“You don’t look well,” Beatrice said. She glanced towards the dance floor. “I don’t see Violet. Shall I fetch that pet whore who hardly ever leaves your side and have her help you get into your nightclothes?”
“Don’t call her that. I promised no one here would ever know her past.”
“I’ll say and do what I please, you wee, haughty besom, and there’s one thing I’m certain of. Douglas would not want Stranraer’s famed slut filling his daughter’s head with her sinful ideas.” Beatrice huffed. “You may now be a laird’s wife, but taking in this whore and treating her like she’s decent proves you’re still the same glaikit wench you’ve always been.”
Hearing the slurs Douglas used to shout at her was almost more than Morrigan could take. She set down the crystal glass she’d been holding so hard the stem snapped as it struck the table. Wine spilled over the lace runner.
“Go to bed,” Beatrice ordered, one slightly lifted brow the only indication she knew she’d annoyed her niece.
“I can’t do that.”
“No one’ll care. You shouldn’t be here anyway. It’s indecent if you ask me.”
Of course no one would care. Doubtless no one would notice.
When Curran finished his turn about the floor with Fionna, Morrigan approached him.
“Beatrice has ordered me to bed.”
“Is something wrong? I want to dance with you.”
She shook her head. “She thinks I need rest. I confess I am tired, and out of humor.”
“I’ll go with you.” He scooped his coat from a chair.
“You can’t leave too. That would be rude.”
“No arguments, Morrigan, I’m going with you.” He beckoned to Fionna.
“One of us has to be here,” she said. “If you won’t let me go, then I’ll stay.”
He hesitated.
“Aye, Master Curran?” Fionna asked.
“For God’s sakes,” Morrigan said. “I’m just going upstairs. Am I so helpless as that?”
He glanced around the room. “Well….”
“I’m too gloomy to dance anyway. You dance for me.” With Violet, no doubt.
“Very well,” he said. “I’ll check on you in an hour or so. If you’re asleep, I won’t wake you. If you’re not, I’ll keep you company.”
He kissed her cheek. Already his attention seemed diverted, and she felt about as interesting as a housefly. Had he not done this, turned her into this ponderous thing? A compassionate husband wouldn’t let his wife dissuade him. He would insist on attending her.
As she left the room, her imagination transformed the crofters from happy, half-drunk neighbors and companions into sucking, purple leeches. They had to have their feasts and celebrations, always at the Laird of Eilginn’s expense.
This was a foul mood she’d dropped into. It was Beatrice’s fault, with her vicious comments. And mental lectures on her good fortune seemed to have an adverse effect tonight. Eleanor had warned that expectant women often wept for no reason, and for some, the doldrums grew far worse— sometimes deadly— after the child arrived.
Candlelight cast leaping shadows that waltzed with her to the round front vestibule, where traces of snow and muddy boot prints marred the expensive wood floor.
She started up the stairs. Tomorrow she’d be better. Maybe she was simply more tired than she realized.
“Lady Eilginn.”
She turned. “Mac-Mackinnon.” Humming filled her eardrums. Damn. Damn and blast.
He stepped out from the doorway of the drawing room opposite the staircase, looking up at her. “I hope you’re in good health?”
“Aye, thank you. I thought you weren’t coming. Why were you in there?” She descended the stairs and crossed the floor the stand in front of him. She had to tilt her head to meet his gaze.
“I was late, and not sure where to go.” He held up his hand with a faint smile. “I thought I’d take advantage, and have one of Curran’s cigars.”
He couldn’t have been inside for long. His hair was still dampened by snowfall, and more snow glittered on his wool-covered shoulders.
Heat gathered in her solar plexus and crawled upward into her cheeks. “They’re in the ballroom,” she said. In confirmation, fiddle music and faint shouts of laughter drifted down the hall.
Before she could lose her nerve, she blurted, “D’you realize I’ve not seen you once since you carried me off the mountain?”
“It seemed best. Seaghan has kept me informed.”
Wishing she had her fan, she forced herself to go on. “I wanted to thank you for what you did that night.”
“It was nothing.”
She stared at him and he shrugged. “After the trouble between you and your husband, because of me, I promised Seaghan I’d keep out of the way.”
She couldn’t stop clenching and unclenching her hands, and tucked them behind her back to hide it. Anger coursed through her. He cared so little he didn’t even protest being told to stay away. “Well, Beatrice has ordered me upstairs, so I suppose you won’t have to see me tonight, either.”
So unblinkingly intent was his gaze that she feared he saw more than she wanted. “Morrigan….”
She sucked in a breath as she thought of Agnes. “Sometimes I-I think you hate me,” she stammered.
“Didn’t you receive… my gift? Seaghan said he gave it to you.”
“I did. I wanted to thank you for that, too. Where did it come from? What do those words mean?”
He scanned her as he had at the oda. “I hoped you might remember.”
“Remember what?”
He gripped her shoulder, drawing her close before he glanced down. For one stifled moment he regarded the ample evidence of another man’s ownership.
“You should go to bed.” He retreated a step or two, holding himself as rigid as a coat stand.
Her breath caught in her throat. With a tightly spoken, “Goodnight, then,” she turned sharply and climbed the stairs. When she came to her sitting room she slammed the door and leaned against it.
She felt like a dragon, consumed in its own fiery breath. The girl underneath, the one trained by Douglas Lawton’s harsh lessons, cringed.
This would not do. She’d been cross for days, and sleep had long been elusive. She entered the bedroom, pulling off her shawl and gloves, dropping them carelessly on the wing chair by the fireplace.
Why had Mackinnon seemed so angry, like she had played him false?
As she pondered she stared at the fire, then at her reflection in the looking-glass over the dressing table. Her gaze rose to the flourishes at the upper corners. Eleanor had encouraged her to use the trick she called hypnotism whenever she couldn’t sleep or her lower back ached. Perhaps she should try it now.
She undressed and donned her winter nightgown, laughing at the clumsiness of her fingers. It had only been six months since she’d had no maid to dress her, but she seemed to have forgotten how to manage on her own.
There was a warming pan near the fire. She ran it between the sheets and tucked herself in. The flourishes on the mirror were in shadow, barely visible, but she stared at them anyway. Gradually, her thoughts eased and the tenseness abated. The flourish grew larger and began rotating. Everything else faded, leaving nothing but a wheeling spiral.
* * * *
A hum of voices crept over the floorboards, accompanied by flashes of white light and stark black shadows. Agony stabbed behind her eyes, heralding the rage, and its close companion, terror; terror that her loss of control would annihilate the world.
Her head lurched as though someone had plucked it off her shoulders and thrown it through empty space. She felt it soaring. The voices escalated. They sounded almost demented, but she couldn’t make out any words.
She was in a high-ceilinged room. A one-eyed, stubble-faced man plucked her four-year-old daughter right off the floor as she was running to her mother, her arms outstretched.
Evie! Morrigan screamed, but she was being held by
two other men, who laughed at her struggles.
The one who had grabbed Evie threw the child against the stone hearth. Her wails stopped and she lay motionless.
Morrigan’s awareness spiraled in hazy circles. She was so dizzy. Worse than dizzy. This was the sickening spin of vertigo.
Mama, Mama! Claire’s shrieks echoed into a vast black emptiness.
Morrigan opened her eyes. She didn’t see Kilgarry’s cozy master bedroom. Only Claire’s terrified face, begging her mam to save her.
A pair of sewing scissors lay on the table between the high-backed wing chairs. Morrigan snatched them up and brandished them. Firelight leaped along sharp edges.
She would murder these men, every one of them. She would save Claire and Romy, and her husband too. She lifted her weapon and stabbed, again and again, until blood and froth enveloped her. She moved from one brute to the next, smelling the whisky that gave them courage, and their unwashed bodies.
You’ve cursed us all with your sin.
Clouds of golden light suffused the room, blinding her. As it faded, Morrigan stared, uncomprehending, at what she held. In her arms lay the remnants of a doll, one Curran had ordered from an exclusive Parisian shop and had shipped over for the baby. Its body was torn. It bled stuffing. The porcelain head with its glass eyes and pink painted lips hung by threads.
Snowstorms of goose down floated in the air from a mangled pillow.
She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Her throat was burning. She gasped desperately, trying to soothe the anxiety that lifted gooseflesh and tensed her muscles. She couldn’t remember getting out of bed. She couldn’t remember any of this.
A pair of strong arms forced hers to her sides. The doll and scissors fell.
Thank God, someone had caught her. The rampage would be stopped. She leaned against the solid form behind her and closed her eyes. Her murderous rage dissipated, leaving her trembling and utterly exhausted.
It had been childish to hope this new life would halt the horrors that lived inside her. Primordial Glenelg had unleashed their full power. Hypnotism might be helpful to some, but it was like gunpowder for Morrigan.
“Lie down.” The man’s voice was familiar, the voice she needed at that moment beyond all others. He helped her onto the bed, brushing at feathers, tucking the covers around her.
She felt heavy, so heavy. “Look what I’ve done to the doll. Curran bought it for the baby.”
“He can get another.” Mackinnon stroked her cheek.
“Why are you here?”
“I heard you scream. I was sitting on the staircase, smoking.”
“You should go. Curran must’ve heard as well. He’ll come. If he finds you here—”
“I barely heard you. None of them could have, not with the music. I won’t leave you; you’re shaking. Here….” He rose and moved to the washstand, pouring water into the basin and dipping in a towel. He wrung it out, brought it back, and placed it gently on her forehead.
“That feels good,” she said. “My head aches like it’s going to burst.”
He dabbed at her temples and cheeks. He wet the towel with more cold water and stroked her face again.
“I can’t run from my madness anymore,” Morrigan said. “What might I do next? I felt such joy in the killing of those men….”
“There are no men. Nothing’ll harm you. I’m here.”
“But, oh, Mackinnon, it felt so real. They murdered my babies….” Hysteria started to rise again.
“Shhh.” She saw his lips tense, his nostrils flare. “You don’t have any babies. Not yet. You didn’t kill anyone, m’ eudail.”
It felt so good to let her eyes close beneath the impersonal comfort of the wet cloth. She was almost asleep when he spoke; she smelled the cold Highland night clinging to his skin as he leaned close.
“Someday we’ll be with them again,” he said. “The Greeks have a word. Lethe. Oblivion. Let me tell you about the river of forgetfulness.”
“Aye,” she said, or she thought she did. She wasn’t sure.
“Five rivers pour into the Underworld. Acheron, the river of sorrow, Phlegethon, the river of fire, Styx, the river of hate, Cocytus, the river of lamentation, and Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. We must have our memories wiped clean by Lethe before we can be born again.”
“You know many things, Mackinnon.”
“So do you. It’s all there, beneath the surface.”
“Tell me a story. Be Lethe. Make me forget.”
Placing the towel on the bedside table, he cupped her face in his hands. Firelight reflected in his eyes, and he smiled. “Like the night that Evie….”
He stopped, frowning.
“Go on. Who is Evie?” Hadn’t she said that name in her rage? It was attached to a small child, wasn’t it, the murdered child? And there had been two others. Claire and Romy. But the interlude of blood-soaked rage was growing blurry now, fading away.
She felt she was teetering on a precipice, seconds away from learning something she longed to know. Something about his face… the knowing in it, promised her life would never be the same. “Tell me.”
He’d been stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. They stilled and rested against her skin, warm and reassuring, but she felt a slight tremble. His eyes acquired a faraway look.
“Mackinnon?” She put her hand over his wrist.
His eyes cleared. “Once upon a time,” he said, “a beautiful, wise, and powerful queen was much revered by her people. The gods grew jealous, as petty gods always do. They forced her to live endless lives, each one worse than the last, until she was bent beneath the suffering, and could no longer remember her power or her glory.”
A faery tale. Morrigan loved faery tales.
“Her lover found a way to follow her through the centuries. He tried to protect her from the gods, but they were too strong. In every life the two were ripped apart and punished, over and over.
“At last the queen’s lover discovered a place the gods could not see. The couple married and had a child. A daughter.”
“A love story….”
He smiled. “After a few years, the queen quickened again. When it came time for the child to be born, she labored through the night, and as the morning sun rose over the hills, they had themselves another baby girl. Their oldest daughter was pleased, for she wanted no pesky brothers.”
“Brown eyes and curly brown hair,” Morrigan murmured. “As fine as spider webs. It tangles, oh, how it tangles when she sleeps.”
Mackinnon’s jaw clenched, but after a moment he went on, his voice breaking at first, then steadying. “The older daughter thought the baby was hurt, because of the blood. Her father told her not to worry, that the babe would soon be clean, and to give her mama a kiss, because she’d labored hard to bring this wee sister into the world.”
Morrigan sighed and curled her hand against her cheek. “A happy ending. Thank you, Mackinnon.”
The rage was gone and so was the headache, under the cool damp towel and Mackinnon’s gentle massage. Drowsily peaceful, she envisioned the couple who lived beneath a magical obscuring cloud that allowed them to snatch joy in defiance of ruthless gods.
She saw the man brush his fingertips up and down his lover’s arm as she ladled soup into bowls for the children. She imagined him reading to her while she rocked and nursed the babe. She pictured the lovers on their impossibly high cliffs, the ones she had seen before, and knew this was their special place, where they renewed the spells that kept them hidden, and where they conceived their weans.
“I should have tried harder to find you,” he whispered. “If I’d found you first…”
She sighed. She never would have guessed such rough hands as Mackinnon’s could be so tender.
“Lethe is what I long for.” His voice was sad. “Oblivion. It’s the one thing I am forever denied.”
“You don’t hate me at all, do you?” she asked.
Benevolent, happy dreams teased now, coming closer. The breez
es were brisk and salty. There was a continuous roar as the ocean battered the rocks below. Mackinnon was already here, waiting for her. This was their place, these high cliffs, above the sound and fury of the sea, with the lonely cry of gulls, and an eagle soaring overhead.
Never.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ALAS, NO ONE could pretend the marks of Saint Brigit’s wand had blessed the house.
Memories of the night dissolved into confusing fragments. Morrigan was unsure what had happened, and wondered if it had all been a dream. She didn’t feel daft when she woke, or violent, only tired and ashamed.
She dawdled over breakfast, stroking her stomach. Bonny, bonny babe. This child had done more to make her feel worthwhile than anything else in her whole life.
Had Mackinnon come to her bedroom? Had he spent hours perched on the edge of the bed, brushing her temples, telling stories?
Curran had promised to check on her. If Mackinnon had truly been there, Curran would’ve shot him. But she couldn’t recall seeing Curran. Maybe he hadn’t ever come up to bed.
It had been months since she’d seen Mackinnon, and it wouldn’t surprise her if months more passed before she saw him again. Last night might have been her only opportunity to ask about Diorbhail’s claim that he’d come into Kilgarry’s garden when she was asleep and kissed her. But what if Diorbhail had misunderstood, and he hadn’t done such a thing, had not even entertained the idea? It would be too humiliating.
“How was the evening?” she asked when Curran returned from his early-morning errands.
“Oh, lass, it was boring without you.” He kissed the top of her head.
“When did you come to bed?”
“It was late. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No.”
There was no sign of feathers or the ruined doll. Their absence made it easy to convince herself she’d dreamed the whole thing.
Douglas and Nick Lawton had been dead six months. Morrigan pictured her father’s glowering face and Nicky’s, so rakish, his hair always a mess. Now he was nothing but rotted flesh and bone in a horrid box. But this baby brought hope. New life. It was an endless circle, life, death, and constant renewal. She’d seen the truth of it from the flourishes on her mirror to the pattern of the seasons to the full moon and her own body. Everything was a circle.
The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) Page 45
