Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  She closed her eyes when he reached for his kilt.

  The silence unfisted and wrapped its fingers around her heart as he left the Peacock Room.

  * * * * *

  Hawk stood in the doorway on the second floor, his eyes dark with rage.

  Rage at his own helplessness.

  Bringing her back to Dalkeith had been a mistake. A big mistake. He knew it. The very air inside Dalkeith seemed charged, as if someone had sloshed lamp oil all over the castle and now lay in wait, ready to drop a lit candle and step back to watch their lives be devoured by the ensuing inferno. No question remained in his mind—Dalkeith was not safe for her.

  But she'd disappeared in Uster too.

  Then they'd just have to go farther away. China, perhaps. Or Africa. At least get the hell out of Scotland.

  Damn it all! Dalkeith was his place. Their place.

  Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea had been his entire life. He'd endured so much to have this time. To come home. To watch their sons play at the cliff's edge. To watch their daughters race through the gardens, little feet pattering across mosses and cobbled walkways. On a warm day, to bathe their children in a clear blue loch. On a balmy summer night, to seduce his wife in the fountain beneath shimmering stars.

  He deserved to spend the remainder of his years walking with Adrienne over these hills and vales, watching the sea and the seasons' eternal march across the land, building a home rich with love and memories and adventures. Every bit of it—damn it—he was a selfish man! He wanted the whole dream. Should have stayed away, Hawk, and you know it. What made you think you could fight something you can't even name? He closed his eyes tightly and swayed in the dark. Give up Dalkeith for her? His head fell forward, bowed beneath the weight of crushing decisions. A sigh to extinguish bonfires shuddered through his body. Aye. He would wed her at the Samhain. Then he would take her as far away from here as they had to go. He'd already started to say his goodbyes in a strained silence. Goodbyes took some time, and there was much he needed to bid farewell at Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea.

  To risk staying where whatever forces commanded his wife? Patently impossible. "We can't stay," he told the silent, waiting room—the one room he needed to bid farewell most strongly. His nursery. "Running is the only intelligent thing to do in this case. 'Tis the only sure way to keep her safe."

  He rubbed his eyes and leaned an arm against the doorjamb, struggling to tame the emotions coursing through him. He was captivated, bound beyond belief to the lass sleeping innocently in his bed. This night shared with her had been all he'd ever dreamed he might one day know. The incredible intimacy of making love to a woman whose very thoughts he could read. It wasn't just making love—tonight when their bodies had melded together in passion, he felt such complete kindred that it knocked him off balance. If nothing else, it shifted and tumbled his priorities into perfect position. She comes first.

  Hawk's jaw tensed, and he cursed softly. His eyes wandered lovingly over the cradles, the carved toys, the soft woolens, and the high windows opening to a velvet dawn. He could give her a babe—hell, she might carry his already. And someone or something could rip her and the babe right out of his arms and his life. It would destroy him.

  Dalkeith would prosper without him; Adrian would make a fine laird. Lydia would summon him home from France. Ilysse would keep his mother company and Adrian would wed and bring babies to this nursery.

  He would suffer no regrets. He could have babies with Adrienne in a crofter's hut and be just as happy.

  The Hawk stood a few moments more, until the flicker of a smile curved his lip.

  He closed the door on his old dream with a gentle smile and a kind of reverence only a man in love fully understands. A room had never been his dream at all.

  She was his dream.

  * * * * *

  "Hawk!" Lydia's lower lip trembled an unspoken protest. She averted her gaze to study an intricate twining of roses.

  "It must be done, Mother. 'Tis the only way I can be certain she's safe."

  Lydia busied her hands with the careful pinching away of dried leaves, pruning her roses as she'd pruned them for thirty years. "But to leave! Tonight!"

  "We can't risk staying, Mother. There's no other choice I can make."

  "But Adrian isn't even here," she protested. "You can't relinquish the title if no one's here to claim it!"

  "Mother." Hawk didn't bother to point out to her how absurd that protest was. From the sheepish look on her face it was obvious she knew she was grasping at any excuse she could find.

  "You're talking about taking my grandbabies away!" Lydia squinted hard against tears.

  Hawk regarded her with a mixture of deep love and amused patience. "They're grandbabies you don't even have yet. And ones we won't get a chance to make if I lose her to whatever it is that controls her."

  "You could take her far from these shores and still lose her, Hawk. Until we discover what controls her, she won't ever really be safe," Lydia argued stubbornly. "She and I had planned to investigate the details of each time she traveled, to discover similarities. Have you done that?"

  Hawk shook his head, his gaze shuttered. "Not yet. Truth be told, I've been loath to bring it up. She doesn't. I keep my silence. Once we've wed and left, there will be time to speak of it."

  "Hawk, perhaps the Rom—"

  Hawk shook his head impatiently. He'd already tried that tactic this morning. It had been his last ditch chance. He'd found Rushka up on the southwest ridge with his people, digging the trenches and gathering the seven woods for the fires. But Rushka had flatly refused to discuss his wife in any capacity. Nor had the Hawk been able to lure him into a conversation about the smithy. Damned irritating that he couldn't even force answers from those who depended upon him for his hospitality. But the Rom—well, the Rom truly depended upon no man's hospitality. When things became difficult, they moved on to a better place. Absolute freedom, that.

  Nor had the Hawk, for that matter, been able to find the damned smithy.

  "Mother, where's Adam?"

  "The smithy?" Lydia asked blankly.

  "Aye. The forge was cold. His wagon's gone."

  "Fair to tell, I haven't seen him since… let's see… probably since the two of you left for Uster. Why, Hawk? Do you think he has something to do with Adrienne?"

  Hawk nodded slowly.

  Lydia attacked from another angle. "Well, see! If you take Adrienne away and Adam does have something to do with it, he can just follow you. Better to stay here and fight."

  She gasped when the Hawk turned his dark gaze toward her. "Mother, I will not risk losing her. I'm sorry that doesn't please you, but without her… ah, without her…" He lapsed into a brooding stillness.

  "Without her what?" Lydia asked faintly.

  The Hawk just shook his head and walked away.

  * * * * *

  Adrienne walked slowly through the bailey looking for the Hawk. She hadn't seen him since he'd left their bed early that morning. Although she knew she'd be standing beside him soon pledging her vows, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go wrong.

  She approached the mossy stones of the broch. Looking at it reminded her of the day Hawk had given her the first lesson in how a falcon was tamed.

  How deliriously a falcon was tamed.

  She opened the door and peered inside, a faint smile curving her lip. How frightened and fascinated she'd been by the Hawk that day. How tempted and hopeful, yet unable to trust.

  Was that the flutter of wings she heard? She squinted into the gloom, then stepped in.

  A part of her wasn't surprised at all when the door closed swiftly behind her.

  As she was plunged into darkness she had an abrupt flash of understanding. This was the danger she had so feared—whatever or whoever was behind her.

  Adrienne felt as if she'd been balancing on the edge of a razor since last night, waiting for something bad to happen. Now she understood perfectly what had kept her awake all night�
��it had been her instincts again, warning her of impending doom, clamoring that it was just a matter of time before her world fell apart.

  And whoever was behind her was certainly the harbinger of her destruction.

  "Beauty."

  Adam's voice. Adrienne's body went rigid. Her jaw tensed and her hands fisted when he grabbed her in the darkness and pressed his hips hard against the curve of her rump. She lurched forward but he tightened his arms around her and dragged her back against his body.

  When his lips grazed her neck she tried to scream, but not a sound came out.

  "You knew I'd come," he breathed against her ear, "didn't you, lovely one?"

  Adrienne wanted to protest, to scream denial, but some part of her had known—on a visceral, deeply subconscious level. In that instant, all her strange encounters with Adam Black were suddenly washed crystal-clear in her mind. "You made me forget," she hissed, as memories flooded her. "The strange things you did—when you took the Hawk's face at the fountain—you made me forget somehow," she accused.

  Adam laughed. "I made you forget when I took you to Morar too, even earlier than that. Do you remember lying in the sand with me now, sweet Beauty? I'm giving them back to you, those stolen times. Remember me touching you? Remember when I took you to my world to cure you? I touched you then, too."

  Adrienne shuddered as the memories unfogged in her mind.

  "I take from you what you don't need to recall, Beauty. I could take from you memories you'd love to lose. Shall I, Beauty? Shall I free you from Eberhard forever?" Adam pressed his lips to her neck in a lingering kiss. "No, I have it, I shall erase every memory you have of the Hawk—make you hate him, make him a stranger to you. Would you like that?"

  "Who are you?" Adrienne choked as tears filled her eyes.

  Adam turned her slowly in his arms until she faced him. His face was icy and definitely not human in the grayish half-light. "The man who's going to destroy your husband and everything at Dalkeith if you don't do exactly as I say, lovely Adrienne. I suggest you listen to me very, very carefully if you love him."

  * * * * *

  Hawk couldn't find Adam. He couldn't find Grimm. And now he couldn't find his own wife. What the hell kind of wedding day was this?

  The Hawk paced through the lower bailey calling her name, his hands clenched into fists. On the ridge, people had already started to gather. Clanspeople were arriving in droves from miles around. Come twilight there would be nearly seven hundred plaids gathered on Dalkeith's shore; the Douglas was a large clan with many crofters tilling the land. Earlier in the morning the Hawk had sent his guard into the hills and vales announcing the laird's wedding this eve, thus ensuring the attendance of every last person, young and old.

  But there wouldn't be any wedding if he couldn't find his wife.

  "Adrienne!" he called. Where the hell had she gone? Not in the castle, not in the gardens… not at Dalkeith?

  Nay!

  "Adrienne!" he roared, his pace quickening to a run. Calling her name, he sped past the falcon broch.

  "Hawk, I'm here!" He heard her cry echo behind him.

  "Adrienne?" He skidded to a halt and turned.

  "I'm right here. Sorry," she added as she closed the door to the broch and stepped outside.

  "Don't ever leave me again without telling me where you're going. Didn't you hear me calling you?" he growled, fear roughening his voice.

  "I said I'm sorry, Hawk. I must have been woolgathering." She paused where she stood.

  Hawk's heart twisted in his chest. He'd found her, but why hadn't that erased his fear? Something nagged—a thing intangible, yet as real and potentially treacherous as the jagged cliffs of Dalkeith. There was an almost palpable odor of wrongness hovering in the air around the broch.

  "Lass, what's wrong?" he asked. Every inch of him tensed as she stepped out of the shadows that darkened the east side of the squat tower. Half her face was deeply shadowed by the sun's descent, the other half was visibly pale in the fading light. Hawk suffered a fleeting moment of impossible duality; as though half her face was smiling while the other was drawn tightly in a grimace of pain. The macabre illusion chased a spear of foreboding through his heart.

  He extended his hands, and when she didn't move from that strange half domino of light and darkness, he strode brusquely forward and pulled her into his arms.

  "What ails you, sweet wife?" he demanded, gazing down at her. But he hadn't pulled her forward far enough. That hated shadow still claimed a full third of her face, concealing her eyes from him. With a rough curse he back-stepped until she was free of darkness. That shadow, that damned shadow from the broch had made him feel as if half of her was becoming insubstantial and she might melt right through his hands and he would be helpless to prevent it. "Adrienne!"

  "I'm fine, Hawk," she said softly, sliding her arms around his waist.

  As the fading light bathed her face, he felt suddenly foolish, wondered how he could have thought, even for a moment, that there was a shadow eclipsing her lovely face. There was no shadow there. Naught but her wide silver eyes brimming with love as she gazed up at him.

  A trembling moment passed, then her lip curved in a sweet smile. She brushed a stray fall of dark hair back from his face and kissed his jaw tenderly. "My beautiful, beautiful Hawk," she murmured.

  "Talk to me, lass. Tell me what fashes you so," he said roughly.

  She flashed him a smile so dazzling that it muddled his thoughts. He felt his worries scattering like petals to the wind beneath the soft promises unspoken in that smile.

  He brushed his lips to hers and felt that jolt of immediate response tingle through his body from head to toe. What shadow? Foolish fears, foolish fancy, he realized wryly. He was letting his imagination run wild at the slightest provocation. A silly shadow fell across her face and the great Hawk suffered visions of doom and desolation. Bah! No lass could smile like that if she was worried about something.

  He took her lips in a brutal, punishing kiss. Punishing for the fear he'd felt. Punishing, because he needed her.

  And she melted to him like liquid flames, molding and pressing herself against him with fierce urgency. "Hawk…" she whispered against his lips. "My husband, my love, take me… again, please."

  Desire surged through his veins, conquering all traces of his panic. He needed no further encouragement. They had a few hours left to them before the man of God would bind them beneath the Samhain mantle. He pulled her toward the broch.

  Adrienne stiffened instantly. "Nay, not in the broch."

  So he took her to the stables. To a thick pile of sweet purple clover where they spent the remaining hours of the afternoon of their wedding like a beggar's precious last coins on a splendid feast.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 29

  adrienne's wedding dress surpassed all of her childhood dreams. It was made of sapphire silk and elegant lace, with shimmery threads of silver embroidered at the neck, sleeves, and hem in patterns of twining roses. Lydia had produced it proudly from a sealed chest of cedar-lined oak; yet another of the Hawk's clever inventions. She'd aired it out, steamed it in a closed kitchen over vats of boiling water, then lightly scented it with lavender. The gown clung at the bosom and hips, and fell to the floor in swirls of rich fabric.

  It had been stitched by the Rom, Lydia told her as she and a dozen maids fussed over Adrienne, for Lydia's wedding to the Hawk's father. Lydia's wedding had also been celebrated at Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea at the Beltane festival, before the same kind of double fires laid at the Samhain.

  But Lydia had gone ahead now, up to the ridge. The maids were gone too, shooed on by Adrienne a quarter-hour past. It had taken every ounce of Adrienne's courage to get through the past few hours.

  Lydia had been so elated, practically dancing around the room, and Adrienne had felt so wooden inside—forcing herself to pretend. She was about to do something that was guaranteed to make Lydia and Hawk despise her, and she had no other choice.

  How
could she bear the looks on their faces when she did it? How would she endure the hate and betrayal she would see in their eyes?

  Adrienne stood alone in Lydia's lovely bedroom, amidst slowly cooling round irons and discarded choices for underthings and half-empty cups of tea, left undrunk in nervous anticipation.

  The time was nearing.

  And her heart was freezing, breath by bitter breath. She shivered as a crisp breeze tumbled through the open window of Lydia's bedroom. She crossed the room intending to close it, but froze, one hand upon the cool stone ledge. She stared mesmerized into the night.

  I will remember this, always.

  She drank in Dalkeith, committing each precious detail to memory. The full moon held her spellbound as it bathed the ridge in silvery brilliance. It seemed closer to the earth and so much larger than usual. Maybe she could step into the sky to stand right next to it—perhaps give it a firm nudge and watch it roll across the horizon.

  Adrienne marveled at the beauty of it all. This place is magic.

  She had a perfect view of the feast from the window. The ridge was alive with hundreds of people spread about the fires on bright tartans, talking, feasting, and dancing. Wine, ale, and Scotch flowed freely as the people celebrated the harvest to come. A rich harvest, her husband had seen to that.

  Children played children's games, running and squealing and circling back to loving parents. And the music… oh, the music drifted up to the open window, blending with the soft roar of the ocean. The powerful hypnotic beat of the drums, the pipes and wild chanting.

  Between the two circles of fire, she could just make him out, the laird of Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea was dancing with his people, his head tossed back, adding his deep butterscotch cry to the song. Her husband. At least she'd gotten to love him for a while—maybe not forever, but…

  The beat of drums intensified, and she watched him circle the fire. So primitive and savage, yet so incredibly tender and loving.

  I adore this place, she thought. If I could have ever dreamt a place to go, back in the twentieth century, I would have dreamt this one.