Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  "You're not addled. I don't know how you got the ridiculous idea that because your da killed your mother there's something wrong with you. And no one knows who you really are except for me, Gibraltar, and Elizabeth," Quinn protested.

  "And Hatchard," Grimm reminded. And Hawk and Adrienne, he recalled.

  "So four of us know. None of us would ever betray you. As far as the world is concerned you're Grimm Roderick, the King's legendary bodyguard. All that aside, I don't see how it would be a problem for you to admit who you really are. A lot of things have changed since the massacre at Tuluth. And although some people do still fear Berserkers, the majority revere them. You're some of the mightiest warriors Alba has ever produced, and you know how we Scots worship our legends. The Circle Elders say only the purest, most honorable blood in Scotland can actually call the Berserker."

  "The McKane still hunt us," Grimm said through his teeth.

  "The McKane have always hunted any man they suspected was Berserk. They're jealous. They spend every waking moment training to be warriors and can never match up to a Berserker. So defeat them, and lay it to rest. You're not fourteen anymore. I've seen you in action. Rouse up an army. Hell, I'd fight for you! I know scores of men who would. Go home and claim your birthright—"

  "My gift of inherited madness?"

  "The chieftainship, you idiot!"

  "There might be a small problem with that," Grimm said bitterly. "My crazy, murdering da has the dreadful manners to still be lingering on this earth."

  "What?" Quinn was speechless. He shook his head several times and grimaced. "Christ! How can I walk around all these years thinking I know you, only to find out I don't know a blethering thing about you? You told me your da was dead."

  It seemed all his close friends were saying the same thing lately, and he wasn't a man given to lying. "I thought he was, for a long time." Grimm ran an impatient hand through his hair. "I will never go home, Quinn, and there are some things about being Berserk that you doona understand. I can't have any degree of intimacy with a woman without her realizing that I'm not normal. So what am I supposed to do? Tell the lucky woman I am one of those savage killing beasts that have gotten such a bad reputation over the centuries? Tell her I can't see blood without losing control of myself? Tell her that if my eyes ever start to seem like they're getting incandescent, to run as far away from me as she can get because Berserkers have been known to turn on friend and foe indiscriminately?"

  "You've never once turned on me!" Quinn snapped. "And I've been beside you when it happened many times!"

  Grimm shook his head. "Marry her, Quinn. For Christ's sake! Marry her and free me!" He cursed harshly, dropping his head against his stallion.

  "Do you really think it will?" Quinn asked angrily. "Will it free any of us, Grimm?"

  * * * * *

  Jillian strolled the wall-walk, the dim passage behind the parapet, breathing deeply of the twilight. Gloaming was her favorite hour, the time when dusk blurred into absolute darkness broken only by a silvery moon and cool white stars above Caithness. She paused, resting her arms against the parapet. The scent of roses and honeysuckle carried on the breeze. She inhaled deeply. Another scent teased her senses, and she cocked her head. Dark and spicy; leather and soap and man.

  Grimm.

  She turned slowly and he was there, standing behind her on the roof, deep in the shadows of the abutting walls watching her, his gaze unfathomable. She hadn't heard a sound as he'd approached, not a whisper of cloth, not one scuffle of his boots on the stones. It was as if he were fashioned of night air and had sailed the wind to her solitary perch.

  "Will you marry?" he asked without preface.

  Jillian sucked in a breath. Shadows couched his features but for a bar of moonlight illuminating his intense eyes. How long had he been there? Was there a "me," unspoken, at the end of his sentence? "What are you asking?" she said breathlessly.

  His smooth voice was bland. "Quinn would make a fine husband for you."

  "Quinn?" she echoed.

  "Aye. He's golden as you, lass. He's kind, gentle, and wealthy. His family would cherish you."

  "And what about yours?" She couldn't believe she dared ask.

  "What about mine, what?"

  Would your family cherish me? "What is your family like?"

  His gaze was icy. "I have no family."

  "None?" Jillian frowned. Surely he had some relatives, somewhere.

  "You know nothing about me, lass," he reminded her in a low voice.

  "Well, since you keep butting your nose into my life, I think I have the right to ask a few questions." Jillian peered intently at him, but it was too dark to see him clearly. How could he seem such a part of the night?

  "I'll quit butting my nose. And the only time I butt my nose in is when it looks like you're about to get in trouble."

  "I do not get into trouble all the time, Grimm."

  "So"—he gestured impatiently—"when will you marry him?"

  "Who?" She seethed, plucking at the folds of her gown. Clouds passed over the moon, momentarily obscuring him from her view.

  His eerily disembodied voice was mildly reproaching. "Try to follow the conversation, lass. Quinn."

  "By Odin's shaft—"

  "Spear," he corrected with a hint of amusement in his voice.

  "I am not marrying Quinn!" she informed the dark corner furiously.

  "Certainly not Ramsey?" His voice deepened dangerously. "Or was he such a good kisser that he's already persuaded you?"

  Jillian drew a deep breath. She released it and closed her eyes, praying for temperance.

  "Lass, you have to wed one of them. Your da demands it," he said quietly.

  She opened her eyes. Praise the saints, the clouds had blown by and she could once again discern the outline of his form. There was a flesh-and-blood man in those shadows, not some mythical beast. "You're one of the men my da brought here for me, so I guess that means I could choose you, doesn't it?"

  He shook his head, a blur of movement in the gloom. "Never do that, Jillian. I have nothing to offer you but a lifetime of hell."

  "Maybe you think that, but maybe you're wrong. Maybe, if you quit feeling sorry for yourself, you'd see things differently."

  "I doona feel sorry for myself—

  "Ha! You're drowning in it, Roderick. Only occasionally does a smile manage to steal over your handsome face, and as soon as you catch it you swallow it. You know what your problem is?"

  "No. But I have the feeling you're going to tell me, peahen."

  "Clever, Roderick. That's supposed to make me feel stupid enough to shut up. Well, it won't work, because I feel stupid around you all the time anyway, so I may as well act stupid too. I suspect your problem is that you're afraid."

  Grimm leaned indolently back against the stones of the wall, looking every inch a man who'd never contemplated the word fear long enough for it to gain entrance into his vocabulary.

  "Do you know what you're afraid of?" she pushed bravely on.

  "Considering that I didn't know I was afraid, I'm afraid you've got me at a bit of a disadvantage," he mocked.

  "You're afraid you might have a feeling," she announced triumphantly.

  "Oh, I'm not afraid of feelings, lass," he said, dark, sensual knowledge dripping from his voice. "It just depends on the kind of feeling—"

  Jillian shivered. "Don't try to change the subject—"

  "And if the feeling's below my waist—"

  "By segueing into a discussion about your debauched—"

  "Then I'm perfectly comfortable with it."

  "And perverse male needs—"

  "Perverse male needs?" he echoed, suppressed laughter lacing his words.

  Jillian bit her lip. She always ended up saying too much around him, because he had the bad habit of talking over her, and she lost her head time and again.

  "The issue at hand is feelings—as in emotions," she reminded stiffly.

  "And you think they're mutually ex
clusive?" Grimm prodded.

  Had she said that? she wondered. By the saints, the man turned her brain into mush. "What are you talking about?"

  "Feelings and feelings, Jillian. Do you think they're mutually exclusive?"

  Jillian pondered his question a few moments. "I haven't had a lot of experience in that area, but I would guess they are more often for a man than a woman," she replied at length.

  "Not all men, Jillian." He paused, then added smoothly, "Exactly how much experience have you had?"

  "What was my point?" she asked irritably, refusing to acknowledge his question.

  He laughed. By the saints, he laughed! It was a genuine uninhibited laugh—deeply resonant, rich, and warm. She shuddered, because the flash of white teeth in his shadowed face made him so handsome she wanted to cry at the unfairness of his miserly dispensation of such beauty.

  "I was hoping you'd tell me that anytime now, Jillian."

  "Roderick, conversations with you never go where I think they're going."

  "At least you're never bored. That must count for something."

  Jillian blew out a frustrated breath. That was true. She was elated, exhilarated, sensually awakened—but never, never bored.

  "So are they mutually exclusive for you?" she dared.

  "What?" he asked blandly.

  "Feelings and feelings."

  Grimm tugged restlessly at his dark hair. "I suppose I haven't met the woman who could make me feel while I was feeling her."

  I could, I know I could! she almost shouted. "But you have those other kind of feelings quite frequently, don't you?" she snipped.

  "As often as I can."

  "There you go with your hair, again. What is it with you and your hair?" When he didn't reply she said childishly, "I hate you, Roderick." She could have kicked herself the moment she said it. She prided herself on being an intelligent woman, yet around Grimm she regressed into a petty child. She was going to have to dredge up something more effective than the same puerile response if she intended to spar with him.

  "No you doona, lass." He uttered a harsh curse and stepped forward, doffing the shadows impatiently. "That's the third time you've said that to me, and I'm getting bloody sick of hearing it."

  Jillian held her breath as he moved closer, staring down at her with a strained expression. "You wish you could hate me, Jillian St. Clair, and Christ knows you should hate me, but you just can't quite bring yourself to hate me all that much, can you? I know, because I've looked in your eyes, Jillian, and where a great big nothing should be if you hated me, there's a fiery thing with curious eyes."

  He turned in a swirl of shadows and descended from the roof, moving with lupine grace. At the bottom of the steps, he paused in a puddle of moonlight and tilted his head back. The pale moon cast his bitter expression into stark relief. "Doona ever say those words to me again, Jillian. I mean it—fair warning. Not ever."

  Cobblestones crunched beneath his boots as he disappeared into the gardens, comforting her that he was, indeed, of this world.

  She pondered his words for a long time after he'd gone, and she was left alone with the bruised sky on the parapet. Three times he'd called her by name—not brat or lass, but Jillian. And although his final words had been delivered in a cool monotone, she had seen—unless the moon was playing tricks with her vision—a hint of anguish in his eyes.

  The longer she considered it, the more convinced she became. Logic insisted that love and hate could masquerade behind the same facade. It became an issue of simply peeling back that mask to peer beneath it and determine which emotion truly drove the man in the shadow. A glimmer of understanding pierced the gloom that surrounded her.

  Go with your heart, her mother had counseled her hundreds of times. The heart speaks clearly even when the mind insists otherwise.

  "Mama, I miss you," Jillian whispered as the last stain of purple twilight melted into a raven horizon. But despite the distance, Elizabeth St. Clair's strength was inside her, in her blood. She was a Sacheron and a St. Clair—a formidable combination.

  Indifferent to her, was he? It was time to see about that.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 10

  "well, that's it, then—they're off," hatchard muttered, watching the men depart. He finger-combed his short red beard thoughtfully. He stood with Kaley on the front steps of Caithness, watching three horses fade into swirls of dust down the winding road.

  "Why did they have to choose Durrkesh?" Kaley asked irritably. "If they wanted to go catting about, they could very well have gone to the village right here." She waved at the small town clustered protectively near the walls of Caithness that spilled into the valley beyond.

  Hatchard shot her a caustic glance. "Although this may come as a grave shock to your… shall we say… accommodating nature, not everyone thinks about catting all the time, Missus Twillow."

  "Don't be 'Missus Twillowing' me, Remmy," she snapped. "I'll not be believing you've lived nearly forty years without doing a bit of catting yourself. But I must say, I find it appalling that they're off catting when they were brought here for Jillian."

  "If you'd listen for a change, Kaley, you might hear what I've been telling you. They went to Durrkesh because Ramsay suggested they go—not for catting, but to acquire wares that can only be purchased in the city. You told me we've run short of peppercorns and cinnamon, and you won't be finding those wares here." He gestured to the village and allowed a significant pause to pass before adding, "I also heard one might find saffron at the city fair this year."

  "Saffron! Bless the saints, we haven't had saffron since last spring."

  "You've kept me perennially aware of the fact," Hatchard said wryly.

  "One does what one can to aid an old man's memory." Kaley sniffed. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you usually send your men for the wares?"

  "Seeing how Quinn was so avid to buy an elegant gift for Jillian, I certainly wasn't about to stop him. Grimm, I believe, went with them simply to avoid getting stuck alone with the lass," Hatchard added dryly.

  Kaley's eyes sparkled, and she clapped her hands together. "A gift for Jillian. So it's to be Jillian de Moncreiffe, is it? A fine name for a fine lass, I must say. And that would keep her nearby in the Lowlands."

  Hatchard returned his pensive gaze to the ribbon of road wending through the valley. He watched the last rider disappear around a bend and clucked his tongue. "I wouldn't be so certain, Kaley," he murmured.

  "Whatever is that cryptic remark supposed to mean?" Kaley frowned.

  "Just that in my estimation the lass has never had eyes for anyone but Grimm."

  "Grimm Roderick is the worst possible man for her!" Kaley exclaimed.

  Hatchard turned a curious gaze on the voluptuous maid. "Now, why would you say that?"

  Kaley's hand flew to her throat, and she fanned herself. "There are men women desire and there are men women marry. Roderick is not the kind of man a woman marries."

  "Why not?" Hatchard asked, bewildered.

  "He's dangerous," Kaley breathed. "Positively dangerous to the lass."

  "You think he might harm her in some way?" Hatchard tensed, prepared to do battle if such was the case.

  "Without even meaning to, Remmy." Kaley sighed.

  * * * * *

  "They've gone where? And for how long did you say?" Jillian's brow puckered with indignation.

  "To the city of Durrkesh, milady," Hatchard replied. "I should suppose they'll be gone just shy of a sennight."

  Jillian smoothed the folds of her gown irritably. "I wore a dress this morning, Kaley—a pretty one," she complained. "I was even going to ride to the village wearing it instead of Da's plaid, and you know how I hate riding in a dress."

  "You look lovely, indeed," Kaley assured her.

  "I look lovely for whom? All my suitors have abandoned me."

  Hatchard cleared his throat gruffly. "There wouldn't have been one in particular you were hoping to impress, would there?"

&nbs
p; Jillian turned on him accusingly. "Did my da put you up to spying on me, Hatchard? You're probably sending him weekly reports! Well, boodle, I'll tell you nothing."

  Hatchard had the grace to look abashed. "I'm not sending him reports. I was merely concerned for your welfare."

  "You can concern yourself with someone else's. I'm old enough and I worry enough for both of us."

  "Jillian," Kaley chided, "crabby does not become you. Hatchard is merely expressing his concern."

  "I feel like being crabby. Can't I just do that for a change?" Jillian's brow furrowed as she reflected a moment. "Wait a minute," she said pensively. "Durrkesh, is it? They hold a splendid fair this time of year… the last time I went with Mama and Da, we stayed at a perfectly lovely little inn—the Black Boot, wasn't it, Kaley?"

  Kaley nodded. "When your brother Edmund was alive the two of you went to the city often."

  A shadow flitted across Jillian's face.

  Kaley winced. "I'm sorry, Jillian. I didn't mean to bring that up."

  "I know." Jillian drew a deep breath. "Kaley, start packing. I've a sudden urge to go a'fairing, and what better time than now? Hatchard, have the horses readied. I'm tired of sitting around letting life happen to me. It's time I make my life happen."

  "This doesn't bode well, Missus Twillow," Hatchard told Kaley as Jillian strolled briskly off.

  "A woman has as much right to cat about as a man. At least she's catting after a husband. Now we just have to put our heads together and make certain she chooses the right one," Kaley informed him loftily before sauntering after Jillian, twitching her plump hips in a manner that put Hatchard in mind of a long-forgotten, exceedingly bawdy ditty.

  He blew out a gusty breath and headed off to the stables.

  * * * * *

  The Black Boot sagged alarmingly at the eaves, but fortunately the rooms Grimm had procured were on the third floor, not the top, which meant they should be reasonably safe from the deluge that had begun halfway through their trip.

  Pausing outside the open door to the inn, Grimm fisted double handfuls of his shirt and squeezed it. Water gushed from between his hands and splattered loudly on the great stone slab outside the door.