Stealing Midnight

by Tracy MacNish

  Before he could say anything, she rose from the nest of blankets and rummaged through the provisions. She returned with a bottle and a cup made of thick earthenware. “As long as we’re being honest, I consort with this spirit far more often than you’d think. It warms me on cold, damp nights such as this. We’ll have to share the cup. I only have one.”

  He watched as she uncorked the bottle and poured a healthy draught. The smell rose to fill his sinuses, the woody, malted scent of Scotch whiskey. Olwyn handed it to him, and he gave it a swirl, a sniff, and a full sip.

  “Ahhh,” Aidan said, deep in his throat. It was good; balanced, sweet with cherrywood and oak, a touch of peat deep in the finish. “I could kiss you for this.”

  Olwyn blushed a little, betraying her uneasiness, and reached to take the cup from him. “Not necessary.”

  She, too, sipped long and deep, and Aidan smiled. He couldn’t ever recall seeing a woman drink hard liquor with such easy delight, as if it were watered wine or sugared tea.

  “Where did you get this?” Aidan asked. He had a passion for whiskey, and had been making his own for more than ten years. This particular batch was smooth and even, well blended and well aged. “’Tis quite good.”

  She cast a narrow look at him. “You’re making judgments against me, aren’t you? Too poor for firewood or fashionable gowns, but in possession of fine whiskey.”

  “Were you me, wouldn’t you be curious?”

  She pursed her lips as if annoyed. “I didn’t steal it.”

  “Did you hear an accusation in my question?”

  “I make good trades with a man who comes to our keep,” Olwyn relented without answering his question, a sign of stubbornness and reason combined. It made Aidan smile, reminded him of himself and his brother.

  “The man is a traveling trader, and has a large wagon filled with textiles, peat, iron pots, bags of spices, medicines, and the like. Whatever makes for a good trade. And yes, of course, he always has a few bottles of whiskey. He usually comes once each season, and I am ready for him with cheese, baked goods, and chickens.”

  Olwyn’s mouth curved up on one side, and he saw she was regretful. “He is a nice man. I will miss him.”

  “You’ll never go home again?”

  She met his eyes over the rim of the cup as she sipped. She handed him the whiskey and then raised a brow. “Not if I can help it. But if my father finds me, I imagine I’ll be beaten and dragged back.”

  “I told you I would protect you.”

  “He’s my father. You’d have no right to interfere.”

  “I’d make it my concern,” Aidan said flatly. “If things were troublesome enough that you’d run away in winter, carting a half-dead man along with you, I don’t guess you’re making much ado about nothing, aye?”

  She shrugged and glanced at the whiskey in his hand. Aidan obliged her, taking his sip and handing it back.

  “Will you tell me why you ran away?”

  Olwyn drank again before she set the cup down to their side. She fiddled with the fur wrap that covered her, petting it as if it were a live animal.

  He watched her long fingers, slim, graceful, buried in the fur, and a pang of lust hit him below his navel, a tight, hot arousal that reminded him that he was very alone with a beautiful woman, and also very engaged to another.

  “Is our time for honesty over?” he pressed.

  She ceased her petting, met his eyes. She spoke so softly that her voice seemed like nothing more than a sigh, a thin wisp of a confession. “I could tell you of the horrors—there were more than a few. But beneath it all, I left because I was lonely.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Tell me why,” Lóchrann invited.

  His voice, so seductively deep and reassuring, entreated her to give voice to her burden, to lay it down. He promised to help her, to protect her. Looking at him now, so big and undeniably, vigorously male, she believed he could, believed he would.

  Olwyn lifted her cup and drank again, from the place where his lips had touched. The whiskey was warming her, limbering her muscles, lightening her mood, loosening her tongue.

  So she would tell him the truth. What did it matter? Soon enough they would part ways. She would never see him again.

  “Until I was twelve years old, my life was unremarkable. Father, mother, brother. We were normal enough, if perhaps not a little eccentric. My mother saw to our education, my brother and me, and she was a great lover of books. She instilled that in us. The keep was a happy place, and we owned the surrounding land, had many renters, enough to provide us with a good life.”

  Olwyn spun the cup in her hands. Aidan gestured to it, and she handed it to him, watched as he drank. He lowered the cup then, and she saw the whiskey glisten on his lips.

  She wondered what that might taste like, the man and the whiskey combined. She licked her own lips, an involuntary motion.

  Best not to dwell on such things. He was promised to be married.

  She swallowed heavily and continued. “And then my brother took ill and died, and my father was never the same. He couldn’t save him, you see. Couldn’t do anything but watch as his life faded.”

  “And then things changed?”

  “An understatement, if ever there were one,” Olwyn said on a breath. “My father became a man obsessed, driven to find the reason people age and die, determined to find the link between life and death.”

  Flashes of memory came unbidden, vividly colored images of eviscerated corpses, buckets filled with innards, brains suspended in fluids. The dungeon’s stink filled her nose, death and rot and filth. She shivered uncontrollably, recalling in unwanted detail rats the size of cats, and roaches as long as her hand, huge from feasting on human remains.

  She summed up things for Lóchrann the best she could. “Our lands were sold off, the help dismissed. My mother, disgusted, frustrated, and unhappy, abandoned us. I was trapped there, and out of necessity became a cook and a servant, a seamstress and a gardener. Every last bit of our money was spent on corpses, bodies stolen from graves and crypts so he could take them apart, bit by bit, in the nightmarish pursuit of the most impossible quarry. The soul.”

  Lóchrann’s expression was one of incredulity. “This is why I was brought there? To be examined in this way?”

  Olwyn nodded, lifted the whiskey, and drank. Lóchrann took the cup from her and drained it. Olwyn poured more, this time nearly filling it. It was a good night for it, and they both drank more, sharing it until the cup was empty again.

  “You don’t remember?” she asked. “You woke.”

  “Maybe.” He frowned, searching his memory. “How awful for you,” he managed to say, clearly trying to regain his composure. He ran a hand through his hair, then across his face. Looking down, he touched the wound on his chest.

  Olwyn laughed then, a wry, sad sound. She was becoming drunk, she knew, but she didn’t care. Instead she courted the numb warmth by pouring yet more whiskey. She was speaking of things that were vile and humiliating, but she barely felt the familiar shame. It came out so easily when whiskey paved the path. “That was far from the worst of it.”

  “What was the worst?”

  “The villagers found out, and word spread quickly. Suspicion, fear, and superstition had their way, and rumors were started. I was said to be a witch.” Olwyn watched Lóchrann’s face, wishing she could read his mind. But now that she was talking about that which she’d only ever felt, she could not find it in her to stop.

  It poured out, all her fears and loneliness and hurt. “The children I grew up with would not even look at me. They crossed the street when I approached. They threw things at me, garlic and stones. Women pleaded aloud to God to spare the village from me, and the men said I was Satan’s whore.”

  “Such ignorance and cruelty,” Lóchrann whispered.

  “Are you so different? You took a look at me and thought me a witch,” Olwyn reminded him. “I ran away because I thought that perhaps I could make a new life e
lsewhere, and that maybe without the stigma of my father’s obsession, I might find a place to call my own. But when you thought it of me, without even knowing the truth of who I am, I realized that I am a fool to think anything will be different.”

  Strangers would still think her odd and suspicious. She would never, it seemed, be free of it.

  Olwyn raised a hand to her hair. “I am marked.”

  “You are beautiful,” Aidan told her, and he meant it. She had the northern Celtic structure in her face, pure and finely boned.

  But as lovely as her face and form were to look upon, they were galvanized by her manner and her demeanor. She spoke with such elegant straightforwardness, as if it did not occur to her to equivocate.

  And while she told him of why she’d run away, Aidan could only imagine how she’d managed to take his unconscious body with her. He must outweigh her by double. Though she was fairly tall, she was slight of build and very thin, her bones in her face and shoulders clearly delineated.

  Olwyn Gawain was, quite obviously, a woman of incredible determination.

  He could scarcely imagine the life Olwyn had led, and how lonely and frightening it must have been. Aidan had been raised with his mother’s gentleness and his father’s firm guidance. He’d never known anything but love and acceptance.

  And as the son of a powerful, wealthy duke, he’d been welcomed wherever he’d gone, had always had whatever he needed, and had never had to worry for a single moment about his future and his place in it.

  Compassion and admiration for the young woman before him took seed and grew. Olwyn was fierce and gentle, and altogether strong.

  Perhaps it was the whiskey, or maybe it was gratitude and respect for her, Aidan didn’t know. But he wanted badly to kiss her, to taste those small, perfect lips, to watch her gray eyes go soft and close in sensation.

  Olwyn seemed to sense it, because she leaned forward, closer to him. “I am cold,” she said softly, as if in explanation.

  “We should share our warmth. It will only get colder through the night.” Aidan moved closer and pulled the blankets tighter around them. He put his arm around her, and she snuggled up to him. He realized she had drunk too much, for her head lolled against his chest.

  “I think I ought to lie down,” she said.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “The hour feels late.”

  Aidan made adjustments to their nest of blankets and furs, laid another square of peat on the fire, and settled in beside her.

  Olwyn immediately fit herself against him, and Aidan had a shadow of a memory, as if his body knew the woman better than he did. The whiskey had definitely had its way with her. Gone was the shy, uncertain woman who’d hidden in the dark, cold corner to avoid him. He heard the change of her breathing. She slept.

  She molded against him without reservation. He wondered if she had shared her body heat with him when he was unconscious, just as she did now. The thought stirred a curious sensation in his chest. More tenderness for this woman. He tightened his arms around her and held her closer still.

  Against him, her body felt taut and lithe, vastly different from the soft, pampered women he’d held. Women like Mira, who had never known labor.

  Mira. Her image came into his mind. Golden, fair, refined, always smelling so sweetly of flowers and powder. She was delicate and kittenish, fragile and helpless.

  As long as he was admitting truths to himself, he acknowledged that he didn’t quite believe Mira wasn’t cunning enough to recognize that marrying Aidan was a gamble with fifty-fifty odds.

  Aidan lowered his face to Olwyn’s hair, inhaled the scent of incense, peat smoke, and whiskey. She smelled elemental, earthy, and real. And as he held the length of her to his body, he couldn’t help but notice that she felt supple, tensile, and tempting.

  She stirred, made a quiet sound of contentment in her throat. His testicles tightened as if she had touched him there. Yes, his body knew her.

  Eyes closed, Olwyn tipped her head back and smiled up at him, every muscle in her body as malleable as potter’s clay. “Lóchrann,” she murmured.

  “Go back to sleep, Olwyn.”

  “I have been alone so long.”

  “You’re not alone now.”

  “I will be,” she whispered. She sounded sad, resigned. She shook her head, eyes still closed, a stubborn shake. “I am not a witch.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  “If I were, I would cast a spell on you.” She laughed softly, shifted her body, and lay full against him. “You would stay with me.”

  Aidan stroked her hair, and soon she fell silent again, her breathing slowing. Her hair was silky and fragrant. He touched the streak that shone brightly, like argent set into onyx.

  Surely there must be a man he knew who would take her to wife, and give this resourceful, unusual woman the sort of life she deserved.

  Aidan mentally ran through his male acquaintances. Perhaps he could find someone who’d see in Olwyn the same beauty and strength that he did, and who would find her just as compelling.

  Perhaps even Padraig.

  He promised himself he would try to find someone for her, even as he inwardly mocked himself. Playing matchmaker, like some doddering, interfering old woman.

  The hour must be late, he mused, and he knew he should try to sleep. The thought made him smile. Try, indeed. For years he’d suffered from horrible insomnia, unable to rest, prowling his home and property at nights in search of a distraction from his wakefulness.

  It struck him as funny that he’d slipped into the dark sleep of a coma so deep he’d been thought dead. Maybe he’d just needed his rest.

  And it hadn’t been too bad. It had, after all, landed him in the earthy, compelling company of Olwyn Gawain.

  After years of feeling buried by his familial obligations and the constrictions of the aristocracy, he felt alive, unburdened, and for the time being, free.

  Aidan held Olwyn closer, telling himself it was just for warmth, necessary for survival.

  After all, he was betrothed to a woman who wore his ring and planned their wedding day. Aidan Mullen was a man of honor.

  But his body knew Olwyn. It responded like the ungovernable beast it was.

  The night might have been frigid and wet, but inside the hut, beneath the furs and blankets, there was nothing but heat and reluctant restraint.

  And to Aidan’s surprise, he found himself falling asleep, curled around Olwyn as if their bodies had been made to fit together.

  When Aidan woke, the first thing he noticed was that Olwyn was gone. He sat up, looked around, and saw that though the fire burned and tea and bread had been set out for him, the rest of the provisions were also missing.

  He jumped to his feet and went outside. The blue sky pierced his eyes with its brightness, and the cold, thin air stabbed his lungs after the night spent breathing peat smoke.

  Olwyn was outside. He saw she had the provisions neatly lining the wagon, the horse tacked up and ready to go, the tarps cleared off and folded, and the seat of the wagon covered with a thick fur.

  Aidan made a mental note to never underestimate Olwyn Gawain.

  She glanced over to Aidan. “We’re mostly packed up, but for the remaining things in the hut. Did you eat?”

  “Not yet,” he answered. “How are you?”

  A quizzical frown touched her brows. “Fine.”

  “You drank a lot of whiskey, aye?”

  “Not really. Go eat and then gather the rest of the furs and blankets. You can ride in the wagon beneath them since you don’t have adequate garments.”

  “I’m not a churl to ride in comfort while a woman drives me.”

  “Not a churl, indeed. But are you an idiot, Lóchrann?”

  Aidan laughed. “Only when it comes to women.”

  “Well, be that as it may, I didn’t save your life so you could squander it on pride.”

  “Why did you, then?”

  That frown between her eyes grew deeper. She turned her att
ention back to readying the wagon. “’Tis a long story, and we’ve got a lengthy journey ahead of us.”

  “Long stories are good for lengthy journeys,” Aidan said before going back inside to get ready to leave. He didn’t hang around to hear her argument. He’d have the rest of the truth, and he’d get it riding by her side. Olwyn wasn’t the only one of them who suffered from a streak of stubbornness.

  Soon enough they were on their way, Aidan beside Olwyn on the seat, blankets and furs wrapped around them both. They had heated bricks at their feet, and Aidan held the reins, though he’d nearly had to wrestle Olwyn for them.

  He’d had to assure her he felt well, and indeed he did. After the food, tea, and rest, he felt hale and fit, ready for whatever came.

  As the sun rose, so did the temperature. Tiny droplets of rain wobbled and fell from tree branches, and birds darted to and fro, twittering as if they were grateful for morning. Despite the cold air, the sun was warm and there were no winds.

  And again, Aidan relished his life, rejoicing in the simple act of breathing and taking in the beauty of the world around him.

  The old wagon rattled and lurched, bumping along the narrow path they rode upon. The mare clomped through the muddy wetness without too much trouble.

  Olwyn cast a final glance behind them, taking in the hut and the signs of their camp. She unfolded her maps.

  “So where do we go, Olwyn?”

  “South,” she murmured. “There is a port in Southampton. I’ve money to book passage on a ship.”

  “Oh, aye?” Aidan ran five of his own vessels from that port, as Southampton was where he lived, in his family’s estate called Beauport. It was where his grandmother, Camille, had been raised, and no place on earth felt more like home to Aidan.

  He loved the smell of the sea air there, the rocky stretches of beach just beyond the woods, and the tiny cottage he’d found in a little meadow. Behind that little cottage there was a well that gave up the sweetest water he’d ever tasted, and it made for some fine whiskey when he got the proof just right. He had his dog there, whose company Aidan sorely missed, and a mews full of hawks that he flew for hunting.