Eyes of the Cat

by Mimi Riser

  “That’s why you ended up here, even though you weren’t the bride he’d ordered. He needed Alan married to produce an heir to continue the MacAllister line. You presented yourself, so he grabbed you. And then—knowing his nephew very well—locked you in the tower, a rebellious captive, to clinch the deal. After all, what gallant knight in his right mind can resist falling in love with a beautiful and spirited damsel-in-distress? Although I imagine the damsel turned out to be a bit more spirited than either of them had anticipated. You are something of a wild card, you know, Tabitha.

  “As for the combat…” She launched blithely back into the tale. “At least it cleared the air between Alan and Angus. And it ended well enough—except for that one hairy moment when Alan was nearly crushed. I honestly think Uncle Angus is more dangerous in a friendly, forgiving mood than he is when angry. The man’s hugs are lethal! For a second there, I expected Alan to pass out from lack of air. He’d gone gray as a ghost and was staring over Angus’s shoulder like he’d just seen one, too. Then, all of a sudden—and without a word to anyone, mind you—he shoved free, snatched up his claymore, and went tearing out of the hall like he’d just been shot from a cannon.

  “The rest of us stood there with our mouths hanging open, not knowing what to make of it, until Angus grabbed up his claymore, too, and went charging after him, bellowing the MacAllister battle cry. Which, of course, mobilized the entire assembly.

  “We were too late to do much, though. By the time Angus and the rest of us reached the outer court, Alan had already turned it upside down and was cutting you free from the stake. Geordie was hardly more than a grease spot by then, and Wild Horse lay where Alan had thrown him when the man had appeared out of nowhere and leapt onto his back. It appears he was the victim of a sudden heart attack. Molly said he was probably dead before he hit the ground.

  “Which rolls us straight into Act Three, and the disturbing idea that Molly was more correct than she realized.” Kathy sighed, flickering three digits aloft.

  “Wild Horse was dead before he hit the ground. Several days worth of before, in fact. Wild Horse—or what little was left of him by that time—had died not too long after you first arrived here. It was another who…who… Oh, I can’t believe I’m actually going to say this,” she groaned, “but, it was someone else in Wild Horse’s body, who died last night when that body suddenly gave out.

  “Which proves Molly correct again—or half correct, anyway. Because somehow she knew the Panther had escaped death. But she thought he had managed it through Caliban. Now it appears as though he did send his mind and spirit outward right before they destroyed his physical form. But not into the cat. And he didn’t do it to save himself, either. He did it to save Elspeth.

  “That’s the part of the story Molly never knew—how insanely jealous Jeremy Earnshaw was. His desire for Elspeth was so possessive, he couldn’t tolerate the idea of her even looking at another man. When she nursed the Panther all those weeks, and then helped him escape, Jeremy thought she had done it out of passion for the man—that she’d betrayed him with his own blood brother—and he vowed revenge.

  “It was Jeremy who secretly informed Laird Stuart that Elspeth had freed the Panther, and denounced her as a witch. Not that he wanted the MacAllisters to kill her—he wanted that privilege for himself—but he knew the Panther would feel honor bound to save the woman who had previously saved him, and Jeremy planned to use the hysteria of that rescue as a cover to murder her and the Panther both.

  “He had it all very neatly figured: Stick close by the Panther through the battle, pretend to stumble on the way to the stake and pull his supposed rival down onto his knife. Then dart up again and slit Elspeth’s throat, making it look as though his blade had simply slipped while he was trying to cut her free.

  “What he intended after that, we’ll never know. Because he never got that far. The Panther foiled him in round one by deflecting his knife thrust during that phony stumble. It hit Jeremy instead, sending his nose flying. That’s how you managed to recognize him, even in Wild Horse’s shell. The blow left a mark, apparently, that scarred not only his body, but also his spirit. Very symbolic, if you ask me, since what he had been trying to do was rather like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

  “As for the rest of it… The Panther was now aware of Jeremy’s true intentions, but in a dismal position to stop him, with kilts and claymores swarming all over him. As he went down beneath them, he took a desperate chance on the only weapon he had left. His mind. Which seems to have been every bit as powerful as rumored. Perhaps more so.

  “That horrible moment Molly remembers so well—with the echoing war cry and the bloodied frontiersman reeling madly toward Elspeth, then suddenly righting himself, cutting her off the stake, and leaping onto a horse with her in his arms—is when it happened. But it wasn’t Elspeth’s frontiersman rescuing her at that moment. It wasn’t a traitor and a jealous lover who moved east with her to keep her safe, who married her and fathered her son… It was someone whose loyalty to Elspeth went far beyond the flash heroism of giving up his life to save her. It was a friend whose undying devotion caused him to give up his very identity.

  “It was the Panther, who, with that final scream, had thrown his entire consciousness forward and straight into Jeremy Earnshaw.

  “And that’s the end of the story,” she finished, leaning wearily but triumphantly back. “Did I leave anything out?”

  Only the part I didn’t mention, Tabitha answered silently. The part about Jeremy’s mind ending up trapped in Elspeth’s key, which he’d been wearing around his neck when the Panther pushed him out of his body. It was probably the unstable voltage of the lamp the key had been placed in that suddenly released him. But you were so nice about accepting everything else, I didn’t have the heart to inflict that part on you.

  “Not a thing,” she complimented aloud. “I can tell that you really do understand it all now.”

  “No. Not one, single, solitary syllable of it,” Kathy declared. “But please…” Her hand lifted one final time in a gesture of appeal. “Let’s not go over it again. After listening to you mulling it over for hours, and hearing myself recite it twice, I don’t think I can possibly bear another encore of it this evening. I just want to take one of Molly’s headache potions and escape into dreamless sleep. You ought to do the same.”

  Heaving one of her more dramatically executed sighs, she pulled forward and rose a little rockily to her feet.

  “Don’t sit here brooding too long. Alan will be back soon, I’m sure. A person can ride only so much of this prairie, and then they have to come home. You’ll be able to sort everything out when he does. Just because he wouldn’t discuss anything last night, wouldn’t stay in the room with you, and has been rather mysteriously gone since dawn doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is wrong. You worry too much.” She reinforced the encouragement, such as it was, by reaching out and ruffling Tabitha’s cropped curls.

  “You know, I’m almost sorry that Molly has taken over Rosa. Having her to look after right now would at least give you something else to think about. But you have your father to thank for that, I suppose—he being the one who delivered Rosa to that eager Scottish pixie after you left her with him last night. Now that Molly has her delighted little clutches on the tot, I doubt you’ll get her back before she’s twenty. It’s a question of like being attracted to like. Molly and Rosa are so similar in size… Ah, that’s better! I finally got a smile out of you. Hold that pose, and remember that laugh lines are always attractive, but worrying simply gives you crow’s feet.”

  Looking as though no crow would dare leave it’s imprint on her own face, she landed one more pat on the blond curls and ascended the ramp into the keep, causing Tabitha to wonder briefly just what she had up her elegant, puffed sleeve—besides her Derringer, of course. She knew Kathy had to be plotting something. Wanted for a remarkable assortment of creatively performed con-games, her position was a little too preca
rious at the moment to warrant such calm behavior otherwise.

  Angus had promised that he could pay any fines and legally arrange for her to spend any punitive incarceration she might be facing in the protective shadow of Castle MacAllister. But the exchange for that was marrying one of his sons. And the alternative to it was being hauled in by Captain Elliott for, what would probably turn out to be, a short trial and a long prison term.

  Why the latter hadn’t already happened, in fact, was something to be considered. Kathy claimed that she had been on her way to breakfast that morning when Simon had arrived back with the wagons and men to cart off the prairie pirates. And when she’d inadvertently stumbled upon him and a marshal just outside the kitchens, and the marshal had seemed on the verge of recognizing her, Simon had quickly introduced her as Mary MacAllister, lately arrived from Boston, and directed the other lawman’s attention elsewhere. Kathy had said it was because Simon wanted the glory of bringing her in all for himself. But somehow Tabitha didn’t think that kind of glory was quite what Captain Elliott was after.

  And what am I after?

  Easy answers to a few last uneasy questions? An end to depressing doubts and growing anxiety? A Rock of Gibraltar embrace holding her close?

  “Actually, if I can just have that last, I’d cheerfully forego everything else,” she pleaded aloud, bowing her head over fervently clasped hands. “I wouldn’t even care where he’s been or why he left me the way he did. If I can just have him back safely, I’d never need another thing.”

  “Granted,” a husky voice spoke from several feet in front of her. “I’ve always wanted to be the answer to a lovely lady’s prayer.”

  Hot tears of relief stung her eyes. Blinking them back, Tabitha looked up into amber gold—and felt her gaze narrow into an I-should-have-guessed-it-sooner stare. There were four amber orbs glittering down at her. And she hadn’t fallen into any vats recently either.

  Well, it answered the question of how he’d realized her danger the previous night. Although it raised some new ones.

  “I suppose you think you’ve been very clever,” she said. But not to the tall figure in the linen shirt, suede vest, and incorrigibly form fitting trousers. “Come here you little— What’s got into him?”

  Dropping her outstretched hands in bewilderment, she sank back onto the bench as Caliban leapt off a muscular shoulder before she could touch him, then darted through a hole in a nearby wall and disappeared from view.

  “Him? Whatever are you talking about?” Grinning like a cat, himself, Alan sank down next to her, pulling a slight gasp out of her throat when a hard thigh pressed provocatively against hers.

  “I suppose you think you’ve been clever, too. You might have told me you and he were friends. It would have saved me a lot of worry last night,” she told him. And stifled a second gasp as his arm deliberately brushed her breast.

  What the…

  It wasn’t that the attention was unwelcome—rather the opposite. But, all things considered, it was a trifle… Suspicious?

  “What’s the matter?” He matched her inch for inch as she began scooting nervously away from him. “Your husband has been gone all day and he doesn’t even get a kiss for his return?”

  Tabitha, you’re being an idiot, she told herself, trying not to flinch as his hands slipped about her waist, catching her before she tumbled off the end of the bench. This was exactly what she had been longing for, wasn’t it?

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that after the way you behaved last night… I guess I’m a bit confused.” She forced a smile at her own sudden fancies. Ridiculous fancies, really, about incongruous things. Too convenient heart attacks. Too easy answers to prayers. A too familiar amber gaze that, somehow, didn’t seem quite so familiar anymore… “I must still be suffering from smoke inhalation. It’s making me imagine odd things.”

  It has to be that, she thought, relaxing into his hold as he pulled her close. This was definitely Alan—outside and in. She could feel his unmistakable energy as clearly as she could feel the rest of him. Alan’s arms. Alan’s chest. Alan’s lips…

  “Never mind about last night,” those sensuous lips murmured. “I was only tired and upset. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

  Something with the weight of a stone plummeted straight down to her heels. It was her heart. Because no one could have known what Alan said the previous night. That was the whole wretched point. He hadn’t said anything. After carrying her, choking and dazed and desperate for him, back to their room, he had simply left her there with Kathy and Molly and a flustered chambermaid. He hadn’t said a word to any of them. He hadn’t even offered a backward glance.

  Oh, I do hate being right so often.

  She stifled a moan, feeling her blood turn to ice as his embrace tightened.

  “How did you do this?” she demanded, bracing her hands against that granite chest and straining backward as Alan’s lips sought to possess hers.

  A low chuckle rumbled in her ears—from Alan’s throat, but not from Alan. “You’re a clever girl. Figure it out for yourself.”

  I already have. It’s what I’ve been worrying about all day.

  The murky questions and their suddenly too clear answers hit her like a fist.

  Herself at the stake… Alan storming like the wrath of God into the outer court… Everyone startled by the sight of a bloodied Wild Horse leaping out of the shadows and onto his son’s back… And no one save herself and the two combatants, themselves, realizing that the struggle was more mental than physical. Alan had thrown off his attacker, and the man had dropped lifeless to the ground.

  “But it wasn’t an ordinary heart attack,” she said aloud. “If Wild Horse’s heart had been that fragile, it would have quit the same time, or even before his brain did, and you never would have had the chance to make use of him. The reason his body died last night is because you abandoned it during the fight. Without a mind inside to keep it functioning, it simply stopped.”

  And this is why Alan was so strange and withdrawn afterward, she added silently. Because by then, he’d been under some sort of internal siege, trying to shove out the consciousness that had invaded his.

  “This will never work, you know. Even if you kill me now, to keep me from telling, Angus and the others will still recognize that you’re not Alan,” she warned, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Oh, I hardly think so.” Jeremy Earnshaw grinned at her, while Alan’s arms held her fast. “I’ve had a very instructive day in here, picking this body’s brain clean. I probably know more about your miserable mix-breed husband than he knows about himself. I certainly know enough to give a convincing show that I’m him. As for killing you… Now why would I want to do that?” He looked wounded that she could even suggest such a thing.

  “You’re so clever, you figure it out,” Tabitha told him, her muscles starting to ache from the tension of trying to push free.

  “Mmm…yes, I do understand your point. But if I’m prepared to let bygones be bygones, I don’t see why you can’t,” he reflected amiably. “I’ll admit I made a mistake last night, but I couldn’t think clearly with that body’s beastly headache hammering away at me. I just wasn’t myself. I haven’t been totally myself for quite sometime.”

  He chuckled at his own joke. “However, I’m beginning to feel very at home in this fine, healthy form. Especially since discovering that it’s from my enemy’s own bloodline. Did you know that your husband’s red-skinned grandmother was the Panther’s sister? That’s where he got these curious eyes from. The literal translation of his Comanche name, Eyes-of-the-Cat, is He who has eyes like the Panther. I find it tremendously gratifying having possession of this body…since its great-uncle had possession of mine for so long. Such poetic justice. Don’t you agree?”

  “No.”

  The grin beaming down at her hardened into a tight line. “Ah well, you will, my girl. You’ll learn to agree with whatever I say or do. Quickly and without question. That’s the other
part of my justice, you see. As the sins of the parents are visited on the children, I’m going to make you pay for your trollop grandmother’s crimes. That’s why I won’t kill you. It would be far too easy. What I am going to do, and enjoy myself thoroughly, in the process,” he whispered seductively into her ear, “is make your life a living hell from now on.”

  “You’re too late,” she whispered back, going limp against him in a seeming numbness of despair. “With Alan gone, my life is worse than hell already. If you won’t kill me, I’ll simply kill myself.”

  “Now what would be the fun of that?” A rough hand tangled in her hair, jerking her face back to meet his. “You wouldn’t want to destroy all my hopes of hearing you beg for mercy night after night, would you? I’ve been so looking forward to it.”

  “You’ll be looking forever if you expect to get any begging out of me. Dead people are beyond begging.”

  “Such melodramatics! Would it encourage you to stay alive if I told you that your lover still was, too? Whether or not he stays that way, however, depends upon you. Any more foolishness and I’ll toss his sleeping mind into a cockroach and crush it under the heel of his own boot.”

  “Sleeping?” If it was exactly the information she had been trying to goad out of him, she gave no sign of it. “Is that how you gained control, then?”

  “Oh, I would have managed that in any case. I learned mind-control from a master, after all; I was taught by the Panther himself. But Alan’s exhaustion did make things smoother. The moron ran himself and his stallion ragged today trying to gallop me out of his head—and then fell asleep when he stopped for a moment to drink! That’s when I moved to the front. Lucky thing, too, or he might have toppled face first into that spring and drowned.”