Sarah Gabriel

by Highland Groom

  “The fairy was just there. I did see her, I swear it.”

  He was watching her. “Tell me why you came to Glen Kinloch.”

  “To see fairies, to get the money. And to find—well, to find you. Only you are not quite what my grandmother had in mind, or Sir Walter Scott, either. But my brothers will like you, if you will have me.”

  “Have you—good God,” he said. “What about Sir Walter Scott? What money?”

  She had blathered on, she knew, but could not seem to stop it. The whisky had loosened her tongue, opened her vision to the Otherworld, and her thoughts seemed to race in some strange way. This was unlike the effect of any dram of spirits or glass of wine she had ever had. “I did not have that much whisky,” she said. “What was in it?” She put a hand to her head.

  “A special brew is in the silver flask, and I should have thought to put it away—Fiona, why did you come here to this glen? What did you mean about the money?”

  She looked at him, and her attention, which seemed scattered, now focused wholly on him. “Do you know, you are a beautiful man,” she said. “And I think I want to kiss you.”

  “What—” he said, and caught her by the upper arms as she lifted on her toes to do just that, kiss him as she had wanted to do for so long.

  As she pressed her mouth to his, he resisted for a moment, squeezing her arms—and then he murmured something under his breath and took command of the kiss she had begun, so that it turned hard and sure.

  Fiona sighed, and felt as if she tumbled from a height—surely it was dizziness from the whisky—yet in that moment she felt her heart bloom full—and then she knew, fou or sober, bold or shy, capable or wild, that she had begun to fall in love.

  Along with that sense of falling, stunned by her realization, she felt safe in his arms. The feeling was divine; she could think of no other word for it. He kissed her again, soothing and gentle, and she slipped her hands along his back to his shoulders, and he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her into breathlessness, tilting her head to fit his lips over hers.

  Each new kiss, a warm, luscious chain of them, made her knees tremble, her body ripple with desire. A feeling sparked inside her like a candle, a sense of joy—and love. She combed her fingers through his hair, the warm, heavy dark silk of it, and he dropped his head to trace his mouth along her jaw and her throat, and she moaned softly, desperate for more, her heart pounding.

  “Dougal,” she whispered, and then he lifted his head and held her close in a deep embrace. And she faltered a little in his arms, felt her knees go out, overtaken by whisky, and love newly realized within herself—she did not think that he felt a similar revelation. And when he pulled back, she was sure of it, for he was frowning.

  “My dear girl,” he murmured. “I did not mean to—”

  “I am glad you did.” She closed her eyes, rested against his shoulder. “Oh! I feel dizzy.”

  “No wonder. Best get you upstairs. Fiona, tell me again—what did you see, just now, in this room?”

  “A lovely creature, all sparkles and gold. She looked like a fairy. I started to tell you, but—we were distracted. Something came over me,” she said. “I cannot explain it. The kiss, I mean.”

  “Do not try,” he said. “How much did you pour from the silver flask?”

  “Not so much. It said uisge beatha an Kinloch,” she said. “Kinloch whisky. As you said.”

  “I said Glen Kinloch. One of the bottles. The silver flasks hold uisge beatha an Kinloch an Sìth—the fairy whisky of Kinloch.”

  “Fairy whisky!” She stared up at him. “But you said there is no such thing, that the brew is only a legend.”

  “We, ah, do make what is called fairy whisky from an old family recipe. It has been made in our family for generations, and we keep it secret, sharing it only among kin and friends.” Frowning, thoughtful, he watched her.

  “And I drank some?” She was delighted. “Fairy whisky, how grand!”

  “Not always,” he murmured. “It can be potent stuff for some people.”

  “That is the brew my brother tasted once,” she said. “His wife, your cousin Elspeth, said her kinsman made it. Is that you?”

  “Aye. And of those who taste it, only a few feel its strange power. Elspeth’s grandfather is one of them.”

  “I certainly felt something,” she said, widening her eyes, shaking her head.

  “What was it you thought you saw in the room?”

  “I do not think, I know. I saw a fairy woman,” Fiona said. “And she was there, just behind you. She touched you, but you did not seem to feel it.”

  “I knew she was there,” he said. “In fact, I have seen her before.”

  Fiona stared at him.

  Chapter 15

  “You saw her?” Fiona stared up at him.

  He regretted saying it so quickly; he rarely gave away so much of himself, never impulsively. The girl’s effect on him astonished him at times. “I have seen something like that, when I have tasted the fairy whisky.”

  “You said you saw her just now!” Her blue eyes were wide in her pale, lovely face, and she looked alluring enough to distract him. A flush brought on by kissing—and the drink—enhanced her natural beauty, her skin like cream, eyes sparkling blue, dark hair sheened like silk. He wanted to touch her, kiss her, and more. He did not want to talk.

  “I sensed she was there,” he said. “It is an ability I seem to have inherited from generations back. Now and then it happens.” He shrugged, as if it were nothing much.

  But Fiona had felt the rare, extraordinary response to the fairy brew, and he owed her an explanation. Reaching out, he brushed his fingers over her hair. “I am careful about giving away the fairy brew, since it can have an effect on some people.”

  “What sort of effect?”

  “The drink can give a person the power to see into the fairy realm.”

  She made a wry little face. “I think they call that belladonna.”

  “Let me clarify. It is not the drink, according to our family legend, but the Fey themselves who grant the power to a select few who taste it. For others, the drink is a decent, rather unique whisky, and nothing more.”

  “Do the Fey make the brew? I thought you made it.”

  “I do, as all lairds of Kinloch have done. The ingredients come from…an unusual source. We keep the details of the legend, and the recipe, secret for the most part.”

  “Is that because the Fey require it, or because it all sounds quite mad?”

  “It does sound strange,” he admitted. “The legend asks for secrecy outside the laird’s own family.” Suddenly he wanted very much to tell her, wanted her to be part of that circle.

  “We have an old legend in our family that sounds a bit lunatic, I suppose. And now my grandmother’s will—” She lifted her shoulders, drew the brocade robe more snugly about her, though it gapped at the neck in a most delicious way, which Dougal noticed. “Well,” she said then, “I can understand perfectly about fairy legends causing a kerfuffle in a family.”

  “The Kinloch legend asks that we give away the fairy whisky that we make. We use a recipe that supposedly was given to us by a fairy, long ago, when her life was saved by a dram of whisky given to her by the laird of Kinloch at the time.” He told her as much as he could. “We must never sell the brew, and the rest of the details are known by the laird and his closest family members. Yet the drink’s power is known, and so there is something of a reputation for Kinloch fairy whisky.” He smiled a little ruefully. “If the source of the fairy whisky was known, there are some people who would want to make some romantic spectacle out of it.”

  “And your beautiful glen would no longer be private, but filled with those who want to make the whisky, too.”

  He was pleased that she understood so quickly. “Aye. Tourists might come here, too, in droves, as they do along the southern end of the loch.”

  “You do not like strangers in your glen,” she observed.

  “Not much.
But I find that I can tolerate teachers.” He smiled a little.

  “You have been anxious to be rid of one teacher in particular,” she pointed out.

  “I am rethinking that,” he said. “Tell me about your family legend.”

  “Like yours, we have kept it quiet and within the family. There is a golden cup in the family seat at Duncrieff. Around its band is written a motto that was given to us by a fairy ancestor long ago. The cup and its sentiment give us an obligation—” She stopped, and he saw a blush fill her cheeks. She shrugged. “You will think it silly.”

  “I doubt it. I have lived with a legend of fairy whisky all my life.”

  “The cup was the gift of a fairy bride who married into our clan. The motto says, ‘Love makes its own magic.’”

  “Nothing silly about that,” he murmured, and touched her arm, drawing his fingers along to her elbow, his touch lingering, then dropping away. She gasped softly, watching him.

  “Members of the clan are sometimes expected to marry others with a touch of fairy blood,” she said quietly.

  “Now that is a bit harder to find in a mate. I have a little fairy blood, so it is said—should that interest you.” He smiled quickly, saw her blush. “And you have some fairy blood, too. I knew it already just by the way the uisge beatha an Kinloch affected you.”

  She looked surprised. “How did you know?”

  “Kinloch’s fairy brew bestows a magical ability to see the world of the Fey, but only in some people,” he said. “Those with fairy blood in their veins, in their family tree, even just a hint of it, have the wildness in their blood awakened by the whisky.”

  “So to others without the ‘fairy taint,’ as my great-aunt calls it—she says it is all nonsense, but she is not a MacCarran—it seems like any other whisky.”

  He nodded. “The fairies choose who will see them and feel magic, and who will not. And so they chose you. It must be the fairy blood.”

  “There is another reason,” she said softly, then looked up. “No matter. It is too much talking. I feel the delights of the fairy whisky wearing off. And the fairy herself has vanished,” she said, glancing over his shoulder. “What if I drink it again, so that she will come back? I need to see her again. I want to make a drawing of her. But I suppose that seems foolish.”

  “You remember what you saw,” he said. “Draw it from that. You could drink your fill of the whisky now, and still she might not reappear. She allowed herself to be seen once. The Fey are fickle and easily bored with our games.”

  “You have seen her?”

  “That one, and others, over the years, when I was a boy. Nothing much since then.”

  “I would love to know where one can find the fairy ilk in Glen Kinloch. Can you say?”

  “They are everywhere,” he said, reaching out to pull her close. “It is commonplace here.”

  “Then I came to the right glen after all,” she said.

  “I hope so.” He wondered why she still spoke of fairies. Drawing her closer, aware of the increasing desire and bond he felt with her, he was keenly aware that they were alone. What she had roused in him with those impulsive kisses earlier had taken him by storm. His body still pulsed, the feeling damnably distracting, particularly now that she stood so close.

  “Where did you see the fairy woman?” She set her hands on his arms. “Does she help you make the fairy brew?”

  “Fiona.” He wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer. “I do not want to talk about fairies, or fairy brew.”

  “But I want to know.”

  “Later,” he murmured, tracing a finger along her cheek. “And later you will tell me why you are so very interested in the Fey.”

  “Some of that I cannot tell anyone,” she said.

  “Then we both have secrets. Best leave it for now. Come upstairs to rest,” he said. “The fairy whisky is still affecting you.”

  “My head is spinning,” she admitted.

  He picked up a candle, lit earlier, and took her hand, leading her to the door and out of the library, up the turning stone steps to the uppermost landing. There, he allowed her to step up ahead of him. She reached out a hand and set it on the door latch, then looked back at him.

  In that moment, Dougal knew that he could not leave her with a mere good-night, abandoning the promise of what had happened between them—although he ought to do just that. One more kiss, he thought; one last chance to hold her before the night was gone and morning arrived. He would never find time and place to be so close, so alone, with her again.

  But his uncles were away for now, and he and Fiona were unchaperoned for the night. If more than a mere good-night occurred, he would owe her marriage. Suddenly it seemed a very attractive idea, and no ill fit for the laird of Kinloch at all. He frowned, surprised, thoughtful.

  She stood a step or two above him, here in his house, wearing his dressing gown; she had sipped the fairy whisky and knew part of its precious legend; she filled his arms and his heart so well, and he had confided in her as he never had with anyone. Trusting her felt like pure relief.

  “Fiona,” he murmured. Still holding the candle, he set it in a niche along the wall. “Wait.”

  Wordlessly, she stepped toward him and came into his arms, silently and willingly, standing one step above where he stood, their heads on a level. He touched his lips to hers, she complied. Sweet as honey, hot as the burn of whisky, that new kiss, and as it blended into another, she opened her lips beneath his and curved her body against him. Dougal cradled her head in his hand, his fingers sliding through her hair, tumbling its curling softness loose. “Fiona,” he murmured, “this is madness—”

  “It is magic,” she protested, touching her lips to his again.

  “It is the whisky,” he murmured, drawing back.

  “Not all of it,” she whispered, sliding deeper into his arms, the brocade robe falling open so that her body pressed closely, intimately to his, separated only by linen and wool.

  “More than you know,” he said, and pulled her so close, bending her back in his arms, kissing her deep now, his hand skimming along her body, down her rib cage, to her waist, her hip. Sighing, he let her go. “Up to your room now,” he said quietly. “I will not do this when you are fou.”

  “Not fou, I swear.” She reached out for him. “Stay with me.”

  He shook his head. “Go. This is not right, when you are in this state. Later,” he promised, sweeping his fingers along her cheek. He kissed her again, could not help it, his lips dragging over hers, his body pounding for satisfaction and release, so that he could hardly think. Mustering will, he pushed her away gently. “Later, my dearest girl.”

  She stepped back through the door, and turned. “What if I…should see fairies again tonight?”

  “You just may, with the whisky still upon you. But you wanted to see them, so you said.”

  “Not in my bedroom, in the dark, alone.” Her face looked pale in the shadowy darkness.

  “Go to sleep,” he suggested.

  “Dougal,” she said. “Tell me about the fairies of Kinloch. I must know—it is so important. I wish I could tell you why—but not yet.” She put a hand to her head then, the bandaged finger white in the darkness on the stairs, and shook her head slowly. “I am dizzy. So tired.”

  “The aftermath of the fairy whisky. Go inside.”

  “But I do not want—” She stopped, a hand on the doorjamb, and looked past him. “Oh!”

  “What is it?”

  “Lights,” she said. “The tiny colored lights—on the stair behind you.”

  He turned and saw them, the ones who flitted in that form, sometimes appearing at dawn or dusk, and at times when something of significance was about to happen. “Aye, the lights.”

  “You do see them, too! I wondered about that before—are they…the fairy ilk?” she whispered.

  “I have seen the wee lights since I was a lad,” he said. “They mean no harm, and only appear to let us know that they wish to pro
tect us. It is nothing to fear.”

  She smiled then, slowly, the radiant, beautiful smile that he had seen before. Now, at last, that smile was for him alone, and he savored it. “Are we the only two who can see them?” she asked.

  “That could be. I have never heard anyone other than my father mention them. Yours is a special power indeed, to see the fairy lights of Kinloch.”

  “Perhaps there is something very special between the two of us.”

  “There is,” Dougal murmured, his heart pounding hard as he realized the full truth of it.

  “I do not want to be alone tonight.” She held out her hand. “Come up to me.”

  He did, taking her fingers in his, and pushing open the door.

  The room was small and cozy, with the same plain elegance of the other rooms in the house—the solid bed, heavy four-poster hung with dark green curtains, the simple coverlet quilted white on white, a few pieces of heavy Jacobean furniture, dark walnut, sturdy pieces; an Oriental rug, worn and aged, under a stiff chair and a side table. Fiona folded her hands, stood at the foot of the bed, and turned.

  Dougal leaned against the door watching her, the shadows defining the sculpted planes of his face, the beautiful eyes, the strong jaw, the sensuous, mobile lips that had tasted so wonderful against her own lips. Her heart thudded like a storm, yet she felt shy and uncertain now, having invited this—boldly, knowingly invited this. Once again she felt the spell that he seemed to cast over her. She glanced away, and back. He still watched her.

  “You are safe here at Kinloch,” he said. “I want you to know it.”

  She nodded. “I do.” When he stepped away from the door to open it, he stopped, glanced at her. “Dougal,” she said softly. “Come here. Please do not go…and do not send me away from here, from the glen.”

  He crossed the room then, in two strides, and sank down upon the bed beside her, taking her face in his hands, touching his mouth to hers. The kiss was light at first, as if in question, and when she breathed out a moan and looped her arms around his neck, the kiss turned to passion, like a swirling, heated current that pulled them together.