No Other Woman (No Other Series)

by Shannon Drake

  Her eyes wide upon his, she smiled.

  "Quite well!" she whispered.

  "Good. Because such an impassioned, rousing speech has impassioned and aroused other things as well. M'lady, you may feel free to simply whisper again—with tremendous ardor, of course—that you love me, then you may proceed to show me with that desperately fevered ardor."

  She still stared into his eyes.

  "Well?"

  "Oh, aye! I love you, David, dear God, you cannot believe how deeply, how desperately—"

  "I'm quite willing to be shown," he whispered. And he kissed her.

  And made love to her.

  The fire blazed red and orange across the stone walls.

  Until finally, the fire burned out, and the soft light filling the cavern was pink and gold.

  The tide had receded.

  And dawn was breaking.

  Shawna was loath to leave the cavern, but David was anxious to return her to the castle.

  "I still don't understand why you don't just announce your presence today."

  "There are still things I must discover," he said.

  "But how am I to get back into the castle? I can't just walk through the front door naked—"

  "I would flay you alive," he assured her. "I've shirts in my trunk, and plenty of tartan. You can walk through the forest to the passageway entry kilted in Douglas plaid. I'll escort you back to your tower room."

  He dressed himself in black shirt and breeches, then helped her don his cotton shirt and his tartan. The water was shallow then in the cavern, and David, wearing his boots, carried her through the foot or so of water that still pooled within the cavern until they came out to the embankment of the loch beyond. He caught her hand, quickly leading her around the loch and into the depths of the forest, where they entered the passageway together, taking it back to the castle, and therein, through the secret stairways and corridors of Castle Rock until they came to her tower room.

  Once there, he paused long enough to hold her, and kiss her very deeply once again.

  "You go nowhere without my brother, Shawna, do you hear?"

  "Does your brother know of this?"

  "Aye, he will. But on this, you must obey me, Shawna, do you understand?"

  "Aye. But I don't understand what—"

  "Shawna, for the love of God, have faith, I beg of you!"

  "I do have faith," she said softly.

  She did have faith. She loved David; she had loved him all her life, she thought. And he had whispered those same words to her. Tall, dark, towering, fierce, so striking with his bronzed muscle, flashing green eyes, dark auburn hair. That he did not just want her, that he had told her he loved her, was a dream that she'd not dared wish might come true.

  But she was afraid. Uneasy. She didn't know why.

  "David—"

  "I must go."

  He smiled, brushed her lips with his own once again, and disappeared through the shifting break in the stone that led back to the secret passageway.

  Shawna watched him go.

  Then she felt a strange sensation of dread sweeping through her.

  He would not be betrayed again. She had not betrayed him! And still... She was afraid.

  Something was going to happen.

  And there would be nothing she could do to stop it.

  Chapter 17

  Brother Damian stood at the bar in the tavern, slowly sipping ale, listening to the farmers and sheep and cattle herders gossip and speculate in whispers as they sat at the various planked tables about the tavern. Some ate the mutton stew offered by the tavern's kitchens for lunch, others drank ale, seeking not nourishment, but companionship.

  "If y'be askin' me, 'tis simply more of the same," one old-timer said quietly, his head bowed low so that his voice might be heard just by the comrades at his table. The old man was leathered, his hair and thick beard more white than gray. He had bright blue eyes, and despite his seventy-odd years, he remained straight and sturdy as an oak. He was a Menzies, loin Menzies, father of Mark Menzies, the foreman of the miners. "There's strange things brewing in the castle on the hill, and that's a fact."

  "Since before the old Laird Douglas died," protested a handsome younger man in his twenties, Hamell, one of the Anderson lads. He looked carefully around the room.

  Brother Damian, standing with his ale, thought that the lad might be looking about to see if his father was in the tavern.

  Hamell Anderson leaned forward, barely mouthing the words to old loin. "It began the night of The Fire."

  "D'ye think it's the witches?" loin demanded.

  "Are y' serious, man?" Hamell demanded.

  "The American lass is gone, isn't she?"

  "Aye."

  "The Night of the Moon Maiden comes tomorrow. Perhaps the lass is intended to die on the altar."

  "Ach, old man! Ye've lost your mind, surely!"

  "Strange things been brewin'."

  "Aye, like the lad."

  "The lad?" Old loin looked puzzled. "Ah, y'mean your brother, Danny, the wee thing caught in the mines?"

  "Aye. I mean Danny," Hamell said quietly. He looked down at the table, not meeting old loin's eyes. "Danny... came out of the mines with the help of a beastie."

  "Things do indeed haunt the mines; my boy has told me so," loin said grimly.

  "Well, no one would be slaying a lass on the Druid Stone; we'll all be about to see that it not happen," Hamell said harshly. "And don't you go ruinin' the holiday for us all! I've my costume and mask set; the servants at the castle have been setting out the kegs of wine and ale all morning in preparations for tomorrow night. I've worked on me caber throw for the contests, and I've a lass to meet for the dancing! Don't go making something eerie of the fun we've planned on havin'!"

  "It's the lass your planning on havin', eh, boy?"

  "I intend to ask her to wed," Hamell said indignantly.

  "After the... er, festivities?" loin suggested.

  "Now, loin—"

  "I'd not spoil a celebration, and that's a fact. I'm not the trouble. 'Tis the witches," loin said.

  "The witches?"

  "Aye, Edwina and her lot, talking Mother Nature, making their herbal cures and potions and all! You look to it, boy—'twill end that the witches have some shenanigans and say in all this!"

  "Don't you be talking such rubbish!" came a sharp, feminine cry from the door.

  Brother Damian, who had been deeply involved in the men's conversation, turned in surprise to see that Edwina had come into the tavern. She wore a cloak against the chill of the November day, yet, as he watched her, Brother Damian's eyes narrowed.

  "Ah, now, Edwina—" loin protested, his cheeks flushing.

  "I've done nothing but good for you, loin Menzies!" Edwina said, coming straight to the table. "My herbs have cured those carbuncles upon your back many a time, and my remedies have soothed your old feet many a night as well."

  "Now, Edwina—"

  "Don't you 'now, Edwina' me, Mister Menzies!" Edwina said angrily, and sweeping off her cloak, she went back behind the bar, drawing a pitcher of ale for a farmer who hailed her across the tavern.

  Brother Damian took his chances and slid into the seat alongside loin Menzies. Menzies looked up at him, surprised and wary. Brother Damian smiled reassuringly. He'd been a bit of a fixture at the tavern for several days, coming and going, and building up something of a trust among the people here.

  "She's worried, you know. About Laird Douglas's sister-in-law. And we must still find the lass."

  "Aye!" loin said, looking at the table.

  "In truth," he said quietly, "you know, Menzies, that I've come on pilgrimage to do a bit of studying on the lore hereabouts, and quite honestly, the ancient sacrifices were associated with Druid practices, and not with the Wiccans."

  "She'll be mad at me, now," loin said, sniffing toward where Edwina worked at the bar. "She'll let me old body rot before she gives me aid again."

  Brother Damian drank deeply fro
m his ale, then looked across the table at Hamell Anderson. "There's been no clue here in the village as to the missing girl, eh?"

  Hamell shook his head, and sipped foam from his ale. "But loin may have a point. If witches were out for a sacrifice, they'd want the likes of an important young maid, don't y' think, Brother Damian?" Anderson's eyes lit seriously upon him. "But then again, wouldn't they be seeking the likes of someone even more important perhaps? Like Lady MacGinnis herself? Unless, of course..."

  "Aye, and of course, what?" Brother Damian demanded.

  Hamell Anderson shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, if someone deeply believed in his or her religion—not minding what that belief be—he or she would follow it faithfully."

  "Aye, a passionate man follows his religion with great faith," Brother Damian agreed.

  "I don't ken what you're off about, boy!" loin said, exasperated.

  "Perhaps the Lady MacGinnis is not all that she seems."

  loin took exception to that as well. His glass hit hard upon the wooden table. "Don't y'be sayin' a word against the likes of Shawna MacGinnis. She's proved herself as fine in spirit as any man in taking to the likes of watching over us all. Why, she is using her own income to see to the welfare of your grandfather, young Hamell. She's sending him to that special hospital, soon as the arrangements are made. And didn't she just take your wee brother into the castle?"

  "Aye, me brother," Hamell muttered bitterly.

  Old loin stared at him. "Then your nephew—if young Danny is your sister's illegitimate issue."

  '"The lad is not me sister's—"

  "Be that as it may, Lady MacGinnis has cared for you and yours," loin insisted.

  "Oh, aye, the great lady, that she be!" Hamell agreed, and he hesitated, still looking unhappy.

  "Son, just what are you trying to say?" Brother Damian persisted.

  Hamell shook his head. "Just that, well, we're not always what we appear to be, and that's that, I'll say no more—"

  "Ye've said nothing!" loin snapped in total exasperation.

  "Fine, I'll say this, then! One would assume Miss Sabrina Connor to be an innocent maid. And if strange things have been happening, well, aye, they've been happening since The Fire, since David Douglas died. Lady MacGinnis was with David Douglas that night, and it's my belief that Lady MacGinnis was with the laird's heir that night in the carnal sense—begging your pardon, Brother Damian. So if some practitioner of the black arts seeks a sacrifice—an innocent sacrifice—then Sabrina Connor would certainly be a fair choice."

  Brother Damian arched a brow, wondering if the truth regarding Sabrina Connors condition might save her life.

  "What if Miss Connor is not so innocent a lass?" he suggested. "She had scarcely arrived here before she disappeared. What could any man know of her past?"

  "Indeed!" old loin exclaimed. And he stared at Brother Damian, then at Hamell. He sniffed once, very quietly. Then he sniffed loudly, and rose, walking away from the table to the bar.

  Most probably, Brother Damian determined, to make his peace with Edwina. It might be one thing to rue the practice of witchcraft, but it was quite another to suffer through the pain of carbuncles.

  "Ah!" Hamell Anderson murmured unhappily. "I should have kept my mouth shut. I've offended the old goat. He does truly love Lady MacGinnis!" He glanced at Brother Damian. "I don't mean offense to Lady MacGinnis. I don't. God's blood—sorry, Brother—but all I say is that she and David Douglas were like sparks flying together; hot a civil word, yet they couldn't keep apart. I suppose to you, good friar, 'tis sin, but then, like as not y'don't quite ken what it is between a man and woman that draws them together."

  "I do my best," Brother Damian said dryly. "As I assume you do yourself."

  "Wait, now, there, are you tryin' to imply that young Danny might be me own lad?"

  "I wasn't implying anything of the like," Brother Damian assured him. "I just suggested that—"

  "I took no innocent maid and gave her issue!" he said, then lowered his voice, looking around. He was terrified of his father, Brother Damian thought. "Look at the lad, and look at the MacGinnises, will you!" he said, and quickly stood. He started to leave, then hesitated and added quickly, "If you seek answers here, Brother Damian, look to the lady herself!"

  * * *

  Alistair stood in the chapel, inhaling, exhaling, staring at the crucifix.

  There was no help for it. He was going to have to go down to the crypt.

  Because things were beginning to happen. The past was tormenting the living and beginning to eclipse what there might have been of a future.

  He didn't want to go to the crypts. He had to.

  Yet even in the daylight, he despised going there.

  He shuddered fiercely.

  Then the sound of the chapel door opening off the great hall sounded and he spun around.

  Hawk Douglas had come.

  "Alistair!" Hawk greeted him, his hands on his hips as he stared up at the crucifix as well. Then he glanced Alistair's way, his green eyes sparkling. "I hadn't thought you so religious as to spend time in the chapel."

  "I—" Alistair began, and paused, then arched a brow. "I hadn't thought you so religious. In fact, don't you people—" He hesitated again, smiling ruefully. "Sorry. Don't the Sioux have a rather different religion?"

  "Aye, gods and goddesses, the power of wind, the rain, the earth," Hawk said, taking no offense. Alistair thought it uncanny that in his height and build, and even in some of his movements and mannerisms, Hawk could so resemble his brother, while still having the look of his mother's people about him as well. He was dressed very much like the American today, in a light blue denim work shirt, darker breeches, and American-made boots. Hawk grinned at Alistair. "I'm still quite convinced that there is one great power—and it's all the same, no matter what we call our religious choices."

  "So you have come to the chapel to commune with this 'great power'? If so, I shall leave you in peace—"

  "I've not come to commune with anything—I'm passing through."

  "To—?"

  "The crypts."

  "The crypts?"

  "I understand that you heard something coming from the chapel last night, but found nothing."

  "Aye," Alistair said. He shrugged. "You know how these ancient places creak and groan."

  "I know—and so do you. Far better than I, since you've been living here. If you heard something, I'm sure there was something to hear."

  "I found nothing—"

  "But you didn't look down in the crypts."

  Alistair shrugged.

  "Well, I want to investigate there. Come with me. I'll appreciate the company."

  Hawk Douglas started for the gateway, lighting a match to set flame to a lantern hanging from a hook on the wall. "Are you coming?" he queried politely. He turned, pushed open the iron gate, and started down the steps to the crypts.

  Alistair felt a trickle of sweat slipping down his neck.

  He followed Hawk Douglas.

  * * *

  Despite her exhaustion, Shawna hadn't imagined that she'd be able to sleep that day, especially since dawn had nearly broken when they had reached the castle, and David had departed.

  But it felt as if she had barely been in her room long enough to shed David's tartan, wash enthusiastically with soap despite the small amount of water in her ewer and washbowl, and lie down to close her eyes before there came a tapping on her door. She awoke in something of a panic, froze, then quickly called out, "Who is it?"

  "Mary Jane."

  "One minute!"

  She leapt out of bed, saw to it that David's tartan was kicked firmly behind the dressing screen, and hurried to the door.

  Mary Jane smiled, but she looked quite tired. "Good day, Shawna. Laird Hawk has sent me to see if you'd be so good as to join the family for a late breakfast, before everyone sets off to search for Miss Sabrina again."

  "Aye, certainly. I'll be down."

  "Good. You look so tired."


  "You look exhausted."

  "Well, now, we've all been up, worrying about poor Miss Connor, so it seems. Though, of course, perhaps the constable was right—we none of us quite know what will happen if the right man comes along, now, do we?"

  Shawna glanced at Mary Jane, arching a brow. "Not Sabrina Connor," she said.

  "Ah, but why would Sabrina Connor be different from any other lass?"

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she knew Sabrina had been kidnapped, but as close as she and Mary Jane had been throughout the years, she remembered that David had chosen to hide the body of the man he had killed in the crypt. He didn't want others knowing what they had discovered.

  "Look at you, m'lady, begging your pardon!" Mary Jane said softly. "You were willing to risk much for the late young master David Douglas. Aye, and for the MacGinnises as well. But look at all you endured—for want of a man."

  "Mary Jane!" Shawna said uncomfortably. "That was all quite long ago."

  "Well, shall I lay out your clothing for you?"

  "No, no... I'll be fine on my own," Shawna said. She was determined to hide David's tartan before anyone in the household could come upon it and ponder its presence in her room. "Please tell Laird Douglas I'll be right down. What—what of Lady Douglas? How is she faring?"

  "She is tired, but well, and quite determined. Thankfully, she is convinced that her sister is alive, and she is determined to find her."

  "Good," Shawna said. David, she was certain, had seen his brother and sister-in-law, and told them of the events last night in the crypts. "I shall be right along."

  When Mary Jane had gone, Shawna dressed quickly. She folded David's tartan and hastily slid it into the one drawer in the tower room's eighteenth century wardrobe.

  When she exited her room, Gawain was waiting there. "Uncle!" she said in surprise.