by L. L. Muir
Gapsar nodded again to Ermacora. “Unquestionable compensation, Captain.”
The man frowned, wasting precious time. “Is it your money, or does it belong to The Patriarch of Venice?”
“Mine.”
Ermacora smiled. “Then I have no qualms about taking it.” He strode quickly to the port side and shouted over the rail at the unseen boats. “Stay back, my friends, or we will send your lanchas to the bottom of the lagoon! I was warned at Murano that the patriarch’s guards carry the Black Death. Even now, you come too close.”
A denial came from the distance along with a command to allow them to board.
Ermacora laughed. “You leave me no choice. I hope your men can swim.” He then ordered the oars back in the water and for the crew to brace themselves for impact.
Gaspar translated for James and Isobelle.
Ermacora walked back to them. “I suggest you and your friends go into my cabin immediately.” He gestured to a set of steps that led beneath the upper deck. “And decide how much I am to be compensated.”
Gaspar gave the captain a grateful bow and led the others away before they might be noticed. James brought the trunk and Gaspar took the opportunity to take Isobelle’s hand to pull her along. Icarus followed.
“And consider carefully, Dragon,” Ermacora said to their backs, “the worth of a soul.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Edinburgh, two weeks later…
Isobelle glared at James and hoping the gash on his chin hurt him something fierce. He and Gaspar had been poking at each other for the past week and she was prepared to clunk their heads together if they went at it again.
They were seated around a corner table at the Black Hart Coaching Inn. She kept her head covered with a dark hood in case the serving women might gossip. Anyone who caught sight of her unsettling hair would find it difficult to keep their tongues between their teeth, and if anyone recognized her from some visit to Castle Ross…
Of course, it was difficult not to draw attention to a party that consisted of a scarred dragon with a black eye and a giant with hair the color of flame. He had a handsome, foreign look about him—though, when he opened his mouth he could be nothing but a Scot. His French accent was atrocious, but Icarus had proven the most talented with that language. In fact, the little man had decided that France was the best place for them to part company. He had his freedom, after all. And James had hesitated when asked if the little man might be welcomed when they met up with Monty.
“It isn’t that he won’t be welcomed, mind ye. More like he may wish he hadn’t gone. There would be no coming back.”
Icarus hadn’t liked the sound of that detail, so he’d disembarked in Cherbourg. Gaspar spent a good while thanking the man before Icarus disappeared, becoming part of the crowd moving along the docks.
Now they were three, sitting in an inn, stuffing their gobs as James put it, and waiting for horses.
Isobelle noticed that Gaspar grimaced and turned his head to the wall each time a well-dressed woman entered the Inn. And after he’d reacted the same way half a dozen times, she teased him about it.
“You will remember,” he said quietly, “that I have known a fair share of noble Scotswomen from my years at the English court. I merely prefer not to be recognized.”
She sat straight when she did, indeed, remember what he’d shared with her about his youth. And she suddenly understood why the man had been fighting with James. He was jealous. Fearful James might win her away from him. It was the same way she now felt about the better-dressed women in the room, as if each of them might have known her dragon, even if it had been long, long ago.
James wanted to know more. She told him to shut his gob. And when Gaspar started laughing at James for having been put in his place, she slapped his arm, though gently.
Then James snorted.
Isobelle glared at the big man. “I will not stand for more of yer nonsense.” Gaspar laughed again and she turned her glare to him. “Nor yers, ye daft dragon. If ye wish to punish every man who looks my way, and I begin punishing the women for looking at ye, the whole of Scotland will be orphaned, ye ken? I’m yers, ye eegit. Ye must be content with that. Ye canna be the only man to see me unless ye lock me in a tower, aye?” Then she rolled her eyes dramatically. “Oh, but that didna work so well, did it?”
Gaspar sobered, then grumbled an apology to her.
“Not to me, my love. Apologize to Wee James.”
Gaspar gave a devilish smile. “I beg yer pardon…Wee James.”
James’ grin fell from his face. His jaw ground back and forth, then he winced and stopped abruptly. He continued to glare at Gaspar while he put his finger gently to his damaged chin.
Isobelle sighed and got to her feet. “Lads,” she said in disgust, and glanced toward the door for signs of their horses. She was anxious to quit the place if only to be free of prying eyes. But there was no sign yet of the stable lad.
“Isobelle Ross!” A voice called from behind her as she turned back to the table and she froze like a stone. If she turned, someone would know they’d identified her correctly. If she ignored them…
She looked frantically to Gaspar and noted the tiniest shake of his head. Then he said something to her in Italian, as if they were in the middle of a discussion. He looked at her, as if waiting for her to respond in kind. But she could count her Italian words on ten fingers.
“Troppo grasso,” she said with a shrug. The veil beneath her hood draped down both sides of her head and she tucked it closer to her cheeks.
“Forgive me.” The stranger was suddenly at her shoulder. He spoke English. “I have seen you before, have I not?”
Again, Gaspar shook his head and stood, for which she was grateful, since she was fair to certain she was about to collapse to the floor, and she hoped he might catch her.
“You have me at a disadvantage, sir.” Gaspar didn’t reach for her. In fact, he moved away from her a bit.
“I am Father Clellan. And you are surely Gaspar Dragotti? Special Investigator to The Patriarch of Venice?”
“I am Dragotti.” If he would have said, “I am a dragon,” he would have been believed as well, his confidence was that effective.
Isobelle prayed his stern look would convince the man to leave Gaspar in peace. But the unwelcomed priest lingered.
“You will find this amusing then, Signore. When I first glimpsed this lady, I mistook her for a young woman who had once been condemned as a witch. A Scottish woman, in fact.”
The priest tilted his head to one side to get a better look at her. Gaspar stepped further away and she realized he did so to lure the man’s attention from her. When the priest continued to peer around her hood, Gaspar gestured for the man to come to him, which he did. Finally free of his attention, she stepped closer to James and bent as if to speak to him. Then she listened.
“Father Clellan, I promise not to translate your words, so Signore Crescento will not be offended. In these frightening times, you can understand why she would not view your mistake as amusing.”
The priest stammered. “Uh…uh… Of course, of course! And travelling with God’s Dragon…” He gasped. “Of course. Forgive me.”
After an uncomfortable pause, Gaspar continued. “This is the problem with our kind, Clellan. We have condemned innocent women for less, have we not?”
Through the edge of her veil, she watched the priest nod until he grasped what he was confessing to. His head stopped and his eyes widened.
Gaspar raised an imperious brow. “We must work harder to find the truth. Must we not?”
Clellan nodded quickly, then looked awkwardly about him. James stood and the priest started, then offered Gaspar a shallow bow. “Forgive me, Signore. I have Mass to prepare. Godspeed to you and… He waved a hand toward her and James. “I am at St. Mary’s.” He started backing away. “If you have any need of my services, you need only send word.”
Gaspar nodded. Clellan turned and scurried away like
a nervous rat.
Once the man was gone, Isobelle sat again and struggled to breathe normally. Clellan had been the priest to whom young Orie had confessed. And the bastard who’d condemned her to die had come from St. Mary’s as well. The one whose hands Montgomery had offered to cut off if he didn’t contain his unholy glee.
And he was probably still there in Edinburgh, within minutes from her! But she wasn’t thinking of discovery just then—she was contemplating revenge.
Gaspar and James, no longer squabbling, stood over her protectively. She opened her mouth to tell them…something, but she couldn’t form the words. She was both terrified and seething with hatred. There was little doubt—if she asked them—that the two men beside her would send the man to Hell…
But the words would not come.
Unfortunately, her tears had no such trouble and poured freely down her cheeks to splash on her veil now bunching at her neck.
Gaspar pulled her up and into his arms in spite of a wide room filled with witnesses. After pressing her head briefly against him, he pulled back to look into her eyes.
“Je suis désolé,” he said in French. “There is no English way to express it accurately. I am desolated for you, that you should have suffered such torture at the hands of men…like me. And then, for the benefit to fall to me—one of them.” He shook his head feverishly. “How can you possibly forgive me, sweet Isobelle?”
Suddenly, she felt much too wonderful looking into Gaspars warm eyes, and all thoughts of revenge melted through her fingers. As close as she was to vengeance, as easily as she might reach for it, she knew that there was a choice to make—one and not the other. Gaspar and happiness and love, or hate and anger and vengeance. An easier choice had never been.
She smiled and put her hands to the sides of his head to sooth him. “I found Paradise, my dragon. It matters not how I found it.” She rose to her toes and kissed him long enough for him to believe her. Then she sighed. “Now. Let us go home, aye?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Monty stood with Ivar in a room dubbed The Man Cave by his modern wife and her sister, though the only stone in the room surrounded the hearth. And if it weren’t for his insisting against it, Jillian might have allowed the contracting man to use false stones. Why would the world have invented false stones when true stones lay on the ground for the taking?
It was one of the symptoms of an ill civilization, he was certain.
He and Ivar turned at the sound of ice tinkling against glasses.
“The Muirs are coming,” Jillian announced as she entered the newly painted room.
Monty hastened to take the tray of drinks from her, then he gave her a scowl. “Firstly, ye shouldna be toting heavy things about in yer condition, and not in a newly painted house, aye? The fumers—”
“Fumes,” she corrected and rolled her eyes. “And the paint is dry. The fumes are gone.” She took one of the glasses from the tray and handed it to Ivar.
“And secondly, ye should never walk into a room and announce that those meddling old women have come to call. Ye should invite us to sit and brace ourselves before ye share the bad news, aye?”
Jillian nodded. “I see your point there.”
“And thirdly.”
Her brows rose in the way they did when he lectured overmuch. She had issues with being ordered about, whatever that meant. After all the months he’d spent in her century, he was beginning to have issues with the word issues.
“And third,” he said again. “I dinna care to hear ye lie, Jillian. Even when ye’re but jesting with me.” He set the tray on a chair and took a glass for himself. Lemonade, they called it. He was fair to certain it was puckering his innards, but he couldn’t seem to quit the stuff.
His wife grinned. “I wasn’t lying, Montgomery. My aunts are here.”
Lemonade spouted from his lips and he fought to keep it from climbing up his nose. He glared at Jillian, then looked around him at the damage done. He’d sprayed the stuff all over the floor and Ivar was wiping his face with the back of his sleeve, his eyes promising some sort of revenge.
“Ye see what happens when ye call them family?” Monty pointed at the wet little circles on the subfloor. “It is good the carpetors have yet to arrive.”
“Carpet layers,” she corrected.
No matter what they were called, Monty worried that once he had his carpets and the wee castle was finished, he might never allow anyone inside for fear of mussing his home.
The twenty-first century was a grand place for keeping clean, and he rather liked the idea of his new home stayin’ that way. If his own boots weren’t clean enough and he needed to go indoors, he planned to walk over to Ivar and Morna’s castle and muddy their floors instead.
His sister’s home would be finished in the next day or two as well. Of course, she’d married a MacKay, so she’d be living on the far side of the burn. Monty and Jillian—and their expected sons—would live on the Ross side. The trees that used to surround the Ross/MacKay burn back in the 15th century were gone long ago, but a peaceful forest still grew. And though the burn itself had turned into a small river, he and Ivar had decided there was not a more appropriate place to build their new homes.
Jillian and her twin sister, Juliet—who now lived beside Castle Ross—mocked Ivar and him for insisting on curtain walls around their modest keeps, but the women would never understand. A man must protect his family the best he knew how, and he and Ivar knew how to defend their homes with curtain walls. They were still working on collecting men at arms, but each time they found a fit man and made an offer, they were laughed at. When next they went to the city, they planned to consider a more sober sort.
There was another fine reason for the curtain wall which he didn’t share with his wife, however—that one day he and Ivar might have another falling out, as they’d once done, and Monty wanted a wall between them in case that day came. And Ivar, being no fool himself, was no doubt preparing for the same. Of course, he couldn’t fathom anything that might cause such a rift between them again. But the fact was, it had happened once, so it could happen again. Especially if Monty and Jillian’s boys got into mischief one day with their MacKay cousins, and sides needed to be taken.
And just as the mason had said, who’d built those walls, a good fence a good neighbor makes, or something to that effect.
The three of them took their drinks and went outside to meet the witches. Monty claimed he wished to breathe unpainted air, but what he truly wished was for Loretta and Lorraine to never step foot inside his home. If they stopped to admire a wall, Monty would worry he might one day find a tunnel on the other side of it. The two simply could not be trusted.
Morna’s black SUV pulled through the gate just as the old sisters were climbing out of their small car. Ivar kissed his wife at the bottom of the stairs, then greeted the sisters cheerfully, damn him.
Monty opened his mouth and Jillian reached a hand up to cover it. Then she gave him a stern look. “Be nice,” she said.
Monty rolled his eyes. When was he ever un-nice?
“Welcome,” he said to his sister and assumed the witches would think he was talking to them all. Then he turned to Jillian and smiled innocently.
She rolled her eyes and abandoned him to greet the unwanted ones. He bit his tongue and withheld his aid as she swayed back and forth down the steps. She’d warned him, if he lectured her again on breathing, walking, and the like, she would go live with her sister until the babies were born. And he believed her.
Of course, if the witches hadn’t come visiting, there’d have been no need for her to descend the stairs yet again.
One of the old sisters looked up at him sharply and wrinkled her nose. “One day, you’ll appreciate us, Montgomery Ross.”
“Oh, I do. I do,” he said for Jillian’s benefit. “What do ye think of our new homes? ‘Tis a pity they’re not closer to Castle Ross where ye might pop in whenever ye like, aye?”
The other sister finishe
d hugging his wife and grinned knowingly at him, but he refused to believe the woman kenned something he did not.
“They’re fine houses, both of them. Yer children will find happiness here.”
He snorted, though he was relieved to hear they weren’t predicting otherwise.
“We see just one problem,” said the first sister, grinning like a fool.
“Oh?” Ivar took Morna’s hand and gave the old woman his full attention. Jillian looked equally as concerned. Monty frowned, not happy in the least the sisters would make his delicate wife worry.
“What problem?” he demanded. And though the pair would prefer that he wring his hands and beg for their secrets, that was all the bending he would do.
The sisters smiled at each other, then turned to Morna. “Where will you put the third one?” they asked in unison.
“The third what?” Ivar wrapped a protective arm around his wife and threw a worried glance up at Monty. Monty shook his head to comfort the man, but they were likely both thinking the same thing—triplets for Morna.
“The third house,” said one sister.
“For Isobelle,” said the other.
Isobelle? It was but a whisper he never allowed out of his heart.
Monty would have collapsed on the step beneath him if his legs were not bidding him run. Instead, he moved to the side and started down the steps, leaning on the half-wall—as Jillian should have done—expecting his knees to fail him as he went to Morna and took her from Ivar. Together they faced the witches.
“Where is she?” He asked politely.
“She’s coming,” said the one. “But she doesn’t come alone.”
“Is it James?” Jillian asked.
And though Monty would be grateful if the man did indeed bring his sister to them, he couldn’t suppress the brotherly instinct to pummel the man if he had been wooing his sister. Even James, impressive as he was, was not worthy of Isobelle.
