by Allie Mackay
“So there aren’t.” Uncle Mac folded his arms, looking smug. “That didn’t stop us from tracking him down.”
“The man’s in Lerwick. He’s a guizer.” Hardwick propped the mask against the wall. “I had a feeling we’d-”
“A geezer?” Cilla’s eyes rounded.
“No, guizer.” Aunt Birdie settled herself on the sofa. “There’s a Guizer Jarl, the leader, and then” - she pulled a plaid cushion onto her lap – “his squad of attending guizers. There can be hundreds of them. I’ve seen their parades on BBC. They dress up as Vikings in celebration of Up Helly Aa, an ancient Norse fire festival.”
She paused when a great crack of thunder shook the windows. “It’s a thrilling spectacle.” She continued when the rumbles faded. “They carry blazing torches through the streets and then burn a mock galley.”
“And now they’ve been burgled!” Uncle Mac roared the words. “The Galley Shed – a sort of Up Helly Aa museum and warehouse combined – was raided some weeks ago. According to Eggertson, the thieves took scores of Viking costumes.”
“Viking guises, weaponry, and” – Hardwick leaned back against a table and crossed his arms – “Eggertson’s red devil garb.”
“Including the mask.” Cilla was beginning to understand.
Hardwick nodded.
Uncle Mac flashed a grin. “Little good it did them. We’re onto them now.”
Cilla considered. “If Eggertson is a guizer, and they dress like Vikings, what’s he doing with a red devil costume?”
“They don’t all parade as Vikings.” Uncle Mac picked up an iron poker and started jabbing at the peats in the hearth. “Some of the men wear fantasy get-ups.”
“But…” Aunt Birdie didn’t sound satisfied. “How did you know to look for Eggertson in Shetland?”
“Tchach, that was easy enough.” Uncle Mac set aside the poker and dusted his hands. “Besides Eggertson being a Norse name” – he glanced at Hardwick – “some might say providence is finally beginning to smile on us!”
***
Hardwick felt himself smiling, too.
He’d stopped believing in the benefices of providence many long years ago. But it did him good to see Mac MacGhee bursting with pride and confidence. If he could play any small role in catching whoever was sneaking about the moors at night dressed as Vikings, and doing the gods knew what kind of foolery, that was no small thing.
Mac was looking at him, his face alight. “Tell them.”
Hardwick cleared his throat. “A friend recently returned from Lerwick. He mentioned the raid on the Galley Shed.” He spoke the truth as he’d told it to Mac earlier, only leaving out that his friend happened to be a ghost. “In light of your troubles, I suspected a connection.”
Birdie MacGhee raised her brows. “Are you suggesting someone brought the Viking costumes here? That our nightly peat field prowlers are using them?”
“So we believe, aye!” Mac tossed down his malt, then dragged the back of his hand across his beard. “That’ll be the way of it. I knew there weren’t any real Viking ghosts spooking across my moors.”
“I don’t know...” His wife kneaded the cushion on her lap. “There is something going on. Don’t you agree, Cilla?”
She looked across the room at Cilla.
“Well, lass?” Her uncle eyed her, too.
Cilla hesitated. “I’m not sure Gregor’s red mask was the only devil spooking around here. I saw such a face outside my bedroom window. I think it was real.”
“Pah!” Mac scowled. “What’s going on here has nothing to do with ghosties and devils. No’ real ones, anyway. That I know!”
“I know what I saw.” Cilla folded her arms, looking determined. “It wasn’t Gregor’s mask.”
Her uncle swung to Hardwick. “There’s no such thing as bogles, eh, laddie? Red devil faces hovering outside a lassie’s window?”
On the sofa, Aunt Birdie glanced aside.
Cilla looked at Hardwick, waiting.
He opted for tact. “I can’t say as I’ve encountered any ghosts hereabouts.”
That, at least, was true.
Excepting himself and Bran.
“You won’t be. I guarantee it!” Mac stood tall in a most lairdly manner. “But – as we now know – you might run across a pack o’ scoundrels dressing up as Viking ghosts.”
“We cannae be sure who or what roams at night. Sutherland is an ancient place.” Hardwick felt a need to defend Cilla, more disturbed than he cared to admit about her mention of a real red devil face. “Some say the veil between this world and the next is thin here. Others speak of portals, openings into different realms, the kingdoms of the fae. Truth is, there are things in these hills no living and breathing man should e’er encounter.”
“Ho!” Mac slapped him on the back. “You’ve been breathing in too much peat smoke. My niece’s imagination is as inflated as her aunt’s! There’s nothing spooking about here but those costumed loonies out on my moors.”
“Why would anyone bother?” Cilla voiced the question that had been plaguing Hardwick for days. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe they want to steal my peat!” Mac aimed a fierce glare at the windows. “There’s nothing else out there but heather, bracken, and stones.”
“What about our sheep?” His wife spoke quietly from the sofa. “Even if Dunroamin peat is superior, your business ventures with the Simmer Dim and Northern Mist distilleries are only now crystallizing. To date, our sheep turn a greater profit.”
“What do you think Robbie and Roddie do every morn when they feed the wooly buggers?” Mac started pacing, his kilt swinging. “They count ‘em, that’s what! Our Viking ghosties haven’t yet lifted a single one.”
“They could yet.” Birdie persisted.
“It’s the peat, I tell you!” Mac threw her an outraged look. “But they won’t be getting it.”
He slung an arm around Hardwick’s shoulders. “Not only will the moors be guarded at night, Hardwick has friends who might patrol with him.” He drew a great breath then roared the last words. “Brawny lads with beards and kilts!”
Birdie MacGhee and her niece shared a knowing glance.
A telling one.
Heat shot up the back of Hardwick’s neck. Apparently Birdie knew of his condition after all. Before he could worry about that unsettling bit of knowledge, Mac gave him a bone-crunching squeeze.
“Beards and kilts, did you hear?” He waggled his brows at the ladies. “There’s no’ a fake Viking ghost alive brave enough to withstand a Highland charge! Before they can shout Valhalla, we’ll have ‘em by their danglers. And that’s not all the good news!”
Taking his arm from Hardwick’s shoulder, he stamped across the room to a darkened corner. Bending, he snatched up a rusty milk pail. He returned clutching it before him.
Hardwick bit back a groan.
He knew what was coming.
Cilla looked on with interest, which only made it worse.
Proving Hardwick’s dread, Mac waved the pail before his wife’s nose. Water sloshed over the sides and onto the room’s threadbare tartan carpet. Some also splashed onto Birdie’s knees, but to her credit she said nothing, only peered up at him curiously.
Mac plunked down the brimming pail and jammed his hands on his hips. “Thanks to our new friend here” - he flashed a glance at Hardwick – “and the fine quality of our own Dunroamin peat, our days of roof leaks and drip buckets may soon come to an end.”
“What?” Cilla and her aunt spoke together. “A new roof?”
“Sure as today and tomorrow are long!” Mac’s beard jigged with pleasure. “Hardwick offered a suggestion that should bring us at least enough funds for a roof. If all goes well, we might even be able to tackle the unused wing.”
“Ooooh.” Again the ladies cried out in unison.
Birdie MacGhee’s eyes began to glisten.
Worse, Cilla’s lower lip was starting to quiver!
Mac hooted a great, belly-sh
aking laugh.
Hardwick struggled against the urge to throttle him. And to keep from cutting off his own flapping tongue so he wouldn’t slide into such a pickle again.
Not that he begrudged Mac the money.
If indeed it came.
Indeed, if he had access to his own former riches, he’d gladly give Mac every last coin.
It was the way MacGhee was revealing the plan.
Oblivious to the harm he was about to cause, Mac rocked back on his heels, savoring the moment.
“Did he suggest other distilleries?” Cilla sounded hopeful. “Does he have contacts for you?”
“Aye, he does. Thousands of them!” Mac looked near to bursting. “Thousands of American women to buy Dunroamin peat!”
Cilla’s eyes widened. “So many?”
Uncle Mac bobbed his head enthusiastically. “He says they swoon for anything Scottish, including our peat.”
“I’m sure.” Cilla folded her arms. “I like peat, too. And don’t you, Aunt-”
“Let’s hear what Mac has to say, dear.” Birdie spoke over her.
Then she reached for her niece’s hand and squeezed. “Go on, Mac.” She nodded to him, one voice of reason in the cold, shadowy room.
“He’s met all these women, see you?” Mac blundered on. “He says they bemoan not being able to smell peat smoke when they go home. So-o-o, he had the idea that we might export Dunroamin peat to America!”
“To his thousands of American women friends.” Cilla spoke low.
“To any American who’ll buy it!” Mac grinned. “But it was the women that gave him the idea. They’re the most passionate. They loved-”
“I’m sure they did.” Cilla glanced at the door and started edging that way.
Hardwick frowned.
Respect kept him from correcting Mac’s interpretation of his peat-for-Americans suggestion. Nor did he wish to dampen the man’s well-deserved pleasure in revealing the idea to his wife.
Dunroamin needed hope.
And he needed to get Cilla alone.
So he did a bit of lightning-quick sifting, putting himself between her and the door before Mac and Birdie noticed he’d moved.
Cilla did.
She froze where she was, her back straight.
Hardwick swore beneath his breath. She looked like she’d swallowed a broomstick. He never would’ve believed she could compress such full, sensuous lips into such a hard, tight line.
She had, and seeing it killed him.
Again.
Lass. It isn’t what you think. He willed her to hear him.
She arched one brow, indicating she had.
Hardwick started to relax. But then her back went even more rigid, and although she couldn’t sift, she’d somehow managed to shoot past him and reach the door.
Ignoring him, she grabbed the latch and pulled.
Hardwick swore.
He threw a quick glance across the room. Mac stood with his back to him and was still blethering on about Americans and their great love of peat fires.
But Birdie was watching him.
To his surprise, she made a little flipping gesture with her fingers. She also mouthed the word ‘go.’
Hardwick understood.
He whipped back around, but he was too late. The armory door stood ajar. Cilla was gone, the echo of her retreating footsteps all that remained.
For one ridiculous moment, he considered following her as a flesh-and-blood man would do. Hastening after her through Dunroamin’s winding passages and then up the various stairs she needed to traverse to get to her room.
He could do all that.
But being a ghost did have a few advantages.
So he glanced at Birdie one last time, giving her an appreciative nod. Then he wished himself out of the armory and to the one place he knew Cilla would be so startled to see him, he’d have at least a few minutes to speak to her before she ordered him to go.
In a blink, he was there.
The only problem was, now that he’d materialized in her bed, he knew he’d want to be there again.
Just under different circumstances.
The thought hit him like a punch in the gut. Worse, it caused a pain deep in his chest. An ache that had nothing to do with the heated images flashing across his mind, and that stirred much more troublesome emotions – the kind he’d have sworn he wasn’t capable of feeling.
Now he knew differently.
And that bode ill.
Chapter Eleven
Thousands of American women.
Cilla couldn’t blot the words from her mind. She wished she hadn’t heard them. But they whirled in her head, growing louder until she could hardly think. She could even see the women conjured by the words: a numberless crazy-for-Highlanders throng. And no matter how fast she hurried through Dunroamin’s dim and dripping corridors, she couldn’t outrun them.
They kept pace.
Jeering each time she almost knocked over a drip container or stubbed her toe on the incredibly hard stone of the ancient castle’s tight-winding stairs.
Making it worse, the women weren’t the only ones. Two Scots also chased her.
American-born Grant A. Hughes III, so proud of his supposed Scottish ancestry even if he couldn’t trace it farther back than the New York tartan shop where he’d acquired his custom kilt.
And historian-cum-author-cum-tour guide, Wee Hughie MacSporran, also known as the Highland Storyweaver. If his enthusiastic pack of Australian groupies was any indication, he was an even greater skirt-chaser than Grant.
Cilla shuddered.
She’d had enough of such men.
Who would have thought she’d have to add a ghost to their tartaned, womanizing ranks?
Furious that it was so, she paused to press her side. It burned with a stitch she really didn’t need. Keeping a hand to her ribs, she mounted a few more steps. Then she stopped again, this time on a little landing with two doors opening off it.
Leaning against the wall, she frowned.
She shouldn’t care that she had to lump Hardwick in the same pot as Grant and his scribbling, tour-guiding Scottish counterpart.
She did care that she’d made a fool of herself.
Ghost or not, Hardwick surely knew why she’d dashed out of Uncle Mac’s armory. Women didn’t run from men they didn’t care about.
It was a universal truth. One that made her face burn and her hands curl into fists.
She blew out a breath, trying to pretend she didn’t feel like a white-hot vise had clamped around her chest, stealing her air. After Grant, she’d sworn to stand above such things. To never again fall so hard for a man who wielded such power over her heart.
She closed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t.
But it was too late.
She already cared about him. Hearing about his legions of women – Americans, no less – had been a blow behind the knees.
There was only one thing to do about it.
She should turn around, march back downstairs, waltz into the armory and plunk herself onto the sofa as if nothing had happened.
Then she’d lift her chin or examine her fingernails and casually announce that she ate too many mini-pretzels at the Ben Loyal’s Bistro Bar. Everyone would believe her if she claimed the salt had made her stomach queasy. No one would lift a brow if they thought a roiling tummy had sent her flying from the room.
“Yeah, Swanner, go back down there. Save your face if you can’t salvage your heart.” She spoke to the door across the landing. Age-darkened and silent, it made a good listener. Unfortunately, she had the strangest feeling that the closed door was staring at her.
She blinked, her blood chilling.
The door might not be looking at her. But it was opening.
Creaking open in the way of all squeaky-hinged doors in centuries-old castles: slowly and with just enough weirdness to turn her legs to lead, freezing her to the spot.
Chills swept her and the fine hairs on her nape lifted. Unt
il the door completed its slow, ear-grating arc to reveal a small oak-paneled chamber.
Dark and low-ceilinged, the room appeared empty except for a dressing-table and washstand. A dust cover protected something that might have been a chair. If a bed had ever graced the room, it was gone now. But the room did have two windows opposite the door.
Twin and narrow oblongs that looked out onto the Kyle, over which the moon now hung, its bright crescent just sailing out from behind a cloud. She could make out the black outline of Castle Varrich. High on its cliff, the ruin's crumbling window arch was bathed in silver and shadow.
She took a step closer, her gaze going through the open doorway to the windows where she half expected to see the devil face sweep into view. A thin rain fell, the droplets glistening on the ancient, rippled glass. Somewhere thunder rumbled, but what really caught her attention was that some of the lower panes were missing, allowing cold damp wind to pour into the room.
Wind that had surely caused the door to swing open.
Or so she thought until she noticed the woman in the room’s darkest shadows.
Cilla pressed a hand to her lips, not wanting to release the gasp rising inside her.
She did stare at the woman.
Tall, blond, and stately, she could have been Aunt Birdie except she was still in the armory. Even in younger years, Aunt Birdie had never worn her hair in a single, hip-length braid. She favored French twists or a fashionably knotted silken head scarf.
And although Aunt Birdie possessed a certain grace and style, she walked like everyone else. She didn’t glide across rooms as if her feet didn’t touch the floor.
Nor was it her habit to run around in ankle-length woolen gowns of deep red-purple, the seams edged in finest embroidery, the sleeves long and tight. A shawl of brilliant blue draped the woman’s shoulders and a wide colorfully-patterned belt cinched her waist. If she wore any other adornments, Cilla couldn’t see them.
The woman now stood at the windows, her back to the door.
Cilla knuckled her eyes.
It didn’t help.
The ghost – for she could only be one – was still there. In the wink it’d taken Cilla to rub her eyes, the apparition had splayed a beringed hand against the rain-streaked window glass.
