Draycott Everlasting: Christmas KnightMoonrise

by Christina Skye

  Jeffrey grinned.

  Gabrielle blushed.

  Nicholas Draycott chuckled. “All in all, a fitting finale. It seems that MacLeod is healing rapidly, and another old wound is to be healed. It’s not precisely from Macbeth, but still, all’s well that ends well.” Grinning broadly, he took his wife’s arm and headed for the kitchen. “Actually, I think we should let Wyndgate and his friend suffer out in the fishing shed a bit longer. Cappuccino and scones, anyone? Or perhaps you’d prefer some exceptional Chinese cuisine.” He grinned at his wife. “Since Gabrielle is going to be busy getting acquainted with her new father-in-law, I might as well take over in the kitchen.”

  EPILOGUE

  Draycott Abbey

  Southeastern England

  Late spring

  THREE WHITE-HAIRED ladies stood in the spring sunlight, studying the high gray walls covered with climbing roses.

  “It looks just the same,” Morwenna whispered. “A house full of secrets. A house that will last forever.”

  “Not forever,” Perpetua said. “But near enough.”

  They walked in silence over the grassy slopes. “We’ll need a car. Someone’s bound to ask how we got here,” Honoria reminded her sisters.

  Perpetua gave an absent wave and a trim Mini appeared behind them on the gravel drive.

  “We should come and visit more often,” Morwenna said, watching a pair of swans cut through the silver moat. “There’s a rare beauty here, an old magic.”

  “And you are quite welcome to come,” a voice said gravely from the ridge behind them. Adrian Draycott shimmered into view, looking elegant and imperious. “It was your choice to stay away, not mine.”

  “Perhaps we’ll change our minds,” Perpetua said stiffly. “After a tour, that is. Let us see what you’ve done with those roses we brought you from Provence.”

  Adrian laughed and bowed deeply. “After you, my dearest ladies. I believe we still have time before the others arrive.”

  A CAR GROWLED along the drive, its radio spilling forth an exuberant Celtic tune. Hope tapped her hand in time, delighting in the feel of the wind in her hair and the faint smell of roses. “There it is,” she said, awe filling her voice at the sight of high granite walls and thousands of tiny leaded windows. “Draycott Abbey. It’s just as beautiful as I’ve heard.”

  No sound came from the seat beside her. MacLeod was trying hard not to clutch at the door handle while his blood raced. She was a fearless driver, and riding in a fast automobile was still not an experience he took lightly.

  But he swallowed, forcing his fists to uncurl and his body to relax as the car came to a stop. She was a wonderful driver, he told himself. And perhaps there were some advantages to a car over a horse after all.

  “Ronan?” Hope turned, a frown in her eyes. “Did I drive too fast again? Are you—”

  “I’m fine, lass. Just taken aback by the abbey. There is so much color, so much light.” He slid out, then moved around to open her door. “Let’s have a look. I want to see how much things are changed here.”

  Hope blinked at him. “You’ve been here before? In your…own time?”

  He nodded, taking her arm. “You look very beautiful in that dress, did you know that?”

  She brushed at the soft, draping silk. “You spent far too much for it in London.”

  “We can afford it. And you, my love, deserve it.”

  She flushed. “I can’t believe that all the bills are paid. The Investment Club has been unbelievably lucky this year. Strange, I always seem to earn back exactly what I put my heart on.”

  Ronan pulled her forward, staring around him at the high oaks. “Too bad. You leave me no dragons to slay or duels to fight in your honor.”

  “You’ve saved my life twice, MacLeod. Isn’t that enough?”

  He touched her hair. “Keeping score, are you?”

  “Keeping track. Because you steal my breath away, so you do.”

  Beneath the green leaves of a whispering oak he caught her hands and pulled her close. “Then marry me, lass. Stop delaying and arguing. We’ll announce our news here before all your friends.”

  “Our friends,” Hope corrected. But as before, a shadow haunted her eyes at his words. “And I can’t give you what you need.”

  “And what, sweet lass, is that?” Ronan toyed with her earring, a long dangle of silver.

  “A child. A family,” she said tightly.

  “Is that so? Perhaps you’ve already done that, mo rún. What do you think these people are inside? Gabrielle, Jeffrey, Nicholas and Kacey. Even that great stubborn laird of Glenlyle and his wife? They are family in all the ways that count. The bonds need not be limited by blood, lass. I’ve learned that well. You taught it to me.”

  “Are you sure, Ronan? Because there are other women. You could—”

  “Dinna fire my blood with such nonsense,” he growled, his hands closing hard over her wrists.

  “But—”

  The green oak was at Hope’s back when he kissed her savagely. His body tensed, hard with demand. He held her, overwhelmed her, only pulling away so both could draw sharp, ragged breaths. “You yield in this?” His face was stern. “No more talk of loss and all the things you canna give me.”

  Her fingers traced his jaw with aching tenderness. “Bully,” she whispered.

  “I’ll not be made to change my mind. It’s you I’ll have and none other. You and those people within the abbey are all the family a man could wish for, and far more than the King’s Wolf ever hoped to find.”

  “Brave wolf. But what of your time, your glen? It will be different here—you’ve seen just how different. Maybe there is yet a way for you to…” Hope swallowed. “For you to go back,” she finished, in a rush that took every bit of her will to finish.

  MacLeod caught a wayward strand of chestnut hair at her cheek. Only one secret had he kept from Hope, and that was the Wishwells’ secret to give or withhold. Their skills were not the sort to be chattered about lightly. He had discovered that there was blindness in this modern age and a fear of seeing magic and miracle even when they lay clear as day before one’s eyes. “You’ve no reason to worry about that.”

  “But what about the portrait?”

  MacLeod thought back to the cold emptiness he had experienced between times and had to fight back a shudder. “Closed, my love. Sealed tight.”

  “I don’t understand, Ronan. You mean…”

  “I can’t go back. Even if I wished it, and I do not.”

  She laid a trembling hand against his chest. “You’re certain? You’ve tried?”

  “Three times, and each time I failed.”

  “You never told me.”

  He smiled crookedly. “In case I failed. But I had to be sure, mo rùn.”

  Her head sank against his shoulder. “Such a risk you took. If you had gone, had been lost—” Her hands tightened.

  “But I was not lost, lass. And now you have no hope of escaping me. I’ll harry you and vex you and make you wish I’d been truly gone into that cold wall.”

  “Never.”

  Her hands dug hard at his waist, burrowing beneath his fine formal jacket and elegant white linen shirt. “And if you ever, ever say such a thing to me again, I’ll—”

  “You’ll do what?” he whispered, breathless beneath the sweet assault of her hands and the brush of her body.

  “I’ll bind you with ropes and strip away all your clothes and teach you the true meaning of torment, MacLeod of Glenbrae.”

  His eyes closed. “It sounds to be paradise, my lass. A grave temptation.” He slid his hands into the shining, wayward cap of her curls, at the same time exploring her mouth.

  She gave a low, broken sound of pleasure and need, tugging the shirt from his bright, newly fashioned kilt, a gift from the laird of Glenlyle and his American wife. The colors were too bright and the wool too new and stiff, but MacLeod did not tell them so. With time the cloth would soften and fade, more to the manner he was accustomed to
wearing. Until then he would endure his velvet jacket and finery because they pleased Hope.

  She caught his shoulders and bit at his lip. “Your mouth, MacLeod.”

  He frowned. “You have some complaint against it?”

  “None at all,” she said breathlessly. “Except that it drives me wild.”

  He smiled against her lips. “Then maybe we should go somewhere quiet. Beyond the moat and the roses. This old abbey seems as if it would not resent a pair of lovers who chose a quiet spot among its shadows.” MacLeod looked off at the weathered granite walls and the endless climbing roses. “It has only grown finer with age.” He nodded, remembering the flattery and the endless deceit, the constant stratagems by Edward and his polished courtiers. But he had liked the seigneur of these lands. MacLeod was certain he would be pleased with all that his abbey had become.

  “Of course he would,” a voice boomed at his shoulder.

  Lace rippled. Velvet shone in the warm spring sunlight.

  Adrian Draycott shimmered into view and shot an assessing glance at MacLeod. “And it’s rather dashing that you’re looking, too. You still see me, I suppose.”

  MacLeod nodded slightly.

  “Not for long, Scotsman. The portal is closed. With it sealed, all contact with your own time will be lost.” Already Adrian’s voice seemed to fade. “You’re sure in your decision to stay?”

  Read my heart, MacLeod said in silence to the abbey’s imposing guardian ghost. She will be my home and my time. Her friends will be my friends, and her joys, my joys.

  A shadow moved beyond the roses. MacLeod recognized that gray shape immediately. Gideon is well?

  “As fine as any creature may be. The best and most loyal of friends.”

  I owe you my thanks. MacLeod touched Hope’s cheek. We both do.

  “Save your thanks, Scotsman. I believe you are called to make a signal contribution to your country today. That folio would bring you money beyond your dreams, you know.”

  She is all the dream I need. If it pleases her to make a gift of this folio, then it pleases me also.

  “Well said, MacLeod of Glenbrae. And God’s peace and blessing follow you both.” His black velvet jacket seemed to waver as the smell of his beloved roses filled the air, rich and sweet. “Then it’s goodbye, my friend. Once the portal closes completely, there will be no more link for us. I only wanted to be certain of your choice.”

  Certain beyond all doubt, MacLeod thought. He did not choose to speak of it to Hope. She would only plague him with more choices that he did not want.

  Around them the moat rippled and gurgled. Somewhere a curlew trilled from the glade.

  And as he stood with his hands cupped on Hope’s cheeks, a church bell rang far out over the distant downs—twelve times and then once more.

  MacLeod shook his head, feeling the brush of ghostly fingers. But of course, it was only the wind, he told himself, lost in the sight of Hope’s blinding smile.

  And the words that seemed to echo faintly in his mind?

  Imagination, he decided. This powerful old abbey was a place to make men imagine and dream, with the pulse of history beating deep within its halls.

  Somewhere beyond the moat and the Witch’s Pool, lace fluttered for a moment. A tall shape seemed to stand among the roses, surveying his beloved domain. Then lace and velvet fled. Only a cat lay drowsing in the sun, his amber eyes keen on the abbey.

  MacLeod felt an instant of disorientation and loss—but only an instant. “So, lass,” he said to the smiling woman in his arms, “do we evade them all and find a quiet glade?”

  “Later, Scotsman,” Hope whispered. “First you have a queen to meet.” She slid his shirt into his kilt, smiling.

  “Strange, that. A queen upon the throne.” He shook his head.

  “And not the first.”

  “So you tell me.” He straightened his shirt and jacket, looking every bit the dashing Highland laird—and not at all the heartsick warrior that he had been.

  Hope held out her hand. “You steal my very breath, MacLeod. You always have, from the first moment I saw you riding out of that storm. Will you join me at the abbey?” she asked, formal in spite of her smile. “Jeffrey and Gabrielle will be waiting, along with his father, who seems to like having a French chef in the family.”

  “Almost as much as he seems to like having his son back,” MacLeod murmured. “And the laird and his wife will be there, along with the Draycotts and their charming daughter?”

  “All of them.”

  MacLeod straightened his shoulders. He would ask her hand of them, these braw friends who were all the family she had now. He was a knight trained in all the proper form and ritual, after all, and he must ask her hand of those who loved her most.

  “Let us go then, lass of my heart.” He guided her forward into the sunlight and the drifting perfume of roses. “There will never be a better time to meet a queen, I warrant.”

  He did not look back at the last shimmer of lace above the moat, nor at the great cat who watched them from the hedgerow.

  “HE’S GONE TO US, Gideon.”

  Adrian Draycott watched from the glade, a sudden sense of loss in his heart. “He was a friend of real courage.”

  At his feet the great cat stirred, meowing softly.

  “I know well it was for the best, my friend. He’s set securely in this time now, by his choice and the love of the woman at his side. In spite of that, I shall miss him. It was pleasant to have someone who could see me.”

  Gideon’s tail flicked once and his keen gaze settled on the far slope.

  Gold shimmered beyond the Witch’s Pool. Low laughter drifted over the moat.

  “Grey?” Adrian turned. “Is that you, my heart?”

  Light gathered over a dress of cloth of gold. A woman stood in the dappled shade of an oak, her smile fierce. “And have you forgotten that I can see you, too, my love? That I can touch you?”

  “Never,” Adrian said. There was a new firmness in his ghostly step. “And now that you’re here, we’ve work to do. The capstone needs to be braced and our roses must be tended.” His eyes took on a wicked gleam. “But first I mean to have a closer look at that extraordinary folio.” In a heartbeat space shifted and a volume appeared, floating in the afternoon sunshine.

  “You mustn’t,” the woman in gold whispered. “The queen is about to arrive for the viewing, and all the others are already gathered in the library.”

  “I’ll only be a few moments. It was an extraordinary skill the man had, after all. I recall he visited once and gave his finest performance here. He acted himself on occasion. Did you know that?”

  The woman in gold took his arm, watching the old, fragile pages turn gently in the air. “It was a stirring play and it will be again, if young Jeffrey has his way. He means to stage a performance outside near the moat. I have every certainty that it will be a great success.” Her eyes twinkled. “With our help, of course.”

  “Of course,” Adrian agreed.

  Together they paced along a row of dancing roses, arm in arm and hearts in perfect accord.

  INSIDE THE ABBEY came the sound of sudden laughter. In the front hall, flanked by all Hope’s friends, MacLeod sank to bended knee and took her hand.

  “I would have your hand, Hope O’Hara. To cherish and protect. To encourage and support. For all my mortal days.” His eyes darkened. “If you will have me.”

  She swallowed, wild color filling her cheeks. He was her champion and finest friend. How could she deny him anything? “I will. To cherish and protect as you do. To encourage and support for all my mortal days.” Her eyes glinted with a hint of tears. “And even beyond that,” she whispered, only for her Scotsman to hear.

  LAUGHTER ECHOED.

  Clapping exploded through the rich rooms and bright, silent halls.

  The sound drifted to the portrait of the eighth viscount high above in the Long Gallery.

  “He looks just the same,” Morwenna Wishwell mused. “Just as h
andsome and as arrogant as he always was.”

  “But he’s guarded his abbey well,” Perpetua admitted reluctantly. “And he will do so again, I think.”

  At Morwenna’s side, the curtains rippled. As the fragrance of roses filled the room, an image glinted against the leaded windows.

  A woman smiled there, having been given her heart’s dream and the news of a child to come.

  A Scotsman paced there, then turned as the woman whispered in his ear. He nearly stumbled in his shock and joy.

  “Three bairns, I think,” Perpetua said softly.

  “Nay, ’twill be four,” Morwenna said. “Three braw sons to make their father’s hair turn gray, and a lass who will make the inn ring with her laughter.”

  “She’ll be a singer with a voice like an angel’s. She’ll bring all the old ballads to life.”

  “No, she’ll be a scientist,” Perpetua insisted. “Equations and theorems for her.”

  “She will do just as her heart wills,” Honoria said sagely. “As we all must. And right now we’d better rejoin the others before they discover us gone.”

  They moved together, their hands joined. Joy filled the air, and even the abbey’s shadows seemed to take on light.

  Then there was only emptiness and the ring of laughter from the hall where MacLeod began a ring of toasts to his radiant future bride. Sunlight streamed over the moat, and bees droned among the roses.

  Up in the Long Gallery the curtains stirred. A gray shape ghosted through the door and padded over the fine Aubusson carpet. Ears pricked, the cat studied the silent room.

  Waiting.

  The air seemed to stir and hum, and the gray ears pricked forward. Then in one powerful bound, Gideon sailed up, up toward the priceless oil portrait of the abbey’s eighth viscount.

  Canvas shifted.

  Pigment glinted.

  And then the gray shape vanished within, met by a ripple of welcoming laughter. As he did, a single rose petal drifted down through a sunbeam, then came to rest on the floor beneath Adrian Draycott’s feet.