The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  The woman was decidedly odd or a spendthrift, but he could depend on his solicitor. Silverstein would rein her in. Tommy had kept that fop, the previous heir, on a tight purse, allowing him only a minimal draw each month. What the man did with the money, Duncan never knew. Probably drank it away. The fop certainly hadn’t spent it on maintaining the keep.

  Duncan looked out the window. Beth and Tom were finally standing. Thank God. She’d be coming in.

  With no small measure of shock he realized his current agitation stemmed not from her lists but from feeling lonely. How odd.

  ~#~

  “So you see, since 1395 when Duncan rescued my forbearers Isaac and Rachael from the villagers intent on torching them at the stake, we Silversteins have felt a moral obligation to serve Duncan, even in his ghostly form.

  “Each generation has provided an executor, who functions exactly as Isaac did, to serve as a financial advisor to subsequent heirs, overseeing the estate’s limited assets so Blackstone won’t fall to complete ruin as so many castles about Scotland have. So long as there are Silversteins, the ghost will have his home. Our debt to him is enormous. Our line wouldn’t exist today—-I’d not have been born—had Duncan MacDougall not had a strong arm and the moral courage to save Isaac and Rachael.” His lips quirked to formed a lopsided grin. “And each generation has kept a journal of their trials in meeting that obligation.”

  Beth sighed. “It’s hard to imagine sane, God-fearing villagers blaming a simple man and his pregnant wife for the plague.”

  Tom shrugged. “They were strangers, Beth, Parisian Jews who spoke only broken English and no Gael. Isaac and Rachael couldn’t make themselves understood to the villagers. At the time, French was the language of the court, of the educated wealthy. And keep in mind, just fifty years earlier Europe’s population had been decimated; literally half the population had died from plague. Religious zealots abound. The Flagellants were walking about beating themselves with whips in the belief that if they punished themselves, God would spare them. Others blamed the Jews. When Isaac and Rachael’s arrival happened to coincided with what was thought to be another outbreak...” He raised his hands in a hopeless gesture.

  “Well, I, for one, am very glad the MacDougall brought Rachael and Isaac to Drasmoor. I couldn’t manage without you.”

  “Thank you, my lady.”

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

  Dying to know more about her ghost, she asked, “Is there a chance I might read some of your journals?”

  Tom grinned, but he shook his head. “Only a Silverstein may read them.”

  Masking her disappointment, Beth said, “Speaking of Silversteins, how is your lovely wife?”

  “Her back aches, her feet look like pillows, and she canna get out of bed without help. She’s not a happy woman.”

  Beth laughed. “Well, give her my best.”

  “Aye.” He buttoned his coat, readying to take his leave. “I’ll be bringing the ledger and checkbook to you on my next visit.”

  She tried to hide her surprise at this major concession. Tom had been opposed to her handling anything but her maintenance funds—-a meager six hundred pounds per month—just a few days ago.

  She grinned. “What changed your mind?”

  “The windows, lass.” He chuckled. “And the fact that you’re not packed and on your way to the airport after seeing his querulous lordship.”

  “Ah.” Pleased, she ducked her chin to hide the blush she felt creeping up her neck.

  Tom didn’t need to know it would have taken a team of horses to drag her out of the keep now that she’d seen her frequently scowling but handsome specter.

  Would it be possible for her to establish a companionship of sorts with her ghost? Duncan was, after all, dead, so she wouldn’t really be exposing her heart to another rejection if she tried to garner his attention and failed. Was it possible or just a flight of fancy? Could her ghost speak to her? Keep her company during long winter nights? And if so, what would it take to prompt him into it?

  Chapter 3

  Duncan found Beth in the kitchen, chattering like a squirrel into her telephone. Frowning, he rested an elbow on the roasting pit mantle.

  “It’ll cost how much?” Beth asked the phone, heaving an exasperated sigh. “Then send only the catalogs by air. Ya. I’d kill to be on-line.” She rearranged the spice jars on the table. “Right now? What I miss most are you, Junior’s Cheesecake, and West Wing.”

  He scowled in confusion. He could understand her missing a friend or cake, but how could she miss the west wing? ‘Twas one hundred feet long, three stories high and attached to the left side of the keep.

  “Silverstein didn’t have a problem with my starting a B and B, but asked that I wait until after my six-month probation. Then I can do as I like.”

  Duncan wondered once again what the two B’s stood for. As long as it didn’t stand for bingeing and buggery and made her happy, he supposed it didn’t matter. This would be her home after all. His and hers to share. Alone. Until—or rather, unless—he decided to take her.

  She giggled. “Of course you’re invited. Do you think you can get time off at Christmas?” She listened, looking pensive. “Oh. Then I’ll look forward to seeing you in June.” As she said goodbye, her eyes grew glassy, reflecting the lamp’s light like liquid pewter.

  Humph! She shouldn’t use the bloody telephone if it made her forlorn. If it continued to cause her distress, he’d do them both a favor and misplace the damn thing. The piping tune it played whenever it wanted her attention was annoying as hell, anyway.

  She brushed at a tear and pocketed the telephone.

  “Onward and upward,” Beth muttered.

  He eyed her warily.

  ~#~

  In a dusty storage room, Beth smiled as she ran a careful hand over the small icon-like portrait she’d unearthed. “It’s about time.”

  Centuries of grime and mildew coated the painted wood in her hands, but she felt sure she’d found what she’d been looking for, her ghost’s portrait.

  Clutching it to her chest, she pushed back through the mountain of antique furnishings she’d piled behind her in her quest to find his likeness. Outside the storage room, she reexamined the other canvases she’d set aside, beautiful portraits and landscapes that would add interest to the keep’s great hall. After a bath, she’d research their dates against the forty-odd journals she’d found in the library. It would be fun discovering who the individuals were. Hopefully, she could learn enough in the next six months to dazzle her guests with stories seeped in love, gallantry, and mayhem.

  Sighing, she held her specter’s portrait at arm’s length to study the deep blue eyes and heavy beard. “Is your chin square, dear ghost, under all the black fuzz?” She hoped so.

  Because he always appeared dressed in a swatch of tartan, a sleeveless furred tunic and a wide leather belt whenever she spied him hovering behind her, she knew Duncan had shoulders and arms that could make any woman swoon. Her ghost’s legs were equally attractive if one was into heavily muscled thighs and long powerful calves. She sighed, an unprotected corner of her heart wishing he were flesh and blood.

  ~ # ~

  “Good riddance,” Duncan grumbled as the electricians scrambled into their launch and headed for Drasmoor. To escape their clamoring, he’d spent the better part of the day bored out of his mind on the keep’s parapet.

  Beth had evidently found the men equally disturbing since she’d spent the afternoon churning earth along the bailey’s east wall. Wondering what she was up to now, he entered the keep.

  “Where in hell did she find that?” He frowned at the small portrait leaning against the solar’s hearth. He had ordered the ugly rendering burned before its pigments had dried.

  Beth had any number of better paintings to choose from if she wanted to brighten the room. Why on earth had she chosen his portrait?

  As artists went, his cousin would have made a fine butcher. The portrai
t only proved what Duncan had known all along. The youth’s only talent lay in wielding a sword. Yet, here the ugly portrait was again after six hundred years. His ferret heir would be the death of him, if he weren’t already dead.

  And where was she?

  He prowled the upper floors looking for her without success, and then descended to the hall. He didn’t find her in the great room, but saw that two of his favorite chairs were suddenly there. Apparently, she’d found the fop’s reclining throne as offensive as he had and banished it. He caressed the recently oiled rosewood falcons at rest on the chairs’ high backs.

  He’d brought the chairs to Blackstone from Normandy; one of the few prizes he’d been able to salvage after the battle of Rouin. The leather seats were now cracked and brittle, but ‘twas good to see them again in the great hall, nonetheless.

  Minutes later, he found Beth sitting before the cistern-fed water heater, filthy and looking dejected, a pile of spent matches at her side.

  He examined the firebox. She’d put in enough kindling, but she’d stacked the bricks of coal like a meticulous mason, eliminating any chance for a draft. She was down to her last match and muttering.

  She struck the match, watched the kindling flare, and then just as quickly snuff out. She kicked the firebox door closed.

  Tears welling in her eyes, she shouted, “I can’t live like this!” She stalked away. “I don’t care if I starve, I’m ordering a real water heater tomorrow.”

  Her kick caused her carefully laid coal to shift, and Duncan quickly fanned the dying embers. When the kindling ignited with a whoosh, he thumped the tank and caught her attention.

  Beth bent and examined the scarlet glow. She then straightened and looked about. Brushing way her tears, she tipped her chin and twitched her nose like a fox on the hunt. When she muttered, “Thank you. That was very nice of you,” his knees buckled.

  ~#~

  Waiting for her bathwater to heat, Beth curled in one of the deep falcon chairs and opened her greatest find of the day, the third volume of the Blackstone Diaries.

  The original diary, bound in wood and written on the frailest parchment she’d ever seen, had been written in Latin and in her ghost’s own hand. Had she been able to translate the fading broad script, she still would have hesitated, fearing she’d destroy the volume by simply turning the pages.

  The second volume, a translation written in 1640, was nearly as delicate. Scanning the first page she’d cursed. Only someone comfortable with Shakespeare could have readily understood it.

  She smiled opening the third volume. In legible English she read, The Diary of Duncan Angus MacDougall, translation by Miles Bolton MacDougall, 1860.

  She carefully opened this volume to the twelfth page. So far she’d learned Duncan, a knight who’d earned his spurs at the age of fourteen, had returned to Drasmoor after fighting in France to find his father and brothers dead along with half the clan, and himself now laird. He was awaiting the birth of his first child, angry about a neighboring clan’s recent raid on his kine—-which she took to mean cattle—and worried about another outbreak of the Black Death recently reported in Edinburgh.

  The mason guides, cajoles, and shouts. All, hands bleeding, labor day and night, yet I fear ‘tis not fast enough. Surely, if Pope Clement the V could survive the ravages of the ungodly plague by walling his portly self into his chambers as all around him perished, then so shall we on this isle. I pray Blackstone’s walls complete before the scourge finds us again.

  Quarantine. That’s why he built this massive structure out here in the middle of the harbor instead of on the high hills surrounding Drasmoor. My word. She turned the page.

  ‘Tis laid, the walls’ last stone. Work on the keep continues as women hoard food and water. My Mary’s birthing time draws near, yet she falters not. I have pleaded, begged her return to her father’s stronghold, but to no avail. She loathes his second wife and will not leave. The reeving has subsided after we repossessed our ten kine and six of the Bruce’s as payment for the aggravation he caused me. Death continues its march toward us.

  For ten consecutive pages Duncan detailed their progress, his worries shifting like flotsam from men’s injuries to the weather, to his dwindling coffers, to his wife. Daily notations soon changed to weekly, each more worrisome than the last.

  On the twenty-second page she read, God has turned his face from me. Three days past, I dug into the frozen earth to lay Mary to rest, our babe in her arms. Like her name namesake, she bore our son in a manger for we have little else for shelter since the keep is only four walls and the Black Death has taken up refuge in the village just south of us. I weep for the lass for she was brave, uttering nary a word. I have yet to inform the Campbell. He will not take well the death of his beloved daughter and with her, the bairn. Well he should blame me. For had I not listened to her pleadings, had I sent her to him (to Dunstaffnage Castle) she and our son might be alive today. Come spring, I will build Blackstone’s chapel above her. It grieves me I have not the means to ease her way to heaven with a Papal Bull, but when able I will praise her selfless devotion as wife with a bronze effigy. I loved her not, nor her I, but I grieve. For the babe and her good soul.

  Beth’s cell phone rang, startling her. She fumbled in her pocket for it and snapped it open. “Hello?”

  “Tom here, my lady. Are you all right? You sound...hoarse.”

  She cleared the thickness in her throat. “I’m fine. I was just reading.” The picture of Mary MacDougall, lying half-frozen, laboring in a bed of straw prompted her to ask after Margaret.

  “She’s eating us out of hearth and home.” He chuckled. “I called to let you know you’ve two packages here from New York. May I bring them by tomorrow?”

  “Thank you, but I’ll come to you. I’ve let the launch intimidate me for long enough. I need to just do it and get it over with.”

  “The telly forecasts a bonnie day. You should be fine. Call me just before you leave, and I’ll keep watch from the quay.”

  “Thank you. You’ll be pleased to know that miserable excuse for a water heater is finally working.”

  He chuckled. “Just remember to add more fuel every so often and you’ll have warm water come mornin’, as well.”

  “God, I hate that tank. And the kerosene stove stinks. Literally.”

  “I know. Hopefully, the markets will improve and you’ll have more coins to work with in the coming months.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears.”

  He laughed. “Give me a ring when you set out tomorrow.”

  “I will. Give Margaret a kiss for me.”

  She snapped her lifeline to the outside world closed. Here she was complaining about cold water and a smelly stove with the tale of the MacDougall’s bride still spread on her lap. How self-absorbed could a body be? Had she been born in the early fifteenth century, could she have survived what this woman had not? She shuddered and thanked God for placing her in this century where—-should she ever give birth—there were hospitals and epidurals.

  She’d never have made it in the fourteenth century. First, she couldn’t imagine living under the thumb of ancient Catholicism. The tithes Duncan paid were crippling. The period’s mandatory daily worship services made her cringe. And the needless guilt Duncan carried because he couldn’t afford a Papal Bull—-a coin, according to the footnote, one could purchase from the Pope to ensured the deceased would bypass purgatory and go straight to heaven—only re-enforced her distrust of organized religions. Yup, she much preferred her one-on-one relationship with God, whereby she thanked and complained on a regular basis, and He, on rare occasions, acquiesced and answered a prayer.

  She sighed and turned the page. “What’s this?” Before her disbelieving eyes was written a decidedly clever but cold-blooded plot for murder.

  ~#~

  Duncan squinted against the blinding sunlight bouncing off the sea as he paced the parapet.

  Since muttering “thank you” yesterday, Beth had thric
e spun around and looked him in the eye. Once, she’d even had the audacity to wave and wink! He shuddered.

  Had she the sight? Nay. Surely. To aggravate him further, the wee ferret had found his diaries. He would now have to keep an even closer eye on her.

  He raised his gaze and saw Beth standing on Drasmoor’s quay, dressed in a bright yellow slicker and rubber boots. “Finally.”

  His agitation grew as she made her way across the bay to the castle. She maneuvered the launch, which sat gunwale deep in the water and was nigh on to overflowing with packages, like a drunkard, weaving right then left, and on more than one occasion completely broadside to on-coming breakers. His heart was in his throat by the time she docked.

  “The daft woman should be kept under lock and key for her own good.”

  He took the spiraling stairs two at a time to the great hall, his determination to call her to task for risking her life growing with each step. Her knowing of his existence and grinning about it was one thing. Suffering the fury of his wrath in the next few minutes would be another, entirely. “And obey me she will, by God! For she be woman, and I, her laird, be man!”

  He charged into the great hall just as Beth, looking disgustingly pleased with herself, with her arms loaded with packages, came in from the opposite doorway. Before he could roar his displeasure, Will Frasier dropped the wires he held for his father and yelled, “My lady! Let me help ye with those.”

  A piercing scream then rocked the chandeliers.

  They spun and found the elder Bart Frasier—caught in a web of arcing wires—-vibrating like a crazed puppet, his face contorted into a ghastly mask of agony. Acrid smoke filled the air.

  “Da!” Will bellowed.

  Beth, screaming, opened her arms. Her packages toppled as her booted foot slammed into the old man’s chest. Freed from the killing current, Bart dropped like a felled tree to the floor.

  Dodging the dangling, still sparking wires, Beth crouched at the old man’s side. “Oh, God. Please, God,” she pleaded, while running trembling fingers along Fraser’s neck. She listened to the man’s chest, and then threw her cell phone at Frasier’s son. “Call for help!”