by Carmen Caine
None of that mattered now.
She peered about, her shoulders relaxing and her tense, overexerted thigh muscles beginning to loosen. For the first time since passing the footpath sign, she smiled.
No, she grinned.
She was inside a genuine, honest-to-goodness castle ruin. The thrill was almost more than she could bear.
Carefully, with all the awe and reverence she knew she’d feel at such a moment, she placed her hands on the chill, damp stones. Ancient stones, worn smooth by countless raindrops, some cracked and broken by constant exposure to icy, northern wind.
She pressed her palms against the wall, letting her fingers explore the cold, uneven surface. She tried to breathe in their essence, almost expecting – no, hoping – to feel a slight pulse or vibration.
Nothing happened.
She did hear sheep bleating somewhere in the distance.
A soft sigh followed by a slight rustling.
She blinked as chill sped down her spine and the fine hairs on her nape lifted.
Such sounds could’ve been Gudrid. Aunt Birdie’s Norse maid at the window embrasure. More likely, it’d been the soughing of the wind through the ivy spilling down one side of the ruin.
Hoping to increase her chances of glimpsing the ghost – if indeed she’d made the noises – Cilla studied the stretch of wall rising up to the crumbling window alcove.
There were enough footholds to get her up there.
If she didn’t slip.
She glanced at the hard-packed earthen floor. Stones and fallen rubble were everywhere. Not to mention what she was sure must be stinging nettle growing around the wall edges. Whatever goo and what-not hid beneath the piles of old, dead leaves.
Falling wouldn’t be pretty.
A spill in the other direction, out the window, would be even worse. She’d tumble straight down the grassy slope, roll over the cliff-edge and land in the Kyle.
Where she’d promptly drown if she was still alive when her body hit the water.
She took a step closer to the wall, her mind working furiously.
Climbing up was dangerous. But the window was where the tower’s hall would have been. She could see the line of joist holes for the hall’s wooden floor. If she could make it that far, she could swing herself into the embrasure. Unfortunately, now that she was close, the alcove looked even higher. Peering up at it, she willed herself to be brave. After all, she was Aunt Birdie’s niece.
She had courage in her blood.
As if to tempt her, a rock protruded near the base of the wall. She stuck out her foot, nudging the stone to see if it wiggled.
It didn’t.
She eyed the rock, considering.
Then she heard the rustling again and made her decision.
Heart thumping, she shimmied up the wall and scrambled into the alcove before she could change her mind. Her goal reached, she pushed to her feet. Then she braced her hands on either side of the recess and felt her heart drop.
The window was much higher than she’d realized, but she’d been right about one thing.
Falling out would be worse than toppling back in.
It was a long way down to the Kyle. Harrowing, rocky, and steep didn’t begin to describe it.
It was that bad.
Trying to pretend her knees weren’t trembling, she cast a look at the cracked stone bench against one side of the alcove. There should have been a second, opposite facing seat, but that one had apparently done what she was determined not to do. At some point in time, it’d fallen out the window.
Broken bits of it dotted the ground at the base of the tower.
She shuddered and – having decided the remaining bench wasn’t going anywhere for a while – she eased herself onto its cold stone seat.
Maybe she’d stay there forever.
There were worse fates.
It seemed a better option than worrying about how she was going to get back down.
You could have spared yourself this…
No odd fluttery rustle, but the purring voice of her old nemesis, Dawn Paterson, seemed to brush past her ear.
She could almost see her rival before her. How she’d preened in the front room of her parents’ Charm Box Antique and Jewelry Shoppe. Haughty and snide, she’d sneered the words that squelched Cilla’s livelihood.
You always did act without thinking. A shame you didn’t consider how poorly your wares were selling before bothering to make more.
Cilla closed her eyes and blocked her ears.
She didn’t need to be reminded that Vintage Chic had gone down the tubes. Or that she was presently stuck on an ice-cold medieval bench that might crumble beneath her any minute.
Just because it looked sturdy didn’t mean it was.
Hardwick looked and felt solid, but he was still a ghost.
Cilla leaned back against the wall, wondering when and why her world had turned so crazy. Hoping to gain some control, she lifted her chin, giving her jaw just enough thrust to make her feel bold, in charge of her fate.
It helped.
She did feel better - until two things happened at once.
The weird rustling returned, this time sounding like the flapping of big leathery wings. Then kiltie was there, too!
Once again disguised as the devil, he hovered in midair, leering down at her from just above the top of the roofless tower.
“Gah!” She leapt to her feet.
He swooped lower, his horned visage bobbing crazily against the broken ridge of the tower’s rim.
His eyes glittered, black as coals.
With blurring speed, he popped over the rim, dropping a few feet into the tower before whooshing back up again.
“It won’t work!” She shook a fist at him. “I know it’s you and you can’t scare me. Not kilted, not red-deviled, and not even if you show up as a werewolf!”
The words made her feel good.
Brave.
But her foot slipped on the edge of the window recess and she slammed onto her knees, nearly toppling over the side to the rock-strewn floor.
“Arrrggggh!” She grabbed the bench, holding tight.
“Have a care, lass.” His soft voice sounded low, deeply seductive.
More surprising, it came from beneath her, while his red-devil face soared ever upward, finally swinging back and forth high above the tower.
“I dinnae think I can catch you a third time.” He spoke again, his burr sliding around her like a caress. “No’ here, anyway.”
“Then we’re even.” Cilla braced herself against his honeyed words, kept her gaze on his devil disguise. “I don’t want to be caught by you anywhere. Your ventriloquist skills don’t impress me.”
“My what?”
“The word isn’t important.” She tightened her grip on the bench, her pulse skittering. “It means the ability to make your voice sound as if it’s coming from somewhere else. Any two-bit magician can-”
Auk-auk-auk!
A set of powerful pinions rose from behind the devil’s curving red horns. Cinnamon-brown with a narrow band of white, the wings beat furiously as the entire ferocious-looking bird came into view.
The devil mask dropped several feet, only held aloft by a red cord clutched in the bird’s talons.
Cilla gasped, staring at the ferocious-looking raptor.
Beneath her, near the tower doorway, stood Hardwick, eyes narrowed and jaw fiercely set. A breeze tossed his long, silky black hair around his powerful, plaid-draped shoulders as he stared up at her, his shield clutched in his hands.
His gaze held hers, dark and intent. “So that’s what you meant by red-deviled.”
“I-” Cilla flushed. She started to deny it, but just then the rustling came again, now recognizable as the bird’s rapid wingbeats.
Auk, auk, he screeched, keen eyes watching them as he made several high-speed swoops around the tower. Then he soared upward, the devil mask trailing after him like a surreal red-painted kite.
C
learly enjoying himself, he looped back to dive at them, his wings almost completely closed. Coming fast, he sped over the tower rim with barely an inch to spare. He shot up again, this time twirling and spinning in a series of aerial acrobatics before once again sailing around the tower. He released the mask on his fifth pass.
Overlarge and unwieldy, it fell like a stone, landing with a loud thwack near Hardwick’s feet.
Another auk and the bird beat away over the Kyle.
Kiltie bent to pick up the mask and carefully propped it against a heap of nettle-covered stones.
Cilla cleared her throat. “It’s a mask.”
He shot an annoyed look at her. “Aye, so it is.”
He touched a finger to one of the glistening horns, examining its curve. A muscle ticked in his jaw and his eyes held an unreadable expression.
It could have been anger.
Watching him, Cilla knotted her hands against the stone bench and pushed to her feet. She could feel hot color blooming on her cheeks. Her heart began a slow, shame-driven thumping. Ghost or not, she’d wronged this man. Every inch of him screamed that he knew it.
Knew she’d suspected him of guising himself as the devil to frighten her.
Her gaze again slid to the mask. Hideous with its black glitter eyes and leering smile, it reminded her of the get-ups worn at Carnival in New Orleans and Rio.
I'm sorry. The apology stuck in her throat.
She owed him one, for sure.
But he’d stepped into the shaft of light slanting into the tower and he looked so rock-hard solid and gorgeous that she knew if she opened her mouth she’d babble something she’d regret.
Something like oh my, oh my.
She moistened her lips, knew she was blushing.
He set down his shield and folded his arms. “I’ve been called many things in my time, but ne’er red-deviled.”
“I-” Cilla glanced briefly out the window arch. The bird was now a black speck above the moors on the other side of the Kyle. “I wouldn’t have called you that either if-”
“Nor – until this day - has anyone e’er suggested I might enjoy sprouting fur and growing fangs.” He sounded highly insulted.
“As for my kilt-”
“Oh, please!” Cilla tossed back her hair. She didn’t want to hear about his kilt. “What was I supposed to think?”
She indicated the mask with a flick of her hand. “I open the shutters to see that face sailing towards me. Behag Finney – or whatever the cook’s name is – fainted from fright after it appeared at the kitchen window. Then I come up here to get away for an afternoon and there it is again, popping up out of nowhere.”
“You thought it was me.”
“Of course, I did! That’s what you do – appear and disappear all the time.”
He remained unmoved. “I see.”
“No you don’t.” She frowned at him. “But you should. It’s uncanny the way you’re here, there, and everywhere.”
“That, sweetness, is what ghosts do.” He said that as if she should know it. “After seven hundred years it’s become a habit.”
“Exactly, and that’s what I meant. You’re a ghost. Since meeting you” – she waved a hand, struggling to find the right words – “I have to believe anything is possible.”
“Even flying red devils and werewolves?”
“Even them.”
“Then, lass, you err,” he said, a note of regret in his voice. “There are some things that are no’possible.”
Cilla started to argue that if he was possible, anything should be. But he was suddenly directly beneath her, having crossed the tower without her having even seen him take one step.
“That’s another thing ghosts do, isn’t it?” She spoke the obvious. “Move across a room in the blink of an eye.”
He shrugged. “It’s an advantage, aye. Moving quickly is one of the little things that amuses. It helps break the tedium of our daily lives.”
“You call it a life?” The words slipped out before she could stop them.
He blinked. Then he ran a hand over his head and his chest as if assuring himself that he was really there.
Heat seared the back of Cilla’s neck, embarrassment scalding her as he held his arms out to his sides and wriggled his fingers. He examined first one hand and then the other, before looking back up at her.
“Aye, I call it so.” His mouth quirked. “Such as it is. I am here. That is enough.”
“But how did you get to this ruin? You haunt Dunroamin.” Her brow knit. “I thought ghosts were bound to a particular place? Did you follow me here?”
He clapped a hand to his chest and pretended to reel backward. “So many questions.” His dark eyes twinkled. “Why don’t we get you down from there and I’ll answer them.”
“I should get down from here, that’s true.” She cast another glance at the view, the long drop to the water below. She’d forgotten she was still in the window recess. Even more startling, that one quick glimpse at his humor did funny things to her knees.
He had a dynamite smile.
But it disappeared when he spread his arms again and stepped closer to the wall.
He looked up at her, his expression earnest. “I told you, I may no’ be able to catch you here. I should be able to cushion a fall if you slip. You need to turn around and climb down using the same footholds you used to get up there.”
Cilla's heart dropped.
She couldn’t remember where the footholds were. Nor could she see them from this angle. Glancing down, she measured the distance between her and the tower floor.
It was a long way down.
Her knees began to tremble. “Why can’t you catch me again? You did before.”
“Because this is no’ Dunroamin.” He said that as if it explained everything.
"I don't understand."
“It cost me much energy to come here.” A line etched into his brow on the admission. “Without my full strength, I cannae be certain I can catch you. I’ll no’ risk that. It’s safer if you climb down.”
So she did, dropping first to her knees and then scooting round to scramble down before any other thought could enter her mind. All she focused on was trusting that his outspread arms would soften the worst of a possible fall.
Safely at the bottom, she dusted her hands to give her heart time to stop galloping. Then she took a deep breath and braced herself against other dangers.
The most notable being him.
“Why did you follow me here?” She tilted her head, aware of his exotic sandalwood scent, heady in the closeness of the ruin. “Since you lose strength outside Dunroamin?”
To her surprise, he laughed.
But it was a humorless laugh, empty of the delicious tinge of bemusement that had lit his eyes when he’d pretended to stagger beneath her questions.
“Ach, lass.” He put his hands on his hips and glanced up at the sky above the roofless tower. “I didnae follow you here. I was at the ruin before you arrived.”
“But why? If you haunt Dunroamin?” Cilla looked at him, a funny little sensation in her belly warning that, despite what he might say, he was here because of her.
When he stepped closer, his gaze locked on hers, she was certain.
***
“I dinnae haunt Dunroamin.” Pride made Hardwick clarify. “If you would know the truth, ghosts have better things to do with their time than haunt people or places. I stay at Dunroamin because” – he paused, searching for the best words – “it suits me to do so.”
And I came here to get away from you.
“Why?”
“Why what?” He shoved a hand through his hair, his mind elsewhere.
Indeed, he'd scarce heard her. She’d bent to pick up the devil mask and in doing so, presented him with a tantalizing view of her shapely arse.
“Why what I asked you before.” She made it sound like he was a lackwit. “Why are you at Dunroamin, and here. You don't have a Highland name so I don't think you'
re attached to Uncle Mac's family and-"
“My mother was a Shaw.” He tried to tear his gaze from her bobbing buttocks and couldn't. “Clan Macintosh and Highland to the bone.”
“That doesn't explain your business here.”
“You dinnae want anything to do with the reason I'm here.”
“I’m curious.” She straightened, the devil face clutched in her hands. But the damage was done. Worse, the way she gripped the mask, holding it fast against her, pushed up her full breasts so that they swelled against her clingy blue top.
Hardwick swore beneath his breath. He could even make out the contours of her nipples. Chill-tightened and thrusting, they were as visible as if she once again stood wet and naked before him.
Wet. Naked.
The two words whipped through him, blotting reason.
His blood flamed and heat swept low, gripping his vitals and squeezing tight. So exquisitely tight that he reached for her, setting his hands on her shoulders and holding her still, lest she move again and cause her beautiful breasts to jiggle. Or worse, present him with another delectable glimpse of her sweetly-rounded bottom.
“Curiosity, lass, is no' always a good thing.” He shook his head slowly. “No’ a good thing at all.”
“Even so-”
“Nae, lass.” He couldn't give in to her. “Trust me and leave it be.”
“Trust you?” Her eyes flashed blue. “When you won't answer the simplest questions?”
Before he could respond, a crack widened in the wall and where a moment before crumbled mortar had filled the narrow space between stones, several sets of fiery red eyes peered out at him.
He jerked, releasing Cilla just as a thin, papery hand reached out of the crack to crook a finger at him.
Oblivious to the jeering hags in the wall behind her, Cilla also stared at him. His heart racing, his blood chilled as he did his best to ignore the crones. He returned his gaze to Cilla, willing himself not to see her large blue eyes peering at him, but Bran of Barra’s ugly red-bearded face.
The Hebridean varlet owed him a favor or two, so he doubted the lout would mind.
He took it further, imagining his friend rocking back on his heels, then slapping his thigh in mirth. Roaring with the irony that for once, he – Hardwick, the rogue of all rogues – couldn’t just toss a lass over his shoulder, carry her off to bed, and air her skirts just because it pleased him.