All her furious questions vanished when she saw him. He was feverish, every so often muttering unintelligibly. Rolling up her sleeves, she dropped onto a stool by the bed and took over applying wet cloths to his forehead.
“Don’t you fret, darling girl.” Seaghan knocked a ball of ash from his pipe and put the kettle on to boil. “Aodhàn’s prone to these fevers. He’ll recover. He always does.”
Morrigan’s exasperation rose at his careless attitude. “See how restless and hot he is. This could be miasma.”
“I’ve seen what happens to those infected with cholera, child.”
“Malaria. Smallpox.”
“It’s the same nameless fever he’s had many times. It clears up after a day or so like nothing ever happened.”
“We should fetch Eleanor at least.”
“He wouldn’t thank you for it.” Seaghan relit his pipe and puffed clouds of smoke. “Mind after your wedding, I told you about pulling him from the ocean?”
Morrigan nodded.
“Near dead he was, and no’ only from being half-drowned. There was a knife wound in his chest. We stitched it, covered him, and hoped for the best. He lived through that, didn’t he, lass?”
Morrigan folded a fresh cloth and dabbed Mackinnon’s temples. “Has he still not told you what happened?”
“Won’t say a word.” Seaghan pointed the stem of his pipe at her. “There wasn’t a plume of smoke or a broken board anywhere.” He offered a dramatic shrug, a tilt of the head, a mischievous smile. “I’ve told myself it’s indeed possible for a ship to sink in a storm and never a sliver seen again— especially in the seas south of Berneray.”
He handed her a cup of tea, lightly infused with milk, she noticed, just as she liked it. “Yet it did seem strange, him floating, alive, no sign of wreckage, nor any other bodies. Only moments could’ve passed, or he would’ve been dead, with such a wound, in frigid water.” He returned the stem of his pipe to his mouth, sucked in smoke, and shook his head. “Nothing about it seemed probable to my way of thinking.”
“You say he’d been stabbed? Maybe he was attacked and thrown off some ship, then it sailed on without him.”
“Aye, and an air of mystery draws women like bees to honey. You needn’t scowl at me. You’re female. And here you are, aren’t you? To this day old women up and down the coast make secret signs of protection when Aodhàn passes. We’re no’ all that far from the Orkneys.”
“What’ve they to do with it?”
“Where d’you think the legend originated?” he asked with exaggerated patience.
“What legend?” Annoyance sharpened her tone.
“The seal-man. Selkies. Orkney folk claim the seal is descended from a royal line. It’s within their power to change form at will. You haven’t forgotten already, have you?”
Morrigan’s throat constricted.
“I am a practical man, of course, and have never believed such daftness. But there remains the fact that Aodhàn didn’t drown that day. And he does vanish. He won’t say where he goes or why. No one ever sees him. What do you think? Is it the seals he rejoins, in the briny deep?”
She fell into memories of the dream, of the seal beckoning and transforming. Magic existed in the world; this man lying here, so tortured and ill, gave ample proof of it.
Seaghan was trustworthy. She sensed he would understand this strange bond between his friend and the laird’s wife, how difficult it was to ignore or deny.
Yet something in his face made her hesitate. Something different from a second ago. She gasped. “You… you’re mocking me.”
His mouth stretched into a toothy grin. Morrigan rolled her wet cloth into a whip and snapped it against his scalp.
“Ouch,” he cried then grinned again, rubbing at the sting. “There’s no need for us both to sit here wiping the great wean’s brow. I’ll see to the hens. Call if you need me.” Chuckling at his own wit, he scooped up his cap and left.
It wasn’t long before Mackinnon’s fever spiked. Heat rolled off him and he thrashed. Morrigan wanted to fetch Seaghan, but feared her patient might injure himself.
His eyes opened, glinting with unhealthy pinpoints of light. “A rùin mo chridhe.” He seized her arms. “Aridela….”
“Shhh, Mackinnon,” she said. “It’s Morrigan.” Again she reeled at the way he seemed to know her inner fantasies. How did he do that?
He lifted up off the bed, squeezing her arms. “I cannot give in. I won’t.”
“You don’t have to,” Morrigan said gently, hoping to bring him some kind of peace.
“I will best her….”
“Why can’t you just live and be happy, Mackinnon?”
His stare was alternately blank then coherent. “Without you?” He pulled her closer and pressed his face against her throat. It was frighteningly hot.
These ramblings were no doubt caused by fever. But the suffering in his voice made her long to give him relief. She kept her voice calm and low. “Here, Mackinnon. I have beef and barley soup. It will make you feel better.”
“I carry the memories. Every life… every death… every moment of torture. She forces them into me, trying to break me. I won’t… I won’t give in.”
“Aye, Mackinnon.” She stroked his cheek. “You’ll win.”
“She’s fading. None remember her.”
Nicky had fallen ill once and had made similar, nonsensical statements. When he improved, he couldn’t remember the things he’d said and accused her of lying about it.
“Morrigan….” Mackinnon’s voice trailed off. Then he added that other name. “Aridela. I’ve missed you.” He fell back, limp as a drowned kitten. “Your touch is cool.”
It sounded like he was calling her Aridela. She dunked the cloth into the water, wrung it out, and placed it on his forehead. As soon as he was himself again, she would ask him where he’d heard that name.
His left hand trailed up his chest. He grabbed at something, a chain around his neck, and pulled a pendant out from under his damp sark. After a moment his hand fell away, revealing a flat silver circle with a beautifully worked design.
A blue stone, embedded between two crescents. The stone winked as it caught the light.
Hesitantly, she touched it, brushing the bead with her fingertips. The resulting shock made her gasp and jerk away.
The pendant seemed familiar. Yet she couldn’t recall ever seeing it before.
Perhaps she’d imagined that jolt. She touched it again, and again recoiled.
This was silly. If it was hot it was because of Mackinnon’s fever. She lifted the pendant away from his skin, holding it by the chain.
The detail was stunning, the delicate carvings perfect in every way. The dark blue stone in the center was injected with subtle veins of white; it was so shiny she saw her face reflected in it.
Another gasp escaped when Mackinnon spoke. She’d been lost inside the gem. It swam before her eyes, filling her senses with sound.
“Morrigan….”
He stared at her intently.
“Mackinnon.” She returned the pendant to his chest, leaving her palm over it.
“Come with me.” His voice was unguarded, openly pleading. “We’ll start again. D’you love me enough?” He gripped her hand.
“You want me to run away? Abandon my child?”
“Your mother tortures me. The bitch.”
“My mother is long dead, Mackinnon. She can’t harm you.”
“I’m so alone.”
“I know.”
“God should save me, but he does nothing. He never… does anything.”
“Rest now. Sleep.”
His hand fell. His eyes closed. In a faltering voice, he said, “Everything is spoiled. We should die and start over somewhere else. Aye, it’s the only way. We should die.”
Who was this female he raved about? The mother, the bitch? And why did he keep repeating that name, Aridela, as though he was speaking to her?
Confusion and desire clashed w
ith fear and anger.
Who was this man? What was his true purpose? What did he want of her?
A few minutes later he broke out in a cleansing sweat. His breathing slowed and he fell into peaceful sleep.
* * * *
Midnight had come and gone by the time Morrigan returned to Kilgarry, but Diorbhail was waiting for her, sitting on the bottom step of the staircase. Fionna stood next to her.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Morrigan asked. “Is something wrong?”
Diorbhail waved towards the drawing room’s open door. “Master Curran,” she said, not meeting Morrigan’s eyes. “He’s waiting for you.”
As Morrigan started towards the door, Diorbhail added, low, “Careful.”
Morrigan paused at the warning. She saw apprehension in Fionna’s face.
“Morrigan.” It was Curran, his voice oddly rough. He must have heard her.
She entered the drawing room, pulling off her gloves. She’d known he wouldn’t like the way she’d gone off, twice in two days, without a word, and both times because of Mackinnon. Now they would argue.
The sight of him brought her up short. He stood by the sofa, the lamp behind him casting shadows across his face.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Mackinnon has caught some kind of fever. I’ve been there, helping Seaghan with him.”
She caught a scent of whisky, and noticed the empty bottle and an overturned glass on the table. A dark wet stain marred the carpet.
“They’ve told me what you’ve done,” he said. “Diorbhail and the rest. Oh, they didn’t betray you. It was what they didn’t say.”
Despair took root, twining down inside, and her palms began to sweat. She may not have cuckolded him with her body, but could she say the same of her heart?
“A woman should never hold herself so cheaply. It goes against the laws of God and man.”
Instantaneous fury burned away the guilt. She heard herself speak and was amazed. “God and man. Women count for nothing, and yet we’re obliged to follow the laws of God and man.”
She thought she heard a gasp from outside the room.
Curran’s stare intensified. “What is going on between you and Aodhàn?”
“Am I not expected to help your tenants? He helped you when I was missing. He was ill. Seaghan and I got his fever down, though, if you care.”
His mouth worked. She waited, hiding her inner turmoil, not nearly as confident or outraged as she sounded.
He crossed to her. His hands clenched and rose. Shock flooded through her at the all-too-familiar gesture, but he grabbed the bottle from the table, smashed it against the edge, and swiveled away. He dug at his scalp with rigid fingertips and spoke something in Gaelic.
Her own hands curled into fists. Long experience had taught her that men would subjugate women by whatever means necessary, including pain and intimidation. They called women who wanted the same freedoms they took for granted whores, sluts, and a hundred other vile titles, which no doubt he’d just done.
Yet, a quiet thought interjected, even drunk and goaded, Curran stopped himself from striking her. Douglas had never shown such restraint.
Morrigan clutched the table, her arms and legs shaking. The whisky glass rolled and fell to the floor. She followed, dropping onto the carpet.
Curran knelt before her. “Something is different,” he said. “You’re different.”
“Leave me alone.” She closed her eyes, blocking out all she couldn’t bear to face. Curran was the last person, besides Olivia, that she’d wanted to hurt. Yet she had, and she hated herself for it.
He lifted her in his arms and rose.
She placed her hand over his heart. She didn’t know what he would do. Maybe he meant to kill her.
He carried her into the now-empty foyer and up the stairs to their bedroom. Kicking the door closed behind him, he dropped her on the bed.
Low light flickered from a single lamp. At first he glared and paced, but, as she lay there watching him, his shoulders drooped. His hands relaxed.
“What’s happened to us?” he asked. “I’ve frightened you. Christ, what am I becoming?”
Morrigan rose on her knees. She put her hands on his shoulders. Awash with sorrow, she brought his face to the curve of her throat.
He grasped her arms. “My Morrigan,” he said, shuddering.
Compassion and tenderness poured through her. She pulled him onto the bed and covered his face with kisses.
At first he didn’t respond, but soon his grip tightened. He returned her kisses. His body shoved against her in a delirium of passion, and he was again a man.
“Love me,” she said, as she had in the old days, before he’d brought her here to this place, to Mackinnon. “Love me, Curran,” she pleaded, as his mouth ignited fire in her blood. “Love me forever.”
BOOK THREE
THE PILGRIMAGE
CHAPTER ONE
CURRAN TRIED TO be unobtrusive about watching his wife.
Twice, on the boat, she’d come to sit beside him, tucking her hand in his, once resting her cheek on his shoulder as she closed her eyes and turned her face to the wind. Still, though, nothing felt right. He continued to long for the girl who had enticed him so thoroughly in Stranraer. He’d suffered no doubts then. Now there was nothing but doubt. Only when she held Olivia did he glimpse any genuine, spontaneous joy. The babe certainly delighted in nothing as much as her doting mother. Morrigan could swiftly coax paroxysms of infectious giggles to replace the most furious tantrum.
Hugh Drummond had accused him of stealing Morrigan’s innocence, pushing her into marriage, failing to give her time to mourn the deaths of her father and brother.
Shame soured his dinner. It was too bad, since the haddock was freshly caught, delicately fried, and delicious. He poured another whisky and refilled Morrigan’s glass with sherry. The crisp air had stimulated her appetite; she’d swiftly consumed her fish, along with two slightly burned girdle scones.
“Careful,” he said, “or we’ll run clean out of food, and one fine day they’ll find our skeletons covered in moss.”
She instantly looked guilty, which made him laugh. “I was teasing. The loch has enough fish for a hundred years, and you’d hurt Tom’s feelings if you didn’t show proper appreciation for his cooking.”
Morrigan glanced over her shoulder. Two of the ghillies were laughing and roughhousing as they finished erecting the third tent. Tom, who’d fried their haddock, was scouring his skillet with sand.
“D’you realize it’s been a year since we met?” Curran slid his hand across the table to clasp hers.
“A year and a month,” she replied. “I’ve been thinking of that lately, of the golden god who walked across the moor and forever changed my life.” She paused, her lids dropping over her eyes. “So… how d’you feel about it these days?” Her smile started bravely but quickly turned tremulous.
He answered with a question. “Remember when I said I’d always felt something was missing, something I needed more than anything else?”
“Aye,” she said, her voice husky.
“And d’you mind me telling you that it disappeared that day on the moor?”
“Aye,” she said, almost in a whisper, and stole a glance at him.
“It’s never returned.” He brought her hand up to kiss her fingers and turned it so he could do the same to that mark on her wrist, the one that came to him sometimes in disjointed dreams, but on another woman.
Her smile grew more confident, and her eyes darkened in that unconsciously seductive way she had.
What Hugh accused him of was true. He had pushed her into marriage, but what else could have been done? Her pregnancy stripped them both of choices. Nevertheless, he caught himself thinking, I caged her, the same as Douglas, and she let me.
“You’ll show me… where you had the dream?” Her question startled him from his oppressive thoughts.
“If you insist.” He looked over the deep, cold, b
lue waters of Loch Torridon. He could scarcely believe he’d dragged her, and Diorbhail, and Olivia to this wild, empty place, and in such a precipitous manner. He hadn’t even given them time to pack any clothes.
He had scribbled a note to Quinn, though. Go to Barra. Discover what you can. He gave it to Fionna as they were leaving, with instructions to post it without delay.
Morrigan hadn’t made a single protest. She hadn’t even asked where they were going. Kyle drove them to the ferry, where Curran compelled the ferryman to take them where he wanted to go. On the way, his anger cooled by wind and water, he realized he couldn’t simply vanish into the wilderness with nothing but what he wore, like he had as a boy with the alarming Fearghas.
He’d gone on an African safari when he was twenty-one. Using that experience, he had the ferryman dock at Kyle of Lochalsh, where he purchased everything he thought they would need— cloth, buttons, and batting for Olivia’s hippins, blankets, sherry, tea, and whisky, bread and cheese, tents, cots, lamps, boots, dresses, shawls, and jackets for the women, rough crofter’s clothing for himself. Lastly, he hired three experienced ghillies to go along and take care of the hunting, fishing, and other labor.
Once loaded, the ferry carried them right into the upper loch at Torridon and left them on the south shore, under the watchful gaze of Beinn Alligin, and the majestic, towering bulk of Liathach.
He rubbed the scar by his eye, for it had begun to throb. “Tonight’s the full moon,” he said.
“I want to find the exact spot and be there, all night, if necessary. I want this.”
“If nothing happens, you’ll think I made it all up to trick you.”
“I mind like it was yesterday you telling me about Fearghas, and diving into the loch.” She frowned at the water. “The castle. The lion. The lady it guarded.”
“We should set off. It’ll be dark soon and this is unforgiving land.”
“Let me take care of Olivia first.” Diorbhail was entertaining the wean by scooping water and letting it run from her fingers. Morrigan joined them, picking Olivia up and swinging her before disappearing into the tent.
The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) Page 58
