and fought her attempts to convince him of his Scottish background.

  He could barely wait to apologize. He couldn’t wait to tell her about the pride that he felt at the idea of sharing this wonderful bond with her. Douglas planted both hands on his desktop and leaned toward Dr. MacCannon, dozens of questions crowding his throat. He knew which one he had to ask first.

  “Damned good work, doc! So tell me, who were the rats who rubbed out my clan?”

  Dr. MacCannon blinked quizzically at the gangster lingo. Then understanding dawned. “Och! They rubbed them out, that’s for sure! Rubbed them out and left only Tammas Kincaid alive—and him they put on a ship for America! They rubbed out the whole bunch and destroyed Castle Talrigh!”

  Douglas leaned forward even more, his fascination mingling with dismay over all that some barbaric clan had stolen from his ancestors, and therefore from him. “Who?” he demanded. “Who murdered my relatives?”

  The historian clasped his chest dramatically. “The grrreat and powerrrful clan of MacRoth.”

  The phone rang in the breakfast nook at 6:00 A.M. while Douglas was out jogging. Elgiva stared dully across her untouched porridge and willed the phone to be quiet. Douglas kept this hotel suite permanently, so he’d had phones installed everywhere, and it was disconcerting.

  This particular phone squatted on the breakfast table where he’d left it after swallowing a cup of coffee and checking with Gert for messages. When it refused to be quiet, Elgiva picked the receiver up. “Good morning, Gert.”

  “Good morning, Madame MacRoth. Your brother is on the line.”

  Elgiva frowned in bewilderment. “Thank you.”

  “Ellie, are you where you can talk freely?” Rob’s deep voice was low and furious.

  “Aye. What’s wrong?”

  “Where’s that bastard Kincaid?”

  “He’s gone to exercise.” Elgiva clutched the phone so tightly that her fingers ached. “Robbie, what’s the matter?”

  “He lied to you, Ellie. I’ve been keeping tabs on him. He charmed you with his so-called change of heart and used you without any remorse. Get yourself together and leave before he comes back, Ellie. I’ll drive Duncan’s truck down to London and pick you up—”

  “Robbie! What are you accusing Douglas of doing?” Elgiva hunched forward, girding herself for an invisible blow.

  Rob’s soft, fierce voice sizzled in the phone. “He’s bought the estate, Ellie. He bought it yesterday.”

  Gert and her staff of ten met Douglas when he reentered the hotel lobby. “Good morning, Monsieur K,” Gert said, and handed him a towel.

  “Good morning.” He wiped his face briskly and tossed the towel over one shoulder of his black sweats.

  His thoughts distracted by the day’s plans with Elgiva, Douglas conducted a brusque business meeting as Gert and her staff followed him toward his private elevator. He felt like a battleship being followed by puffing little tugs.

  He finished the meeting by the time he and the group reached the hotel’s penthouse. “One more thing,” Gert told him as he stepped into the hall. “Madame MacRoth asked me to change the itinerary for today’s trip to Scotland. I’ve made the new arrangements.”

  Douglas halted and frowned at her in surprise. “What did she ask you to do?”

  “She requests that your pilot fly into the mountains rather than to her village. To the cottage there.” Gert cut her eyes in private communication with him. Your former jail, she indicated, amusement in her eyes. “She also asked me to have the hotel fix a hamper of food for an overnight stay. I’ve done so.”

  “All right. Thank you. We’ll be back late tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Bon soir, Monsieur.”

  As Douglas strode down the hall he jerked the towel into his hands and twisted it fiercely. Now that he knew the history of the MacRoths and the Kincaids, he understood why Elgiva might not want to love him. What was her plan, to take him back to the scene of their early feud so that he’d remember all their differences? To tell him that a MacRoth would never stoop to love a Kincaid?

  He stopped outside the doors to the suite and took several calming breaths. Patience. Compromise. History was not going to repeat itself. This time the Kincaids would be the victors.

  Elgiva thought that her nerves would snap if she didn’t get the truth from Douglas soon.

  Sitting next to one of the helicopter’s large, tinted windows, she stroked Sam’s golden head and stared resolutely at the rugged land dotted with small farms and flocks of sheep. The ruins of a medieval castle rose jaggedly from a hill overlooking a village.

  “We’ll visit an even grander place,” she promised Sam. “I’m taking you and Douglas on a hike to Castle Talrigh today.”

  Elgiva shut her eyes and heard Rob’s sinister words: “Aye, draw the bastard there, Ellie. We’ll be waiting.”

  But before anyone else confronted Douglas, she had to hear for herself that he’d betrayed her; she was dying inside, but she had to give him a chance to explain.

  Exhausted from the strain of pretending to be cheerful, Elgiva glanced over at Douglas and was grateful to find him asleep. He was stretched out in a plush reclining seat next to the opposite window, stereo headphones covering his ears.

  She ached with new despair—now that he was dressed in corduroys, hiking boots, a sweater, and a heavy outdoorsman’s jacket, he seemed more like her own people and less like a raider from a different world. How deceptive could he be? Elgiva glanced down at herself. She wore similar hiking clothes, with a plump, quilted jacket covered in shiny silver material.

  It was a gift from the man who had probably lied to her. The one thing about which he had not lied, it seemed, was their relationship. He’d never said that he loved her or talked about sharing a future with her.

  She turned blindly to the window. Sam rested his muzzle on her knee and peered out, his ears at half-mast as he studied the scenery below.

  Elgiva gripped his ruff and whispered, “ ’Tis the land of Shakespeare’s evil Macbeth, lad. But in truth, Macbeth was not a bad king. He ruled for many years, and his vassals thought well of him.” She rested her cheek against Sam’s head. “I wish that the truth were always so much kinder than the legend.”

  Elgiva couldn’t tell from his silence if Douglas were awed or bored. She was so filled with apprehension that she didn’t feel like talking, either.

  They stood on the edge of the deep, purple-black waters of Loch Talrigh and looked at the ghostly ruins of the castle, growing from its rocky island like a natural formation. The loch curled around the island less than a man’s height from the castle’s foundation.

  A light fog rose from the water, and a capricious afternoon sun occasionally moved from behind gray clouds to light the fog from behind. When it did, the castle was shrouded in a silver mist.

  It was grand even in ruins. Majestic turrets jutted upward from the corners of crumbling battlements; squares of light showed where windows had once adorned the upper chambers. Elgiva looked at Douglas and said as casually as she could, “It was built in the thirteenth century.”

  He nodded. “Castle Talrigh.” He turned dark, unreadable eyes to her. “You tried to tell me once that this was the castle of the Kincaids.”

  “I didn’t bring you here to lecture you about history that you don’t want to know,” she said without rebuke. “Just come and see the place.”

  He nodded again, his eyes never ceasing to study her. “Should I spread my old cynicism on the water like Sir Walter Raleigh’s cloak, so that we can walk?”

  “No. You can put your cynicism on the seat of a rowboat.”

  Elgiva glanced at the faint outline of the old stone causeway, a few feet away. She had her reasons for not telling him about it. She checked her wristwatch. The others would be here soon.

  “Come along,” she said, and gestured for him to follow. In a clump of trees she found
the creaky rowboat a fisherman had left long ago and never reclaimed.

  “I’m glad I taught you to swim,” Douglas muttered, when they were halfway across the dark, still loch. He pulled the oars with careful movements, as if fearing that the boat would fall apart at any moment. “Sam, if you sneeze, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Snuffling, Sam hunched closer to Elgiva’s legs and looked around nervously.

  Soon the castle loomed over them, casting a cold shadow. They left the boat on the rock-strewn shore, and Elgiva led the way up a steep walk to a ragged archway set in the stone. “Welcome to the past,” she said softly. Her pulse raced, and a sense of dread filled her.

  Wind whistled through the narrow chamber that took them to the castle’s interior. “Here’s the heart of the place,” Elgiva announced, sweeping her arms about her. “It was once the great hall. Imagine it with a tall, arching roof of heavy timbers and tapestries covering the walls.”

  She pointed to the cavernous fireplaces on either side. “With cheerful blazes there and the castle lord’s dogs curled up on the hearth rugs.” Elgiva gestured to mysterious stone supports that poked out from an upper section of one wall. “There was a gallery for the minstrels. You can almost hear their music if you listen with your imagination.”

  “You love this place,” Douglas commented.

  “Well, I feel a wee bit possessive about it. It’s so far from the tourist track that few people ever come to see it. It’s a special place for those of us who appreciate the history.”

  “Even when it’s not MacRoth history?”

  Clutching her hands in front of her, she eyed him with growing distress. It was time to talk. “Well, we MacRoths lost our castle, you see. It was destroyed by the English. It was at the site of the current hall.”

  “So you’ve adopted this castle instead?”

  “Aye.” She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “Come along.” She led him into a courtyard closely surrounded by stone walls. The stark openings of doors and windows looked down on them from all sides, like sightless eyes. Elgiva was unnerved by the way Douglas went to the center of the courtyard and stood there, tall and silent, his head turning majestically as he studied the place.