[Highlander 04] - Kiss of the Highlander

by Karen Marie Moning

  KISS OF THE HIGHLANDER

  A Dell Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Dell mass market edition published September 2001

  Dell mass market reissue / June 2008

  Published by Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2001 by Karen Marie Moning

  * * *

  Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  * * *

  www.bantamdell.com

  eISBN: 978-0-440-33784-3

  v3.0_r2

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Dear Reader

  Sources

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Bloodfever

  “I cannot believe God plays dice with the Cosmos.”

  —ALBERT EINSTEIN

  “God not only plays dice.

  He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.”

  —STEPHEN HAWKING

  HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND

  1518

  PROLOGUE

  “The MacKeltar is a dangerous man, Nevin.”

  “What are you going on about this time, Mother?” Nevin looked out the window and watched the grass rippling in the early morning sun beyond their hut. His mother was reading fortunes, and were he foolish enough to turn around and meet Besseta’s gaze, she would interpret it as encouragement, and he would be lured into yet another conversation about some bewildering prediction. His mother’s wits, never the sharpest blade in the armory, were dulling daily, eroded by suspicious imaginings.

  “My yew sticks have warned me that the laird presents a grave danger to you.”

  “The laird? Drustan MacKeltar?” Startled, Nevin glanced over his shoulder. Tucked behind the table near the hearth, his mother straightened in her chair, preening beneath his attention. Now he’d done it, he thought with an inward sigh. He’d gotten himself snagged in her conversation as securely as he’d gotten his long robes entangled in a thorny bramble a time or two, and it would require finesse to detach himself now without things degenerating into an age-old argument.

  Besseta Alexander had lost so much in her life that she clung too fiercely to what she had left—Nevin. He repressed a desire to fling back the door and flee into the serenity of the Highland morning, aware that she would only corner him again at the earliest opportunity.

  Instead, he said gently, “Drustan MacKeltar is not a danger to me. He is a fine laird, and ’tis honored I am to have been chosen to oversee the spiritual guidance of his clan.”

  Besseta shook her head, her lip trembling. A fleck of spittle foamed at the seam. “You see with a priest’s narrow view. You can’t see what I see. This is dire indeed, Nevin.”

  He gave her his most reassuring smile, one that, despite his youth, had eased the troubled hearts of countless sinners. “Will you cease trying to divine my well-being with your sticks and runes? Each time I am assigned a new position, you reach for your charms.”

  “What kind of a mother would I be, if I didn’t take interest in your future?” she cried.

  Brushing a lock of blond hair from his face, Nevin crossed the room and kissed her wrinkled cheek, then swept his hand across the yew sticks, upsetting their mysterious design. “I am an ordained man of God, yet here you sit, reading fortunes.” He took her hand and patted it soothingly. “You must let go of the old ways. How will I achieve success with the villagers, if my own dear mother persists in pagan rituals?” he teased.

  Besseta snatched her hand from his and gathered her sticks defensively. “These are far more than simple sticks. I bid you, accord them proper respect. He must be stopped.”

  “What do your sticks tell you the laird will do that is so terrible?” Curiosity trumped his resolve to end this conversation as neatly as possible. He couldn’t hope to curtail the dark wanderings of her mind if he didn’t know what they were.

  “He will soon take a lady, and she will do you harm. I think she will kill you.

  Nevin’s mouth opened and closed like a trout stranded on the riverbank. Although he knew there was no truth to her ominous prediction, the fact that she entertained such wicked thoughts confirmed his fears that her tenuous grasp on reality was slipping. “Why would anyone kill me? I’m a priest, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I can’t see the why of it. Mayhap his new lady will take a fancy to you, and evil doings will come of it.”

  “Now you truly are imagining things. A fancy to me, over Drustan MacKeltar?”

  Besseta glanced at him, then quickly away. “You are a fine-looking lad, Nevin,” she lied with motherly aplomb.

  Nevin laughed. Of Besseta’s five sons, only he had been born slender of build, with fine bones and a quietude that served God well but king and country poorly. He knew what he looked like. He had not been fashioned—as had Drustan MacKeltar—for warring, conquering, and seducing women and had long ago accepted his physical shortcomings. God had purpose for him, and while spiritual purpose might seem insignificant to others, for Nevin Alexander it was more than enough.

  “Put those sticks away, Mother, and I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. You needn’t fret on my behalf. God watches over—” He stopped midsentence. What he’d nearly said would encourage an entirely new, and at the same time very old and very lengthy, discussion.

  Besseta’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, yes. Your God certainly watched over all of my sons, didn’t He?”

  Her bitterness was palpable and made him heartsick. Of all his flock, he’d failed most surely with his own mother. “I might remind you that quite recently He was your God, when I was granted this position and you were well-pleased with my promotion,” Nevin said lightly. “And you will not harm the MacKeltar, Mother.”

  Besseta smoothed her coarse gray hair and angled her nose toward the thatched roof. “Don’t you have confessions to hear, Nevin?”

  “You must not jeopardize our position here, Mother,” he said gently. “We have a solid home among fine people, and I hope to make it permanent. Give me your word.”

  Besseta kept her eyes fixed on the roof in stubborn silence.

  “Look at me, Mother. You must promise.” When he refused to retract his demand or avert his steady gaze, she finally gave a shrug and nodded.

  “I will not harm the MacKeltar, Nevin. Now, go on with you,” she said brusquely. “This old woman has things to do.”

&n
bsp; Satisfied that his mother wouldn’t trouble the laird with her pagan foolishness, Nevin departed for the castle. God willing, his mother would forget her latest delusion by dinner. God willing.

  Over the next few days, Besseta tried to make Nevin understand the danger he was in, to no avail. He chided her gently, he rebuked her less gently, and he got those sad lines around his mouth she so hated to see.

  Lines that clearly pronounced: My mother’s going mad.

  Despair settled into her weary bones, and she knew that it was up to her to do something. She would not lose her only remaining son. It wasn’t fair that a mother should outlive all her children, and trusting God to protect them was what had gotten her into this bind to begin with. She refused to believe she’d been given the ability to foresee events only to sit back and do nothing about them.

  When shortly after her alarming vision a band of wandering Rom arrived in the village of Balanoch, Besseta struck upon a solution.

  It took time to barter with the proper people; although proper was hardly a word she’d use to describe the people with whom she was forced to deal. Besseta might read yew sticks, but simple scrying paled in comparison to the practices of the wild gypsies who wandered the Highlands, selling spells and enchantments cheek by jowl with their more-ordinary wares. Worse still, she’d had to steal Nevin’s precious gold-leafed Bible, which he used only on the holiest of days, to trade for the services she purchased, and when he discovered the loss come Yuletide he would be heartbroken.

  But he would be alive, by the yew!

  Although Besseta suffered many sleepless nights over her decision, she knew her sticks had never failed her. If she didn’t do something to prevent it, Drustan MacKeltar would take a wife and that woman would kill her son. That much her sticks had made clear. If her sticks had told her more—mayhap how the woman would do it, when, or why—she might not have been seized by such desperation. How would she survive if Nevin were gone? Who would succor an old and useless woman? Alone, the great yawning darkness with its great greedy maw would swallow her whole. She had no choice but to get rid of Drustan MacKeltar.

  A sennight later, Besseta stood with the gypsies and their leader—a silver-haired man named Rushka—in the clearing near the little loch some distance west of Castle Keltar.

  Drustan MacKeltar lay unconscious at her feet.

  She eyed him warily. The MacKeltar was a large man, towering and dark, a mountain of bronzed muscle and sinew, even when flat on his back. When she shivered and nudged him gingerly with her toe, the gypsies laughed.

  “The moon could fall on him and he wouldn’t waken,” Rushka informed her, his dark gaze amused.

  “You’re certain?” Besseta pressed.

  “ ‘Tis no natural sleep.”

  “You didn’t kill him, did you?” she fretted. “I promised Nevin I wouldn’t harm him.”

  Rushka arched a brow. “You have an interesting code, old woman,” he mocked. “Nay, we did not kill him, he but slumbers, and will eternally. ’Tis an ancient spell, laid most carefully.”

  When Rushka turned away, instructing his men to place the enchanted laird in the wagon, Besseta heaved a sigh of relief. It had been risky—slipping into the castle, drugging the laird’s wine and luring him to the clearing near the loch—but all had gone according to plan. He’d collapsed on the bank of the glassy lake and the gypsies had set about their ritual. They’d painted strange symbols upon his chest, sprinkled herbs and chanted.

  Although the gypsies made her uneasy and she’d longed to flee back to the safety of her cottage, she’d forced herself to watch, to be certain the canny gypsies would keep their word, and to assure herself Nevin was finally safe—forever beyond Drustan MacKeltar’s reach. The moment the final words of the spell had been uttered, the very air in the clearing had changed: she’d felt an uncommon iciness, suffered a sudden, overwhelming weariness, even glimpsed a strange light settling around the laird’s body. The gypsies indeed possessed powerful magic.

  “Truly eternally?” Besseta pressed. “He will ne’er awaken?”

  “I told you, old woman,” Rushka said impatiently, “the man will slumber, frozen, utterly untouched by time, ne’er to awaken, unless both human blood and sunshine commingle upon the spell etched upon his chest.”

  “Blood and sunshine would wake him? That must never happen!” Besseta exclaimed, panicking all over again.

  “It won’t. You have my word. Not where we plan to hide his body. Sunlight will ne’er reach him in the underground caverns near Loch Ness. None will e’er find him. None know of the place but us.”

  “You must hide him very deep,” Besseta pressed. “Seal him in. He must never be found!”

  “I said you have my word,” Rushka said sharply.

  When the gypsies, wagon in tow, disappeared into the forest, Besseta sank to her knees in the clearing, and murmured a prayer of thanks to whatever deity might be listening.

  Any idle feelings of guilt were far outweighed by relief, and she consoled herself with the thought that she hadn’t really hurt him.

  He was, as she had promised Nevin, unharmed.

  Essentially.

  HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND

  September 19, Present Day

  1

  Gwen Cassidy needed a man.

  Desperately.

  Failing that, she’d settle for a cigarette. God, I hate my life, she thought. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

  Glancing around the crowded interior of the tour bus, Gwen took a deep breath and rubbed the nicotine patch under her arm. After this fiasco, she deserved a cigarette, didn’t she? Except, even if she managed to escape the horrid bus and find a pack, she was afraid she might expire from nicotine overdose if she smoked one. The patch made her feel shaky and ill.

  Perhaps before quitting she should have waited until she’d found her cherry picker, she mused. It wasn’t as if she was drawing them like flies to honey in her current mood. Her virginity was hardly presented in its best light when she kept snarling at every man she met.

  She leaned back against the cracked seat, wincing when the bus hit a pothole and caused the wiry coils of the seat to dig into her shoulder blade. Even the smooth, mysterious, slate-gray surface of Loch Ness beyond the rattling window that wouldn’t stay closed when it rained—and wouldn’t stay open otherwise—failed to intrigue her.

  “Gwen, are you feeling all right?” Bert Hardy asked kindly from across the aisle.

  Gwen peered at Bert through her Jennifer Aniston fringed bangs, expensively beveled to attract her own Brad Pitt. Right now, they simply tickled her nose and annoyed her. Bert had proudly informed her, when they’d begun the tour a week ago, that he was seventy-three and sex had never been better (this said while patting the hand of his newlywed, plump, and blushing bride, Beatrice). Gwen had smiled politely and congratulated them and, since that mild show of interest, had become the doting couple’s favorite “young American lassie.”

  “I’m fine, Bert,” she assured him, wondering where he’d found the lemon polyester shirt and the golf-turf-green trousers that clashed painfully with his white leather dress shoes and tartan socks. Completing the rainbow ensemble, a red wool cardigan was neatly buttoned about his paunch.

  “You don’t look so well, there, dearie,” Beatrice fretted, adjusting a wide-brimmed straw hat atop her soft silvery-blue curls. “A little green about the gills.”

  “It’s just the bumpy ride, Beatrice.”

  “Well, we’re nearly to the village, and you must have a bite to eat with us before we go sightseeing,” Bert said firmly. “We can go see that house, you know, the one where that sorcerer Aleister Crowley used to live. They say it’s haunted,” he confided, wiggling bushy white brows.

  Gwen nodded apathetically. She knew it was futile to protest, because although she suspected Beatrice might have taken pity on her, Bert was determined to ensure that she had “fun.” It had taken her only a few days to figure out that she should never have embarked u
pon this ridiculous quest.

  But back home in Sante Fe, New Mexico, as she’d peered out the window of her cubicle at the Allstate Insurance Company, arguing with yet another injured insured who’d managed to amass an astounding $9,827 worth of chiropractic bills from an accident that had caused a mere $127 in damage to his rear bumper, the idea of being in Scotland—or anywhere else, for that matter—had been irresistible.

  So she’d let a travel agent convince her that a fourteen-day tour through the romantic Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland was just what she needed, at the bargain price of $999. The price was acceptable; the mere thought of doing something so impulsive was terrifying, and precisely what she needed to shake up her life.

  She should have known that fourteen days in Scotland for a thousand dollars had to be a senior citizens’ bus tour. But she’d been so frantic to escape the drudgery and emptiness of her life that she’d only cursorily glanced through the itinerary and not given her possible traveling companions a second thought.

  Thirty-eight senior citizens, ranging in age from sixty-two to eighty-nine, chatted, laughed, and embraced each new village/pub/bowel movement with boundless enthusiasm, and she knew that when they returned home they would play cards and regale their elderly and envious friends with endless anecdotes. She wondered what stories they would tell about the twenty-five-year-old virgin who had traveled with them. Prickly as a porcupine? Stupid enough to try to give up smoking while taking the first real vacation in her life and simultaneously trying to divest herself of her virginity?

  She sighed. The seniors really were sweet, but sweet wasn’t what she was looking for.

  She was looking for passionate, heart-pounding sex.

  Sex that was down and dirty, wild and sweaty and hot.

  Lately she ached for something she couldn’t even put a name to, something that made her restless and anxious when she watched 10TH Kingdom or her favorite star-crossed lovers’ quest, Ladyhawke. Were she still alive, her mother, renowned physicist Dr. Elizabeth Cassidy, would assure her it was nothing more than a biological urge programmed into her genes.