“No!” She twisted in panic to get away from him, twisted and fought against the strength of the hand holding hers.
“You dinna mean no.” He freed her hands, but now both of his played over her skin. “You want me, and I want you. There’s no shame in this, Fiona.”
“No!” She twisted away, shoving him hard with her hands and her knees. She sat up, then stood on shaking legs and backed away from him. “Does no mean something different here than it does in America, Andrew?”
He didn’t answer. He sat up slowly, almost as if he were in a dream; then he turned his back to her. She watched him lower his head to his hands.
She crumpled to the other side of the bed and did the same.
Time passed, although she couldn’t have said how much. When the tension between them had stretched to a silent, shattering scream, Andrew spoke.
“Are you all right?”
She hadn’t expected his first words to be a question about her well-being. She had expected fury. She deserved nothing less. She was a virgin, but she was not an adolescent drowning in her own budding sexuality. She was a woman, and she understood what it meant to lead a man on. She had asked Andrew for more than she’d allowed him to give her. There were terrible names for what she had done.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“No. I dinna think I am.”
She didn’t know what to say. An apology seemed useless, a thing so slight that it would evaporate in the air between them.
“I would no’ have forced you,” he said.
“I know! Andrew, I know you wouldn’t have. It’s just that—”
“It’s just that I lost control.”
She turned a little, but she could see only the back of his head. He ran his hands through his hair, but his head was still bent.
“If you ever needed proof that I’m not worth your trouble, this was it,” she said. “If you ever needed proof that I’m not enough woman for any man…”
“The only thing we proved tonight was that neither of us knows what we want. At least, no’ deep inside, where it matters most.”
“I wanted you.” She heard a sob in her own voice.
“No’ enough.” He stood. “And why should you have?”
“Andrew—”
“I would drive us home now, but I’m no’ in any shape to drive. Sleep if you can. I’ll be back for you in the morning.”
“Where are you going? I’m not going to let you sleep in that car.”
He turned at the door. His eyes were bleak, and he shook his head. “Dinna worry yourself, Fiona. I dinna think I’ll be sleeping at all.”
CHAPTER 11
The Honourable David Gow had a useless title and a penchant for nubile young women of good family. The former had only become useless after he had indulged his addiction to the latter once too often. He had been banished from London, fired from a prestigious position at the Times and dispatched by his irate father to the backwaters of Scotland—where a dowager aunt kept note of his every movement.
Despite his dark good looks and clever wit, there were few nubile young women of good family available to David now. Between his aunt’s eagle eye and his markedly reduced circumstances, he had settled into a life of boredom so extreme that even the harsh Scottish winter had seemed a diversion. He had learned the subtle differences between snow and more snow. He had developed a reluctant fondness for coal smoking on a soot-blackened hearth. Even his housekeeper Violet, an old woman with more cheek than teeth, had become a source of inspiration and intellectual stimulation.
Violet was the first to tell David of the creature that inhabited Loch Ceo in Druidheachd, a village so remote that few had ever heard of it. Violet had a sister who still lived in Druidheachd, and she went there often to visit. He had paid little attention to Violet’s story at first, since every loch in Scotland seemed to have a dreadful monster with glowing eyes and reptilian scales.
But when Violet told him of the most recent sighting, David’s curiosity had been aroused. Time had passed since his exile, and he could assess his future. He wondered if perhaps he hadn’t landed on both feet after his long fall from grace. His father was beginning to relent; David had even been invited to return to London for a short visit. Now he needed a story, a dashing, gripping story that combined scholarly insight with tabloid titillation.
One good story speeding over the international wire services could be the ticket back to his former life. The creature in Loch Ceo could buy him that ticket.
David arrived in Druidheachd on a clear, warm afternoon. He had avoided the Highlands until now, convinced that if the rest of Scotland was parochial, the Highlands were at best medieval. Despite himself, he had been charmed by the landscape and immediately caught up in its spell. There were no mountains anywhere in Europe that were quite like these. The jagged peaks seemed to rip holes in the present and send time spiraling out of sequence.
He would have to remember that line for his article.
The high street of the village was anything but busy. There were more people on foot than in cars. Neighbors chatted in front gardens of blue delphiniums and yellow primroses. An old woman who could have been Violet’s twin strolled toward a low-slung building with a willow basket draped over her arm. He followed her trail, scenting gossip and information ahead.
Two hours later he was out on the loch in the launch of the very lad who had sighted the creature weeks ago. By this time David had heard the story in more detail than he, the demanding, ever-thorough journalist, had ever wished for.
“Right here it was,” Jamie Gordon said. He was a pleasant looking young man, a bit gormless, but enthusiastic and open, nonetheless. “A creature so fearsome ye’d have frozen in yer tracks, too. Of course, there were nae tracks to freeze in that day. I’m thinking the creature did no’ know we were there. She had nae reason to think anyone would be so gyte as to be out on the loch in a beastly storm.”
“She?” David asked.
“Aye. She.”
“You, umm…saw identifying markings?”
Jamie looked blank.
“You saw proof it was female?”
“Proof? Like tits and such?”
David kept his composure. “Yes.”
“No. Nowt of the sort. But she’s a lady. Andrew MacDougall calls her his darling.”
“Andrew MacDougall?”
“Aye, MacDougalls have always lived on this loch. Andrew’s da saw her once, ye know. The night that Andrew and the other men of midnight were born. Did ye nae hear that story?”
“Men of midnight?”
“Aye. Did ye no’ say ye were a reporter?” Jamie asked suspiciously. Clearly he wondered how practiced David’s skills could be.
“Tell me about these men of midnight.”
Jamie did so, with relish. David filed the story away in his mind. It was mildly interesting, but not of the scale he was looking for. “Can you describe the creature again, Jamie? Amber eyes, you say?”
“Aye, the color of aged whisky. I’m no’ a drinking man now, but someone could show ye—if ye’ve never had the chance to see good malt whisky in England.” He winked. “And her neck was as long as a Scotsman’s…legs, under his kilt.” He winked again.
David gave the lad points for wit. “You say you were frightened. Was it only because you weren’t expecting to see the creature? Or did she threaten you?”
“Threaten? Our creature? I think no’!”
“Then she’s harmless?”
“Och, she’s that and more. She’s as shy as a virgin. She was as surprised to see us as we were to see her. She vanished immediately, ye know. Vanished so swiftly that if Peter had no’ seen her, too, I’d have wondered about my own sanity.”
Evening was creeping their way. The launch rocked gently beneath them in sunset-hued waves. Soon it would be time to go back to shore. David had already taken a room in the picturesque hotel at the center of the village. He planned to stay on tomorrow, but he was already begin
ning to feel frustrated.
So far he had not heard or seen anything that qualified as news. There was no more to the story than had been reported—at least, nothing more that he had uncovered. There had been nearly a dozen boats on the loch when he and Jamie came out. He suspected that in the weeks since the creature’s sighting, a fair number of those boats had been populated by reporters. Unless there was another sighting, the boats would dwindle, the story would be filed on the back pages of village weeklies, and he would have to find another ticket back to his town house in Kensington.
Unless there was another sighting.
“Do you suppose that your creature only comes out in a storm?” David asked.
“Nae. She comes out when she thinks that nae one is there to see her.”
“That’s always been the case, then?”
“Andrew MacDougall could tell ye. He knows every story there is.”
David looked out over the water. The loch was a large one. From their vantage point near the middle, all shapes on the horizon were indistinct. And as night fell, his view would be obscured even more. “What do you say, Jamie. Let’s stay out tonight and see if we can see your creature again.”
“Stay out in the dark? Michty! I think no’. I’ve seen her my one time, but I’m no’ one to challenge fate, Mr. Gow. I’d as soon be sleeping in my bed where there are nae creatures to be seen at all. More’s the pity,” he added with still another wink.
“What will you take for the boat, then? I’ll take it out myself and return it as good as new in the morning.”
“My boat? Och, nae. I could no’ let you have it. It belongs to my brother, too, and—”
“Fifty quid,” David said in his most authoritative voice.
“Ye say ye’ll return it in good condition?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Seventy-five, then, and a deposit of the same. I’ll return the deposit in good condition if the boat’s come to nae harm.”
“Done,” David said.
Jamie looked pleased with himself, but he shook his head in sympathy. “It’ll be a long, cold night, Mr. Gow.”
David stared at the horizon. The shore seemed to grow blurrier by the second. “I expect it to be, Jamie. But some prices have to be paid. And I’m afraid I’ve had enough of Scotland’s winters.”
At first Stardust was afraid to venture into the middle of Serenity Lake. Although her fish friends still avoided her because they were frightened by her size, it took no courage to stay close to the shore where she had been born. She was lonely, of course, and longed for a companion. Sometimes she imagined another dragon just like her, one with a neck that rose from the water like a castle’s tallest tower and a body that made waves so high they gobbled up the golden sand on the farthest beach. For many months, imagining such a companion was pleasure enough.
Then one day Stardust awoke from her bed in the reeds at the lake’s bottom, and she could no longer imagine another water dragon at all. She tried all that day and into the evening. But no matter how hard she concentrated, no pictures would form in her mind. Her imagination was gone. She had used it all. Stardust knew, as she fell asleep again that night, that at last she must cross the lake and find a real companion.
Sara was better. In the two weeks since the crisis she had grown stronger, until her doctors were encouraged enough to continue the program of skin grafts and therapy they had temporarily put on hold. She was back in the ward with the other children now. Fiona had seen her twice.
She hadn’t seen Andrew at all.
“Andrew should be back before too long, should he no’?” Mara asked one morning. She was peering over Fiona’s shoulder at a pen and ink drawing that Fiona was adapting from one of her sketches.
“Should be.” Fiona really didn’t know when Andrew would be back from his final shift of the season. On the morning following their encounter at the old hotel, she and Andrew had lingered in Glasgow just long enough to hear news of Sara’s recovery, then they had made the long trip back to Druidheachd in near silence. Without really looking at her, he had asked if she was all right, and she had said “of course.” She had tried to apologize; he had asked her not to. And very little else had been said.
“It seems a shame that he’s no’ here for all the excitement.” Mara didn’t have to elaborate. The excitement in question was the newest sighting of Andrew’s darling, several days before. A reporter from a tiny village in West Lothian had spent the night in a boat on the loch, and just before dawn his journalistic patience had been rewarded.
“I’m not sure Andrew would want to be here,” Fiona said. “This place is a three-ring circus.”
“Would you enjoy having Andrew to supper when he comes back? I always enjoy seeing him.”
“I don’t think so.” Fiona searched for an excuse. Nothing occurred to her.
“Do you feel that we’re throwing you together? Is that the problem?”
Fiona clutched at that. “Andrew’s very kind, but I don’t want him to feel he has to make something more of our friendship.”
Mara touched her shoulder. “He’s very kind, it’s true. But never dishonest. And he’s as stubborn as any Scotsman. He’s nearly as stubborn as Duncan, for that matter. If Andrew felt he was being pushed, he would dig in his heels like my prize tup on shearing day.”
Fiona capped her pen and faced her sister-in-law. “It’s not Andrew, it’s me.”
Mara waited for her to go on, but Fiona couldn’t.
“Are you finished for the morning?” Mara asked at last. “Or shall I leave you alone to get on with it?”
“I’m done. It’s not turning out the way I wanted it to, anyway. I think I need the break.”
“What’s this book about, or is it bad luck to ask?”
“Stardust falls in love.”
“Does she now?”
Fiona made a face. “I haven’t done one drawing that I like. One water dragon per page is plenty. Two complicates things immensely.”
“How true to life,” Mara said wryly.
Fiona stood and stretched. She had been at her drawing board most of the morning. She had spent hours here every day since returning from the ill-fated night in Glasgow. She had hoped that hard work would put the encounter with Andrew from her mind, but she had failed. “What are your plans for the day?”
“I’m going to start on the attic. I thought you might want to help. Billie’s inspired me. We’ve a miniature version of Fearnshader up there. Antiques and mementos from centuries. I want to get to it before it all crumbles to dust. It’s your family history, after all. Yours and Duncan’s, and April’s, too. No’ to mention my own children’s.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
Mara’s laugh was like quicksilver. “I’m trying to tell you that we’re trying, I suppose. For that matter, Billie and Iain are, too.”
Fiona’s happiness at the news was tempered by poignancy, as so much was these days. She had never dared to dream she might have children of her own, but now that fact seemed inexpressibly sad. “I’m glad I’ve had a chance to practice this aunt thing,” she said.
“I’d say you have it mastered. April adores you.”
They continued to chat on their way to the attic. Fiona couldn’t remember ever having been there. It wasn’t the sort of place where children would be allowed to play. Even with the lights on it was dark, and cobwebs surrounded boxes and discarded furniture like ghostly shrouds.
“It’s a fire hazard,” Fiona said. “I’m glad we’re doing this.”
“It is a wee bit of a mess. And it will take more than a day or two, I’m afraid.”
“I’ve got time if you do.”
They started with a tour, categorizing piles and scanning furniture. “If we’re unclear about anything, Billie can tell us what’s worth keeping,” Mara said.
Fiona tried to summon enthusiasm. She needed a project of this scope to help her regain her equilibrium. “I think we should have some of the
better furniture taken downstairs, to that room off the kitchen, maybe. There’s nothing in there right now except a few shelves. We can get a better look at it and decide what to do.”
“Let’s decide what we want to have carried down.”
They settled on a pair of round wooden tables, assorted chairs that had probably once graced the dining room, a love seat upholstered in tattered green velvet, and a pine cabinet that Fiona hoped to put beside her drawing table to hold art supplies.
“That’s a start,” Mara said. They had dragged everything except the love seat to the top of the stairwell, and both women were panting. Now Mara lowered herself to the love seat. “There are so many stories here.”
Fiona looked up from a book she had found on a tall pile of volumes. It was a cookbook from the turn of the century, with hints on the proper deportment of young ladies. From the inscription she already knew that it had been a birthday gift to one of her unfortunate ancestors, a young lady named Glenda. “Stories?”
“Aye. Hundreds of them. Can you feel them, Fiona?”
Fiona imagined she held one of those stories in her hands. “I suppose. If I ever need inspiration, I’d only have to come up here and turn my imagination loose.”
“The book in your hands…” Mara nodded toward it. “It belonged to a young woman with hair the color of yours. She did no’ live long enough to see her hair turn gray.”
Fiona stared at her. Mara shrugged sadly. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry she died, or sorry you told me?” Fiona waited, and when Mara didn’t answer she nodded. “Sorry you know.” She was becoming used to Mara’s strange ability to know things others couldn’t, and she was aware what a tremendous handicap it sometimes was.
“It’s as if I were born in a world with no walls. Time seems to have no barriers.” There was no self-pity in Mara’s tone.
“Can you see everything as clearly as Glenda’s death?”
“No, and I’m grateful for that. I only know that Glenda died young, not how or why. I dinna see the past as clearly as the future. I’m only given glimpses. This seat, for instance.” Mara stroked her hand over the worn velvet. “Lovers once sat here and plotted to run away together.” She smiled. “I can no’ tell you when. But they made their plans right here, and executed them successfully, for all that. I’m thinking they had a long and happy marriage.”
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