The Perfect Gift

by Christina Skye

  Welcome home, MacNeill of Lochmohr.

  Gravely Jared thanked him for the wish.

  “She is the one you will marry?”

  “As God will have it.”

  “A fine choice. She will bring the light to this grand house again and the sound of laughter.” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “I think she will bring the necklace home too, even after all these years.”

  Jared went very still. The memory of the tarnished stones hidden in the abbey’s wine cellar teased his mind.

  “You mind well that long ago another MacNeill rode from this loch,” the old man said in the soft tones of a man recounting a beloved tale passed down from mouth to mouth. “He’d gathered the riches of a county, hoping to raise French aid and money for troops against a coming English attack.”

  The sense of history weighed on Jared’s shoulders.

  Or perhaps it was destiny.

  The old man puffed slowly on his pipe. “But it might have been just a story. Every generation makes its own legends. Clear it is that you two will make your share.” His aged body stood strong and tall in the wind. “I’ll be off to the village now. A thousand questions they’ll have about the laird and his wife to be.” He frowned, then slowly held out his hand to Jared.

  Both men knew the significance of the gesture.

  Both men remembered their meeting months before in the village.

  Jared, gaunt and mute, newly returned from the hells of his jungle captivity. He had been unable to bear any touch when the MacNeill gift lay new upon him. He had rejected the handshake then.

  He would not do so again.

  Without a word he reached out and gripped the old fingers tightly. A granite wave of affection surged through him in response.

  Welcome home, MacNeill of Lochmohr. These old stones have waited for you.

  Snow danced through the air, dotting Maggie’s hair and cheeks. As the old man wound his way back down the hill, Jared caught Maggie tight, breathless with immeasurable happiness. It was only then that he felt the difference. A new, shimmering light played through her.

  Almost the sense of a different consciousness wrapped around her.

  Gently his hand fell, opening over her waist.

  Again it came, subtle and elusive. Something burned at Jared’s eyes as he realized what he was touching.

  The miracle of life.

  The next MacNeill, fragile cells already stirring beneath his hand. Still too soon for any medical tests, but not too soon for the gentle probe of Jared’s gift. He would tell her soon, but not yet.

  Not until they were in a private spot, where he could show her all the joy her gift had brought him.

  He took her hand. Together they walked beneath the towering beeches. Happiness left no room for words as the snow fell, soft and silent and very beautiful.

  “She’s beautiful. I told you she would be beautiful.” Faith Kincade blinked back tears as she watched Maggie enter the church, clad in a dress of antique Battenburg lace and a veil of seed pearls.

  “Of course she’s beautiful. She’s radiantly in love,” Chessa Kincade whispered, her own voice suspiciously watery. “With a man like that, who could blame her.”

  Organ music swelled, and Faith made a muffled sound, caught between laughter and tears. “I absolutely swore I wouldn’t cry.”

  Chessa linked their arms, “It’s a wedding. You’re entitled to a few tears.”

  Neither spoke as Maggie moved past, pale but radiant on the arm of her beaming father, who looked surprisingly hale for a man who had reappeared from his own death.

  Only the family and the authorities knew the real story. Everyone else had been told the carefully prepared tale of how Daniel Kincade had plunged from the sky and lain unconscious for months in a remote jungle village until a search team stumbled on him only weeks before.

  The theft charges had been dropped. Government sources explained the whole business was a grave mistake. Now they were calling Daniel Kincade a hero instead.

  As the music swelled, Faith watched the man in black velvet and splendid MacNeill plaid who waited for Maggie at the altar, his joy shimmering, nearly tangible. No one could have smiled harder than Ishmael Harris Teague, his best man, magnificent in a tailored black jacket.

  In that crowded church, Faith felt the hand of fate at work, almost as if Jared and Maggie had been pulled here through twisting paths over long, circuitous years of trouble and pain.

  Beyond the front steps came muffled curses.

  Faith hid a smile. Another reporter being thrown out, no doubt. That would make the sixth today.

  Nicholas Draycott possessed an admirable security force. Currently, they circled the church, taking silent pleasure in ejecting any and all reporters who would have marred the day’s joy.

  In truth the media had had a field day with the news of Daniel Kincade’s return. His recognition as a hero only stirred the furor about the abbey’s upcoming exhibition. Even now the display cases gleamed in splendor, filled with exquisite treasures of Maggie’s creation. Daniel had walked through the night before, nearly reduced to tears. “She’s better than I ever was. Do you see the detail on that platinum and the faceting on those diamonds?” he’d demanded, to anyone within hearing range.

  Faith knew the pleasure he took in giving away his daughter in marriage to a man he could admire completely. She also suspected that Daniel was enjoying the media’s frenzied attention. She was only surprised that Maggie seemed to accept the attention, too.

  Of course, having a man like Jared MacNeill nearby for protection had to make acceptance a great deal easier.

  As the radiant bride joined her groom at the altar, Faith swallowed a sob.

  She never cried. She’d fallen down a ravine, been bitten by a snake, and broken her arm in three places. Even then she hadn’t cried.

  “Oh, Lord, it isn’t fair. I promised I wouldn’t cry.”

  But today, in a quiet church in a quiet corner of the English coast, Faith’s tears spilled free. It would be a day of many firsts, she decided.

  She gave up with a sigh, beyond all help as she dug in her beaded bag and found a linen handkerchief.

  By then, Chessa was crying nearly as hard as she was.

  HAVE YOU DEVELOPED A TASTE FOR PLATINUM AND TANZANITE? White Siberian diamonds and South Sea pearls? Maggie makes it all look so easy.

  The craft of jewelry-making is long and time-honored. One of Maggie’s favorite books on the subject is Tim McCreight’s Jewelry: Fundamentals of Metalsmithing (Madison, Wisconsin: Hand Books Press, 1997). Bending, cutting, casting and cold joining—they are all here, presented with pictures of some of the most striking, innovative jewelry being made today.

  Maggie would be proud to have her architectural pieces included!

  If you are fascinated by amber, that magical and beautiful substance composed of ancient plant resins, be sure to look for David Graham’s Amber: Window to the Past (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996). The art—and the science—of this rare material is endlessly intriguing. (Remember Jurassic Park?)

  For a current look at the immense creativity to be seen in jewelry work today, try Ornament: The Art of Personal Adornment and Lapidary Journal. Both will have you scouting your local jewelry supply store to try your own hand.

  The rise of Asian crime families is, unfortunately, more than a matter of fiction. Triads—secret organizations dating back to Chinese resistance movements against the Manchu invaders—now control the flow of heroin out of Hong Kong, assisted by thriving branches in Laos, Burma, Thailand, and a dozen Western countries. Family loyalty and an unbroken tradition of silence to outsiders makes Triad activity difficult to understand, track, and control. One of the best books on the subject is Gerald Posner’s Warlords of Crime (New York: Penguin Books, 1988). A word of advice: Don’t start this book late at night, or you might have trouble sleeping.

  For all those who have written to ask about stories for Adrian and Nicholas: These have already been writ
ten. Nicholas’s story appeared in the Avon Books’ anthology Haunting Love Stories, while Adrian’s appeared in the Bewitching Love Stories anthology, also published by Avon Books. Unfortunately, both books are currently out of print, but watch my website for more details.

  There are now six other books in the Draycott Abbey series: (in order of publication) Hour of the Rose, Bridge of Dreams, Bride of the Mist, Key to Forever, Season of Wishes, and Christmas Knight. These are all available for order by mail directly from Avon Books by calling 1-800-762-0779. Each story is a haunting mix of danger, romance, and high-handed interference by Adrian and Gideon.

  Enjoy!

  After seven years of writing about the beautiful abbey, I have yet to come close to revealing all its secrets. Adrian and Gideon still manage to amaze me, and the inscrutable Marston has abilities I am only beginning to suspect. Nicholas and Kacey, of course, remain one of my favorite couples. I hope they have all brought you a shiver of magic and a touch of pure romance.

  I hope that you have also enjoyed meeting the irrepressible Kincade cousins. For more information, drop by my website at www.christinaskye.com. You’ll find excerpts of past and future books, reader contests, historical recipes, and frequent updates on life at magical Draycott Abbey.

  While you’re there, take the haunted abbey tour. Adrian and Gideon will be waiting for you!

  Of course, I can’t wait to hear what you think of Maggie and Jared. You can write to me at:

  15730 North Pima Road

  #D4

  Suite 313

  Scottsdale, Arizona 85260

  Now I’m back to work.

  As you’ve probably guessed, Faith and Chessa are next in line to have their own books. Though they don’t know it yet, both are about to run headlong into gorgeous, irritating, and truly amazing men—along with the mystery of a lifetime.

  All I can say is—sparks will fly!

  With warmest wishes,

  P.S. Don’t forget to send me e-mail on line at: talktochristina@christinaskye.com. I’d love to hear from you!

  Have you ever wondered why opposites attract?

  Why is it so easy to fall in love when your friends, your family…even your own good sense tells you to run the other way? Perhaps it’s because a long, slow kiss from a sensuous rake is much more irresistible than a chaste embrace from a gentleman with a steady income. After all, falling in love means taking a risk…and isn’t it oh, so much more enjoyable to take a risk on someone just a little dangerous?

  Christina Dodd, Cathy Maxwell, Samantha James, Christina Skye, Constance O’Day-Flannery and Judith Ivory…these are the authors of the Avon Romance Superleaders, and each has created a man and a woman who seemed completely unsuitable in all ways but one…the love they discover in the other.

  Christina Dodd certainly knows how to cause a scandal—in her books, that is! Her dashing heroes, like the one in her latest Super-leader, SOMEDAY MY PRINCE, simply can’t resist putting her heroines in compromising positions of all sorts…

  Beautiful Princess Laurentia has promised to fulfill her royal duty and marry, but as she looks over her stuttering, swaggering, timid sea of potential suitors she thinks to herself that she’s never seen such an unsuitable group in her life. Then she’s swept off her feet by a handsome prince of dubious reputation. Laurentia had always dreamed her prince would come, but never one quite like this…

  SOMEDAY MY PRINCE

  by Christina Dodd

  ASTONISHED, INDIGNANT AND IN PAIN, THE PRINCESS stammered, “Who…what…how dare you?”

  “Was he a suitor scorned?”

  “I never saw him before!”

  “Then next time a stranger grabs you and slams you over his shoulder, you squeal like a stuck pig.”

  Clutching her elbow, she staggered to her feet. “I yelled!”

  “I barely heard you.” He stood directly in front of her, taller than he had at first appeared, beetle-browed, his eyes dark hollows, his face marked with a deep-shadowed scar that ran from chin to temple. Yet despite all that, he was handsome. Stunningly so. “And I was just behind those pots.”

  Tall and luxuriant, the potted plants clustered against the wall, and she looked at them, then looked back at him. He spoke with an accent. He walked with a limp. He was a stranger. Suspicion stirred in her. “What were you doing there?”

  “Smoking.”

  She smelled it on him, that faint scent of tobacco so like that which clung to her father. Although she knew it foolish, the odor lessened her misgivings. “I’ll call the guard and send them after that scoundrel.”

  “Scoundrel.” The stranger laughed softly. “You are a lady. But don’t bother sending anyone after him. He’s long gone.”

  She knew it was true. The scoundrel—and what was wrong with that word, anyway?—had leaped into the wildest part of the garden, just where the cultured plants gave way to natural scrub. The guard would do her no good.

  So rather than doing what she knew very well she should, she let the stranger place his hand on the small of her back and turn her toward the light.

  He clasped her wrist and slowly stretched out her injured arm. “It’s not broken.”

  “I don’t suppose so.”

  He grinned, a slash of white teeth against a half-glimpsed face. “You’d recognize if it was. A broken elbow lets you know it’s there.” Efficiently, he unfastened the buttons on her elbow-length glove and stripped it away, then ran his bare fingers firmly over the bones in her lower arm, then lightly over the pit of her elbow.

  Goosebumps rose on her skin at the touch. He didn’t wear gloves, she noted absently. His naked skin touched hers. “What kind of injury are you looking for?”

  “Not an injury. I just thought I would enjoy caressing that silk-soft skin.”

  She jerked her wrist away.

  What could be more exciting than making your debut…wearing a gorgeous gown, sparkling jewels, and enticing all the ton’s most eligible bachelors?

  In Cathy Maxwell’s MARRIED IN HASTE, Tess Hamlin is used to having the handsomest of London’s eligible men vie for her attention. But Tess is in no hurry to make her choice—until she meets the virile war hero Brenn Owen, the new Earl of Merton. But Tess must marry a man of wealth, and although the earl has a title and land, he’s in need of funds. But she can’t resist this compelling nobleman…

  MARRIED IN HASTE

  by Cathy Maxwell

  “I ENVY YOU. I WILL NEVER BE FREE. SOMEDAY I WILL have a husband and my freedom will be curtailed even more,” Tess said.

  “I had the impression that you set the rules.”

  Tess shot him a sharp glance. “No, I play the game well, but—” She broke off, then admitted, “But it’s not really me.”

  “What is you?”

  A wary look came into her eyes. “You don’t really want to know.”

  “Yes, I do.” Brenn leaned forward. “After all, moments ago you were begging me to make a declaration.”

  “I never beg!” she declared with mock seriousness and they both laughed. Then she said, “Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t something more to life. Or why am I here.”

  The statement caught his attention. There wasn’t one man who had ever faced battle without asking that question.

  “I want to feel a sense of purpose,” she continued, “of being, here deep inside. Instead I feel…” She shrugged, her voice trailing off.

  “As if you are only going through the motions?” he suggested quietly.

  The light came on in her vivid eyes. “Yes! That’s it.” She dropped her arms to her side. “Do you feel that way too?”

  “At one time I have. Especially after a battle when men were dying all around me and yet I had escaped harm. I wanted to have a reason. To know why.”

  She came closer to him until they stood practically toe to toe. “And have you found out?”

  “I think so,” he replied honestly. “It has to do with having a sense of purpose, of peace. I believe I have found tha
t purpose at Erwynn Keep. It’s the first place I’ve been where I feel I really belong.”

  “Yes,” she agreed in understanding. “Feeling like you belong. That’s what I sense is missing even when I’m surrounded by people who do nothing more than toady up to me and hang on my every word.” She smiled. “But you haven’t done that. You wouldn’t, would you? Even if I asked you to.”

  “Toadying has never been my strong suit…although I would do many things for a beautiful woman.” He touched her then, drawing a line down the velvet curve of her cheek.

  Miss Hamlin caught his hand before it could stray further, her gaze holding his. “Most men don’t go beyond the shell of the woman…or look past the fortune. Are you a fortune hunter, Lord Merton?”

  Her direct question almost bowled him over the stone rail. He recovered quickly. “If I was, would I admit it?”

  “No.”

  “Then you shall have to form your own opinion.”

  Her lips curved into a smile. She did not move away.

  “I think I’m going to kiss you.”

  She blushed, the sudden high color charming.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “Gentlemen rarely ask before they kiss.”

  “Oh, they always ask, but I’ve never let them.”

  “Then I won’t ask.” He lowered his lips to hers. Her eyelashes swept down as she closed her eyes. She was so beautiful in the moonlight. So innocently beautiful.

  Across the Scottish Highlands strides Cameron MacKay. Cameron is a man of honor, a man who would do anything to protect his clan…and he wouldn’t hesitate to seek revenge against those who have wronged him.

  Meredith is one of the clan Monroe, sworn enemies of Cameron and his men. So Cameron takes this woman as his wife, never dreaming that what began as an act of vengeance becomes instead a quest for love in Samantha James’s HIS WICKED WAYS.