by L. L. Muir
Isobelle’s hand trembled in his as they hurried through the kitchens. The cooks and maids were far too busy to pay them much attention. Just beyond the heavy steam and the savory smells of hot meat, there was a wide stairway that led down. The steps were lit by a lone torch at the bottom.
James stood at the top of the steps and gestured for Gaspar to precede him.
“Isobelle Ross!” The strange voice came from behind.
Gaspar urged Isobelle to go on without him, then turned to see who had spoken. A diminutive man came from the kitchens, his face red with outrage. “Let me pass!” he demanded. “I am Cinead, son of The Gordon and I demand you let me pass!”
“Oh?” James arched his brow at the little tyrant. “Only a son? And why do you spy upon The Ross’s stores?”
Cinead raised a short finger. “I saw her! Ye canna deny it! Isobelle Ross is here!”
James laughed with glee. “Of course she is here. Her ghost is always here. And on wedding days, she makes herself seen as well as heard. In fact, she attended yer sister’s wedding to Montgomery Ross, did she not?”
The little man sneered. “There was no wedding, and ye ken it. But now I see it was not a ghost, but the woman herself who haunts the place. Now let me pass!” He was a bold man to be so small and speak to a man four times his size. He turned his finger on Gaspar. “Ye held her hand coming through the kitchens.”
Gaspar lifted his hands in mock horror, much as he had when Ewan had told him they’d been cut off while he’d slept in the hay. “She held my hand? But why would she do such a thing. I’m English!”
The little man’s eyes flashed as he glimpsed the bottom of the stairs. “And low, here she is!”
Gaspar turned and found Isobelle dancing about just beyond the last step. She hummed a dissonant tune and swung her skirts from side to side.
“The kirk will hear of this,” Gordon hissed.
“I see nothing,” said James, then he looked suspiciously at Gordon’s son. “Do ye feel quite well?”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Do not pretend—”
“Where is she?” Gaspar demanded. “What does she look like?”
The little fellow pointed and rolled his eyes. “That is Isobelle. I would ken her anywhere.”
“I see nothing,” Gaspar whispered to James. “Perhaps he has been drinking all day.”
“Ye!” Isobelle stopped dancing and gathered her skirts as if she might run up the steps. “Ye drove me Morna to her death! Murderer!”
Gaspar was grateful Isobelle whispered her rantings. If others came to the stairs, they could not continue to deny her presence.
The Gordon man screeched and drew a dagger from his belt, then pushed Gaspar off balance and slipped between him and James. Gaspar jumped down the steps to stop him. Isobelle danced away down the hall, laughing, but moving quickly just the same.
Gaspar got hold of the other man’s plaid sash and was able to slow him at least, and when the man surged forward to escape his grasp, the sash came free and the little man flew forward. He grunted when he hit the dirt floor, then stilled.
Gaspar warily turned the man onto his back and found the handle of the little dagger sticking at an odd angle out of his left side.
The man grinned up at him. “Ye see? She is real. Why else would ye fly to her aid?”
There were voices approaching the stairway, and he and James exchanged an anxious look. Then together they dragged the little man down a corridor, out of sight of the stairs.
“What shall we do with him?” James asked.
“Stop the bleeding as best we can.” Gaspar knelt over the little body and took hold of the blade’s handle. The man hissed as the dagger slipped from his body.
“A shallow entry,” Gaspar announced. “He will live.”
Isobelle stood behind James where the Gordon man couldn’t see her. Gaspar shook his head slightly and she disappeared again. Mhairi came forward with a basket of herbs and strips of cloth.
“Weel, now,” she said cheerfully. “What have we here? Laird Gordon’s son getting into mischief? I saw what happened, of course.” She tisked. “A bit light in the head, are ye, Cinead Gordon? To go and attack the big man just because he has the same red hair that our Isobelle once had? And ye accused him of being Isobelle herself?” She shook her head, tisking again. “What will yer father say, I wonder. He’ll wish to ken his son isna right in the head, I’m certain. So he can tend after ye carefully, aye? He favors ye so, does he not? Surely he’ll be most gentle.”
Cinead glowered at the woman even as she cleansed his wound and dressed it. It didn’t take long.
“Yer a witch,” he hissed, as she finished and stood. “The kirk shall hear about ye, and those who keep ye.”
Gaspar couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Gaspar Dragotti, Special Investigator to The Patriarch of Venice and the church’s servant. I have found no witches at Castle Ross. Only a man who believes he had seen the dead. Indeed, that warrants an investigation. Though I was hoping to be on my way…”
If Cinead Gordon understood nothing else, he realized that they would all stand together against him.
“I would return to the hall now,” he grumbled.
“Here now. What is amiss here?” Ewan entered the corridor and frowned down on the wounded man. “Gordon? What has happened here? And why are ye in me cellars?”
Gaspar lifted a brow and waited for Cinead to make whatever claim he dared.
“I slipped on the stair, Ross. And landed on me own dagger, ‘tis all.”
Gaspar inclined his head and the fellow relaxed a bit, though he was not a happy man.
“Daniel!” Ewan shouted and his man came running. “Help Gordon here to the hall.”
“Aye, Laird.” The young man lifted Cinead’s arm to help him rise, but the man was far too short to get a shoulder under. “By yer leave,” he finally said, then picked the man up in his arms like a baby. They all bit their lips to keep from laughing as the red-faced man was carried away.
Gaspar found Isobelle shaking like a dry leaf in a winter wind, cowering against the wall further down the corridor. Gaspar hurried to her and pulled her up into his arms. He held her until the trembling eased. Then he spoke low against the top of her head.
“We will not go, if you do not wish it.”
She nodded into his chest, then took a breath and shook her head instead. “I wish to go. I wish to see my family again. I will do whatever it requires to travel there, as long as ye are with me.”
James laughed. “The journey will not last as long as ye might think.”
She reached over and touched James’ arm. “Will ye come along with us, then? To show us the way?”
James grimaced, then nodded reluctantly.
“We have our sacrifice, sister.”
Gaspar looked up to find the witch and her twin standing farther down the corridor. One carried a small torch.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “What is to be sacrificed?”
They laughed. “Not what ye think, Dragon,” said one. “The passage requires both love and sacrifice. There is love aplenty, I see, but James will sacrifice many an adventure, I think, to go along.”
Her sister nodded. “Not to fear, giant. Ye may return to us yet. We canna say.”
James tipped his head to one side. “Ye canna say? Or ye doona ken?”
The sisters laughed. “We canna say.”
James grinned broadly and rubbed his hands together. “Weel then. Yer brother awaits, Isobelle.”
Gaspar tried not to think of Monty and Morna as just more people who will vie for Isobelle’s attention.
Ewan took Isobelle’s hand and pulled her away. “Me bride awaits, as well, Isobelle. I must let ye go.” Then he gave a list of messages he wanted relayed to her brother. “And give Morna a kiss. And Jillian—that will make Monty sore, so dinna ferget to do it, aye?”
“Who is Jillian?”
&
nbsp; Ewan laughed. “Jillian is the faery lass. Did James not tell ye the tale?”
Gaspar resisted the urge to cross himself again, but he thought that since the Muir Witches had been real people, then maybe this faery would be as well. His heart lightened instantly when Isobelle returned to his side and slid her hand into his.
They moved further into the cellars, then filed into a small room. He thought it ridiculous to climb up into the small stone tomb, but he could not falter for Isobelle’s sake. He simply placed all his trust in James.
And if James had led them astray, Gaspar would beat him to a bloody puddle.
“Dinna fash,” James repeated once the three of them were inside. “We’ll just cover the hole here…” He scooted a heavy round of wood, like a slice of a stump, into the hole at their feet without bothering to light a torch beforehand.
“Where is the door?” Gaspar reached out and pushed against the nearest wall.
“There’s no door but the hole in the floor.” James said. “But I think it best if we hold tight to each other for a moment before we open it.”
“James,” Gaspar said with warning in his voice. “Where do we go from here?”
A large hand reached out and took hold of Gaspar’s tunic. “It is not so much that we go anywhere. But I believe the tomb itself…goes, and we are…taken.”
“You are mad!” Gaspar whispered. Then he noticed Isobelle was shaking again. “Here. Open the hole again. We are finished with this.”
James’s hand held firm for a minute more. Then he sighed. “I hope it was long enough.”
There was a bit of whispering in the room below and as James fumbled with the wood, Gaspar grew more and more furious. But he would see Isobelle tended to before he took her kin to task. No matter what their secrets, their silliness could not be overlooked. First thing in the morning, she could bid them all a final fare thee well, and together, they would be gone from this place.
“Witches,” he sneered to himself.
The hole in the floor was suddenly open and the room below much brighter than when they’d left it.
“Don’t be grumbling about witches, Dragon.” An ancient woman frowned up at him. “You’ll thank us before the day is done.”
A strange ladder was suspended below the hole and James climbed down upon it first. Then the device was gone and a large man stood beneath the hole and frowned as the old woman had. “Is she up there, James? Ye didna come back without her, did ye?”
“Nay, Monty. She’s there, if her dragon will let her out.”
“Monty!” Isobelle fell to her knees. Then suddenly she squeaked and tipped forward. Gaspar barely caught her by the backs of her calves.
“Here, now. Let her go, ye bastard. I’ve got her, but ye must let her go.”
Gaspar released Isobelle’s feet and prayed she would be safe, though why her brother had suddenly arrived, he knew not.
“Come out, Gaspar. Ye’re safe here.” It was James’ voice.
“Gaspar?” Isobelle was now beneath the hole with her head tipped back and her lovely pink face smiling up at him. “I’ll begin kissing every man in sight until you come down from there.”
He needed no further provocation. “Then you’d best move to the side, my love.”
A heartbeat later, he landed on his feet before her and he was certain she hadn’t had the chance to kiss any of them. Unfortunately, there were a great many men in the room from which she might choose.
He pulled Isobelle behind him, but his hand was suddenly empty. He turned to find her wrapped in the arms of the large one who was hopefully her brother, though there was another man in the room that looked precisely the same.
“I assume you are Montgomery Ross,” Gaspar said by way of greeting. Then he gestured toward the man’s replica. “And I hope you are not also a set of witches.”
The brother grinned and opened his arms, allowing Isobelle to step away from him. Gaspar feared the man was going to embrace him as he had his sister, but he shouldn’t have worried. Montgomery Ross had nothing so affectionate in mind…
When the man’s fist failed to knock Gaspar to the ground, Isobelle beamed with pride. Too bad he allowed his attention to linger on her, for the second blow was much more effective.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Jillian was thrilled for Monty—he might finally be able to forgive himself for what had happened to Isobelle while he’d been head of their clan. She wanted to sit down and have a good cry on his behalf, but there would be plenty of time for tears later. For now, she had to keep from scaring the newcomers to death. Remaining calm was essential. No use having them run screaming out of the cellars only to die of shock once they got a glimpse of someone talking on a cell phone.
Once James, Isobelle, and Gaspar were out of the tomb and on their feet in the little workroom—and the latter recovered from his introduction to Montgomery’s fist—Jillian explained that they’d travelled forward in time and now stood in Castle Ross in the 21st century. Isobelle had laughed and thought it was a joke. Gaspar hadn’t even smiled.
“If there are witches and faeries in the world,” he’d said, “then anything might be possible.”
“And if Isobelle has allowed her hair to be cut,” said Morna, “then the world is not what any of us knew it to be, aye?”
They waited until Isobelle understood they were serious then gave her a moment to accept it. With a firm hold on both Gaspar and Morna, she seemed ready to at least try.
Since there were twelve people packed in the little room, they were all relieved when Isobelle and Gaspar were ready to be exposed to the 21st century. They filed out of the workroom and up into the hall. The Muir sisters were followed by James, then Juliet and Quinn and their son Percy, Morna and Ivar, and Isobelle and her handsome friend. Jillian and Montgomery brought up the rear, mostly because she was too pregnant to climb the stairs quickly.
It only took a good look at the drastic changes to the hall, with its red velvet tourist trappings and crumbling stones, to convince Isobelle. As agreed beforehand, Jillian and the rest bit their tongues and resisted revealing too much too fast. Instead, they allowed the two newcomers to ask the questions. They’d also agreed not to speak of cars and airplanes and television until necessary. They figured computers could maybe wait a month.
To the disappointment of two dozen tourists, they closed Castle Ross for the day. And as someone who had once been a tourist of the castle, hoping to have a peek at the famous necklace of Isobelle Ross, Jillian felt truly sorry they had to be turned away. But she had also helped Monty, Morna and Ivar adjust to the shock of the 21st century, and she knew the best thing for Isobelle and her man was to keep them inside the castle until some things had been explained.
It didn’t help matters that James hadn’t given them any warning.
It had all been decided long ago that seniority-wise, Montgomery was rightful Laird of Castle Ross, even though the clan now consisted of the immediate family at that point. So, since her husband was The Shiz, and she, Lady Shiz, Jillian ducked outside and did her lady-of-the-castle duty and called for supplies on her cell. She figured they might be in for a long siege. There was no telling how much time the couple would need to process each bit of information, and Jillian made it clear to the others there would be no rushing. She wasn’t going to see her newly reclaimed sister-in-law end up in the loony bin.
The modern-though-ancient set of Muir sisters produced umbrellas and massive sunglasses from their car and, together with young Percy, sat in folding chairs at the entrance to the car park, prepared for whatever weather came up. To be helpful, they sent the tourists away as gently as possible. The excuse that upset the fewest people was to claim that an intervention was being staged for one of the family members with a substance-abuse problem. Most folks nodded in understanding and turned back without much grumbling. For where better than Scotland might someone need help overcoming their love for the drink, or whatever it might be?
That explana
tion was much better than Lorraine’s first suggestion—she’d wanted to tell everyone the castle was closed for the annual meeting of the local witch coven. Montgomery threatened to cut out her tongue, and Loretta’s too, if she so much as mentioned witches. He’d been suspected of being a witch one too many times that day. Lorraine really should have known better than to tease him.
Jillian could tell Isobelle and Gaspar weren’t the only ones who would need adjusting since Monty couldn’t keep from glaring at the couple’s clasped hands. So she watched and waited, knowing there would be trouble, but confident she carried an ace up her sleeve for when that trouble came.
By the time the pizzas arrived, they’d covered the basics. A bit of history, a lot of plumbing, and the circumstances that brought Morna and Ivar back together. Jillian thought it best not to let Isobelle know that she and her sister, Juliet, were also, quite probably, Muir Witches. They were still trying to wrap their own heads around it. But she did admit to being the faery prophesied to reunite Morna and Ivar—though she insisted she wasn’t a true faery, just a woman who’d been put inside a tricky tomb.
Gaspar seemed relieved to hear it, but he often glanced between her and her sister Juliet, who resembled her in every way except her darker hair. The pink hair extension drew the man’s attention every few minutes, but he looked afraid to ask.
For lack of chairs, they sat about on the floor while they ate. Monty insisted Jillian at least sit on the edge of the dais. The pizza didn’t seem to bother the new couple, and remembering what 15th century cuisine was like, Jillian wasn’t surprised. James was eager to list an entire menu of things he intended to eat, in order of priority. Morna told what foodstuffs she missed the most, but admitted there were plenty of things to make up for the loss, like chocolate. Food, it seemed, was safe topic that eventually helped everyone relax—everyone except Montgomery.
