Nothing unusual yet. Dead silence.
Not a sound echoed inside the house. Only the rumble of cars passing by in the street, the scrape of tree branches against the eaves in the autumn wind and late day birdcall. Even the skittish tabby didn’t come out to greet him. Sebastian must’ve holed up at the top of the closet, or so Neil hoped. The cat was all he had left of his family, that and some distant cousins in Scotland if he counted them.
He didn’t. He’d endured enough loss without seeking out new relations to forfeit. Besides, with his father’s passing he’d lost touch with the MacKenzie Scots. Mrs. Dannon was a cousin five times removed on his father’s side or some such remote attachment, but she meant far more to him than that. More of a dear aunt than a housekeeper. The last of a gracious generation. There’d never be another like her.
A sharp pain knifed through his chest at the realization of her loss. And the acute awareness that her murderer might still lurk inside somewhere. Anywhere. Ready to spring out at any moment.
Killing an old woman with a knife seemed particularly heinous. Such a ruthless individual would stop at nothing. Neil was more enraged by her brutal end than in fear for his own life.
If he got his hands on her assailant, he’d crack him over the head with the weighty cane then choke the breath from him. Neil might fall under that madman’s blade in the attempt but so be it. He should have been here to protect her.
If that damn, vacillating client hadn’t delayed him at the office he would’ve made it home in time. Mrs. Dannon couldn’t have been dead for long. Maybe no more than half an hour.
Berating himself that he’d failed her, he poked his head inside the parlor. Warily, he passed his gaze over the shaded room, pure Victorian in style as was the entire house. Everything was just as he’d left it this morning. As Mrs. Dannon left it, rather. Spotless, not a knickknack out of place.
But appearances could be deceptive. Swiveling his head, he met the glassy stare of the stuffed owl peering at him from the mantel. Beside the bird, a jar of potpourri lent the unlikely fragrance of roses to the slightly musty air. No fresh breeze wafted through broken glass in telltale evidence of entry.
He swept his gaze toward the bay windows secured behind heavy drapes. Even the sunshine couldn’t penetrate the fabric. No shadows patterned the wallpaper. The MacKenzie Coat of Arms hung undisturbed on the wall.
Still not a sound. His home seemed eerily like a tomb.
Neil stole out of the parlor and down the hall. It was the same in every room. Nothing and nobody. Not so much as a shadow was out of place in his study or the room he’d converted into an art studio.
"How in hell did that fiend get in?" he muttered, his nerves frayed.
Grim thought—was the man hiding upstairs waiting to take him by surprise?
Neil wanted to shout him out, wherever he was, and curse him to the heavens. But his one advantage lay in knowledge of the house and stealth. He cringed at having to step over poor Mrs. Dannon, but he didn’t dare move her body before the police arrived. Don’t disturb the crime scene was a cardinal rule.
Hating to leave her as she was without even a blanket covering her, he knelt and gently closed her staring eyes. Then he straightened and started up the winding stairs.
From childhood he’d known the exact spot where each board creaked and tiptoed soundlessly from step to step—
He came to a halt in mid step. A second figure lay slumped at the top of the landing. How in the name of—
Stunned beyond oaths, Neil gaped down at the slender young woman dressed in an outlandish Scottish costume. Hair the color of a flaming sunset spilled down over the red and blue tartan plaid draped around her like a shawl. A circular brass brooch engraved by some skilled craftsman held the edges together. A full green skirt covered the rest of her, a hint of petticoats beneath. She looked straight out of the Old Country.
In profound disbelief, he knelt beside her and laid his hand on her shoulder. Warm. He wasn’t hallucinating. She was real enough.
Stranger still, the peaty scent of turf smoke emanated from her. And some perfume he couldn’t place, but inherently knew. Moss rose, maybe? The rich meld of fragrances carried him back, but to where?
Baffled, he shook her gently. “Miss?”
She gave a soft moan.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She turned toward him, fluttering a dark fringe of auburn lashes. Another moan issued from between what surely were petal soft lips.
He frowned at the bruise marring her forehead. Had that maniac done this to her?
The rest of her smooth skin was pale except for the sprinkle of freckles on her nose, not too long with a pert tilt, Neil noted, along with an absence of any other immediate injuries. Thank God he hadn’t been too late to help this young woman. Perhaps he’d frightened off her attacker, the coward. Although he had no idea where the killer had gone.
Neil remained on his guard. He mustn’t take anything for granted. The only certainty, a violent criminal was on the loose. Difficult to keep watching over his shoulder, though, with the inexplicable stranger commanding his attention.
Intrigued, despite the gruesome circumstances of their meeting, Neil locked his gaze on her once again. Vivid blue eyes, cast with a purplish hue, opened wide. Unusual color and deeply stirring.
She blinked and stared up at him as if he’d materialized out of the mist. But it was she who’d mysteriously come upon him with such wonder and beauty. His already pounding heart skipped a beat for an entirely different reason now.
He looked long into her eyes...for a moment he forgot the grisly murder, forgot everything. There was a timeless quality in those violet depths; the term “window to the soul” took on a whole new meaning. And it seemed to him that he’d seen these eyes before…
Impossible. He came back to himself. Mastering the tremor threatening his speech, he said, “You were knocked out, but you’ll be all right.”
She shook her head, wincing. “None of us will. The MacDonald comes,” she warned in a Scottish brogue.
The hair on the back of Neil’s neck bristled. And so it begins, a voice inside him said.
Chapter Two
Mora Campbell focused her giddy senses on the gentleman kneeling by her side. He stared at her as if she were a silkie or some other fantastic creature. Even with her head aching like the beating of a Hielan drum, the appeal of her rescuer wasn’t lost on her.
My, but he’s a handsome one. Eyes colored like a brooding sky. The strength in his face bespoke the bearing of a great chieftain. His demeanor marked him as a leader. He must be a commanding laird.
As her vision cleared, she looked more closely. There was a dearly familiar quality about him, though she couldn’t fathom why. Searching the haze fogging her mind, she strained to remember. Her thoughts swirled around the beloved image of a man.
Niall. He looked like Niall. And he had the same masculine allure and deeply sensual air.
Why was his thick brown hair clipped so short?
Nae, it should fall down around his well-muscled shoulders. Outlanders might wear their hair shorn in sech a manner, but he didn’t seem to be foreign. Unless…
Her eyes dropped lower. What did he mean by wearing the clothes of an Englisher, if that’s what they were? They looked to be some sort of trews or breeches, she guessed, and a jacket right enough, but not in any fashion she’d ever seen before.
The narrow striped scarf he wore at his neck was most peculiar. What purpose did it serve? And the cane he held in bloodstained fingers had the oddest face.
Frightening even. If he were an Englisher, he had a style all his own. Even for one of them.
Intent gray eyes searching hers, he laid the cane down. “Who struck you?”
The force of his gaze held her. “The MacDonald, the divil. Where’s he gotten to?”
Her apparent champion narrowed his gaze. “I don’t know.”
Lifting one hand, he lightly touched the tender lump on her
forehead. His scent wafted around her, masculine and clean, like fresh wind on a braw day. She breathed it in, savoring his essence.
“You’ll need a Cat Scan,” he continued, “and the police will be here any moment.”
She had no notion what service this cat he spoke of might render her or what these police were, but she liked the gentle feel of his fingers and the way tufts of hair curled at his strong neck like tendrils of ivy on a stone wall. She wanted to smooth his hair with her fingers…stroke the line of his neck.
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
His query disrupted her musing in a low tone pleasing to her ears. Though his voice lacked any recognizable accent, she’d swear she knew it in her very being.
“I am Mora, daughter of Artair Campbell of Loch Awe,” she answered, glad for the English tutor her canny father had employed from Edinburg. The learned man’s tolerance of her presence at her brothers’ lessons had been most welcome by Mora.
As to the young chieftain’s second query, she lifted her uncertain gaze past him to the unfamiliar hall and white plastered ceiling. She gestured behind her. “I hid in the passageway beneath the stairs to the keep. Only The MacDonald saw me. Chasing at m’ heels, the auld hellhound. I opened a door at the other end. After that…”
Wincing at the ache, she turned her head to take a better look at her surroundings. She ran her incredulous gaze down the hall papered in a gold print. Where had the stone passage gone?
She no longer seemed to be in any portion of Donhowel Castle at all. How was this possible?
At the end of the passage before her was an intricately carved oak door, the hue darkened with age. Panes of stained glass set in the archway above it fanned out in a half circle of saffron, red, and gold, like the entry to a chapel. Burnished light from the glass slanted into the hall, so it must still be day outside. Yet she could swear the sun had set not two minutes ago over the loch.
All this passed through her muddled senses in a moment. Of one thing she was certain. The nut-brown door, shut tight now, had been ajar before. She couldn’t explain how, but that door was the way.
She pointed shakily. “I came through thair.”
He shook his head. “You can’t have. That’s the door to nowhere.”
Clearly, she’d come from somewhere. And why would a craftsman fashion a door with ornate carving and colored glass, if it was a useless entry?
“It used to lead out onto a balcony, but that fell into disrepair and was torn down years ago,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “The door is kept locked now. I don’t even remember where the key is.”
Mora returned her gaze to his perplexed scrutiny. “Someone must have taken it.”
“Maybe. But he’d have to scale the house like a spider to gain entrance. Or pull a Houdini.”
She grew increasingly puzzled. “What speak ye of?”
“Never mind that now. Who is this MacDonald?”
“Why, chieftain of the Glengarry MacDonald’s, of course. The whole clan is bent on stamping out the MacKenzies in a blood feud.”
The nobleman’s brow furrowed. “Have you any idea where you are?”
“None. Who might ye be, sir?”
“Neil MacKenzie.”
His name tolled on a great bell of hope. A man’s face flashed across her mind, the man before her now, only different. The man she yearned after. The one she sought.
Here? He was here! Joy pulsed in her soul. “Ah. I knew ye yet lived.”
If possible, he stared at her even harder. “I didn’t realize anyone thought I had died.”
“Oh, aye. The holy Virgin be praised, Niall.”
“Neil.”
He was mighty particular as to pronunciation. And not a glimmer of recognition shone in his eyes.
Mora was beyond confused and more than a little awed by this Niall, or Neil, as he insisted on being addressed. She braved another try, “I’m a welcome guest of the MacKenzies, sent to wed ye.”
His jaw dropped, and he regarded her as he might a mad woman. His hands fell to his side. “Indeed?”
“Our fathers arranged the match,” she continued at his blank expression. “We met. Ye welcomed the troth.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Really?”
“God’s blood, I swear it. And then ye were gone.”
“To where?”
“None can say. All of the MacKenzies feared ye were killed in the battle over Strathmore castle and consumed by the fire. ’Tis terribly grieved we—they—are. Now I’m promised to Calum, yer younger brother,” she added at the complete lack of comprehension in his face, “but as ye live and breathe…”
How could she bind herself to Calum now, assuming she even found her way back to the MacKenzie home place, the massive castle of Donhowel.
At first sight of Niall, her heart inextricably knitted to him. The meeting between them was brief, but she’d not forgotten the tingle shimmering through her at the touch of his hand on hers, or the heat of his eyes. Infinitely much had changed between them since that initial childhood encounter, she but a lass and Niall not yet grown. Though she’d loved him even then.
“I gave ye my pledge,” she reminded him. Although, it pained her that she must do so.
He arched one dark brow at her. “So you are my betrothed?”
“Aye. Chosen to bear the next Mackenzie. Ye said.” She could still hear his husky whisper in her ear.
Another unholy tremor darted through her. Surely, she’d not gone mad with the wanting of this man.
Yet, he certainly regarded her as if she’d taken leave of her senses.
“What year is this, Miss Campbell?”
She looked at him in amazement. Surely ‘twas he who was daft. Forgetting the placement of a key was understandable, but this, “Why, ‘tis the year of our Lord, Sixteen hundred and two.”
His eyebrows rose even higher.
“The reign of the English Queen Elizabeth,” she prompted, but nothing she said seemed to shed any illumination.
His eyes held pity not recognition, preferable to scorn but it cut her beyond endurance.
What happened to the Niall who was to be her husband and where in God’s name was she? England, mayhap, carried witless from the Hielans down across the lowlands to that distant realm. But such a journey would take days and she’d only been gone moments.
The new Neil broke into her addled thoughts. “Poor lady. You must have been struck harder than I realized.”
Truly, she agreed, or he had. What on earth ailed the man, she wondered, startled by the ungodly din blaring from outside the house. “The blessed saints preserve us!”
“Sirens,” he said offhandedly. “Don’t be alarmed.”
Before the banshees were upon them, she braved a plea. If she had indeed been stricken, as he suggested, she’d need all the aid she could muster. How would she even find her way without assistance?
Reaching out chilled fingers, she seized his warm hand. “Help me, sir, I pray ye. For ‘tis a most peculiar dream I’ve awakened to.”
He pressed her fingers with the compassion she’d sensed in his gentle grasp. “You must be Mrs. Dannon’s niece. She said you’d be arriving this month from Scotland. I lost track of the exact date and wasn’t prepared for your visit. I’m terribly sorry you’ve been the victim of this dreadful attack and promise to give you my full support.”
A rap at the front door interrupted them before Mora could explain she didn’t have an aunt with that name. Then a voice barked, “Staunton P.D.”
Chapter Three
What on earth had possessed him? Neil only knew he was a man on a mission. Inexplicably compelled not to leave Mora’s side, he tailed the ambulance in his red Mini Cooper.
He’d contended with the police first, briefly, and vouched for Mora, asserting she was the victim’s niece, even though she had no memory of arriving at his house. More questions would follow, and Lieutenant Hale had asked him not to leave town. A shadow darkened Neil’s al
ready troubled spirit at the unspoken order behind that request.
Surely the culprit would soon be caught and the suspicion lifted from him, and Mora, although she didn’t appear to be the one under scrutiny.
Why was he? His devotion to Mrs. Dannon was well-known in the community, and he had no criminal record. But the police always interviewed those closest to the victim and the first one on the scene, he reminded himself, their curiosity especially aroused as this case was unusual, and Mora somehow involved.
Mora…his thoughts flew back to her. The medical technicians wouldn’t allow him to ride in the back of the vehicle with her. Poor girl.
Her pale face remained fixed in his mind, those frightened eyes and trembling hands clutching at him as the EMT’s lifted her onto the gurney. Then they’d carried her out of the house and whisked her away in the ambulance. If Mora thought she lived in 1602, what in the world would she think of her ride to the emergency room?
Apart from her mental confusion, she must come from quite a provincial part of Scotland. Her naiveté struck him as much as her Highland dress. Who in God’s name were her family, apart from poor Mrs. Dannon? Why had she been raised so old fashioned? Her speech and manners singled her out to be someone wellborn and not from a backwoods family.
Could she possibly have attended some archaic girl’s boarding school with strict rules, classical studies, and long held medieval traditions? Did they even have schools like that in Scotland these days?
Neil had little time to conjecture. Lights flashing, the ambulance braked to a stop outside the hospital. He maneuvered his car into a spot at the back of the crowded parking lot.
He shot out of the car, slammed the door behind him, and ran to the entrance. Two EMTs rolled Mora through the emergency room doors as he sprinted up only a few yards behind them. Those early morning runs had paid off.
Dashing inside the ER, he scanned the jumble of people hunched in chairs or milling about the waiting room. His gaze fastened on the young woman who stood out like a visitor from another world. Mora lay on the gurney, her vivid eyes staring up at him with pleading in their depths.
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