No Other Woman (No Other Series)

by Shannon Drake

  "What?"

  "It seems you are in deep and deadly danger yourself, Shawna MacGinnis. There lies the corpse of a man by the loch who meant to do away with you. So again, I warn you, Shawna. Keep your silence."

  A recklessness suddenly ignited within her; she was tired of being threatened. "What will you do, David? Slay me? Beat me to death? Rape me?"

  He arched a brow. Cool green eyes swept over her. He suddenly angled down against her, his face just inches away so she again felt the warmth of his breath, and the tremendous power of his body. The warmth and pulse of his sex. He touched her face again, fingers sculpting her cheek, brushing her lips, moving over her throat until she scarcely dared to breathe. His fingers curled in a sensually cradling motion around the mound of her breast, drawing a startled gasp from her lips, which he ignored. "Rape you?" His voice was a mere taunting whisper. "Hmm. Were it my design, lady, my choice, I'd have had you by now. And I don't think it would have been rape. After all, my lady, I do believe, in the past, it was you who seduced me."

  She was startled when he suddenly rose. So startled she could not speak. He stood above her, his eyes meeting hers for a last time.

  His eyes sweeping, over her.

  "Hmmph."

  He reached toward the candle and pinched out the flame.

  She could swear she blinked, and then he was gone.

  Gone. Gone!

  Just like that. He had left her. Just when she had become convinced that he would never do so that night, not until he had taken from her... her.

  She leapt out of her bed and stood by it, not at all sure if she was completely relieved... or disappointed. He had just walked away. He'd threatened her and left. He didn't want her anymore.

  He had wanted her. Oh, aye, he'd wanted her.

  As she hadn't even really realized just how she had wanted him.

  Once...

  Now he was a ghost; a man risen from a grave he was convinced she'd managed to dig for him.

  "Oh, God!" she whispered aloud.

  She ran to the window, looking out to the night beyond. There was no sign of him. She pressed the stone on the secret door just beyond the window, and looked down into the stairway. The stairway was blacker than ebony, and not even the slightest sound echoed back to her from it.

  Had he departed the normal way—by the door?

  She returned from the balcony and threw open the door to her room, scampered into the hallway and then to the balustrade looking down on the great hall below. Again, there was no sign of him.

  She couldn't stand around in the hallway, she determined. Her gown was damp and shredded and she was half-naked and if any of her kin were to appear, she might well find herself residing in an asylum for the insane.

  She slipped back into her bedroom, closing and bolting the door, and pacing the floor.

  David had returned. It was impossible.

  She shivered, discarded her torn, wet gown, and dressed quickly in a fresh one while staring at the remnants of the old. She realized she had to get rid of the ripped gown.

  Only if she intended to keep secret the fact that David was alive. That he had returned.

  David was dangerous.

  Maybe he had a right to be. Where had he been for the last five years? What had happened to him? How had he managed to come home and rise from the loch at precisely the moment she needed him?

  Had he really been there at all?

  She groaned softly, rolling up her shredded gown, determined to hide it until she decided what to do with it. She stuffed it beneath her bed for the time being. She couldn't report to anyone that David was alive.

  She had no proof. Already, there was no sign that the man might have been in her room. If she betrayed him, she realized, she'd definitely be sorry. For one thing, no one would believe her. They would all doubt her sanity, as she was beginning to question it herself. No one would believe what had happened to her tonight. She had run out. She had been chased and nearly killed by a tall dark shadow near the Druid Stones. But she hadn't been killed because a dead man had risen from the loch to slay her would-be assailant....

  She needed a drink, she decided, if she was ever going to sleep for the rest of the night. And she had to have some rest. The world, at the very least, had gone mad. And she had to cope with it all somehow.

  She slipped from her room, returned to the office, found the brandy bottle, and returned with it. The fire in her hearth had burned down to practically nothing, but she sat in front of it, shivering, trying to rouse up the last of the embers.

  She was going to drink the brandy properly out of a glass, sit calmly in front of the fire, and think.

  She did pour the brandy into a glass. Throwing her head back and swallowing down the contents in one long sip wasn't exactly proper.

  She'd do better with the second glass.

  Actually, she did do better. With her feet and legs curled beneath her, she stared into the small, flickering flames. He'd come back. He was alive.

  Or was he? She shivered fiercely. Her nightmares had been torturing her for so long. He was gone again without a trace, how could she be so certain....

  In the morning, there would be no doubt. Someone would find the corpse by the loch. And what? Was she supposed to pretend that she knew nothing about it?

  David believed that she had been part of a conspiracy. That she had been the lure, the bait, so that someone else could come along and murder him unaware, in cold blood. He was watching her now to see who she would go to....

  There was no murderer, she tried to tell herself. A rafter had fallen, another man's body, burned beyond recognition, had been discovered, and it had been assumed that the charred remains had been David. No one would have tried to kill him.

  But David was alive. How could he be alive, back after all this time?

  She drank another very long swallow of the brandy.

  Her limbs, at the least, were no longer cold. What remained of the fire, and what sweet flames the brandy could create, warmed her at last. Any more, and she was going to waken with a pounding headache just when she would need to have her wits about her.

  She set the glass down on the arm of her chair, leaving the brandy bottle by the side of it. She stood in the middle of the room for a long moment. Nothing was different; nothing had changed. She might have truly dreamed that he had walked back into her life.

  She knew she hadn't just dreamed of David. He had walked back into her life.

  For revenge.

  Chapter 5

  Shawna awoke to brilliant sunshine pouring into her room. She sat up with a sudden jerk, looking around her.

  Had she dreamed it all?

  She leapt out of bed, searching for some evidence that David Douglas had been there the night before.

  But there was no sign of David's existence.

  Shawna stared at her bed. The pillow on the right side, where she had slept, carried the telltale indentation of her head. Naturally. Yet her covers were torn apart as well, as if she had waged war there.

  She fell to her knees, looking beneath the carved frame structure of the bed for the gown that had been torn and soaked during her midnight foray. There it lay.

  "Shawna?"

  Shawna banged her head, trying to rise and turn as she heard the voice of her lady's maid, Mary Jane Campbell.

  "Shawna, are you quite all right?"

  No, she wasn't all right. Her head had been spinning in confusion since she'd awakened; now, it was killing her.

  She stood, rubbing her head, facing Mary Jane. Her maid was just a few years her senior and they had been together, except for when Shawna had left Craig Rock, since they had been children.

  "I'm-—fine. Thank you. No, actually, I'm not fine. I, er, had a rather rough night."

  "Oh, aye, strange night, wasn't it?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  Mary Jane walked on into the room, drawing open Shawna's wardrobe, setting out undergarments and toiletries so that Shawna could wash and
dress. "The moon," Mary Jane said, flashing Shawna a quick smile. She was a slim, pretty girl with light green eyes and dark brown hair. "The moon, the way it kept coming and going behind the clouds. It kept me up half the night as well."

  "Did you... see or hear anything unusual?" Shawna queried.

  Mary Jane shook her head. "Shawna, y'know me well. I lay in my bed, covers to my chin, and I didn't move the night. What would I see or hear in my bed?"

  "It seems amazing what one can see or hear from her bed," Shawna muttered.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Never mind. I'm sorry. I suppose I'm quite late. Get a message out for me, will you? The miners should take some free time this morning."

  "Free time?"

  "Aye, free time."

  "They work for hourly pay, Shawna—"

  "And they shall be paid for these hours."

  "Your great-uncle runs a tight ship."

  "Well, that's true, but it is the nineteenth century, and it is my ship to direct. Gawain will understand. Time is lost every day now when the workers argue over going into the shafts. So this morning, they will have free time. They should have tea with their wives and babes."

  "Shawna, that is brilliantly generous."

  "I'm afraid it isn't. I wish that I had thought to be so generous, but actually, I overslept. I meant to be up and about far earlier, but... well, you know, there was that wretched moon. Anyway, I shall get the reverend, and we'll have a service at the mine in, say, two hours."

  "Shawna?"

  "Aye?"

  "I don't mean to overstep my bounds..."

  "Since you've been doing so all our lives, why on earth would you want to stop now?" Shawna inquired.

  "Fine!" Mary Jane said, laughing. "You must realize, your great-uncle will be furious about the lost time."

  "Uncle Gawain will have to go hang."

  Mary Jane flashed her another smile. "I shall hope and pray that he does not decide to shoot the messenger."

  "He may grumble, but he'll save his anger for me. Go quickly, please. I'm certain many of the men will have left for work already. Oh, wait!"

  "Aye?" Mary Jane queried.

  "You've been up and about awhile?"

  "Aye, that I have."

  "And there have been no reports of anything unusual?"

  "Like what?"

  "Well, you know, the miners have been so nervous about the shaft."

  "Yes?"

  "Well, has anything at all unusual occurred? Sightings in the graveyard? Reports of ghosts perhaps—or bodies lying about?"

  Mary Jane shook her head. "Bodies lying about! Nay, Shawna, there's not been a report regarding a single corpse, and that's a fact!"

  "No one has been reported missing?"

  "Missing?"

  "Aye, a villager who didn't return home from the pub or the like?"

  "Shawna, are you quite all right?"

  "I'm... just concerned about what's going on with the miners. That's all."

  "You think there are ghosts in the mine shafts?"

  "Of course not.... I'm just looking for logical explanations."

  "I see. Well, we've no missing husband who lost his way home and fell into the mine shaft to beat against the walls. None that a wife will admit to, at that."

  With a last smile, Mary Jane closed the door to Shawna's room.

  Shawna walked up the steps to the balcony and looked out upon the day. The Druid Stones looked bright beneath the rising sun. Hills and valleys sloped and rose in emerald beauty, studded with the colors of wildflowers. The loch shimmered in the light, and the craigs and cliff rising from it to spread across the hilltops were caught up in glittering silver color, stalwart as steel. Cattle dotted the fields. The landscape had never appeared more serene. As if the tempest of the night could not possibly have occurred.

  Yet knowing that it had, that David was out there somewhere, Shawna hurried down from the steps, approaching her washstand, ripping her nightgown over her head. She sluiced her face and throat with cold water, shivered, soaked herself again, and paused.

  She had imagined nothing. The subtle, but unmistakable, unique male scent of him lingered about her body. She trembled and grew warm, then picked up her water pitcher and doused herself with the chilly water from head to toe.

  What in God's name was she going to do?

  What could she do? David had cleanly disappeared. There was no body by the loch. And if she betrayed him again in any way...

  Yet, she could not believe that anyone in her family had set out to kill David.

  So what had happened?

  God, she yearned for the truth!

  And perhaps the truth could be found in helping him.

  There was but one thing to do for the moment, she determined.

  Get past the night.

  And begin the new day. Forewarned...

  And forearmed.

  * * *

  She did begin the day. Definitely late.

  But by ten-thirty, Shawna had summoned the Reverend Massey, and she stood by his side at the entrance to the main tunnel dug out of the rugged cliffs near the loch.

  The miners and their families were assembled nearby, the men with their caps in their hands, the women with their heads bowed.

  "Shawna MacGinnis, do you think that this will work?" the Reverend Massey asked worriedly.

  Shawna lowered her eyes, hiding a rueful smile from Massey. Would it work? She was trying to convince miners that a shaft couldn't be haunted while she was halfway convinced she was mad, and carrying on with a ghost herself.

  "Reverend, whether it 'works' or not, a blessing on the mines would be a good thing, would it not?" she asked.

  "Aye, aye," he said, after a minute of thoughtful frowning.

  "Be strong!" Shawna told him encouragingly as she looked at the crowd of sixty or so people who had come to hear the blessing. Her great-uncle Gawain, flanked on either side by her cousins Alistair and Alaric, were watching them, waiting. Alistair caught her eyes upon him. He grinned and winked.

  Shawna had managed to depart Castle Rock without seeing Gawain, Alaric, or Alistair. She was determined on her own way, but it seemed more prudent to have her own way now and argue about it later, rather than risk a public argument.

  "Please proceed, Reverend," Shawna urged. The people were beginning to grow restless.

  "Uh-humm!" the Reverend Massey said, clearing his throat. He lifted his hands to Heaven. "My good people, let us pray!" he invoked, then dropped rather slowly to his knees.

  Everyone followed suit. Before closing her eyes in prayer, Shawna saw that her great-uncle Lowell and cousin Aidan had come as well, and were kneeling at the far left side of the crowd. Aidan offered her an encouraging smile as Alistair had done, and Lowell, as gentle a man as Gawain was rough, winked as Alistair had done. It was a pity. She didn't see nearly as much of her great-uncle Lowell as she did of Gawain; Lowell and Aidan had maintained residence at Castle MacGinnis to keep up the MacGinnis ancestral home.

  She wished now that she had stayed there herself. But along with all the business-related reasons for her maintaining her residence at Castle Rock, the recently deceased Laird Douglas, David's father, had asked her to do so himself. No matter what, she wouldn't have been able to have refused him. Since Gawain had run many of the affairs of both estates for years, he had decided to move to Castle Rock, too. His two sons, Alistair and Alaric, had joined him there.

  From across the crowd, she saw Aidan arching a curious brow at her. She realized that she had been frowning.

  She tried to smile.

  She should have remained in her own home, no matter what the old Douglas laird had asked of her, no matter that he and her father had been the closest of friends. She should have known that "ghosts" could come back to haunt Castle Rock.

  "Father in Heaven," the Reverend Massey intoned, "we ask your blessing on these thy children who work the earth; we ask your blessing on these coal mines which offer so many here sustenance.
Oh, Father, hear our prayers, through the infinite goodness of your son, Jesus Christ, grant us your goodness and mercy. Bless this work we partake of in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; be with us in all our endeavors, bless each man, woman and child who works within the mines..."

  The prayer went on and on—once the Reverend Massey had got started, he found passion in the event. Shawna found herself opening her eyes. Alistair's eyes were open as well. He was still watching her, his expression amused. His blue eyes sparkled; his handsome face was cut by a broad grin. She shook her head in warning, and he lowered his eyes dutifully.

  At last the prayer ended. The Reverend Massey implored them all to go and work dutifully and in peace. When they stood, Massey was approached by a young woman with a baby on her hip, and Shawna discovered that Mark Menzies was at her side, thanking her for the arrangements that morning. "The men are enthusiastic about their work once again." He lowered his voice. "Aye, and still, it would be best if I knew myself what causes the sounds that haunt the mines at times!"

  "You've heard these sounds yourself?" she asked.

  Mark started to reply but paused, and she realized that Gawain had come behind her.

  "I was thanking m'lady for the prayer, MacGinnis," Mark said politely.

  "If a blessing matters to the work, then a blessing there must be," Gawain said.

  "Aye, the blessing will work well," Mark said, smiling at Shawna with warm admiration, "as will my lady's care that the men be given a few special hours, paid hours, with their wives and bairns."

  "Aye, my niece does have a woman's sympathies and sensitivities!" Gawain acknowledged, smiling. The smile was a fierce one. It meant that she should have discussed her plans with him.

  "M'lady Shawna, would you have some of our tea?"

  Shawna spun about to see that the speaker was Gena Anderson, young and very pretty if somewhat fey, one of the village lasses whose father had worked in the mines. The girl was offering her a steaming mug. The miners' wives, it seemed, had brought tea and scones, as if the blessing constituted a celebration, a reopening of the mines themselves. She took the warm cup from the woman, thanking her. As she did so, an arm slipped around her waist and she spun about to see Alistair at her side.