by Nina Mason
A sound from the trees pulled her outside of herself. Footsteps on damp leaves. Fear and hope wriggled inside her like startled snakes. Was it someone coming to help or a wild animal coming to tear her to pieces?
A face came over hers—a dark silhouette curtained by long, dark hair. She searched the shadows of his face for features, but couldn’t make anything out. Giving up, she closed her eyes. Her head pounded, her thoughts vacillated, and her limbs grew heavy and weak.
“God’s teeth,” the man cried in a choked burr. “You’re the spitting image of my Clara.”
Gwyn’s injured brain scrambled the reference. Clara MacDubh was her SCA persona.
“I am Clara,” she said weakly.
Something warm and fleshy touched her lips. “Drink this. It will help you.”
Despite her spinning head, she did as he bade. A meaty, metallic flavor filled her mouth. As she swallowed the viscid liquid, tingling warmth spread through her system. The worst of the pain backed off and, as impossible as it seemed, her broken bones began to mend.
As he scooped her up into his strong arms, she closed her eyes and surrendered herself to his care.
Sometime later, her eyes fluttered open to find red velvet damask had replaced the stormy night sky. She was in a canopy bed; the big, brawny Jacobean sort found in medieval castles. Heavy panels of the same fabric were tied to the massive bedposts with thick tasseled cords.
“Holy smokes. Where am I?”
Someone gasped. There was a scuffle, followed by footsteps, which grew softer. A door creaked open. Outside, the storm raged on.
“She’s awake,” a female voice with a Scottish burr called out. “Mr. Brody. Come at once. The wee lass is coming around.”
Mr. Brody? Who was he? Gingerly, Gwyn cast her gaze around the room, still unsure where she was.
A massive wooden armoire stood on the wall facing the foot of the bed. Seeing herself in its mirror gave her a start. She looked so different, she hardly recognized herself.
Beside the immense wardrobe was a dressing table with an ornately framed mirror and tightly gathered skirt of the same fabric as the bed curtains. Flocked red paper and portraits of Grecian nymphs and regal ladies hung on the walls. A worn, but still sumptuous, oriental carpet covered most of the wide-plank floor.
Footfalls echoed in the distance—a single set, growing louder. Mr. Brody, presumably, whoever he might be.
Faint memories broke through the cobwebs in her mind. The violent storm. The coach rocking and tipping. The shrill screams. Shattering glass. Mind-numbing terror. Landing hard in the mud like a cast-off doll.
She slid her gaze toward the drainpipe arm. Impossibly, the limb looked normal. Her twisted pelvis, too, had righted itself. Maybe she had imagined the injuries as well as the crash. Maybe Mrs. Dowd the knitter, Robert the driver, Alice the tour guide, and all those other nice women were here somewhere, too, and still okay.
“When did she wake?” a man with a burr asked quietly just outside the door.
“Just now,” the Scottish woman replied.
“Has she spoken?”
“Only to ask where she is.”
“Oh, aye? And what did you tell her?”
“Not a thing, sir. I ran to the door and called out, just as I was told.”
The accident replayed in Gwyn’s mind. The crash had seemed so real, it had to have happened, but how had she recovered so quickly? She combed her mind for an explanation, but could only come up with one answer.
The man who came upon her at the crash site gave her Skele-Gro, the nasty bone-mending potion Madam Pomfrey gave Harry Potter.
No, wait. That couldn’t be. For one thing, the potion didn’t taste all that bad and, for another, Harry Potter was a fictional character. Potions that fixed broken bones did not exist in real life.
Unless they did in the magical and mysterious Highlands of Scotland.
Approaching footsteps trampled her thoughts. Mr. Brody and the woman drew nearer the bed and hovered over her, breathing softly.
“She is not awake,” Mr. Brody said.
“She was, sir. I swear it. I saw her eyes with my own.”
Collecting her courage, Gwyn opened one eye.
“See there.” The woman pointed. “I told you she was awake.”
Gingerly, Gwyn opened the other eye and blinked up at the pair of faces now bent over her like buzzards.
The man was middle-aged, round-faced, and balding. Wire-rimmed spectacles sat upon his bulbous red nose, all but hiding his blue eyes behind their glare.
The woman had chin-length dark hair streaked with gray, a square jaw, and a hooked nose. Even so, she seemed more the kindly-grandmother type than threatening.
An image of Mrs. Dowd flashed through her mind.
Click, click. Click, click.
“What happened to the bus?” Gwyn found it difficult to speak.
“It went over the cliff,” said the Scotsman.
“Were there any survivors?”
“Only you, lass,” said the woman.
Grief squeezed Gwyn’s heart. Poor Mrs. Dowd. She only took the tour to ease her loneliness and now she was dead.
“Where am I?” she asked, addressing neither and both.
“Castle Glenarvon.”
Her mind brought forward the file. Castle Glenarvon was the home of Sir Leith MacQuill, her knight in shining armor. According to the blurb on the tour website, he had renamed his family castle after restoring it in the 1990s, but no reason was given. Curious, she had done a search. Glenarvon, oddly enough, was the title of a novel by Lady Carolyn Lamb, a thinly disguised tell-all about her tumultuous affair with Lord Byron.
“Who brought me here?”
“His Lordship,” the woman said.
Gwyn opened her mouth to ask for more details, but no words escaped her parched throat. She swallowed and sucked on her cheeks until she raised enough moisture to croak out one word: “Water.”
“Of course. You poor dear.”
The woman reached for a ceramic pitcher on the bedside table. Oh, dear—where was her backpack with her copy of Knight of Cups and the photo of her parents? She would die if they were lost.
As she parted her cracked lips to ask about her things, the woman pressed the rim of the glass against them.
“Drink, dearie. You must be dying from thirst. Not to mention half-starved.”
After gulping down the contents of the glass, Gwyn licked her lips. She was hungry, but eating was at the bottom of her list of concerns. Far ahead of food were the location of her backpack, an explanation for the miraculous healing of her bones, and meeting Leith MacQuill.
“Shall I bring up a tray?” The woman’s gaze flicked toward Mr. Brody, who gave her a nod. Returning her gaze to Gwyn, she asked, “What might you feel up to, dearie? Tea and toast? A wee bit of broth?”
Gwyn started to nod and then stopped herself, afraid of setting off a bomb of pain inside her throbbing head. “May I have all three?”
The woman smiled and touched her arm in a caring manner. “Of course you may.”
“I’ll go.” Mr. Brody took a step back, showing her that he wore a kilt and knee-high hose. “His Lordship will want to know she’s awake. You stay and see that she’s comfortable, Mrs. King.”
“Just as you like.” Mrs. King threw a backward glance at Mr. Brody, now halfway out the door.
Gwyn called after him. “Please tell Sir Leith I want to see him when he has a moment—to thank him for saving me.”
Mr. Brody stopped in the doorway, but didn’t turn around. “I’m afraid Sir Leith is occupied with more important matters at present, but I promise to convey your appreciation when I apprise him of your condition.”
A shadowed face framed by long, dark hair popped into Gwyn’s mind. Unfortunately, she had never seen a picture of the author, who was as camera shy as he was people shy, apparently.
Mr. Brody disappeared into the hall. Eager to know about Sir Leith, Gwyn looked around for Mrs. Ki
ng, who was crouching before a fireplace ornamented with carved cherubs and multi-colored marble panels.
“What does Sir Leith look like? Is he nice looking?”
“Oh, aye.” Mrs. King struck the logs with a poker, unleashing a hissing fountain of sparks. “His Lordship is a verra handsome man.”
“Does he look anything like Heath MacDubh?”
“Who?”
“The main character in Knight of Cups.”
Heath MacDubh was tall and well-built with shoulder-length dark hair, chiseled features, and striking lavender eyes.
“Oh, erm, well…I suppose he does a bit.”
Gwyn, who was feeling better by the moment, tried to sit up, but couldn’t manage the feat. “I would really like to meet him.”
“Aye, well.” Mrs. King turned back to the fire. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, as he prefers to keep to himself.”
“I can understand that,” she said. “I prefer to keep to myself, too…but I only want to thank him for helping me—and for offering me his hospitality.”
“I’ll be sure to pass your thanks along.”
“Could you also ask him if he saw a pink backpack near where he found me?”
“Of course.” Mrs. King, wearing a kindly smile, drew nearer the bed, helped Gwyn sit up, and plumped the pillows to support her back.
Seconds later, Mr. Brody returned with a tray, which he set across Gwyn’s lap. The co-mingled aromas of bergamot and beef roused her appetite. Licking her lips, she surveyed the items on the tray: a self-contained ceramic teapot, a silver rack holding triangles of toast, and a dish of some sort covered by a silver dome.
Mrs. King lifted the cover, revealing a steaming bowl of chunky brown soup.
“Thank you.” Gwyn picked up the spoon beside the bowl. “This looks delicious.”
As she started to eat, the grim reality of her predicament crashed down on her. Along with the photo of her parents and her game console, she had lost her clothes, toiletries, passport, and traveler’s checks. If Sir Leith turned her out, how would she manage? Tears of despair stormed her eyes, making her throat too tight to eat.
Mrs. King touched her arm. “What’s the matter, dearie? Don’t you like the soup?”
“It’s not the soup,” Gwyn said, sniffing back her tears. “It’s everything else. I’ve got no clothes, no passport, and no way to pay for food and lodging.”
“You poor wee thing.” Mrs. King patted her arm. “Please dinnae fash yourself so. We’ll look after you until you get yourself sorted.”
The servants left Gwyn alone with her food, worries, and speculations. As she ate, she considered what she knew so far. She wasn’t as clear-headed as she might be, but she hadn’t imagined her broken bones, which meant Sir Leith had used a magic potion to mend them—the same one, she’d be willing to bet, Belphoebe had given him to heal his gunshot wound at Culloden.
Except the one he’d given her didn’t taste anything like honey mead. Rather, it tasted salty and metallic, like...blood.
Holy smokes. Had he turned her into a faery?
Chapter 3
Tearing at his hair, Leith scanned the day’s paltry output on his computer screen. It was late afternoon and he’d been at it all day. His head throbbed, his eyeballs burned, and his gut was a tangle of knots. After hours spent mining his brain for words and phrases, all he had managed to get down were two pages of useless drivel a monkey could have written—and probably with more finesse.
Jaw clenched, he slammed the laptop, raked his fingers through his hair, and lit a cigarette. Taking a long drag, he shut his eyes and exhaled the pacifying smoke. What was he going to do? If he couldn’t finish this book by his deadline, he’d have to return the advance he’d already spent on bills and repairs.
Rising from the desk, he took the cigarette to the library’s diamond-leaded window. Everywhere his gaze landed, a cash register rang inside his head. The overgrown formal gardens (cha-ching)…the peeling conservatory (cha-ching)…the unpointed joints in the walls and turrets (cha-ching, cha-ching).
The list seemed endless.
He opened the window and flicked his cigarette into the soil of the flowerbed just below. On the breeze, he caught a whiff of the stables—horse dung and sweat interlaced with sweet hay, saddle soap, and leather.
As he stood there, breathing in the bouquet, his thoughts drifted to Clara. He wasn’t there when she died, but he could still hear her screams, feel her fear, and see the English knife slicing open her abdomen.
When they slaughtered her and his son, they butchered a part of him, too.
Sighing, he closed the window and returned to the desk, where his unfinished manuscript waited like a Gordian knot. His writer’s block seemed as unconquerable as the guilt he felt for leaving his pregnant wife unprotected. Was it any wonder he couldn’t write? There were more ghosts in his head than could be seen at Culloden Moor on the anniversary of the battle. Now, to add to their numbers (and his distractions), Clara’s double had materialized out of nowhere.
Unless he’d only imagined the resemblance…
The buzzing in his pocket cut the thought short. Fishing out his mobile, he was surprised—but far from displeased—to see the caller was Tom Earlston, his editor in Edinburgh. The timing of the call was extremely fortuitous. If anyone could help him find his muse again, it was Tom.
Leith engaged the call. “Tom, how good it is to hear from you.”
Tom expelled a nervous laugh into the phone. “You might feel differently after you’ve learned why I’m calling.”
The statement stumped Leith. He hadn’t spoken to Tom in months and couldn’t imagine what sort of bad news the editor might have to relay. “Don’t keep me hanging, Tom. What is it you called to say?”
“Callum Lyon’s still alive and has been living in Caithness all these years.”
The news jolted Leith, who believed himself and Sir Axel Lochlann, the portal guard, to be the only Avalonian knights on this side of the vale. “How is that possible?”
“It’s a long story, and one I would rather not get into over the phone. Would it be all right if we paid you a visit? There is much we need to discuss.”
“We?”
“Aye. I’ll be bringing Lord Lyon with me…if that’s all right with you, of course.”
Leith was too stunned to know what to say. “Yes, of course. Bring him along. When can I expect you?”
“Tomorrow, if it’s convenient.”
Should he mention his writer’s block? Deciding to wait until they could talk face-to-face, he told Tom tomorrow was fine and ended the call.
From the computer, the stalled manuscript still taunted him. His muse, like a Will o’ the Wisp, had led him into a dark forest only to leave him to find his own way out. Too bad he’d not thought to leave a trail of breadcrumbs.
* * * *
Gwyn awoke in total darkness and rubbed her eyes. How long had she been asleep? Not long, she guessed, as it was still night. The fire had gone out and the storm still raged outside. If not for the periodic flashes of lightning, she would be in total darkness. Reaching to the bedside lamp, she flicked the switch.
Nothing happened.
The storm must have knocked the power out.
Thanks to the tea, she needed to urinate rather urgently. Lightning illuminated the room for a fleeting instant. Rolling, she opened the nightstand drawer and groped about blindly for emergency candles. The first thing she found was a tassel with a key attached. She glanced around, but could see nothing in the dark, so she set her find atop the table and resumed her search. By and by, she found a small, lidless silver box containing several sturdy tapers and a matchbox.
Fumbling in the dark, she withdrew a matchstick and struck the tip against the side of the box. The sulfur hissed and flamed, smelling of rotten eggs. She lit the wick and, shielding the flame with her hand, climbed out of bed. She padded toward the door with two dire hopes. The first was for a bathroom nearby. The second was not to run
into anybody, especially her host.
Someone had put her in a nightgown. A pretty, old-fashioned one of lightweight white cotton with pin-tucking and tiny shell buttons down the front.
Breath held and candle shielded, she stepped into the hall and looked up and down. Several doors, all of them closed, lined the hallway. Damn, which concealed the bathroom? She crept down the hall, her candle casting eerie shadows across the walls and artwork. The floors were cold and the chilly air gave her goosebumps and made her nipples stand out like Jujubes. Their brush against the soft cotton nightgown set off a little spark in her nether regions.
At the first door, she took hold of the knob and turned. The latch clicked and the hinges groaned, sending a shiver up her spine. She lifted her candle to illuminate what lay beyond. Narrow shelves supporting piles and piles of neatly folded towels and sheets smelling pleasantly of lavender greeted her gaze.
Disappointed, she closed the door and moved on. The next door concealed a bedchamber, as did the one after that. Her frustration turned to distress. If she didn’t find the bathroom soon, she was going to wet herself.
She crossed her legs and hobbled toward the next door. The sound of approaching footsteps stopped her in her tracks.
Please let it not be Sir Leith!
Trying to walk, she found she couldn’t. The urge to go was overpowering. The footfalls were close. Too close. Pulse racing, she raised her candle, throwing light across the figure of a man with surprised pale eyes and shoulder-length hair.
“Hi.” The urge to go made polite conversation impossible. “I was just looking for the bathroom.”
His eyes moved down her body like a caress, pausing at intervals to linger on places that made her tingle. Holy smokes. He was undressing her with his eyes. Worse yet, she didn’t mind. He was the author of her favorite book, the object of a long-time obsession, and quite possibly an actual faery. If she didn’t have to pee so bad, she might take this opportunity to flirt with him.
“I really have to go,” she leaked through clamped teeth and crossed legs. “Could you maybe point the way?”
As he made another visual sweep of her scantily clad figure, she moved the candle closer to his face. Even in the flickering shadows cast by the tiny flame, she could make out striking pale eyes, a straight nose, and a full mouth—all features similar to Heathcliff MacDubh’s. He also had the same shoulder-length dark hair as his alleged character.
