Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  Hawk watched Grimm curiously. His loyal friend seemed unusually tense—probably blaming himself for not being there to prevent the attack, Hawk decided. He studied his bandaged hand carefully. "She didn't ask about me, Grimm?"

  The silence grew until the Hawk reluctantly dragged his gaze from his hand to Grimm's rigid profile. When Grimm finally glanced up from the flames, the Hawk flinched at the sadness he read in every line of his best friend's face. "She didn't even ask if I was going to be all right? Where the arrow hit? Anything?" Hawk tried to keep his voice level but it broke harshly.

  "I'm sorry." Grimm drained his glass and poked at the red-hot embers in the fireplace with the toe of his boot.

  "Bloody hell, the lass is made of ice!"

  "Rest, Hawk," Grimm spoke into the fire. "You've lost a lot of blood. You came too close to dying tonight. If you hadn't raised your hand in defense, the arrow would have taken out your heart rather than just pinning your hand to your chest."

  Hawk shrugged. "A wee scratch on my chest—"

  "Hell, a hole the size of a plum through the palm of your hand! The old healer had to pull the arrow through your hand to get it out. And you heard him yourself. Had it gotten lodged in your chest, which it should have but for uncanny luck, there would have been naught he could do to save you, cruelly notched as it was. You'll bear scars and pain in that hand for life."

  Hawk sighed morosely. More scars and more pain. So what? She hadn't even bothered to see if he was alive. She could have at least pretended to be concerned. Visited briefly to maintain the pretense of civility. But no. She probably hoped he was dying, for with him out of the way she would be a very wealthy woman. Was she even now lying in the Peacock Room, counting her gold and her blessings?

  "Not even one question, Grimm?" Hawk studied the silky hairs around the bandage that covered almost his entire hand.

  "Not even one."

  Hawk didn't ask again.

  "Grimm, pack my satchel. Send half the guard and enough staff to ready the manor house in Uster. I leave at dawn. And quit poking at that blasted fire—it's too damned hot in here already."

  Grimm dropped the poker to the stone hearth with a clatter. He turned stiffly from the fire and searched Hawk's face. "Are you going alone?"

  "I just told you to ready half the guard."

  "I meant, what about your wife?"

  Hawk's gaze dropped back to his hand. He studied it for a moment, then glanced up at Grimm and said carefully, "I'm going alone. If she couldn't even be bothered to see if I lived or died, perhaps it's time I quit trying. At the very least, some distance may help me gain perspective."

  Grimm nodded stiffly. "You're sure you can travel with that wound?"

  "You know I heal quickly. I'll stop at the Rom camp and get some of the camomile and comfrey poultice they use—"

  "But to ride?"

  "I'll be fine, Grimm. Stop worrying. You're not responsible." Hawk didn't miss the bitter smile on Grimm's face. It comforted him somewhat to know that his friend was so loyal when his own wife couldn't be bothered to care if he was dead or alive. "You're a true friend, Grimm," Hawk said softly. He wasn't surprised when Grimm hurried from the room. In all the years he'd known him, words of praise had always made the man uncomfortable.

  * * * * *

  In the Peacock Room's massive bed, Adrienne tossed restlessly, maddeningly awake. At this moment she was quite certain she would never sleep again. Her mind would never find respite from the bitter, icy clarity that raged through her brain, recoloring her every action since she'd arrived at Dalkeith a vastly different hue.

  * * * * *

  Hawk and Grimm rode out as dawn rose over the lush fields of Dalkeith. Satisfaction surged through Hawk as he surveyed his home. With his years of service to the king finally at an end, he could at last see to the needs of his people and be the laird he was born to be. Now he wanted just one more thing—for Adrienne to truly be a wife to him in every sense of the word, to help govern Dalkeith by his side. More than anything he wanted to see their sons and daughters walk this land.

  Hawk cursed himself for a hopeless romantic fool.

  "The harvest will be rich this Samhain," Grimm remarked.

  "Aye, that it will, Grimm. Adam." Hawk nodded curtly to the smithy, who was approaching, the field of gold parting for his dark form.

  "You're leaving the game? You admit defeat, dread Hawk?" Adam gazed mockingly up.

  "Don't goad the devil, smithy," Grimm warned tersely.

  Adam laughed. "Bedevil the devil and devil be damned. I fear no devil and bow to no man. Besides, this concerns you not, or little at least—certainly not so much as you appear to think. You vastly overrate yourself, gruff Grimm." Adam held the Hawk's gaze, smiling. "Fear not, I will care for her in your absence."

  "I won't let him near her, Hawk," Grimm hastened to assure him.

  "Yes you will, Grimm," Hawk said carefully. "If she asks for him you will let him near her. Under no other circumstances."

  Adam nodded smugly. "And ask she will. Again and again in that husky, sweet morning voice she has. And Grimm, you might tell her for me that I have coffee from the Rom for her."

  "You will not tell her that!" Hawk snapped.

  "Are you trying to limit my contact?"

  "I did not agree to provide you with a messenger! Yet—what will be will surely be. My guard stands for her, but it's you I will look to if she comes to harm."

  "You give her into my keeping?"

  "Nay, but I will hold you responsible if harm should befall her."

  "I would never let harm come to any woman of mine—and she is mine now, fool Hawk."

  "Only in as much as she wants to be so," the Hawk said softly. And if she does, I will kill both of you with my bare hands and rest easier at night, dead inside.

  "You are either impossibly cocky or incredibly stupid, dread Hawk," the smithy said with scorn. "You will return to find the flawless Adrienne in my arms. Already, she spends most afternoons with me in your gardens—soon she will spend them in my bed," Adam taunted.

  The Hawk's jaw clenched, his body tensed for violence.

  "She didn't ask for you, Hawk," Grimm reminded tonelessly, shuffling from foot to foot.

  "She didn't ask for him, captain of the guard?" Adam asked brightly. "Captain of honor, captain of truth?"

  Grimm flinched as Adam's dark gaze searched his. "Aye," he said tightly.

  "What a tangled web we weave…" Adam drawled slowly, the hint of a smile on his burnished face.

  "What passes now between the two of you, Grimm?" Hawk asked.

  "The smithy's a strange man," Grimm muttered.

  "I would wish you Godspeed, but I believe God suffers little, if any, commerce with men such as us. So I wish you only a warrior's farewell. And never fear, I shall keep safe the lovely Adrienne," the smithy promised as he patted Hawk's stallion on the rump.

  Shadows flickered behind the Hawk's eyes as he took his leave. "Watch her, Grimm. If there are any more attempts on her life, send word to me at Uster," he called over his shoulder as he rode away. His guards could keep her alive, in that he felt secure. But now there would be nothing to keep her from Adam.

  As Grimm watched his best friend leave, Adam studied the stoic warrior. "She didn't ask for him?" he mocked softly.

  "Who the hell are you, really?" Grimm snarled.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 21

  "try a bit more steaming water," lydia decided, and Tavis obliged.

  They both peered into the pan. Lydia sighed. "Well, drat and blast it all!"

  "Milady! Such language for a woman of your position, I'll say." Tavis rebuked.

  "It certainly doesn't act like tea, does it, Tavis?"

  "Nay, not a bit, I'll say, but still no reason for you to be unladylike about it."

  Lydia snorted. "Only you, dear Tavis, dare criticize my manners."

  "'Tis because you're usually the spit of perfection, so it fashes me more than a wee bit when you
sally."

  "Well, stir it, Tavis! Don't just let it sit there."

  Tavis flashed her a disgruntled look as he began to stir the mixture rapidly. "These talented hands were made for curing the richest hides in all of Scotia, not stirring a lady's drink, I'll say," he grumbled.

  Lydia smiled at his words. How he went on about his talented hands! One would think they were made of purest gold instead of flesh, bone, and a few calluses. She glanced at him a pensive moment while he stirred the brew. Ever faithful Tavis by her side. Her mornings and afternoons wouldn't be quite so rich without the man. Her evenings, well, she'd spent her evenings alone for so many years that she scarcely noticed it anymore—or so she liked to believe.

  "Why don't you marry?" she had asked Tavis twenty long years ago, when he'd still been a young man. But he had only smiled up at her as he'd knelt by the vats where he'd been soaking a deerskin to buttery softness.

  "I have all I need here, Lydia." He spread his arms wide, as if he could sweep all of Dalkeith into his embrace. "Why would you be shooing me on?"

  "But don't you want children, Tavis MacTarvitt?" she probed. "Sons to take over your tannery? Daughters to cherish?"

  He shrugged. "The Hawk is like a son to me. I couldn't ask for a finer braw lad, I'll say. And now we've the two wee ones running about, and well… you're without a husband again, Lady Lydia…" He trailed off slowly, his strong hands rubbing and squeezing the hide in the salt mixture.

  "And just what does my being without a husband have to do with you?"

  Tavis cocked his head and gave her the patient, tender smile that sometimes swam up to linger in her mind just before she drifted off to sleep at night.

  "Just that I'll always be here for you, Lydia. You can always count on Tavis of the tannery, and I'll say that a thousand times more." His eyes were level and deep with some thing she was unable to face. She had already lost two husbands to two wars and the sweet saints knew there was always another war coming.

  But Tavis MacTarvitt, he always came back. Scarred and bloody, he always came back.

  Back to stand in the kitchens with her while she dried her herbs and spices. Back to lend a helping hand now and again as she dug in her rich black soil and pruned her roses.

  There were times when they both knelt in the dirt, their heads close together, that she'd feel a fluttery sensation in her belly. And times when she sat by the hearth in the kitchen and asked his help brushing out her long dark hair. He'd take the pins out first, then unsmooth her plaits one by one.

  "Nothing's happening Lydia." Tavis's voice shattered her pensive reverie and forced her mind back to the present.

  She shook herself sharply, dragging her thoughts back to the task at hand. Coffee. She wanted coffee for her daughter-in-law.

  "Maybe it's like the black beans or dried peas and has to soak overnight," she worried as she rubbed the back of her neck. Nothing was going right this morning.

  Lydia had woken early, thinking about the lovely lass who had so bedazzled her son. Thinking about how the situation must seem from her point of view. Calamity after calamity had struck since her arrival.

  Which is why she'd gone to the buttery to retrieve quite a store of the shining black beans her daughter-in-law so coveted. The least she could do was find Adrienne a cup of coffee this morning before she told her that the Hawk had left for Uster at dawn. Or worse, the news Tavis had discovered a scant hour ago: that Esmerelda had been trying to kill Adrienne but was now dead herself.

  So it had come to this… peering into a pan full of glistening black beans that were doing not much of anything in the steaming water.

  "Maybe we should smash the beans, Lydia," Tavis said, leaning closer. So close that his lips were scant inches from hers when he said, "What think you?"

  Lydia beamed. "Tavis, I think you just might have it. Get that mortar and pestle and let's get at it. This morning I'd really like to be able to start her day off with coffee." She's going to need it.

  * * * * *

  "It's getting out of hand, fool. A mortal lies dead," King Finnbheara snapped.

  "Of her own race's hand. Not mine," Adam clarified.

  "But if you hadn't been here, it would not have come to be. You are perilously close to destroying everything. If the Compact is ever broken, it will be by my Queen's choosing, not through your act of idiocy."

  "You had a hand in this plan too, my liege." Adam reminded. "Furthermore, I have harmed no mortal. I merely pointed out to the Rom that I was displeased. It was they who took action."

  "You split hairs quite neatly, but you're too close to rupturing the peace we've kept for two millennia. This was not part of the game. The woman must go back to her time." King Finnbheara waved a dismissive hand.

  * * * * *

  Adrienne was walking in the garden, thinking about the advantages of the sixteenth century and the serene bliss of unspoiled nature, when it happened. She suffered a horrid falling sensation, as if a great vortex had opened and a re lentless whirlpool tugged her down. When she realized that she recognized the feeling, Adrienne opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She'd felt this way just before she'd found herself on the Comyn's lap; as if her body were being stretched thin and yanked at an impossible speed through a yawning blackness.

  Agonizing pressure built in her head, she clutched it with both hands and prayed fervently, Oh, dear God, not again, please not again!

  The stretching sensation intensified, the throb in her temples swelled to a crescendo of pain, and just when she was convinced she would be ripped in two, it stopped.

  For a moment she couldn't focus her eyes; dim shapes of furniture wavered and rippled in shades of gray. Then the world swam into focus and she gasped.

  Adrienne stared in shock at the fluttering curtains of her own bedroom.

  She shook her head to clear it and groaned at the waves of pain such a small movement caused.

  "Bedroom?" she mumbled dumbly. Adrienne looked around in complete confusion. There was Moonshadow perched delicately upon the overstuffed bed in her customary way, little paws folded demurely over the wood foot-rail, staring back at her with an equally shocked expression on her feline face. Her lime golden eyes were rounded in surprise.

  "Princess!"

  Adrienne reached.

  * * * * *

  Adam quickly made a retrieving gesture with his hand and glared at his king. "She stays."

  King Finnbheara snapped his fingers just as quickly. "And I said she goes!"

  * * * * *

  Adrienne blinked and shook her head, hard. Was she back in Dalkeith's gardens? No, she was in her bedroom again.

  This time, determined to get her hands on Moonie, Adrienne lunged for her, startling the already confused cat. Moonie's back arched like a horseshoe, her tiny whiskers bristled with indignation, and she leapt off the bed and fled the room on tiny winged paws.

  Adrienne followed, hard on her heels. If by some quirk of fate she was to be given a second chance, she wanted one thing. To bring Moonshadow back to the sixteenth century with her.

  * * * * *

  Adam snapped his fingers as well. "Do not think to change your mind midcourse. You agreed to this, my King. It wasn't just my idea."

  * * * * *

  Adrienne groaned. She was in the gardens again.

  It happened three more times in quick succession and each time she tried desperately to capture Moonie. A part of her mind protested that this simply couldn't be happening, but another part acknowledged that if it was, she was damn well going to get her precious cat.

  On the last toss, she almost had the bewildered little kitten cornered in the kitchen, when Marie, her erstwhile housekeeper, selected that precise moment to enter the room.

  "Eees that you, Mees de Simone?" Marie gasped, clutching the doorjamb.

  Startled, Adrienne turned toward her voice.

  The women gaped at each other. A thousand questions and concerns tumbled through Adrienne's mind; how much time
had passed? Was her housekeeper Marie living in the house now? Had she taken Moonie for her shots? But she didn't ask because she didn't know how much longer she had.

  Sensing a reprieve, Moonshadow bolted for the door. Adrienne lunged after her, and abruptly found herself once again in the garden, shaking from head to toe.

  Adrienne moaned aloud.

  She'd almost had her! Just one more time, she whispered. Send me back one more time.

  Nothing.

  Adrienne sank to a stone bench to spare her shaky legs and took several deep breaths.

  Of all the nasty things to have to endure first thing in the morning. This was worse than a bad hair day. This was insult to injury on a no-coffee day.

  She sat motionless and waited again, hopefully.

  Nothing. Still in the gardens.

  She shivered. It had been terrible, being tossed about like that, but at least now she knew Moonie was okay and that Marie obviously hadn't waited too long before moving to the big house from her room over the garage. And although Adrienne's head still ached from being tossed back and forth, there was comfort in her knowledge that her Moonshadow was not a little skeleton cat traipsing through a lonely house.

  * * * * *

  "I am your King. You will obey me, fool."

  "I found the woman, therefore one might say I started this game, my liege. Allow me to finish it."

  King Finnbheara hesitated, and Adam pounced on his indecision.

  "My King, she rejects over and over again the man who pleased our Queen. She humiliates him."

  The King pondered this a moment. He claims a woman's soul, his Queen had said dreamily. He had never seen such a look on Aoibheal's face in all their centuries together, unless he himself had put it there.

  Fury simmered in the King's veins. He didn't want to withdraw from this game any more than Adam did—he'd watched and savored every moment of the Hawk's misery.

  Finnbheara studied the fool intently. "Do you swear to honor the Compact?"

  "Of course, my liege," Adam lied easily.