by Allie Mackay
“Aunt Birdie” - she glanced at her aunt – “we only talked about him. When you bumped into him as we left the hotel, he could have been anyone. Or did you see him in the pub?”
The slow curve of Aunt Birdie’s lips was answer enough.
“I knew it! You did see him.”
“You didn’t?” Aunt Birdie shot her an amused glance. “He was at a back table in the Bistro Bar nearly the whole time we were there. My dear, I do believe he’s quite enamored of you. He looked ready to eat you up with a spoon.”
Ready to eat her.
The image of his dark head between her thighs flashed across Cilla's mind. Her belly clenched and a flood of tingly heat swept low. She fisted her hands in her lap, ignoring the sensations.
“He's quite handsome, isn’t he?” Her aunt chattered on. “Can you imagine being kissed by such a man?”
She could. That was the problem.
She settled back in her seat, somehow keeping her nerves from unraveling. “Why didn’t you tell me you could see him?”
“I was hoping you’d mention him first.” Aunt Birdie flipped on the CD player. A lively pipe tune filled the car’s interior. “Not that it matters now. Your young man has solved that particular hurdle for us.”
“And the others?” Cilla lifted her voice above Uncle Mac’s favorite pipe tune, “Paddy’s Leather Breeches.”
A short melody, the screaming pipes faded away quickly. But they started up again at once, the blaring tones even louder the second time.
Cilla’s ears began to throb.
Aunt Birdie looked oblivious.
Even when the tune ended and started up a third time, once more louder than before.
“That’s your uncle’s doing.” Aunt Birdie brimmed with amusement. “The CD plays that same tune over and over again. But-”
“You don’t mind because you know how much Uncle Mac loves it.”
“That’s right. Seeing how his face lights when he hears it makes the listening worthwhile.” Aunt Birdie swung into Dunroamin’s long drive. “You see, my dear, when someone matters, when you love them more than life itself, living and breathing to see them happy, you look past things that others might find irritating.”
“Or impossible.” Cilla now knew why her aunt switched on the pipe music.
“That, too.” Aunt Birdie slid a meaningful glance her way. “Where there’s love there’s always- good heavens!”
She slammed on the brakes.
Her eyes rounded. “What’s Violet doing on a creepie in the middle of the garden?”
“A creepie?” Cilla’s breath caught, shades of her window devil flashing across her mind.
Aunt Birdie flicked a finger towards the lawn. “The low, three-legged stool Violet is sitting on.”
“Oh.” Cilla leaned forward, peering through the mist until she spotted the tiny woman.
Just as Aunt Birdie said, Violet Manyweathers appeared to perch on an unusually low stool. Great swaths of fog swirled around her and she sat hunched over, her stooped back and all the mist giving her the look of a crone out of some ancient Celtic saga.
Cilla thought of one from a series of Scottish medieval romance novels she’d once read. A fearsome old bat called Devorgilla or something.
She shivered. “What’s she doing?”
“I don’t know, but she isn’t alone.” Aunt Birdie’s gaze went past Violet to the clutch of residents gathered on the terrace outside Dunroamin’s glass-walled conservatory. “Everyone but your uncle appears to be out in the rain with her.”
Cilla glanced at the terrace. Gently illuminated by several mock gas lanterns, it was easy to make out the anxious-faced onlookers.
Aunt Birdie was right.
Uncle Mac wasn’t there.
But before Cilla could puzzle why, Leo shot into view. Barking wildly, the dachshund streaked across the lawn, making for Violet. Reaching her, he ran circles around her, his short legs pumping at great speed.
Cilla’s eyes flew wide. “He’s really excited.”
Aunt Birdie stared. “What the-”
“It’s him!” Colonel Darling’s voice pierced the chaos. “That bloody boxtie!”
Hurrying towards the car, he held his walking stick high in the air, waving it over his head as he ran. He used his other hand to hold his protective deerstalker hat clamped tight on his notably bald pate. His face, ruddy on the best of days, had taken on a purple hue.
“Oh, dear.” Aunt Birdie tossed Cilla a here-comes-trouble look, then leapt from the car.
Cilla did the same.
“Achilles.” Aunt Birdie reached to grasp the colonel’s tweed-jacketed arms when he skidded to a halt in front of them. “What in the world is going on here?”
“I just told you!” He kept his cane whirling round his head. “It’s that damned bird.”
“Gregor?” Aunt Birdie used her softest voice.
“Is there any other?” The colonel scowled and shook free of her grip.
Huffing, he brushed at his sleeves. “The abominable creature showed up on a library window ledge just as we were settling in for tea.”
He sounded scandalized.
Aunt Birdie kept her cool. “Gregor often perches on windows.”
“With red cord snagged all round his damty legs?” Colonel Darling’s brows snapped together. “A shame the cord wasn’t wrapped round his neck, I say!”
Aunt Birdie and Cilla exchanged looks.
“A red cord?” Aunt Birdie looked to where Violet still sat on her stool, her back bent near double. “Is that what she’s doing? Untangling a cord?”
The colonel’s face turned a deeper shade of purple. “Fool woman announced she had to save him. If she didn’t, the bird might hurt himself.” He leaned close, his silver mustache quivering. “Off she went into the rain and wind, the whole bleeding household trailing after her. I ask you, have you ever heard such nonsense? We’d be better off without that vile-”
Auk, auk!
Gregor’s cry cut him off. Then the bird appeared, waddling away from Violet’s stool with the awkward rolling steps used by so many great birds of prey on land.
Cilla recognized him at once. He was the big bird from Castle Varrich.
His cry, too, was unmistakable. As was the cheeky way he held his brown-feathered head.
The mentioned red cord was nowhere to be seen.
Blessedly, the bonxie’s legs were free.
As if testing that freedom, Gregor took another few tottering steps and then turned around to fix Violet with a piercing stare. His white-patched wings shot upwards in a victorious V-shaped greeting.
Auk, auk, he screeched again.
Violet laughed delightedly. Pushing slowly to her feet, she clapped her hands.
On the terrace, a great cheer arose.
Achilles Darling huffed.
When the bird took flight, winging away toward the moors, the colonel lowered his walking stick and released his grip on his deerstalker hat.
Then his gaze fell on the interior of Aunt Birdie’s car.
His eyes bulged, comprehension swift. “That’s the devil face Cook saw!” He yanked open the backseat door, peering inside. “And this” – he grabbed a long red cord dangling from one side of the mask – “is the same cording that was tangled round Gregor’s legs!”
“That would seem the way of it.” Aunt Birdie gave him her sunniest smile. “A riddle solved, yes.”
“Humph!” He stepped back, dusting his hands. “I knew that bird caused the uproar!”
“Perhaps it’s a good thing that he did.” Cilla kept her thoughts on her devil face to herself. “If he hadn’t found the mask, we’d never have known it was a mask. Behag Finney might have had nightmares for the rest of her life.”
Colonel Darling snorted. “If you asked me, I’d wager Gregor didn’t find the mask. I say he stole it!”
“Wherever he got it, Mac needs to hear about this.” Aunt Birdie started pulling the mask from her car. She glanced over he
r shoulder at the colonel. “Do you know where he is?”
“I do.” The colonel’s chest swelled with importance. “He’s in the armory with a kilted young Highlander who looks like he walked off the set of Brigadoon.”
Cilla’s heart slammed against her ribs. “He’s here already!”
Aunt Birdie’s face wreathed in a smile. “So he’s a man of his word.”
“Eh?” The colonel gave them both a narrowed-eyed look, but held his tongue.
Of course, Cilla wouldn’t have cared what he said.
She had other things on her mind. Delightfully reassuring things like her aunt’s vow that where there’s love, nothing is impossible.
Cilla couldn’t have agreed more.
Chapter Ten
A trace of sandalwood greeted Cilla the instant Aunt Birdie threw open Dunroamin’s front door. A trill of excitement made her heart jump as they hurried into the castle’s vast entry. Behind them, Leo’s excited, high-pitched yips still resounded from the garden.
Glancing back, Cilla saw the little dog dash across the lawn, racing for the terrace. Violet Manyweathers followed at a slower pace. Colonel Darling trudged along after her, the three-legged creepie tucked beneath his arm.
Amazingly, Violet sported his deerstalker hat.
“Would you look at that?” Cilla grabbed her aunt’s elbow, pulling her back to the door. “He gave Violet his hat.”
Aunt Birdie laughed. “I told you he's all bluster.” She shifted the devil mask on her hip. “He'll be worried Violet will catch a cold if she gets her head wet. Between us, I think he's a bit soft on her.”
Cilla smiled and reached to turn up her jacket collar. Violet Manyweathers wasn’t the only one in danger of getting drenched. Wind slung icy splitters of rain against the castle and across the stone of the outside steps.
A wet gust swept past them into the entry, lifting the edges of the tapestries and making a few of the standing suits of armor rattle in their wall niches. Aunt Birdie shoved at the heavy oaken door with her hip and Cilla rushed to help her, pushing with both hands. They strained against the wind until the door slammed shut with a bang.
“Wow, those have to be gale force winds.” Cilla swept a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her eyes.
Then she frowned.
An aquatic chorus filled the air.
And it wasn’t the rain lashing at the windows. The great din came from the dark passage leading away from the entry and deeper into the castle.
Drips, plinks, plonks, and – most alarming of all – the distant gush of running water.
“The roof leaks!” She flashed a horrified look at her aunt. “I didn’t realize it was so bad.”
Aunt Birdie glanced at the rain-streaked windows. “Only on such nights. As you can see” – she jerked her head at a plastic bucket near the silvered feet of one of the standing knights – “we’re quite prepared.”
A door on the other side of the entry flew open and Honoria sailed in, her arms lined with what looked to be dented and rusting milk pails.
“We’ve used up our supply of drip-catchers.” She didn’t break stride as she hurried past. “I fetched these from the old byre. They should keep us dry!”
Then she was gone, her tweedy bulk nipping around a corner as quickly as she’d appeared. The ancient milking pails clinked in her wake.
Looking not at all put out, Aunt Birdie hitched the red devil mask against her hip again and started down the dimly-lit passage.
The one that echoed with the loudest drip-serenade.
“Aunt Birdie!” Cilla hastened after her, dodging trickles and weaving her way around the assorted buckets, pails, and cook pots lining the plaid-carpeted passage. “You can’t live like this.”
Her aunt stopped at once.
Turning around, she waited for Cilla to catch up with her.
“My dear, have you forgotten what I told you in the car?” She bent to adjust the placement of a large glass casserole dish so it better caught drips.
Straightening, she tucked her hair behind her ear. “Just as I love your uncle, so do I love his home. This” - she indicated the drip-containers – “will all pass when the time is right for it to do so. Until then, if need be, I’ll sit on the floor and catch the water in my hands.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
The look on Aunt Birdie’s face was answer enough.
It also put a hot swelling lump in Cilla’s throat.
How wonderful to love so fiercely.
She swallowed hard, in the same moment catching another waft of sandalwood. Her breath caught and her heart did a double flip. She hadn’t realized how deep into the passage they’d gone. The door to Uncle Mac’s armory loomed right ahead of them.
Something told her that once she crossed the threshold, there’d be no going back.
Her Dunroamin waited within, and once she embraced it she had a feeling she’d be as ready as Aunt Birdie to listen to overloud pipe tunes and catch water drips in her hands.
There was only one way to find out.
So she took a deep breath and glanced at her aunt, reassured to see the older woman’s encouraging nod.
Then – before she could change her mind – she put her hand on the door latch.
Her heart pounded harder.
The door swung open with ease.
“Ach, laddie!” Uncle Mac's mirth-filled voice boomed from across the weapon-hung room. “You're a man after my own heart. A pity it is you've just now found your way here.”
Cilla and her aunt exchanged glances.
Aunt Birdie hid a smile.
Cilla stared at her uncle and Hardwick, amazed by their apparent ease with each other. Both kilted and looking like two Celtic chieftains of old, they stood near the tatty tartan sofa placed halfway between the hearth and the room’s row of tall, mullioned windows.
A flash of lightning silvered the leaded panes, lining their silhouettes against the rainy night.
Cilla’s pulse leapt, a fierce jolt of excitement hitting her. Again, she imagined she glimpsed a sword at Hardwick’s hip. The notion that he wore - and knew how to wield - such a proud and ancient weapon, weakened her knees.
Every wildly romantic, sword-swinging Highland-y film she’d ever seen flashed through her mind. She could see Hardwick in such a role, especially in the heated love scenes that often followed, with the hero riding off into the hills, his lady sitting astride behind him, arms wrapped tight around his powerful body, and her long, unbound hair flying as the streaked across the heather.
She drew a tight breath, wonder filling her. The kind of yearning she’d never have believed existed.
Now she knew.
And everything she’d ever thought to have understood about desire, about love, faded to nothing. Total insignificance, as she stared at the man she knew she couldn’t have.
Not really, despite Aunt Birdie’s optimism.
But, oh, how she wanted him.
Unaware they’d been disturbed, her uncle and Hardwick clinked dram glasses, sharing a manly moment. They didn't look around until – almost on its own - the door jerked from Cilla’s grasp and fell shut with a loud click.
Hardwick's gaze snapped to hers. The air between them ignited, rippling and crackling as if ablaze. The power of it scorched her. His mouth curved in another of his slow, heart-melting smiles. As if he, too, felt the sizzling pull between them. Then his eyes went dark with a heated gaze that curled her toes.
“Oh, my.” Cilla touched a hand to her cheek.
Aunt Birdie nudged her with an elbow. “That’s it,” she whispered. “The look I told you about.”
“Ho!” Her uncle swung towards them. “About time you two returned.”
“We ran into someone.” Cilla’s gaze stayed on Hardwick. Looking anywhere else was impossible. Even in the room’s deep shadows, he dazzled her. “And he-”
She broke off, her chest tightening with almost painful awareness. She moistened her lips, her heart gallo
ping. “We met someone,” she repeated, forcing her attention on her uncle, not sure what Hardwick had told him. “We lost track-”
“We’d hoped to have dinner at the Ben Loyal’s An Garbh restaurant, but they were full up.” Aunt Birdie came to her rescue. “If we’d dined there as planned, we would’ve been much later.”
“I know that fine.” Uncle Mac hooked his thumbs in his kilt belt. “And I’ve heard all about how you met my young friend here.” He rocked back on his heels, looking delighted. “Thanks to him - a Highland Shaw of the good Clan Chattan - I also know about Gregor’s mask. It’s been a grand e’en!”
He flashed a grin at Hardwick. “You’ll ne’er believe who we just talked to!”
“Oh?” Aunt Birdie lifted a brow, slid a knowing glance at Cilla. “You might be surprised at what I believe.”
Cilla stepped on her toe.
Hardwick – clearly the other half of her uncle’s exuberant we – came forward to take the red devil mask from Aunt Birdie’s arms.
Leaning close to Cilla, he dropped his gaze to her foot, pitching his voice for her ears alone. “He doesn’t know. No’ that.”
Cilla’s face warmed. She knew exactly what he meant.
His ghostdom.
Uncle Mac wasn’t aware he’d been conversing with a ghost, a Highland bogle.
“Thank goodness,” Cilla spoke just as softly. She also removed her foot from her aunt’s, relief flooding her.
“Dinnae tell me you aren’t curious?” Uncle Mac was staring at them, his bearded chin jutting.
“Of course, we’re interested.” Aunt Birdie went to sit on the sofa. “Who did you call?”
“Erlend Eggertson!”
Cilla had to smile at the triumph on her uncle’s face.
“Erlend Eggertson?” She put a deliberate note of wonder in her voice. “That’s amazing.”
“Isn’t it, just!” Uncle Mac’s chest swelled.
He slid a glance at Hardwick. “There aren’t many souls what can hide when two Highlanders put their heads together.”
“How did you find him?” Cilla really wanted to know. “Aunt Birdie said there aren’t any Eggertsons around here.”