by L. L. Muir
Lord Dunbar snapped the laptop shut and gave Jules a wink. Then he turned to Quinn.
“You might have made an entertaining barrister, Mr. Ross.”
“Once upon a time, my lord, I was.”
Dunbar laughed. “With a wife like yours, that experience should come in handy.”
Quinn gave a little bow.
“And Mr. Ross?” Dunbar got up from the desk and gestured for his men to leave the room ahead of him. “I’d make it legal before Dickie there comes to call.”
Quinn tilted his head back and gave Jules a look through narrowed eyes.
“Oh, I intend to, my lord. I intend to.”
Quinn reached out a hand and drew her away from the bookshelf and over to the window. Jillian joined them and together they watched eight cars fill with suits and policemen before moving down the drive toward the remnants of Castle Ross.
“They’ve prepared a little wedding supper for us, Mrs. Ross,” he murmured as he nuzzled her behind the ear.
Chills flooded her body, but it wasn’t quite enough to make her forget.
“Mrs. Ross? You must be talking to Jillian because I sure as hell didn’t just get married in a bathroom.”
Quinn cleared his throat. Then cleared it again.
“Don’t worry, sister,” said Jillian. “We’ll make sure he gets it right.” She walked to the door, then paused. “Don’t take too long with your apology, Quinn. Supper’s still waiting. And my sons and I are starved.” She patted her stomach. “Tomorrow, we can run to the city and get that package from Grandmother’s lawyer.”
Jules nodded, but food and a mysterious package weren’t enough to get her attention when she was about to be left alone with her very own Highlander, and there were no bars or benches between them.
The door snapped shut, but Quinn took two long strides and opened it again.
“Pity, Jillian!” His voice boomed in the hallway. He sounded way too much like Montgomery for comfort. “Have pity! Eat without us!” Then he stepped back and slammed the door.
Jules laughed. “You watch. Monty will be up here before I can forgive you enough to kiss you.”
Quinn walked back to her slowly, freezing her with a look that made running away impossible...and unthinkable. She also found it hard to breathe.
“Don’t believe it,” he said. “That man was a witness to our ceremony. He gave you to me. I’ve already explained, you’re mine now.”
He gathered her into his arms and her hands found their way around his neck. His thick black hair caressed the backs of her fingers, inviting them to play. His face turned deadly serious as he lowered his forehead to hers.
“Pity, Juliet. Have pity.” He smiled then. “My uncle will be busy fighting Jillian for a small share of supper. Have you ever seen your sister eat?”
They laughed and sighed, then they got down to apologizing and forgiving. The apologizing was quick and sincere. The forgiving took a very, very long time.
THE END
Excerpt from GOING BACK FOR ROMEO
PROLOGUE
Castle Ross, East Burnshire, Scotland 1494
Odd.
The stone closest to Laird Montgomery Ross’s foot looked to be the same shape as the hole remaining in the side of his sister's tomb, but he refused to reach for it.
"Nay. I'm not ready to be finished." Monty whispered his complaint to God, for surely it was God's hand that wrought such an appropriately shaped thing.
Behind him, one of the priests cleared his throat. Monty knew without looking it had been the fat one who could not cease rubbing his hands together, even while Monty’s sister was led inside her would-be grave. The bastard had been rubbing them for a fair two days, since he’d arrived to try Isobelle as a witch. No doubt they were itchy for the feel of a woman’s neck since Monty had cheated them out of wringing his sister’s.
He could let the priest live, or he could be silent, but Monty could not manage both.
"If you canna seem to clean those hands, Father,” he said without turning away from his morbid creation, “I'd be happy to rid you of them before I finish my task here. I'm sure my sister wouldna mind the wait."
A gasp of outrage was followed by silence, although the Great Hall was filled to the corners with his clan. Those who could not find space inside would soon enough hear of each stone lovingly placed as their laird buried his sister alive within their very hall, upon the stone dais, behind the great Ross Chair. Hopefully they would remember Isobelle’s bravery and not how oft his tears mingled with the mortar.
None breathed, none dared rub their hands. How could he possibly continue? How could he not?
“Nay, I wouldna mind a bit, if you’re quick about it, brother mine.” Isobelle’s voice echoed eerily from the tomb and she smirked at him from within the tiny patch of light the same shape as the odd stone. “In fact, toss the bloody things in here with me and I’ll leave them at the gates of hell. Himself can collect them when he arrives.”
Her unholy laughter no doubt had even the dogs wishing they could cross themselves, but it was music to Monty’s ears. The Kirk’s men allowed her no blanket, but she’d have the image of revenge to keep her warm.
“Isobelle!” Morna screamed. Monty’s other sister stood off to his right, restrained by her puny Gordon husband. “’Tis all my fault. Forgive me.”
Isobelle’s sober face came forward to fill the hole as she searched for Morna, giving Monty one last glimpse of red hair.
“Morna, love. Dinna greet. The faery will come to make it all right again. Watch for the faery...and keep away from your husband!”
“Silence!” the robed bastard roared.
Isobelle laughed again, backing away from the hole. After all, what could the man do to her now?
Monty would not ruin her trust in the blasted faery, but if the creature ever placed its magic toe on Ross land, it would be dead before it ever took a breath of heathered air.
‘Twas time.
He looked at the stone.
‘Twas meant.
“I love you, sister mine.” His words were quiet, for Isobelle alone.
“And I you, Monty. Blow us a kiss.”
When he raised his crusted fingers to his lips, his palm filled with tears but they washed none of the nightmare away. He blew a kiss that was instantly returned.
“I’m stayin’ right here, pet. Ye’re no’ alone.”
“Get on, then.” The whimper in her voice was slight. “I’ll have a wee nap if ye’ll but douse the light.”
With a final wink she disappeared.
Monty reached for the stone, dipped its edges in muck, and pushed it home, breaking his heart in the doing. After long moments of stillness, his hands slowly opened and dropped away.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Morna swoon, but someone else would have to catch her—someone without mud or blood on his hands. Morna wouldn’t welcome his comfort anyhow. She claimed it was her fault, but he knew both sisters blamed him.
If he’d have known the outcome, would he have acted differently? What kind of bastard would not?
There was no stopping the twisting of his face, the sob from his chest. He turned his head to the side and bellowed, “Out!”
Nearly everyone fled or slithered from the hall, all but The Kirk’s henchmen who would stay until they believed his sister dead. Only then did he hear the muffled sobs of Isobelle. She sounded as if she were deep in the ground.
His heart shuddered with cold. Dear God, what had he been thinking? His plan was madness; she would never last. Not enough time. He had to get her out!
He reached for the odd stone...and was struck soundly from behind.
CHAPTER ONE
Castle Ross, Present Day
This wasn’t the first time Jillian MacKay had felt a holy-crap-moment coming on. She wouldn’t worry about it now, except for two things. First, her premonitions of holy-crap-moments were never wrong. And second, she was only minutes away from testing The Curse of the Ros
s Clan.
Jilly was alone for the moment, poised to enter the Great Hall of Castle Ross, the right heel of her green boots rocking nervously while she waited for the tour group to catch up to her. No sirens sounded. No trumpets announced that a simple girl from Wyoming was about to do anything noteworthy, even though, for the first time in her life, she thought she may actually be about to do something noteworthy.
She took a deep breath. Then another. Then tentatively stepped into the dimly lit Hall, turned to her left, and froze.
Holy, holy crap.
Silence stirred from its dreamy corner and rose to fill the Hall, pushing into every nook and cranny. There was no echo of her steps on the wood floor, no muffled voices of the tour group nearing the massive outer door—as if this moment was so pure, so important, that sound could not be allowed to sully it.
And all she’d done was look at his face.
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Excerpt from BLOOD FOR INK
The Scarlet Plumiere Series: Book 1
CHAPTER ONE
The Capital Journal, January 31st, Saturday edition, Fiction section
A rumor currently circulates among the gentry in The Grand City that the white-blond Viscount F had a visitor one recent morning, or rather, visitors, as the woman who claimed to be his wife brought with her a pair of identical offspring closely resembling the viscount himself. Piercing blue eyes and straight white hair adorned both cherubs whose mother was blessed with the dark hair of her Spanish ancestors.
Not believing the woman, or his own eyes it seems, Viscount F shooed the little family from his noble steps and into the halls of a certain hotel where they have taken up residence until a higher authority might be able to hear their tale.
It was also rumored the mistress of Viscount F has moved out of his grasp as she deemed it unwise to associate with a man who possesses untrustworthy…eyes.
It remains to be seen whether or not the current fiancée of this poor-sighted creature is also saved from his company.—The Scarlet Plumiere
“Well, Stanley, you cannot very well sue the paper for libel when they did print this in the fiction section.” Ramsey Birmingham, Earl of Northwick, kept a straight face but only just. His friend, Stanley Winters, Viscount Forsgreen, was not the first to be chastised by the red-penned writer. That he was being so dramatic about it, so early on a Saturday morning, was an invitation for torment.
“But North! I tell you there was no woman. No wife. No children with my blue eyes and white hair.”
“White hair, even. Not blond.” Presley Talbot, Marquess of Harcourt and the worst tease among them, prodded poor Stanley from behind, then walked around the man and offered him a much needed drink.
Stan raised the glass, then paused. “It is early.”
“Drink!” Harcourt slapped him on the back, nearly spilling the shot of courage.
Stanley needed no more prompting and emptied the glass, then stared into its empty depths. “Yes, white hair. There are no such creatures, I assure you. I have only been to Spain two years ago and... Oh, dear.”
“Well, the vixen got that right at least.” Earnest Meriwether, the unfortunately named Earl of Ashmoore, chimed in from the far stacks of North’s immodest library. His given name was spot-on, as if his mother might have read the sobriety in his eyes the moment he was born, but the family name was far afield. Ash was never merry; he was deadly serious, and deadly otherwise. After everything that transpired in France, North was no longer quite as dedicated to England as he was to his sober friend; if the Earl of Ashmoore decided to turn coats, North would turn his as well rather than face his dark friend in any skirmish. No man did so and lived.
“But Ash, I am telling you, there is no such woman.” Stanley looked at a chair, but North frowned and shook his head, as if to say the morning’s business was so serious the viscount should keep on his toes.
Stanley’s shoulders fell. Poor man, so easily manipulated. The Scarlet Plumiere really should not have picked on such a harmless chap. North was of half a mind to hunt her down and tell her so.
“Well, The Scarlet Plumiere has yet to accuse an innocent man, even if she is a bit inaccurate on the specificity of the crime.” Ash joined the rest, eyes fixed on an open volume of Shakespeare—the red leather set. He lowered his dark form into the seat Stanley had been eyeing.
“He is right, of course. Let us hear it, Stanley. What have you done?” Harcourt threw North a conspiratory wink, then hooked a leg over the corner of a table and leaned forward for the details, his interest and enthusiasm more than making up for Ash’s lack of both.
Of course, Stanley broke.
“I have done nothing! Nothing the rest of our lot has not done from time to time.”
North could not bring himself to prod the viscount further. The poor chap had asked his three closest friends to meet that morning to find a solution to his newest problem—fresh as the morning paper. They really should get ‘round to the business of helping him.
Harcourt was in no such hurry. He folded his arms and lifted a brow.
“Stanley, you are trying our patience. Spit out your confession, or I do not see us making much of an attempt to save your sorry hide.”
Stan flushed from his pinned cravat to the roots of his snowy hair—a shade of red that might well have been the only color that did not become the overly-blessed viscount. He braced himself, as if for the executioner.
“I set Ursula aside.”
“You what?” Three baritones in unison sounded almost rehearsed.
North shook his head. “I am sorry, old boy. You did what?”
“He set her aside.” Harcourt slapped his knee.
North turned to Ash. “He set her aside.”
“Yes, blast you. I set her aside!”
Ashmoore closed the book, laid Shakespeare on the overstuffed arm, and shook a lock of black hair from his forehead. “Pardon my slow wit, but just how does one put an Ursula aside?”
Ash was right. Stanley Winters had enjoyed the pick of females since the four of them were in knee breeches together. Now he had the pick of all mistresses and had chosen very well. Ursula was indisputably the most sought after mistress in all of London, and it was quite possible Stan, old pal, was the first man to actually end an affair with the woman. Ursula did the shopping for a new lover. Ursula let that lover know when he was no longer welcome. But the mighty Viscount Forsgreen had set her aside.
“I suppose he picked her up by the shoulders, turned, and set her down again.” Harcourt demonstrated with an invisible model, then dusted his hands. “Out of his way, presumably. Is that accurate, Stanley?”
The viscount’s blush looked to be seeping into his actual hair.
“I let her go,” he said quietly.
“Ah. Like fishing, then? You took the hook from her mouth, so to speak, and put her back in the water.” North could not help but laugh at Harcourt’s miming skills.
“Can she swim, do you suppose?” Ash’s usual sobriety fled. He dissolved into laughter at his own jest, as did they all—except poor Stanley of course.
The viscount stood straighter, if possible. “You know perfectly well what I mean. I ended our affair. I told her she was free to do as she pleased.”
North nodded and composed himself. “And you paid her a nice settlement, of course.”
“Actually, she would not take it. She was not at all happy that I offered it.”
A giggling Harcourt bent over and dove onto the couch like a man run through the gut with a saber.
Ash rubbed a hand over his face then stiffened. “That has to be it! Ursula found The Scarlet Plumiere and had you punished. Severely punished, it appears; if night follows day, and things play out the way The Plumiere has predicted, you, my dear Viscount F, are about to be released from your engagement.”
“But that’s why I let her go, you see? It would be poor form to keep one’s mistress while one is pr
eparing for marriage, and honeymoon, and fatherhood, and…”
“And death.” Having solved the mystery, Ash’s nose was back in the book.
“Yes, that too. If Irene Goodfellow breaks it off, Mother will have me fed to the fish, and even though she is doddering, she will find a way to bear another son to replace me.”
“It is unsettling the way that woman tosses that threat about,” North admitted. “Love her as I do, it fairly gives me nightmares thinking about it.”
“Well, thinking about it put me off seeing Ursula,” Stan mumbled.
“Quite so. Quite so.” North nodded, thinking. The mystery was solved, but what were they to do about it?
“It would be best to have her put down, Stanley. For your own good,” Harcourt mumbled against a cushion. With all his antics, his gold-brown hair was coming loose from its tether.
“Who? The Scarlet Plumiere? I cannot have a woman murdered, even if she has essentially ruined my life with her blasted article, using my very blood for her ink, as it were. Why, I cannot believe you would suggest such a thing.”
“Oh, not her, man. Your mother.” Harcourt rolled onto his back and spoke to the ceiling. “Have your mother put down and enjoy the reprieve. Marry in another ten years.”
“Put down my mo...you are mad!”
“No. Actually, it is not a bad idea a ‘tall.” Ash closed his book again and tossed it onto the side table.
“All right. You are both mad. I will not be having my mother put down, for God’s sake.”
“Oh, Stanley. Do keep up.” Ash folded his hands and unexpectedly grinned. He must have had a grand idea; he did not smile easily. “I mean The Plumiere, of course, not your dear mother.”