Tall, Dark, and Kilted

by MACKAY, ALLIE

  Something inside Cilla twisted.

  She loved Scotland, too, and had dreamed of coming here since childhood. She’d also loved Scotsmen, even founding the Mad for Plaid Club when she was sixteen. Sadly, her obsession with tartan-draped men had overridden every warning bell when Grant A. Hughes III waltzed into her life, claiming Scottish roots. When he’d arrived, kilted, to take her to a Highland Games on one of their early dates, her fate had been sealed.

  Feeling heat inch up the back of her neck, she flicked a speck of lint off her sleeve.

  Then she did her best not to frown.

  The swell-headed lout hadn’t exactly ruined her enthusiasm for Scotland. But he’d made her wary of kilt-wearing, sporran-sporting Scotsmen.

  “I know Aunt Birdie loves Sutherland,” she blurted, pushing Grant the weasel from her mind. “Whenever she’d visit, her eyes would light when she spoke of Uncle Mac’s home. She’d gush about its wild emptiness and what she called the vast stretches of sea, land, and sky. She said even the air was different. That it was magical, and that once you’d inhaled it, you’d be forever in its spell.”

  “O-o-oh, aye, that’s the way of it.” Honoria nodded agreement. “You’ll lose your heart, too. Everyone does.”

  Stepping close, she fixed Cilla with a shrewd stare. “Why do you think so many English incomers are for settling here?” She put back her shoulders, clearly warming to a favorite topic. “They come north, breathe our clean air and peat smoke, fall in love with our starry nights and quiet, even the days when our mist blows sideways and suddenly—or so they say—the city fumes and crush of London or Manchester or Liverpool are something they can’t bear anymore.”

  The words spoken, she pressed her lips tight. As if those incomers were an entirely different kettle of fish than Aunt Birdie.

  “Too bad they often feel differently when, come winter, they discover they need thermal underwear and learn that our weekly entertainment is Quiz Night at the Village Hall or a ceilidh over at Old Jock’s croft down by Talmine Bay.” Honoria’s chin lifted. “Fiddlers come from as far away as Lairg and Ullapool to play at Old Jock’s sessions. Yet—”

  “Wait.” Cilla stopped before an oak-planked door studded with rusted iron. She was sure she’d passed through it earlier, certain it’d stood ajar.

  Yet now it was bolted.

  “I’m sure I came up here through that door.” She eyed the heavy-looking drawbar, the fine hairs on her nape lifting again. “It was open.”

  “Ach, it couldn’t have been.” The housekeeper shook her head. “That way leads to a house wing we never use, save for storage.” She reached to jiggle the iron latch, proving its secured state. “The door’s kept mostly locked since a fire swept parts of that wing in the 1930s. I’d be surprised if even your uncle could slide back the drawbar.”

  “But—”

  From somewhere came the sound of knuckles cracking. “Shall I—”

  “Oh!” Cilla’s heart stopped.

  He filled her mind again. She was sure she’d heard his voice. Almost sure she caught a whiff of sandalwood and musk on the chill, dust-moted air.

  Just when she’d convinced herself she’d imagined him!

  She slid a glance over her shoulder, seeing nothing.

  Naturally.

  Her heart began to pound again, her hard-won cool crumbling.

  Honoria remained unruffled. “Be glad the door is sealed,” she said, pressing her point. “That’s also the wing with the ghost room.”

  “Ghost room?”

  “So we call it now.” Honoria took her arm, pulling her down the passageway. “The room used to be a nursery.”

  Cilla glanced back at the locked door.

  She’d done so well putting the sexy ghost from her mind. Yet now she could almost see him standing beside the ancient door, flexing his fingers above the drawbar as if he meant to seize it any moment.

  Pull the thing back and open the door—just to prove that he could.

  She swallowed, her pulse leaping.

  “Honoria . . .” She spoke before she lost nerve. “Is the ghost room haunted by a Highland warrior who wears a big sword and carries a round, medieval shield?”

  “By glory, nae! More’s the pity!” The older woman tossed her a glance. “It’s not a braw lad but a poor serving lass. She hails from the days of Culloden, if the tales be true.”

  “The mid-1700s?” A chill slid down Cilla’s spine. “Uncle Mac swears there aren’t any ghosts at Dunroamin,” she argued, the comment causing an unexpected tightening in her chest. “I asked him.”

  Honoria scoffed. “That one wouldn’t own to a bogle’s presence if one bit him on the nose. Ask your auntie about the lass. She’ll tell you the truth of it.”

  “Aunt Birdie saw her?”

  “Och, nae, but she understands the possibilities.”

  The housekeeper paused to run a finger along the edge of a dark oaken table set into a wall niche. She frowned when the finger came away dust smeared.

  Cilla waited, not really wanting to talk about ghosts, but curious all the same.

  Honoria drew a breath. “The maid’s name was Margaret MacDonald,” she revealed, her voice dropping. “She was a local lass, born right here in the shadow of Ben Hope and Ben Loyal. Fair, she was, with a head of dark curls and a bright, dimpled smile. Not a day passed that she wasn’t smiling or laughing. Until”—she paused, her eyes glittering in the lamplight—“she caught the laird’s eye.”

  “He seduced her.” Cilla already knew. “Then he sent her away pregnant.”

  “Aye, so it was,” the housekeeper confirmed. “But the only place he sent her was into a hidey-hole behind the bricks of one of the chimneys.”

  “He walled her up?”

  Honoria nodded. “Word was put about that she jumped off a cliff, heartbroken over the death of a local gallant who’d lost his life at Culloden. But she started appearing not long thereafter, and the truth came out.”

  Cilla swallowed. “Her body was found?”

  “Aye, it was. But not till repairs were done on the chimney in the early 1900s.” They’d reached the top of the main stair, and the housekeeper turned to look at her. “The laird confessed the deed on his deathbed, though he didn’t have the breath to reveal where he’d put her.”

  “That’s horrible.” Cilla shuddered as they began descending the stairs. “Is she still seen?”

  “Not these days, and there’s little chance of her appearing again, so you needn’t worry.” Honoria’s pace turned brisk, her tweed skirt swishing. “Your Uncle Mac was the last soul to see her.”

  “Uncle Mac?” Cilla couldn’t believe it. “He’s the greatest skeptic there is.”

  “He wasn’t when he was three years old.” Honoria stopped on the landing. “He just doesn’t remember seeing her,” she said, her mouth quirking. “He was ill with a fever and she sat on a chair in his room for a week, watching over him and singing to him until he recovered.”

  “She was worried about him and wanting to help.” The idea squeezed Cilla’s heart. “Not being able to have her own babe, she tried to nurture other ones.”

  “That’s what we believe, just.” Honoria peered back up the way they’d come, her gaze on the shadows at the top of the stairs. “She only ever showed herself if a child of the house fell seriously ill. Once the danger passed, she’d leave. Your uncle was the last child reared at Dunroamin. Now, with the residents all being of a certain age, we suspect she’s found her peace.”

  “Or she’s moved on to look after little ones elsewhere?” Cilla’s voice hitched on the words.

  Margaret MacDonald’s story put a different spin on ghosts.

  She sympathized with the heartbroken serving girl.

  “I hope she’s well. . . . Wherever she is.”

  “Ach, she’ll be feeling better than me with my knees e’er aching from traipsing up and down these stairs.” Honoria dusted her jacket sleeve, all business again. “Come now, and we’ll sit you dow
n in front of the library fire and you’ll have a cup of tea to warm you.”

  “That’d be nice,” Cilla lied, certain she’d soon need the loo again if she had to drink more tea.

  What she needed was a hot shower and a bed.

  But when she opened the library door a few moments later, rather than book-lined walls and tables spread for tea, it was a teetering assortment of all manner of containers that greeted her.

  Plastic buckets, old pitchers and jugs, and even seed trays and empty tin cans filled the doorway, each unlikely item crammed so tightly together she couldn’t see anything but darkness beyond the towering pile.

  “Yikes!” She jumped when a broken-handled casserole pot rolled off its perch and tumbled forward, nearly conking her on the head before it bounced onto the carpeted floor with a dull thud. “What’s all this?”

  “Not the library.” The housekeeper was right behind her. “That’s the closet where we keep buckets and whatnot to catch the drips from the roof.”

  “The roof leaks?” Cilla couldn’t believe it.

  “Aye, it does.” Honoria snatched up the casserole pot. “Only in the worst rainstorms, but then the plink-plinkety-plonks of the dripping water is so loud that a body can’t hear itself think.”

  “Aunt Birdie and Uncle Mac didn’t mention—”

  “There’ll be much they haven’t told you about the goings-on at Dunroamin, but”—the housekeeper caught her eye—“you’ll be hearing it soon enough.”

  “Aunt Birdie told me there are difficulties.” Cilla stepped aside as the older woman thrust the casserole pot back into the chaos and shut the closet door. “Do you think someone deliberately damaged the roof?”

  “Age and wear damaged the roof and naught else.” Honoria started down the corridor again. “Though I can tell you that your aunt and uncle meant to have the roof repaired some while ago and would have done if business hadn’t taken such a bad turn.”

  “Oh, dear.” Cilla hurried after her, hot shower and bed forgotten. “Water drips can do all kinds of damage to an old house like this.”

  “Exactly.” Honoria didn’t break stride. “And that’s just what we suspect certain bodies are hoping.”

  “But who would want to hurt Uncle Mac and Aunt Birdie?”

  “Someone up to no good is who.” The housekeeper’s voice was sharp. “And one thing is sure as I’m standing here”—she stopped before a magnificent carved oak door, one hand on the latch—“it isn’t ghosties what’s causing the furor.”

  Cilla blinked. “Ghosties?”

  Behind her, she thought she heard a rustle of wool. Kilted wool—she knew the sound well—coming closer, as if to listen in on their conversation.

  Unfazed, the housekeeper sniffed.

  “Aye, ghosties, if one was of a mind to believe such twaddle.”

  “I thought you believed in them.”

  “Ach, and I do right enough.” Her tone rang with conviction. “But there are ghosties and ghosties, and I’ll no’ be buying that a gaggle of them want to scare away Dunroamin’s paying residents.”

  Leaning close, she pinned Cilla with a stare. “I don’t just work here, see you? I live and breathe this house. I know every creaking floorboard, every groan in the woodwork, each sticking window, and which shutters rattle in the night wind.”

  She straightened, her hand still on the door latch. “I also know Dunroamin’s ghosts. The bogles we have here, such as poor Margaret MacDonald, love Dunroamin and would never seek to frighten folk.”

  Cilla wasn’t so sure about that, but before she could voice an opinion, the housekeeper swung open the library door and three things leapt at her, chasing Honoria and her bogles from her mind.

  One, she’d never seen so much plaid.

  Though the requisite mahogany bookcases lined the walls and the handsome fire surround gleamed in the expected black marble and the usual ancestral portraits held pride of place throughout the large room, a palette of tartanware covered every other inch of available space.

  Heavy velvet drapes styled the windows in a sett of deep red squares and stripes. Instead of the customary Persian carpets, richly patterned plaid rugs lent warmth to the wide-planked polished floor, while tartan wallpaper peeked from between the bookshelves, gilded picture frames, and occasional molting stag heads.

  Even the scattered sofas and wing chairs welcomed in various-shaded tartan dress, some offering the additional comfort of several folded plaid blankets and stout tartan-covered ottomans.

  In short, the library bulged plaid.

  Cilla blinked, the colorful array almost hurting her eyes.

  The housekeeper, clearly immune, strode past her into the candlelit room. Looking wholly in her element, she made straight for a long, tartan-draped table near a wall of tall, mullioned windows.

  Spread for tea with generous servings of oatcakes and cheeses, cakes and chocolate-dipped biscuits, and large silver platters of salmon and thin-sliced roast beef, it wasn’t the tartan tablecloth that took Cilla by surprise—not after seeing the room—but the two multiarmed candelabrums illuminating the tea goods.

  Real wax tapers burned in the wall sconces, as well, and a quick glance around showed no modern lighting at all.

  Today’s world treads easy at Dunroamin, and our residents appreciate feeling embraced by earlier times.

  Aunt Birdie’s words—spoken years ago in Yardley—rushed back to Cilla now. Dunroamin really was like a living history museum; a place where those who loved old things could take refuge.

  Only the dear old things she’d expected to find crowding the library, listening to Uncle Mac’s afternoon tea talk by the fire, proved so scarce in number they could be counted on one hand.

  And that was the second thing that surprised her upon entering the room.

  The third, and most alarming, was Uncle Mac himself.

  Larger than life as he was, he couldn’t be missed and Cilla spotted him right away, despite the dimness of the shadowy, candlelit room.

  As expected, he strode to and fro before a crackling hearth fire, his pipe in one hand and a glittering crystal dram glass in the other.

  He was definitely holding court, emphasizing each booming word with a grand flourish of his smoke-trailing pipe. His reflection in the huge gilt mirror above the mantelpiece gave the illusion that two Uncle Macs paced there, kilt-swinging, red-faced, and agitated.

  Cilla froze.

  She lifted a hand to her breast and shook her head.

  Then she blinked and knuckled her eyes, but she hadn’t been mistaken.

  Uncle Mac—a man who defined merriment—was furious.

  And he was ranting about ghosts.

  Viking ghosts.

  Chapter 4

  “Vikings, my eye!”

  Mac MacGhee stabbed the air with his pipe. “I dinna care who says they saw a ghostly band of horn-helmeted Norsemen slinking past my peat banks—I say they saw bog mist!”

  Cilla stared at him, too surprised to step out of the shadows near the door.

  She did press a hand to her cheek. She needed it there to keep her jaw from dropping.

  She’d never seen her uncle so upset.

  That he was stood beyond question. His ruddy face glowed apple red, and he’d swelled his great barrel chest like an enraged Highland bull.

  “If not bog mist”—he glared at his audience from behind a cloud of cherry-scented smoke—“then sea haar.”

  “Here, here.” A dapper-looking gentleman with a bald pate and a trim silver mustache puffed at his own pipe and nodded enthusiastic agreement.

  Uncle Mac swung toward him. “Next they’ll be seeing mermaids swimming in the Kyle!”

  “Jolly right.” Silver Mustache shifted in an overstuffed plaid chair and crossed his legs, revealing heavy hill-walking boots that struck an odd contrast to his neat gray suit. “Mist or moon glow, I say they also took a dram too many before they went to bed.”

  “Pah!” A tiny white-haired woman seared him with a s
tare. “I know what I saw and I’ll not have either of you say me otherwise.”

  An equally petite woman caning her way to the well-laden tea table took her side. “Just because neither of you saw them doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”

  Reaching the table, she began helping herself to a generous serving of roast beef and boiled potatoes. “Only the other night, I heard whooping out over the moors. Shouts, they were, and in no language of this day!”

  “You heard geese.” Uncle Mac glowered at her.

  She waved the serving fork at him. “I heard Vikings! I’d recognize their yells anywhere,” she declared, jutting her chin. “I’m of Norse descent, after all.”

  Uncle Mac snorted.

  Show me a Highlander who isn’t, Cilla thought she heard him grumble beneath his breath.

  The first old dear—the white-haired one—leaned forward then. “Leo saw them, too,” she announced, stroking the little black-and-tan dachshund curled on her lap. “He growled at them out my window.”

  “Hah!” Silver Mustache slapped his thigh. “Like as not, your fool bird was sitting on the ledge.”

  “Leo doesn’t growl at Gregor.” The tiny woman sat back in her chair, looking smug. “Only you.”

  A flurry of coughs and titters rippled through the library.

  “Enough!” Uncle Mac tossed down his whisky and sent a warning look to the other residents.

  Silver Mustache and the tiny woman exchanged challenging glares.

  “Becalm yourselves.” Honoria stepped between them, bearing cups of tea and a plate of chocolate biscuits. “Whatever was seen, we’ll soon get to the bottom of it.”

  It was then that Cilla saw the shield.

  Round, studded, and looking suspiciously familiar, it appeared to hover in the shadows near one of the Jacobean window bays.

  She sucked in her breath when it settled on a cushioned window seat, perfectly upright as if someone had propped it against the leaded panes.

  Propped, or held it.