Dark and Stormy Knight

by Nina Mason

  Dazed and shaken, Gwyn moved her gaze from the man to the woman. “Did you write The Knight of Cups?”

  “Oh, no, lass.” Color rose in the woman’s dried-apple cheeks. “The most I know how to write are recipes and grocery lists.”

  Gwyn’s mind jumped back to the accident. “Where are the others? From the tour bus.”

  The man’s expression gravened. “You were the only survivor, lass.”

  Grief wrung her heart. “How did I come to be here? Who found me?”

  “The laird,” the woman said.

  The laird? Gwyn opened her mouth to ask, but no words escaped her parched throat. She swallowed and sucked on her cheeks until she’d raised enough moisture to croak out one word: “Water.”

  “Of course. You poor dear.”

  The woman reached for a ceramic pitcher on the bedside table. Oh, crap—where was her backpack with her screenplay and the photo of her parents? She would die if her most precious possessions had been destroyed in the explosion.

  As she parted her cracked lips to ask about her things, the woman pressed the rim of the glass against them.

  “Drink, dearie. You must be dying from thirst. Not to mention half-starved.”

  After gulping down the contents of the glass, Gwyn licked her lips. She was hungry, but eating was at the bottom of her list of worries. Topping it were the location of her backpack, an explanation for the miraculous healing of her bones, and what to make of the man who’d found her.

  “Shall I bring up a tray?” The woman’s gaze flicked toward Mr. Brody, who gave her a nod. Returning her gaze to Gwyn, she asked, “What might you feel up to, dearie? Tea and toast? A wee bit of broth?”

  Gwyn started to nod and then stopped herself, afraid of triggering another headache. “May I have all three?”

  The woman smiled and touched her arm in a caring manner. “Of course you may.”

  Mr. Brody took a step back. “I’ll go. His lordship will want to know she’s awake. You stay and see that she’s comfortable, Mrs. King.”

  “Just as you like.” Mrs. King threw a backward glance at Mr. Brody, now halfway to the door.

  “Would you ask his lordship if he happened to see a pink leopard-print backpack anywhere when he found me?”

  A shadowed face framed by long hair popped into her mind. The man who’d helped her. The laird of Castle Glenarvon, apparently. He had to be Leigh Ruthven’s husband.

  “What is his lordship’s name?”

  Her question stopped Mr. Brody in the doorway. “MacQuill. Sir Leith MacQuill.”

  “Are he and Leigh Ruthven a couple?”

  Brody cleared his throat. “In a sense, I suppose.”

  The vagueness of his answer aroused Gwyn’s suspicions. Obviously, the man was hiding something—something Gwyn meant to get to the bottom of as soon as she felt well enough.

  “Please tell Sir Leith I’d like to see him when he has a moment—to thank him for saving me.” She scraped her teeth across her lower lip. “And for his hospitality.”

  “His lordship is occupied with other matters at present,” Mr. Brody said. “But I promise to convey your appreciation when I apprise him of your condition.”

  A mixture of curiosity and wonder gurgled in Gwyn’s brain.

  Mrs. King had moved to the fireplace. Carved cherubs and multi-colored marble panels ornamented its limestone facade.

  “Sir Leith is a knight?”

  “Aye, lass. Of the Order of the Thistle, no less.”

  How interesting. Not to mention, impressive. In The Knight of Cups, Heath MacDubh also was a Knight of the Thistle, an honor bestowed by the Bonnie Prince himself while the exiled monarch lived in Italy. Heath had fought to help the prince reclaim the throne of Great Britain, which had been stolen from Charles’ Catholic grandfather, King James II and VII, by the Protestant monarchs William and Mary in the so-called “Glorious Revolution.”

  “What does Sir Leith look like? Is he handsome?”

  “Oh, aye.” Mrs. King struck the logs with a poker, unleashing a hissing fountain of sparks. “Very handsome.”

  “Does he look anything like Heath MacDubh?”

  “Who?”

  “The character in Leigh Ruthven’s book.”

  “Oh, em, well, yes,” Mrs. King said. “I suppose he does.”

  Why were the servants being so evasive?

  “What’s she like?”

  The housekeeper’s eyebrows shot up. “She?”

  “Leigh Ruthven, the authoress.”

  “Oh, erm.” Mrs. King’s stammer further aroused Gwyn’s suspicions. “She’s lovely, isn’t she?” A smile played on wrinkled lips. “Though a bit on the shy side.”

  “Is she here now?”

  Mrs. King offered a tepid smile. “No, lass. She makes herself scarce when there’s a tour group about, though she leaves books.” She nodded toward the nightstand. “Just so you know, that there’s an autographed copy for you to keep.”

  Gwyn turned her head, which felt much clearer, and gave the hard-cover copy of The Knight of Cups a gander. “That was very thoughtful of her.”

  “Oh, aye.” Mrs. King drew nearer the bed. “Her ladyship is very good like that. She cares about her readers, she does. She just doesn’t care overmuch for celebrity.”

  Her ladyship? It had never occurred to Gwyn the reclusive author might be an aristocrat. Just as she started to ask more about her literary idol, Mr. Brody returned with a footed bed tray.

  Mrs. King helped Gwyn sit and plumped the pillows to support her back. Mr. Brody set the tray across her lap. It held a small, self-contained teapot, a silver rack holding triangles of toast, and something beneath a silver dome. Mrs. King lifted the cover, revealing a steaming bowl of chunky brown soup. The rich, beefy aroma made Gwyn’s mouth water.

  “Thank you.” Gwyn picked up the spoon beside the bowl. “Did you happen to speak to his lordship about my backpack?”

  Mr. Brody, who she presumed was the butler, shook his head. “Not yet, lass. But I will first chance I get.”

  Her heart sank. She had no clothes, no ID, no passport, and no money. What was she going to do?

  “I need to speak with his lordship at once,” Gwyn blurted.

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  Tears of frustration stormed her eyes. “You don’t understand. I’ve got no money, no one to turn to, nowhere to go.”

  “Don’t fash yourself so.” Mrs. King patted her arm. “You’ll be well looked after.”

  The servants left the room, leaving Gwyn alone with her worries. As she poured her tea, a fragment from the night before drifted to the surface.

  Are you a faery?

  Something like that.

  He’d given her something to mend her bones. If he wasn’t a faery per se, he was definitely something magical. Suddenly suspicious, she sniffed the golden liquid half filling her teacup, which smelled of chamomile and honey. She took a sip, tasting only tea and sweetness.

  Satisfied the beverage was safe, she lifted the cup to her lips. A handsome knight with magical powers in an old Scottish castle? Maybe she’d fallen into a real-life faery tale, which wasn’t so bad. It was pretty cool, in fact. It would be even better, of course, if her knight wasn’t married to the woman who could make or break her whole future in filmmaking.

  * * * *

  Tearing at his hair, Leith scanned the day’s depressingly paltry output. His head throbbed, his eyeballs burned, and his gut was a tangle of fiery knots. After hours spent mining his brain, all he’d managed to extract were two lousy paragraphs.

  Bloody hell. Writer’s block still had him by the balls. He slammed the laptop, raked his fingers through his shoulder-length hair, and picked up the cigarette burning in the ashtray. He took a long drag and squeezed shut his eyes as he blew the smoke at the wall. What was he going to do? He had bills piling up, a castle to maintain, and wages to pay. If his muse evaded him much longe
r, he’d lose what little he had left.

  Rising from the desk, he took the cigarette to the library’s diamond-leaded window.

  Even on a dark and stormy night, the castle’s sprawling grounds looked shabby. The formal gardens badly needed pruning, the conservatory cried for paint, and the corner turrets were shedding mortar in chunks.

  As frustration’s fingers closed around his solar plexus, he shut his eyes and swallowed. He’d rebuilt Glenarvon from a ruin. Watching the estate waste away again after all his hard work was torture.

  He’d already sold off most of his horses and opened some of the ground-floor rooms for tour groups, weddings, and shooting parties. All were insufferable intrusions, but what else could he do? Let the castle he’d already invested a fortune restoring fall down around him?

  The time had come to sell his car, a vintage Jaguar roadster he’d bought new off the lot back in 1964. He rarely drove the vehicle, which was still in near-mint condition and worth a small fortune. As much as he cherished his Jag, the car would have to go. There was nothing else to be done.

  Leith’s mind jumped back to the day he’d returned from Avalon to find his home a ruin. A hundred years had passed in what seemed a few months. Everyone he knew was dead and his castle was crumbling. Luckily, he’d buried his family fortune in the walled garden before he’d left to join Prince Charlie’s campaign.

  The coins had still been there, thank God, and worth twice as much as when he’d concealed the stash. He’d used the money to restore Glenarvon and buy back as many of his and Clara’s things as his agents could locate. From the art dealer who had their portraits, he’d heard the tragic story of what happened to the Baroness of Glenarvon. The baron, all presumed, ended up in the Well of the Dead with the other clansmen who perished at Culloden.

  He’d restored Glenarvon, but it wasn’t enough. The cost of maintaining a twelfth-century castle was beyond staggering. And the nosedive his investments took during the global financial meltdown a few years back sure as hell hadn’t helped matters. The thought of his financial downfall still lit a fire in his belly. Those greedy Wall Street wankers should thank their lucky stars they were well out of striking range.

  With a sigh, he steered his thoughts back to the problem at hand. The money from the car would cover his debts and pay for a wee bit of work on the place, but that was about all.

  Perhaps he ought to find a wealthy heiress to marry—the age-old go-to solution for destitute gentlemen of his class. She’d have to be dreadful, of course. Someone he could never grow to love. The thought excavated a long-forgotten nursery rhyme.

  Eeper Weeper, chimney sweeper,

  Had a wife but couldn’t keep her.

  Had another, didn’t love her,

  Up the chimney, he did shove her.

  The notion also raised an inner wall of resistance. Nay. Marrying for money was out of the question. He stepped back to the desk to drown the spent butt of his unfiltered Camel in a cup of cold tea. If he could abide an insufferable bed partner, he wouldn’t be in this fix to begin with.

  He returned to the window. In the distance, beyond the cliff’s edge, the North Sea glinted in the faint moonlight. Though the sky above was gold-washed blue, thunderheads gathered in the distance.

  A shiver went through him, partly from the cold of the room and partly from his frazzled nerves.

  The fire Mrs. King had lit earlier to warm the library crackled softly behind him. He turned toward the mantle, taking in the basket-hilt broadsword hanging overhead. The weapon was the one he’d used at Culloden and brought back with him from Avalon. As memories of the battle flickered, he blinked them away.

  He had more immediate problems eating at him, starting with his bloody writer’s block and ending with the lass upstairs.

  Surely, she’d fallen from heaven. Granted, fate’s gifts where he was concerned were few and far between, but how else to explain her being thrown free before the bus exploded? And on his property, no less. She was just his type, too. Petite and pretty with wavy dark hair. Even senseless, she aroused the appetites he’d ignored for too long. He just hoped she had a sense of adventure to go with her other attractions.

  He’d given her his blood to save her life, possibly turning her faery in the process. Should he warn her what to expect or wait and see what happened?

  The buzz in his pocket chased her from his thoughts. He fished out his mobile and checked the caller ID. It was Tom Earlston, the old friend and guru he’d phoned days ago for help with his writing.

  He engaged the call. “Tom, thanks for ringing me back.”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?” Tom, incapable of false speech, always told the absolute truth, often with brutal frankness. “I’m just sorry it took so long. I’m up in Caithness, you see, with our mutual friend—doing a bit of stargazing while we go over the changes on his new manuscript.”

  Resentment burned in Leith’s gut like underaged whisky. Callum Lyon was a fellow knight who, unlike himself, had escaped the queen’s clutches unscathed. While the stars shone down on that S.O.B., they just shat all over Leith.

  Was the lass upstairs a consolation prize?

  In his ear, Tom was prattling on about Lord Lyon’s good fortune. He didn’t give a brass farthing. The Baron of Barrogill could go to hell and take Queen Morgan with him.

  “Do you still need my help?”

  Leith swallowed the bitterness burning his throat. “I wish I could say that I didn’t.”

  “What have you tried so far?”

  “Everything.”

  “Have you tried meditating?”

  “Aye.” What part of everything did the man fail to comprehend? “As well as visualization, exercise, journaling, affirmations, recording my dreams, and reading every bloody book on overcoming writer’s block available on Amazon dot com. All without reaping the least benefit.”

  There was a lengthy pause on the line before Tom asked, “Would it help if I came for a visit?”

  Leith’s hope spiked. “How soon can you get here?”

  “How’s tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s fine. In the meantime, be sure to give Lord and Lady Lyon my best regards.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Leith disconnected the call and returned the phone to his pocket. From the desk, the stalled manuscript taunted. His muse, like a will o’ the wisp, had led him deep into a dark forest only to leave him to find his own way out.

  If only he’d thought to drop a trail of breadcrumbs to help him retrace his steps.

  A knock pulled his attention toward the closed door leading to the foyer.

  “My lord?”

  The burr belonged to Gavin Brody, his longtime butler and secret keeper. The Albert to his Bruce Wayne, so to speak.

  Hurrying to the door, Leith turned the knob.

  “The lass is asking for you, my lord,” Gavin said through the crack.

  “Whatever for?”

  “To thank you. And to ask after an item that’s gone missing.”

  “What item?”

  “A backpack she had with her on the bus.”

  Leith stroked his stubbled chin. He’d all but forgotten the backpack. Last night, after returning to the castle, he’d taken the soiled bag he’d found next to her broken body to his room while he called the tour company to inform them the bus hadn’t arrived. This morning, they’d rung back to tell him what he already knew. While he’d feigned shock at the news, the concern he expressed for the deceased and their mourners was genuine. He wasn’t without feeling, he just didn’t want the publicity.

  “I’ve got it,” he told the butler, “but say nothing about it for the moment, eh?”

  Gavin dipped his head. “As you wish, my lord.”

  Chapter 4

  Gwyn awoke in total darkness and rubbed her eyes. How long had she been asleep? Not long, she guessed, as it was still night. The fire had gone out and the storm still raged outside. If not for t
he periodic flashes of lightning, she’d be in total darkness. Reaching to the bedside lamp, she flicked the switch.

  Nothing happened.

  Shit, the power must be out.

  Thanks to the tea, she needed to pee something fierce. Lightning illuminated the room for a fleeting instant. Rolling, she opened the nightstand drawer and groped about blindly for emergency candles. The first thing she found was a tassel with a key attached. She glanced around, but could see nothing in the dark, so she set her find atop the autographed book and resumed her search. By and by, she found a small, lidless silver box containing several sturdy tapers and a matchbox.

  Fumbling in the dark, she withdrew a matchstick and struck the tip against the side of the box. The sulfur hissed and flamed, smelling of rotten eggs. She lit the candle and, shielding the flame with her hand, climbed out of bed. She padded toward the door with two dire hopes. The first was for a bathroom very nearby. The second was to not run into anybody, especially Sir Leith.

  Someone had put her in a nightgown. A pretty, old-fashioned one of lightweight white cotton with pin-tucking and tiny shell buttons down the front.

  Breath held and candle shielded, she stepped into the hall and looked up and down. There were several doors, all closed. Shit. She crept down the hall, her candle casting eerie shadows across the walls and artwork. The wood floors chilled her feet. The cool air gave her gooseflesh and made her nipples stand out like Jujubes. Their brush against the soft cotton nightgown set off a little spark in her nether regions.

  At the first door, she took hold of the frigid brass knob and turned. The latch clicked and the hinges groaned, tightening her stomach and sending a shiver up her spine. She lifted her candle to illuminate what lay behind the door: piles and piles of neatly folded towels and sheets smelling pleasantly of lavender.

  Not the bathroom.

  Closing the door, she moved on. The next door concealed a bedchamber, as did the one after that. Shit. If she didn’t find the bathroom soon, her bladder would burst.