“You said you don’t want to put me in danger. What danger? Does it have something to do with Jeremy? Were your brakes really tampered with?”
He wished he had never revealed that fact in her presence. “It’s simply something I said to make Fletcher leave.”
“You wouldn’t lie for the sake of convenience.”
“I’m having him watched. He won’t hurt either of us. You have no reason to be concerned.”
“Do you love me, Iain?”
He dropped his hands. “No.”
She was silent, but she didn’t move away. Her eyes frantically searched his face. He struggled to shut himself away from her, somewhere far away where she couldn’t sense what he was feeling.
At last she shook her head. “I was wrong about you.”
He wanted to respond but couldn’t find the words.
“I was wrong. You can lie for the sake of convenience. And right now it’s convenient to protect me and keep me safe. But you do love me.”
“You’ve told me yourself that you’re not a good judge of other people’s feelings.”
For a moment she looked uncertain. He despised himself for playing on her deepest fears. But then she shook her head again. “You love me. And you want me in your life. All you have to do is open the door a little, Iain, and I’ll be there.”
He knew that if he spoke, he would regret forever what he said. He turned away and picked up his shears. And when the last tendril of the trumpet vine had been tamed, he looked behind him and found she had gone.
CHAPTER 11
Cumhann Moor was a desolate place in the winter. The heather and bracken, so scenic in late summer, were dead-leaf brown, and the profuse wildflowers were nothing more than stalks against the pewter-hued sky. Since Duncan and Mara’s wedding there had been neither snow nor rain, and the thirsty earth crackled under Billie’s feet.
She wasn’t sure why she had come here after seeing Iain. She had walked for nearly half a mile, and it was growing darker quickly, although it was only midafternoon. As if to convince her to turn back, a cruel wind whipped across the treeless expanse and flayed every inch of exposed skin, but she walked on.
Christina and Ruaridh had died here, or so the story was told. In the course of her research into genealogical records, Billie had found no proof that either of the young lovers had ever lived, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. Here they had died, at the mercy of those who should have loved them the most.
And there had been no mercy.
Her thoughts whirled faster than the wind. She didn’t envy Mara her second sight, but this once she wished that she, too, could see the past, no matter what pain it brought. She had come to study the stories of Druidheachd and instead she had become immersed in one. Her life was entwined with ancient clan hatreds, with betrayals and tragic lost love. She could no longer separate her own life from that of Christina, or Iain’s from Ruaridh’s. A terrible illness explained by straightforward genetics had become a medieval curse; the man she loved had become a martyr to it.
She loved Iain Ross. A realization that should have filled her with joy filled her with terror instead. She hardly knew him. Their hours together had been few, and she’d had reason to be wary and insecure. But despite that, despite every reason she had not to fall in love, she had. She was bonded to Iain in a way she had never conceived possible. She knew things about him that she couldn’t know, but she had no doubt that if she asked, she would discover she was right.
She knew what it would be like to make love to him.
Billie stood on a low rise staring toward the mountains and considered that revelation. She and Iain had never made love, but not because of her own caution. She had been ready to give herself to him on Christmas day, not because she found giving herself to be a simple thing, but because it had seemed so right. When Iain touched her it was miraculously new, yet as old and changeless as time itself.
She knew what it would be like to make love to him. She could almost feel her body melt against his, feel the way he would move his hands over her, the way he would draw his lips over her breasts. She knew that the moment when they became one would be a moment of such completeness that she would never feel whole again unless he was near. She, the confirmed—but perhaps all too theoretical—feminist.
She almost believed that Iain loved her, too. She read emotions in his eyes that he never communicated. She had seen his expression change when she’d asked him if he loved her. She had seen him steel himself to hurt her. He cared too much about her to cause her pain. He wasn’t a man who would take what he needed at anyone else’s expense, but he was a man who found it easy to be charming, yet distant. She knew he was perfectly capable of taking comfort in a woman while still communicating that their liaison was temporary.
There had never been any thought of that with her. He was afraid that if he made love to her, he would never let her go.
And perhaps it was true.
There was no sound on Cumhann Moor except the keening of the wind. It was a woman’s wail, haunting, piercing, and it shattered Billie’s concentration. She folded her arms and rubbed her gloved hands over them. More than ever she knew that she should start back. But something called to her.
Christina had died here. Her life had been short and tragic, but she had known the full scope of Ruaridh’s love. Billie didn’t envy Christina, but she envied the love that had been so sorely tested on this moor. From the beginning Christina and Ruaridh had known how small was their chance of happiness, yet they had chosen love and hope despite the odds against a happy ending.
Iain had abandoned both. And still, there was no possibility of a happy ending for either of them.
She picked her way down the rise, straining to see where to place each foot. There was another rise ahead, a higher one that was part of a series of land ripples that eventually would lead into foothills. She knew better than to go any farther, but she pushed on. She would climb this rise and see what lay ahead; then she would turn and find her way back to Mara’s car. She wasn’t ready to return to Flora’s, to warmth and cheer and Druidheachd gossip. The moor seemed appropriate somehow, despite bitter wind and thickening gloom.
Or because of it.
She didn’t know how long she walked. She stumbled once on the uneven ground, and once she stopped to look behind her to be sure that she wouldn’t lose her way. She had almost reached her destination when she stopped again.
There was a pile of stones—what the Scots called a cairn—just ahead of her. The cairn hadn’t been visible until she was nearly on it, because the stones were blanketed by vegetation and feathered with fronds of winter-slumbering bracken. There was nothing accidental about it. The stones were neatly piled in a wide circle, several feet high, and they were of different sizes and shapes. She stared at the pile and remembered a superstition that Flora had once related. In the Highlands there had always been strict guidelines about where the body of a suicide was allowed to rest. Often such bodies were not allowed in the churchyard, and when they were, they were placed on the north side at such an angle that no one, particularly a pregnant woman, could step over the grave and court bad luck.
“Nowt will grow where a suicide is buried,” Flora had added. “Or where a murder has been committed, for that matter. If we passed such a grave, we tossed a stone upon it.”
Billie, who had been taking notes, had been careful to be sure she understood. “And the site of a murder?”
“Aye, that too, lass. That, too.”
“Are there places like that in or near Druidheachd that I could visit?”
“Aye, but t’would be terrible luck to tell ye where. Terrible. Dinna even ask.”
Now Billie stared at the cairn and shudders ran up her spine. There had been thousands of people living in this area since the Middle Ages, but she was as certain as she had ever been of anything that this was where Christina and Ruaridh had met their deaths. She moved forward and knelt beside the cairn. The ground was cold ag
ainst her denim-clad legs, but she hardly noticed. She stripped off a glove and touched a stone, then another. She had the same sensation she had experienced when touching the inscribed stone in the field near Annie MacBean’s cottage. The stones were warm.
She hadn’t cried since her confrontation with Iain. Her sorrow had been too fresh. Now tears streamed down her cheeks, but she wasn’t even sure for whom she wept. She squeezed her eyes closed and heard the sound of horse’s hooves. A woman screamed, and a man shouted to her. She heard the storm of weeping, the clashing of swords.
She opened her eyes in horror. The wind keened louder, the bitter Highland wind. A twentieth century wind. “Christina,” she whispered.
She felt the other woman’s agony as profoundly as if it were her own.
Billie stood and stumbled away from the cairn. The sky was nearly dark, and she was trembling from the cold. She was frightened now, as she had not been before, not even when Iain had told her that she could be in danger. She was filled with such a sense of foreboding that for a moment she couldn’t start back the way she had come. She was paralyzed, caught somewhere between the past and a future that seemed to press down on her and choke off her breath. She coughed, and as she gulped helplessly, air rushed into her lungs.
It was tinged with smoke.
She whirled, but nothing greeted her except darkness. She knew the direction she should go; she could still see the outline of the rise she had just crossed. She sniffed the air again, and again it seemed tainted. She was reminded of crisp Thanksgiving evenings at her Kentucky grandmother’s, and bonfires of autumn leaves scenting the air. But there was nothing festive about this.
“Run, Billie.”
She heard a woman’s voice as plainly as if someone were standing beside her, but there was no one there. She didn’t have to turn; she didn’t have to search. She knew who had spoken.
She began to move. Slowly at first, then faster, until she was running in the direction from which she had come. The air grew smokier, but still she ran.
“Teich! Luathaich! Run! Danger!”
* * *
Iain stood at the top of Ceo Castle and surveyed his own private kingdom. He knew men like himself who had inherited lands and titles and believed they were better for it. But he had never considered himself better than any other resident of Druidheachd. He was different, marked forever by land grants to long departed ancestors, by favors to kings who now adorned the pages of history books, and wars that he himself would have refused to fight.
He could see for miles; he had title to it all. And what was any of it worth?
Iain didn’t know why he had come to the castle. He had found himself here soon after Billie’s departure. He had gazed at Loch Ceo and remembered the day he had seen her struggling there. Perhaps he had come to reestablish that tenuous bond. Or perhaps he had come because he couldn’t abide the voices echoing through Fearnshader’s halls. Whatever the reason, he had grown chilled here as evening fell. And still he hadn’t left.
He went to the other side of the walkway and gazed out over the narrow forest that was the gateway to Cumhann Moor. As a boy he had hiked the moor with his father, but he had always been reluctant. The first time they had come upon the stone cairn his father had put his hands on Iain’s shoulders and forced him to stand beside it.
“Remember this place,” Malcolm Ross had said. “For it was here that a terrible crime was committed against our family.”
Iain had only learned the whole story of the moor when he was a man. But from the moment his father had forced him to face the cairn, he had begun to hate Cumhann Moor. In his father’s day there had been shooting parties there, but Iain had always found a way to avoid them. With the help of keepers and underkeepers, the moor had supported a wealth of grouse and pheasants, but for Iain there had only been a stone cairn and a wind that wailed sorrowfully no matter what the time of day or year.
Now the moor was a dark stretch of land rising toward mountains nearly shrouded by evening mists. He wondered if Billie had believed the story of Christina and Ruaridh’s deaths. Or had she seen it as one more Highland legend, one more folktale to be related in her dissertation? Would she ever understand how the story of their deaths had rung through the centuries, haunting every Ross who had lived in this castle or, later, at Fearnshader? Would she understand how it haunted him?
Chimney swifts darted in the deepening twilight, and out on the loch, a lone boat whistled its last farewell to day. Iain realized he had to go back home whether he was ready or not. He moved away from the battlements, but just as he was about to turn toward the steps, he glimpsed something in the distance that stopped him. The mists rising from the moor were no thicker than usual, but they were denser, and they billowed strangely.
He narrowed his eyes and stared out at them.
The mists weren’t mists at all.
By the time he was on the ground below, running toward his car, the smell of smoke was tangible. He owned a medieval castle, a vast Gothic estate and a twentieth century state-of-the-art cellular car phone because he was so often on the road. He prayed that this once, despite mountains and poor weather, he would get the reception he needed.
He called in his plea for help without serious difficulty, then drove toward the road that ran beside the moor. It was little more than a track, erratically maintained since the days of hunting weekends and rarely driven. It had been used today, though. He saw the proof as he rounded a curve. Mara’s car was parked in the midst of a stand of evergreens bordering the road. He hadn’t seen it from the castle because it was so well hidden.
Billie was here.
The smoke was thicker now, thick enough to tickle his throat when he sprang from the car. He drew in what air he could and shouted for her, but there was no reply.
He didn’t bother asking himself why she had come. He knew. He hadn’t told her about the cairn, but she had gone to walk the moor alone, perhaps to experience what she could of her own family’s tragedy. He shouted again, and again there was no reply.
He looked for a break in the trees, assuming that she would have done the same so that she could approach the moor from the nearest point to the car. He found one and cut through the forest, shouting as he went. He reached the moor and started across it. The land wasn’t flat; there were tufts of vegetation, pits where peat had once been dug, wee hills and valleys that kept him occupied as he moved forward.
“Billie! Answer me!”
The smoke was visible here, although with the wind lashing around him, he couldn’t determine its source. He thought it must be some distance away, but he couldn’t be sure. He’d had no time to closely examine how a fire might have started in this desolate and abandoned place. It was the wrong season for lightning storms or careless campers. Some land owners routinely burned strips of their moorland to encourage the proper ground cover for game, but Iain had never been convinced that was good ecology. And the season was wrong for that, too.
He began to run. He shouted Billie’s name, but the wind whipped it away. The smoke was growing thicker, but he still hadn’t seen flames. He ran farther into it, because there was no other choice. “Billie!”
Smoke clouded his lungs and choked off his shouts. He slowed his pace, but he kept moving. Between the darkness and the smoke, visibility was minimal. He wondered how he would find her unless he stumbled upon her. The moor was vast, the terrain deceitful. He could pass just meters from her and never know she was there.
“Billie!”
He heard something beyond the impenetrable wall of darkness in front of him. A gasp, a choked cry. He tried to focus on it and head in that direction. “Billie? Say something, damn it. Guide me.”
“Iain.”
Relief was cut short by the first glimpse of flames. He came down the far side of a low rise and saw a red glow on the horizon. “Billie!”
“Here.” She materialized out of the darkness, limping, but moving on her own. “I’m here.”
He did
n’t have time to think. He covered the distance between them and clasped her to his chest. “You’re hurt.” He kissed her hair. His hands moved over her back, testing, confirming, supporting. “Billie.” He lifted her face and kissed her hard; then he pulled away. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Do you know how?”
“Aye.”
“I’ve hurt my foot. I can’t move fast.”
“I’ll support you. Come on.”
He put his arm around her waist and pulled her along beside him. He could feel her struggle to keep pace, but she didn’t complain. All the things that were wrong between them seemed immaterial now.
She stumbled, and he caught her. “Careful. I don’t want you hurt worse,” he said.
“It’s moving so fast. One minute it was smoke, then a glow, then I could see the flames.”
“We’ll move faster.”
“Who could have set it?”
He’d found time to ask himself the same. “No one. It’s a freak of nature or an accident. How did you injure your foot?”
“I twisted my ankle in a hole.” She suddenly stopped moving. “Iain, look!”
He raised his head and peered into the distance. Flame shot like living fountains into the air. “Bloody hell, we’ve made a wrong turn.”
“No! I don’t think so. It’s circling us.”
It couldn’t be true, yet he was afraid she was right. He pulled her in another direction. They could still get back to the road this way, although it was farther, and he didn’t know how much longer Billie could continue walking. “Just stay with me,” he said.
She was limping badly, but she was making a valiant effort to keep up. He could feel her straining at his side. Her body against his seemed so delicate. For all her quicksilver energy and lionhearted courage, she was still a small woman and now an injured one. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m going to get you out of this,” he promised.
“We’ll be okay.”
He wanted to believe his own words, but just beyond them on the horizon, he saw flames. They were cut off again. The air was smothering now. He heard her coughing just before he began to cough himself.
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