Tall, Dark, and Kilted

by MACKAY, ALLIE

  Then she frowned.

  An aquatic chorus filled the air.

  And it wasn’t the rain lashing at the windows. The great din came from the dark passage leading away from the entry and deeper into the castle.

  Drips, plinks, plonks, and—most alarming of all—the distant gush of running water.

  “The roof leaks!” She flashed a horrified look at her aunt. “I didn’t realize it was so bad.”

  Aunt Birdie glanced at the rain-streaked windows. “Only on such nights. As you can see”—she jerked her head at a plastic bucket near the silvered feet of one of the standing knights—“we’re quite prepared.”

  A door on the other side of the entry flew open and Honoria sailed in, her arms lined with what looked to be dented and rusting milk pails.

  “We’ve used up our supply of drip catchers.” She didn’t break stride as she hurried past. “I fetched these from the old byre. They should keep us dry!”

  Then she was gone, her tweedy bulk nipping around a corner as quickly as she’d appeared. The ancient milking pails clinked in her wake.

  Looking not at all put out, Aunt Birdie hitched the red devil mask against her hip again and started down the dimly lit passage.

  The one that echoed with the loudest drip serenade.

  “Aunt Birdie!” Cilla hastened after her, dodging trickles and weaving her way around the assorted buckets, pails, and cook pots lining the plaid-carpeted passage. “You can’t live like this!”

  Her aunt stopped at once.

  Turning around, she waited for Cilla to catch up with her.

  “My dear, have you forgotten what I told you in the car?” She bent to adjust the placement of a large glass casserole dish so it better caught drips.

  Straightening, she tucked her hair behind her ear. “Just as I love your uncle, so do I love his home. This”—she indicated the drip containers—“will all pass when the time is right for it to do so. Until then, if need be, I’ll sit on the floor and catch the water in my hands.”

  “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  The look on Aunt Birdie’s face was answer enough.

  It was also enough to put a hot, swelling lump in Cilla’s throat.

  How wonderful to love so fiercely.

  She swallowed hard, in the same moment catching another waft of sandalwood. Her breath caught and her heart did a little flip. She hadn’t realized how deep into the passage they’d gone. The door to Uncle Mac’s armory loomed right ahead of them.

  And something told her that once she crossed the threshold, there’d be no going back.

  Her Dunroamin waited within, and once she embraced it she had a feeling she’d be as ready as Aunt Birdie to listen to overloud pipe tunes and catch water drips in her hands.

  There was only one way to find out.

  So she took a deep breath and glanced at her aunt, reassured to see the older woman’s encouraging nod.

  Then—before she could change her mind—she put her hand on the door latch.

  Her heart started pounding.

  The door swung open with incredible ease.

  “Ach, laddie!” Uncle Mac’s mirth-filled voice boomed from across the weapon-hung room. “You’re a man after my own heart! A pity it is you’ve just now found your way here.”

  Cilla and her aunt exchanged swift glances.

  Aunt Birdie hid a smile.

  Cilla stared at her uncle and her ghost, amazed by their apparent ease with each other. Both kilted and looking like two Celtic chieftains of old, they stood near the tatty tartan sofa placed halfway between the hearth and the room’s row of tall, mullioned windows.

  A flash of lightning silvered the leaded panes, lining their silhouettes against the rainy night. Cilla blinked, her pulse leaping.

  Again, she imagined the sword at Hardwick’s hip. The notion that he wore—and likely knew how to wield—such a proud and ancient weapon weakened her knees.

  Every wildly romantic, sword-swinging Highland-y film she’d ever seen flashed through her mind. She could see Hardwick in such a role, especially in the heated love scenes that often followed, with the hero riding off into the hills, his lady sitting astride behind him, arms wrapped tight around his powerful body, and her long, unbound hair flying as they streaked across the heather.

  She drew a tight breath, her heart thundering.

  Unaware they’d been disturbed, her uncle and Hardwick clinked dram glasses, sharing a manly moment. They didn’t look around until—almost on its own—the door jerked from Cilla’s grasp and fell shut with a loud click.

  Hardwick’s gaze snapped to hers. The air between them ignited, rippling and crackling as if ablaze. The power of it scorched her. His mouth curved in another of his slow, heart-melting smiles. As if he, too, felt the sizzling pull between them. Then his eyes went dark with a heated, simmering look that curled her toes.

  Aunt Birdie nudged her with an elbow. “That’s it,” she whispered. “The look I told you about.”

  “Ho!” Her uncle swung toward them. “It’s about time you two returned.”

  “We ran into someone.” Cilla’s gaze stayed on Hardwick. Looking anywhere else was impossible. Even in the room’s deep shadows, he dazzled her. “And he—”

  She broke off, her chest tightening with almost painful awareness. The sight of his long, strong fingers holding his dram glass reminded her of the feel of his hands on her bare skin when she’d slipped in the bathroom.

  He’d not just touched her; he’d seen her naked.

  And the wicked glint in his eye suggested he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  Fair was fair, after all. She knew enough about Scotland to know that—as a true Highlander—he was equally naked beneath his kilt.

  The thought electrified her.

  She moistened her lips, her heart galloping. Desire pulsed through her, heated and tingly. Worse than that, an almost irresistible urge to march across the room and lift his kilt swept her.

  No, the wish consumed her.

  Could there be any thought more rousing?

  Doubting it, she cleared her throat, forcing her attention on her uncle. “We met someone,” she repeated, not sure what Hardwick had told him. “We lost track—”

  “We’d hoped to have dinner at the Ben Loyal’s An Garbh restaurant, but they were full up.” Aunt Birdie came to her rescue. “If we’d dined there as planned, we would’ve been much later.”

  “I know that fine.” Uncle Mac hooked his thumbs in his kilt belt. “And I know all about how you met my young friend here.” He rocked back on his heels, looking delighted. “Thanks to him—a Highland Shaw of the good Clan Chattan—I also know about Gregor’s mask. It’s been a grand e’en!”

  He flashed a grin at Hardwick. “You’ll ne’er believe who we just talked to!”

  “Oh?” Aunt Birdie lifted a brow, slid a knowing glance at Cilla. “You might be surprised at what I believe.”

  Cilla stepped on her toe.

  Hardwick—clearly the other half of her uncle’s exuberant we—came forward to take the red devil mask from Aunt Birdie’s arms.

  Leaning close to Cilla, he dropped his gaze to her foot, pitching his voice for her ears alone. “He doesn’t know. No’ that.”

  Cilla’s face warmed. She knew exactly what he meant.

  His ghostdom.

  She removed her foot from her aunt’s at once. “I—”

  “Dinna tell me you aren’t curious?” Uncle Mac was staring at them, his bearded chin jutting at a stubborn angle.

  “Of course we’re interested.” Aunt Birdie went to sit on the sofa. “Who did you call?”

  “Erlend Eggertson!”

  Cilla had to smile at the triumph on her uncle’s face.

  “Erlend Eggertson?” She put a deliberate note of wonder in her voice. “That’s amazing.”

  “Isn’t it, just!” Uncle Mac’s chest swelled.

  He slid a glance at Hardwick. “There aren’t many souls what can hide when two Highlanders p
ut their heads together.”

  “How did you find him?” Cilla really wanted to know. “Aunt Birdie said there aren’t any Eggertsons around here.”

  “And 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 quite 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 wicked grin. “Little good it did them. We’re on to 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 getups.”

  “But . . .” Aunt Birdie didn’t sound satisfied. “How did you know to look for Eggertson in Shetland?”

  “Tchach . . .” Uncle Mac set aside the poker and dusted his hands. “Besides Eggertson being a Norse name”—he winked 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 made him feel good to see Mac MacGhee bursting with pride and confidence. And if he could play any small role in catching whoever was sneaking about the moors at night guised as Vikings, and doing the saints 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?”

  “Of course that’s what he’s saying!” 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.

  “Eh, lass?” Her uncle eyed her, too.

  Cilla hesitated, the devil face from her window flashing across her mind. She started to bite her tongue, then blurted, “I’m not sure Gregor’s devil mask was the only devil spooking around here. I . . . I saw such a face, too. Outside my bedroom window, and”—she took a breath, hating to say it—“I’m positive it was real.”

  “Pah!” Mac scowled at her. “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, too deep into it to say otherwise. “It wasn’t Gregor’s mask.”

  Her uncle swung to Hardwick. “There’s no such thing as bogles, right? Red devil faces hovering outside a lassie’s window?”

  On the sofa, Aunt Birdie glanced quickly aside.

  Cilla looked at Hardwick, waiting.

  He hesitated only a moment. “I can’t say as I’ve encountered any ghosts hereabouts.”

  That, at least, was true.

  Excepting himself and Bran.

  “And 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!”

  “Be that as it may”—Hardwick felt a need to defend Cilla, more disturbed than he cared to admit about her mention of a real red devil face—“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, laddie! As for my niece, her imagination is as inflated as her aunt’s! There’s nothing spooking about here but those costumed loonies out on my moors.”

  “But 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, our business ventures with the Simmer Dim and Northern Mist distilleries are only now crystallizing. To date, our sheep turn a greater profit.”

  “And what do you think Robbie and Roddie do every morn when they feed the woolly buggers for us?” 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!” He threw her an outraged look. “But they won’t be getting it now.”

  He slung an arm around Hardwick’s shoulders. “Not only will the moors now be guarded at night, Hardwick here has friends who might pop by to 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. But 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 not a fake Viking ghost alive brave enough to withstand a Highland charge! Before they can shout ‘Up-Helly-Aa,’ 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 milk 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.

  And he was sure Cilla’s lower lip was starting to quiver!

  Mac hooted a great, belly-shaking laugh.

  Hardwick struggled against the urge to throttle him. And to keep from cutting off his own flapping tongue to keep it from getting him into such a pickle again.

  Not that he begrudged Mac the money.

  If indeed it came.

  Truth was, if he had access to his own former riches, he’d gladly give Mac every last coin.

  It was the way he 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. “Thousands of American women?”

  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 scowled.

  Respect and honor 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.