She could see him more clearly now. Either her eyes were adjusting to the early light or, more likely, the sun would be up soon.
And everyone in the castle would be up, too.
The realization stirred the beginnings of panic. She had to get out of here and back to her own room. Getting caught in Ramos’s bedchamber was not something she wanted to explain to anyone.
More important, she wasn’t ready to face him just yet. The acknowledgment of her true feelings for him was too new, too raw. She needed time to think about this, to decide what she should do.
She shifted her body and the muscled arm sprawled over her hip tightened as if, even in sleep, Ramos responded to her presence, holding on to her.
With his movement, the long ebony hair that had draped over his shoulder slid back, revealing strange markings on his skin. Mairi had noticed them briefly once before. She leaned closer to get a better look at the tattoo covering Ramos’s shoulder and bicep.
She had seen tribal tattoos before. After all, she’d spent the last several years on a university campus. But this didn’t look like the ones she was familiar with. What fascinated her most was the symbol at the center of the tattoo. It appeared to be some type of snake with a sideways “Z” slashed through it, reminiscent of the NO ENTRY signs posted by the exits of the university parking lots back home.
There was something about the symbol that drew her, as if she’d seen it somewhere before. Almost beyond her control, her hand lifted and hovered above the unusual markings.
Only with considerable effort was she able to stop herself from tracing the mark with her finger.
If she touched him, his eyes would surely open and then she’d be lost.
She jerked her hand back. She had to get out of here without waking him. Now.
Consciously relaxing her body, she slipped from under his grasp, gently placing his arm on the covers as she crept from the bed. The stone floor was cold against her feet as she hurried to retrieve her nightgown and slide it over her head.
At the door she paused to look back at the peacefully sleeping figure before scanning the room. There was nothing to show she’d ever been there.
One quick peek to assure herself no one was about and she was into the dark hallway, racing on silent feet to the bedchamber she shared with Sallie. Mairi could hear her cousin’s snores as she cracked open the door and once again she was grateful the girl was such a heavy sleeper.
Quietly she let herself into the room, leaning into the door as she shut it. The wood was smooth against her forehead, her sensitive skin feeling each ripple in the pattern of the grain.
Her thoughts and emotions were in turmoil. She needed someone to talk to. Someone who could understand her dilemma and help her make sense of this.
The only two people Mairi could think of who would fit that description were Rosalyn and Cate.
This whole perplexing relationship with Ramos—this might be something her aunt would know how to explain. And yet, she was oddly reluctant to confide in Rosalyn. She really felt as if she’d begun to make friends with Sallie tonight and she didn’t want to jeopardize the fragile friendship by igniting the fires of jealousy again.
Besides, confiding in Rosalyn would mean she’d have to admit to her what she’d just done, and she didn’t think her aunt would be too happy with those actions unless she was also confiding details of a marriage proposal.
No, Rosalyn wouldn’t work as a confidante on this particular problem.
Cate would be much safer.
“That’s who I need,” Mairi whispered, pressing her cheek into the cool wood of the door, concentrating on the physical sensation in an attempt to forestall imminent tears. The knowledge she might never see that part of her family again weighed heavily on her. Especially now.
“I need to be home.”
Her time-traveling sister-in-law would know what to do. The woman who had tamed her brother would surely know how to resolve any relationship problem Mairi might have. If she were home, Cate would brew them a pot of tea and they would huddle together in Cate’s cozy living room, where Mairi would confide what troubled her, all her fears and hopes, to her best friend.
Mairi smiled to herself as she turned to go to bed, picturing how Cate would react to her dilemma.
The smile faded from her lips as she realized the sound of snoring had disappeared. She glanced toward the bed and found the room bathed in a gentle green glow.
The realization struck like a physical blow.
“No,” she breathed. It wasn’t the room. It was her. She was cocooned in a sphere of green light. Just like before.
“No,” she said aloud. This couldn’t happen now. She couldn’t go home. Not without saving Sallie. Not without Ramos.
“No,” she screamed, beating her fist against the unrelenting shell surrounding her. “No! I won’t go. Not now.”
“Why do you resist the magic, Daughter of my Heart?” The whispered words floated around her, echoing off the wavering green walls.
She recognized the ethereal quality of that voice.
“Pol? How can you be here?”
His tinkling laughter fluttered around her, so real she turned in a full circle, expecting to see her Faerie ancestor.
“I am not there with you. But we are joined by the magic, here.”
As if a finger brushed lightly against her skin, the mark above Mairi’s heart began to tingle and pulse in time to her own heartbeat.
“You’ve been able to do this all along?” A wave of anger roared through her. “Where have you been? Why have you no helped? Why dinna you explain what was going on? Why are you trying to send me back now?”
“I have nothing to do with this. It’s not my power invoking this magic. It’s yours. Only now in the circle of magic you’ve invoked am I able to connect with you.”
“The magic I invoked? That makes no sense at all. I thought I could no go back until I’d completed some mysterious Faerie requirement of yers.”
“Of mine? No, Daughter, the conditions necessary for your return were all of your own making.” Pol paused and the sphere surrounding Mairi glowed more brightly. “You’ve done what you asked to do, so the magic has responded to your directive to return you to your home.”
Mairi battled back the panic threatening to crush her. She couldn’t leave now. Not without Ramos. “I’ve no done anything I came to do. I’ve no saved Sallie nor even discovered how I’m supposed to save her. And I canna abandon Ramos. It’s my fault he’s here at all.”
“Ramos cannot travel to his own time yet. He has not met the conditions necessary for his return.”
Mairi clasped her hands together to stop their shaking. “What are you talking about? He only came here to find me. To take me home, to save me, just as I came here to save Sallie.”
“The reasons you state may have been what motivated each of you to travel, but they were not what either of you asked for. Neither were they the conditions agreed upon by the source of the power.”
This was insane. “I canna understand any of this. I dinna agree to anything that would have kept me here. I canna imagine that Ramos would have, either.”
“But you did. Surrounded by the magic, you set the condition yourself. Take me back, you said. Allow me to find my destiny. Those were your very words, were they not? The bargain was struck. The magic brought you here, and here you found him, your destiny. Bargain struck, bargain fulfilled.”
“Him?” Pol’s words took her breath away. “I never meant…I wasna talking about…” She stammered to a stop. All her life she’d heard stories of the dual nature of Faerie magic, of the price required for its use. How could she have thought she would be immune to that cost.
She straightened herself to her full height, lifting her chin. “What of Ramos? What bargain did he strike?”
A sigh, deep and heavy, surrounded her and she was almost certain she could feel tiny hands patting her back, her head, her shoulders as if something wanted to console h
er.
“His bargain is his own to know and keep.”
“So now that I’ve found my destiny, my one true love, I’m forced to…” Her voice broke, and she paused until she could regain control. “I’m expected to simply walk away from him? Just turn my back and leave him here?”
She waited, but no response came.
“What’s wrong with you people?” She hated the tearful crack in her voice, but she didn’t let it stop her this time. “Do you no believe in happy endings?”
“You people?” Pol’s reply snapped back. “You are one of us, Daughter. What do you believe in?”
After nine years of believing in nothing, of trusting so few, what did she believe in? She’d obviously been so wrong about what destiny, and the Fae, had in store for her. Yet she knew, from the bond she felt, from the confirmation Pol had given her, Ramos was meant to be hers. If only she could be strong enough, brave enough to pursue that destiny, perhaps she could be fortunate enough to capture it.
“I believe in true love.” Her response was an honest answer, but one completely different from any she would have given twenty-four hours earlier.
“And what would you do for the sake of that belief, Daughter?” The words echoed in the sphere, a hushed version echoing over and over in the confined space, prodding at her.
“Whatever it takes.”
“Even though you know he might never fulfill his own requirements to leave here?”
“Even though.” It didn’t matter. She couldn’t allow it to matter. She would deal with whatever came.
“You do understand that he might not recognize his connection to you in this lifetime? Might never acknowledge you as his one true love?”
That one was harder to face. These were stories she knew all too well. Theirs were matched souls, but the legends told of how it happened repeatedly, one not recognizing the other for many lifetimes.
“I’ll no turn back now. I have no choice.”
“You always have a choice, Daughter. And the one you make is to risk your chance to return to the life you’ve built. To the family you love. All this for a man who might never offer you more than his protection.”
“Ramos is my one true love. I know the truth of that even if he never does. I canna abandon him.”
“So be it.”
Cold moist air enveloped her as the warm green light winked out. The sound of Sallie’s snores pounded at her ears. Her body shivered almost beyond her ability to control it as she tiptoed to the bed. She suspected the physical response was more a reaction to the emotional trauma than to the temperature in the room.
She climbed into bed and burrowed under the heavy covers. She was exhausted. When she awoke she would confront the consequences of the decisions she had made in the last few minutes. Then she would figure out what she needed to do next.
For now she simply wanted to escape in the arms of sleep.
Sixteen
A piercing shriek accompanied the loud clang and clatter of metal on stone.
It was the final straw for Mairi as she looked around the Great Hall in disgust. With only one sympathetic glance back toward the young maid hurriedly wiping up the cider she had spilled, Mairi headed for the doorway, intent on escape. There was no way she could endure the new round of hysteria this latest accident would prompt.
Final preparations for the Saint Crispin’s Day feast had been under way since early this morning with everyone going at full speed, anxious to complete all the last-minute tasks. The problem was they were all going in different directions, disagreeing on even the tiniest details.
Granted, Mairi’s lack of sleep could have some bearing on her high irritation levels, but she preferred to lump the blame fully on the annoying women running around the Great Hall like crazed hellions.
Mairi had barely drifted off to sleep this morning before Sallie was roughly shaking her awake.
“Come on!” Sallie had tugged on her arm to emphasize her insistence. “I mean it. I’ve no the patience to tell you again. We’ve too much to do.” The girl had yanked the covers from Mairi’s body, leaving her to shiver in the chilled room.
“You could have fed the fire, you know.”
“You dinna need the fire on this morn. Drag yer lazy self from the bed and get dressed.” She had taken Mairi’s hand and pulled her up to sit. “Come on, now. It’s no a day to lie abed.”
Mairi had groaned as her feet hit the cold floor. It had been a horrible beginning to what promised to be a long day.
Now the Great Hall erupted around her again, as she had known it would, Sallie and Anabella locked in another great shouting match over some unimportant detail. It amazed Mairi how the two women actually seemed to enjoy these arguments, ending each in laughter.
“I dinna for the life of me understand why you insist on tying those ribbons around the legs of the tables. No a one of the beastly men sitting there will ever notice.” Anabella glared down at Sallie. “You’ve no a brain in yer head, lass.”
“But I’ll notice,” Sallie replied from her spot on the floor. “And, brain or no, I like them here. Spend yer time decorating the main table if you wish.”
Too much for me. I’ve had it.
Mairi had nearly made it to the door when her escape was blocked by Rosalyn’s entrance, her arms full of greenery.
“That’s enough from the two of you. Can you no agree on anything at all?” She dumped the evergreen boughs on a table and stood, hands on her hips, looking from Sallie to Anabella. “We’ll never finish on time at this rate.”
A new round of accusations and counterclaims broke out, nipped in the bud by Rosalyn.
“Stop it! It disna matter in the least who’s doing what.” She shook her head in irritation. “Yer squabbling nearly made me forget what I came in here for. Sallie, run find Alycie. Her family’s at the outer gates.”
“Och, Mama. Send Mairi or one of the maids to fetch her.” Sallie rose from her spot on the floor and picked up the branches her mother had brought in. “Alycie will be more likely to pay attention to one of them. You ken how much she hates me. She’ll likely hide if I go after her.”
“That’s what you get for encouraging yer son to marry beneath his station, Rosalyn.” Anabella shook her finger to emphasize her point. “The impudent little hussy disna appreciate what you’ve done for her. I’d no allow my Ranald to do the same.”
“We’ve been all through this, Anabella.” Rosalyn sighed as though her patience drew near an end. “Alycie’s mother has been a friend of mine for many a year.” She shook her head and leaned over to look at her daughter. “And she disna hate you, missy, so I’ll hear no more of that.”
“I’ll go,” Mairi offered. Anything to escape this madness and avert another argument. “Do you have any idea where Alycie might be?”
“Yer most likely to find her in her chapel,” Sallie offered, rolling her eyes at the last.
“You’ve built a chapel at Dun Ard?” Mairi looked askance of her aunt. Their family had never seen the need for one in the past.
“No a real one. Alycie insisted on a place to pray each day, so Caden and his brothers converted the small bedchamber next to Alycie’s until they can finish building a real chapel for her on the grounds.”
“Giving us even fewer rooms for guests,” Sallie added.
“Aye, that it did,” her mother agreed. “I have to say, I was most grateful this morning when Ramos offered his room for today’s newcomers.”
“Ramos gave up his room this morning?” The news caught Mairi off guard. He hadn’t said anything to her about it. Not that they’d really taken the time to chat last night. In fact, she realized with a guilty start, she’d never even spoken to him of the concerns that had taken her to his room in the first place.
“Indeed. He said he had no need for the privacy and would be more than happy to share Caden’s room. And thank the Fates he did. Without that, I’d no idea where I was going to put all the Maxwells when they arrived. Oh my!” Rosalyn
put both hands to the sides of her head. “What am I thinking? I have to get down to the courtyard to greet them.”
She turned to Mairi, who stopped her with a lifted hand.
“Go on with you. I’ll find Alycie and bring her down.” Mairi darted through the door in front of her harried aunt, thoughts of other than Alycie and the Maxwells on her mind.
So Ramos had no further need for privacy. Mairi worried at the inside of her bottom lip as she raced up the stairs, trying to decide what his actions might mean. While it could be as innocent as his trying to be helpful, her gut instinct didn’t lead her imagination that direction.
Obviously his reaction to what had happened between them last night hadn’t been the same as hers. Even now, if she allowed herself to, she could feel his hands on her body, his lips against her own.
But this was not the time to think on Ramos.
Reaching the top landing, she started down the long dark hallway where daylight never penetrated. She’d gone only a few steps when the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle, as if someone watched her. Her steps slowed and she glanced around. Straining to see into the depths of the shadows cast by torches on the old stone walls, she finally shook her head in annoyance. Whether it was lack of sleep or her confusion over Ramos, she was letting her imagination run wild again and really needed to rein herself in.
Near the end of the hallway, on the opposite side from the room she shared with Sallie, she reached an open door. Inside, she found Alycie.
The room was bare except for a small table next to the fireplace. A simple wooden cross sat on the table-top, with small lit candles placed on either side. Alycie knelt in front of the cross, her head bowed, her lips moving rapidly in silent prayer.
Memories slammed into Mairi, of the trips she had taken in her youth down to the small church in the village. On her brothers’ birthdays each year she had visited the church to light candles in their memory. Candles exactly like the ones burning on Alycie’s altar.
Soul of a Highlander Page 17