by Allie Mackay
“A mercy!” Tavish spun around, his eyes flying wide. “Aidan!” he cried, his relief evident. “A God’s name! I dinna believe it!”
The distraction cost him. Quick as lightning, Conan Dearg dove, swinging his blade in an wide arc that would’ve lopped off Tavish’s head if Aidan hadn’t whirled round, kicking Tavish so hard he flew back against the wall of gathered men.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Mundy catch him, seizing Tavish’s sword and tossing it aside as he snaked a quick arm around Tavish’s waist, holding him so he couldn’t rush back into the circle.
“So it comes down to the two of us!” Conan Dearg taunted, Tavish forgotten. “I’ve waited long for the day!”
“’Tis the day you die, Cousin.” Aidan lunged, taking a first cut on Conan Dearg’s arm. “Breathe your last while you can.”
Conan Dearg laughed and came at him, his sword glinting red in the torchlight as it crashed against Aidan’s with a loud, arm-jarring clank. With a ferocious burst of strength, Aidan knocked him back, grunting with satisfaction when Conan Dearg lost his footing on the slick shingle, his blade nearly flying from his hand.
Aidan smiled, advancing before Conan Dearg could right himself. “You’re tired…clumsy. Come, let me help you find rest!”
“A pox on you!” Conan Dearg yelled, swaying on his feet. “You will rue…”
“That I didn’t do this years ago!” Aidan finished, ramming the Invincible deep into his cousin’s chest. Hoisting him in the air, he spat on him. “May you find the devil good company.”
Conan Dearg stared at him, his eyes bulging, a trickle of blood bubbling from his lips. Glaring at him, Aidan withdrew his blade and resheathed it, grabbing his cousin before he could topple to the ground.
With a great heave, he pushed him into the surf, dusting his hands as Conan Dearg landed with a splash, a flicker of life still gleaming in his eyes as he stared up at Aidan.
“So you die by drowning,” Aidan informed him, stepping closer to the water’s edge. “As the history books decried.”
“The history books?” Tavish spoke at his shoulder, looking on as Conan Dearg went limp, his eyes glazing as the tide claimed him.
Aidan drew a deep breath, then slung an arm around his friend, pulling him close. “I’ll explain later,” he panted, releasing Tavish to drag his sleeve over his forehead. “After I’ve seen to whoe’er poisoned Kee-rah.” He glanced round at his men, raising his voice when they pressed closer, their cheers and shouts loud in his ears. “Or do you think it was Conan Dearg? Fenella?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Kira finally managed to push through the circle of men. She ran forward, flinging herself into Aidan’s arms. “All that counts is that we’re back here and Tavish is safe.”
Tavish looked at her and laughed. “Safe? Me?” Grinning, he jammed his hands on his hips. “I could say the same to the two of you! Saints, but I’ve worried about you.”
“We were fine.” Aidan put back his shoulders. “A mere day’s…journeying. Naught more.”
Tavish snorted and thwacked him on the back. “I’d hear all about it, regardless.”
But Aidan didn’t answer him, his gaze sliding away to probe the crowd, searching faces and finding two missing. Nils, whose fierce Viking looks and great height should have had him standing head and shoulders over the fray. And Maili. She was notably absent from where the other two laundresses stood with a small group of kitchen laddies.
A dark suspicion made his jaw clench. “Love-of-God.” He looked over Kira’s head to Tavish. “Dinna tell me Nils or Maili had aught to do with all this?”
“Not Nils,” Tavish said, no longer smiling. “It was Maili. She helped them, though you should know she’s the one who warned me of their escape when Fenella disappeared from the hall not long after you left. Maili followed her and—”
“Maili?” Aidan’s jaw dropped. “But she helped us get away when she dumped the oysters and herring into Fenella’s lap.” Glancing to sea, he shuddered. The MacLeod galley was almost gone, its wreckage gleaming dully on the choppy waves. “I canna believe Maili would—”
“She did it for love of a man.” Tavish looked uncomfortable. “Apparently, she’d set her sights on one of Fenella’s men and the widow promised she’d arrange a marriage between them—in exchange for Maili’s help in slipping in and out of Wrath. And, aye, serving Kira poisoned wine.”
Aidan shook his head. “But she helped you,” he repeated, puzzled.
“To be sure,” Tavish agreed. “She also confronted the widow a few days before the feast, demanding to know about the supposed marriage pact. Fenella laughed at her, claiming no MacLeod would lower himself by wedding a laundress.”
“I see.” Aidan nodded. “And where is she now?”
“In your solar…with Nils. He’s looking after her.” Tavish shoved a hand through his hair, let out a breath. “Maili followed Fenella into the dungeon and they argued. Fenella dirked her in the ribs in front of Conan Dearg’s cell. It was Maili’s cry that alerted us to their escape. She then told us everything, before she lost consciousness.”
“Will she live?”
Tavish shrugged. “Nils says there is a chance. But she’ll need care. You may not want—”
“Give her the best care possible.” Kira pulled out of Aidan’s arms, speaking up at last. “Nothing happened to me and she did help us get away.”
Aidan looked at her. “You dinna mind, Kee-rah? The monkshood could have killed you.”
Kira shook her head. “But it didn’t.” She smiled and blinked at him, her eyes starting to mist and her throat closing. “I doubt she’ll do anything like that again. And, besides, I can understand a woman’s desperation to win the man she loves.” Swiping a hand across her cheek, she lifted her chin. “I might have done the same. If I thought it was the only way to your heart.”
“Och, lass.” Aidan reached for her, wrapping his arms tight around her. “I lost my heart to you that day I saw you standing at the top of my stair tower. As I have told you!”
“A-hem.” Tavish tapped his arm, interrupting just as Aidan was about to kiss her. “There’s one more thing.”
Aidan glared at him. “By all the living saints! Some things ne’er change. What is it?”
“This.” His smile returning, Tavish reached beneath his plaid and withdrew a small black object. Two cylinderlike rolls, topped with two rounds of bright, clear-shining glass. “I found this buried in the floor rushes in Conan Dearg’s cell. “I dinna know what it is, but—”
“My dad’s field glasses!” Kira grabbed them, her heart pounding. “Oh, Aidan! Conan Dearg must’ve found them on the arch. That night Kendrew saw him crawling around up there. They must be—”
“The strange object he used to hit Kendrew on the head with.” Aidan took them from her, peering at them curiously. Lifting them, he looked into the glass part, dropping them at once. “By the Rood!” he cried, bending to pick them up again. He peered into them once more, this time smiling.
“Another mystery solved.” He handed them to Tavish. “Now we know what Conan Dearg meant when he said he’d ‘see his foes coming before any battle could begin.’”
Tavish nodded, looking equally pleased. “I thought the same when I found them.” He clapped Aidan on the back again. “Now we shall enjoy that advantage. Woe be to our enemies!”
“And woe be to my men if they don’t soon clear the strand and return to the feast,” Aidan returned. “I’d have a few quiet moments with my lady before we rejoin you.”
“As you wish.” Tavish nodded, his smile broadening to a grin when his gaze dipped to the gold rings on their fingers. “Dare I hope the remainder of the feast might be spent celebrating something other than Conan Dearg’s demise?”
“You might.” Aidan’s voice was gruff, husky and thick. “Now get them all back up to the keep before I lose patience.”
Tavish laughed, but did as he was bid.
Alone at last with Kira, Aidan took a
deep breath. “So, lass,” he began, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Shall we give my brave men something to celebrate?”
She blinked, her throat too thick for words.
“Well?” He looked at her. “Dinna tell you’re wishing a longer wooing period? No’ now, after all we’ve been through together?”
She swallowed. “Aidan MacDonald, if you’re asking me to marry you, you know I’d love nothing more, but—”
“But?” He frowned. “That’s another thing you should know by now. I dinna care for buts. Though”—he folded his arms, looking quite the fearsome laird again—“something tells me I ought to hear this one.”
Kira looked down, nudging her toe into the pebbles. “It’s just that…well, you know I’ve always felt that I was sent back in time to save you?”
He nodded.
“Now that I have…I mean, now that everything’s been resolved, I’m wondering if I won’t soon be zapped back to my own time.”
His frown deepening, he lifted her chin. “That willna happen, Kee-rah. Your place is here with me. I know it.”
“How can you?”
He smiled. “Because you are my tamhasg, that’s why.”
Kira’s brows lifted. “Your what?”
“Och, Kira.” He drew her into his arms, kissing her. “I ne’er believed you were sent here to save me. That, too, I’ve told you. We’re together because we were meant to be. That’s what a tamhasg is.”
This time Kira frowned. “I don’t understand.”
He laughed and kissed her again. “Then I’ll speak plainly. A tamhasg is the sighting of a future bride or groom. I knew you were mine not long after seeing you that first time. I’ve always known it and it’s why I know time isn’t going to whisk you away from me.”
“Oh, Aidan.” She blinked, unable to say more.
Not that it mattered.
She could see in his eyes that he knew how happy he’d just made her.
Proving it, he grinned and offered her his arm. “Come, sweetness, shall we go share our good news with my men?”
Kira nodded, not about to say no.
Epilogue
Castle Wrath
Highland Scotland, Five Modern-Day Years Later
“I knew it was a waste of money to come here.” George Bedwell stood in the middle of the National Trust for Scotland’s Castle Wrath car park, his resentful stare fixed on the closed Visitor Centre. “We’ve spent half our vacation time bugging those people, and no one has offered a clue as to what happened to Kira or that man of hers. If he even was ‘Aidan of Wrath.’”
“You know he was.” Blanche Bedwell looked on as the last coach tour bus of the day belched a plume of exhaust fumes before rumbling out of the fast-emptying parking lot. “Just because we haven’t found out anything doesn’t mean fate wasn’t good to them.”
Her husband snorted and hitched up his belt. “She promised she’d try and leave some kind of sign for us. With all the nutty far-seeing and time travel she was capable of, you’d think she’d have been able to manage something as simple as leaving us a clue.”
“Now, George—”
“Och! A thousand pardons.” A tall, dark-haired man bowed courteously. “I didn’t mean to run into you,” he said, clutching a deep blue National Trust for Scotland gift bag in front of his groin.
Flashing a smile, he straightened, holding the shop bag carefully in place. “I trust this lass can help you. She has the answers you seek.”
“What?” George Bedwell put back his shoulders and huffed. But when he adjusted his camera strap, ready to scald the nosy bugger with an angry, all-American stare, he could only splutter and gape.
The man was gone.
In his place, a young girl stared at them, her eyes wide. A badge declared her to be an employee of the National Trust and she held a clutch of business folders pressed to her breast.
“Oh! I’m sorry. I was daydreaming and didn’t see you.” She smoothed a hand through hair so like Kira’s that George Bedwell’s jaw dropped.
“It’s all right, dear.” Blanche touched her arm. “We were distracted, too. That man—”
George stomped on her toe.
The girl smiled, looking more like Kira by the moment. “I don’t know who you mean, but maybe I can be of service? It’s after hours, but if you have any questions about the site, just ask.”
“Ahhh, errrr…” George hesitated, the back of his neck flaming.
He’d definitely ingested too much haggis at the hotel ceilidh the night before.
“Your ring.” His wife peered at the girl’s hand. “I’ve seen that design before.”
George shot her a glare. “Pay her no heed,” he said to the girl. Ignoring his wife, he brushed at his jacket, trying to look distinguished.
With luck, Blanche would follow his lead and not say something that would embarrass them.
“Our daughter once had a ring like that,” she said anyway. “She—”
“Oh? That’s amazing. I wouldn’t have thought that possible.” She glanced down at the heavy gold ring.
A Celtic-looking ring, engraved with slender-stemmed trumpets, birds, and delicate swirls.
“You see, it’s an old family design,” she explained. “It’s been passed down through the centuries.” She cast a glance at the closed Visitor Centre. “An uncle of mine believes it goes back to Aidan of Wrath and his wife, Katherine.”
Blanche coughed.
George frowned. “Katherine?”
The name was the reason for his foul humor.
They’d been so close, everything falling into place until they’d stumbled across the archives claiming Aidan of Wrath had wed and lived his long life with a woman called Katherine, not Kira.
The girl nodded, once more looking so much like Kira that their hearts stopped.
“Ach,” she cooed, her soft Highland voice drawing them in, letting them believe. “Katherine is only the name in the annals.” Lifting her hand, she touched the gold ring, her smile going wistful. “There are actually two rings. A man’s and a woman’s, both with a simple ‘A’ and ‘K’ engraved on the inside. No one knows what Aidan of Wrath’s wife’s name really was. Unfortunately, history has lost her real name. Scholars replaced it with Katherine because of the K.”
“We see.” Blanche slid a glance at her husband.
He was frowning again, his gaze on the perimeter wall of the Castle Wrath grounds. “Did this Katherine have any children?” he asked, clasping his hands behind his back as he stared down at Wrath Bay.
“Oh, there were many.” The girl beamed at him even if he wasn’t looking. “Her firstborn was named George.”
“Indeed?” George nodded, ready to believe at last.
And when they drove away a short while later, their eyes damp and their hearts content, a shadow materialized in the middle of the car park. A shimmering, crackling cloud that took on more density the closer it drifted to the low stone wall at the edge of the castle grounds.
Then, just when it appeared as if all Ameri-cains and tour buses were finally gone, a tall, dark-haired man stepped out of the mist and dusted his hands. Then he winked at the burly, bushy-bearded man sitting on the wall.
“That was well done.” Bushy-beard slapped his thigh, then stood. “Great fun to watch.”
“It was the least I could do.” The dark-haired man adjusted the shop bag at his groin. “Though next time, I think you should do the honors.”
“What?” Bushy-beard wriggled his eyebrows. “And spoil your fun?”
The dark-haired man looked past him to Wrath Isle, his lips curving in a slow smile. “My fun is about to begin.”
Bushy-beard looked skeptical. “Down on that accursed isle?”
“Nay, you loon. I feel a need to go have a closer look at our ring.”
His friend lifted a brow. “The ring or the girl wearing it?”
The dark-haired man laughed. “If you have to ask, you don’t know me as well as you should.”
<
br /> And with that, he clapped Bushy-beard on the arm, then turned and set off across the car park toward the Visitor Centre, his grin broadening with each step he took.
It was good to be alive.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Allie Mackay is the alter ego of USA Today bestselling author Sue-Ellen Welfonder, who writes Scottish medieval romances. A former flight attendant, she spent fifteen years living in Europe and still makes annual visits to Scotland. Proud of her own Hebridean ancestry, she belongs to two clan societies: the MacFie Clan Society and the Clan MacAlpine Society. Her greatest passions are Scotland, medieval history, the paranormal, and dogs. She is married and lives with her husband and Jack Russell terrier in her home state of Florida. Visit her on the Web at www.alliemackay.com.
