Men of Midnight Complete Collection

by Emilie Richards

  “Jeanne Maxwell was on duty, and she caught the Sinclair child. And Jane MacDougall caught her own!”

  “No!”

  “Aye. Dr. Sutherland tossed the laird’s son into his arms like a poke of potatoes and ran to deliver Jane’s child, but she’d no’ waited. She’d done it herself.”

  “Son? The laird has a son?”

  “As do they all! All boys. Born,” Flora was practically foaming at the mouth from excitement, “at midnight! Exactly at midnight as the clock struck the hour!”

  “No.” Margaret realized her mouth was wide open. She snapped it shut, afraid her teeth might slip out. “I can scarce believe it!”

  “Have ye heard the like? Have ye ever heard the like?”

  But Margaret was staring out the window and hardly heard Flora’s question. Three laddies born at midnight. Three!

  And now she understood so much more than she had before. As clearly as she had the first time, she saw a portion of the vision that had kept her in her bed for a day. And when her sight cleared, and the autumn rusts and bronzes outside her window came back into view, she saw something new.

  Three lads. One with hair as black and curly as the laird’s own, one with the penetrating gray eyes of his innkeeper father, and one with the red hair of the ne’er-do-well fisherman who had fathered him. Three lads, laughing and tumbling on green grass below her window. Three lads running through the bens and braes of the Highlands, growing together, facing life together.

  Three lads and a dark cloud that was no longer quite so dark.

  “‘Tis a sign. They can no’ be separated,” she said. She turned back to the table and saw that Flora was still sitting across from her, although Margaret didn’t know how much time had passed. “The three laddies of midnight. They’ve started this life together, and they can no’ be separated.”

  “But the laird will no’ agree to that, even if the others will.”

  “Aye, he’ll agree. And it will be the end of the curse that has haunted his line for eight hundred years.”

  “Ye’re daft, Mum.”

  “And will continue to be ‘til the day I’m laid in the kirkyard.”

  “Shall I tell anyone what ye’ve said?”

  “Aye. Tell all who will listen.” She paused. “And, of course, they all will.” Margaret turned back to the window. She heard the clatter of cutlery, then the retreat of Flora’s footsteps.

  Three wee laddies of midnight. Margaret ached to hold the infants, but she knew that she would soon enough. For she would not be disobeyed. Even the laird had respect for the visions that were Margaret Henley’s alone. One by one the bairns would be brought to her, and she would be certain that their paths intertwined forever.

  Someday they would be the men of midnight.

  Even though it was blasphemy, she wished she could live long enough to see that day.

  CHAPTER 1

  A monster was said to live in Loch Ceo, a fearsome creature with the scales and fins of a fish and the head and mane of a horse. A creature fifty feet long who either roared like a lion or wailed like a lovesick coloratura—depending, of course, on who was telling the story.

  To Iain Ross’s knowledge, no one had ever spotted the monster floundering in the Loch Ceo shallows dressed in blue denim and russet wool, but that was what Iain saw now. If he wasn’t mistaken, someone—a lad by the looks of it—was drowning in the loch.

  Whistling for his dog, Iain started down the tower stairs of Ceo Castle. He almost never climbed as high as the walkway; he almost never even set foot among the ruins. But the sunshine had been such a prize after an early autumn snow that he had found himself strolling toward it, dog at his heels, before he’d even had time to reject the idea.

  Now he was sorry he’d been so hasty.

  “Hollyhock, you bloody hound! Where the hell are you?”

  There was no answering whine. Hollyhock—definitely not Iain’s choice of name or pet—had vanished again, which was Hollyhock’s only talent. In the months since Hollyhock had been forced upon Iain, the puppy had been rescued off the ledge of a cliff, dug from a bog on nearby Cumhann Moor and pulled out of the path of a speeding Austin-Healey. Apparently Hollyhock had as many lives as a cat, with none of a feline’s intelligence or reserve.

  The winding tower steps were treacherous, solid stone made slick by centuries of trudging military feet. He took them as fast as he dared, but there were precious few handholds, and one misstep could spell disaster. It seemed as if minutes passed in which he was making no headway, but finally he emerged on the bottom level and began his sprint toward the loch.

  Iain couldn’t imagine how the boy could have fallen into the water, but there was no other explanation. No one swam in Loch Ceo, not even on the hottest day of the hottest summer. The water was suitable for penguins, never people. The occasional tourist tried a quick dip and usually—but not always—lived to regret it. Now that autumn had arrived, the water temperature had dropped still farther.

  And there was always the monster.

  The distance from the castle to the loch was short, but trees bordered the loch now—as they never had during the centuries when Ceo Castle had been occupied—and Iain was forced to slow his pace as he avoided branches and tree trunks. He could glimpse the blue sparkle of water through rust-colored leaves, but he knew he wasn’t moving fast enough. In water this cold, a boy as slight as the one he’d glimpsed could drown in moments.

  He finally reached the loch’s edge. There was a drop-off of ten feet into water that was well above his head. Farther down there was a sandy beach where he could wade into the deeper water, but there was no time for wading. With a hand shading his eyes, he scanned the loch, but nothing broke the surface, not even a ripple. And then a head emerged, a head with short dark hair slicked back from a face as white as anything Iain had ever seen. He glimpsed huge, frightened eyes and a mouth working soundlessly, and with a flying leap, he was in the water, too.

  * * *

  Billie Harper didn’t know where the dog had disappeared to, but she was rapidly ceasing to care. Because if she didn’t get out of the loch herself in approximately two seconds or less, she was going to die.

  Which would do the dog no good at all.

  Billie had thought she knew everything about cold water. There was an ice-cold sinkhole just half a mile from the mobile home in rural Florida where she’d grown up. She could still remember the sting of that water on a sun-heated body and the way it robbed a child of breath. But she also remembered that, eventually, she had been able to breathe. Now she wasn’t sure her lungs would ever inflate again.

  She had been fighting her way toward the shore for what seemed like hours. She wasn’t sure how she had gotten this far out. She had seen a dog struggling in the loch and had gone in after it—which was an all-too-typical Billie Harper kind of thing to do. She had ended up in water above her head before she’d had time to do more than attempt a gasp, and now, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to get back to her starting point.

  The part of her mind that was still working clearly was amazed at the part that had now ceased to function. Time seemed to have stopped, and even panic, which had hit her with the force of a cannonball, was beginning to recede. She was still fighting, but she was no longer as determined to win. There were worse fates, she supposed, for a no-account junkman’s daughter, than to end up in a loch in the Scottish Highlands, just a stone’s throw from the ruins of a medieval castle. In all her childhood dreams, she had never fantasized a better ending than this one.

  She hoped it would be mentioned in her obituary.

  That thought wasn’t her last. As her mind slowed, she thought she heard a splash. It might have been her own arms flailing helplessly. She really didn’t know. Everything was grinding to a halt. Her mind, her will, even the beating of her heart. The water closed around her, almost like a friend. She realized that she could have given up easily if she weren’t such a fighter. She’d always enjoyed the fight.
Until the past year, there had been little about life that she hadn’t enjoyed.

  She flailed once more, and this time she contacted something solid. There was a moment of wild hope. Perhaps she’d almost reached the shore and had hit the stump of a tree or a boulder at the water’s edge. But a last glance told her that she was still too far from shore for that.

  She wondered if, instead, she might have found the monster. If so, that would make even a better obituary. She flailed again, weakly, then, with a sigh, she gave herself up to the water.

  * * *

  A woman.

  There had been a moment as he locked his arm around the victim’s chest when Iain had been warned. But there hadn’t been time to contemplate. He had known that he had only minutes, at best, to complete a rescue. He had to get in, grab the boy and get him out, but at first the shock of the water temperature had been so great that he had wasted precious moments unable to move.

  Still he had moved. After the worst of the shock, he had put everything else out of his mind and made his way toward the place where the boy had been. There were ripples and occasionally hands splashing, even dark hair floating on the water. He had reached the place as the boy went under again and grabbed him just in time.

  Except that the boy wasn’t a boy at all.

  Iain had never been so cold. He peered down at the body lying on the beach yards from where he had jumped into the water and realized that he had rescued a full-fledged woman. She was thin, and her hair was shorter than his, but she was unmistakably female. Her breasts, braless and clearly outlined by wet, clinging wool, had been soft against his arm, and she had the longest eyelashes he had ever seen.

  Also the palest skin.

  He was afraid he was going to have to breathe life back into her, although he was fighting for every breath himself. He knelt on the ground and turned her to her side. With the heel of his hand he thumped her back twice, then again. She gave a weak cough and a reassuring gasp, but her chest still refused to rise and fall as it should.

  He only debated for a moment. He turned her once more and cradled her neck in his hand so that her head fell back. Then with his other hand he pinched her nose, took a deep breath and sealed his mouth to hers.

  Even though he was chilled clear to the bone himself, she felt like ice against his lips. As he puffed air into her lungs he had an impression of skin and lips that were as smooth as Highland butter. He lifted his head and watched her chest. He could see her nipples outlined through the thin wool and contracted from the cold, but there was no movement. When she didn’t breathe on her own he tried again, stroking her neck to find her pulse as he did.

  The pulse was there, weak and thready, but at least her heart was still beating. He puffed once more, and this time, as he watched her chest, he saw a gentle rise and fall. He counted slowly, to still his own fears. Seconds passed, and her chest rose again, this time on its own. She coughed twice and sucked in another, larger breath.

  Gratified, he watched her struggle to clear her lungs. But he didn’t rest on his laurels. She no longer was in as much danger from the water she’d inhaled, but hypothermia was just around the corner.

  Iain couldn’t think of anything to do but carry her along the back path to Fearnshader, his home. There was no one else about, no one to rush her into the cottage hospital that served the village of Druidheachd. If he took the loch road home, he might be fortunate, someone might pass them on the road, but he didn’t have much hope of that. Fortune had overlooked him any number of times.

  He shivered and supposed it was a good sign. His body, at least, was fighting for survival. Hers was a different story. Although she was breathing regularly now, she lay as still as a finely wrought piece of driftwood.

  He shivered again and again before he could lift her in his arms. By the time he had his arms under her back and legs, he was trembling so hard he wasn’t sure he could get back on his feet. But stand he did. She was all bones and tightly drawn skin, with no excess padding to protect her from the cold, but she was a full-grown woman and not a feather in his arms. He could hardly remember feeling so weak, and an old fear that he had learned to keep at arm’s length crept subtly closer.

  A dog barked just beyond the trees and out of sight. Iain whistled, but it was a poor attempt, and the dog continued to bark.

  “Hollyhock!”

  In seconds a shaggy-furred, skelly-eyed mongrel came bounding through the trees. Just feet from Iain, Hollyhock stopped and shook, spraying Iain and his charge with tiny droplets of water.

  Immediately Iain realized why the woman must have gone swimming. “You’re a wee scunner and a death threat to boot! Get on home with you, Hollyhock!”

  Not at all chagrined, Hollyhock took off down the path that would take them the back and shorter way home, and Iain staggered after him.

  For a large estate, Fearnshader had relatively few employees. Now Iain wished that he’d desired seclusion less and assistance more. There were moments in the fifteen minutes that it took to stumble to his house when he wasn’t certain he was going to make it.

  But he did make it at last. He hadn’t stopped at any point to do more than observe the woman in his arms to be certain she was still breathing. She hadn’t shifted once or even moaned. When he shoved open the door into one of Fearnshader’s cavernous hallways, she was as still as she had been on Loch Ceo’s shore.

  “Is anyone about?” He shouted his question.

  He hadn’t really expected an answer. The staff normally took Wednesday afternoons off, and even his housekeeper, who sniffed at such blatant sloth and disloyalty, was in Glasgow nursing her sister. When no one replied, he spared time for a curse before he started through the house.

  He had to get the woman warm. There was no time for a telephone call to the doctor. He had to get her back into water. Warm water, this time, water lapping over every part of her to raise her temperature and restore a normal blood flow.

  The nearest bath wasn’t far from the head of the stairs. He spared the steps one glance. He had made it this far with difficulty, and he still shuddered from the cold. Even carrying a sizable burden for such a great distance hadn’t warmed him. The stairs wound and twisted, and for a moment he wondered if he would make the top. But there was little choice.

  At the top he teetered. In that split second he knew he was exhausted nearly beyond endurance. With disaster just inches away, he remembered a scene from an old American movie a former lover had forced him to see. Penelope had fancied herself another Scarlett O’Hara, but now Iain had proof he was no Rhett Butler. Butler had carried his lady up the steps for a night of passionate lovemaking. Iain swayed back and forth, struggling to maintain his balance, and could think only of a bath.

  With a last surge of strength he stumbled forward.

  In the bathroom he set his burden down in the tub. From experience he knew that the water would take minutes to heat, and he damned British plumbing as he fired up the water heater. There was a small electric furnace in the corner for the use of foreign houseguests—few Scots would expect or use such a thing. Now he turned it to its highest setting and shut the door to retain the heat.

  The woman’s lips were blue, her skin nearly the same. The room might heat quickly, but her clothes held the frosty waters of Loch Ceo against her skin.

  He didn’t think twice about his next decision. He crossed the room and put his arm behind her to urge her forward. When she slumped against his opposing arm he lifted her sweater and inched it up her back and over her head. Then he shifted her weight and did the same with the sweater’s front. In a moment she was naked from the waist up and pounds of icy, sodden wool were on the floor by the tub. Her jeans were more difficult to remove. He managed the zipper, despite fingers that were nearly numb, but the heavy denim clung to her slender hips and buttocks.

  He struggled on and hoped she didn’t regain consciousness as he stripped her. He imagined her panic and supposed there was little he could say in his own defense befor
e she assumed the worst. He cursed softly and urged the denim lower. Until he’d thought about her reaction, he hadn’t given much thought to exactly what he was revealing. Now, despite his own fears, he was aware of small but perfectly-formed breasts and a waist as narrow as a reed.

  He loosed the laces of her boots and slipped them off, tossing them to the floor behind him. Thick woolen socks came next and, finally, the jeans. Her legs were as shapely as the rest of her.

  The tub was old-fashioned and narrow, a point in its favor, since she was as limp as a rag doll and still unconscious. He was able to prop her into a sitting position while he turned on the water, but the stream that issued from the spout was nearly as cold as the loch.

  He was fast reaching human limitations. She was freezing and so was he, and the bloody room was still chilled. His gaze fastened on the shower, a modern one with its own instant heating unit. He couldn’t blast her with warmth from above, not as she lay unsuspecting and inert beneath it.

  But he could get in, hold her upright and let the water warm them both.

  He kicked off his shoes and stepped into the tub. With his last ounce of strength he lifted her under the arms until she slumped against him. Then he turned on the water.

  * * *

  Billie was on fire. At least, she thought she was. She wasn’t quite convinced, because she didn’t remember ever being so cold. While fire swept across every inch of her body, she shivered helplessly.

  Something rose in her throat, an unfamiliar and humiliating sound. She moaned and was immediately ashamed.

  “Look, it’s all right,” a voice said. “You’re safe now.” A pause. “Even though it may not quite seem that way.”

  She didn’t know what to make of the voice. Sometimes as a child she had fallen into such a deep sleep that, when she’d finally awakened, it had taken her long seconds to remember who and where she was. Now the answers to those questions were elusive again.

  But she was sure she wasn’t a child.

  One step at a time she came back to life. She had heard the voice, although she didn’t understand what it was saying. She had felt fire singeing every nerve. Now she recognized the sound of running water and felt it pelting her body. And she felt something else.