by Tracy Fobes
At length, the parade of aristocrats began to dwindle and someone pressed a glass of champagne into her hand. Sarah gulped the bubbly liquid, which added to her giddiness, and glanced around the room for Colin. Hoping to see his tall form, she instead noticed Lady Helmsgate near the study with a man and a woman, both of them dressed in somber, middle-class clothes.
Her own curiosity piqued now, Sarah stared.
Lady Helmsgate had grabbed the man’s arm and was urging him toward the duke. Just as vigorously, the man was shaking his head no. The girl, her head a mass of flaming red hair, looked frightened, her eyes very wide and her face almost as white as her dress. Pressed against the wall, she clung to the man’s side.
Upon seeing the girl, a chord of familiarity resonated within Sarah, and with it, a strange sense of foreboding.
“I will not allow you inside, sir.” The butler’s outraged tones penetrated to the farthest corner of the central hall, drawing Sarah’s attention to another commotion near the doorway. “I cannot imagine you were invited.”
“Don’t you recognize me, man?”
The butler sniffed. “Most certainly not.”
“Move aside, Whiton,” their newest guest growled. “I’m not staying, I just want to see Lady Sarah.”
Sarah’s heart flipped over in her chest. Those masculine tones more familiar and dear to her than anything else, she left the duke’s side and hurried to the doorway.
A large form pushed its way through the throngs of people lingering about. All heads turned in that direction. When Sarah saw him, she nearly gasped aloud.
Colin had returned, but it wasn’t the Colin she’d been expecting. A beard and moustache darkened the lower portion of his face. His hair was mussed and his raggedy clothes had patches of dirt and mud all over them. A dirty tartan hung around his shoulders, and Sionnach lay cradled in his arms.
He looked like she had when she’d first come to Inveraray, she mused. But it was his eyes that caught her attention. While they still glittered with blue fire, they seemed strangely at peace.
Her mouth fell open.
“I’m back, Sarah,” he announced, “and I’ve brought what I promised.”
Shocked conjecture began buzzing around the room. Lord Nicholson pushed his way through the crowd and strode up to Colin, his lip curled derisively. “What’s happened to you, Cawdor? You look like a field hand. At the very least, you need a bath.”
Someone in the crowd tittered. Another titter joined the first. Soon, outright laughter filled the great hall. The duke strode up to him, his mouth twisted. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, Colin?”
Colin smiled provocatively. He placed Sionnach gently on the floor. “I’ve come to claim my woman.”
“Your woman? You don’t mean my daughter?”
Colin stared lovingly at Sarah. He held out his hand to her. “I do mean your daughter. She’s mine and always will be so.”
The shock inside her giving way to joy, Sarah took a step toward him.
“Come with me, Sarah,” he encouraged, his face gaining an unexpectedly somber air. “ I have something to show you.”
She took another step. Her gaze never left his.
A nearby ruckus in the crowd stopped her advance. Lady Helmsgate emerged from the sea of bodies, the man and girl Sarah had noticed before in tow. “Just a moment. I want you all to meet someone.”
The man wore heavy sideburns and nondescript city clothing. He threw Colin a look that Sarah translated as apologetic. The girl at his side kept her head down, obscuring her features.
Lady Helmsgate’s voice rang out triumphantly through the great hall. “Tell them who you are, sir.”
“I’m Mr. Cooper, lately of Bow Street, and this . . . this is Sarah.”
“Lift your head, Lady Sarah,” Lady Helmsgate demanded of the girl, who obediently raised her head.
The second gasp of the day went through the crowd. The girl bore an exact resemblance to the duke.
Recognition sliced through Sarah like a knife. As though in a dream, she lifted her fingers to her lips. The girl was older, yes, but if she concentrated hard enough, she could remember how the girl had looked when younger — at only four years old, in fact.
She swallowed, her hand dropping to her side, a rush of happiness at seeing her childhood playmate quickly squashed by the horrific implications of her appearance. Suddenly she felt hot. Terribly hot. Sweat broke out on her brow and gathered along her spine.
Eyebrows drawn together, the duke stepped forward. “What is the meaning of this? Who are you? And who is this girl?”
“Look at her, Your Grace,” Lady Helmsgate urged. “Do you not know who she is? You might as well stare into a looking glass.”
His expression wondering, the duke took hesitant steps toward the girl, until he stared her directly in the eye. “Who are you, child?”
“Oh, Papa,” the girl breathed and, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, she threw herself into the duke’s arms. “I didn’t know who I was, but I never forgot your face.”
Clearly bemused, the duke closed his arms around her awkwardly and patted her on the back.
Lady Helmsgate marched over to the duke’s side. “You should thank the earl for reuniting you with your true daughter,” she said, drawing a few shocked exclamations from the avid onlookers. “Mr. Cooper reluctantly informed me that the Earl of Cawdor hired him months ago to investigate the other Lady Sarah’s claims, to insure you had recovered your true daughter and not the serving maid’s daughter.”
Everything inside Sarah went from hot to frozen.
“I’m afraid this woman,” Lady Helmsgate sneered, pointing at Sarah, “is not your daughter. She is Nellie, a common serving maid.”
Her head ringing with Lady Helmsgate’s words, Sarah placed her palms against her ears. Panic invaded her limbs, making them feel tight as bowstrings. She stared at the haughty faces around her, the gazes that all now seemed accusing, and her vision grew fuzzy. Finally her attention rested on Colin.
He dropped his hand to his side. His face had grown white beneath his beard.
Again, she thought with a snarl, he’d betrayed her. He’d been investigating her from the very start, no doubt trying to oust her from Inveraray to secure his inheritance. He’d never loved her. He’d probably never even liked her. He’d only been trying to draw information from her, maybe with the hope that she might inadvertently reveal something incriminating.
The duke put the red-haired girl firmly to one side and faced Lady Helmsgate. His brow looked heavy with disapproval. “Your actions this evening are ill considered, Amelia. Look at the pain you’ve caused Sarah.”
“She isn’t Sarah,” Lady Helmsgate screeched. “She is Nellie, a serving wench.”
“We may have her name wrong, but she is my daughter. By embarrassing and hurting her in such a manner this evening,” he continued remorselessly, “you have shamed and hurt me equally. I see now how mean and pitiful your character truly is. You are a small woman, Amelia Helmsgate, and I wish you gone from my home immediately.”
A hushed silence descended over the crowd.
Lady Helmsgate, her mouth open, stared at the duke.
Very deliberately, he turned his back on her.
Murmurs rippled through the partygoers. Then, without warning, Lady Jersey turned her back to Lady Helmsgate as well. Lady Jersey’s husband swung around seconds later. As the moments passed, each of the aristocracy followed the duke’s example and turned their backs to Lady Helmsgate, until the entire assemblage had shunned the blond woman with an implacable thoroughness.
“I . . . I . . .” Lady Helmsgate, her face crumbling and her hand at her throat, fled up the stairs, nearly tripping on her skirt in the process. Lord Nicholson followed her.
Sarah took little joy in the other woman’s downfall. Her own downfall had been just as complete. She’d been full of hope these past few weeks, but now, like a crystal flung against brick, that hope lay shattered
in pieces at her feet. She clenched her hands into her skirts and walked up to Colin until she stared him directly in the eye. “You lying son of a bitch.”
Colin flinched. “Sarah, please listen to me —”
“I don’t ever want to see you again,” she spit, and picked up her skirts. Her heart pounding, she hurried to the front door. A startled footman opened the door for her. She raced out into the night, the cool air slapping against her cheeks, which felt afire with shock and embarrassment. She didn’t know where she would go or what she would do, she just wanted to be anywhere but Inveraray Castle.
A sudden flood of light behind her indicated that the front door had opened again. At the same time, Sionnach sprinted ahead of her, then yipped urgently.
“Sarah, stop!” Colin shouted.
A cramp in her side, she focused on Sionnach. She saw immediately that he wanted her to follow him. He started to run in the direction of the Maltlands.
Hand pressed against the cramp, she pelted down the drive after him. Her breath wheezed in and out of her throat. Tears pressed against the back of her eyes. The weight of hurt and betrayal she carried made her hunch over, her shoulders stooped. She felt crippled.
Footsteps crunched along the gravel drive. Colin was following her. Afraid she might scratch his eyes out if he caught up with her, she picked up speed.
Panting, she stopped at the arched entrance to the Maltlands. Sionnach shot through the arch and raced over to the door on his barn. Doggedly she followed him, drawing the latch on the door and letting them both inside.
A lantern, hung from one of the rafters, cast a soft glow on hay bales and a clean trough of water. A pile of blankets in the corner caught her attention. Sionnach jumped through the hay and nudged the blankets with his nose.
Shivering, she walked over to the blankets and pushed them aside. A soft, silvery-white coat glistened in the lantern’s light. She drew in a swift breath and fell to her knees in the hay.
He’d found the female.
She pushed the blankets completely aside. The female looked much like the male, its bone structure a little more delicate perhaps, but with the same silvery-white coat and ivory horn. Its eyes were closed.
She ran her hands over the unicorn’s legs, torso, neck, and head. Its coat felt incredibly soft, and beneath, its body cool rather than warm. Frowning, she pressed a hand against its rib cage. She felt no pulse, detected no rising and falling in the chest. Her fingers shaking, she touched the horn.
Her mind remained blank.
“Sionnach, is she dead?” Sarah whispered in human language. Her hands fell to her sides and her shoulders grew even more stooped. “Are we too late?”
“I don’t know.” The deep male voice came from the doorway. Colin entered the barn, his shadow dancing on the wall behind him. “I found her in a secret burial chamber near Kildrummie Castle. Our golden man was there, too, although he was naught but dust and bones. The Bruce was a great warrior, but even he couldn’t withstand the ravages of time, like our unicorns can.”
She stared at him, unable to speak. Conflicting emotions were roiling around inside her, making coherent thought impossible for the moment.
At her lack of a response, he continued, “On the way home from Inverness, I thought about why they might have buried her with the Bruce. My guess is that the female became listless and deathlike in captivity, just as the male is now. They might even have thought she was dead. In any case, they probably buried her with the Bruce when he died to honor her.”
For some reason, he looked very powerful and masculine in his tattered, earth-stained clothes and tartan. The blood in her veins quickened. She fought a traitorous urge to throw herself in his arms and tell him it didn’t matter what he’d done, as long as he remained at her side from now on.
Angered by her own weakness, Sarah jumped to her feet and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Get out of my sight, you lying bastard.”
He lifted his hands to his chest, palms outward, as if to ward her words off. “Please, kitten, if you’d give me a chance to explain —”
She clenched her fists at her sides. “I’m not your kitten. Now get out.”
His eyebrow flew upward. “Since you’re clearly too angry with me to listen to even a word I say, perhaps you’ll agree to a bargain.”
“A bargain?” She snorted. “I’m not going to bargain with you!”
“Yes, you are.”
“Are you that sure of yourself? Your arrogance is disgusting.”
“Don’t you even want to hear my bargain? It has to do with the unicorns.”
Her anger faltering, she looked at the immobile body of the female. A sudden wave of grief made her throat ache. “What is there to do? The female is dead. The male will soon follow.”
“I’m not certain she’s dead.”
“She’s not breathing, her heart’s not beating, and her body is cool.”
“Why hasn’t she begun to decay if she’s dead?” Colin pointed out. “Clearly unicorns have very long life spans, if the male unicorn can remember the Bruce. So she’s probably not expired from old age. Maybe she’s just sleeping a very deep sleep. Hibernating, if you will. We need to take her to someone who knows how to take care of her: the male unicorn. And therein lies my bargain. If I help you take her to the male, then you must agree to talk to me, until the sun comes up if need be.”
Eyes still narrowed, Sarah nodded. “All right, I agree to your terms. However, I remind you that talking doesn’t imply listening.”
Unaccountably, he smiled. “Where else in Scotland could I find such a woman, who spits at me with claws unsheathed, then draws my very soul from my body with her sweet kisses and playfulness?”
She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I don’t want to hear anything from you until we’ve reunited the unicorns.”
“It’s a deal.” Giving her a satisfied grin, he left the barn and called for a groom to bring out one of the pony carts.
In short order, the grooms hitched up a pony cart, and Colin settled the female unicorn, whom he’d rewrapped in blankets, into the back. He helped Sarah aboard, took up the reins, and they started off down the path that skirted the perimeter of the field. Sionnach jumped on, too, and settled himself near the female unicorn.
Since they had to use paths or get the cart’s wheels stuck in mud, the journey to the cliff’s edge took much longer than it had on horseback. Sarah sat upon the simple wooden bench, with Colin by her side. The moon shone its gentle light down upon them and a cool summer breeze tugged at her curls, bringing with it the smell of freshly cut grass. Neither of them broke the silence.
When she trembled, he took his tartan off and slung it around her shoulders. She snuggled within its folds, the smell of him thick in her nose. How easy it would be, she mused, to pretend they were a happily married couple returning from a party. But the sick feeling that rose in her stomach, when she thought of returning to Inveraray to face the duke dispelled that notion.
After about an hour of traveling, they reached the cliff face and climbed down from the pony cart.
Colin assessed her white gown uneasily. “Do you think you can climb down the cliff dressed like that?”
“Do you think you can climb down with a unicorn in your arms?” she countered.
“Point taken.” He offered her a quick grin. “We’ll move slowly and carefully, my feisty little kitten.”
“I’m not your kitten,” she insisted. This time, there was no weight behind her words.
His grin widening, he picked the unicorn up and slung it over his shoulder. “Let’s go. Sionnach, you lead the way. I’ll go next.”
Raising an eyebrow at his easy camaraderie with the fox, Sarah waited for Sionnach and Colin to precede her, then started down the cliff. As always, memories of the carriage accident assailed her, making her momentarily dizzy. She gripped an exposed root and paused.
Colin continued on for only a second or so before he noticed that she’d stopped. He stopped
, too. “Is anything wrong?”
She frowned. “Everything is wrong.”
“I mean, can you continue down the cliff?” “Yes, I can continue.” She began climbing downward again, thinking, why not? She might as well tell him about her memories of the accident. He already knew she wasn’t the duke’s daughter. “The first time I climbed down this cliff, I almost swooned. Do you know why? Because I recalled the carriage accident.”
“What did you remember?”
“Just an overwhelming sense of panic, and tumbling through space. Later, when I grasped the unicorn’s horn, I actually saw the accident in my mind, as from the unicorn’s point of view.”
“The unicorn saw the carriage accident?” He sounded surprised.
“The unicorn rescued me. He brought me to the top of the cliff. I believe the tide had already taken . . . the real Sarah out to sea.”
“How did the unicorn know to rescue you?”
“I’m not certain. The unicorn seems to see things . . . even things in the future. He knew that someday I would help him, and so, he helped me. The panflute was a gift from the unicorn,” she added. “Because of him, I can understand the animals who live in the Highlands.”
“You’ve been touched by magic from the very beginning,” he mused. “I’ve wanted to bring magic back into my life for years now. Thank God I’ve found you. You are magic to me, kitten. Wondrous, incredible magic that I certainly don’t deserve. Even so, without you I have nothing.”
She glanced at him, and such a warm, loving flame danced in his eyes that she looked quickly away. “Sweet words will get you nowhere. Don’t think I’ll forgive you for this latest betrayal.”
He shrugged. “Tell me, then, what the unicorn showed you of the carriage accident.”
“He showed me everything. He even told me who I am. My true name is Nellie.” She lifted her chin, daring him to respond.
“Nellie. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. I prefer kitten, anyway. Why didn’t you tell anyone you’d remembered your real identity?”
