Her heart began to thump and she started to back out of the room, but a swirl of her aunt’s exotic perfume enfolded her, announcing Aunt Birdie’s arrival just as she appeared at Cilla’s side.
Across the room, Silver Mustache pointed the stem of his pipe at the housekeeper. “I say it’d serve better if you passed around digestive biscuits rather than chocolate ones.”
He slid a narrow-eyed look at the white-haired woman sitting near him. “I’ve some chewable tablets in my room if that should fail.”
“I do not suffer from indigestion.” The woman purposely bit into a chocolate-coated biscuit. “Though”—she dabbed at her mouth with a linen napkin—“you could easily give it to me.”
“Maybe I should just slip up to my room.” Cilla spoke low, her gaze on the shield.
“Oh, don’t mind them.” Aunt Birdie clearly didn’t see the thing. “Those two always bicker.”
“Even so—” Cilla jumped when the shield moved.
Only a few inches, but still . . .
It’d slid sideways, as if someone pushed it out of the way to sit down.
She swallowed.
Aunt Birdie’s eyes twinkled, her attention still on the two warring residents.
Happily oblivious to anything else, she hooked an elegantly manicured hand through Cilla’s arm.
“That’s Colonel Achilles Darling from Bibury in Gloucestershire—the northern Cotswolds—and Violet Manyweathers,” she confided, leaning close. “The colonel joined us after his wife’s death. Word is, his one great love was a Strathnaver lass from these parts. He never forgot her, or so the tale goes, so when he could, he came north to finally be near her.”
“Violet Manyweathers?”
Surely the two weren’t lovebirds.
“Oh, no.” Aunt Birdie shook her head. “The colonel’s long-lost love died years ago. She’s buried nearby. Violet is local. She was born in Melness, the tiny crofting hamlet just down the road.”
Cilla nodded.
It was hard to concentrate knowing he sat in the window seat.
She glanced down, making certain that her top wasn’t clinging too tightly. It’d been bad enough to have her nipples pucker when he’d swept her with such a heated look in the stair tower.
Something told her then and there that he was a breast man, and that was definitely where he’d fixed his gaze now.
She could feel it sliding over her. Dipping into the deep-shadowed swells of her cleavage and gliding round to caress and explore every nuance of her sleek, weighty fullness. The way she grew heavier beneath his stare and the sweet, hot-pulsing thrill of knowing his gaze on her.
Much to her annoyance, it was a pleasurable sensation.
Embarrassed, she tilted her chin in the air and hoped her aunt would think the room’s chill was responsible for her jutting, tightened nipples.
“Manyweathers doesn’t sound like a Strathnaver name.” She jumped on the chance to get her mind off of Mr. Wasn’t-Really-There and his nipple-stirring stares.
She also didn’t want to think of Margaret MacDonald, Dunroamin’s onetime nursery ghost whose sad plight, if true, implied that ghosts could have wholly legitimate reasons for walking among the living.
If he had a valid reason for haunting Dunroamin, she was sure she didn’t want to know it. Hoping she looked no more than mildly curious, she tapped a finger to her chin and pretended to ponder.
“Are you sure Violet’s from around here?”
“Oh yes.” Aunt Birdie glanced at the tiny woman. “She married an Englishman—Mr. Manyweathers of London—and, like the colonel, decided to come here when she found herself alone. She missed the far north and claims she never adjusted to London.”
“And Gregor?” Cilla already knew Leo the dachshund was Dunroamin’s resident mascot. “Violet’s bird?”
Aunt Birdie smiled. “He’s a great skua. Violet—”
“A great what?” Cilla’s eyes widened.
Now she did have something else to think about. She’d expected a canary or a parakeet.
“Great skua,” Aunt Birdie repeated. “They’re large brown predatory birds also known as bonxies.” Her gaze flicked to the colonel. “Violet found him abandoned with an injured wing when he was just a wee little thing. It was quite a sensation, as bonxies usually nest in the moorlands of the Northern Isles. Violet nursed him back to health. She set him free in due time, but he decided to stay.”
“In her room?”
“Heavens, no.” Aunt Birdie’s eyes twinkled. “Gregor lives outside, though he doesn’t stray far. What he does do”—she leaned close to whisper in Cilla’s ear—“is make the colonel’s life miserable. That’s why he wears those heavy boots and a deerstalker hat.”
Cilla glanced at him, just now noticing the tweedy dual-rimmed cap with the telltale side flaps on a small table beside his chair.
“The bird dive-bombs him?”
Aunt Birdie nodded. “He has, yes. That’s what bonxies do. They swoop down on anyone they view as a threat. Gregor”—she waved a hand as if to lighten the bird’s transgressions—“mostly just pecks at the colonel’s feet whenever he dares to go outside.”
Cilla laughed. She couldn’t help it. “That’s why the colonel and Violet don’t get along?”
“One reason, yes.” Aunt Birdie urged her forward. “The colonel can be difficult. He’s a bit particular.
But come, meet everyone for yourself.”
Before Cilla let her aunt pull her out of the shadows, her gaze snapped to the window bay.
There—she was sure—sat the only soul she really wanted to meet.
Well, the only soul she’d wish to meet if he were really there.
But the shield was gone.
And if he was still sitting there—or standing, for all she knew—she couldn’t see him.
Not even a dust mote stirred.
She did see the drifting mist outside. It was thinning, though, and pale evening sun now glinted off the tall, many-paned windows. But he was definitely gone. Instead, prisms of light slanted across the polished oaken floor and scattered tartan rugs.
Through the windows, she caught glimpses of a paved terrace hemmed by an herbaceous border and a wide sweep of velvety green lawn, the latter bounded by a dry stone wall that looked to be smothered beneath a welter of climbing roses.
Beyond the wall, rough slopes of heather and rock-strewn moors rolled steadily away toward the majestic Ben Loyal, the empty hills sparse save scattered thickets of yellow-blooming whin and broom.
Cilla shivered.
She didn’t know about horn-helmeted Vikings, but regardless of Uncle Mac’s opinion, she could well imagine other kinds of ghosts choosing such a wild and lonely landscape as their favorite haunting ground.
Kilted ghosts, long disappeared from history, but still alive in the Celtic twilight.
Her heart began to thump.
She could almost see him out there.
Proud, daring, and take-her-breath-away handsome, he’d stride the hills, ever ready to blood his sword in the name of clan and glory.
He’d also know how to turn a perfectly innocent bed of heather into a scene of such hot, ravishing seduction, the lucky female he chose to devour would be left so sated and limp-limbed she wouldn’t be able to walk for a week!
Oh yes, she could well see him doing that.
If he did it wearing his kilt, the lass might not ever recover.
And she’d obviously let the library’s Highland flummery get to her!
“The view can grab you, I know.” Aunt Cilla spoke right from her mind.
Cilla started. “I—”
She broke off when she caught a faint drift of sandalwood and musk coming from the window bay.
He was back!
For one tantalizing moment, she thought she saw him there. All hot and sensual Highland male, his dark, heated gaze almost burning her. He sat perfectly still, his gold armband and the brass studs on his shield catching the light on the ancient
glass panes.
“Grab her, the curls o’ my beard!” Uncle Mac joined them, and the image vanished. “She’s made of sterner stuff than to stand making moon eyes at the moors. Unlike—” he flashed a look at his wife—“some people I know.”
A chorus of chortles echoed around the room as a handful of elderly heads bobbed agreement.
Colonel Darling lifted his pipe. “Here, here!” he cried, a smoke wreath curling round his shining pate.
Aunt Birdie only smiled. “Moon eyes, you say?” She tilted her fair head. “If it restores your good cheer to say so, dear, I’m all for it.”
Uncle Mac met her calm with belligerence. “Any chieftain worth his salt would sour on hearing about Vikings tramping round in his peat banks!”
“Viking ghosts,” Violet corrected.
Ignoring her, Uncle Mac slung an arm around Cilla’s shoulders. “Come, those of you still wanting to harp on that string! Hear what my sensible young niece from America has to say about marauding Norsemen.”
“Ahhh . . .” Cilla shot another glance at the windows. A cloud must’ve passed over the sun because the garden and rolling moorland beyond now stood in shadow. “I’m sure there are no ghostly Vikings out there.”
It was the best she could do.
She was sure there weren’t any Vikings on the moors.
Unfortunately, she really could imagine him out there. But no one needed to know that.
“I’d think that if there were Viking ghosts about,” she added, just because Uncle Mac was still watching her from under his eyebrows, “they’d rather haunt the Northern Isles or the Hebrides, don’t you?”
“Aye, they would!” Her uncle’s voice rang with triumph. “Shetland and Orkney is where they’d be. Sure as there’s dew on morning grass!”
Rocking back on his heels, he curled his hands beneath his belt. “Folk in those isles are more Norse than Scottish, even today.”
“Be that as it may”—Violet Manyweathers set down her teacup—“there were Vikings a-plenty in these parts.”
Uncle Mac glared at her, tight-lipped.
“Fool woman.” Colonel Darling gave her a look of palpable annoyance. “If they were here, they aren’t now.”
“Say you.” The tiny woman held her ground. “They go rampaging over the moors almost every night—as I’ve been saying for weeks.”
“If there are such ghosts”—Honoria moved between them again, gliding forward to put a hand on Violet’s shoulder—“do you not think they’d be at Balnakeil, on the beach, rather than Dunroamin’s peat hags?”
“Balnakeil?” Cilla looked from the housekeeper to her uncle. “Peat hag? Is that a witch?”
Honoria answered her. “Balnakeil is a place, and”—she kept her hand firmly on Violet’s shoulder—“a peat hag is a bog. It’s where we go to cut peat from the moor.”
“Oh.” Cilla made a mental note to secure a Scots dictionary.
“It’s where the bogles are.” The old dear with the cane looked her way. “Those are ghosts,” she added, turning her attention back to her roast beef and boiled potatoes.
“Humph.” Uncle Mac scowled, his jaw looking more set than ever.
Taking a step toward the semicircle of bright-eyed if elderly residents, he shook a finger at the diminutive female with a walking stick propped against her chair.
“Dinna you start down that road, as well, Flora Duthie,” he scolded. “Peat, plaid, and whisky is the true grit o’ any Highlander, with a touch o’ pipe skirl tossed in for good measure. But”—he snapped his brows together, fixing her with a scowl—“leave the Celtic whimsy to tourists and incomers soft-minded enough to buy into the like.”
Flora Duthie popped a boiled potato into her mouth and scowled back at him.
“Buy into?” She aimed her fork at a succulent slice of roast beef. “Centuries of believing in Highland magic canna be so easily erased.”
“Highland magic!” Uncle Mac poured himself a second dram. “Much as we at Dunroamin strive to live in the past”—he gulped down the whisky—“this is the twenty-first century.”
“Then what’s with Balnakeil?” Cilla eyed him, some sixth sense warning her that the place was important.
Proving it, he slapped down the dram glass and began pulling on his beard.
He was clearly pretending not to have heard her.
“A Viking grave was found there.” Aunt Birdie enlightened her. “Not all that long ago, either. The discovery was quite by accident, the burial site only revealed when storm winds shifted a sand dune. It was a boy’s grave, but filled with all manner of Norse goods.”
A chill slid down Cilla’s spine.
She rubbed her arms. “So there were Vikings here?” “Balnakeil is at Durness.” Uncle Mac remained stubborn. “ ’Tis miles away around the whole of Loch Eriboll and nigh to Cape Wrath!”
“And you’re after saying that makes a difference?” Violet sat up straighter. On her lap, Leo barked. “The distance between here and Balnakeil Bay—or anywhere—didn’t matter to the poor souls who’ve left Dunroamin.”
She leaned back in her chair, stroking the dachshund’s ears. “They knew something strange was—”
“Perhaps they left because of your pesky skua?” Colonel Darling waved his pipe at her. “That bird will be the reason, and not ghostly bands of yelling Vikings.”
“Every resident who left saw them.” Violet rested her case. “They told me so.”
Leo barked again, clearly in agreement.
“They told me, as well.” Uncle Mac swelled his chest. “That doesn’t mean they weren’t seeing bog mist.”
He shot a glance at Cilla. “You Yanks call it swamp gas, I’m thinking?”
She nodded, scarce hearing him.
The shield was back.
This time it was floating back and forth in front of the windows—as if someone held it at waist level or lower as he paced.
Cilla swallowed, her eyes widening.
Around her, voices rose and fell as her aunt and uncle and Dunroamin’s residents argued about Viking ghosts and the likelihood—or not—of them haunting Uncle Mac’s peat banks. The words soon became an indistinguishable buzz, the rush of her own pulse in her ears blotting the din.
No one else seemed to see the shield.
She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
Nor could she deny that the library no longer smelled of just wood smoke and lemon polish, old books, and leather, but overwhelmingly of sandalwood and musk.
And not just a faint whiff of it clinging to the window bay.
O-o-oh, no.
Heady, rich, and darkly masculine, the scent surrounded her. Pervading the air, its spicy manliness seduced. Once again she felt strong, powerful arms closing around her. She remembered, too, the hardness of a plaid-draped, muscled chest and the grip of capable hands holding her firm.
Long, manly fingers splayed a tad too intimately across her hip.
Her face flamed. Everyone knew what they said about men with long, well-formed fingers.
She bit her lip.
Whether it meant she was going around the bend or not, the thought of the hot-eyed kiltie’s fingers set more butterflies flittering in her belly than Grant A. Hughes III had ever given her.
Him and every other boyfriend she’d known.
She drew a tight breath. Then she willed the ghost—or whatever he was—to show himself along with his infernal shield.
But if he even was the one holding it, he remained invisible.
Temptingly close, but out of her grasp.
Then the shield vanished as quickly as it’d appeared, almost as if it’d been whisked out of thin air.
His luscious scent evaporated, too. Disappearing as if she’d imagined it.
She angled her head and tried to sniff as discreetly as possible—only to have Flora Duthie cane her way over to her, offering an orange blossom-scented, lace-edged hanky.
“Here, my dear.” The woman’s rheumy eyes brimmed with understa
nding. “It’s a cold, wet summer, just,” she observed, nodding sagely. “I, too, have the bug.”
Cilla took the blessedly clean-looking handkerchief and mumbled thanks.
Not that she’d registered half of what the old woman had said.
In the moment she’d hobbled up to Cilla, something in the library shifted. A there one minute, gone the next whoosh of cold air where there should have been none, next to the fireplace.
Or simply a shivering across her soul, a sifting of time and space no one else noticed.
Then that sensation, too, was gone.
What remained was the reckless knowledge that she didn’t want him to go.
Ghost, product of jet lag, victim of a plight such as Margaret MacDonald’s or whatever, he excited her more than he could ever frighten her.
Not that she cared to admit anything so unwise. So she did what she could do.
She frowned.
Over by the Jacobean window bay, Bran of Barra grinned.
“Heigh-ho!” He waved Hardwick’s shield above his head, his eyes dancing with merriment. “I thought you were done with this thing?”
Hardwick ignored his question. “I thought you went back to your island keep?”
“Eh?” Bran feigned astonishment. “Why should I miss all the fun here? Besides, I’m thinking you need someone to look out for you.”
Hardwick snorted. “Were that so, you can be sure it wouldn’t be you.”
“Hah! You ought to count your blessings I deigned to come see you.”
Hardwick gave his longtime friend and sometimes nemesis a pointed look.
“I came here to get away from my old life,” he said, trying not to let his annoyance show.
Or that he really was glad-hearted for Bran’s jovial company.
“You mean your afterlife.” Bran made the shield vanish just long enough to raise his arms above his head and crack his knuckles. “We ghosts do have our limitations.”
Hardwick glared at him, his gladness fading.
“Glower all you will.” Bran lowered his arms.” I say your wits have left you.”
“I’ve only lost that which has plagued me for centuries.” Hardwick brushed at his sleeve. “There’s naught wrong with my wits.”
Bran arched a bushy red brow.
“Say you? That’s twice now you’ve kept yourself invisible but forgot to cloak your shield.” He leapt backward when Hardwick tried to snatch it from him. “You should be more careful. The lass can see you.”
Tall, Dark, and Kilted Page 7
