Under an Enchantment: A Novella

by Anne Stuart

  She wandered the hills often, knowing where each croft lay, knowing the names and temperaments of the animals, the children, the inhabitants. Collis was a crusty old bachelor, one who suffered from the ague and the long nights. She liked him, and he liked her. He’d often tell her stories of piskies and broonies and the like, and never once did he suggest that he didn’t believe just as devoutly as she did. Though she suspected he was far more practical than he let on with her.

  She hadn’t brought anything for him, a failing that sorrowed her. She should have brought some fresh fish from the harbor. A seal-man would eat fish, wouldn’t he? Would he eat it raw, like a sea gull?

  The croft lay nestled in a tiny pocket by the hill, a thin plume of smoke coming out of the chimney. Tammas stood in the doorway, watching her approach with unabashed pleasure, his tail wagging wildly as he rushed out to greet her.

  She knelt down, her skirts trailing in the dirt, and let him lick her face, crooning to him as she did so. He smelled sweet and doggy, like the sea and the hills and the gorse, and she leaned her forehead against his shaggy coat.

  He was watching her. She could feel his eyes upon her, watching her, touching her, and she lifted her head, like a doe sensing a predator.

  He was standing in the doorway of the old croft, filling it, yet he wasn’t that broad or tall. He was very still, and his eyes danced over her, skimming across her skin like a physical touch.

  It was disturbing, but not unpleasant. Invading, but not encroaching. She sat back on her heels, her mussed skirts around her, and looked at him.

  “Are you the selkie?” she asked, her voice cool and calm.

  “So they say.” His voice unnerving, deep and sure like his steady gaze. A voice that could reach out and touch her. Was this what enchantment was?

  “And what do you say?” She allowed her curiosity free rein.

  “My name is Malcolm.”

  She smiled at him. Surely no one named Malcolm could be that great a danger, enchanted or no. “I’m Ailie,” she said.

  “Ailie. A pretty name. Were you looking for Collis?”

  “I was looking for you.”

  He looked startled by her artless speech. “For what reason?”

  “I’ve never seen a faerie creature before.”

  “And you have now?”

  She smiled, a shy, secret smile, staring at him, wondering what his skin would feel like. It was a golden brown, the color of a man who spent long hours in the sun. “Are you a golden-brown seal?” she asked, not answering his question. “Or is your pelt the color of your hair?”

  His hair had dried on his shoulders, and he picked up a strand, staring at it as if he’d never seen it before. As indeed, thought Ailie, he might not have. “I’m black, like my hair,” he said. “Like my heart.”

  “No,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “Selkies aren’t evil. They mean humans no harm.”

  “I’m an exception,” he said. “I’ve come to cause harm to three humans. If I can find them.”

  She stared at him, nonplussed. Then she rose, crossing the dirt-packed front yard to the door of the croft. “But you won’t harm me,” she said. “You have no need.”

  He didn’t move. “Mistress, have you any idea how dangerous this might be?”

  “Why?”

  “Collis is nowhere around. I’m a stranger who walked out of the sea, and there’s no knowing who and what I might be. I could do you grave harm.”

  She shook her head. “You won’t,” she said. “I know these things.” He had the faintest growth of beard on his face, as if he hadn’t shaved in several days. She wondered how his skin would feel against her hand. Without hesitation she reached up and touched him.

  He was so startled he jerked away as if burned, catching her wrist in his strong hand. “What are you doing?”

  “I wanted to see if you were warm or cold.”

  He shook his head in amazement. “Hot, mistress,” he said flatly. “Looking at you.”

  She took a step backward, but he didn’t release her. “Jane said you were here to father a bairn,” she said, wishing his skin wasn’t so warm, so tantalizingly rough on her wrist. The men who had touched her, her husband, Torquil, all had soft, useless skin.

  “She did, did she? Are you offering?” The question was low-voiced, dangerous, but Ailie didn’t flinch.

  She shook her head, and her hair flowed round her shoulders, catching his eye. “Not I,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to get a babe on a woman who was daft, would you?”

  “Are you?”

  She smiled up at him, her own, secret smile. “So they say.” She repeated his own words.

  He echoed hers right back. “And what do you say?”

  She looked down at the hand that covered her wrist. The dark, suntanned skin, the long fingers. “I dance to my own waltz, Malcolm,” she said. “Beware of Domnhall.”

  “Domnhall?”

  “The seal hunter. He would kill you the moment you changed back. He might not even wait that long. Collis will tell you.” She tugged her hand away, and he released her. Her wrist felt cold without his flesh touching hers. She backed away from him, her gaze not leaving his dark green eyes. She could see the future there, and the past. She could see the dark roiling sea that was his home.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  She considered the notion, still moving. “I’m not certain yet.”

  “Are you running from me?”

  She paused in the midst of her retreat, and a smile spread over her face. “Yes,” she said simply. And she turned and scampered back down the hillside, her skirts and her long hair flying out behind her.

  “Ye’ll not harm her,” Collis said, appearing in the door behind him.

  Malcolm stood very still, watching as the overgrown sprite raced down the hill with nary a glance backward. “Why should I?”

  “She’s an innocent. We all watch out for her on the island, since she’s scarce capable of watching out for herself. She’s a simple creature, one who means no harm, and it would go ill with you were you to hurt her.”

  “A simple creature,” Malcolm murmured. “I’m not sure if I agree with that. I think she’s far more complex than she appears.”

  “She believes in faeries and elves and broonies.”

  “And you believe in selkies,” Malcolm pointed out.

  “That’s different. Most folk on this island are descended from the seals. It’s a matter of history.”

  Malcolm didn’t bother to look at him. “I won’t hurt the lass,” he said. “I don’t know why you think I should.”

  “Because she’s Ailie Wallace Spens. Daughter of your enemy. Widow of your enemy. Affianced bride of your enemy.”

  Every muscle in Malcolm’s body tightened. He was more than adept at hiding his reactions, and he kept his face like granite.

  “She’s been busy in her short life,” he replied in a casual tone to the man who’d been his mother’s servant and friend a lifetime ago.

  “Ye’re not to harm her.”

  Malcolm turned to look at the little old man whose help he needed. “Of course not,” he said simply.

  Collis stared at him sharply, and then he nodded. Believing Malcolm’s lie.

  Because Malcolm James Kendrick MacLaren had every intention of harming Ailie Wallace Spens, if need be. He wasn’t about to let sentiment stop him. She might be the only way he could get to his last surviving enemy. The only way he could strike beyond the grave of her father and husband.

  And if he had to hurt an innocent, half-mazed creature to do so, then he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d traveled too far to weaken.

  Chapter 2

  “Torquil’s been looking for you.”

  Ailie paused at the gate of the dower house, fighting the frisson of uneasiness that stretched up her backbone. She wasn’t afraid of man or beast, enchanted creature or wild animal, but Domnhall the seal hunter came close to making her cower. Not that she was about to let him see it.
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br />   She turned, smiling up at him with a particularly witless look, meant to disarm. “He knows where to find me, Domnhall,” she said in a tranquil voice. “When did you start taking his messages?”

  “I don’t mind doing him a favor or two,” Domnhall said, his small, dark eyes sweeping over her in a look that could only be called predatory. “Knowing he’ll be paying his debts, sooner or later.”

  “He has debts to you?”

  Domnhall looked displeased at her quick question. He was a huge man, broad, just beginning to go to fat as he reached into middle age, with mean eyes, rough hands, and a cruel nature that had been whispered of on St. Columba for years. He took delight in killing innocent things: the seals who came too close to his fishing nets, the birds that flocked near the hovel he called home. It was rumored he’d even killed the young woman he’d married and buried in record time, but there’d been no proof. People steered clear of him, eyeing him warily. All, that is, except for Torquil Spens, who wasn’t averse to using any tool that came to hand, no matter how tainted.

  “You’re smart enough when you’re paying attention,” he said. “Not quite as mazed as you’d have one think, are ye?”

  She smiled sweetly. “Not mazed at all, Domnhall.”

  “Where were ye just now?”

  She could have told him it was none of his business. If she were the sort of woman her family wished her to be, she would have done just that, with cool dignity. But she wasn’t the woman they wished her to be, and never would be. “I was off to see the selkie.”

  His reaction was instantaneous, and she cursed her flapping tongue. “He’s either a seal or a man,” he said in a low, evil voice. “And I kill seals.” He looked down at his brutish hands, and Ailie could see the dried blood beneath his dirty fingernails. “I wonder what color his pelt will be.”

  “You’ll leave him alone, Domnhall MacAlpin,” she said fiercely.

  He looked at her from his great height, unmoved by her fury. “And who would make me?”

  She fought the panic that swept over her at the thought of brutish Domnhall going after the man at Collis’s croft. He was swift and brutal with a knife—she’d watched him skin a seal once, and been heartily sick afterward. The slender, wiry strength of the selkie would be no match for him.

  “There are powers, Domnhall,” she said. “Creatures of the night, who could haunt you and chase you. The spirits of the ones you’ve murdered, following after you, driving you mad. There’ll be no escape for you, none at all, until you run screaming into the sea.” Her voice sounded like an ancient curse, called down upon his head, and he turned pale.

  “I don’t believe in such things,” he said, backing away from her.

  Ailie smiled at him serenely. “You’d be wise to do so. You never know when your deeds will come back to haunt you.” And turning her back on him, she continued down the narrow path to the dower house. She could feel him watching her, and the skin at the back of her neck prickled. He meant her harm. She knew it, with instincts ancient and sure. She just wasn’t certain what form that harm might take.

  The dower house was small, cozy and snug, even in its current state of disrepair. She and Margery had left the manor house, taking up residence in the abandoned cottage as soon as Duncan was safely in the ground, and despite the cobwebs, the rotting wood, and drafty comers, she felt more at home than she’d ever felt in the grander residences of her father or her husband. Margery did her best, gradually making inroads on the ruined house, and Ailie was content with the ramshackle existence.

  There was a fire burning in the grate in the small drawing room, and the smell of roast chicken filled the house. Ailie sank down in the shabby chair, holding out her bare toes to the warming fire.

  “There you are, mistress,” Margery said, appearing in the doorway, her broad, kindly face creased with worry. “People have been looking for you.” Ailie had steadfastly refused to answer when addressed as Lady Spens, and Margery had given in with weary grace, settling for the more general term when she couldn’t be prevailed upon to call her Ailie.

  “So I gather. Torquil for one,” she said, trying to keep the unhappiness out of her voice.

  “Your brother for another. And me without a clue as to where you’d gone. You’re not wearing black either. It’s not decent, mistress. Your husband isn’t even cold in the ground, and you’re wearing colors. It shows a lack of respect.”

  “I forget,” Ailie murmured, though she hadn’t forgotten a thing.

  “And your shoes, mistress!” Margery clucked. “You’ll catch your death, wandering around like a bairn in the summer. Dinna ye realize that we’re living here by your family’s permission? If your brothers think I can’t watch over you, they’ll make you come back to Angus’s house, and you wouldn’t like that one bit. His wife’s a spoiled young shrew, particularly now that she’s carrying a bairn, and Angus has never shown ye much kindness.”

  Ailie simply shook her head, feeling her long hair fan out around her. “They can’t make me,” she said.

  “Yes, mistress, they can. Try to behave yourself, my lady. It wouldn’t take so much. Let me braid your hair, put away your colors, find your shoes. Walk quietly, with your head tucked down. You don’t want any more whispers.”

  Ailie glanced at her maid curiously. Margery had been with her since she turned fourteen and confounded her family with her airy ways, and while she’d never understood her fey mistress, she had a stubborn, well-placed loyalty to Ailie’s welfare. She simply didn’t always recognize what was best for Ailie.

  “And what would the whispers say, Margery?” she asked calmly enough, tucking her legs underneath her, settling her skirt around her. The hem was caked with mud from Collis’s front yard, and absently she remembered the feel of the selkie’s hand on her wrist. She could still feel the warmth of his flesh against hers. She would have thought a seal-man would be cold to the touch.

  “They’d say you were mad, mistress. They could put you away, in a place where no one could see you, no one could help you.”

  “It might be better than marrying Torquil.”

  “Have a care, mistress. Torquil Spens is a decent enough man, and he wants ye. He’s your best hope of any kind of happy life.”

  Ailie thought of Torquil, of the bland blue eyes and plump mouth, the silvering hair and sturdy jowls. He was a much kinder man than Domnhall MacAlpin, for all that he used the seal hunter for his dirty work. He’d take good care of her, Ailie knew. Keep her safe. Protected. Imprisoned. With no chance of escape or freedom ever again.

  Ailie leaned back in the chair, smiling wearily. “I’ve accepted it, haven’t I? Sooner or later he’ll wed me, whether I say him aye or nay. At least I’ll have a chance to dance with the faeries beforehand.”

  Margery shook her head in affectionate worry. “You and your faeries, mistress. They’ll be the death of you.”

  Ailie thought back to the selkie. Malcolm, with the sea-green eyes that reached out and touched her. He was mysterious, enchanted, a far cry from the ordinary men and tedious everydayness of life. It was no wonder she was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

  “The faeries won’t hurt me, Margery,” she said softly. “Nor the selkies. Man is the only creature I have to fear.” Margery looked at her with perplexed tolerance. “The sooner you’re wed,” she said heavily, “the better for you. At least Torquil will protect you from your family.” She started out the drawing-room door, her tread heavy on the worn floorboards.

  “Aye,” whispered Ailie to herself. “But who will protect me from Torquil?”

  And unbidden, the memory of the selkie rose before her, like a faerie vision. And in the overwarm drawing room, Ailie shivered.

  His mother had been a strong woman. A sturdy, gentle creature, with a fearless sense of right and wrong, one she’d done her best to instill in her wild young son, Catriona MacLaren had a saint’s heart and a poet’s soul, and Malcolm had loved her with all his reckless being.

  He’d
been a sore trial to her, growing up. He’d been rebellious, reckless, and the guilt still plagued him. Catriona had known he’d been devoted to her, just as she’d known how much he cared about his younger sisters and the man he knew as his father. She’d understood his uncertain temper, his rashness, his fierce need for justice and revenge. She’d always been able to reason with him, make him see both sides of the issue. But she was gone now, died of a fever last Christmas, holding the hand of her husband and her son, the two men she’d loved dearly and had never been able to see.

  It was James MacLaren who’d told him the story, the man he loved and respected, the man he thought was his father. James MacLaren, who let his grief drive him too deep into the whisky bottle and loosen his tongue, who told his son the truth, and then regretted it ever since.

  “I found her, lad,” he’d said, staring into the fire, the unfamiliar power of the whiskey clouding his gaze. “She’d managed to cling to an old piece of jetsam, and she was bobbing up and down in the angry sea, her black hair spread out around her, matted with blood. It was a chance in a thousand that she’d survived so far, a chance in a thousand that I was out that day in the dory, more for sport than for duty, and happened to see her in the distance. By the time I reached her, she’d slipped beneath the waves, and I dived down after her.

  “I was afraid I’d lost her,” James continued, pouring himself another dram from the now half-empty dark bottle. “I couldn’t see her anywhere in the murky depths of the sea. And then a dark shape swam by, sleek and graceful, and I knew it was a seal. I followed it, until I thought my lungs would burst, and he led me to your mother as she drifted down through the water, her hair flowing out around her.

  “Even as I brought her into the boat I was afraid it was too late. She was scarce breathing, and her skin was dead white. I tried to force air into her, and she began to choke and cough. And she opened her eyes to me, her beautiful green eyes, and she was blind.” His voice broke.