The Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance

by Trisha Telep

  “Aye.” Mrs Harriet’s expression softened. “Yer da is resting.”

  Hades came loping up, his blue-grey fur flecked with dried mud and leaves, and would have trotted in the front door and across Mrs Harriet’s freshly scrubbed floor had the housekeeper not grabbed him by the collar.

  “Just whaur dae ye think yer gaun?”

  With a docile and properly chastened Hades still firmly in her grasp, Mrs Harriet walked down the steps. “Ah left ye a plate o’ neeps hash ’n’ eggs ’n’ thare ur fresh scones in th’ basket on the table,” she called over her shoulder before leading Hades around the house towards the stables.

  Mrs Harriet passed through Deidre as if moving through thin air.

  Caden noticed the pain in Deidre’s hazel eyes and the tears glistening on her long lashes and all he wanted to do was comfort her. Wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders, he led her up the stairs to his room.

  “She passed through me as if I weren’t even there!” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “The curse has not been broken.”

  Nothing unsettled Caden more than a woman crying. It lacerated his heart like a shard of glass. It made him feel anxious and helpless.

  Desperate to ease her suffering, Caden gathered Deidre up in his arms, carried her to the bed, and rocked her until her sobs subsided. He felt the warmth of her body through her thick gown, the curve of her shapely body on his thighs, the silky strands of her hair teasing his chin, and it took all of his self-control not to toss her on his bed, hike up her skirt, and bury himself between her thighs.

  But Deidre was not like the other women he had known. He couldn’t wine her, dine her, and nail her all in the same night. Even though she had spent the last five hundred years watching the world evolve, she was still from a different time, when women had gentle dispositions and delicate sensibilities.

  When she looked up at him with tears still trembling on her lashes, the slender tether restraining his desire nearly snapped.

  As a spirit of the netherworld, hovering near but never interacting with humans, Deidre had spent centuries watching people flirt and fall in love. Once, quite by accident, she had happened upon one of Robert’s grandsons making love to a serving wench behind a boulder in the glen near Caerlaverock.

  She’d often wondered what it would feel like to be kissed and caressed again, but had long since given up hope it would ever happen. Now, Caden Maxwell was pressing his lips to hers and pushing his tongue inside her mouth.

  When she finally mustered the courage to reach up and run her fingers through his close-cropped, honey-hued hair, his passionate response chased away her fears and doubts. He moaned and deepened his kiss.

  The stubble covering his cheeks abraded the tender skin around her mouth, but she did not mind. In fact, she liked the intriguing pleasure-pain sensations it aroused.

  Agitation pricked at her, prodded her. She wanted something from him but did not know what.

  Caden knew.

  He lifted her gown, slid his broad hand up her thigh, and began teasing the apex of her womanhood with the tips of his fingers, brushing over it softly, again and again, until she felt as if she were dying a second time. Only this time there was no pain, only sweet ecstasy.

  Caden woke four hours later with his arms still wrapped around Deidre. He pressed a kiss to her smooth forehead, before easing himself out of bed and heading to the kitchen for a bite to eat. When he had polished off two ham sandwiches, an apple, and a can of Coke, he made a similar feast for Deidre and carried it to his room. He found her fast asleep, so he left the plate of food on the nightstand beside his bed, and headed to the bathroom.

  Caden ran his hands over the stubble covering his jaw and considered shaving, but decided he would rather take a quick shower.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was dressed in his favourite pair of distressed jeans and an Abercrombie button down, and comfortably seated in James’s library.

  Caden had found a tattered, yellowing copy of his mother’s book, Lords of the Land: A Brief History of the Maxwell Clan, in the library earlier in the week, haphazardly shelved between the leather-bound first editions of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Although he had grown up knowing that his mother, an esteemed historian and author and a woman he adored, had written a book about his father’s clan, stubborn pride and resentment had prevented him from reading it.

  A memory flashed in his brain. He was fourteen and had just spent the summer at football camp where he had practised hitting and spinning, defensive moves that helped running backs avoid getting tackled (a move he employed both on and off the field). For some reason, perhaps it had been seeing all of the proud fathers at the end of camp awards ceremony or the fact that he hadn’t had a father to slap him on the back and tell him “good job, son” when he won the trophy for being the best running back in his age group, he’d returned home feeling curious about James Montague Maxwell, so when he thought his mom wasn’t looking, he grabbed a copy of her book from the shelf in the living room. He’d just opened it when she walked in the room. Embarrassed, he closed the book and tossed it on the table, then grabbed the remote, turned the television on, and clicked to ESPN.

  “Caden,” she’d said, taking the remote from his hand and pushing the button to turn off the television. “There is nothing wrong with wanting to learn more about the man who helped create you.”

  “Why would I want to learn about anything about a man who had abandoned his wife and only son?”

  His vehemence had surprise them both.

  But he was no longer an angry boy.

  He opened the book and began reading about the notorious Maxwells. Apparently, the third Lord Maxwell had been accused of killing two of his wives. The fourth Lord Maxwell, a notorious rake and daring soldier, had died at the Battle of Flodden Field, leaving behind a small army of bastards. The book described Robert Maxwell, the fifth Lord Maxwell and the man responsible for Deidre’s death, as a slippery intriguer who conspired against his own countrymen with England’s Henry VIII. Another Maxwell was found guilty of treason for his participation in the Jacobite rising of 1715 and was sentenced to death.

  Disgusted, and even a little ashamed, Caden closed his mother’s book and put it back on the shelf where he had found it. He moved round the library, scanning the titles of the many books, until a thick, red leather-bound book with the words Witchcraft in Scotland: Tales and Trials by Professor Alastair P. Wallace embossed in faded gold caught his attention.

  He snatched the book from the shelf just as the door to the library opened.

  A worried looking Deidre poked her head in, looked around, and then sighed in relief when she saw him.

  “Look what I just found.” He held the book out to her. “It’s a book about the history of witchcraft in Scotland.”

  “Oh Caden,” she said, stepping inside and closing the door behind. “Does it say anything about Agnes Bowquan? What about curses that turn a person into a bean shìth?”

  “I don’t know. I only just found it.”

  He walked over to the heavy oak table in the centre of the room and pulled out a chair for Deidre, then sat in the chair beside her. He opened the book and searched the table of contents for anything that might be related to Deidre.

  “Look,” she said, pointing at an entry halfway down the page. “There is a section on curses.”

  He flipped to page two hundred and sixty two and began reading aloud.

  “In the fifteenth century and early into the sixteenth century, the most powerful witches lived in the lowlands, where the ley lines intersect, and mystical energies flow as strong and mighty as the River Tweed. Arguably the most potent witch to live in that time was Agnes Bowquat (see also witch hunt) of Caerlaverock who was believed to be skilled in the art of healing.”

  Caden skimmed over an explanation of the art of healing and the difference between white and black witches until he came to the part he was looking for – there,
mid-way down page two hundred and sixty four was a brief reference to Deidre.

  “At some point, Agnes Bowquat began practising black magic, casting her most powerful spell on a dying woman. The legend is that one night the son of a great lord found the woman he loved lying in a pool of blood after she had flung herself off the ramparts of his castle. Distraught, he took her body to Agnes. Instead of healing her, the black witch turned her into a bean shìth.”

  Caden stopped reading and looked at Deidre.

  “Does it say how the curse is to be broken?”

  He shook his head.

  “It only says your soul is connected to the Maxwell Clan and therefore it will take a Maxwell to break the curse.” Caden turned back to the book and read the last paragraph. “When a Maxwell proves himself worthy of her love, and gives his love in return, he will break the curse in four moons time.”

  Caden turned the page hoping to find more clues about Deidre’s death and the curse placed upon her.

  He was not disappointed. Reproduced on the next page were a newspaper article and a small black and white photo of a pile of bones in a heavy, scarred wooden box. The caption read: Old bones found in a box during excavation of the old tower of Caerlaverock believed to be the remains of a woman who lived over four hundred years ago.

  “That’s it! I think I know what will break the curse.”

  “You do?”

  Caden nodded.

  “Maybe you are still haunting the Maxwells because you were never given a proper burial. I’ll find your bones and bury them.”

  “But how will you do that?”

  Caden read the newspaper article again and saw the dateline was 5 August, 1956. He thought of Mrs Harriet. She had to be at least sixty-five years old. He wondered if she might know something about the bones.

  He grabbed the book and headed for the door.

  “Wait here!”

  He searched in several rooms before he found Mrs Harriet asleep and snoring softly in a wingback chair in a cosy sitting room attached to one of the smaller downstairs bedrooms.

  She jerked awake when he touched her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs Harriet, but I was wondering if you might be able to help me with something.”

  “Ay coorse! Whit can ah dae fur ye?”

  He showed her the article.

  “Do you know anything about some old bones found at Caerlaverock?”

  Mrs Harriet removed a pair of rectangular reading glasses from her sweater pocket, slid them on to her face, and squinted at the page. Her cloudy eyes moved slowly as she read the caption beneath the photo.

  “Aye,” she said, nodding her head. “Thaur was some excavatin’ of th’ auld castle an’ moat years ago. Some of th’ artifacts waur returned tae th’ Maxwells.”

  “Where are they now? In a museum?”

  She shook her head again and told him that she believed they were still stored in the old kitchen.

  “Old kitchen?”

  “Och aye, th’ garage was once a scullery.”

  The garage? Deidre’s bones were in his father’s garage? Only in an old European house would one find priceless treasures haphazardly stored in an attic or garage.

  “Thanks Mrs Harriet.”

  He pressed a kiss to the dear old woman’s crumpled cheek before racing back up the stairs, anxious to share the information with Deidre, but when he got to the library, she wasn’t there.

  He crossed the hall to his room, but found it dark and empty, too. He grabbed his cashmere coat and scarf and was just about to go in search for her when James’s hospice nurse rushed into the room.

  “You might want to come,” she said. “I think it is time.”

  James Montague Maxwell’s time to die had finally arrived and there was nothing Caden, the hospice nurse, or the capable and unflappable Mrs Harriet could do to postpone it.

  The emaciated man’s chest rattled with each tortured breath and his blue eyes, yellow with jaundice, darted frantically back and forth as if terrified at the thought of dying alone.

  “I’m here,” he said, taking his father’s bony hand in his. “You’re not alone.”

  James smiled weakly and then gestured with his free hand for Caden to move closer. When Caden knelt beside the bed, James sucked in a strangled breath and began speaking in a raspy whisper.

  “I regret many things,” he said, tears spilling down his cheeks. “But most of all, I am sorry I wasna the dad ye deserved.”

  Caden hugged his father and told him that he forgave him.

  Just before James Montague Maxwell took his last breath, he turned his head towards the window and lifted his hand as if beckoning for someone.

  Caden followed his father’s gaze. Floating outside the window, her grizzled hair swirling about her slender shoulders, her eyes sunken into her face, was Deidre Monreith, banshee of the Maxwell Clan.

  James took his last breath and Deidre began to wail.

  Bleary-eyed and heavy-hearted, Caden found Deidre in the woods that separated Blackstone House from the mudflats and the sea. She was sitting on a stump, her head in her hands, sobbing.

  Caden went to her and pulled her into his arms.

  “Please don’t cry,” he whispered, kissing her forehead.

  “I am sorry, Caden. So sorry.”

  He rubbed her back, inhaled the floral scent emanating from her hair, and sighed.

  “You have no reason to apologise.” He kissed her forehead again and stepped back, holding her at arm’s length so she could look into his eyes. “You did not kill my father. You lamented his death.”

  He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her without restraint, searing her soul with his passion. When she pressed her body against his and moaned deep in her throat, Caden knew he had to possess her again, even if only for a moment.

  After making love, Caden and Deidre spent several hours in the garage searching through dozens of old boxes and crates filled with mouldering clothes, yellowing photo albums and chipped porcelain.

  “We don’t have much time left,” she said, looking nervously out through the arched doorway to the setting sun. “Once twilight has passed, I will become a bean shìth again.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t think we’re going to find the trunk before the sun sets.”

  “I don’t think so, either,” she said, sighing heavily. “Even so, there is something I would like to tell you before the light wanes completely and we cease to inhabit the same world.”

  Her grave manner captured Caden’s attention. He set down the crowbar he had been using to pry open crates and took a seat on a wooden trunk filled with porcelain bric-a-brac.

  “I want to tell you about your mother and father.”

  “What? Why now? We had a deal.”

  She perched on the edge of the crate opposite him.

  “I know we had a deal, but I do not know how much longer you will be able to see me …”

  He crossed his arms and leaned forwards until their noses nearly touched.

  “Doubt who and what you will, Deidre Monreith, but never doubt me. I promise you, I will find your bones and break the curse.”

  The deep timbre of his voice, the earnestness of his avowal moved her nearly to tears. Why couldn’t they have lived in the same time period? What cruel and dark force separated them?

  “I believe you, Caden.”

  He kept his arms crossed but leaned back, apparently appeased so she continued.

  “Your mother and father loved each other very much, but James Maxwell was immature. He wasn’t ready to be a husband, let alone a father. One night, he went out with some friends, drank too much, and in a reckless, impulsive moment, did something he would spend the rest of his life regretting.” Deidre sighed and shook her head. “He was unfaithful with your mother’s best friend. When your mother found out, she was devastated. But she loved James Maxwell so she stayed. He continued drinking heavily and one night he did not come home again.”
r />   “And she stayed with him, even after that?”

  “Aye.” Deidre winced at the pain palpable in Caden’s voice. “Your mother waited until you were born and then she told James that he was not worthy of being the father to her child; that her child might inherit the Maxwell name, but he would not inherit their shame. She packed her bags and left and they never spoke again.”

  Caden sighed, dropped his chin to his chest, and shook his head. When he looked at her again, the signs of vulnerability had been erased from his face, replaced by the detached expression of one who had analysed and accepted a situation he recognized he could not alter.

  “James Maxwell loved your mother and wanted to be your father, but his shame and stubborn pride kept him from ever reaching out. He repented, lived an honourable life and devoted a lot of his time to philanthropic pursuits.”

  “If he genuinely repented, why didn’t he find me sooner?”

  “Perhaps he felt unworthy of your love.” Deidre shook her head. “It’s so tragic. He loved you and your mother and he eventually became the man you both deserved, but it was too late …”

  Caden continued to look for Deidre’s bones, even after she silently slipped out of the garage and disappeared between the shadows of dusk.

  He searched through a dozen boxes of knick-knacks, an armoire filled with dusty, moth-bitten riding apparel, and a steamer trunk of old tin toys. He found a tricorn hat, a startling number of empty whisky bottles, a jar of brass buttons, and a rusty bayonet, but no bones.

  Using the crowbar, he pried the lid off the last of the crates and found Deidre’s bones nestled in a bed of wood shavings. Caden plunged his hands in the curled bits of wood and lifted Deidre’s yellowing skull from its resting place. The upper and lower teeth stood in neat rows but a rather large jigsaw puzzle shaped piece was missing from the left side of the heavy cranial bone.

  Caden paced back and forth on the narrow strip of rocky shore where he’d first met Deidre, watching as the setting sun’s blazing rays danced upon the sea. Soon the din of the day would fade away and all that would be left would be the splash of the undulating waves, the whisper of the breeze, the hoot of an owl. The vibrant world would be draped in muted shades of grey as the blanket of gloaming descended.