He looked down at her. “Now do you understand why I didn’t want you to come here? You and I weren’t a part of what happened to him, Lorna, so I can only pray he won’t come after you as he has the other women. I pray he won’t try to contact you.”
Lorna shuddered, not daring to tell her brother that he already had.
* * * *
Daniel had warned Lorna that the people of the Hill would be standoffish to her when she was first introduced to them but that was not the case. At noon that day, several women came to call with welcoming gifts. A jar of strawberry of preservers, bar of homemade lavender soap, hand-tatted doily, fat beeswax candle, sachet of sweet-smelling dried flowers, and a small patchwork lap quilt had been arranged in an artfully woven cane basket tied with a pretty calico bow.
“We are glad to meet ye,” the spokeswoman of the three women told Lorna. “My name is Maggie Regis, wife to Jubal.” She pointed to the woman beside her. “This is my sister Sadie, who is wife to Gerry McFadden.” She introduced the other woman as Ellen McKenna. They were all wives of Elders.
“The gifts are from our hands to yours,” Ellen said with a smile.
“Thank you so much. These are lovely,” Lorna said, fingering the tatted edge of the handkerchief. “Won’t you come in?” She stepped back so the ladies could enter.
“Don’t have the time today,” Maggie stated. “Just wanted to bid you a quick hello.”
Already the women were stepping off the front porch. Maggie reached out to squeeze Lorna’s hand for a moment. “You come by my place any time you want, dearling. I’m always to home.” She turned to leave.
“I really appreciate you ladies stopping by,” Lorna said and returned the friendly waves bestowed on her. “Thank you again for the gifts!”
It wasn’t until she went back inside and was taking the gifts from the basket that she found the little carved figurine that had been tucked inside the lap quilt. The rough carving was that of a naked woman with bulging eyes whose hands were between her legs, fingers pulling apart the lips of her exaggerated vagina.
“Oh, dear lord!” Lorna said, tossing the carving back into the basket with hiss of disgust. She knew what it was, what it was meant to represent, but the carving offended her. It was what the old ones called a Sheela na Gig. It was meant to ward off the evil that lurked in Tabor Hill and had been given to her out of concern for her safety. Nevertheless, she had no desire to keep it. Having such a sacrilegious thing in his house would disturb Daniel should he come across it.
Taking the basket outside, she walked to the far edge of the clearing around the rectory and—careful not to cross the whitewashed rocks, tossed the carving into the forest, satisfied Daniel would never know of its existence.
“It’s a useless thing anyway.”
Lorna froze for the lilting brogue came from the darker shadows among the thick stand of oaks. She backed away, her eyes sweeping from bush to bush, tree to tree, yet she saw nothing. Not a leaf moved, not a branch swayed.
“It wouldn’t have kept me out.”
The voice came from behind her now. She was afraid to turn around, afraid to look into the eyes of the man whose soft words made the hair stand up on her arms. He was so close to her she could feel the warm breath on the nape of her neck.
“Nothing can keep me out,” he whispered in her ear, his lips moving over the sensitive flesh to send chills down her side. “Nothing and no one. I go where I will.”
Breathing heavily, sweat trickling down her temple, she shuddered as he placed a soft kiss on the side of her neck.
“Don’t,” she pleaded.
“Good day to you, Miss Lorna!”
Lorna spun around—expecting to see the man with the gentle brogue. Instead she found a burly man with a bald head and arms the size of small boulders walking bowlegged toward her. His rolling gait was almost painful to watch.
“Name’s Royce Gilmore,” he said, his smile showing a missing front tooth. “I’m the smithy. Father Danny sent me to put up them bars on your window.”
Lorna looked about the clearing but the man who had pressed his lips to her neck was nowhere to be found. He had moved so fast, so quietly she had not even felt the air move. Surely the smithy had seen him.
Or had he?
“Are you alone, Mr. Gilmore?” she asked.
“Name’s Royce,” he corrected. “We don’t hold on such things as titles and all. And aye, my lady, I’m alone.” He narrowed his ice blue eyes. “Why’d you ask?”
Lorna forced a smile to her dry mouth, letting the lie out as easily as breathing. “It’s getting near time for lunch. I wondered how many I’d need to fix sandwiches for. You will join us, won’t you?”
“Not necessary. I brought some sammiches.”
“Well, you are certainly welcome to take lunch with us,” Lorna said.
“Much obliged but I kinda got my mouth all set for them sardine sammiches. I can eat whilst I work. Getting you fixed up is the most important thing I’ll be doing today.” He took a tape measure out of his pocket, going to her window to measure the opening.
“Does everyone have bars on their windows, Royce?” she asked.
“Better believe they do!” he replied. “Leastways them houses what have females in ‘em.” He nudged his chin at the rectory. “Weren’t no need to have bars on the priest’s digs until you came.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil no longer than his thumb.
“I’m sorry to be a nuisance,” she said.
“No need to feel that way,” Royce told her, putting the pencil lead to his tongue to wet it before jotting down the measurements. “The men of the Hill do all we can to protect our womenfolk.” He shrugged. “’Course it don’t always work. Sometimes no matter how vigilant you are one will slip through.”
“Where do they go, Royce?” she asked and when he looked around at her. “The women who leave here. Where do they go?”
He stared hard at her and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. When he did, his words and the vehemence with which he spoke them surprised her.
“To hell, Miss Lorna,” he said, a muscle grinding in his cheek. “As sure as there are little brown acorns on that there oak, they go to hell when they follow him.”
“Why do you think they follow him?” she asked, expecting him to give her the hard look again but he simply shrugged.
“Women are weak creatures, Miss Lorna. They are easily led by a smooth tongue and a pretty boy face.” He shoved the paper and pencil back into the pocket of his coveralls. “Reckon the Daughtry boy had both of them things.”
“Do you really think Duncan Daughtry came back from the grave, Royce?”
“Know he did,” the smithy said.
“You’ve seen him?”
Royce shook his head. “Don’t no one but womenfolk see him, Miss Lorna, but we know he’s here. Women been disappearing from the McGregor and Tabor families for hundreds of years. Any woman kin to them by marriage comes up missing, too. That would be the Kirkpatricks, the Reids and MacLeods. Them be the only womenfolk who goes missing. Nope. Don’t show himself to the menfolk. A’feared of ‘em, I reckon,” was Royce’s response. He plucked a red bandana from his pocket and mopped at his head. “It’ll take me today to cut and fashion the bars. I’ll have ‘em ready to be put in place first thing in the morning.” He looked up at the sky. “Sure wish it would rain tonight so’s you won’t be too hot but that’s just wishful hopin’ I’m thinkin’.”
After thanking him, Lorna stayed behind the cabin for a long time—hoping her mysterious visitor would return—but when he didn’t, she went inside to fix a light lunch. She could hear Daniel speaking to someone in his office so she tried to go quietly about her work. Even when she heard hammering coming from that end of the house, she did not go to investigate.
It was while she was slicing cucumbers for a salad that she felt the presence of another person in the room with her. She looked up from the counter to
stare at the cabinet above her and felt her heart thumping wildly in her chest. Putting aside the knife, she turned slowly to face her visitor and when she saw who it was, her shoulders slumped and she released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that, Cail!” she castigated him. Her hands were shaking as she wiped them on the apron she’d tied around her waist.
Cail’s grin was boyish. He was leaning with one shoulder against the door jamb, arms crossed over his brawny chest. “I was enjoying watching you work,” he said.
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked, a bit put out with him.
“Not long.” He pushed away from the jamb. “Danny asked me to take the noon meal with you so while he’s still talking with Jubal I thought I’d see if you needed any help setting the table.”
Lorna felt small beside him as he came to stand by her. He was looking down at her with that grin still in place and when he reached up to tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear, she once again felt a jolt go through her body. She moved away from his touch and his grin wavered.
He immediately stepped back and put his hand down. “If I’m out of line, you tell me,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just .…” She didn’t want to tell him about the phantom voice she had heard the night before or the presence she’d felt behind her today that made her jumpy.
“I’m moving too fast,” he said.
Understanding hit her and she stared up at him, realizing he believed himself to be in the early stages of courting her. She had no idea what to say to that.
As though he sensed her indecision, he shoved his hands into his pockets and tilted his head to one side. “I do have Danny’s permission to ask you to go walking with me,” he said, confirming her suspicion.
“But do you have mine?” she heard herself ask and winced at the confrontational tone in which she’d put forth the question.
Cail’s brows drew together. “I didn’t know I needed your permission.”
“It would have been nice if you’d asked me first,” she said, lifting her chin.
“That’s not the way of the Hill, sweeting,” he said. “We go to a woman’s guardian to make our intentions known so he will know we’re serious about the matter and honorable in our approach to her.”
“Well, Daniel isn’t my guardian,” she said. “I’m a grown woman and I make my own decisions.”
“In the eyes of the Hill, Danny is your guardian,” Cail told her. “If me asking him before I asked you offended you, I can’t help it. What’s done, is done.”
“Cail, I’m not offended,” she was quick to say although it wasn’t the truth, “but neither am I looking for an attachment right now. I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours and I want to get to know the people.” She smiled at him even though he was now frowning at her. “Get to know you and Euan and Sam—everybody.” She gave him a steady look. “And besides, aren’t you still married?”
“I’m free of any attachments, as you call them,” he stated, his voice a bit harder. “Libby’s been gone over a year so the Elders declared our Joining invalid on the anniversary of her leaving. Word was sent to the Citadel to inform them, and word came back a few days ago so I have the full sanction of the Shadowlords to marry again.”
It was on the tip of Lorna’s tongue to tell him she had no intention of ever marrying but she didn't think he wanted to hear it. His light gray eyes were drilling into her, waiting for her to comment.
“I’m sure it’s a relief to know you have the Shadowlord’s permission,” she said stiffly and turned back to the cucumbers. “I need to get the meal finished.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment then he sighed loudly. “You want me to set the table for you?”
“That would be a big help,” she acknowledged. “Do you know where the plates are?”
“Aye,” he said as he went to the sink to wash his hands.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lorna saw a shadow move across the kitchen wall and looked that way. There was no one there but she could feel another presence in the room with them and knew Duncan Daughtry had returned. As Cail took three plates from the cupboard and opened a drawer to take out the silverware, her attention kept wandering to a certain spot near the pantry. When Cail carried the plates into the other room, she stared hard at that spot.
“I know you’re there,” she said quietly.
The pantry door opened slowly then closed silently.
“I know you do,” came the whispery reply in her head.
“They’re gonna be a few minutes longer,” Cail said, coming back into the kitchen to retrieve the glasses. He looked where Lorna was staring then back at her, one eyebrow crooked.
“There’s a pitcher of lemonade in the ice box,” she said, tearing her attention from the pantry. “Milk, too, if you’d prefer it.”
“Lemonade,” Cail stated. He took the glasses to the table and returned for the lemonade. “Lemonade is one of my weaknesses.”
“One of his many weaknesses,” her ghostly visitor reported in her ear.
Lorna stiffened for she felt the movement of his lips against her earlobe and knew he was standing right beside her. She moved away from the counter, putting distance—she hoped—between them.
“Cail?” she asked as her other visitor started out of the kitchen with the pitcher of lemonade.
“Aye?”
“May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think Duncan Daughtry haunts the Hill?”
Lorna wasn’t prepared for the brush of wind against her cheek. She put a hand there as the wispy hairs that had escaped her long auburn braid fluttered.
Cail’s lips thinned. “Why do you want to know about him?”
“Royce and I were dis .…”
“Royce Gilmore is almost as big a gossip as Thaddeus O'Day is,” he said. “They talk when they ought to keep their mouths shut.”
“It’s not a secret,” she said, wondering at his reluctance. “I mean Daniel told me the story this morning.”
“They say it’s bad luck to talk about the demon,” he told her. “You talk about him and he appears.”
Lorna felt the hairs on her arm stand up. “Is that what you think he is? A demon?”
“They say he sold his soul to the devil in order to come back to get his revenge on the Hill. Wouldn’t you call someone who did that a demon?”
“I don’t believe in the devil or demons,” she said.
“They say those who don’t are fooling themselves,” he stated.
“Have you noticed they say a lot of things?” The words tickled Lorna’s ear and she swept a hand over it.
“You’ve told me what they—whoever they are—say. Now tell me what you think,” she said.
He turned away, carrying the lemonade into the dining room. “I think you ought not to be dwelling on such things as the demon,” he said, filling the three glasses. “Best to think of good things.”
“Like his courting you?” her unseen visitor asked. “Ask him why Libby left him. Ask him why the women of the Hill are so easily led.”
“Go away!” Lorna hissed then realized Cail had heard her. She felt the heat rising in her cheeks when he straightened up from pouring the last glass of lemonade and gave her a wounded look. She extended a hand toward him. “Not you, Cail. I was…” She batted the air. “Talking to a pest.”
Cail smiled. “You’ll get plenty of those with all this dry weather,” he said.
In her mind Lorna heard a low, amused chuckle then could feel her phantom visitor pulling back. For just a split second, she had the sensation of fingers trailing along her back. The moment his spirit…or whatever it was…left, she felt the emptiness close around her.
“Lorna, I’d like you to meet Elder Jubal Tabor.”
Daniel entered the room with a tall, imposing man dressed entirely in black. His neatly-clipped beard was
as black as the waistcoat and trousers he wore and blended into the black silk shirt buttoned to his chin beneath the waistcoat. In his work-reddened hands he held a broad brimmed hat with a black silk band.
“Miss Lorna,” Jubal said with a slight inclination of his head. He made no move to offer his hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Tabor. I met your lady-wife this morning,” Lorna said, feeling a chill envelope her for the man’s hard black eyes seemed to stab right through her.
“It is Elder Tabor,” Cail corrected in a soft voice.
“My lady said as much,” the Elder replied. “I hope you liked the little trinkets she and her women friends gifted to you.”
Lorna’s gaze dipped to Jubal’s strong hands and instinctively she knew it had been his talent that had fashioned the hideous Sheela na Gig. When she looked back up into his bottomless stygian stare, she knew how a moth felt as it was drawn to a flame. She had to tear her eyes from his.
“I did,” she said, smoothing the plain of her apron. “That was very thoughtful of them.”
“We mean to see you take to life at the Hill with ease,” Jubal said. His gaze shifted to Cail. “Is that not right, McGregor?”
“It is,” Cail was quick to say. “I know I’ll do everything I can to see she is happy here.”
Lorna felt something pass between the two men. She glanced at Daniel but he was looking out the window, his back to everyone. She cleared her throat to gain his attention and when he turned, she dared a look at Jubal.
“Won’t you join us for the noon meal, Elder Tabor?”
“I’m afraid not, Miss Lorna,” he responded. “Maggie is waiting table for me.” He extended his hand toward Daniel. “As always, it was enlightening speaking with you, Father Daniel. I hope our endeavors will prove worthwhile.”
Daniel took the hand offered to him but Lorna thought he winced as he did. He did not seem any more inclined to look into the Elder’s face as she did.
“I pray things turn out just as they should,” Danny said.
“They will,” Jubal declared, a glint appearing in his black eyes. “We mean to see they do.”
* * * *
Lorna could not sleep. The air in her room was superheated and she was sweating. It was so hot, she had developed a wicked headache as she lay outside the covers, tossing and turning, punching her pillow, turning it over to the cool side again and again. Finally unable to stand the cloying heat any longer, she got up, went to the window, threw back the curtains and tried to open the window. She had no fear of Duncan Daughtry for she had no intention of succumbing to his seduction if that was what he had in mind.
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