Tall, Dark, and Kilted

by MACKAY, ALLIE

  So he did a bit of lightning-quick sifting, putting himself between her and the door before Mac and Birdie noticed he’d moved.

  Cilla did.

  She froze where she was, her back ramrod straight.

  Hardwick swore beneath his breath. She looked like she’d swallowed a broomstick. And he never would have believed she could compress such full, sensuous lips into such a hard, tight line.

  But she had, and seeing it killed him.

  Again.

  Lass. It isn’t what you think. He willed her to hear him.

  She arched one brow, indicating she had.

  Hardwick started to relax. But then her back went even more rigid, and although she couldn’t sift, she’d somehow managed to shoot past him and reach the door.

  Ignoring him now, she grabbed the latch and pulled.

  Hardwick swore.

  He threw a quick glance across the room. Mac stood with his back to him and was still blethering on about Americans and their great love of peat fires.

  But Birdie was watching him.

  To his surprise, she winked. Then she made a little flipping gesture with her fingers.

  She mouthed the word Go.

  Hardwick understood at once.

  He whipped back around, but he was too late. The armory door stood ajar. Cilla was gone, the echo of her retreating footsteps all that remained.

  For one ridiculous moment, he considered following her as a man would do. Purposely following her through Dunroamin’s winding passages and then up the various stairs she needed to traverse to get to her room.

  He could keep a discreet distance. Then, upon reaching her bedchamber, he could knock politely at her door. He could state his purpose and request admission. If he were a man, he could do all those things.

  But he was a ghost, after all.

  And being a ghost did have a few advantages.

  So he glanced back at Birdie one last time, giving her an appreciative nod.

  Then he sifted himself out of the armory and directly to the one place he knew Cilla would be so startled to see him, he’d have at least a few minutes to speak to her before she ordered him to go.

  In a blink, he was there.

  The only problem was, now that he’d materialized in her bed, he knew he’d want to be there again.

  And under very different circumstances.

  Heaven help him.

  Chapter 11

  Thousands of American women.

  Cilla couldn’t blot the words from her mind. They whirled in her head, growing louder until she could hardly think. No matter how fast she hurried through Dunroamin’s dim and dripping corridors, she couldn’t outrun them.

  They kept pace.

  Jeering each time she almost knocked over a drip container or stubbed her toe on the incredibly hard stone of the ancient castle’s tight-winding stairs.

  Making it worse, the women weren’t the only ones. Two Scots chased her, too.

  More appropriately said, two Scotsmen.

  American-born Grant A. Hughes III, so proud of his supposed Scottish ancestry even if he likely couldn’t trace it farther back than the New York tartan shop where he’d acquired his custom kilt.

  And historian-cum-author-cum-tour guide Wee Hughie MacSporran, also known as the Highland Storyweaver. If his enthusiastic pack of Australian groupies was any indication, he was an even greater skirt-chaser than Grant.

  Cilla shuddered.

  She’d had enough of such men.

  Who would have thought she’d have to add a ghost to their tartaned, womanizing ranks?

  Furious that it was so, she paused to press her side. It burned and ached with a stitch she really didn’t need. Keeping a hand to her ribs, she mounted a few more steps. Then she stopped again, this time on a little landing with two doors opening off it.

  Leaning against the wall, she frowned.

  She shouldn’t care that she had to lump Hardwick in the same pot as Grant and his scribbling, tour-guiding Scottish counterpart.

  She did care that she’d made a fool of herself.

  Ghost or not, Hardwick surely knew why she’d dashed out of Uncle Mac’s armory. Women didn’t run from men they didn’t care about.

  Everyone knew that.

  It was a universal truth. One that made her face burn and her hands curl into fists.

  She blew out a breath, trying to pretend she didn’t feel like a white-hot vise had clamped around her chest, stealing her air. After Grant, she’d sworn to stand above such things. To never again fall so hard for a man who wielded such power over her heart.

  Trouble was, she hadn’t realized she’d done just that until her uncle had oh-so-unwittingly revealed Hardwick’s womanizing ways.

  Oh, she’d known she was interested. How could she not know when she need only catch a hint of his deliciously exotic scent to have tingles sizzling all through her? And if he turned that slow, seductive smile on her, she really lost it. As for his deep, husky burr and the dark, heated looks he gave her . . .

  She didn’t finish the thought.

  The clench she felt between her legs each time he said anything didn’t bear admitting.

  It was just too plain humiliating.

  She really did care about him. Big time. And hearing about his legions of women—Americans, no less—had been a blow behind the knees.

  A revealing blow.

  And there was only one thing to do about it.

  She should turn around, march right back downstairs, waltz into the armory, and plunk herself onto the sofa as if nothing had happened.

  Then she’d lift her chin or examine her fingernails and casually announce that she ate too many mini pretzels at the Ben Loyal’s Bistro Bar. Everyone would believe her if she claimed the salt had made her stomach queasy. No one would lift a brow if they thought a roiling tummy had sent her flying from the room.

  “Yeah, Swanner, you need to go back down there. Save your face if you can’t salvage your heart.” She spoke to the door across the landing. Age-darkened and indifferent-seeming, she had the strangest feeling that the closed door was staring at her.

  She blinked, her blood chilling.

  The door might not be looking at her. But it was opening.

  Creaking open in the way of all squeaky-hinged doors in centuries-old castles: slowly and with just enough weirdness to turn her legs to lead, freezing her to the spot.

  She swallowed.

  Her planned diva-on-the-sofa scene dispersed like a burst soap bubble.

  Chills swept her, and the fine hairs on her nape lifted. Until the door completed its slow, ear-grating arc to reveal a small, oak-paneled chamber.

  Dark and low-ceilinged, the room appeared empty except for a dressing table and washstand. A dust cover protected something that might have been a chair. If a bed had ever graced the room, it was gone now. But the room did have two windows opposite the door.

  Twin and narrow oblongs that looked out onto the Kyle, over which the moon now hung, its bright crescent just sailing out from behind a cloud. She could make out the black outline of Castle Varrich, too. High on its cliff, the ruin’s crumbling window arch was bathed in silver and shadow.

  She took a step closer, her gaze going through the open doorway to the windows, where she half expected to see the devil face sweep into view. A thin rain fell, the droplets glistening on the ancient, rippled glass. Somewhere thunder rumbled, but what really caught her attention was that some of the lower panes were missing, allowing cold, damp wind to pour into the room.

  Wind that—she was sure—had caused the door to swing open.

  She gave herself a shake, releasing the breath she’d been holding. That was twice tonight that she’d made a fool of herself. Lucky for her, no one had witnessed this second beyond-silly little episode.

  No one, that is, except the strange woman in the dark little room.

  Cilla started, her legs going all rubbery again.

  Tall, blond, and stately, the woman could have b
een Aunt Birdie, except she was still in the armory. Even in younger years, Aunt Birdie had never worn her hair in a single, hip-length braid. She favored French twists or a fashionably knotted silken head scarf.

  And although Aunt Birdie possessed a certain grace and style, she walked like everyone else. She didn’t glide across rooms as if her feet didn’t touch the floor.

  Nor was it her habit to run around in ankle-length woolen gowns of deep red-purple, the seams edged in finest embroidery, the sleeves long and tight. A shawl of brilliant blue draped the woman’s shoulders, and a wide, colorfully patterned belt cinched her waist, but if she wore any other adornments, Cilla couldn’t see them.

  The woman now stood at the windows, her back to the door.

  Cilla blinked. Then she knuckled her eyes.

  It didn’t help.

  The ghost—for she could only be one—was still there. In the wink it’d taken Cilla to rub her eyes, the apparition had splayed a beringed hand against the rain-streaked window glass.

  Sea-Strider.

  The word—a name?—seemed to drift around the woman. As real as if she’d whispered it in Cilla’s ear, the word held all the anguish of a woman who’d loved and lost.

  Forgetting the fright the woman’s sudden appearance had given her, her heart squeezed at the pain drenching the tiny, dark-paneled room.

  Very slowly, the woman turned her head and stared at her, her eyes beseeching. For a long moment she held Cilla’s gaze, her lips moving silently before she looked back out the rain-splattered window. Her gaze, Cilla just knew, was fixed on the ruin of Castle Varrich.

  She had to be Aunt Birdie’s Gudrid. Though what she was doing at Dunroamin, Cilla couldn’t begin to imagine.

  She shivered. Remembering her aunt’s musings about the ghost, she imagined a big, burly man standing near the woman. She could see him clearly. Unnoticed in a corner, he stared at the woman with great, sad eyes. Bearded and fair as she, he wore a plain, pointed helm with a nose guard and a long mailed tunic. In one hand, he held a huge nine-foot spear, and in the other, he clutched a large round shield, colorfully painted a rich dark blue and decorated with an interlaced pattern of white, red, and green lines. Seeming to glow despite the shadows, the shield looked nearly double the size of Hardwick’s.

  On thinking of him, both images faded.

  But not without leaving her with the distinct impression they’d had something important to tell her. Regrettably, she hadn’t been able to hear the woman’s voice and the man hadn’t even glanced her way, having eyes only for the woman.

  Cilla pressed a hand to her breast, wishing she’d understood their message. As it was, she could only guess their names, Gudrid and Sea-Strider, before the little room’s door inched shut again, blocking its secrets from view.

  “Holy guacamole.” Cilla rubbed her arms, chills all over her. She felt a strong urge to go back to the armory and real people, including Hardwick.

  To her he was real.

  She needed to settle things with him, one way or the other.

  But the poor lighting in the stair tower struck her as even more dim than before. Deep shadows danced everywhere, and the night wind sounded ominous. Almost a wail, it whistled past the medieval arrow slits cut so deep into the walls. No way was she going down those stairs, into the darkness.

  Her room was much closer.

  She shivered again, her decision made.

  For now, Hardwick would just have to think what he wanted of her flight from the armory.

  Tomorrow would be soon enough to deal with him.

  First she needed a sound night’s sleep. Maybe she’d even take a hot bath. She’d found that using the bathtub made it much easier to regulate the water temperature than risking a go at the dodgy shower.

  Then bed and a good book to get her mind off the ghost woman and her Sea-Strider, and she’d be fine.

  Feeling better—but still a bit shaken—she resisted sliding another glance at the dark little room’s door, now closed tight and silent.

  Instead she dashed up the remaining steps, then down the long corridor to her room. This passage didn’t seem to have any drip buckets to run an obstacle course around. Or she’d just not seen them. A distinct possibility, as the old-fashioned wall sconces her uncle loved so much appeared to throw off less light than usual.

  The passage was positively gloomy.

  Except for the thin band of light showing beneath her closed door.

  For a beat, chills whipped through her again. But they vanished quickly. The light had to be thanks to Honoria doing turn-down service. With the night’s rainstorm, her room would’ve been really dark otherwise.

  And she’d already pulled in her stubbed-toe quota for the entire summer.

  Light was good.

  So she vowed to remember to thank the housekeeper for her thoughtfulness, and opened the door.

  Closing it, she took three steps into the room and froze.

  Her jaw slipped.

  There’d been a reason chills swept her upon seeing light beneath her door. Her first reaction had been spot-on, and the bar of light had nothing to do with Honoria.

  It was his doing.

  Hardwick’s.

  “What are you doing here?” She stared at him, heart in her throat.

  “I’m waiting for you, as you can see.” He spoke from her bed.

  Bold as brass, he lounged against the pillows mounded against the headboard. He was staring right at her, his gaze hot and angry. Equally distressing, he’d drawn up one leg and although he’d clasped his hands around his knee, clearly arranging his kilt to try and hide certain things, she could still see them!

  An errant kilt fold with a mind of its own had slipped, revealing him in all his impressive glory.

  She blinked, her eyes going wide. Even relaxed, he was formidable. Heat whipped through her and she could only stare, certain she’d never seen such a magnificent man. He made at least three of Grant, possibly even four.

  When he twitched and started to swell, growing even longer, the hot tingles whirring between her legs increased to such a fever pitch she almost climaxed.

  “Oh, my . . .” She sucked in a breath, but the air wouldn’t go down her throat. It lodged there, almost choking her even as a ragged little moan pushed past to break from her lips.

  She was going to shatter. Reaching for a chair back, she held fast, her knees turning to water and her panties starting to dampen.

  “O-o-oh!” She still couldn’t breathe right. He twitched again, the long, thick length of him no longer hanging at ease between his powerful thighs but throbbing visibly and lengthening beneath her gaze.

  “Hellfire and damnation!” Leaping off the bed, he brushed furiously at his kilt, swatting its folds into place. “I didn’t come here for that.”

  Heat flared in Cilla’s cheeks. “I didn’t say—”

  “Ah, but your eyes did.” He folded his arms, looking at her. “Such is the hazard of wearing a kilt.”

  Cilla lifted her chin. “I know that.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as shaky to him as it did to her. “What I don’t know is why you’re here.”

  He arched a brow. “I think you already know. We need to talk.”

  She swallowed, her pulse still racing. “Oh?”

  “Aye, . . . oh.” He scowled at her, his dark eyes glinting in the dimly lit room. “You shouldn’t have run out of the armory. I told you it wasn’t what you thought.”

  “What wasn’t what I thought?” Cilla brushed at her sleeve.

  He saw right through her. “The thousands of American women. Your uncle misspoke what I’d told him.”

  “I left the armory because I wasn’t feeling well.” She went for a white lie, her pulse finally slowing. “I ate too many mini pretzels at the Ben Loy—”

  “Nae, that’s no’ the reason.” He shook his head, his gaze locked onto hers. “Just as I made it up here faster than you, so do I know you’re speaking untruths. And, nae, I canna read your mind.�
��

  He flashed a devilish smile. “Centuries of experience allowed me to spot a lie the moment one is born. Most ghosts have the same ability unless they were dull-witted in life. Then they remain dim in their afterlife.”

  “In the same way a skirt-chaser remains woman-hungry?” Cilla shot him a smile of her own. “I mean, in their afterlife, of course.”

  “Bloody hell!” He shoved a hand through his hair. “If I am hungry for any woman, it’s you! As I believe you just observed.” His burr deepened on the words, his eyes taking on a dangerous light. “But since that canna be, I wanted to ensure that you dinna think poorly of me.”

  “Why would I do that?” Cilla’s her heart started to hammer again. “You’ve kept me from banging myself up more than once now and”—she glanced aside, not wanting him to see the effect he had on her—“you stood up for me against Uncle Mac when he laughed about the devil face I saw.”

  She looked back at him, pitched her voice challenging. “I really did see something weird. The face did look real. And . . . and I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I just saw two other ghosts. They were a Viking couple in a dark little room off one of the stair landings!”

  Holding his gaze, she jutted her chin, expecting him to laugh at her.

  But he surprised her by closing the distance between them in several long strides and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close against him.

  “Sweet lass.” He drew her head to his chest, “I ken better than you that such things abound. I’m no’ surprised real Viking ghosts would make an appearance here, no’ with all that’s going on out on Mac’s peat fields. They’ll likely be upset by the furor, perhaps distressed to look on as unsavory souls impersonate them.

  “As for the devil face you saw . . .” He tightened his arms around her, splaying his big hands over her hips, his grip firm and, she couldn’t deny, soothing.

  “Such creatures as the face in your window are another reason I’m here, lass.” He pulled back to look down at her, his expression letting her know he was serious. “The fiend was surely looking for me, no’ you. There’s no reason for you to fear, and I doubt you’ll see the like again. Indeed, I’ll make certain of it.”

  “But—”