by L. L. Muir
“Aye,” he said. “Godspeed,” he called to the groom who then gave a kind wave. As soon as the cart moved into the road, Alexander turned to find a weepy woman at his back.
“Did you see him?”
“Aye. He’s a pitiful mess, lass. Would ye like me to call him back? Or rather… Do ye have a mobile in yer purse? I can hardly go collect the man, since I canna seem to leave, but perhaps ye can dial the number and I can ask him to come. You wouldna need to speak to him yet, if ye’re nay ready—”
“A mess?”
He nodded. “Pitiful.” And his own chest constricted knowing the lass was weeping over another man. It stirred up memories that he would rather leave buried on the moor. And he had to turn away from her to stop the rest from flooding in.
“I promised ye food, did I not? And a generous Mr. Muir arranged for a bottle of wine and a roasted fowl. If ye’ll sit to the table, I’ll see what manners I might be able to summon from the past.”
Yes. Manners, not memories.
Thankfully, he was occupied with domestic details for the time being and when he had time to think, he was careful to keep those thoughts on the woman he was there to help. He hurried a bit since there was a chance he had already helped her enough by simply keeping that Rick character away from her, twice. And if his duty was finished, he wanted a chance to taste the food and the wine before the wee witch came to gather him up and take him away.
And it was for that reason he snuck a few mouthfuls of chicken and half a glass of wine while he moved about the kitchen area making his preparations.
“Elbows from the table, if ye please,” he said. He handed her a small box of tissues to occupy her hands while he spread a cloth. Then he returned with plates, wine glasses, and utensils. He set them out as he remembered, then plucked the tissue box away again. “No more tears until the meal is finished, do ye ken?”
“Aye,” she said, grinning with damp cheeks. It took all his fortitude not to bend and reward her with a kiss.
He gave her a frown for tempting him, but she continued to grin. He shook his head and went back for the food. Upon a long platter, he placed one of the roasted chickens. To one side, he positioned tomatoes and on the other, some of the mushrooms he’d sliced and cooked briefly in a pan with butter and garlic. His bungling fingers had ruined them, but he would serve them just the same.
When he returned to the table, those lovely cheeks were dry once more and the smile was less obligatory.
“You’ll have to forgive the mushrooms. I spilled a tin of parsley flakes all over them. If ye’d care for the recipe, I call them Mushrooms in Parsley Mud.”
Her laugh was delightful and caught him off guard. It bubbled around him like music amplified on speakers and he winced, suddenly pained by all that her laughter implied.
He was sitting down to dinner with a woman who belonged to another man. Tempted to kiss another man’s woman—a man who mourned the loss of her while Alexander prepared her meal and cajoled laughter from her.
He had no right.
“Excuse me, lass. I suddenly doona feel so well, and I need a bit of air.” He avoided her concerned gaze. “Eat up. I’ve not cooked for naught, aye? But if the mushrooms go untouched, I’ll not feel slighted. Ye have my word.”
He stepped into the living room and scrubbed his face with his hands. A second later, he was out in the fresh air determined to think of nothing more than identifying the limits of his barrier. Then he’d find the point farthest from the cottage door and spend some time there—not thinking about the bride inside.
CHAPTER NINE
Chelsea was starving.
It was the only excuse she could think of for diving into a meal prepared by a stranger, drinking some of the wine from a bottle that had already been opened, and ingesting both the chicken and the wine after the stranger who prepared it suddenly came up with an excuse not to have any himself.
She was going to die!
She wiped grease from her fingers onto the plaid napkin and sat perfectly still for a minute, trying to notice the second the drugs started taking effect. Then she waited another. Her stomach felt… To be honest, it felt relieved that there was finally some food in it.
She’d been way too nervous that morning to eat anything, and the little drink of orange juice had burned more than it soothed. So, yeah, she’d been starving. The wine was strong so she hadn’t had much. If the Scot had drugged the bottle, she obviously hadn’t had enough to affect her. She didn’t drink often, so she was always careful not to overdo it. This time, it might have saved her life.
Only she didn’t feel funny. The wine barely warmed her throat. That was it.
Okay. Two more minutes, and if I feel okay, I’m eating a miniature tomato… And a little more chicken.
She didn’t last another minute. He’d promised he wouldn’t harm her, and she had believed him. As she ate the meat off the second leg, she started feeling guilty for enjoying the food at all when he was clearly in distress.
Reluctantly, she put the chicken back on her plate and cleaned her fingers again. She was just going to have to wait until they could eat together.
She paused at the door to listen for the golf cart but heard nothing. And the entire time she’d been inside only two real cars had passed the cottage. For all she knew, Austin and Rick and the entire wedding party might have left the castle and gone on with their touring plans. And if Rick stayed true to form, he’d either be running around with Austin on their honeymoon itinerary, or he’d drag Austin off to France and the rest of Europe.
And wouldn’t Austin be surprised when Erica Winston just happened to be joining them?
It was all so ridiculous! She should have never run off, never let the bastard win! She should have marched up the aisle, grabbed Austin’s hand, and hauled him out of there for some privacy. All she’d needed was a little assurance that he really did want her more than he wanted a career in politics. It was a conversation they’d had a dozen times, but she’d just needed to hear it once more.
And then she would have been fine.
Wouldn’t she?
She held onto the door jamb and tried to tell whether it was emotion or poison that made her question her own reasoning. Or maybe it was the distraction of the Scottish magician who was able to make it seem like he could change the trajectory of a rock after it left his hand.
She had tried for nearly half an hour to recreate what he’d done, but she couldn’t do it. In the end, she figured he had to have been using a mirror, or a piece of glass she never saw. Who knew what a man could hide beneath one of those kilts, or in the folds of material draped over his chest.
Or maybe it was that chest that distracted her. Holy cow. If she looked at him for too long, he took her breath away—and with it, some much-needed oxygen.
She took a deep breath to prove she could, then went looking for the Scottish heart-throb the rest of the world may or may not have discovered yet. There was no use worrying too much about the dress. Either it could be cleaned well enough for another bride to wear it, or it couldn’t. All she had to do was keep from snagging it on some gnarly looking bushes, and there would still be hope. But luckily, the lower plants had lots of yellow blossoms on them, warning her to stay away.
She was careful to stick to the center of a path that wound around the side of the cottage and down into a ravine behind. But she was so absorbed by keeping her dress away from the branches, she hadn’t noticed what she’d walked into until she was smack dab in the middle of it.
A fairy glen!
Or at least, if there were such things as fairy glens, she was standing in one. The ravine was covered by a high umbrella of tiny leaves that only let the mildest light through them. And the trees themselves were covered with a thin layer of bright, spring-green moss that looked like it had been sprayed on like a coat of paint. She could almost imagine tiny, winged figures flitting around with miniature paint sprayers making the world match their favorite color.
Like so many scraps of delicate, fragile lace, a lovely species of moss draped from branch to branch. And in places, morning dew still dripped and clung, waiting for a sharp point of light to burst its glistening bubble.
The water of a small creek percolated between rocks that had also been sprayed by the fairies, and, sitting on a bank of thick, soft ferns sat the Highlander, picking pebbles out from under the fronds and tossing them into the water. As far as she could tell, he had no magic trick set up. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting her to find him.
“No force field on this side of the house, huh?”
He started and turned with his hand raised, then relaxed when he saw it was her. “The barrier? ‘Tis over to the left there,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, but he didn’t notice. When she stepped closer, however, he seemed leery. A big man like him, afraid of her?
She laughed. “I promise not to toss you over my shoulder again.”
He smiled at the joke, but it wasn’t convincing.
“What’s the matter? Do you really not feel well?” She reached forward on instinct, to touch his forehead and check for a fever—maybe it was just a female instinct—but he flinched.
She straightened and stepped back, feeling like a leper.
“I’m not unwell,” he confessed, and she started worrying about the whole poison scenario again.
“Then what’s wrong?”
He pivoted away from her as he stood and she resisted the urge to sniff her armpits. If she stunk after running two miles in a wedding gown, she shouldn’t have been surprised.
“What is wrong, lass, is that ye’re the betrothed of another man and I should keep my distance, aye?”
She exhaled more than just the air in her lungs. She felt her entire body deflate with the realization that she had given up that fiancée status. And now she was just someone’s…ex.
“That’s funny,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. “I don’t feel like I belong to anyone anymore.”
His right brow rose into a high peak. “Truly?”
She shrugged and sighed again. “Truly.”
A slow grin spread across his face and she stepped to the side, prepared to hustle up out of the ravine if necessary. But he waved his fingers. “Come.” Then he pointed to the bed of ferns he’d crushed flat. “Sit beside me and listen to the water for a mite. ‘Tis a magic place, is it not?”
She nodded and stepped onto the ferns, relieved he hadn’t tried to throw her over his shoulder and carry her into the house like some barbarian. She was also eager to move closer to him just to prove to herself that it wasn’t the smell of her that made him back away.
She sat carefully and smoothed her skirts like she was getting ready for a photo. He plopped down beside her, his thigh pressed close to hers and his kilt spilling onto the white satin. And while she tried not to overreact to both those facts, he dug through the leaves on his left and came up with some rocks.
He held them out to her on his hand like he was offering hors d’oeuvres. “Go ahead, lass. Tossing rocks in the water is good for the soul. And besides, they weigh much less than a man, aye?”
She laughed and took a stone, then tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him. “Where did you say that barrier was?”
He bit his lip for a minute and she completely forgot time and place until he finally released it. His arm rose and he pointed to a path that rose up the far bank and disappeared between two trees.
“Over there, lass. I’ve already tested it.”
She grinned and held up the little stone. “Here. Spit on this.” She looked him in the eye, daring him to refuse.
He studied her for a second or two. His cheeks dimpled and she knew she had him. She had to bite her own lip to keep from grinning like an idiot. And after he stared at her lip like she’d stared at his, he wrapped his hand around hers and pulled the stone close. But instead of spitting on it, he licked it.
She snapped her mouth shut when she realized it was hanging open. Then she hauled back and chucked the rock, aiming as well as she could for the space he’d pointed to. It flew straighter than she even hoped, but before it passed between the trees, it shot straight down to the ground and bounced in the dirt before rolling backward and landing unceremoniously in the creek.
Chelsea jumped to her feet and hurried down to the water. A quick glance over her shoulder proved he wasn’t trying to follow. Her skirts had to be held high to keep them dry, but she found enough sturdy stones to make her way across the stream without slipping in. Her shoes left prints on the stones where they had crushed the moss, and a fleeting twinge of guilt—for destroying even the thinnest layer of fairy moss—made her pause. But she wouldn’t be stopped. She was determined to find the mechanism he’d set up for his trick before he could hide it from her again.
But there was no mirror. No glass. And if she was honest with herself, she’d heard no thump when the rock had suddenly stopped in mid-air and changed direction.
Maybe a magnet!
She hurried to the water’s edge and tried to find the little rock he had supposedly pulled from the forest floor. But there were hundreds there that looked just like it.
“Fine,” she said in a huff. “Come over here. You’re going to have to prove to me you can’t cross this barrier.”
He let his head fall back and closed his eyes. “What ye propose, lass, is much less good for the soul. Wouldn’t ye rather come back and be at peace for a wee?”
Of course he’d say that.
“No. I’ll be at peace when I know how you did your trick.”
He climbed to his feet, tucking his kilt around his knees as he did so, then crossed the creek by stepping on one stone in the center. There wasn’t much room for them between the slope and the magic barrier, so she had to stand close.
“Keep walking, buddy,” she ordered, and gave him a little nudge.
He moved his foot forward, but never put his weight on it. “I canna.”
She rolled her eyes, then tapped his arm. “Hang on. I’m going to give you a shove. And I want you to stand on one foot so you can’t brace yerself, okay?”
He closed his eyes again like he was praying for patience. “I’ll do it. The once. I’ll not have ye harming yerself trying to prove me a liar, aye?”
“Yeah. Sure. Okay.” She had him stand two feet back from the invisible line, then stood behind him and waited for him to lift one boot off the ground. He wasn’t leaning back against her either, so it should be an easy thing to do—push him off balance and force him to stumble forward.
So she pushed. Hard.
He fell forward and put his hands out to catch himself. She stepped to the side and found that he wasn’t bracing himself against the trees…
He was bracing himself against…the air.
CHAPTER TEN
Alexander knew the moment Miss Chelsea understood that there was something otherworldly going on. It was almost as if he heard the pop of a bubble, warning him.
“You…” The lass pointed an accusing finger at him and stepped backward into the brush. “You,” she said again. Her attention turned to the side as she checked her footing and took yet another step away, but the finger still pointed. “You—”
She tumbled sideways before he could get his feet under him and reach her. And for the third time since they’d met, he failed to catch her hand in time to prevent her from toppling into the burn.
The pitch of her surprised mirrored the chill of the Highland water, but when she spoke again, it was the same. “You…”
“Aye,” he said, nodding to placate her while he bent and scooped her person away from the tide rising against her gown.
Her unexpected weight was due to a few gallons of water clinging to her skirts, but he didn’t complain as he carried her up the rise and continued to answer every “You” with an “Aye.”
“Stand on yer feet,” he ordered as he put those feet to the tiles in the shower.
She obeyed. And thoug
h her teeth chattered, he reckoned it was more from shock than from the icy cold of the mountain runoff.
“Turn,” he said firmly.
She obeyed again. He pushed her tumbling hair to the side and tugged on the zipper.
“You…”
“Aye.”
He pushed the heavy cloth away from her sides and forced it into a puddle at her feet while he tried to ignore the flesh of her derriere pressed against the wet and delicate shift she wore beneath it.
“Step out,” he said more gruffly than he wished.
She lifted one shoe and held it until he pushed it where it needed to go. The second shoe did the same and he slid the mass of white free. While keeping a hand to the lass’s lower back in case her knees failed, he whipped the gown up over the edge of the glass cage and allowed it to hang there. Then he guided her to a wide ledge of tiles and told her to sit.
She crossed her arms in front of her and hid her gaze behind damp clumps of hair. He turned on the shower, adjusted the temperature of the water, then aimed the showerhead her way.
“Warm yerself,” he said gently. “I will find something passable for clothing. Call out if ye need me. Can ye do that?”
She started to shake her head, but then recovered and nodded firmly.
He left her to her own devices and tried to keep his mind from lingering on the body he needed to clothe and simply focus his attention on locating the garb to do it with.
In the kitchen, he found an apron, five dish towels, and three wash cloths.
In the living room, the pelt of a deer on the wall, a small thick rug what would hardly roll, let alone conform to her…form, and a loosely woven blanket that would show more than it covered.
Back in the bedchamber again, the closet was bare. The small pile of towels wouldn’t do. The drawers were empty but for small vials of shampoo and small cards of soap. He had only one alternative.
A minute later, after a quick pop into the kitchen for a bit of rope, he knocked on the door to the bathing room.
“Did you find clothes?” she called.
