by Tarah Scott
Mara folded her arms. “If you did, I imagine the painting was done by a highly talent artist.”
The shrew sniffed. “You won’t change my mind. Your father and I will not be staying here. And” - she paused to glance at Prudentia – “she told me the place is riddled with ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” Alex slid a black-jacketed arm around Mara’s waist, dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. “What’s this about bogles? Has someone seen one?”
Prudentia turned to him. “Any place where time has stood still is a place where sensitive souls can feel the past.”
Alex took Mara’s hand, lacing their fingers. “And are you such a sensitive?”
The cook narrowed her eyes. “I always ken when a spook is about,” she said, looking superior. “The very air in a room changes, giving you a chill that goes right to the marrow.”
“Indeed?” Alex arched a brow. He was sorely tempted to conjure an icicle from behind his back and offer it to her like a rose.
“And you, fair lady?” He gave the small, sour-faced woman his most dazzling smile. “You do not wish to spend the night here? In the castle?”
“Most definitely not,” she snapped, apparently unimpressed by medieval Highland charm. “I, too, can sense ghosts. And I feel them everywhere here.”
“Well, then-”
Alex broke off, his words drowned by the sudden skirl of pipes as Erchy, another of Alex’s special friends, strutted into the hall, blowing his pipes with red-cheeked gusto. A piper of some renown from the days of the ’45, he marched right past them, drawing nary a flicker of alarm from either of the spirit-seeing women.
“Well, then,” Alex continued when Erchy and his screaming pipes reached the far end of the hall, “if you’re concerned about sleeping where you suspect ghosts are underfoot, perhaps you’d prefer one of the cottages down at One Cairn Village?”
“You mean out near the memorial cairn?” Euphemia worried her lip. “I don’t know. It’s pretty isolated down there isn’t it?”
“To be sure.” Alex smiled at her. “But the cottages are newly built and modern even if they look old and quaint on the outside. And” – he discreetly stepped on Mara’s toe – “many of my reenactment friends are housed in the cottages or they camp nearby. They’d surely come to your aid if you needed them.”
“Well ….” She looked hesitant.
“They’re all here just now, celebrating.” Alex waved a hand, indicating the milling Highlanders, corporeal and otherwise. “Braw lads, as you can see. I can guarantee you nary of one of them is afraid of ghosts.”
Mara almost choked.
She did turn aside, unable to watch and listen.
Stepping up to the plaid-draped trestle table, she helped herself to a piece of saltwater taffy and waited until the shrew hurried off to inform her husband that they’d be sleeping elsewhere.
“I can’t believe you did that.” Mara whirled around, not surprised to find Alex wearing a self-satisfied grin. “My dad was looking forward to sleeping in a castle.”
“That wee besom wouldn’t have given him a moment’s peace no matter what room you might have given them.”
Ben joined them then, pressing against their legs and nudging their hands with his cold, wet nose until Alex reached down to fondle his scruffy head.
“Even so, the empty cottage isn’t very inviting,” Mara said, taking another piece of taffy. “It’ll be cold. Someone will have to go down there and ready it for them.”
“We’ll do it.” A wicked glint lit Alex’s eyes. “You, me, and Ben. We’ll slip away now and no one will be the wiser.”
“Us?” Mara blinked. “But the dancing is about to start. Didn’t you see the fiddlers setting up? Or your friends helping to clear away the trestle tables?”
“Och, aye, I saw.” He looked down, the light gone from his eyes. “‘Tis a reason I’d rather be off with you now, before such merriment begins.”
“You don’t like dancing?” She tried to hide her disappointment.
“Och, sweetness.” He set his hands on her shoulders, dropped a kiss on her brow. “On my soul, I would dance with you all night and ne’er have enough. But-”
Her eyes widened. “Are you fading again?”
“No’ that, either.” He shook his head. “But my lightning bolt scars are troubling me more than usual this e’en and while I’d gladly suffer the discomfort to dance with you, I’ve no wish to whirl around the hall with the other women here tonight. If we stay, Highland courtesy demands I do just that.”
“Oh.” Color flared on her cheeks. “I didn’t think. And I’d forgotten about the scars. You just seem so-”
He pressed his fingers to her lips. “Precious lass, for the two of us, I am real,” he vowed, willing it. “So real as this fool MacDougall sporran I donned just for you.”
“MacDougall sporran?” Her gaze flew to the sporran, noticing for the first time. “You are wearing a clan sporran,” she gasped, looking back up at him. “Why?”
“Can you no’ guess?” He touched her face, his thumb brushing lightly over the corner of her mouth. “I wear it to honor the day. And my lady.”
Mara swallowed, unable to speak.
She couldn’t stop staring at the proud MacDougall clan crest on the sporran’s gleaming silver cantle. A fine dress sporran, it looked to be of best quality leather and fur with tasseled diamond-cut chains.
Then the beautiful sporran swam before her eyes and Alex’s arms were reaching for her, dragging her against his warm, blessedly solid chest.
“You don’t know what it means to me to see you wearing that,” she said, the words choked. “Where did you get it?”
“Och, lass,” he soothed, rubbing her back as he held her. “I fashioned it by will. The same way I conjure my plaid or sword or anything else I desire.”
He set her from him then, the light back in his eyes. “I conjured a duplicate for your da. He’s wearing it now. ‘Tis why we spent so much time having a good craik o’er by the hearth. I thought such a gift might please him, and increase my chances when I ask him for your hand.”
Mara stared at him, her jaw slipping again. Then the world disappeared for a heartbeat only to reappear in bold and thrilling colors.
Everything looked freshly washed and bright.
New and wonderful.
She swallowed, dashed at her tears. “You mean to ask for my hand?” she asked, glancing across the hall at her father.
Sure enough, he was wearing an identical sporran.
Beaming, he appeared to be showing it to anyone whose eye he could catch.
She looked back at Alex, her throat so thick she could scarce speak. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
He grabbed her wrist, started pulling her toward the door. “That I wish to marry you?” He slanted a glance at her as they paused on the threshold, waiting for Ben. “Of course, that’s my intention. If-”
“Oh, Alex!” She flung her arms around his neck, kissed him hard and deep. “I never thought-”
“Dinnae let your heart swell too quickly,” he cautioned, breaking the kiss. “I’ll only marry you if we find a way to enjoy a more normal union than the present circumstances allow.”
“Oh.” Mara’s elation fizzled.
“No frowning.” Alex took her face in his hands, lit a quick kiss to her down-tilting lips. “We have much to relish together even if we can ne’er truly be man and wife. For the now, a pleasant walk through the gloaming to One Cairn Village.”
He opened the castle’s main entry door, led her out into the luminous, silver-washed night. “And,” he added, as they made their way along the gravel path toward the distant line of woods, “a fine four-legged companion to accompany us. Such joys are worth much. Let us be glad for them.”
He looked down at the old dog trotting so happily beside them. “I ne’er told you, but it pleases me greatly to have won Ben’s affection. He reminds me of Rory. A dog I had, shall we say, a very long time ago?”
“We shall,” Mara agreed, smiling as Ben bolted off across the grass.
When he disappeared into a thicket of rhododendrons, she turned to Alex, throwing her arms around him again and hugging him until her breasts hurt from being crushed against him.
She reached down between them, slipping her hand beneath his MacDougall sporran, then smiled when she felt the thick, hard ridge of his desire.
“Oh, Alex, I want and need you so!” She curled her fingers around him, squeezing. “I love you so much I can’t breathe without feeling you somehow. Holding your hand, kissing you, just having you beside me. So long as we touch I am alive.”
“If we do much more such touching, you’ll have me lifting my kilt right here on the garden path – in clear view of all our guests.”
“Oh!” Mara glanced behind them. “I forgot some of the hall’s windows look out onto the lawn.”
“Then come, let us be away to ready that cottage for your da and his wee spitfire of a wife.” He offered her his arm, smiling when she took it. “Who knows what pleasures the night may yet bring?”
Chapter Fifteen
A good hour later, in the very heart of One Cairn Village, Mara closed the door of her dad’s and the shrew’s soon-to-be-love nest and gave a great sigh. She glanced at Alex, her heart dipping at how handsome he looked in the soft silver-blue light of the late summer’s evening.
A quiet gloaming.
A time full of beauty with a slender moon shining in the heavens and a gentle wind stirring the hushed air.
Not a sound from the ceilidh could be heard this far from the castle, and with all of One Cairn Village’s current occupants enjoying the revelry, the silence felt thick and heavy. And just a touch eerie.
Almost otherworldly.
Shivering, she pushed the thought from her mind and looked back at the Shieling, the quaint little cottage with its bright blue door and low, romantic lights gleaming through the thick-silled windows. Not real candlelight, but electric lamps fashioned to look and burn like candles, they cast the same flickering golden light.
“Oh, Alex. Do you think they’ll be pleased?”
“The besom?” He scratched his chin. “That one, to be sure. But, snug as the cottage is, I suspect your da would’ve preferred the tower room you’d selected for them. Which one was it? The Islesman?”
Mara nodded. “Yes, that was it.”
“Aye, he would have liked that one,” Alex agreed, winking at her. “It would’ve reminded him of Bran of Barra. Your da seems quite taken with him.”
Mara laughed. “Dad would have appreciated the views from the room, too. But he’ll love being right across from the memorial cairn.”
She glanced at it then and frowned.
A great blue cloth had been swirled around the cairn’s base, covering the stone and the large brass memorial plaque. To her horror, Ben had an edge of the cloth clamped between his teeth and was pulling on it.”
“Ben, no!” Mara ran toward him across the little village square. “Stop that!”
But Ben only tugged harder, his tail swishing wildly when the cloth ripped. He froze for moment, looking stunned by his own triumph, a good-sized piece of the blue sheeting dangling from his jaws.
Then, almost smiling, he streaked off into the heather, the blue cloth whipping behind him like a knight’s banner.
“I didn’t know he could run that fast.” Mara threw a startled glance at Alex.
“Looks like he’s headed to that scrub-grown knoll again,” Alex said. “I’d wager there’s a rabbit or some other wee creature that makes its home in that cluster of rocks he was snuffling at the other day.”
He slung his arm around Mara’s shoulders, gave her a squeeze. “Come, let’s go fetch him,” he said, leading her toward Innes’s soap-and-candle craft shop and the thicket of gorse and whins just beyond it. “He’s caught the scent of something.”
Sure enough, when they reached the base of the heathery knoll, there was Ben scrambling excitedly over the tumbled, lichen-blotched stones.
He looked at them and barked, then resumed leaping about the knoll, thrusting his nose into one rabbit hole after another, his tail wagging furiously.
Then he disappeared.
“Ben!” Mara ran forward, dropping to her knees in the heather where Ben had been but a moment ago.
Alex hurried after her, scanning the hills as he ran.
But Ben was gone, nowhere to be seen.
Fear for the old dog tightened Alex’s chest. Seeing Mara ripping at the heather, searching for Ben, tore his heart.
“The blue cloth!” She whipped it into the air, waving it at him. “It was stuck in a crack between two of the boulders.”
“Don’t move!” Alex warned her, ignoring how his wounds were beginning to twitch and burn. “Don’t even breathe. Ben must’ve fallen into one of those heather-covered crevices I warned you about.”
“Yes, he has! I can him whimpering.” She twisted round to look at him, her eyes wide with fear. “Oh, what can we do? We have to get him out.”
“We will. Dinnae worry,” he called to her, the words sounding distant. “Just be still until I can get to you.”
“Oh, no! Something’s wrong with you, too!” She stared at him and clapped a hand to her cheek. “You’re so pale.”
“It’s the lightning bolt scars,” he said, his voice sounding even fainter. “The pain will pass.”
But he needed all his strength to climb the knoll. Claws of fire raked him with each step, searing and slashing at his innards as if his scars had grown talons and were ripping him, tearing him apart.
He forced himself to move, kept putting one foot in front of the other until he made it to his lady’s side.
Then he threw back his head and looked up at the liquid-silver sky, drew a deep, lung-filling breath to strengthen him. But when he grabbed Mara’s arm and yanked her away from the stones, the effort near brought him to his knees.
It even made him dizzy.
But he couldn’t risk her falling into an underground crevice or cave. Ben needed him, too. The old dog was barking now, bless him.
Sounding more excited than anything.
Certainly not injured.
Such relief swept Alex that he almost felt himself again. “Ben’s well,” he called to Mara as he yanked at the heather covering the crevice. “He’ll be fine as soon as I make an opening large enough to me to scramble down inside there and get him.”
But Mara said nothing.
Understanding her fear, he kept tearing at the heather and bracken, tossing aside loose stones. “It must be an underground cave,” he said, working faster now, his strength returning. “I can see Ben’s eyes looking up at me.”
Ben’s eyes, something bright and glittery, and old, moldering bones.
A rusted sword and bits of what looked to be a shirt of mail.
“Odin’s balls!” His eyes flew wide. “It’s no’ a cave. Ben’s fallen into a tomb. My own hallowed grave!”
The earth tilted and spun, the beautiful night blurring around him, its silvery-blue hues turning an ethereal green that swirled and caressed.
Soothing caresses that took his pain but also sharpened the sound of Ben’s loud barking.
And Mara’s silence.
He twisted round to face her. “Did you no’ hear? Ben’s fallen into my tomb! There can be no mistaking. My own old sword is down there. And the Bloodstone of Dalriada. I saw its glitter winking up it me!”
But Mara stood frozen, staring at him.
Not saying a word.
And, Alex finally saw, not looking at him, but past him.
Whipping round, he saw what lamed her.
“It’s my green lady,” she said then, her voice glazed with fear.
Beautiful and glowing, the apparition shimmered on the far side of the knoll, the whole of One Cairn Village clearly visible through her luminous green gown.
“That’s no’ a green lady, lass.” Alex pushed to his feet, h
umbled. “She’s one of the fae. I’d bet my life on it.”
“So you did once,” the woman said, her voice a song. Like sweet, tinkling music on a breeze. “So you shall wager again, if you come to this side of the knoll and retrieve your poor dog.”
“Ben!” Mara grabbed Alex’s arm, gripped tight. “He’s there, with her.”
And he was.
Bright-eyed, dirt-streaked, and swishing his tail.
“I’m no’ sure I want to come close to you, lady of the fae.” Alex eyed her, too wary of the tricks of the sidhe to approach her without caution. “I’d be grateful if you un-spell our dog and let him come over here.”
“You are a prudent man, Sir Alexander. And a good one,” she said, releasing Ben. “I but wished to show you the most conspicuous way into your tomb.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you might have cause to seal it.” She smiled when Ben loped across the rocks toward them. “Or would you wish your children to fall into such a place?”
“My children?” Alex’s blood began to hammer in his ears. “Children with Mara?”
The fae beauty glowed a shade brighter. “If you so choose.”
“If?” Hope near split Alex. “I desire nothing more fiercely. Save having and keeping my lady.”
Mara pressed a hand to her breast. “What is she saying?”
“Simply that the choice is his.” The fae woman held up a magnificent ruby brooch. “The Bloodstone of Dalriada carries three wishes,” she said, suddenly standing before them. “Long ago, he cursed himself with the second wish. But a-”
“A third remains?” Alex stared at the brooch, the roaring in his ears deafening now.
The woman nodded. “Make your wish, Sir Alexander, and I shall take the brooch back with me to my own realm. We have waited long for its return.”
“As I have waited-” Alex snapped shut his mouth, looked at his hand.
The brooch rested in his palm, its pulsing warmth sending chills all through him.
Chills and hope.
“Mara.” He turned to her, saw the same dream beating all through her. “It might not work,” he cautioned her. “Dinnae be sad if it doesn’t, if something happens to me.”
