Enraptured

by Candace Camp

  His question was answered—it was infinitely worse to be beside her, her scent in his nostrils, hearing every breath she took, every rustle of her dress as she moved, his gaze locked on the swell of her breasts above the row of lace. He forced himself to focus on the drawing before him.

  “You drew a map of the loch?”

  “I always sketch the sites we’re exploring. It’s rough, of course. I’ve marked where the ruins are and Duncally, the road into the village, the circle of stones, et cetera. Is this location right for Baillannan? The cave where they found the coins? Where did your grandmother live?”

  Concentrate. “You’re very close with Baillannan.” He took the pencil from her and sketched in a few shapes. “This is the cave. Here are the castle ruins.”

  “The one you pointed out the first day? The old Baillannan? Didn’t you say its cellars connected to the caves?”

  “So they say. But not to the cave where they found the coins,” he added quickly. “The only entrance to it is in the cliff.”

  “Still, doesn’t it seem a likely place to hide a treasure?”

  “Aye. There are cellars and subcellars and tunnels. I’ve never found one that led to a cave. One led to the new house, but it caved in along the way. I’ve gone through one or two, but they had caved in, as well, so I’m not sure if they led to the caves or not. It stands to reason the Roses would have had a tunnel to the caves or at least beyond the outer wall, in case they needed to escape.”

  “They seem to have been a secretive lot.”

  “The Roses were . . . suspicious. No doubt that is one reason why they prospered. If Sir Malcolm had been the one to hide the gold, it might well be in the ruins. But Faye would not have been as knowledgeable about them, and according to her letter, it was she who hid the treasure.”

  “What letter? I thought you had only her journal.”

  “There was a note in the cave where Meg found the coins. It was from Faye to Sir Malcolm; it was their habit to leave messages there.”

  “Do you have it? May I see it?”

  “Of course.” He went to one of the glass-fronted shelves and pulled out the old leather-bound volume Violet had seen him reading before. Opening it, he took out a piece of yellowed, torn paper, which he unfolded carefully and laid on the table before Violet.

  She bent over the creased note, squinting to read the faded lines.

  My love, I pray you find this, well and happy. What you left me is safe; I have hidden it, and you will know where and when to find it. If you have gone on, as my heavy heart fears, it will be there for our child. My time is coming, and I do not fear it, for I pray I will find you waiting for me. I love you with all my heart. Faye

  “How sad. ‘My time is coming.’ She sensed her death?”

  “Perhaps. Or she meant that she was about to give birth. Maybe both, for she died soon after the bairn came into the world.”

  “She does not say the man’s name or what he left her.”

  “No. We made that leap because of the gold coins and the Rose emblem. It could be nonsense. But it does fit. Faye was accounted a rare beauty—enough to tempt a laird, even a married one. He was a married man and of high stature, which would explain why Faye kept the secret of his identity so assiduously. He was educated, so he would have been able to teach her to read and write. He had wealth, so he could buy her a pair of hair ornaments, which Damon assures us would have been beyond the financial means of an ordinary man. He gave her this dirk, as well.” Coll reached around to his back and pulled a short, black-handled dagger from his belt. It was obviously old and worn, plain except for an odd symbol engraved on its hilt.

  “Do you always go about thus armed inside?”

  He shrugged. “ ’Tis sometimes handy to have a knife.”

  “Was this Sir Malcolm’s, too? I see no rosette.”

  “I don’t know. It, too, is of good quality, but that does not necessarily mean it was the laird’s. It is a sgian-dubh. Many a Scot carries one at the top of his sock.”

  “What is this emblem on it?”

  “I dinna know.”

  “It looks like some sort of rune. I shall have to check my books.” She handed it back to him. Her fingers brushed Coll’s, sending a frisson up his arm. His fingers clenched around the hilt and he took his time putting the dirk back into his scabbard.

  “Why did he leave the treasure with Faye instead of hiding it himself? Or taking it to his house?”

  “He might have felt he could not trust his wife or his brother; it would not be surprising, given the end he met at their hands. Perhaps he trusted Faye above all others. She had, after all, kept the secret of his identity. The Roses’ history is entwined with that of the Munro wisewomen. Long ago the Baillannan gave them their cottage in freehold. In many a place, my ancestors would have been scorned as witches, even killed; certainly the . . . unusual ways of the Munro women flouted tradition. But they were considered under the protection of the laird.”

  “Why?”

  “I dinna ken why. Most of the legends are fantastical, so it’s hard to tell where the truth lies. More mundanely, Sir Malcolm may have considered the cave where they left their messages the safest spot to store the money. But clearly she moved the gold elsewhere.”

  “Why did your sister search that cave? How did she know where they left messages?”

  “In one of her entries, Faye refers to it as the place where she gathered Irish moss. Meg knew which cave she meant. That particular moss grows only in a tidal cave—one that’s submerged by ocean water in high tide—and Meg, of course, knew where the Munro healers gather their Irish moss.”

  “That would seem rather public for a secret hiding place. And if it is underwater at high tide, how could their messages remain safe?”

  “The hiding place wasn’t in the tidal cave but in a higher cave behind. They had to crawl through a tunnel to get to it. Even the outer cave is difficult to reach; you have to go by boat and at low tide. And there is no reason for most people to go there.”

  “Yet Faye seems certain that not only Sir Malcolm, but her child, too, would know where she concealed the gold.”

  “My mother knew about the outer cave, but if she knew aught about the secret one beyond it, she didn’t pass that information on to either of us. Ma was not old when she died—I was but twenty and Meg only seventeen. She collapsed one day and was gone . . . almost immediately.” Coll stopped, remembering that moment when he returned from cutting peat and found Meg on her knees beside their mother, weeping.

  To his surprise Violet reached out and touched his hand. “I am sorry. That must have been very hard for you.”

  “Aye. She had been fine when I left that morning. She’d had a headache a few times in the days before. But she took a draft and looked better. Meg said she let out a cry and sank to the floor, and she was just . . . gone. If I hadn’t left to cut the peat that day, if I’d been there—”

  “You could not have kept it from happening.” Violet squeezed his hand gently. “You must not feel guilty.”

  Coll realized with a start that he had taken her hand in his. It felt so right there, so warm and natural, that it was a struggle to release it. He stood up, putting some distance between them, and shoved his hands in his pocket, beginning to pace. “It is good of you to say so. You’re right, of course. Meg would have been better equipped to help her than I, and she could do nothing. But what I meant to say—given the suddenness of Ma’s passing, there might have been some Munro lore that she had not yet told Meg or me, thinking to wait till we were older.”

  “If that is the case, it is lost forever.” Violet thought for a moment. “Let’s approach this from a different direction. Faye says her ‘time is coming.’ She has just finished moving the gold.”

  “So you’re wondering how a woman who is large with child moved a chest of gold?”

  “Exactly.” Violet beamed at his understanding. “She was young and presumably healthy, and given the scrap of leather that w
as left, I’ll assume the gold was in bags, which would have made it easier to carry than a trunk. However, it would still require a good deal of effort to move the gold. She had to row a boat to the cave.”

  “And crawl to the inner cave where it was hidden,” Coll added. “She would have had to go on hands and knees several yards through a tunnel, dragging the gold with her.”

  “It would have been lighter to carry if it was in several bags, but then she would have had to make several trips. In either case, it seems unlikely that she would have moved the treasure far from the cave.”

  “I agree. She would also have had to be careful not to be seen. There were British soldiers around and men returning to their homes. She could not trust anyone, even people she knew, not with gold or the name of her lover. She probably did it in the night or at dawn.”

  “Which makes proximity even more of a necessity.” Violet turned to her map, putting her finger on the spot marking the cave. “Where was her home?”

  Coll leaned over, bracing one hand on the table, and drew on the map. He was intensely aware of Violet, only inches from him. He hoped she did not notice the unsteadiness in his fingers as he sketched in the house. His eyes went to the curve of her neck as she bent over the map. Tiny wisps had escaped from her upswept hair and curled at her nape. He imagined twining a silken strand around his finger. Or bending down to press his lips at the juncture of her neck and shoulders. Coll thrust his hands into his pockets and stepped back. Violet looked up at him, her brows raised, and he realized that he’d missed whatever she had just said.

  “I’m sorry. I was, um—what did you say?”

  “I asked what the actual distances are. How long would it take to go from Faye’s home to the cave?”

  “Oh. Well.” He sat down, scooting the chair back and turning so that he was facing her. “Our cottage is very close to the loch. She would have rowed the dory to the cave. It would take me a bit more time than it did to row to Baillannan the other night. It would take her longer than me, but I’m not sure how much, given her condition. Thirty minutes, perhaps?”

  “Then she would have loaded the bag or bags in the boat and—what?—returned to her home?”

  “Probably. Of course, she could have rowed along the shore to the village or on around the promontory.”

  “Or to the other side of the loch, the Baillannan side.”

  Coll nodded. “Yes. But she would not be as familiar with the village as she would be the land around our cottage. And she dinna grow up at Baillannan as Meg and I did. I think she would be likeliest to row back to our dock.”

  “She would be tired after all that rowing and hauling. It would make more sense to take it home than make another trip from home to the new hiding place the next day.”

  He nodded. “She could have found a safe enough spot in or around the house to leave it for a day.”

  “So it is probably hidden not far from her house.” Violet tapped her forefinger on the block representing Faye’s home.

  Coll leaned forward, steeling himself against the lure of Violet’s nearness, and drew his finger in a large, misshapen circle around the cottage. “She would have been very familiar with the area on this side of the loch through the woods rising up to Duncally and back to the cliffs above the sea. The land around the circle is open, not much place to hide anything there. It’s much the same on the promontory where the ruins are located. But the rest of it, the trees and burns and paths, that’s where the Munro women have always gathered their plants. I’ve even heard people call it the Spaewife Woods.”

  “Spaewife?”

  “A seer, one who has ‘the sight.’ Some people have named our home the Spaewife’s Cottage. The Munro to whom the laird gave the land was said to see the future, and the Laird of Baillannan relied on her to warn him or to help him lay his plans.”

  “Handy.”

  “It was indeed.” He turned an amused glance to Violet. She was leaning, chin on hand, watching him, her mouth curved up in a smile. His good intentions crumbled in an instant. Suddenly he could think of nothing but kissing her . . . and more than kissing her. Lust flared deep in his belly, and he pictured himself pulling her up from her chair and into his arms, bending her back over the table. He imagined her hair spilling across the polished mahogany, her body yielding beneath his. Maps, theories, questions, were swept away, along with morals and manners, crushed beneath the tide of his surging desire.

  “Coll? Are you all right?”

  He pulled his mind back from the brink. “What? Yes. Yes, of course.”

  Violet stared at him, and he wondered what she had seen in his eyes, if she had glimpsed his thoughts. She was perched straight as an arrow on the edge of her chair, her hands folded in her lap.

  “I was—just thinking.” Coll wished like the devil he could think. He turned, focusing on the map. “It’s still a large area to search. Faye could have dug a hole and buried the bags anywhere.”

  “Yes, but she said in the letter that he would be able to find it. That their child could find it. So she wouldn’t have put it in some random place. She must have marked it or left something that would enable her daughter to find it. A clue. A note.” Violet gestured toward the old book. “Her journal seems the likeliest place. She meant for that book to be passed down; you said it was filled with her remedies.”

  “Yes. She did it for her child, but Janet, my mother, didn’t know it existed. It was only recently that Meg found the book.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “No. I looked through it a bit the other night, trying to find a remedy, but that’s all. I dinna think even Meg has read it carefully. Her main interest was finding references to the man whom our grandmother loved.”

  “I think that’s where we should start—the journal. If we read it carefully, maybe we’ll find that clue.”

  “Yes. Of course.” It was a terrible idea. Coll thought of sitting beside Violet every evening, heads together over the book, his senses bombarded by her nearness, his flesh quivering with the urge to touch her. It would be the most exquisite torment. There was nothing he wanted more.

  13

  Violet hummed under her breath as she walked into the library. She and Coll had been reading Faye Munro’s journal for three nights now, and though they had not yet found a word about the treasure, she was looking forward to the evening. She found the journey of discovery as fascinating as the goal itself.

  Something about taking that journey with Coll was also intensely exciting. Just her sitting next to him, their shoulders almost touching, was enough to raise her pulse, and the soft rumble of his voice both soothed and stirred her. She found herself daydreaming about spending all her evenings this way, talking over their day’s activities and unraveling knotty problems. Every night she was more reluctant to leave the library and retire to her room, which seemed increasingly lonely, dark, and cold.

  She feared, however, that Coll was tiring of the whole thing. Though he participated willingly enough in their search of the journal, he was clearly becoming restless and tense. His body was taut beside her, as though he were coiled and about to spring up at any moment. Indeed, he frequently did jump up to pace around the room.

  They had given up keeping watch for an intruder, for by now everyone in the glen was aware that Coll was staying in Duncally, and no one would likely want to confront him. Yet Coll often stayed up late, prowling around the house after Violet had gone off to bed. Once Violet had awakened, heart pounding, sure that she had heard a noise. Dawn was breaking, and when Violet peeked out through her drapes, she saw Coll walking about, wearing no coat despite the cold, his head down as if deep in thought.

  Violet suspected that he was troubled. She was tempted to ask him about it, wanting to help him, but the remoteness in him lately discouraged her questions. So she did her best to focus solely on the task before them.

  They had given the first part of the journal only a cursory examination, reasoning that the issue of the treasur
e did not arise until after Malcolm Rose returned from France. Most of the beginning consisted of remedies and Faye’s joy in being able to record them, with only a few vague references to the man who had given her the journal.

  When they reached the section after Malcolm sailed for France, Violet found it difficult not to get caught up in the girl’s wistful musings. Faye did her best to remain circumspect about her unknown lover, but she spoke frequently of her “empty heart” and her impatience for her lover’s return. Then joy burst forth upon the pages, making it clear that Sir Malcolm had returned. That had been followed by worry, as well as elation when she discovered she was pregnant. Soon, Violet thought, there must be some mention of the treasure and hiding it.

  Coll was seated at the table when Violet came into the library. He stood up, and for an instant a look that she had seen in his eyes often in the last few days appeared, then vanished . . . as it always did before she could identify it.

  She gave him a searching glance as she took her seat. “You look tired. You should rest more.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.

  “I’ve had a bit of trouble sleeping.” He shrugged and gave her a tight smile. “No doubt the beds are too fine for me.”

  Clearly he had no interest in discussing the matter—at least not with her. She turned toward the book open on the table. “Where did we end last night?”

  “This part’s all about comfrey and some other herb, then a remedy.” He carefully turned the page.

  Violet was distracted by the sight of his hands on the book—so large and strong, roughened by calluses and marked with scars here and there, yet his fingers moved with delicacy on the fragile paper, supple and gentle. Violet pulled her thoughts back from their wayward path. “She mentions the cave. Look, she says she gathered Irish moss today, but then says, ‘Naught there. I fear he is lost forever.’ She must mean she searched for a message in their cave.”

  “Aye.”