Highland Fire (Guardians of the Stone)

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  His hand sought and found her hem and he lifted the gown to her knees, and then before she could protest, he shifted so that he was settled between her thighs.

  Lìli gasped in surprise, her eyes widening at the sight of him between her legs, and she sensed at once what he meant to do. She opened her mouth to protest, but he simply smiled and before she could speak, his lips descended suddenly, his tongue seeking entrance to her most secret place.

  With another gasp of surprise, Lìli lay back again, trembling as he moved to kiss her where no man had ever kissed her before. His tongue swept out, teasing her with abandon, and she spread her legs without any will left at all.

  Let him do whatever he may...

  “That’s it, flower,” he whispered, his breath hot against her flesh.

  In the next instant, all troubling thoughts fled entirely—like birds taking flight—banished by naught more than her husband’s whispers and his tongue.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Once their guests departed they left behind a pall—a dark presentiment that hovered like an angry cloud Lìli couldn’t seem to banish. It was a feeling that seemed to be growing stronger and stronger by day. In part, she was certain it was because she was growing more and more desperate to find a way to retrieve her son without bringing harm to her husband or his clan.

  All the weeks they’d had without a visitation of sickness came to an abrupt end. Aveline confessed she was with child and spent her days retching in her cottage. Then Fergus’ daughter Meara grew ill, stricken with the same mysterious malady Duncan had suffered. It was difficult to believe Lìli had spent nearly two months with these people—two months away from her sweet son. It pained her to think that mayhap she would not see him again for so long. If something did not happen soon, the snows would fall and the mountains would become impassable until the snows melted in spring.

  Lìli took the ring out of her coffer yet again, inspecting it. It was not even pretty. There was little about it to notice, and that was as it was intended, she supposed. She slipped it on her finger and stared at the trinket. Aidan would notice… for she wore no jewelry. She had come with little enough but the clothes upon her back. And yet…

  She took the ring off, and put it back into its pouch, shoving it again to the bottom of her chest. She would not defile her love for Aidan by even contemplating such a thing!

  Very quickly, Meara’s illness worsened.

  Aidan was sleeping when they came to tell Lìli, and so she made her way to Meara’s home in the middle of the night with Fergus’ son. Remembering Una’s advice, she followed her instincts, and on the way, stopped by a little stream to gather a bit of water. Fergus’ boy slipped away to relieve himself uphill and while he was gone Lìli peered up at the moon, silently asking the spirits to bless the liquid in her hand. Adding a pinch of precious salt from the pouch she had tied to her waist, she swirled the cup clockwise … until the salt dissolved. She then held up the cup so that it was illuminated by the moonlight, and said, “By full moon’s light, with helping hands, I spread good health throughout the lands.” She took that blessed water to Meara’s house and set it between two lit candles upon the floor near the hearth, and then she gathered the rest of her medicines from the pouch she had brought.

  The lass was gravely ill, and Lìli found her sweating profusely, despite that her body was wracked with shivers. Fergus’ wife had been one of the first to be taken by this sweating sickness, and he worried now, pacing the floor of his cottage.

  Lìli did what she could to help the shivering girl. Her brother sat in a chair by the fire, petting their whining dog, his brows knit with worry. Since Meara had fallen ill, their home appeared as though it had been ravaged by brigands. For that reason Lìli had set the water down upon the floor, for there was no room anywhere else. Once she had done all that she could and Meara fell into a deep, unsettled sleep, Lìli sat by the girl’s bedside, watching her sleep.

  Her father, for all his bluster, had the look of a terrified Da, and his son only slept once his dog left his feet. Lìli was dozing when she heard the animal lapping up the water she had brought from the little stream. By the time she realized, the cup was empty.

  Tired and frustrated, she was grateful when Aidan appeared at their door. “Come to bed,” he demanded.

  “Nay. I shouldna,” she argued.

  “Have you done all you can?”

  “Aye, but—”

  “Chief is right, lass,” Fergus interrupted. “The waiting is the most difficult part, but ye canna help my daughter any better by making yourself ill as well. Go an’ get ye some rest and return in the morn.”

  The look on Fergus’ face was so full of despair that Lìli did not want to leave him. These were her people now and she could not bear the thought of losing even one.

  Aidan sensed her hesitation, and he went to her and took her gently by the hand. He pulled her away from the sleeping girl, grabbing her arisaid by the door. He gave Fergus a glance, his voice softening. “Call upon us if aught changes.”

  “Aye,” the father said. “Ye know I will.”

  “It seems I can no longer sleep without ye in my bed,” Aidan told Lìli once they’d returned to their darkened room. It sounded much like a complaint, but Lìli heard the gentleness in his tone.

  The brazier had gone cold, but Lìli’s thoughts were too pre-occupied with Meara to notice the chill in the air. She smiled at Aidan, grateful for his presence, and even more grateful for his solicitude. “I canna imagine what this illness could be,” she worried, as she sat down upon the bed and removed her slippers.

  Aidan stoked the fire in the brazier, reviving the flame. “I willna see ye grow ill over this, Lìli.” She loved the way he said her name now, with such tenderness. Nevertheless, she could not simply leave off—not when a young girl’s life hung in the balance.

  “What can ye tell me of those who fell ill before?” she persisted.

  He turned to face her then, “Fergus’ wife was among the first to go.”

  “She lives verra near Glenna,” Lìli said, considering the fact. “Who else?”

  “One of my auldest warrior’s—a man who fought beside my father.”

  “Where did he live?”

  “In a cottage on the hillside.”

  Lìli thought about that, wondering how near to the other two. She was so pre-occupied that she did not realize until her husband was naked and standing before her.

  “What in bluidy hell must a mon do to gain his wife’s attention?” he asked standing nude, but not aroused.

  Lìli laughed, peering up into his face. He was smiling, his teeth gleaming white in the darkness. The fire at his back played with shadows on the wall, casting his form into a sultry firelight dance.

  “E’en that weeping maid of yours, the one who doesna seem to realize her place, has a growing belly,” Aidan complained, but not with much concern to his voice. “I would have a son by you,” he said softly, kneeling to look her squarely in the face.

  His hand went to her knee.

  Lìli’s breath caught as the smile faded from his features, replaced with one of concern. “We arena promised tomorrow,” he told her. “Meara’s illness only makes it clearer to me. If she dies, my brother will weep for what will never be. Come what may, I willna regret a single moment I spend upon this earth. Buin mo chridhe dhuit,” he told her gruffly, and Lìli’s heart squeezed at hearing the words, for she could see them mirrored in his eyes.

  You are the love of my heart.

  It filled her with joy to hear him say so, but worry quickly followed, for she feared what may come. To say it back somehow seemed to seal his fate, and so she could not find her voice to speak.

  She loved him too.

  Desperately.

  Somehow, the feelings had emerged despite her will to stamp them away, and now even the possibility that the curse might be true filled her heart with dread.

  She couldn’t speak, but she could show him... and she pulled
him onto the bed, desperate to feel life once again growing in her womb.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Meara died in the wee hours of the morning.

  Fergus did not come to retrieve them, for he and his son had fallen asleep, exhausted by their vigil. By the time the poor man had awakened, his daughter was already gone. With somber hearts, they burned the lass upon a pyre the following day, along with the family dog, who also fell ill within hours of Meara’s parting. Fergus believed the animal had perished of heartbreak, but Lìli felt a twinge of hope at the discovery, for while she felt terrible over the dog’s death, she had an idea burgeoning in her head.

  Not wishing to stir a father’s grief, or evoke thoughts of regret, she made quiet inquiries into where the family had acquired their water. If she was correct, she thought she knew from where the illness might have come. Their home was far enough from the village well, and so they had gathered it instead from a nearby stream—the same stream where Lìli had gotten the water for her blessing. Apparently, Glenna too sometimes used that stream, whenever she could not go herself for water at the well. Sometimes Duncan was too lazy to go all the way. And when Lìli inquired further, she discovered that the others who had perished had also used the stream for their supply of water as well. Once the funeral was over, she set out alone to inspect the area, to see if her suspicions could be true.

  She discovered that the stream ended in a tiny little pool that settled between Glenna and Fergus’ cottages. Fed by a trickling of water from the hillside above, she followed the path uphill, where she discovered the culprit. In a small basin fed by the hill itself, there sat enormous piles of human dung. She remembered that after the guarderobe in her father’s donjon had been created, so that offal was discarded down the walls into the motte, thereafter some folks in the village had grown ill, until they realized that the motte was no longer safe to draw water from.

  Lìli sighed, and sat upon a boulder, remembering Keane’s first words to her: If ye should need tae piss... I can show ye where tae go, lest ye find yourself with an arse full of nettles.

  Keane’s heart was broken. The poor lad’s eyes were now swollen once more, only this time with grief. With this news, Keane could well blame himself, she knew, so she considered how best to tell everyone what she had discovered. She couldn’t keep it to herself; she must tell them so no one else would become ill. Poor Meara! Poor Keane! Poor Fergus!

  As she sat contemplating what she would say, her gaze was drawn toward a pile of stones, from whence a thin ribbon of mist seemed to billow from the ground below. She made her way over to it, kicking a few stones from the top.

  Suddenly, without warning the ground beneath her gave way, crumbling like old cake beneath her feet and she was cast down into a cold, dank dark hole in the ground.

  Thinking that his wife needed a bit of rest, Aidan searched her medicine chest. It might as well be a medicine chest, for it bore little else, and it surprised him still that she had brought so little with her from Keppenach. As small as the coffers were, they contained almost primarily herbs. Luckily, of her many small pouches, he recalled which bag she had used when she’d given Keane a draught to help him sleep through his most painful nights, so he searched for that one, and found it, but he also encountered another bag that contained a hard lump. Since she had naught but three dresses and a comb—for the most part—he was curious about the contents of the pouch. He lifted it out from between her gowns, and squeezed it.

  A ring perhaps? Did she harbor a trinket from Stuart?

  Driven by curiosity now, He opened the bag, turning it over so the contents fell into his hand: a single vial of powder and an ugly ring. He turned the ring over in his palm and spied the hole built into one side and blinked, peering down at it, somehow knowing what it was for, despite that he’d never seen anything like it. Inspecting it closer, he lifted it up and shook it. Traces of powder sprinkled into his palm.

  Did she mean to poison him?

  There could be no other explanation for such a device. And yet she had not used it. What stopped her? She might have seen her task done by now and slipped away with no one the wiser. But she had saved Duncan, and then Keane… ach, was she saving her treachery for him?

  He thought of the look of adoration in her eyes when they made love and the very notion turned his gut—and his heart, for he had grown to love his bartered bride.

  Accept the things to which fate binds you, his mother had said just before her death. After his father’s funeral, he had railed against the will of the world, and despite that she had carried another man’s babe in her belly, forced upon her in an act of cruelty, she had caressed her growing belly with such love that Aidan had only been able to love Sorcha once she was born.

  Accept the things to which fate binds you, her voice said to him now. Only then could one be certain that the things that came to pass were meant to be, completely free from the will of men. So it was that the stone should come to rest in rightful hands some day.

  But at least he knew… so that he could avoid ingesting anything Lìli’s hands had touched. Thank God Lael was still in charge of the kitchens. Though for the moment, he would not tell his sister, for Lael would skewer Lìli in defense of him.

  In fact, he was reluctant to tell anyone at all, for Lìli had clearly not harmed any of his kin as yet. He could not blame her for the strange malady plaguing them, for it had begun before her arrival. Since she’d come, she had saved lives.

  Mayhap she never intended to use the ring …

  But he must know where her heart lay.

  He must know what she intended to do with it.

  Placing the ring back in the pouch, he tightened the drawstring, and then shoved the bag back down into her chest, leaving it approximately where he had discovered it.

  At least he knew… and from this moment forward, he would be certain to watch his cups… along with every last move his wife made.

  The ground beneath the fissure was hollow. Like a roof thinned with age, it merely collapsed, throwing Lìli into the depths of a small cavern. She scraped her arms and legs on the way down, but otherwise she was unharmed, except that there was no way back up, it seemed.

  Her arisaid was left hanging from the edge, and she had a glimmer of hope, but when she tugged it, it came free and tumbled down into her face, raining dust and tiny pebbles onto her head. She spat dust from her mouth, and inspected the cave better now.

  A cold mist coiled about her feet. Like the inside of a hollowed orb, the sides rounded up and around, so that the walls were flat like a ceiling at the opening of the fissure and the sides were concave and too far away, impossible to climb—except for one tiny spot where the cave wall jutted outward so that if she could reach that shelf, she might be able to use it for support and pull herself up. Except that side of the cavern was damp with water trickling down from the basin above. It left a dark greenish stain on the stone. Nevertheless, Lìli tried and found the shelf slippery to the touch. Besides, the scent of the water up close was not unlike a sewer. The thought nearly made her wretch. She wiped her fingers on the cave wall on the other side, not wanting to spoil her dress. And then she wiped them again in the dry dirt at her feet, brushing it then on the hem of her gown. In essence they had been using the basin above for a guarderobe for a very long time, she believed. Some of the water trickled down to the rocks below, and some seemed to have been carried to the tiny pool near Glenna’s home.

  Peering down at her gown, where she had wiped her hands, she found the hem torn, and frowned. Glenna was quite skilled with a needle she reassured herself; she could fix it. For now she simply needed to find a way out and warn everyone about the basin and the pool.

  Dark as it was, there was the faintest light emanating through another crack in the wall, where cold mist poured through, like a warm breath on a cold day. She eyed the crack in the wall warily, and shouted up for help to no avail. She was alone on the hillside today. Everyone was attending poor Meara’s funeral.


  Feeling the cold rising around her, she retrieved her cloak from the ground, and shook it out, then cast it about her shoulders, cursing herself now for not having told someone where she was off to. Without much choice in the matter, she decided to explore the crack in the wall.

  The cave walls, aside from the ceiling from whence she’d fallen, seemed sturdy enough and she could always retrace her steps if there was nowhere to go, but the faint light shining through the wall made her feel there was another exit somewhere else. Twilight was coming and she did not wish to be caught in a hole in the ground in the black of night.

  However, the crack in the wall was barely wide enough for her to fit through. She had to work free a few loose stones, but finally she squeezed through. It led to yet another cavern, this one bigger than the last. Light entered here from both the way she had come and another hole that led up… only that one had a rope ladder descending from it. Odd to find a ladder in a hole in the ground. Feeling much less panicked now at the sight of the stairs, she lingered to inspect the room a moment, curious now.

  In the center of the cave, there was a large oblong block of stone, mayhap a little longer than the length of her arm. Smooth, as though polished, the top surface had a bit of sheen. In the back of her mind, she thought of the Stone at Scone… where kings were crowned. She had never seen that stone, and yet this one put her in mind of it.

  Could it be?

  But nay…

  She ran her hands along the top of the stone, wondering why a stone like this would be lain as though upon an altar.

  As she circled the stone, she found a plaque, but she could barely make it out in the dim light of the cavern. Curiosity made her turn the stone so that it faced the rays of light coming from the crack in the wall from whence she’d come.