The Curse of Clan Ross

by L. L. Muir

  It was all.

  She moved along the bars. He could hear her hands bumping each one as she came slowly toward him. The anticipation twisted his chest and made him want to groan with the exquisite frustration of it. There, in the dark, she was merely the woman from his dream, not Jillian, his friend.

  “Montgomery Ross?”

  Her whispered question cut through his fantasy, sobering him.

  “Nay. I cannot pretend that I am Monty. It is I, Quinn. Has my homely uncle returned as well?”

  She stopped moving. Her small gasp came from only an arm’s length away. He wanted to reach out and pull her to him, to give her no choice in the matter. But surely she would come to him, even as a friend, Jillian would come. They’d comforted each other before, when they’d been in the depths of despair—he still mourning Libby, and she rent in twain after leaving Montgomery in the past. Now, tossed in the enemy’s dungeon, she would need a bit of comfort again. Why did she hesitate?

  Why, oh, why couldn’t he have let her believe he was Monty, if only for a few moments?

  “Quinn?” Her voice broke, as if on a sob. “Quinn Ross? The one on the website? I thought Quinn and Montgomery were the same man.”

  He suddenly felt as confused as she sounded.

  “Jillian. Dear Jilly. Have ye lost yer senses? Do ye not remember me? We spent the better part of two weeks together, greetin’ over the loss of our loved ones. Do you remember none of it, then?”

  “I’m...I’m not Jillian. I’m not Jillian. I swear to you, I’m not Jillian.” She laughed, but it only served to worry him more.

  He’d never been so desperate for light.

  “Martin! Martin, can ye give us a wee bit o’ candle? Just a quick bit of light, aye? Martin,” he whispered as loud as he dared. “Can ye hear me?”

  There was movement near the door. A few minutes later, the old man approached.

  “Trusting a blind man with fire is terrible foolish,” said Martin. “But lucky for ye, they’re a foolish lot. But ye mustn’t risk more than a moment or two before ye must douse it.”

  “Don’t move,” Quinn told the woman. He pressed himself against the cell door with his hands outstretched and clicked his fingers. He could not wait to prove this angel from his dream was not Montgomery Ross’s wife.

  An eternity passed, then a box crashed into his hands. He took it, gave Martin’s hand a squeeze, then opened the box. He located the flint, the tinder, and a short nub of a candle only two inches long.

  “God bless ye, Martin,” he said, but the man was already shuffling away.

  “I’d stay to have a peek at her, but I doona wish to interfere,” Martin said, then laughed.

  After a lifetime of tries, the candle took. By the time it did, he was worried that he’d imagined it all and there would be none but Skully in the adjoining cell.

  His hands shook as he put a protective hand around the flame and turned. Each step he took gripped his heart tighter...

  Tighter...

  Tighter still.

  There was a bit of shine to the woman’s coat. Leather, like Jillian wore the first time she set foot in the Ross hall. A plaid dress, like the one Jillian was wearing when she brought Morna and Ivar through the tomb and into the twenty-first century.

  His stomach dropped when he noticed the Western cowboy boots. How could she not be Jillian? Dare he hope the way she was dressed was but coincidence?

  When he finally stood before the dimly lit form beyond the bars, he removed the hand that blocked the light from her face.

  His own face fell. He could not help it from doing so, he was that disappointed. The only thing different about her was that her hair looked a bit darker than before, but it might only be the lack of proper lighting.

  “Jillian.” He wanted to demand why she would have lied to him, but it was hard enough to just say her name. He wanted to take her by the arms and shake her, to make her understand how her pretense had hurt him.

  “I’m not Jillian. I’m her sister, Juliet. I go by Jules. Apparently, we’re twins.”

  He shook his head. How could she tease him like this? Especially now, when he might actually hang in the morning.

  “Ah, Jilly. Surely ye didn’t find your way in here only to tease me.” He held out the candle. “Here. You take it.”

  The thing was small. She tried to take it from his fingers, but couldn’t do so without them losing the light altogether.

  “Forget it,” she said sharply and turned away, leaving him holding he candle up to empty space. “And I’m not Jillian, asshole.”

  He stood there in stunned silence. Was she telling the truth?

  Then, with no more warning than a low keening to precede it, a painful scream shot through his ears and head and ricocheted through the dungeon. Jillian’s scream. When he finally thought to shield his eyes from the candle, he found her, whimpering with her back against her cell door. She was staring at the corpse.

  “I’m sorry, lass. I should have warned ye. I call him Skully.”

  The pet name was no help. She didn’t seem to be listening on any account.

  “He’s harmless, lass. Look at me.”

  She took a few deep breaths, then turned her face. Eventually, her eyes turned too.

  “And by the way,” he said. “I believe ye’re not Jillian after all.”

  “Oh yeah?” She took a deep breath and choked, then she pulled up a t-shirt from under her blouse and covered her face. It muffled her voice. “Why? Don’t I scream like her?”

  “I don’t ken about that,” he said. “But I do know she would have never called me an arsehole. Ever.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The replica of Montgomery Ross, the man she’d prayed for, the man she recognized in the core of her being, reached through the bars again, his hands open, palms up. The candle was perched on one.

  “Take the candle, lass, but for pity sakes, look at me, not Skully.”

  “Who is he?” She couldn’t seem to let go of the bars behind her. She’d seen her parents in their caskets, but she didn’t remember it clearly, only that they didn’t feel real anymore. Other than that, she’d never been around a dead body before. Except for Nikkos, she reminded herself. But Nikkos had still been bleeding.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the Quinn said. “Just pretend he’s but a decoration for Samhain.”

  “Samhain? Oh, right. Halloween. Decoration. Got it.” She still couldn’t stop staring.

  “Look at me, lass. Am I so disgusting you canna stand to glance this way?”

  She heard him talking, but all she could do was shake her head. Disgusting? Hardly. But it was hard to face him when just a moment ago, looking at her face had somehow disappointed him. That Muir sister had noticed something that made her different from Jillian. Apparently, he noticed it too. Maybe Jillian was a real beauty or something.

  “I don’t believe you,” Quinn said. “I must be repulsive indeed.”

  Him? Repulsive? Yeah, right.

  She’d only gotten a quick look so far, but repulsive he was not. He was obviously just being nice, trying to distract her. Calling him an asshole had been a little harsh—maybe—but being mistaken for someone else was new to her and damn hard to get used to. The fact that he’d been disappointed when he’d looked at her just added insult to injury.

  You idiot, said the voice in her head. He was disappointed when he thought you were Jillian!

  Oh my gosh! That’s true, she answered back.

  She smiled and turned. He grinned and held the candle up in front of his face. She was finally able to release her grip and move closer to the side bars to look her fill. He did look just like the picture on the website, and she told him so.

  “Oh, that.” He sounded a little disappointed. “Yes, that was me. A long while ago, I’m afraid.”

  She caught herself licking her lips and she turned away, mortified. Why didn’t she just reach over and start running her fingers through his hair? Just because she was so i
ntimate with the man in her dreams, didn’t mean she could jump on this guy. But there, in the darkness, it was hard to believe it wasn’t that dreamland where they already knew each other. She was just going to have to try harder to put that dream aside.

  “Tut! Doona do it, lass. Just a decoration.”

  She nodded and brought her attention back to him, reluctantly. She’d almost forgotten about being scared shitless.

  “Just a decoration,” she said. “No biggy.”

  He nodded. “Happy Halloween, aye?”

  Other than his build and his coloring, he really didn’t look that much like Jillian’s husband—at least the face she’d stared at through binoculars. There was something a little more intense about him. His cheekbones were a little higher. Or maybe it was just the darkness. Shadows do funny things to a face. She could look into his smoldering eyes forever, especially while he was staring into hers...

  She realized he was waiting for her to say something. What had he been talking about?

  “Right. Halloween,” she said. “So, who is he?”

  “A stubborn man, or so Martin told me.” It wasn’t the casual way he’d said it, or the slightly higher pitch that gave him away, but the pause before he’d spoken.

  “You thought I wouldn’t want to know he was stubborn? I doubt that. What aren’t you telling me?”

  He sighed. “He was a son to The Gordon.”

  She turned to look at the skeleton again. No way could she think of it as just a Halloween decoration anymore. He had been someone. This castle had been his home. And his father had let him die here, chained to the wall, in the dark.

  A shiver went up her spine. No matter how cold-hearted a murderer Gabby was, he could have never been so cruel. Or could he? Poor Nikkos. Like a son. How his heart must have broken in that millisecond between Gabby pointing the gun and firing. But how many times, while he waited to die, had this Skully’s heart broken? A bullet would have been kinder.

  “Lass.” Quinn Ross waved a hand to catch her eye.

  She turned back to him. He shook his hair out of his eyes and looked into her soul again and she couldn’t help but smile. She was like the candle, coming to life under his attention. It made her feel warm in a creepy dungeon that had no warmth. Too bad he was just a nice guy, trying to keep her calm.

  “You didn’t want me to know that the man—into whose dungeon we’ve been tossed—is ruthless enough to leave his son in this same dungeon to rot. Is that it?”

  He smiled. His eyes crinkled and he winked at her. “Aye. That’s just it.”

  That wink sent chills to all the places she’d felt warm just a second ago. Winks, she realized, were highly under-rated.

  She was afraid her knees might just give out if she didn’t look away. Unfortunately, Skully was the only thing to look at.

  “What a very, very sad Halloween decoration.”

  “Aye, lass. Now, let’s not waste what time we have left to us.”

  She could get used to being called lass. It beat being called Jillian any day. She took a deep breath and turned back to him, trying to think of something to say, to keep him talking.

  “Why do you say that? You always say that.”

  She gasped when she realized it was true. He’d always said that—but in the dream!

  How had her subconscious known she would end up there, having that exact conversation? How could she have dreamed about a man she’d never laid eyes on yet? She’d never even known about Jillian when the dreams had started, let alone the Castle Ross website where she’d found his picture.

  Quinn’s picture.

  Gah! He must have thought she was so stupid. He wouldn’t have any idea what she was talking about. But, holy crap! Quinn Ross—not Montgomery Ross—haunting her dreams?

  It had been a shocker, running across that picture and recognizing him when he shouldn’t have existed. She’d obsessed about him 24/7, for weeks, making herself sick until she’d turned her attention to escaping from her federal babysitters.

  But he was real. And he wasn’t Monty. And now he was going to think she was certifiable.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, waiting for the ceiling to fall on her head.

  He laughed. Then he stopped short. Then he laughed again, and all without her looking up. He was delighted about something, and after a few seconds, she couldn’t stand it anymore and opened her eyes.

  He reached out with his free hand and took hold of her fingers, pulling her up tight against the bars, and suddenly, she felt like they were in his cell and not hers. The heat coming through the empty gaps was more than enough to make up for the cold bars pressed against her. He studied her face for a minute and didn’t seem to find anything unpleasant, even though she hadn’t seen a shower or a brush for two days and been dragged halfway across Scotland by Cheval. The last time she’d cleaned up had been at Debra’s.

  “I always say that?” he whispered. “We’ve only met, lass. When did I say it? And what did I say?”

  She looked down, embarrassed. He’d been laughing at her after all.

  “Speak to me, lass. I must know. Tell me the truth of it, if ye please.”

  It was charming, the way he begged.

  She took a deep breath, stalling, wanting to wait just a minute longer before saying anything that might make him want to let go of her.

  “You’re going to think it’s silly.”

  “Never.” He lifted her chin with a knuckle, and then the contact was gone. She very nearly lowered her head again, just to feel that knuckle a second time. It felt wonderful, like her chin had been starved for attention.

  How pathetic.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ve had this recurring dream, see. It was about you—probably because of that picture on the website. But then I got to Scotland and saw Montgomery and I thought I was lusting after Jillian’s husband. I was sick about it, actually.”

  “Lusting, ye say?”

  She tried to pull away, but then she remembered how badly she wanted to not be in that cell with Skully, so she let him pull her close again, grateful that he still wanted to, considering how silly she was acting.

  “I ask, Juliet, because I’ve shared this dream.”

  Oh, great.

  “Uh huh,” she said. “Sure you have.”

  No way was she going to stand there and make a fool out of her. But if she put up much of a struggle, the candle would go out and she would freak out.

  She took a careful step back, but he only pulled her tighter. The light wobbled and she froze.

  He shook his head. “You don’t believe me. I understand why you wouldn’t. I do. But I’m not playing with you. Hear me out, aye? In this dream, is it always dark?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “And is there always something between us, keeping us apart?”

  She gave him one nod. No way would he guess anything else.

  “And perhaps we only have a few stolen moments together because I’m supposed to die in the morning?”

  Oh my hell! How does he know?

  “What? Wait! What?”

  He sighed. “Perhaps that wasn’t technically part of our dream then. But I always supposed what kept us apart was the impression that you were Jillian and the love of Monty’s life, and not a wall of bars.”

  “Wait. Just wait a minute. What about you dying in the morning? Was that a dream, or is it real?” She found her fingers digging into his skin, trying to pull him closer, but he didn’t seem to mind, which was lucky, because she couldn’t seem to stop. She felt so desperate, just like she always did, clinging to him like she was. It was exquisite torture, wanting to hold onto the dream, not wanting to wake up, but at the same time hoping she wasn’t dreaming at all.

  “The Gordon has decreed it,” he said casually, like, “It’s supposed to rain in the morning.”

  She stared at his broad chest and the neck just above it. Hang him? How could they? Were they blind? Then she remembered Skully.

  “Th
e Gordon is the bastard who left his son to die, right?”

  “Right you are,” Quinn said, but she had the impression, from the way he was staring at her, that he wasn’t paying a lot of attention to their conversation. His eyes kept moving around her face, like it was a puzzle he was trying to solve. If someone handed him a pen, he might draw a little path from her brows, to her ears, back to her nose, then around to her chin. Her mouth was apparently the end game.

  Please, let my mouth be the end game.

  He looked back at her eyes and smiled.

  She took a deep breath and sighed. “Then, we’ve just got to get you out of here.”

  She knew full well she was stepping back on the delusion train, but she didn’t care. This was no time to be realistic. Wolfproof, bulletproof, and fireproof. Well, the last part she wouldn’t have to wonder about if she managed to escape with him.

  He laughed. “You have a grand plan, do ye?”

  “Aye. I do.” She couldn’t help but mock his sexy Scottish brogue.

  “Complicated, is it?” He tucked her hair back behind one ear. She was losing his attention again.

  “No, not really.” She tried to imitate his sexy smile too, to get him to look at her lips again, but she’d done better with the accent.

  He raised one brow. No way could she copy that.

  “Truly? Then I must hear this plan.”

  She grinned and wished she could wink, but she was afraid she’d look anything but sexy doing it.

  “We scream,” she said, “until they come to shut us up, then we overpower them and get away.”

  He laughed. Hard. It started to sound a little hysterical.

  “Hey, don’t knock it. I’ll have you know every plan I’ve had lately has worked. For a while anyway. Obviously, this dungeon was not in my plans.”

  “And just how many plans have you needed lately, sweet Juliet?”

  She was just about to correct him, to tell him that no one calls her Juliet, but she realized the chills currently shooting through her were due to the way he’d said her name—again, with that lovely brogue.