by Mimi Riser
If the young maid had been startled at seeing m’lady awake and on her feet at the door, she was stunned by the sudden fist that connected with her rosy dimples. Stunned cold.
It surprised Tabitha almost as much. She had expected the job to take more than one blow. Whoever would have guessed such a sturdy looking lass to have a glass jaw, she mused with a slight head shake, as she stood at the desk in her new maid’s uniform, scratching out an apology:
Dear Enid,
Please excuse me for having to punch you, but I could not be sure of your motives, nor could I spare the time for negotiations. In exchange for your attire, I am giving you this lime taffeta gown. If you let out the seams a bit, it should fit you very well, and the color will highlight the roses in your cheeks.
Sincerely, Tabitha…
She paused a moment, then quickly finished the signature with E. MacAllister. She wasn’t entirely certain about the MacAllister yet, but the middle initial seemed a safe bet. This E, unlike the one on the key, did stand for Earnshaw. As she hurried about the room, placing a pillow under Enid’s head, a quilt on top of her, and the letter and gown beside her, she prayed that the wonderful but stubborn woman who’d raised her would forgive the acknowledgment.
“I’m sorry,” Tabitha murmured aloud, hoping her mother’s spirit could hear and understand. “I know you were trying to protect me from the trap that caught you, but the thing is, I don’t believe you realized exactly what trap you’d fallen into. You thought love was the trap. But what really snared you was your fear of loss. You let pain and pride make you cynical. You dug a wound in yourself so deep that you never were able to fully climb out of it. And I’m sorry, but I don’t want to make the same mistake. I hope you’ll forgive me…Mother…but I think I’d rather take my chances with love. It may be short lived, as you said it was, but is a sunset any less real or beautiful, any less precious because it only lasts a few moments? I guess that makes me sound like all the other so-called fools you always warned me about, doesn’t it? It makes me sound like a hopeless romantic.”
“No, child, not hopeless. Hopeful. It makes you sound a lot like me, in fact.”
A large lump suddenly filled her throat. Tabitha’s gaze shot to the open doorway and a pair of eyes as green as her own.
“I knew you must have inherited something from me besides your mathematical abilities,” Zachary Earnshaw added, with the smile that must have captured Matilda Jeffries’ heart years before.
It certainly melted Tabitha’s at that instant.
“Don’t forget the eyes,” she managed to squeeze out past the lump, as her feet somehow navigated the several steps into his open arms.
“Ah, but those aren’t entirely mine,” the man said, gathering his daughter close. “We both get those from my mother.”
“I know. Elizabeth MacAllister—or Elspeth, if you prefer the Scottish version. She was the one who freed the Panther and nearly got burned as a witch, right?”
“My goodness…that old story? You know, as many times as my father told it to me when I was a boy, I never was quite sure if I believed him. Fancy you remembering it after all this time.” Zachary chuckled.
So did Tabitha, but her laugh was more on the strangled side.
“Remember it? I’ve practically lived it these past days. Being here where it all happened must have dredged it up out of my subconscious. I’ve been having so many bizarre dreams about it, I thought I was going insane—or worse—until Elspeth’s skeleton key finally unlocked my memory,” she said, and abruptly found herself held at arm’s length.
“You have my mother’s key? I’ve been looking high and low for that,” she was told. “I placed it in the base of one of our electric lights on a whim. I was curious to see if the battery’s voltage was enough to magnetize it. But before I could take it out again, Simon had disappeared with the blasted contraption, and I haven’t seen the lamp or the key since. Where did you find it?”
“On the sill. But don’t ask me how it got there.” Tabitha slipped out of his grasp and turned half away, partly so she could gesture toward the window, but more because it gave her an excuse to avoid those searching green eyes peering down at her. All things considered, she had decided to take Angus’s advice and say nay more aboot black cats. Not that she had the slightest anxiety regarding the creature, herself—or about Zachary’s reaction, if she mentioned it to him. Her father would understand the truth of the cat as well as she did, being the one who had told her the story in the first place. But she was beginning to suspect that the castle’s walls were lined with ears.
And I’m allergic to smoke.
She wondered if the MacAllister’s private legal code still included the burning of witches. After all, if it allowed such quaint old customs as trials-by-combat…
“Oh my God—I’m wasting time! Uncle Angus is planning on killing someone with a claymore!”
She said it at exactly the same instant Zachary said, “Okay, we’ll forget the key for now, but would you mind telling me why you’re dressed as a scullery maid and Enid is asleep on the floor?”
Their voices overlapped, so each heard only half of what the other said.
“What’s this about Angus and a claymore?” he asked.
“She’s not asleep; she’s unconscious,” Tabitha answered the second part of his first question, because that was the only part of it she had caught. She answered in perfect unison with his second inquiry, so she missed that one completely.
“The little Mexican girl in the bed is asleep, though,” she added, gathering herself for a lunge out of the room. “Or at this point, she may just be drugged on lamp oil. Would you please stay with her? I have to find where Angus has taken Alan—”
She was hauled back by her apron strings before she’d even cleared the door.
“Tabitha Tilda, either you have fallen into the beer again, or there is something very odd in the works. You know, I came up here in the first place simply to assure myself you were all right. I heard someone being locked in the prison tower a short while ago and, with your recent record, I was half afraid it might have been you. Now, I would like some explanations, young lady. You are not going anywhere until I understand what is happening.”
“The minute I find out, I’ll let you know!” she promised, wriggling out of the stained apron and tearing down the passageway. Now that she knew where Alan was, there wasn’t a moment to lose.
Chapter 12
Was it the lingering influence of the drugged lamp vapors that made her reckless? Possibly. But it was more the inner lamp that had recently been lit, illuminating for Tabitha who she really was. And her father would forgive her for leaving him in the dust of confusion back there; it was exactly the sort of thing he would have done himself. She was a lot like him.
Her aunt—her mother, that was—had tried to push her into a different mold, one she’d thought would keep her daughter safe from the hurt she had experienced. But it had been about as successful as a bird trying to teach her offspring how not to fly. Because the fact of the matter was that prim, proper, safe little mold had been alien to Matilda herself.
There had never truly been anything safe or proper about Matilda Jeffries. She had flaunted convention right from the start by choosing a “man’s career” for herself. And when marriage to the man she loved had seemed to be cut off from her, she’d simply channeled all her energies into that career. She had always taken too many risks with her research. That was why the final experiment had ended in that fatal blast. It just wasn’t in her to stick to safe routes. She was too independent. Too adventurous. And too romantic.
But she never did stop loving my father, Tabitha thought as she hurried through shadowed passages. Her pride wouldn’t let her marry him, but their friendship was always unique. After that one blunder, neither of them ever did look at anyone else. In their own unconventional way, they stayed true to each other to the last. Good heavens, I grew up with a beautiful example of die-hard romance and never eve
n realized it until now.
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, though, did it?
This is why I’ve been acting as I have—helping Leslie and Gabrina elope…and all the rest. Hypnotism be damned. No one has been making me do a blasted thing I didn’t really want to. I’m not possessed. I’m not going insane. I’m just In Love.
Which might possibly amount to the same thing. Her heart sank through the floor as one shadow larger than all the rest blocked the stairway to the prison tower.
“Enid? Have you done as I bid?”
“A-aye, sir. ’Tis sleepin’ like a bairn she be. She’ll nay wake till morn, I’ll wager,” Tabitha mumbled, keeping her face well lowered under the shade of her ruffled maid’s cap and hoping that checking on herself was all that Enid had been bid to do.
“Good lass. You can return tae your duties now.”
“Aye, sir.” Bobbing a quick curtsey, she turned toward the passage she thought led to the inner courtyard where the kitchens were, breathing a small sigh of relief.
The sigh was a little premature.
“Where you headin, lassie? You’ll nay find your pots that way.”
I won’t? Damn.
“Um… Aye, sir. I was gang for a fresh apron first. Me oother one was too greasy, i’twas,” she improvised without turning around.
“Aye? I’d been ponderin’ the lack of it, I had. But you’ll nay find the laundry there neither.”
“I…I was gang tae me chamber for one, maybe?”
“I think you were gang for your bridegroom.” Angus spun her about to face him and whipped the cap off her short curls. He grinned. Not pleasantly. “I’ll take y’tae him, shall I?”
“Thank you very much, but I wouldn’t want you to trouble yourself when I’m sure I can find my own way. I have been there before, you know,” Tabitha pointed out, as a rough grip on her wrist began hauling her up the stairs.
“’Tis nay trouble, Tabby dear.”
“Mr. MacAllister—Uncle Angus—Wait!” she cried, frantically trying to hold back. It was as easy as trying to hold back summer’s heat or winter’s cold. “You can’t go through with this combat. You don’t realize the danger!”
“’Tis nay danger neither. Nane for me, anyways. Nay man can stand against me and a claymore.”
“But that’s just it! What if Ian is innocent?”
“’Tis what the combat’s for, ain’t it? Tae decide whether he be innocent or nay.”
“If you’re certain of winning, all it will decide is that you’re a murderer!”
“If I win, he’s guilty, and there’s the end of it. ’Tis MacAllister law. I dinna ken why you’d want tae spare him, but you’ll nay do it. Save your breath, lass.”
“You fool! I’m trying to save you. MacAllister law may not be as secure as you think it is. This castle is being watched by the state. Did you know that? Your private code has been under some heavy suspicion, apparently. Officials will be riding in tomorrow to collect the Garcias’ murderers. I was told to warn you that if there’s any sign of ‘Claymore Justice’ when they arrive, you people could face some harsh penalties yourselves,” Tabitha shot at him, and then wondered if she had shot a little too far, too fast, and too much.
The look on Angus’s face as he snapped her over the top step and against the door to the tower room was not the look of an angry or vengeful man. It was the look of a suddenly cornered one. Which could be far more dangerous, she realized.
“You’d best explain yourself, lassie,” he said with deathly chill. “Who’s been spyin’ on us? Who gave you such a message?”
Would it hurt to tell? The man’s cover had already been blown, more or less.
“M-Mr. Elliott—I mean, Captain Elliott.” She tried not to wince as Angus’s grip bit into her wrist. “He’s a Texas Ranger.”
So there!
Or not.
The Scotsman threw back his big, bushy head and roared with laughter.
Not quite what she’d hoped for.
“Ah, you’re as daft as Ian! Or you’ve been into the vats again. That dandy’s nay more a Ranger than I’m an Englishman,” he scoffed, twisting his key in the lock. “In with you! I’ll let you both oot when I’ve finished this business.”
“You’re the one who’s daft! And when Captain Elliott gets back here you’re going to have a vat load of explaining to do. I wouldn’t want to be in your kilt!” she shouted as he shoved her into the musty, dark chamber and slammed shut the door with enough force to knock her careening across the floor. A flung out arm saved her from kissing the opposite wall.
“If there’s a spot of trouble to be found, you’ll land in the center, won’t you?” a husky baritone whispered close to her ear.
Alive and functioning. Hallelujah!
Awash with relief, Tabitha pressed against the body that voice came out of.
“You’re my center,” she half sobbed, and kissed a startled pair of lips instead of the rough bricks she’d almost hit.
It was the first kiss she had ever initiated between them. And the last thing, apparently, that Alan had expected—or needed—just then.
“Tabitha, this is hardly the… What’s gotten into… Have you fallen into another vat of beer?” he finally managed to strain out—having far less success disentangling himself from her stranglehold, what with his left arm being shackled and all.
What?
She could barely see him, but this was Alan, wasn’t it? She pulled back just enough to try to read his expression in what tiny light was seeping in through the grate in the door and the recessed window. The figure in her arms didn’t exactly sound or act like Alan, but it certainly felt like him. She pushed in closer in a desperate attempt to feel even more.
“Do you know you’re the third person to accuse me of that? Why does everyone think I’m drunk?” she complained.
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely, unable to escape her. “Could it have anything to do with the fact that you’re making wild claims, getting yourself locked up, throwing yourself at men, and dressing as a”—he squinted at her—“scullery maid, is it?”
“This is Enid’s. I traded her the lime taffeta for it. But I think I got the best part of the bargain. This is a lot more comfortable than those frilly things you prefer me in.”
“Actually, I prefer you out of them.”
Ah, now that sounded like Alan.
Tilting her head back, she grinned up at him. “I should think you’d want to kiss your wife after she went to so much trouble to free you.”
“No one’s free yet, dear.” He strained as far away as the short chain of the wall manacle would allow. “And you seem to have forgotten that you’re a bit too young to be anyone’s wife.”
That shows how much you know, she thought, deciding the explanation could wait another few seconds. There was something perversely irresistible about the current situation after all the tricks he had been playing. Pushing close again, she slid her hands around the back of his neck, inching his head down to hers.
“That’s not what you said when you insisted on marrying me.”
“Tabitha… Please… That was a mistake. One I’m trying to atone for now. But you’re not making it very easy.”
“I’m not trying to. Come on, Alan, it’s only a kiss. Don’t tell me you’ve never been kissed before,” she coaxed, using a line she had heard elsewhere once.
“That’s not funny. And you’ll be sorry if you keep this up.”
“I doubt it.”
“You’ve picked one hell of a time to change your attitude, you know that?” He groaned as her lips seductively grazed his. But he was losing the battle. She could feel it even as she could feel his free arm losing the battle to not curl around her waist.
“I’m warning you,” he breathed, all his muscles tensing like a spring about to snap. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Kiss me—”
“If you insist.” Her lips pressed home.
&n
bsp; The spring burst wide open—all around her—as both his arms pulled her off her feet and into a kiss that was like a dream and an awakening all in one. It stormed through her like a heavenly blast, sucking the breath out of her, spiraling all her thoughts into a glorious rainbow whirl. Their kisses, even when she had fought them had been indescribably ecstatic. Now that she was fully open to the experience, it was indescribably indescribable. The words simply hadn’t been invented yet that could say what that kiss released in her.
Nor her anger when she discovered their positions had reversed and she was the one chained fast to the adobe wall.
“Why, you—” She nearly bloodied her wrist in a furious attempt to jerk free.
“Stop that or you’ll hurt yourself,” Alan ordered. “I did warn you, you know. This cell was designed for women prisoners. I knew I’d be able to spring the catch on that manacle; it was never intended to hold anyone my size. But it ought to keep you out of trouble while I discover what the devil is going on around here.”
Striding to the door, he peered through the grill a moment before backing up a pace and landing two sharp, flatfooted kicks on the lock. It swung open with an ear grating creaking of hinges.
“I knew I’d be able to spring the latch on that, too.” He grinned, turning back to her. “Though I’m glad I had my boots on. That sort of thing’s a wee bit uncomfortable in moccasins.”
“I can imagine.” She glowered through the gloom at him. “But it was unnecessary, in any case. I have a key, you scoundrel.”
“Is that what that was? I thought I felt something long and hard down the front of your frock.”
“Yes, I thought I felt something long and hard on you, too,” Tabitha drawled, and was rewarded by a sight she never thought she would see. Alan blushing deep red under his tan. Even in the dim light, it was obvious. So obvious, she might have been tempted to giggle, if it hadn’t been followed by something she never thought she would hear—not even when she had wanted to.
“Heaven forgive me for corrupting a youngster,” he muttered to himself, angling awkwardly away. “Ahem”—he cleared his throat—“Tabitha, I wasn’t going to mention this just now, but…”
