Gone, from one instant to the next, the creeping autumn mists closing around them, muffling the sounds of their departure and blocking them from view.
At once, deep silence settled over Baldreagan’s bailey … until Munro noisily blew his nose.
Jamie glanced him, even started toward him, but Munro scowled and waved him away. “Do you not have anything better to do than gawk at an auld done man?” he snapped, his voice at least two shades thicker than it should have been.
His jaw thrusting forward, he fixed Jamie with his fiercest glare. “Patrolling the battlements mayhap? Or sharpening your sword?”
“Lucifer’s knees,” Jamie swore beneath his breath. “He’d try the patience of St. Columba. Does he not ken that I—”
“Leave be,” Aveline urged, placing a hand on Jamie’s arm and squeezing. “He is only sad to see the MacKenzies leave. Come nightfall, he will be in better fettle.”
“Ach, to be sure,” Jamie agreed, watching Morag help his da back inside the hall. “So soon as he is hungry and kens no one will serve him so much as a dried bannock unless he wipes the frown off his face.”
Not that Munro was alone in his grimness.
If truth be told, everyone still lurking about the bailey was frowning.
Or at least looking dispirited.
Glum.
Even the sun’s feeble autumn warmth had fled and the afternoon’s chill was increasing with the lengthening shadows, a faint smirr of cold thin rain even beginning to splatter the cobbles. The wind was picking up, too, its random gusts sending wispy curtains of damp, gray mist scuttling over the walls and across the bailey. But no one complained, even if something somewhere had set the castle dogs barking and snarling.
The gloom matched the moods of those slowly returning to the keep, the usual goings-on of the castle’s daily business.
Only one soul smiled.
A tall and hooded figure standing unnoticed in the deep shadows of one of the wooden byres stretching along the curtain wall.
The departure of the MacKenzie she-bitches and their pack of swell-headed, muscle-packed watchdogs would prove the turning of the tide for Clan Macpherson.
It’d been tedious to move in and out of the keep with so many souls in residence.
So many sets of curious, probing eyes and too many extra sword arms.
The nuisance of unexpected interference.
The figure allowed one slight tightening of the lips. Had it not been for the ill-timed appearance of a drink-taken MacKenzie guardsman careening out of the shadows near the postern gate, a half-clothed kitchen wench still clinging to him, all giggly and smitten, a certain crossbow shot would have fired true.
Blessedly, they’d both been too ale-headed to notice anything amiss.
Indeed, the MacKenzies’ visit had been an annoyance, but they’d left now.
The figure’s smile returned.
Any other difficulties and disturbances could be easily dealt with. Proving it, the figure wagged a finger at the handful of bristly-backed, snarling castle dogs, then began scrounging inside a worn leather pouch kept for just such purposes.
A fine and large meat bone soon appeared and sailed through the air, landing on the rain-dampened cobbles with a satisfying kerplunk.
As was to be anticipated, the offensive yapping and growling ceased at once. The figure forgotten, the mangy curs pounced on the bone, their greedy hunger outweighing the danger of a mere two-legged trespasser.
The figure watched them with pleasure, sure in the knowledge that it mattered not a whit how many dogs prowled Baldreagan’s bailey or how often the addle-witted laird changed his sleeping quarters.
Nor would it avail any of them that one son yet lived.
For the nonce.
A grievous betrayal would soon be righted, fullest vengeance achieved at last.
And this time nothing would go wrong.
Do not do anything foolhardy.
Arabella MacKenzie’s warning rang louder in Jamie’s ears the longer he stood in the cold, dank shadows at the back of St. Maelrubha’s chapel, an armful of late-blooming heather clutched against his chest and his feet seemingly frozen to the stone-flagged floor. Damnable feet, for each one refused to move, stubbornly ignoring his best efforts and not letting him take the last few steps toward his mother’s tomb.
His bride, bless her, showed no such infirmity.
Looking wholly at ease, she moved about the nave placing new candles on wrought-iron prickets, her shining pale-haired presence and fresh violet scent a breath of welcome life in the damp and musty little chapel.
Scores of tiny votive lights were already lit and burning when they’d entered and to Jamie’s mind, the pinpoints of twinkling light only strengthened the image of her as a Sithe princess in a gold-lit, enchanted glade.
He frowned.
In truth, it was a dark rain-chilled eve with thick mist shrouding the churchyard. Eerie, drifting swaths of gloom, each swirling curtain of gray demonstrated how easily a gullible soul might mistake the like for a bogle gliding across the burial ground.
Jamie put back his shoulders, willing his heart to stop knocking so crazily.
He was anything but gullible.
But if coming here wasn’t foolhardy, he didn’t know what was.
He swallowed, then immediately wished he hadn’t. Doing so only let him know how dry his throat had gone. How discomfited he was. At least this time none of his knightly ancestors were draped in wet plaid, though someone had replenished the rowan clusters.
New sprigs of the bright, red-ribboned charms were tucked in niches throughout the chapel and the Na Clachan Breugach stone just outside the door arch also appeared to have been redressed with a fresh rowan garland.
Red ribbon and all.
Whoe’er had seen to the rowan, and Jamie suspected that someone was Hughie Mac, was looking after the chapel as well, for a trace of recently burned incense overlaid the smell of old smoke and damp stone, and a fine, clean-looking cloth graced the altar.
Even so, the air of oppression almost choked him. He looked about, seeking escape yet knowing he’d ne’er take it.
Not with Aveline already standing at his mother’s tomb, her head reverently bowed. She’d clasped her hands solemnly before her and her softly spoken prayers proved a heart-gripping contrast to the chapel’s cold stone vaulting, its wicked bone-biting chill.
Glancing aside, Jamie noticed that the door of the aumbry in the chapel’s east wall stood cracked, the little cupboard appearing filled with candles. Going there now, he set down his clutch of heather long enough to use his steel and flint to light a taper, then touched its flame to several others, hoping the additional light would help dispel a bit more of the chapel’s gloom.
And once lit, the long wax candles did throw warm golden light onto the weathered stone walls. Unfortunately, the light also fell across the carved and silent faces of Jamie’s slumbering forebears.
A shudder slid down his spine. He breathed deep, trying not to see the rows of knightly effigies. He also did his best not to imagine the nine new ones that would soon join them.
Above all, he sought to ignore the finest tomb of all, the lovely marble one looming just ahead of him, behind the high altar and the dark oaken rood screen.
There, where his feet refused to go.
Determined to have done with the visit and be gone, he tried to move forward again, and couldn’t.
He started then, for the air suddenly felt different. A slight shifting perhaps, almost as if the ancient stone walls had begun to breathe. Shivering openly now, he rubbed his arms and looked around.
The wind must’ve blown away some of the night’s lowering clouds for moonlight was beginning to stream in through the arched doorway and the thin slit windows, each bright and slanting moonbeam an illumination he could have done without.
Jamie, come close … I would see you.
He froze, his heart slamming against his ribs.
A beautiful
woman, tall and well made, stood beside his mother’s tomb, her lush curves limned silver by the moon, the streaming mass of her tumbled, unbound hair the same burnished copper as his own.
She smiled at him and reached a milky white hand in his direction, the peace and love pouring off her making it impossible not to go to her.
But as soon as he took the first step, the moonlight shifted and the illusion faded. The woman standing before him was still beautiful, but her hair was shimmering flaxen, not the gleaming fire of a thousand Highland sunsets.
And though sweet and dear and perfect as he’d e’er wish, her womanly curves were lithe and delicate, not bold, lush and welling.
Nor was she tall.
“Jamie, come close,” she said, smiling at him, offering him her hand. “I want you to see how beautiful she is.”
But Jamie already knew.
Just as he’d heard his bride’s words a moment before she’d spoken them.
If indeed they’d been her words.
He did know that now, finally, he’d be welcomed when, after so many years, he looked again on his mother’s ornamental grave slab. The hauntingly exquisite effigy so lovely he’d blocked the image from his boyhood mind, unable to bear the guilt of being responsible for her death.
“Jamie, the heather.” Aveline touched his arm, giving him a slight shake. “You’ve dropped it.”
And he had, without even realizing.
The whole great bundle of tiny purple and white blooms lay strewn across the floor.
Kneeling, he began to gather them, his annoyance at having dropped the heather turning to dismay when he saw the poor state of the chapel floor beneath his mother’s tomb.
Cracked and uneven, the stone flagging looked in dire need of repair. Some of the stones were even broken away, leaving dark holes in the floor’s surface.
A dangerous and unacceptable circumstance, especially when he recalled how Aveline had slipped on the slick chapel flooring during their previous visit.
“Nay, stay there.” He waved her away when she made to drop down beside him. “I have the blooms,” he added, snatching up the last bit of the fallen heather and getting to his feet. “We’ll lay them and be gone.”
He narrowed his eyes on her, his voice brooking no refusal. “And I’ll not have you returning here until the floor is renewed.”
“Then come,” she acquiesced, reaching for his hand again and pulling him to the tomb. “She is beautiful, is she not?”
“Aye, she is,” Jamie agreed, looking down at his mother’s serene marble face but seeing the woman he’d glimpsed in the moonlight.
Remembering her smile.
And knowing it would always warm him.
“You are beautiful, too.” He glanced at his bride as he placed the heather atop his mother’s folded hands. “And I am certain my mother would bless our union,” he added, half-believing that she just had.
Aveline looked so fetching in the flickering golden light that other, bolder thoughts flashed through his mind. Especially when her lips curved in a slow smile and she lowered her lashes, glancing through them at the chapel’s narrow, deep-set windows.
“The moon rises ever higher,” she said, her word choice giving a certain part of him a most inappropriate twitch. “And the rain looks to have stopped as well. Perhaps if we leave now, there will still be time to refresh ourselves at St. Bride’s Well before we return?”
Jamie drew a swift breath, the thought of her bathing naked in the moonlight beside that very well sending pulsing, molten heat pouring into his loins.
He stepped closer to her, reaching to touch her cheek. “A quick stop at Hughie Mac’s and then, I promise you, we shall visit the well,” he said, sliding his thumb over the fullness of her lower lip.
But he let his hand fall away almost at once, the temptation to seize her against him and kiss her almost too powerful to resist, yet too unseemly to indulge with his mother and all his reposing ancestors looking on.
“Aye, we will stop at Bride’s Well,” he said again, grabbing her hand and leading her from the chapel. “But be warned,” he added as they stepped out into the cold moonlit night, “the Old Ones who held such ground sacred were not as pious as Maelrubha and his fellow saints. It may be that visiting the well might inspire me.”
“That is my wish,” Aveline owned, smiling as he lifted her into her saddle.
But her smile and his own faltered, turning to bewilderment, when a short while later they drew up before Hughie Mac’s door. The rain had stopped indeed and a handful of glittering stars could be seen through thin, wispy clouds. But mist still curled across the grass and bracken; along the dark edge of the pine wood crowding Hughie’s cottage.
A small whitewashed cottage, thick-walled and neatly thatched, Hughie’s humble dwelling should have welcomed with its usual air of homely pleasantness. Instead, it appeared surprisingly deserted.
Even though a thin blue drift of peat smoke rose from the chimney and, Jamie would have sworn, they’d both seen the beckoning flicker of soft yellow light winking through trees as they’d ridden near.
Candlelight hastily extinguished—or purposely hidden behind quickly latched shutters.
The back of Jamie’s neck began to prickle as he swung down onto the damp grass. He was certain he’d seen lights in Hughie’s windows and a sidelong glance at his bride assured him she’d seen them, too.
“Could it be he doesn’t want visitors?” she asked, proving it.
“Hughie?” Jamie cocked a brow, motioning for her to stay where she was. “That one’s door e’er stands open,” he said, puzzled, glancing around at the dripping trees and shadows, ill ease licking up and down his spine.
Something was sorely amiss.
Hughie Mac would ne’er turn away a guest. Such just wasn’t the Highland way and Hughie was more Highland than most. The old man wore these hills, swearing he lived and breathed for love of his home glen. The wee bit of rock and heather he hadn’t left since his birth and ne’er cared to.
Jamie frowned. Something was indeed badly wrong.
His pulse quickening, he stared at the darkened cottage, well aware that the erstwhile herd boy even kept the shutters of his windows flung wide just so he’d note a visitor’s approach. Hughie liked to know when to toss another peat brick onto his fire and set out his special self-made oatcakes and cheese, a fresh ewer of ale. And, the old man’s great pride, his somewhat battered pewter drinking cup, a treasure he saved for guests.
Yet now the shutters were tightly closed.
And Jamie knew without trying that he’d find the cottage door soundly barred.
But he meant to test it all the same.
“Hughie!” he called, hammering his fist on the bolted door. “’Tis Jamie, come to see to you!”
Only silence answered him.
Yawning emptiness, the sighing of the night wind, and from somewhere behind the cottage, the disgruntled bleating of Hughie’s sheep.
Jamie’s skin began to crawl. He would’ve sworn he felt eyes watching him. Hidden eyes. And with surety, not Hughie Mac’s.
Nor any sheep’s.
His heart racing, he stared at the cottage, indecision sweeping him. He considered drawing back his foot and kicking in the door, a difficult feat to be sure, but not impossible.
Not for a man of his size and strength.
But Hughie Mac was anything but a fool and if he didn’t wish to be disturbed this e’en, he’d have his reasons.
Even so, Jamie couldn’t help from lifting his foot and swinging it backward—until his bride’s voice stayed him, her small hand lighting on his arm.
“He could be entertaining a woman.”
Jamie’s eyes rounded and he lowered his foot at once. He wheeled about, turning so quickly, he near tripped over a tree root.
Aveline stood calmly in the moonlight, her placid expression assuring him that she’d meant what she’d said.
“Hughie is older than my da,” Jamie blurted, stari
ng back at her. “He—”
“He has e’er kept his dalliances,” she informed him, glancing past him to the cottage. “Even in recent years. Such things canna be kept secret. Not in these hills and glens where ears are e’er peeled and interesting tidings spread like birch seed on the wind.”
Still, Jamie couldn’t believe it.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw, frowning at the dark night closing in on them. He could feel his brow furrowing despite Aveline’s certainty.
“I have heard skirling female laughter coming from those very shuttered windows,” she insisted, her smile dimpling. “And I know of two laundresses from Fairmaiden and an unmarried lass in the next glen who openly admit to having succumbed to Hughie’s charm.”
She came closer, leaning up on her toes to kiss him. “More than once, I was told, and gladly.”
“Ah, well …” Jamie let his voice trail away, trying to believe her.
“Come,” she teased then, sliding a quick hand over a place she knew would stir him, “you can check on Hughie on the morrow if you are still worried. Let us be away to Bride’s Well before the night grows colder.”
The invitation made, she whirled and strode back to their horses, the pert swaying of her hips leaving no doubt about just why she wished to stop at the sacred pagan well.
But when Jamie started after her, he tripped over the tree root again, his arms flailing as he righted himself before flying facedown into the night-blackened grass.
Slick, wet deer grass, knee-high and tussocky where not clipped short by Hughie’s grazing sheep. Scattered patches of autumn-red bracken, dead, soaking, and slippery.
Looking round, he realized the impossibility of his stumbling, leastways over a tree root.
The nearest trees were the tall Caledonian pines edging the steeply sloping braeside to the left of Hughie’s cottage and the little birch and alder wood rimming a burn channel a good ways to the right.
There were no other trees in sight.
His ill ease rushing back, Jamie peered down at the root he’d tripped over, the mystery quickly solved when he recognized Hughie’s walking stick laying half-buried in the grass.
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