Highlander's Sweet Promises

by Tarah Scott

  One raven brow lifted. “Can you think of a better way for Alex to return to you?”

  Mara couldn’t.

  She glanced at the training ground again, blinked against the blinding flash of arcing steel. “It was clever. Medieval reenactment shows are popular.”

  “And something Alex can do to make himself useful.” The knight looked pleased. “Once the younger lads are properly trained and our friends return to their respective haunts, Alex can run tournaments, perhaps give lessons in swordery.”

  He paused, tucked a curl behind her ear. “Do not look so troubled, lady. Alex will charm your guests. He can even offer piping instruction or teach knightly riding. Beguile with Celtic whimsy.”

  Mara’s heart tilted. Alex could beguile.

  “I just wish he’d told me himself.” She lifted up on her toes, tried to see over the shoulders of the spectators. “He was gone six weeks. I missed him,” she added, scanning the field. “I must go to him now.”

  She started forward, but a grip to her elbow stopped her.

  “There’s another reason we had to speak,” the knight cautioned, once more blocking her way. “Alex is injured, though I am sure he’ll try and conceal his pain. You must treat him gently. He-”

  “Injured?” Mara stared at him, her chest tightening. “How can he be hurt? He’s a ghost!” she blurted, then immediately snapped her mouth shut, heat scalding her cheeks.

  To her surprise, a hint of color touched the knight’s face as well. “There are mysterious forces in the otherworlds, my lady. Things Alex and I haven’t begun to comprehend in all our years having to deal with them.”

  He took her hand again, this time drawing her toward the line of spectators. “Alex was punished for finding enjoyment with you. Pleasure he will seek again. As his friend, I ask you to have a care with him.”

  Mara’s jaw slipped. “You mean no-”

  “Precisely.” He looked at her, his expression earnest.

  But then a hint of his roguish smile returned. “There are many ways for a man and woman to enjoy each other,” he said, his dark gaze holding hers. “Explore them until Alex’s wounds heal. If he is pulled away again, he might not be able to return.”

  Mara gulped. “You mean that’s why-” she got no further, found herself talking to thin air.

  The dark knight was gone.

  Or rather, he now stood midfield, his rakish smile brighter than ever, his gleaming sword slicing the air, his every arc or thrust deflected by the whirling, quick-silver blade of a tall, vigorous man whose bold, high-spirited laugh almost brought Mara to her knees.

  “Alex!” she cried, running onto the field.

  He spun around and raised his sword in greeting, his devilish grin melting her. Then she was flying across the grass, barely registering the cheers ringing in her ears or how swiftly her love lowered and sheathed his blade.

  She only saw the joy spreading across his face, his arms extending in welcome, and how real and uninjured he looked.

  His friend was mistaken.

  Nothing ailed Alex.

  And she intended to do everything in her power to make sure nothing ever did.

  ***

  “Mara!” Alex grinned, the effort of appearing whole and hearty nearly killing him.

  But the triumph of having made it back at all and now seeing her racing at him, her hair streaming out behind her and her eyes sparkling, was a glory far stronger than any lightning bolt pain.

  Even so, when she reached him and flung herself into his arms, it was all he could do to keep from wincing. Instead, he smiled all the broader and dragged her into his arms, crushing her against him.

  “Sweet lass,” he soothed, for she was gasping for breath, clinging to him with all her strength, flushed and wide-eyed. “Did I no’ tell you I’d return?”

  “But-”

  “No buts. I am here now.” He tightened his arms around her, burying his face against her shoulder. Giddy relief sluiced through him that the feel of her pressing her pliant body to his, melting against him, didn’t send him spinning back into the darkness.

  “You were gone so long.” She touched his face, his hair, her voice breaking. “I missed you so, and I feared-”

  “My heart was with you the whole time I was away,” he told her true, pulling her closer for a deep, devouring kiss.

  A kiss he broke all too soon, but his need for her was ferocious and growing more fevered with every hot beat of his heart.

  “Wait till I get you alone,” he vowed, sweeping his hands over her trembling body, running them up and down her back. “This is no’ the place with kith and kin-”

  “Nae, it is not, my friend,” a deep voice warned in the same moment a steely hand clamped down on his shoulder. “You would be wise to show your affection in a more private place. Perhaps One Cairn Village as it stands deserted just now.”

  Sir Marmaduke.

  Alex frowned, recognizing the scar-faced Sassenach’s smooth, low-pitched voice. The absurdity of the man’s prudish warning.

  His prudish, uncharacteristic warning.

  Champion sworder or no, if ever a soppy-headed, romantically inclined knave walked the hills, it was Sir Marmaduke Strongbow. As Alex knew him, he’d be the last man to object to a passionate embrace and a few scorching kisses.

  No matter how many onlookers milled nearby.

  Blowing out an irritated breath, Alex made to wheel about and tell him so, but he couldn’t move for his friends had surrounded him, the whole fool lot of them pressing close and buzzing round like wet hornets gone mad.

  Even e’er-amiable Hardwick, only he wasn’t smiling now.

  None of them were.

  Some even looked infinitely sad. Defeated.

  Others, the younger lads mostly, were dashing about the field waving and shaking their swords, causing a general stir and drawing all eyes.

  Alex frowned, wondering if the day’s bright sun had turned their minds. Scotland was more a land of cold winds and whirling mist.

  The lads were behaving oddly.

  A glance at his lady showed him why.

  He was holding her face, his hands cradling her jaw and cheeks, her lovely flushed skin clearly visible beneath all ten of his fingers.

  He was fading.

  And no matter how long his friends meant to dance and cavort around him, hiding the fact from the still-cheering spectators, Alex strongly suspected there wasn’t much he could do to keep it secret much longer.

  He’d wagered his all and was losing.

  Fury welled up inside him, and he clenched his fists, throwing back his head to glare up at the cloudless blue sky, staring at its brilliance until his eyes stopped burning and the hot lump in his throat receded.

  Railing at his fate would serve naught.

  He needed a clear head and an iron will. Two things he’d had almost seven hundred years to cultivate. Now he also had a powerful reason to succeed.

  Mara.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alex glanced at Mara as he paced behind the whins and bracken edging One Cairn Village, the worst possible place for their reunion. But it couldn’t be helped. The village offered the only corner of the entire Ravenscraig estate currently emptied of long-nosed, gog-eyed gawkers.

  Everyone else remained at the training ground where a sizeable company of Highlanders, ghostly and otherwise, entertained. Several pipers had joined the fray, their skirls stirring the blood, while the crowd cheered the warriors’ flashing steel.

  All save a wee ancient female called Innes.

  Oblivious to the furor, the tiny white-haired woman could be seen through the windows of one of the village craft shops where she bustled about, arranging and re-arranging her candles and soaps. But not so diligently that she hadn’t cracked the shop’s door to peer at Alex and Mara as they’d neared the almost-completed village.

  Sharp-eyed as always, she’d twittered to herself about how fit Alex looked.

  How dashing in his plaid.
<
br />   Her thready voice carried on the wind, her praise making a corner of Alex’s mouth twitch. Until she’d called him Lord Basil, declaring she’d never seen him look younger.

  He turned to Mara. “If she knew my true age, she’d no’ have been content with closing thon door. She’d have scuttled herself clear to Oban.”

  Mara touched his arm, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “She was only curious.”

  Alex frowned. “The last thing I want is to frighten old women.”

  “If she knew you, she wouldn’t be afraid.” Mara’s warmth made his chest tighten.

  He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles and then squeezing her fingers. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I know I am.”

  Not so sure, Alex cast a look at the low, whitewashed cottage that Innes’s was soap-and-candle craft and workshop. Just visible through the gorse bushes and with a curl of blue peat smoke rising from its chimney, the thick-walled cottage was the village’s first completed shop.

  Innes had claimed it at once, perhaps for the strategic location which offered excellent views of the village square and the soon-to-be dedicated memorial cairn.

  A flutter of the window curtains proved she was indeed spying on them.

  Not that he cared.

  With Innes at the craft shop, he had good reason to avoid One Cairn Village’s newly cobbled square and the kick-in-the-shins annoyance of the memorial cairn.

  The place made his hackles rise, the cairn a botheration he preferred to ignore.

  What he couldn’t forget was the horror of having seen his transparent fingers cradling Mara’s face.

  Or his burning need for her.

  Fighting back a ferocious scowl, he went long-strided to where she’d stopped beside a patch of purple and white heather.

  “Sweet lass, I would no’ see you disappointed.” He pulled her against him, bracing himself not to wince. No easy feat, for the more fiercely he clutched her to him, the more his wounds stabbed him with sharp, searing heat.

  Even worse pain than had shot through him when she’d flung herself into his arms on the training ground. At least this time his hands were at her back, hidden from view.

  “You could never disappoint me.” She looked up at him, her shining eyes making him hope to all the powers that this wouldn’t end in sorrow and misery.

  For all eternity, he’d carry the guilt, would never forgive himself.

  He had to tell her what they faced.

  “Sweet lass,” he began, his heart twisting when she slid her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest. “Ne’er have I lied to you and I willnae do so now. It would seem the fates-”

  “They have been kind.” She hugged him tighter, gave a soft, contented sigh. “I thought I’d never see you again. Even thought you’d sent a female friend to scare me away. But you came back and now everything is-”

  “A female friend?” Alex set her from him, looking down at her in surprise. “I dinnae have any. No’ in this realm or the Otherworld. Any women I knew in life were ne’er close, none I’d call a friend.” He considered, glanced at the tall Celtic cross rising from the top of the memorial cairn.

  A chill swept his spine and a muscle twitched in his jaw. All that failed was the white-on-blue Scottish saltire flapping proudly against the afternoon sky.

  Blessedly, that insult was spared him.

  Standing so near a memorial that honored MacDougalls was enough.

  Yet…

  He turned back to Mara, knowing only how much he needed and wanted her.

  “Mara-lass, you are the only woman in my world. You consume me, are aye in my thoughts. Ne’er would I send anyone, male or female, to frighten you.

  “Can you no’ tell how much you mean to me?” He looked at her, hoped she’d believe him.

  Apparently she did, because she drew a trembling breath and blinked furiously against tears she couldn’t stop from spilling down her cheeks.

  Forgetting himself, Alex reached to brush away the dampness with his thumbs, feeling a surge of relief when his hands appeared solid against her flesh.

  “You are a gift beyond measure and I would move mountains to keep you,” he vowed, so touched by the love in her eyes. He stroked the hair back from her face, slanted a kiss across her lips. “You ought to know that by now.”

  “I do,” she admitted, still looking worried. “At the time, I didn’t know what to think. I saw her just after you vanished.”

  “I see.” Alex’s gut clenched.

  He knew the exact moment he’d been ripped from her arms. A moment of wondrous, shattering joy he’d dare not risk again lest whatever forces controlling such things separate them for good. There’d be no second chances. He could touch and kiss her, talk and walk with her, be at her side. But the fates drew the line at coupling with mortals.

  If he succumbed again…

  The next reckoning would be forever.

  “I am sorry you were frightened.” He spoke as lightly as he could, hoping to reassure her. Needing to comfort himself, he smoothed his hands down her back, allowing himself the pleasure of holding her near. “Perhaps the woman was a Ravenscraig visitor, a tourist-”

  “No, she was a ghost, absolutely.” She shook her head, looking certain. “I think I know who she was. I researched her, just like-”

  “Like you buried your nose in those dusty tomes in the MacDougall library and discovered lies about me?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” She tightened her arms around him, her face flushing a bit. “I no longer care what the books say. I should’ve remembered that history is always written by the victors.”

  “So it is.” He couldn’t agree more.

  “Good still prevails in the end.” She looked so hopeful.

  “Then all will be well, aye?” How he wished he believed it.

  “It will – you are here!” Pushing up on her toes, she rained adoration across his face, lighting her sweet, soft lips everywhere she could reach, each kiss squeezing his heart and stirring his loins.

  Making it next to impossible to tell her what he must.

  You will break her heart, you fiend. You should have stayed in London, at Dimbleby’s, forgetting her and your wretched, cursed bed. Now you’ve fallen in love with her.

  How can that end?

  Alex frowned, set her from him. “Who do you think she was, this woman you saw? Did she appear in the bedchamber?”

  “No.” Mara shook her head. “I saw her on the shore beneath the wall-walk. I went out onto the battlements after you left. She was green and glowing, all transparent and very beautiful. That’s why I know she was a ghost. She looked at me, as if she wanted to tell me something, then she was gone.”

  “She could’ve been seeing the battlements in her time.” Alex knew suchlike was possible. “There are all kinds of ways discarnates walk this earth, endless ways they see it, and how the living see them. Chances are she didn’t even know you were there.” Or she meant to warn you of me.

  Alex pulled a hand down over his face, guilt and doubt almost crushing him.

  “I’m sure she saw me.” Shivering visibly, she glanced at Ben. The dog must’ve followed them and now explored a heather-grown knoll a few yards away, his nose to ground as he snuffled after whatever enticements intrigued him. From the looks of it, a cluster of large, lichen-blotched stones.

  “You don’t think he’ll stumble across an adder?” She turned back to him.

  “Nae.” Alex shook his head. “Animals are smarter than people. Had an adder chosen yon boulders for a sunbath, he would’ve slithered away before Ben disturbed him. Like as not, Ben wouldn’t have neared the rocks anyway had a snake been coiled there.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Dinnae worry. No harm will come to Ben.” He drew her back into his arms, needing her. The aged dog reminded him so much of Rory that it made him hurt inside to watch him.

  Now wasn’t the time to be reminded of those h
e’d once loved and lost.

  Four-legged or otherwise.

  Holding onto love now was all that concerned him, and so he pulled her even closer, tucking her head beneath his chin so he could enjoy the feel of her silky hair, her fresh, clean scent that pleased him so much.

  “Tell me more of your green lady,” he said, caressing her back. “I have ne’er encountered one, though I know they exist.”

  Just keep talking.

  Help me put off the words that will break my heart.

  “I think she was the Ell-Maid of Dunstaffnage Castle.” She snuggled into him, her warm softness making him ache in ways that weren’t good for him. “A glaistaig or, yes, a green lady, according to the information I found. She’s said to be a Campbell ghost, haunting Dunstaffnage and appearing as a harbinger whenever doom or good fortune is about to befall the Campbells.”

  “I have heard of her.” He had. Bards often sang of her, long ago in his day. “No one kens who she is, but I cannae think why she’d come here. ‘Tis Clan Campbell that interests her. She’s ne’er been known to leave Dunstaffnage.”

  “The MacDougalls of Lorn held Dunstaffnage long before Robert Bruce wrested it from us in 1309,” she reminded him, pride in her voice. “Certainly before the Campbells insinuated themselves with the castle’s custody.”

  Alex stiffened, the way she’d said us hitting him harder than it should have.

  The wickedness of the MacDougalls of his day was renown and hearing her speak of the waylaying ravagers with starry-eyed reverence was like looking into the face of his destiny and knowing he’d drawn a dulled sword.

  Hearing her mention his king in the same breath, a man he’d loved above his own life and had thought to serve for the course of it, just another reminder of how quickly one’s fate could change and how desperately he wanted victory this time.

  And he’d best start by telling her the truth. “Lass, let us walk a bit. There is something I must tell you,” he began, taking her hand and leading her into the heather.

  Deep into the hush of a birch and hazel thicket, needing the distance from One Cairn Village and the MacDougalls’ sacred treasure of a cross-topped cairn.