Editor's Choice Volume I - Slow summer Kisses, Kilts & kraken, Negotiating point

by Stacey Shannon, Spencer Pape Cindy, Giordano Adrienne

  Magnus felt his face heat. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to explain to her family why Geneva hadn’t been her normal self this morning. Hell, he hadn’t either, and it hadn’t been his first time. Her absence tugged at him, unsettling his nerves. It would be disrespectful to the dead for the laird to get up and leave when the breakfast had barely begun, but he caught Rannulf’s eye and nodded. Rannulf knew the island as well as Magnus and could be trusted.

  “Come along, you lads, I want another look at that dirigible.” Rannulf motioned to Connor and Tom, who excused themselves to the widow and followed the older man from the room.

  Forty-five minutes later, the meal had been eaten and toasts had been drunk. The wake down at the village pub the previous evening had left a fair number of the men hung over, so most were anxious to get back to their homes. Others wanted to work—a half-day’s fishing had been lost already.

  There was still no sign of Rannulf or the two Knights. Enough. Every instinct he possessed told Magnus he needed to go search for Geneva himself. Based upon their fidgeting, her sister and friends felt the same.

  He turned to the widow beside him. “Forgive me, ma’am, but I need to be off. Please linger as long as you like. Quentin and Catriona will make sure you have anything you need.” He would have preferred to bring Quentin on the search, but someone had to play host. The off-island women and the two airship crewmen followed him from the room.

  “We can take the dirigible up for an aerial view,” Melody said. “Of course that will only let us know if she’s outside somewhere.”

  “Let me run and check her room again.” Alice bit her lip. “And change into better walking shoes.

  “Coveralls,” Wink and Melody said, simultaneously. They bolted for the stairs.

  “We can get the airship ready to take off.” With that, the two crewmen zipped away toward the park.

  Another pair joined Magnus in the corridor—Flora and her more-or-less father-in-law, Donald Findlay. “We heard the doctor is missing,” Donald said. “We’d like to help. I’ll check the docks and get any of the men down there searching. Flora can wait here to signal us if the lass returns to the castle.”

  A few others emerged from the great hall—all patients of Geneva’s or their families including Ian MacRae with his arm in a sling, his wife Suky and Jamie Findlay, little David’s father. “I’ll search the castle and chapel grounds, while Flora pokes about upstairs,” said Suky. “I can run and ring the chapel bells if the doctor’s found.”

  “With this bad arm, I’m not much use on the ground,” Ian said. “My eyes are still sharp. I can go up on that airship of theirs and search the hills and valleys from the sky.”

  “I can round up some of the crofters to tramp the hillsides.” Jamie went back into the hall, returning with a good dozen men. “We’ll find the lass, never doubt it. My Ellen wouldn’t let me back in the house if I let anything happen to the doctor. Davy, either.”

  A lump clogged Magnus’s throat at this display of support from his tenants and friends. He swallowed the lump and nodded at each of them. “Fetch a gun from the armory if you haven’t one, and fire a shot into the air if you find the doctor. Two shots if you need help.”

  Alice ran with Melody to the airship, to watch the side opposite from Ian. Wink came back down the stairs, her brass dog bounding alongside. “George has some scent-tracking ability. I’ve given him one of Geneva’s pillowcases. He may be able to follow her trail.”

  “Let’s go.” Two of his men scratched their heads at the notion of following a mechanical dog, but one of his crofters offered a collie and another a beagle. By the time they left the castle grounds, they’d amassed the motliest pack of hounds the Highlands had ever seen. The other groups had already split off, but Magnus, Wink and the two crofters remained intent on the trail the dogs—led by George—scurried along.

  “Why in Hades would she be over here?” Magnus asked Ben, the owner of the collie. “No one lives on this part of the south shore.”

  “If it weren’t that all three hounds agree, I’d say the same, my laird.” The crofter scratched his balding head, but they all tramped after the dogs, even when the path narrowed to the point where they could only travel single-file.

  The dogs rounded a particularly sharp curve and set to barking. Wink, ahead of Magnus, broke into a run and he loped after her.

  The beagle had wiggled down the slope while the collie pawed at the side of the bluff and whined. George waited for his mistress, his sharp metallic bark giving fair warning to what lay over the side of that bluff.

  “Genny!” Wink, light and agile, began to ease her way down before Magnus had even spotted Geneva, in her brown tweed, camouflaged on the scrub-covered rocks below. Only the glint of her copper hair gave away her position, sprawled on the rocks.

  Magnus sent up prayers to the Christian God, and to all the Norse deities he could remember. He was a lot heavier than Wink, but he’d grown up clambering over these hills. His footing was sure as he made his way down. Somewhere above him, one of the men fired a pair of shots into the air, calling for help. Good.

  “She’s breathing,” called Wink, her voice cracking in relief just before Magnus reached them.

  “Aye.” Nothing was bent at an impossible angle. He checked her arms and legs as best he could, finding no obvious broken bones. When he shifted her left arm, she groaned and tossed her head.

  “Genny, can you hear me?” Wink stripped off a glove to take her friend’s pulse. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “W-Wink?” Geneva moaned again and moved, as if trying to sit up.

  “Lie still, lass. We don’t know how badly you’re hurt.” Magnus laid a hand on her waist to hold her in place. “We need to get you back to the castle.” Overhead, he heard the roar of the airship’s rotors.

  “They’re lowering a stretcher.” Wink shielded her eyes with her hand as she looked up. “You ride in the airship with her. I’ll take the dogs back.”

  “Aye.” He wasn’t leaving her side, not even if it meant hanging from a rope below the airship. Whatever had happened, however it had happened, somehow this was his fault. She was only here because he had asked her to stay. If she died, it would be another black mark on his already stained soul.

  The stretcher settled on the ground beside him and with Wink’s help, he eased Geneva onto it with as little jostling as they could manage.

  “Fingers and toes are working,” she rasped. “No broken bones, I promise.”

  That eased his mind a little, but he strapped her onto the gurney anyway. She shivered with shock and one side of her head had turned an ugly shade of purple. “We’re going on the airship.”

  The stretcher was rigged with a harness for a standing passenger, so he belted himself in and stepped onto the bar. “Thank you,” he said to Wink. He waved at the crofters as the ship began to haul them upward, until his feet and the stretcher were level with the gunwales of the ship. The two crewmen hauled them onto the deck. Alice and Ian were immediately there to help Magnus free himself. He and Alice both dropped to kneel beside Geneva. It was his first time in a dirigible, and he couldn’t even take a moment to look around or enjoy the view.

  “We’ll be back at the castle in minutes.” Alice checked Geneva’s pulse and respiration rate. Ian handed Magnus a blanket and they tucked it around Geneva’s shivering form.

  “Shoulder…dislocated.” Geneva blinked up at Alice. “Can you pop it back?”

  “Of course.” She gripped Geneva’s good hand. “I’ve done it in the Crimea. I’m sure the laird here can help.”

  “We’ll get Edda to come up and have a look as soon as we get you settled.” Magnus didn’t fully trust the healer, but there was no one else on the island.

  “Not Edda. Alice—better.” Geneva’s eyes fluttered shut as she rested her cheek against Magnus. “Didn’t jump.”

  That possibility had never occurred to him, and he wondered that she’d even considered it might. Isobel. She wanted
him to know she wasn’t running.

  “Attacked.” The word came out on a sigh, and her breathing deepened as she fell asleep.

  “Damn, I should have checked the area for tracks—signs of who might have been there with her.”

  “She’ll let us know when she wakes.” Alice patted Magnus on the shoulder with the hand that wasn’t holding Geneva’s. “Her color and respiration are good. She’s battered and bruised, but I think she’ll be fine. It was good that you found her quickly. The dogs were a clever idea.”

  “Aye, especially that metal one. Miss Winifred has more magick in her machines than most wizards do in their spells.” One day he’d love to hear her story. Wink was an unusual lady, perhaps even more so than the MacKay women. Despite her striking beauty and intelligence, she didn’t hold nearly the attraction for Magnus that Geneva did. Young Connor, on the other hand, was clearly head-over-heels for her.

  “Things have certainly changed since I knew their fathers.” Alice gave him a sad grin. “I used to be in love with Sir Fergus MacKay, if you can believe such an old woman was once that young and foolish. I’ve met Merrick Hadrian. He’s a good man, and Wink is very like him in temperament, if not at all in appearance.”

  “You’re not that old and I think you’re still more than capable of falling in love.” He had more interest in that than in who looked like whom. “Or are you leading my uncle on?”

  She blushed as prettily as any debutant. “You’ve got me there. Rannulf is a very special man.”

  “Aye, that he is. You’d be welcome here on Torkholm. I can promise you that.”

  “Thank you, dear.” Alice patted his shoulder again. “We haven’t come to that, but I’ll keep it in mind, should the question arise.”

  The airship began to settle down to its mooring spot behind the castle, and Magnus braced himself and the stretcher for the bump of the landing. As soon as the cables were tied down, Tom and Connor leapt on board to help carry the stretcher into Geneva’s makeshift infirmary. Magnus refused to let go of one end, so Tom ran ahead, opening doors.

  Alice took charge, chasing out everyone but Melody and Wink. She set Melody to work cutting away Geneva’s clothing, while Wink set out supplies from the cabinet.

  “Send Flora with hot water,” Alice told Magnus as she shooed him out the door. “I’ll call you back in if we need you to help reset her shoulder. You might want to see that all the searchers have returned.” She left the words, “check on Rannulf,” unspoken.

  He sent a maid for Flora and the water, holding the door for her as she went inside. Nothing looked amiss, but the women swiftly shut the door again. Apparently they didn’t need him, because he heard one sharp cry from Geneva a few minutes later. Rannulf, who had found him, winced.

  Alice poked her head out the door. “She’ll be fine.” She smiled mistily at Rannulf and patted Magnus’s cheek as if he were a bairn. “Now go pour some of your good whisky into this lad and leave us to our work.”

  “Aye.” To Magnus’s shock, Rannulf leaned down and bussed Alice on the cheek. “Take care of our lass. We’ll be in the study if you need us.”

  Chapter Eight

  Geneva hurt in places she hadn’t known she had, but she counted herself lucky to be alive. When she thought about falling over that bluff, her stomach lurched, threatening to bring back up the soup that Flora had brought her for luncheon.

  “Would you like some laudanum?” It was Melody’s turn to sit with Geneva, and the constant hovering had already begun to wear on her nerves.

  “I don’t need any laudanum.” She threw back the covers with her good arm. Even she’d conceded to the need for a sling on her left. “I need something to do.”

  “Genny, you know better. Would you allow a patient to get up after a fall like yours?”

  “No. However, I also know that aside from the dislocated shoulder and a mild—very mild—concussion, there’s nothing wrong but bruises and scrapes. I’ll go mad if you make me lie here like an invalid.” Besides, she wanted to see Magnus. She’d heard him, spoken to him during her rescue, but hadn’t laid eyes on him since. She slid her feet into a pair of bedroom slippers. “Now help me into my wrapper and I promise, I’ll lounge on a sofa in the library and read. At least there, I’ll be able to talk to more than one person at a time.”

  Melody snorted. “I know when I’ve been insulted, but if you insist, here.” She held out Geneva’s gold velveteen wrapper and carefully arranged it over the sling.

  Geneva leaned on her sister more heavily than she’d have liked, but she was still on her feet when they reached the library.

  “Sit.” Melody steered her toward a chaise longue, and helped her into it. “Now what do you want to read?”

  “There’s a section over there on magick,” Geneva said. “I want to look up spells for controlling animals.”

  “Fine.” Melody selected half-a-dozen volumes and laid them on a low table in front of Geneva. Then she pulled up a chair and helped herself to one. In quiet harmony, they began to comb the texts.

  A quarter hour later, Magnus burst in the door and glowered at Geneva. “There you are. What the devil were you thinking of? Get back to your bed where you belong.” He advanced on her with his arms extended, as if he meant to carry her up to her room.

  Geneva shook her head. “No. I promise, I’m fine. I’m only reading.”

  “Do you have any idea how much of a fright you gave the lot of us earlier? Then I went to your room and found it empty?” Lines of strain bracketed his eyes and a pang of guilt surged within her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “’Tis not your fault. Now that you’re awake, can you tell us a bit more about your attack? If there’s a murderer on my island, I want to find him as soon as possible.”

  Melody slipped from the room, leaving Geneva and Magnus alone. He took Melody’s chair, pulling it even closer to Geneva. The feelings between them fairly crackled like the fire in the hearth.

  She set her book aside and slowly, carefully, laid out every detail she remembered from the moment Mrs. Campbell had pulled her into the hallway. She’d already told all this to Connor, but as time went on, she remembered more and more of the time right before her fall.

  “I’m afraid all I saw of the man was that he was red-haired and bearded, wearing a Findlay tartan. Not a youth, and not old. Medium height and build. Nothing to distinguish him from countless other Scots. The woman, I saw even less of. The shawl over her hair hid her coloring, even shading her eyes. She was shorter than me, but not tiny like Mel. Average build. Quicker than I might have expected, so probably fairly young.”

  “You told Mrs. Campbell to send Alice—you’re sure of this?” He took her good hand in one of his. The touch made her feel small—his hands were much larger than hers, but it also made her feel protected, which was foolish.

  She blamed that silliness on her head injury. “Of course I told Mrs. Campbell. The woman was in too big a hurry to let me fetch my medical bag from the infirmary.”

  “Then my housekeeper had to be involved in the plot.” Sadness laced Magnus’s voice. “Which likely means Edda, as well. Mrs. Campbell said she’d no idea where or why you went. I’ll fetch her myself, and detain her. Again, I’m sorry, Genny.”

  His use of her family pet name brought a fleeting smile to her lips. She twined her fingers tightly in his. “It isn’t your fault, Magnus. Clearly, some of your people resent my presence. Would it be easier for you if I left?”

  “Easier, perhaps.” His shoulders drooped. “I’d rather have you safe and away, but I confess, I’ve rather gotten used to having you here.”

  It was time for her interlude with Magnus to end. She knew it was true and the thought of leaving him broke her heart. “Put out the word that we’re leaving tomorrow. Tom and Connor can stay if you like, and I can work on researching the kraken from Edinburgh. Perhaps—perhaps someday, we can visit again.”

  “Perhaps.” He lifted his other hand to tuck a stray curl beh
ind her ear in a gesture so tender it brought tears to her eyes. “Of course, with all my modernization, one thing I haven’t brought to Torkholm is a real physician. The position could be yours if you like.”

  Her breath caught in her chest. It didn’t sound like a proposal, but she couldn’t be sure. “Are you offering me a practice, Magnus, or something more?”

  The sadness was still there in his eyes. “A practice, lass, and a position of esteem in the village. I wouldn’t risk your life by taking you as my own.”

  That was that. She shook her head. “My life is in Edinburgh, but I do thank you for the offer.” There was no way she could stay on Torkholm and watch Magnus marry someone else.

  “You can leave in the morning. I’ll find Mrs. Campbell—you tell your sister to prepare the airship. And for God’s sake, woman, stay somewhere safe in the meanwhile. There’s still someone trying to kill you. You ought to have an armed guard or two here with you.”

  She managed a shaky grin. “Melody is armed.” She didn’t mention the small pistol she had in the pocket of her wrapper. That would only make him worry.

  “I’ll send in your brother at the least.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “That bruise on your face is fading already. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the island was healing you as it does me.”

  Now that he mentioned it, she had noticed her aches and pains diminishing at an unnatural rate, but since it made no sense, she’d ignored it. “I think I was simply lucky, and mostly hit brush on my way down, instead of rocks.”

  “Aye, that’s likely the truth of it.” This time he kissed her lips, until both gasped for breath. “I wish things were different, Genny.”

  “Me too.”

  She didn’t say anything when he left, but she wasn’t shocked when Wink and Connor followed Melody into the room. Geneva closed her eyes and leaned back on the pillows Melody had propped behind her, exhausted in both body and soul. While the others read and chatted softly, continuing the research she’d begun, she let herself drift off to sleep.