Every person in the household, including the laird’s female relatives and a bosomy woman who smelled of flour and the kitchen fire, seemed to be here now. They crowded around the door, their heads craning to see around Laird Macnachtan.
Margaret met his hard gaze. Earlier, when she’d shot him, those eyes had held a touch of humor. He was not amused now, and he was intimidating.
He was too male, too strong, too everything.
It was hard to even speak when she was around him.
His sister Laren had no such difficulty. “I caught her stealing a book, Heath. I asked her what she was doing and instead of answering, she tried to push past me. She shoved me out of the way. You saw her.”
Heat rushed to Margaret’s cheeks. Listening to Laren’s description of her behavior, she realized how erratic she must appear. It was in keeping with how erratic she felt.
None of this made sense—from the accident to her being here, whole and healthy.
For the first time she considered that perhaps they didn’t know any more than she did.
Margaret took a step back. “This is my book. I brought it here.”
“This is the book you accused me of having stolen before you shot me?” Laird Macnachtan surmised.
“Yes, the one you said you didn’t have.” The words exploded out of her, propelled by righteous indignation. She drew a deep, exasperated breath, trying to calm herself. “I need this book.”
“Apparently.” His gray eyes upon her were unreadable, the set of his mouth stern.
He turned to the others. “I wish a moment alone with Lady Margaret.”
“I don’t believe that is wise,” Laren protested. “She is very strong. Look at this red mark on my arm.”
Margaret looked with the others. Laren had pulled up her sleeve to show a red welt. She must have hit her arm hard on the desk when Margaret pushed her.
“Is it broken?” Laird Macnachtan asked.
“It hurts,” Laren answered, her expression tense.
“Move your fingers,” her brother ordered.
She could move them.
“You will be fine,” he said. He stepped aside so that she could pass. “And so will I, Laren, but if you truly fear for me, stay out in the hallway where you can come running if I need help.” There was a hint of humor in this last suggestion as if he didn’t believe it would be necessary. His sisters weren’t so certain.
“We will be out here,” Anice declared, her threat directed more to Margaret than her brother. Laren nodded her head in agreement, holding her arm gingerly now, something she hadn’t been doing only moments before.
“I will feel safer,” he assured them with the forbearance of an overly tolerant older brother, and signaled with his hand that he wanted them to leave.
Laren still hesitated. Out, he mouthed.
She left with the others.
Margaret had started studying the grain in the hardwood floor at her feet. She would not give up Fenella’s book. She wouldn’t.
“Would you have a chair, my lady?” he asked.
Margaret didn’t answer. If she could, she would will him away.
“Well, I shall have a chair. This has been what one would call a challenging day.”
She listened as he moved the wooden chair behind the desk and sat in it.
Margaret braced herself for his questions. She moved her stare from the floorboards to a point in the far corner of the room.
He didn’t speak. Instead, he waited.
She knew what he was doing. Her brother Lyon used this trick all the time. If he waited long enough, people usually told him what he wished to know. Of course, she’d proven herself more stubborn than her oldest brother on many an occasion. She could also outwait the Macnachtan.
Cold and darkness seeped into the corners of the room. There was no fire in the grate. He didn’t seem inclined to light a candle and was at ease as the late afternoon shadows took over the room.
Slowly, a bit of tension inside her started to unwind.
She dared to look at him. He sat at his desk, calm, relaxed, self-assured; everything she wasn’t. It almost hurt to look at him.
And so, she had to break the silence. “I’m not stealing the book. This is mine. You took it from me.”
“If that is what you believe—”
“It is what I know. This is my book.”
“Then you may have it.”
She frowned, not trusting him.
The laird leaned forward, placing one arm on his desk. “My lady, the book has been on that shelf since this house was built. For all that time, no one has looked at it. You are welcome to the book.”
The Macnachtan sounded too calm, too reasonable to be lying. Or perhaps he was the best sort of liar. Margaret had learned men had the gift of telling a woman exactly what she wanted to hear, true or not, without a pang of conscience.
“However, may I look at the book?” he asked. “Just so I know which one you are taking?”
Her guard went up. She shook her head.
He leaned back in the chair. “What is so special about this book?”
“You know. You took it from me.”
“Did I?”
There was challenge in his voice.
“Someone did,” she answered.
“Are you certain that is your book?”
He was cleverly planting seeds of doubt. She knew it, and yet she couldn’t help but look down at the book she held. The cover was similar to Fenella’s book—or was it?
Suddenly, Margaret feared she was the one being unreasonable and a bit mad.
She didn’t understand herself any longer. One moment she felt confident, and in the next seemed a shambles. She weighed the book in one hand, placing the palm of her other hand on the cover.
“I shouldn’t have shot you,” she confessed, staring at the cracked leather of the book.
“You were afraid.”
There was no accusation in his voice but a simple statement of fact.
She nodded. She was afraid. She was very afraid.
“Your trip has been hard on you,” he said. “You lost many people in your party.”
Tears burned in her eyes. Her throat tightened. She held the tears back. It never did any good to cry.
“It’s hard to lose people we are close to,” he continued, his deep, melodic voice soothing. “Or to be close to death ourselves.”
Faces came to her mind—of Balfour her coachman, and Thomas her driver, and Smith. And then there were her brothers. They, too, could die. They were in the process even as she stood here.
He rose from his chair and came around the desk. He turned the chair situated in front of the desk toward her. The seat was upholstered so that it would be comfortable. “Please, sit, my lady. Let us discuss this.”
Still, she did not move. It was as if she was powerless.
He held out his hand to her. She startled, on guard—and then realized he was offering a kerchief. In spite of her best efforts, she was crying. Tears streamed down her face, dripping off her chin.
Some women were more lovely when they cried. Margaret was not one of them. Her face grew splotchy and her eyes red. She was losing both pride and looks in front of him. It was too much.
“My brother Neal never carries kerchiefs around,” she whispered. “Neither does my brother Harry.”
“I have more sisters than they. If they were in my shoes, they’d have one in every pocket.”
His mention of her brothers broke down the last barrier. She took the kerchief. Worse, she, who was said to epitomize grace and good manners, blew her nose in it, making a decidedly ungraceful sound.
“Please, sit, my lady.”
Margaret sat.
She expected him to attempt to snatch the book from her, but he made no move toward it.
Instead, he watched her with an air of patience.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” she confessed. “Did you not know we are enemies?”
“
I don’t participate in feuds or grudges beyond one year’s endurance. I also don’t believe every tale whispered in my ear. Did my sisters tell you we buried your companions?”
His change of subject disarmed her. The tightness started to build again. She nodded. “I would like to pay my respects,” she whispered.
“I will personally escort you to their graves on the morrow if you are feeling able,” he offered.
“Thank you,” she managed. She crumpled the kerchief in her hand. He would not want it back. Her fingers were trembling, her hands resting on Fenella’s book.
“So, how do you know that is your book?” he asked.
“Because on the inside cover is a list of names,” she said, opening the book to show him—and then stopped.
There were no names there. Margaret frowned at the blank page as if she could will the names to appear. She started leafing through the pages.
He watched her, the only sound between them the turning of old, brittle pages.
Nor were there the spells or wives’ tales or sound advice that she’d read numerous times on her trip to Loch Awe. She realized now that this book had more to do with the managing of the estate and much had been written in a man’s hand.
“This isn’t the same book,” she replied, her voice hoarse with dismay.
“What book are you searching for?” he asked.
Margaret looked up at him. “You didn’t find any book in my things?” she demanded, uncertain whether she could trust him . . . and then realizing she had no choice.
She crushed the kerchief in her hand. She’d never felt so alone.
Heath was concerned.
He’d witnessed men behave the way Lady Margaret did, men who had seen too much of battle, men who believed all was lost.
Lady Margaret’s actions might not make sense to him or anyone else at Marybone, but they did to her.
Heath was also worried about her health. She had deep circles under her eyes and her hands shook.
She was dressed simply and without the artifice of a wealthy woman. She’d pulled her hair back at the nape of her neck and it curled down around her shoulders. She looked young and scared and very vulnerable . . . and vulnerable women were a weakness of his.
“I sent word to your brother Lord Lyon that you are safe,” he offered.
She raised a hand to her forehead as if his kindness burdened her all the more. “It may already be too late,” she replied, not looking at him. “Lyon might be dead and Harry could not be long after him.”
He knelt so he was on eye level with her. “Let’s examine this logically. Speak to me of the accident,” he said, wanting to make sense of her strange belief in a curse. She was a modern woman. Certainly she understood that spells and curses did not exist? “You claim a strong wind forced your coach off the road?”
A small frown line appeared between her brows as she said, “I told you everything. I don’t remember much.”
“Then tell me what you do remember. Start at the beginning. You were coming here because of the curse my ancestress Fenella placed upon your family.”
She raised guileless blue eyes to meet his. A man could lose himself in her gaze when she appeared so defenseless. This was also not the proud woman who had caught his attention in London all those years ago.
“The curse states when a Chattan falls in love, he will die,” she said, her voice low. “Both Lyon and Harry are in love and both are deathly ill. The curse killed my father and my grandfather. Over the generations, many have come to Scotland to search for a way to end the curse.”
“They have come knocking on our door more than once.”
“And you wouldn’t help them.”
“We couldn’t, my lady,” he said. “A curse is words. Nothing more.”
Her shoulders stiffened. She did not agree. She continued her story. “We are desperate to save Lyon. In spite of what has been done in the past, Harry hoped to try a new tact and was the first to come to Scotland. We didn’t know of Fenella until by chance he found Fenella’s book. It was in Glenfinnan, which was once the seat of the Chattans.”
“Why was it there?”
“I don’t know the book’s history and I don’t believe his wife does, either. She said she discovered the book in her attic. It just appeared—”
Her voice broke off. She frowned as if a new thought had occurred to her.
“What is it?” he prodded.
“My sister-in-law discovered the book at the same time she found a small white cat. It’s a strange cat. Her ears are folded over and she has huge eyes that seem to communicate her thoughts. I called her Owl because she reminded me of one.”
Heath didn’t like cats, and he didn’t know why Lady Margaret was talking about one, until she said, “No one could see the cat, except for Harry, his wife, and myself. Rowan, Harry’s Indian servant, the one upstairs, told me he believes Owl is a reincarnation of either Fenella or her daughter Rose, the one who took her own life and caused the curse. Do you understand what a reincarnation is?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Heath admitted, hesitant. Her story had taken a decidedly odd turn.
She appeared not to notice his skepticism. “When Rowan told me he thought Owl was part of the curse, I left the cat on the side of the road. I hated doing it but my servants had all convinced me I was the only one who saw her.”
“Perhaps they were playing a joke? And they could see the cat?”
Lady Margaret frowned at him. “Why would they do that?”
“I’m not certain.”
She leaned forward, placing her hand on his arm. “You believe I sound strange, as if I am imagining things.”
He couldn’t deny her charge.
“I fear I am as well,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “And yet you asked me to start from the beginning.”
“I did.”
“Then understand, I am telling what I know. Or what I think I know. And I warn you, my story is going to sound more unrealistic.”
“I shall brace myself.”
A flicker of annoyance went through her eyes. His dry understatement was not lost on her and she did not appreciate his humor. She lifted her chin and continued, “Shortly after we left the cat, the storm came up. We were less than an hour from Loch Awe, certainly on the last miles of the journey.”
“There has not been a large storm over the past week, my lady. Rain and mist is always present, but the weather has not been violent.”
“I can only tell you what I experienced, Laird Macnachtan. The storm arrived suddenly, surprising us. It was powerful enough to sweep us off the road as if we were crumbs on a table. I could hear the men swearing at the horses. And then the horses started screaming. It was horrifying. The coach went off the road and began rolling down the mountain. Smith—she was my maid—and I were inside . . . and I could feel my bones break. I experienced the pain. I lost consciousness and when I woke, I saw Smith not far from me. I could tell she was dead. I knew I would be dead soon as well. I could feel myself failing.”
Heath stood, frowning. “When we found the accident, you were not located close to the maid where you could have a line of sight of her. In fact, it would be impossible for you to have seen the maid from where you were.”
“I was within feet of her,” Lady Margaret insisted. “I was staring into her face.”
“You must have moved because I discovered you away from the wreckage. You were on a bed of pine needles. There was copse of pines and you appeared as if you were sleeping there, your hands folded at your waist.”
“I was on my back?” She shook her head. “That could not be. I remember that I was on my stomach. And I could not move. I saw Fenella’s book. That’s how I knew it was in the wreckage. It had been in the coach with me and was within my view when I first regained consciousness. I tried to reach for it, but my arms wouldn’t move. They were broken.”
“They are not broken now—”
“I know,” she said, rising to her feet and
dropping the book into her chair. “I don’t understand it. I don’t understand any of this.”
Heath leaned back against the desk. “I don’t believe in myths and legends. There is always a rational, logical explanation.”
Perhaps Lady Margaret was part of some ruse . . . and yet he could not imagine any reason that the Chattans would orchestrate the deaths of their own people for a pretense.
“You are thinking I am mad,” she said.
“I don’t know,” he conceded. “Perhaps you are merely confused.”
“I can understand how you might not believe me.” She straightened her shoulders and then said, “So, in the interest of you concluding that I am truly and completely deranged, let me finish my story. After I couldn’t reach for Fenella’s book and discovered I could not move in any way, I knew I was going to die. I expected it. A person knows when death is upon them.”
Heath had heard that before.
“That’s when Owl came to me,” she said. “The cat curled up next to me. I don’t know how she found me, but in that moment I was so thankful to not be alone.”
“You said you left the cat on the road behind you.”
“Yes, miles behind us, but there she was.” Lady Margaret drew in a deep breath and crossed her arms. “I try to make sense of it all. I can only conclude that Fenella was trying to stop me from reaching here, and Owl saved my life. She revived me . . . from death.”
Heath didn’t know what to think. “Why was coming here so important?”
“This is where it all began. Don’t you understand—?” She stopped, pushing a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “Of course, you don’t. I’m not explaining myself well. You see, I am the first female born to our line since the days before Charles Chattan, the man who betrayed Rose Macnachtan. Harry believes that if anyone has the chance of breaking the curse, I do. And Owl,” she said thoughtfully, as if just beginning to understand, “protected me. Owl wasn’t evil like I feared. That is why I left her behind on the road. I feared her. And yet, now, I know she needed to be with me. She healed me when I was about to die.”
Heath made up his mind about her—she was as mad as a hatter. She was telling him a story that only an idiot would believe. And yet his attraction to her was strong.
Cathy Maxwell - [Chattan Curse 03] Page 8
