by Allie Mackay
“Then what are you?”
He cocked a brow. “You cannot guess?”
Mara shook her head. “I’m not sure I want to know. I-”
A great clap of thunder swallowed her words, an ear-splitting boom that shook the windows and floor and knocked out the power, plunging the library into darkness.
Mara gasped, her hands flying to her chest. She half-expected him to pounce on her then and there, but when the lights flickered and came back on, he’d moved and now stood before the door.
“How did you get over there so quickly?” She pushed away from the table, bolder now that the long length of the room separated them. “No one can move that fast.”
“Say you?” A corner of his mouth lifted in bemusement. “Did you not know ghosts have but to wish and can be anywhere they desire?”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Mara insisted, freezing again.
“A pity you do not believe me,” he said, looking anything but remorseful. “I shall now have to convince you otherwise.”
Don’t bother, she tried to say, but the words jammed in her throat.
He was making her gallant bow, backing out through the doorway. “Until we meet again, fair lady,” his voice floated back to her.
Then all was silent.
She was alone once more.
She stared at the empty threshold, the gloom beyond. Chills swept up and down her spine, and if her heart beat any faster, she feared she’d have some kind of seizure.
Sir Alexander Douglas, he’d called himself.
A romantic-sounding name.
A knight’s name.
And one of the great Bruce’s own sworn men.
Of course. How could it be otherwise?
Just like some nuts who believed in reincarnation, claiming to be Caesar or Cleopatra. Always the high druid priestess and never the peasant. Such people suffered illusions of grandeur, swelling their heads on vanity-driven nonsense.
Her Highlander had lots of company. And some of them lived in rubber-walled rooms.
Mara frowned, her gaze still on the empty doorway.
Wasn’t it her luck to run into such a nut in Scotland?
She bit back a hysterical laugh and glanced at the book on chivalry. He certainly looked the part. If she were going to conjure up her own knight in shining armor, he would definitely be it.
Her breath still unsteady, she snatched up the book and clutched it to her heart. Much as she hated to admit it, if she tried really hard, she could go along with him pretending to be a knight.
Even tolerate his rudeness.
There wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for such an absolutely gorgeous man.
But she drew the line at him claiming to be a ghost.
She, Mara McDougall, late of South Philly, and, more recently, mistress of Ravenscraig Castle in Highland Scotland, wanted nothing to do with ghosts, real or imagined.
Not scary ones.
Not friendly ones.
And most assuredly not irresistibly sexy ones.
Chapter Six
Much later, Mara pushed away from the table and stretched, cricks and cramps plaguing her every move. She winced and rolled her shoulders, then reached to rub the back of her neck with stiff and aching fingers. Throbbing silence pulsed around her, the library’s slightest stirs and whispers defeated by the stillness of the hour.
Even the crackle and hiss of the log fire had ceased around midnight, but a damp wind yet sighed past the windows. Scudding gray clouds, too, their drifting passage turning the night into a world of silver and shadows.
She shivered, swiveling round to peer into the room’s deepest and emptiest corners. The ones behind her. There, where more than dust motes might shimmer in the quiet.
A quiet unnatural enough to make her narrow her eyes to better probe the darkness.
Her father had sworn that Scotland held magic. Dancing faeries and water kelpies, powers not of this world. All of that was there, he’d insist, alive and waiting, in the blue of hill, sea, and sky.
Don’t doubt the warp and weft of your heritage. His familiar words filled her heart, so real she could almost feel him behind her, his age-spotted hands resting on her shoulders. There isn’t an inch of the Highlands not steeped in legend. Wonders can happen there – if only you open your heart.
She could almost believe it.
Or, at least, she was beginning to admit there was something.
A beguiling magic spun of mist, heather, and romance.
The lure of ancient stones and Gaelic myth, captivating and seductive, ever-present in the blood, and set free to flame out of control whenever ancestral memories were stirred. Especially if you dared set foot on Scottish soil. Then there could be no going back, no denial of the call of home.
Or so Hugh McDougall claimed.
Not about to refute him at this uncanny hour, Mara sat up straighter, squaring her shoulders against any possible forms of unwelcome Highland enchantments. The kind that might slink about on such chill, wet nights. So she took a deep breath, steeling herself to scan the library one more time.
“I know you’re here,” she blurted, shoving back her hair.
Indeed, she was so sure of it, her breath caught and her skin tingled.
She could feel him. Every hunky six-foot-four Highland inch of him.
But not there where silvery spills of moonlight poured through the tall, mullioned windows. Nor did she sense him near the cluttered, well-lit table where she’d been working since lunchtime.
He was there all the same.
She just knew he was hovering in the shadows, stony-faced and disapproving, his arrogance and irritation filling the darkness as he spied on her.
She frowned, imagined she heard a low masculine chuckle.
“Show yourself,” she demanded, rubbing the gooseflesh from her arms, ignoring the prickles on her nape.
But glare round as she might, nothing knightly glowered back at her.
Nor anything more Highlandy than the faded tartans hanging on the wall.
Certainly not hard green eyes, proud and challenging, their depths as brooding as an angry sea one moment, alight with secret bemusement the next.
Even the bone-chilling cold seemed to have receded.
What remained was the mess she’d made.
That, and her growling stomach. Grimacing, she pressed a hand against her middle, glad that no one but her and old Ben could hear the rumblings.
She’d devoured the last of the parmesan oatcakes hours ago and she’d forgotten dinner. It still waited for her on a cloth-covered rolling cart, untouched and cold beneath a gleaming silver dome.
Whatever her meal had been, she’d ignored it. And she didn’t want it now. Exhaustion weighed heavier than hunger, but she didn’t regret a single moment of her efforts.
Every ache and pain had been worth the toil. The chaos of emptied bookshelves and scattered documents. Even skipping her dinner and straining her eyes until the backs of her eyelids felt like sandpaper.
She’d found what she’d been looking for: verification of the existence of a certain medieval knight.
Sir Alexander Douglas truly had existed.
A lesser kinsman to the powerful Douglases of the south, he’d been bastard born to a Macdonald woman of Moidart in the West Highlands, growing up in the shadow of that clan’s remote Castle Tioram, until he’d gone to spend his later youth in the service of his father’s illustrious family.
Ravenscraig’s books on medieval Scotland described him as a young man of energy, initiative, and charm, claiming that Clan Douglas welcomed him enthusiastically despite his lowly origins. By all accounts, he rose swiftly to knighthood, eventually joining his better-known cousin, the Good Sir James, in his fierce support of Robert the Bruce.
Soon thereafter, the well-loved bastard from an area of the Highlands so wild it was known as Garbh chriochan, or the Rough Bounds, carved himself a place in history by becoming one of the hero king’s most trusted men.
So valued, the books revealed, that King Robert had indeed granted him Ravenscraig Castle. Along with the hand of Isobel MacDougall.
An honor bestowed on the knight in the distant year of 1307.
Mara drew a deep breath, resisting the urge to open the books and reread the entries. Not that there was a need. She already knew every line.
Each one fit the hot Scot’s story.
Until the part about Sir Alexander Douglas journeying to claim the MacDougall holding. His arranged marriage to the beauteous Ravenscraig heiress.
Lady Isobel MacDougall.
Mara’s ancestress, if only by the tenuous thread of a shared name.
With Lady Isobel, the golden-voiced Highlander’s tale veered from the truth.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the two words slipping past her lips before she’d even realized she regretted her findings.
Irrefutable revelations.
And damning.
Sir Alexander Douglas had been a rat.
A draught of cold air swept past her on the admittance, but she scarce noticed. Her head ached and her eyes burned with what could only be fatigue. An increasing weariness that blurred the jumble of books piled beside her laptop. She blinked and touched one the older volumes, caressed the smooth, embossed leather of its cover.
When she curled her fingers around the book’s spine, the library’s silence thickened. It was a deep and eerie quiet, broken only by the wind and the splatter of rain against the windows. Glancing that way, she caught a distant flicker of lightning, heard the muted rumble of faraway thunder.
An odd sense of urgency seized her, the feeling of being watched from behind. This time she wasn’t about to turn around.
Instead, she released an agitated sigh. “How was I to know what the books would say?” she grumbled, half convinced he’d hear her. “Is that why you’re so angry? Because history’s maligned you?”
A condemnation he’d apparently deserved.
The real Sir Alexander, she amended, fixing her gaze on a wide band of moonlight slanting across the carpet. A scoundrel of the first water, the lout had been anything but ambushed and killed by Colin MacDougall.
The historical facts brought a very different tale to light.
And it wasn’t heroic.
Chroniclers of his day claimed that Sir Alexander stole the MacDougalls’ most prized possession, a precious ruby-studded brooch they’d gleaned from Robert Bruce’s own cloak.
A sacred reliquary, known as the Bloodstone of Dalriada, seized by chance during a struggle at Dalrigh.
More damning still, every book she’d found on the era painted Sir Alexander as not having a chivalrous bone in his body.
Fully without scruple, he’d left Lady Isobel at the altar. Not only absconding with Clan MacDougall’s priceless heirloom, but shaming their most revered daughter.
Mara leaned back in her chair, listened to the increased hammering of the rain. The squally wind. She laced her fingers together and cracked her knuckles. No wonder the wretch vanished from history after such a coup.
Like as not, he’d used riches gained from the sale of the MacDougall heirloom to finance a comfortable life far from Scotland’s shores.
The rogue!
And what an appropriate historical personage for Hottie Scottie to choose as his knightly alias - a blackguard bent on frightening her away from Ravenscraig.
A con artist who preyed on rich women and thought he could win her over with such an incredulous claim.
Mara shuddered, stroked Ben’s ears when he stretched to his feet and shuffled over to her. He let out a contented old-dog groan and dropped his head on her knee, gazing at her with canine devotion. Unthinkable if ever hunky should turn such moon eyes on her.
Or any female.
With his stunning good looks and a burr that would melt a woman at twenty paces, he very well could’ve left a string of murdered heiresses from Land’s End to John O’ Groats! Maybe even throughout the Western Isles and on up to Orkney and Shetland. She could see him seducing his way across the land, taking advantage of love-struck innocents.
Perhaps he specialized in Americans, knowing how easily they fell for Scotsmen.
A flash of plaid, and a few aboots and doons, sufficed. Likely, he had a well-rehearsed routine for rich tourists. A tried and true scheme he’d used repeatedly, and with success.
Mara bristled.
She wasn’t sure how he meant to go about deceiving her, but his plan wouldn’t work.
She might be inexperienced at being an heiress, but One Cairn Avenue had been good for something. Philly’s less than best addresses prepared a girl for anything, and everything. She knew how to take care of herself.
No matter how hard he might try to convince her he was the ghost of a medieval knight.
At least he wasn’t claiming to be Robert the Bruce, or, Mara’s other favorite, William Wallace.
Though she suspected he had both men’s way with the opposite sex.
“We aren’t that gullible, are we, sweet boy?” She leaned down to kiss Ben’s scruffy head. If she weren’t so tired, she would have laughed out loud.
The schemer couldn’t have chosen a worse method to use on her.
A ghost!
Wouldn’t he be surprised to learn that she knew exactly what kind of two-faced character he’d chosen for his assumed identity?
That little tidbit should put an end to his harassment.
Once he knew she was on to him, he’d vanish as quickly as his long-dead namesake had done centuries ago.
Only this Alexander Douglas would leave empty-handed.
She glanced at the windows again, watched the moon appear between fast-moving clouds. Almost full, it cast a wide band of silver across the inky waters of the firth before it disappeared again.
If only he’d stay vanished.
Better yet, if she’d stop letting him obsess her.
But it was too late, for he’d already kissed her. However briefly.
She could still feel his lips brushing across hers, the intimate warmth of his breath on her cheek. She remembered too well the jolt of sensual heat the kiss had sent streaking through her.
An incredibly delicious heat, fluid and molten, shocking in its intensity.
She took a long, shaky breath. Clearly her exhaustion and the lateness of the hour were getting to her. He didn’t deserve her, or any woman, rhapsodizing about his kiss.
Especially one that had been too swift for her to even get a taste of his tongue.
Damn!
Her heart skittered and her pulse leapt. Why did she have to think of that?
Blocking her mind before any further such nonsense could pop into it, she stood, pressed a hand to the small of her aching back.
It was high time she sought her bed.
“My bed,” she emphasized as she started toward the door, old Ben trailing after her.
The silence and shadows followed her, too.
A palpable presence, closing in on her swiftly, giving her the willies.
As did the sound of stealthy footsteps approaching the library.
She froze, slid her fingers around Ben’s collar.
Dragging him with her, she hurried across the room, plastering herself against the wall beside the door at the same moment someone eased it open.
She willed Ben not to bark, hoped she didn’t make a sound either. But her jaw dropped and she almost gasped when Prudentia glided past her hiding place.
Garbed in a flowing silken gown of a dusky rose color, the castle cook held her arms extended before her and clutched something that looked like metal clothes hangers in her hands. Fully in her own world, she began moving about the library with the rolling gait of a drunken sailor.
Mara stared at her, her eyes widening by the moment.
Humming softly, Prudentia made ever-smaller circles around the room, coming close enough on one sweep for Mara to recognize the metal rods she held weren’t clothes hangers at all.
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They were dowsing rods.
Mara’s heart began to pound, her cheeks flaming.
Dowsing rods belonged in the same category as ghosts and other such bunk that went bump in the night.
Things she wanted nothing to do with.
Still, she watched with morbid fascination. Repelled and intrigued at the same time. Until the woman stopped in the exact spot where Alexander Douglas had been standing when she’d first seen him that afternoon.
To her horror, the metal rods in the cook’s hands went berserk, clacking loudly against each other as she moved in and out of the area where he’d stood.
“Speak to me!” Prudentia urged in an excited whisper. “Come to-”
“Stop that this instant!” Mara cried, rushing forward.
Ben barked.
The cook spun around. Her large bosom heaved and a peculiar gleam lit her beady brown eyes. The dowsing rods stopped clacking and pointed straight at Mara.
“What do you think you’re doing?” A muscle twitched in Mara’s jaw. “Those are dowsing rods.”
Prudentia composed herself instantly, assuming an almost regal posture. “So they are, aye.”
“Get rid of them.” Mara took a step closer. “I won’t have such things beneath my roof.”
The cook eyed her with a look that could only be called superior. “There is a very distressed spirit present and you’d be wise to show a bit of compassion. Such entities need our understanding.”
“Our?”
Prudentia nodded. “Those of us still on the earth plane.”
“I think you’re the one who will be in need of understanding when I inform Murdoch about this.”
Some of the woman’s haughtiness slid away. “I’m only trying to help,” she said, slipping the dowsing rods into her pocket. “The new presence is very upset. I don’t think he likes you.”
“I don’t care if he hates me. There is no such thing as a ghost, Mrs. MacIntyre. Not here, not anywhere.”
“O-o-oh!” Prudentia winced, pressed fingers to her temples. “You shouldn’t have said that. He says you’ve insulted him.”
“I think it’s time you went to your quarters.” Mara placed a hand on the woman’s elbow and steered her to the door. “If this doesn’t happen again, I won’t tell Murdoch.”