Must Love Kilts

by Angela Quarles

  “Aye. That was fun. Good idea about the goodbye kiss.” His voice was the proper mix of jovial and carefree. To spare himself any more torture by gazing on her lovely, dear face, he bussed the tip of her nose. “But we’d better return.”

  He levered to his feet, still holding her clasped around his waist. And looked down to where they were joined so she couldn’t see his face as he clenched his jaw and eased out of her. He set her aside, dove for his plaid, and went about the business of wrapping himself back up.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  My love he stood for his true king

  “My Love He Was a Highland Lad,” Jacobite Reliques

  What the hell had just happened? Traci scrambled to not only straighten her skirts but also to wrangle her emotions.

  And tried not to feel hurt at his dismissal. And how right she’d been.

  But as she re-braided her hair, the humiliating wave crested and her familiar self eased back in. Who needed guys? He was doing her a favor.

  When she tied off the end of her braid, she raked him up and down with her eyes, making sure he saw her. “Yep. Men in kilts are hot, all right.”

  She smiled at his stunned face, gave her skirts another tug, and began walking back to camp.

  “Wait.”

  Her stupid heart leapt. Maybe…she’d been wrong about him.

  She turned.

  “Your sister. This is the perfect chance. You need to leave. Now. They plan to take you back to Invergarry castle on the way to Dundee.”

  She swallowed her disappointment. Of course. Fiona.

  “Will they just let me leave?”

  “I’m betting they’re too focused on getting to the rendezvous point now to care, or to take the time to hunt after you. But to be safe…”

  To her astonishment, he grabbed a good-sized rock and bashed it against his forehead. He barely staggered, but blood was running fast down his face. He threw the rock down and jabbed his thumb behind him. “Go. Quickly. To the farmer like we planned. He’ll help you. Tell him you’re my wife. He speaks English.”

  She stumbled forward a few steps, searching his face for any sign. Any sign at all. Of what?

  She was an idiot. But as she passed by him, her gaze locked with his.

  Was it only her stupid hard-to-kill romantic heart that saw his tight jaw muscles and the emotion flaring in his eyes and interpreted it as something more?

  “Bye,” she whispered. And blindly tore down the ravine, her tears obscuring and refracting the way forward into swaths of green, gray, purple.

  Iain rubbed his forehead as he stomped back into the camp. He’d been a little too enthusiastic in the bashing of his own head.

  He smiled, though it was a pained smile, stiff and edged with all the sharpness at her departure. In truth, he had been so angry at himself, her, and his clan that he’d near caused himself to pass out. As it was, his vision had blurred, and he’d had to lock his knees and blink to see her clearly as she’d jogged past him.

  He’d given her a few moments to get away, and now it was time. He clenched his jaw. Time to do his duty to his clan.

  The questions peppered him as soon as he entered the camp. Several jumped to their feet. “We must go after her,” one growled.

  Iain glared and barked out, “Ah, leave off, will ye? You’re all a bunch of kale-eaters, all worked up over one wee lass. What can she do now, even if she were a spy? Tell someone we’re on our way to Dundee? So what! We’ll be there before they can be.” He chopped his hand down. “Let’s go. We have a king to put back on the throne.” The rest of them could go to hell for all he cared.

  His rare show of temper, and their need for haste, stayed the men.

  But anger was all he had left after watching her run away like that. Run away from him.

  Women. He’d never understand them. Maybe he should take a break from them. He snatched up his belongings and saddled his mount, his whole body vibrating with the hurt and anger coursing through him. He caught sight of Glenfiddich, who neighed. Iain closed his eyes and swallowed before stomping over and securing her to his saddle.

  Later that day, as Iain followed the others in their frantic ride through Lochaber to reach the rest of the clan at Blair Castle, Duncan drew alongside.

  “You made the right decision.”

  Iain’s anger was muted now, though it still kept his body taut in his saddle. All afternoon, he’d relived their parting. “Then why does it feel like the wrong one?”

  “Sometimes that’s how it feels. Especially when you wish to follow both paths.”

  Iain grunted and stared ahead. “This is why I’m not fit to lead.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “Don’t toy with me, Duncan. I’m not in the mood. Remember, I’m the frivolous one.”

  “Because you let others view you that way.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Duncan reined in his horse and turned it toward him, blocking his way. “The difference, damn it all, is that you’re the rightful chieftain.”

  “That may be. But it does not mean I should. You know the truth.”

  “Is this about that fool nonsense your father uttered when he died?”

  Anger, hotter than before, blurred the edges of his vision red. “Died. Aye. At my hand, let us not forget.”

  “How can I when you won’t let anyone else forget? It was wrong of your father to say that.”

  “It was true nonetheless.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Old enough.”

  “Perhaps, but you talk about decisions and how you’re incapable of them. Did you know it was a poor decision of your father’s that put us there to begin with?”

  Iain’s gaze sharpened.

  Duncan held up a hand. “Your father was a great chieftain, don’t mistake me. No one would deny that. One of the best in the Highlands, many have said. But it doesn’t mean he always made the right decisions. That excursion to aid the Macleans against the Campbells was only to be that. A show of strength to encourage Argyll to rethink his plans to invade Mull. But on the way home, your father decided to have a wee bit of fun with a cattle raid. You’d been serious enough in the fight against the Campbells, but the spontaneity of the raid affected you. Your father should have known better than to push and pull you through such swings of emotions after your first battle. We should have gone straight home. Instead, you were almost giddy in the release of tension. No one blamed you. Except for yourself.”

  Iain nudged his mount to push past Duncan, but his cousin gripped his arm, staying him. “We all make mistakes.” And then he broke into a grin. “Even old Glengarry couldn’t keep ahold of one wee lass.”

  Iain’s eyes narrowed a bit at the way Duncan seemed to say the last two words, with a touch of softness. But he yanked his arm from Duncan’s grasp, unwilling to listen to more. There was only one thing he wanted to focus on right now, and that was the upcoming battle looming over the horizon. He wished to lose himself in that battle and forget all of his troubles. Forget how he was responsible for his father’s death. Forget how Traci left him with nary a regret crossing her pretty features.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Let us never depart

  From the faith of an honest true blue, true blue,

  From the faith of an honest true blue.

  “True Blue,” Jacobite Reliques

  The late afternoon sun warmed the back of Traci’s neck as she shuffled across the wooden planks of the lowered drawbridge to Urquhart Castle. She kept her face down and sidled closer to the farmer’s wife. A blacksmith’s hammer clanged behind her, over and over—TANG-ding-ding, TANG-ding-ding.

  Gah. The sound jerked against her brain. She pictured various ways the industrious blacksmith could lose his stupid hammer.

  “Dinnae fash,” Mrs. MacKiaran said in a low voice. “Nothing wrong or unusual about what we’re doing.” Other villagers were ahead and behind, all wishing to enter before the gates closed for
the evening.

  The wicker basket of cheese Traci carried bounced against her thigh, and she tightened her grip. God, had it been only several hours since she’d barged in on this family? Iain’s and Duncan’s directions had been flawless, which was a good thing because she’d been stumbling along, only half aware of her surroundings. They’d welcomed her, and their five kids bunched around her legs and chattered away in Gaelic while she told them her plight.

  Now they were delivering cheese to the castle’s kitchen. She was so close to her goal, and yet… She felt scooped out, hollow.

  Rescuing her sister was something she was doing by rote.

  Their steps changed in tone as they left the wooden drawbridge and strode onto the stone causeway. A high wall with arrow slits rose over her head on either side, and up ahead loomed the rounded twin towers comprising the gatehouse. Two bulky warriors guarded the entrance, their shadows stretching out behind them and blending into the shadowed coolness of the gatehouse’s interior.

  Mrs. MacKiaran greeted the guards in Gaelic, but they held up their hands and crossed their halberds, the metal of the wicked-looking axes at the top shhhreeching as they passed each other, the sharp edges glinting in the sun. And like that, Traci’s knees morphed into shaky goo, and her heart thumped in her throat. She might not understand Gaelic, but it was clear the guards weren’t letting them enter.

  Finally, Mrs. MacKiaran tutted, grabbed the basket from Traci’s grip, and placed it at the guard’s feet. She pulled Traci out of the line of folks waiting to enter. A woman with a wicker basket strapped to her back bumped into Traci as she surged forward to take her place. Once out of ear shot, Mrs. MacKiaran said, “He won’t allow strangers through. Something about needing to keep out of any of the troubles, what with the rebels meeting up with Dundee. Apparently, they had a spot of trouble in the wee hours of the morn. I tried to shame them—what could they fear from a mere lass—but there was a woman involved in the attack.”

  Her chest tightened. That ill-advised raid still caused her trouble. “But my sister—”

  “We’ll get ye in. Leave the means to me.”

  Traci stared back at the crenelated ramparts as pent-up frustration and impotence swelled up her throat. She swallowed hard.

  Don’t barge in. Don’t barge in. Don’t barge in.

  She had to repeat that over and over because her muscles and instincts itched to push past the guard and holler for her sister. She was so close. She could feel it, under her skin, that Fiona was on the other side of those imposing, impenetrable walls. Somewhere inside. Alone. Scared.

  Running around as a Dickens ghost.

  Traci took a deep breath. I’m almost there, Fiona. Hang on.

  “A barrel? You’re going to smuggle me into the castle in a barrel?”

  That was Mrs. MacKiaran’s solution? But…she didn’t have a better one.

  Traci blinked the morning sleepies from her eyes and sipped the hot herbal drink the MacKiarans had brewed for her the next morning. The refreshing tang of mint and other herbs hit her tongue, and she sighed. Not half bad…

  “Aye,” said Mr. MacKiaran, his voice rough and no nonsense in the cozy confines of the common room of their farmhouse. A peat fire was gaining strength in their fireplace, and the sweet-smoky scent filled the room.

  His kind wife winced and nodded. “It’s the only way, dearie. You’ll have plenty of room. Husband only delivers his oats once a week, and that’s this morn. So in with ye.” She clapped her hands twice and shooed them toward Traci as if she were a misbehaving child on a playground.

  “And where will you put me once inside?”

  The terrier that was curled up by the fire whimpered in his sleep and dug an imaginary hole.

  “In the storage room one floor below the kitchens. You’ll need to wait out the day and only come out at nightfall. I’ve packed ye some food and a flask of water.”

  Traci shuddered. “And…and will there be rats?”

  “Rats. Och, I’m sure. ’Tis where they store grain after all.”

  Her blood wooshed straight from her head to pool in her toes.

  Mrs. MacKiaran peered closer at Traci. “You’ve a fear of the rats, do you?”

  “A little,” she whispered. And by a little, she meant heaps.

  Mr. MacKiaran shook his head, and Mrs. MacKiaran put her hands on her ample hips. “They can’t get to ye in a barrel, now can they? You’ll be as safe as rain. Just bide your time, and come out when ye hear the bells strike thirty minutes past the eleventh hour.”

  But what about when she got out of the barrel?

  That night, Traci huddled in the barely-large-enough barrel. Overriding the oaty smell of the interior was the smell of yeast and the storage room’s cool, damp stone. A shifty, scurrying noise came from the left. It’s not rats.

  Okay. Maybe it was. But she was larger, dammit, and for now, she was tucked up inside her barrel. It had been a tight fit, and she’d lost feeling in her butt and calves ages ago, but she was safe.

  And inside the castle.

  Now came the tricky part—finding Fiona.

  “Oh, please. Please be right,” she whispered. Her sister just had to be the gruagach. All the stories agreed on one point: the creature appeared when the chapel bells chimed midnight.

  To take her mind off the no-doubt humongous, Scottish-sized rats, she focused on other sounds. There—the soft lapping of the waters of Loch Ness against the rocks on the other side of the castle wall. The slight keening of the wind around the stone ramparts.

  The bells began to chime, and the tempo of her heartbeats quickened as if racing the clanging notes. When the last tone faded, declaring it was thirty minutes past the eleventh hour, she listened to the pregnant silence.

  “Show time.”

  She shoved the heels of her hands against the lid of the barrel, and it clattered to the floor. She stilled, listening. But her blood pounded more from picturing the rats closing in on her with their horribly beady eyes, twitching snouts, and big, pointy teeth than from humans who might have heard. She scrambled up and perched on the rim, her calf muscles stinging from the sudden flow of blood. Ow. Ow. Ow. She massaged them, though maybe it’d help her disguise to lurch around as if she had stumps for legs. She fumbled inside the barrel for the candle, lit it with the tinder they’d given her, and thrust the light in front of her.

  A pair of eyes glinted in the far corner, and her heart lurched. “I see you,” she said defiantly.

  She shifted the candle left and right, pushing back the shadows to make out the shape of the room. No bigger than her dining room in her London flat, it was roughly lined with fist-sized stone and had a barrel-shaped ceiling. Not a lot of places to hide.

  She dragged out the white sheet she’d gotten from Mrs. MacKiaran. By the light of the flickering candle, and while darting her gaze again and again to the rat’s corner, she smeared the sheet through all the spider webs she could find. She’d frayed its edges back at the MacKiaran’s, making it as ratty as she could.

  Jesus. This felt stupid as hell. Would this really fool anyone?

  She whipped it over her head and poked her head through the hole she’d made. She fluffed her already teased-out hair.

  Adrenaline now twitching her fingers, she looked up to the vaulted ceiling. “Please work.” She patted her hip—case still there.

  She blew out the candle and placed it and the tinder just inside the storeroom door. The rest of the way she’d have to go by feel and Mrs. MacKiaran’s directions.

  At the door, she listened. All clear. She eased it open and slipped out. According to Mrs. MacKiaran, the larder was one floor up, beside the kitchen. Okay. If anyone appeared, she’d raise her arms and moan. Convincingly.

  She slid her hand along the cool stone blocks on her left and carefully followed with her feet. Her toe bumped against the first step. Fifteen in all, Mrs. MacKiaran had told her, wound tightly in a spiral. With no handrails and the steps narrow in depth, but high, she f
elt forward until her hands touched the step above. She gripped it for balance and guidance and stepped up. She repeated this again and again, but stopped every few seconds and listened for any other noise.

  So far, so good.

  Her breaths felt overly loud bouncing around the close confines of the dark tower, but she reached the top without incident. She pressed against the rough, wooden door and listened.

  All was quiet.

  With as much care as she could manage, she eased the large door open, its creaky hinges adding a drawn-out atmospheric touch. She held her breath, ready to accompany that noise with as much macabre flutterings and moanings as she could muster.

  A fire burned low in the fireplace, providing just enough light to see. An oaken table and chairs occupied the center of a room slightly larger than the storage room. Ghostly shadows cast by the flames jerked and skittered across the plaster walls painted with heraldic crests. But this wasn’t her final destination. Another flight of stairs led up and, hearing no one, she crept across the room to the outside door and eased it open.

  She didn’t slip out. Not yet. Outside, a lone torch sputtered in a wall socket and revealed a stone-cobbled courtyard with a squat, thatched-roof building opposite. The kitchen. And next to it, the larder. Nearby, the chapel bells began their long chiming for the midnight hour.

  This was it.

  A refreshing breeze off the loch whistled past and ruffled her hair. The courtyard was deserted, which made sense—at this hour, the gruagach haunted.

  Then she heard it. A slight clank and shuffling steps beyond the skittering glow of the single torch.

  Cold sweat chilled her skin. This was her sister—she knew that—but her body was creeped-the-hell-out. Especially when the torch light revealed her first glimpse of the creature. The hunched figure lurched with each step and emitted a keening wail. Wispy gray cloth and highly teased hair fluttered with each jerky movement, aided by the winds swirling off Loch Ness.

  Shivers skirted right up Traci’s spine. Yeah. It was scary as hell.