“It’s chicken soup,” I said, snatching the can from his hands and tossing it and another of the same into our basket. “If you like chickens, and soup, it will be fine.” Robert eyed me, but said nothing. Based on the general nosiness of Scottish shoppers, he didn’t have to.
“Now lass,” said a woman, who herself was lugging a basket laden with canned haggis, both beef and lamb versions, “do no’ be so hard on your man. Even in these days o’ workin’ women and such, ‘tis rare for a husband to go out and do the shopping.”
My cheeks flamed in mingled embarrassment and outrage. Why did everyone just keep assuming that Robert and I were married? “He’s not my husband,” I pouted. “He’s old enough to be my father. Grandfather, even.”
“Och, no,” the woman said, “he does no’ look a day over thirty.” She leaned closer, and added, “But then, I hear that a young lass can have all sorts of pleasant effects on a man.”
She patted my arm before she trundled off, while my cheeks ratcheted up the heat to nuclear. I glared at the chuckling Robert, and noticed that he was standing in direct sunlight, without a hint of shade softening his features. With the exception of a few laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, he didn’t have a single mark of age.
“How old were you when you were, um, you know?” I asked, my gaze darting about. We hadn’t seen any of the Good People at the market, but they were slippery little buggers. “Were taken.”
“I was forty seven years of age,” he replied.
“Wow.” Somehow, the twenty two years that separated our mortal ages seemed like a far greater span than the three centuries he’d spent in Fairyland. “Why don’t you look forty seven?” I pressed.
“And how should I be lookin’?” he countered.
“I don’t know. Older.” I stood on my toes, and examined his skin while I raked my fingers through the dark hair at his nape. “Wrinkly, at least. And why don’t you have any gray hair?”
“The elixir, most likely.” He had mentioned Nicnevin’s elixir before, describing it as a sweet drink that burned away one’s mortality. While I was contemplating that, Robert grasped me about the waist and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “At last, you admit that me bein’ an old man bothers ye.”
“That’s not what’s bothering me.” He loosened his hold, and I slid away from him. “Are you immortal?”
“Truly, I do no’ ken.” Robert pursed his lips. “I was while I regularly imbibed the elixir. Now, who’s to say?”
I watched him for a moment, then I turned away and paid for the cans of soup. Once that was done, and I’d transferred the cans from my basket to one of our tote bags, I wandered off to a produce stall. Robert followed, not that I’d expected him to do anything else. After I’d added carrots, potatoes, and celery to our basket, he asked, “One thing I would like to ken, are ye wishin’ for me to age and die, or remain as I am?”
“I don’t want you to die,” I snapped. “I just… I just don’t want to be all gray and wrinkly while you stay looking like that.”
“Like what, exactly?”
“That.” I gestured, encompassing his entire form. “Like you just walked out of a photo shoot. People are going to think I’m your grandmother.”
Robert’s brows shot halfway up his head, and I bit my lip. I’d just made the most shallow statement of my life, and was more than a bit mortified. I turned away and examined the fruit displays, wondering if it was worth it to purchase a fresh pineapple. While I debated between that and a few mangoes, Robert slipped his arms around my waist. “Are ye keeping me that long, then?” he murmured, his lips against my temple. “Until we’re grandparents?”
“I’ll keep you only so long as you behave,” I said, swatting away his hands. “This is a public place, you know.”
“You did no’ mind the last kiss.”
“I don’t mind any of them,” I admitted. “It’s just…it’s not polite. For the other shoppers.”
“Oh, we do no’ mind,” chirped the woman with the canned haggis, now busily fondling a tomato. “’Tis a wonderful thing to see a young couple in love.”
That comment generated a round of approving nods from the fruit seller, and several other market patrons. “Is that woman one of the fuath?” I asked, jerking my head toward Ms. Haggis.
Robert glanced at her. “Most certainly not.”
“So, you can’t kill her?” I pressed.
“Karina!”
“Too bad,” I grumbled. “Let’s pay for the stupid fruit.”
We paid the fruit seller, and after we picked up a few loaves of bread and boxes of pastries at the next stall we decided to head back to the cottage. It was our only option, being that we had three tote bags full of food, and only myself and my gallowglass to carry it.
“Perhaps I’ll try me hand at brewin’ up a batch of the elixir,” Robert said out of the blue.
“Do you even know what’s in it?” I asked. I didn’t imagine the Seelie Queen was big on sharing recipe cards.
“Wine, assuredly. And ‘twas quite sweet, so I imagine honey is involved.” He rubbed his chin. “Perhaps a bit ‘o mint, as well, or rose petal…”
“Well, I do hope you figure it out. We wouldn’t want you losing your good looks.” I stomped on ahead, foolishly hoping to outpace a man with a stride twice as long as my own. Even the tote of canned goods didn’t slow him down.
Robert stepped in front of me, halting me with his hands on my shoulders. “Love, the elixir would no’ be for me, but for you.”
I opened my mouth, shut it, and looked up at him. “Why for me?”
“To even us out, ye ken.” Robert’s eyes twinkled, his lopsided smile working its way into my heart. “Now that I’ve found ye, Karina, me love, I canna imagine going forward in this life without ye by me side.”
I started at him, my arms going limp as the tote bag slid from my shoulder and landed on the street; poor, dented pineapple. As much as I had tried not to acknowledge it, there had been a nagging little voice in the back of my mind that had always agreed with Chris: Robert was a freeloader and a gigolo, just using the dumb tourist girl until he got what he wanted. And after last night, I was afraid that he’d gotten it, and soon would be on his way. That was pretty much what had happened with Jared.
“Do you really mean that?” I whispered.
Robert set down his totes, and looked me in the eye. “Love, I really do.”
Just like that, the little voice in my head was silenced, never to pipe up again. I squealed, right there in the street, and leapt into Robert’s arms. He laughed as he caught me, his strong hands under my hips as I wrapped my legs around his waist, raining kisses onto his face.
“I’m keeping you,” I said between kisses. “Forever and ever and ever, I’m keeping you.”
“Hear that?” Robert yelled over his shoulder. “She’s keepin’ me!”
I peeked over the top of his head, and saw Ms. Haggis and the rest nodding their approval. Somehow, they weren’t bothering me as much anymore.
Chapter Thirty One
Karina
A noise somewhere between a gasp and a moan escaped my lips and I collapsed against Robert’s chest, clutching his shoulders as his hips bucked beneath me. I was drenched in sweat, sore as all get out, and a fair bit happier than I could ever remember being.
I was keeping Robert. Even better, he was keeping me.
I had been on cloud nine after our little PDA session at the market, and my feet had hardly touched the ground as we walked back to the cottage. All of my doubts about Robert, which had already been dwindling away at a steady pace, had been replaced by a single certainty: this man from the seventeenth century had been made for me.
“’Tis unfortunate I needed to wait so long for ye to come along,” he had said, when I shared why I was smiling. We’d been leisurely walking along the village streets, lugging along our groceries while Robert’s arm was draped around my shoulders.
“I’m sure you found a few ways to p
ass the time,” I’d said. “She must have kept you pretty busy.” We both avoided saying Nicnevin’s name aloud, especially in public.
“Not as much as ye would think,” Robert murmured. “When she had no need of me, she would ignore me for weeks or months at a time.”
“That must have been nice,” I said, imagining that having all that free time to explore Elphame was a folklorist’s dream come true. Robert snorted, and explained how wrong I was.
“’Twas more of a torture than the collectin’ o’ the teind. Without her leave, I was confined to the tree where ye found me, me sword raised and at the ready. I was no’ to eat or drink or even sleep without her say so.” Robert squeezed me against him. “I was kept alone in the blackness, as yet another one o’ me punishments for refusing her.”
“You must have been so lonely,” I said. “How did you manage?”
“Faith,” he replied. “Faith in God, faith that He had a purpose for me, faith that Nicnevin would find a reason to send me out into the world… faith that a bonnie lass would happen by that infernal tree, and loose me from my torment,” he added, kissing my hair.
“You just made that last part up,” I accused.
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Still, ‘twas an act o’ faith on me part, and I ha’ been richly rewarded.”
Once we had reached the cottage, and had set the tote bags packed full of groceries on the counter, I checked on Chris. He was still sleeping, so I’d helped Robert unpack the food and restock the cabinets and fridge. Foodstuffs thus secured, I then asked Robert how we should spend our time until Chris woke. I’d assumed that he would suggest we work on some research, or maybe take a walk by the harbor to check for signs of the fuath, but the glint in his blue eyes told me that he had an entirely different activity in mind. One that I was more than willing to participate in.
Now, I was lying atop Robert’s chest, waiting for this latest round of aftershocks to subside. “You’re insatiable,” I mumbled into his shoulder.
“I do no’ hear ye complainin’ one bit.” Robert shifted so he was on his side, and propped himself up on his elbow. “Fancy another o’ your standing baths?” he asked, tracing a bead of sweat along my collarbone.
“You mean a shower?” I teased, then I sobered and added, “We can’t be showering together with Chris in the next room. That would be… Well, it would be weird.”
“Mmm. Surely, you and I sharin’ a bath will no’ be the strangest thing he has encountered o’ late.” Robert rolled onto his back, and stretched his arms over his head. I laid my head on his chest, and toyed with the dark curls scattered across it.
“How much longer is he going to sleep?” I grumbled. Robert and I had gotten back from the market around two, and the sky I could see through the bedroom window was painted in twilight’s purples and oranges.
Robert grunted. “I’ve seen mortals sleep for days or e’en weeks after revels. Like as no’ he was no’ doin’ much restin’ while he was there.”
I wrinkled my nose; if there was anything I didn’t want to think about, it was whatever Chris had been doing with the fairies.
“I guess we’ll leave him to it, then.” I got out of bed and stretched. “I call dibs on the shower!”
***
Robert let me get to the bathroom first; he even let me start the shower and step under the spray, but he didn’t let me get much farther than that. There I was, helpless with a head full of shampoo suds, when a gallowglass invaded my bathroom.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked when he stepped into the tub.
“I’m here to wash your back, o’ course,” he replied, his blue eyes feigning innocence.
“Only washing,” I said. “I mean it. Chris is sleeping right on the other side of this wall,” I pointed at the offensively cheery pink tile, “and no brother in the world wants to be woken up by hearing his sister doing that.”
“I suppose ye have a point.” Robert backed me under the spray, working his hands into my hair as he rinsed away the shampoo. Then we were kissing, and his hands were following the bubbles as they slipped down my body and toward the drain.
“Behave.” I bumped him away with my hip, and reached for the conditioner. Once I’d slicked on the creamy liquid, I turned around to grab a washcloth. That was when Robert bumped me with something of his own. “I said behave!”
“’Tis no’ my fault,” he replied. “Blame my condition on that bum o’ yours.”
I turned around, and rubbed the washcloth across his chest. “You’re just showing off,” I said, gliding the washcloth lower. “You can’t possibly have anything left in you.”
“Oh?” Robert grabbed my waist, then slid his hands lower to squeeze my butt. “Care to make a wager on that?”
Robert kissed me as I closed my hand around his shaft, stroking one, twice, thrice… Then we were interrupted by a slamming door. Specifically, the slamming of Chris’s bedroom door. I sighed, and backed under the spray; it just figured that as soon as Robert had swayed me to his cause, my brother woke up.
“Let me talk to him first,” I said, once I’d rinsed off the soap and conditioner. “Join me in a minute?”
Robert pressed a kiss to my forehead, and squeezed my butt once more for good measure. “Aye, love, that I will.” With that, I toweled off and slipped into my terry robe, and went out to the common room to confront my brother, the fairy lover.
I found Chris staring at the coffee maker, as if he thought it would get up and perform a grand trick or two. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” I greeted.
“Why isn’t there coffee?” he grumbled. “You always wake up first and make coffee.”
“Chris, it’s past eight o’clock at night,” I said. He grabbed his phone from his back pocket, eyes widening as he read the display.
“When did I get home?” he asked.
“Early this morning,” I replied. “You’ve been sleeping all day.”
“I guess that’s why there’s no coffee,” he muttered, as he set his phone on the counter.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “We went shopping. There’s enough food here to feed an army.”
“We?” Chris echoed. As if on cue, Robert emerged from the bathroom, dripping wet and wearing only a towel around his waist. So much for letting me talk to my brother alone first. Chris scowled at Robert, and asked, “Showering together now?”
“It saves water.” I was so not letting him bait me, not while he had that shiny mark on his neck. “How was St. Andrews?”
“Good, very good,” Chris replied. He turned away and opened one of the cupboards. “Ethan’s the same old party animal. You would have thought that being a professor would have mellowed him out some, but not that guy.”
“I called him.”
“Called who?”
“Ethan.”
Chris’s back went rigid, but he didn’t turn around. “Why did you call him?”
“When you came home after being gone for two days, and with a fairy kiss planted on your neck, I was worried.”
Slowly, Chris shut the cupboard door, then he took a deep breath. When he turned around he was smiling. “It was good of you to worry, Rina, but I can take care of myself. Ethan and I—”
“You weren’t with Ethan,” I interrupted. “You were off—somewhere—with the Good People.”
“Good People?” Chris repeated.
“You know. Fairies.”
“Don’t start with all your magic woo-woo,” Chris warned. “You know I don’t buy into that.” He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck; as his sleeve rode up, I saw another silvery mark on the inside of his wrist.
“Then how do you explain this?” I demanded, rushing forward and grabbing his arm. I shoved up his sleeve, and saw many more of the shiny ovals dancing up his flesh. Sickened, I said, “You’re covered in them.”
“So what?” he said, yanking his arm free. “What’s wrong with me having a little fun? Don’t you think that after all I’ve been through the
se past few months I deserve a little fun? Isn’t that what you’re doing with this guy?” I glanced at Robert; he was standing with his feet planted wide and arms folded across his chest, looking more like a general surveying a battlefield than a man who’d just gotten out of the shower. Even the damp towel about his waist did little to detract from his dignity.
“The difference is that Robert won’t hurt me,” I said. “The Good People are only out to play with you. They care nothing for mortals.”
“They seemed to care about this guy,” Chris said, jerking his chin toward Robert. “Wasn’t he shacked up with their queen? Or so he claims?”
“I was a prisoner to her whims,” Robert said, his voice dead calm. “And my name is Robert. Robert James Kirk. No’ this guy, and not any o’ the other insults ye lob my way.” Robert came to stand beside me. “Everything Karina said to you is correct. There is nothing good about the Good People, for all that we call them that. Ye would do best to leave them be.”
Anyone in their right mind would have been terrified after receiving such a speech, especially from someone who exuded such menace as Robert did, but Chris laughed. Not a chuckle, or a simple giggle, he laughed so hard he needed to lean on the counter for support. “You expect me to listen to a wet, naked guy lecture me about fairies? Really, Rina, this is nuts, even for you.”
That comment stung, but I tried to hide it. When Robert touched my elbow and murmured in my ear, I knew I hadn’t done such a good job.
“Leave it for now, love, he is no’ himself,” he said. “I am going to dress. Try to talk some sense into him.”
I nodded, and Robert retreated to our bedroom. As soon as he shut the door, I attacked the coffee maker.
“What are you doing?” Chris asked.
“I thought you wanted coffee,” I said. “I might as well make the whole pot, since I have field notes to go over.”
“What about—”
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