by L. L. Muir
“My condolences, Ross. I heard Isobelle was as great a beauty as my daughter-of-the-law.” The Gordon sat and accepted wine. “I fancy a ceremony on the morn as I wish to be headed north by the nooning hour.”
The meeting could not have gone better, to Monty’s thinking. In but a day’s time, he’d have someone other than his hulking cousin at his side. Surely, after he and his wife spent some time together, the blasted loneliness would be gone, as if it had never been.
Although he was never one to ignore one of Ewan’s foul feelings, surely this time his cousin was allowing his emotions to rule his tongue. Ewan had ever been as loyal to Morna and Isobelle as he’d been to Monty, and the man begrudged the Gordons not making Morna welcome. After a year, the stubborn woman continued to be unhappy, but their cousin refused to believe any fault lay at her feet.
At this time on the morrow, Monty would have a wife, his clan would have a reason to celebrate, and Ewan’s foul feeling would be proved as naught but a foul humor.
Anything less and someone would bleed.
Chapter Three
“The Pub”, East Burnshire, Present-Day Scotland
Jillian really had no choice; she had to break into Castle Ross or start taking schizophrenia meds.
That flight-or-fight voice in her head had been joined by a decidedly masculine set of vocal chords insisting that flight was no longer an option. She kept hearing, “Get back here!” And no matter how many times she looked behind her, no one was there. The phone call, as they say, was coming from inside the house…
Thankfully, the insane summons was drowned out by a band of older Scotsmen striking up a lively tune. Soon the only tension left in the air was the fiddle player’s bow as it skittered across the strings. One man pounded on a bodhran, another played a small version of bagpipes, pumping air with a bellows under one arm instead of blowing with his mouth. Only a statue could have resisted tapping its toes to the tempo.
During the castle tour, Quinn Ross had plugged The Pub and mentioned he came here “of an evening.” As soon as he showed, if he showed, Jillian planned to borrow one of the dozens of bikes propped up around the village green and do something she’d never done in her life...
Break the law.
It was still coming, that holy-crap-moment, and the warning was getting louder in a way she could never explain. Jillian only hoped she wouldn’t be explaining it to a policeman who wouldn’t have the slightest appreciation for Americans who broke into castles when ordered to do so by the voices in their heads.
Jillian chose the path of self-medication and ordered a Green-Toed Faery, doing a slightly dignified, seated jig while she waited for the drink. A giant bag of chocolate was what she really wanted, but the only store in town closed at seven.
Seven! You would think she was back in Wyoming.
Clutching onto the bar and any excuse for conversation with the bartender, Jillian could feel the curious gazes trained on the back of her jacket, and every now and then she would force herself to turn and look casually around the smoky pub if only to relieve her paranoia.
The old Jillian would be sitting back at the B&B waiting for someone to tell her what she’d be doing next, but she wasn’t ready to go back to being the obedient help. She was getting pretty tired of that role, and it was high time that changed.
At her quiet end of the bar, the only one who might help distract her was Jock, the barkeep. She watched him pour drinks and reach past his substantial belly to set the glasses on the counter. Patrons were happy to keep their spills and watermarks close to the inside of the bar where Jock could more easily reach them.
As busy as he was, Jillian suspected Jock was the only one in town who had not heard about her failed attempt to end the Ross Curse.
Jock’s fussing brought him back to her end of the counter, a beautiful length of thick wood damaged and re-polished so many times it looked more like a long dark river rock made smooth by water and time. He flung one end of his towel over his red-suspendered shoulder and left it there while he gathered up dirty glasses.
“Bad day at the jewelry shop?” he asked with a wink.
Silly her. Of course the bartender would have heard about her humiliation.
Jillian hung her head. She’d been struggling to hold it up all afternoon, and music or no music, she just couldn’t do it anymore.
“Aw, come now, lassie. Dinna fash. Think of it this way, if ye’d have succeeded somehow, it would have ruined the tourist trade, aye? Turned our wee community into dust. A ghost shire with no ghosts.” He patted her hand with his large smooth one. “So we’re every one of us obliged.”
Jillian raised her head and blew the man a kiss. He’d just moved to the top of her list of favorite Scots. But was he right? Would ending the curse mess with the people here?
A clang announced the opening of the pub’s wide door, and Jillian scooted closer to the shadows.
She couldn’t stop her stomach from clenching when she imagined the old sisters hunting her down. If she was smart, she would think of a way to never have to face Lorraine and Loretta again, even though she couldn’t blame the afternoon’s fiasco on the sisters. She’d latched onto the lure of Scotland like a hungry fish after a shiny bug. The Curse had merely given her an excuse to get there.
Ending the curse might not be her destiny, but destiny was definitely calling her from the direction of Castle Ross. She just needed to break back into the old hall and find out what it wanted. And she needn’t worry about conspiring Scots since the place would be empty for the night.
Jillian propped an elbow on the glossy counter, cradled her jaw in her hand, and sighed into her fluorescent drink. It was as sad as it was amusing, this temptation to pull aside the hair on her forehead and ask Jock if she might have a Harry Potter-esque scar on her brow that read fool.
“Avoiding the Muir sisters, then?” Jock smiled at Jillian before turning to fill a pint for the newcomer.
Jillian wasn’t surprised. Many of the local Scots had greeted the old gals by name when they’d arrived in East Burnshire.
“They must have been here a few times.”
“A few.” Jock laughed. “I’d say they’re here nearly twice as often as the others.”
“Other what?”
“Other ghost busters.” He frowned. “Did they no’ tell ye that’s what they be?”
Jillian choked on her drink and wondered if tomorrow she’d be blowing fluorescent green crap out of her nose. “Oh, I knew they brought me here to listen to a ghost story, and to try on the necklace,” she confessed, “but the term ‘ghost busters’ makes it sound like they might have packed Haz-Mat suits in their luggage.”
Jock laughed while he carried clinking glasses to the sink but returned a bit more serious.
“The ghost of Castle Ross is no joke to this town, mind ye. Nor to His Lairdship. Without the revenue from the telly folk, the castle would have fallen into American hands long ago.” He swallowed. “No offense, then.”
Jillian waved away his concern. “Haunted Castles of Scotland, and all that?”
“Aye.” Jock started polishing a glass that had yet to be washed, but before Jillian could point that out, he took the dirty thing to the sink and pulled out a clean towel. He came back to polish the portion of the bar he could easily reach. “Never underestimate the tourist trade. Quinn Ross is a shrewd mon. As was his fither before ‘im. Those telly folk pay a dear coin to get inside Castle Ross with their shade sniffers, aye?”
“Shade sniffers?”
“Shades are ghosts, lass. Ghost findin’ equipment, aye?”
“Aye.” The word just popped out. It was a natural reaction but she hadn’t meant to mock him. His smile told her he didn’t offend easily either.
“As I said, if there were no ghost of Isobelle Ross, or Quinn the Mighty Caretaker, there would no longer be an East Burnshire,” he puffed. Talking and scrubbing at the same time had proved too much. He flipped the towel over his shoulder once again and lean
ed against the bar. “Even if the mon is not the actual laird of Clan Ross, he’s laird enough to the likes o’ us. He’s earned his title as much as any auld hielander, ye ken?”
“Yes, I k…can understand that.”
As the evening crowd multiplied, she lost Jock’s attention. Eventually, he completely abandoned the English language in favor of growling and grunting at his other customers, the latter merrily clearing their throats and spitting Gaelic in response. At least she thought it was Gaelic. Her grandmother had taught it to her—both for the sport of talking about others at church without being understood, and so Jillian might be able to understand their supposed “enemies.”
The church thing would shock the Muir sisters right down to their compression socks.
No more excuses, then. It didn’t look like Quinn was going to show, so she just had to hope he didn’t peek out the windows of the big house at the moment she broke into his tourist attraction next door.
She checked her image in the mirror behind the bar one last time. Black straight hair and marble green eyes stared back, and she marveled at how she fit in to the local crowd. Who knew Scottish ancestry could be so prominent in a girl from so far away?
She pulled her bangs across what may or may not be a word bubbling up on her forehead and turned to the doorway...which was blocked by her matched set of companions.
Crap.
The women she’d come to think of as the sweetest little old ladies in the world had mutated. Like a double-dose of Vanna White, they parted and pointed to the door behind them. As Jillian took in their steely smiles and raised eyebrows, she smelled a rat.
Make that two. And they had something besides blue veins up their sleeves.
Jillian looked back to Jock for help, but his attention was elsewhere. With no obvious options, she reluctantly preceded Loretta and Lorraine out of the pub.
Crisp sounds traveled easily in the moist night air, and the pea gravel crackled like cereal under her green ostrich boots as they walked to the rental car. Whatever they had in mind, it would make for a very late night if she had to entertain these two before turning to crime.
Jillian climbed into the backseat. The sisters got in front without saying a word, but the Silent Treatment suited her fine. There was nothing she wanted to talk about, especially the stupid necklace. But when no one made a move to start the engine, the silence got uncomfortable.
“Okay, uncle. Where are we going?” Jillian hated that she’d spoken first. “Are we waiting for something?” She hoped it wasn’t a lecture on the proper way to let your companions know you are walking back to town instead of waiting for them.
The ladies, she finally noticed, were watching the North road into East Burnshire.
“Haven’t you guessed yet, Jillian dear?” The driver patted her hair with a veiny left hand. Lorraine. “We’re not waiting for something. We’re waiting for someone.”
Even in the dark vehicle, Jillian caught the not-so-sly elbow Loretta gave her sister. It was a mild jab, no doubt in deference to the risk of shattering both Lorraine’s ribs and Loretta’s arm, but the meaning was the same.
Jillian suddenly had a vision of haz-mat suits stuffed in the trunk.
Headlights came down the road and the sisters ducked. Maybe it was what she planned to do later that made Jillian duck too. A black SUV rolled to a gravel-crunching stop near the rear of the pub and she reminded herself to breathe while she waited to see who would emerge. Scrunched into the shadows for no sane reason, she would have giggled if she weren’t nervous about what the twins were planning.
Light reflected off all angles of the shiny black door as Quinn Ross climbed out from behind the wheel. He wore jeans and a dark jacket, a wonder to behold all right, and she realized what made the man an eyeful had little to do with the bare knees and kilt she’d seen him wearing earlier. She could only imagine what the ancient laird, Montgomery Ross, could have looked like in street clothes.
Quinn glanced at the cars in the parking lot and Jillian prayed he wouldn’t notice the two piles of blue hair that hadn’t cleared the dashboard.
Chapter Four
If Jillian was going down, Lorraine and Loretta were going down with her.
It was only when they were flying down the road that the sisters finally confessed they meant to break into Castle Ross. After hearing it come out of an old lunatic’s mouth, the plan sounded absolutely stupid. What the hell had she been thinking?
Now she was a captive in the small, nearly airborne car at the mercy of an ancient Mrs. Andretti, whose memory of British driving rules came and went with every curve. They were holding on for dear life, and Loretta’s help consisted of calmly repeating, “Left side, dear,” in rhythm with Lorraine’s strobe-light Alzheimer’s.
With arms wide, both hands splayed against fogging windows in an attempt to subdue the storm in her stomach, Jillian sent an unkind thought to whichever high school student supplied the sisters with fake I.D.’s, claiming they were still young enough to drive.
Sneaking into the castle unnoticed would be hard enough for Jillian alone, but with a couple of blue glow-in-the-dark, crisp-boned ladies picking a delicate path from shadow to shadow, they were doomed.
She didn’t know what they called “breaking and entering” in the U.K., but surely the punishment would be harsh. With her luck, these two would pretend to be her victims she’d get an added charge of taking advantage of doddering old women.
If Lorraine would only slow down, Jillian would try jumping from the car, but even though they were nearing the castle, the woman showed no intention of letting up on the gas. When the ugly beast that hardly deserved the title of automobile lurched to a stop, Jillian was too relieved to attempt an escape. In fact, she was already preparing herself for her extended, forced stay in a Scottish jail, which she hoped to find as quaint as the rest of the country.
Maybe that’s the way my world was supposed to change today—narrowing to a permanent view of cinder blocks and bars.
The sisters took her by the elbows once more and led her down the darkened path toward the stone structure. They followed the same steps they had taken earlier that day, all but skipping over the bridge like tourists arriving for an advertised midnight show.
Jillian looked up at the battlements where she had first seen Quinn posing in all his plaid-swathed glory. Tonight there were only stars and clouds pushing at each other above the jagged merlons. Even now, the image of him standing there sent chills tickling up her spine, as if he’d been the ghost of the other laird granting her a rare glimpse of his person.
Creeping around the rear of Castle Ross in the dark was an adrenaline rush, making it hard for Jillian to breathe normally. The stars were losing their fight with the clouds, quickly snatching up their meager light and fleeing. And even though she balked at the telling of ghost stories, while the shadows stretched and overlapped around her, she was surprised how quickly she could change into a believer.
It was the same thrill she’d had sneaking out in the middle of the night when she was a teenager. However, instead of lurking up and down the streets of her neighborhood with her friends at the age of thirteen, she was sneaking around private property with two old women whose fake I.D.’s said they were 69, but who couldn’t be a day less than eighty. And there wasn’t even the hope of getting a kiss out of the cute boy next door to make the adventure worth her while.
The absurdity of it made her laugh. Then she couldn’t stop; the cute boy next door was down at the pub and they were here to steal his necklace.
A silky smooth, but bony hand slid over Jillian’s mouth. Right hand. Bumps. Loretta. The humor of the situation evaporated. Of course, she couldn’t tell in the dark, but she was sure the old woman was still smiling sweetly.
“Hush, Jillian dear, or I’ll conk you on the head.”
Jillian wouldn’t put it past either of them.
As if on cue, Lorraine slid a crowbar out of the elastic waistband of her slacks. When Jillian
backed away from it, Loretta chuckled. “It’s only for the door, dear.”
Lorraine wielded the weapon like a familiar friend and popped the padlock from the entrance where a sign read “Personnel Only.” Loretta touched where the hardware had split the wood and gave her sister a scowl.
“Well, we didn’t have a key, sister, did we?” Lorraine said quietly.
Loretta shook her head and started inside, paused, and grabbed hold of Jillian, tugging her to the now open doorway.
“I don’t want to break a hip while on vacation, so you go first, please,” she whispered.
“Well, I don’t want to go to jail on vacation, but no one seems to care,” Jillian whispered more forcefully.
Neither sister was inclined to comment.
Once all three were inside and the door pressed shut, Lorraine pulled a flashlight from her pocket. Thus armed, the crowbar in one hand and the light in the other, the shriveled woman took the lead, Jillian and Loretta shuffling along in her wake.
Like so many castles, this one had seen additions and renovations through the centuries, and with all the hallways they passed through, Jillian would not have been surprised if they were hopelessly lost. On the brighter side, they might stumble upon a group of tourists in the morning and blend in until they found their way safely—and legally—out.
Loretta’s clear voice rang out from the darkness behind her. “Should be the next right, sister.”
So much for getting lost. Just how many times had these two toured that castle, anyway?
Jillian stopped dead in her tracks. Loretta bumped into her with a grunt. Lorraine must have noticed they weren’t following and returned with the light.
Two weeks ago she’d been an innocent, law-abiding girl before she’d run into these two...rats...in the genealogical library. How incredibly helpful they’d been.
What a crock.
“What is it, Jillian?” Lorraine whispered.
