Lake of Destiny

by Martina Boone

  “I’m sorry, love, but there’s more as well. The man Ailsa brought home was the stranger I had Sighted in the loch.”

  “What?” Anna froze, staring at her. “My father? Are you saying that my father was the man you were supposed to love?”

  “I think so. The loch thought so.”

  Anna shook her head again. “Did you ever tell her? Were you—are you—in love with him?”

  “There wasn’t anything to say. Your father and I both felt the connection when we met. It doesn’t take long. You find yourself aware when someone is watching you, and you can’t stop watching them. You feel like the world is brighter when they’re around. You touch them, and it’s magic. I still feel that electricity every time I see your father, but it was already too late for us before we’d ever met. Ailsa’s my sister. I could never have hurt her like that.”

  Anna had forgotten how to breathe. Questions and memories and odd, disjointed connections from her childhood spun through her brain, making it ache trying to keep up. The worst was how broken Elspeth appeared now, sitting across the table, how small and old and frail. Worn out.

  She picked up Elspeth’s hands and clasped them between her own. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Elspeth. I can’t even imagine how you’ve felt.”

  “Actually, I think you can,” Elspeth told her gently. “I think you know exactly how it feels.”

  “No.” Anna pulled away. “You’ve been able to forgive. I haven’t.”

  “You were about to marry Henry, and Katharine knew how much you loved him. Ailsa had no idea what had happened, and I’ve made sure she’s never suspected. That was the difference. It wasn’t Ailsa’s fault. And even so, don’t think it’s always been easy staying friends with her. She takes the devil’s own patience and a lot of work.” Elspeth used two fingers to lift up Anna’s chin. “Listen to me, Anna. I’m not telling you any of this to have you feel sorry for me. I’m telling you that your mother threw away true love for social standing and a life outside the glen, and she’s spent her life pretending that she’s happy so she doesn’t have to admit she’s miserable. You rejecting the way she lives makes her fight harder to justify her own decisions. That’s how she’s always been. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.”

  “Her idea of love is different from mine.”

  “We all love the best way we can,” Elspeth said. “That’s all we can do. The more generously you love, the more fiercely you can feel it.”

  Anna wondered if that was true, but she didn’t know how to love any differently. Loving someone was risky, dangerous. Maybe it was supposed to be like that. If you tried to protect yourself, even a little bit, didn’t you limit how much you could feel?

  Burning Bridges

  Our subject leads us

  to talk of deadly feuds . . .

  Sir Walter Scott

  A Legend of Montrose

  The arrival of Vanessa Devereaux and Pierce Saunders plunged the final dress rehearsal into chaos. In person, Pierce was a smaller presence than he was on screen, a slim, sharp-featured man who arrived wearing jeans, scuffed loafers, and a Notre Dame sweatshirt with a stain below the collar. His mobile expressions and slightly gangly limbs made him perfect for the parts of Philostrate and the mischievous fairy Puck. Vanessa, on the other hand, swept in trailing a scarf and an expensive scent and caught every eye in the room.

  On the stage inside the enormous tent set up beside the inn, she dazzled. She and Julian Ashford seemed cordially professional until they stepped into their roles, but when they played opposite each other as Hippolyta and Theseus or as Titania and Oberon, their chemistry sizzled with love and opposition.

  Behind the rented curtains, Anna stood by with the script, ready to call out cues for any lines the actors needed help remembering. She grew breathless watching Vanessa and Julian together. Breathless and relieved, because for the first time, with the major players there and the costumes and the painted sets, the magic and humor Connal had envisioned all came together.

  “I don’t see what makes Vanessa Devereaux all that great,” Rhona said to Sorcha, standing behind Anna in the wings. “Look at her. She’s dull. Titania is supposed to be queen of the fairies. She should be sexier, more animated. More.”

  “She looks even older than you do,” Sorcha said loud enough for a few of the others backstage to turn their heads.

  Anna sidled closer. “It’s better not to talk back here—and better not to say anything at all that might upset people.”

  Sorcha rolled her eyes, but she glanced over at Connal, who sat in a folding chair watching the rehearsal from the front of the tent. At the other side of the stage, Duncan Macara—as Nick Bottom newly enchanted by the fairy Puck—entered wearing a donkey’s head. His fellow actors screamed and ran away at the sight of him. The lighting shifted to a dim blue, darkening the stage and turning the twisted papier-mâché trees malignant and macabre.

  Stumbling around, Duncan tried to make sense of what had happened. “I see their trickery: this is to make an ass of me, to frighten me if they can. But I will not stir from this place. I will walk up and down here, and I will sing so they’ll know I’m not afraid!”

  He began to bray out a song. Being the center of attention and forced to carry the whole play in his hesitant tenor at that moment, he managed to hit the perfect mixture of fear and bravado all mixed together with a creditable imitation of a donkey.

  A spotlight shone over to where Vanessa, dressed in a fiery red wig and scandalously cut gossamer gown, lay asleep on a nearby bed hung with vines and flowers. Woken by Nick Bottom’s snorting and braying, she sat up and peered around, managing to become Titania, Queen of the Fairies, from the very first movement of her head. Enchanted by her husband Oberon to fall in love with the first vile thing she encountered, she sat up and turned toward Duncan. “What’s this? What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?”

  Sorcha’s laugh was loud enough that Vanessa spun to look at her.

  “Sorry.” Sorcha shrugged and raised her hands. “I’m sorry.”

  Turning back toward Duncan, Vanessa rose from her bower and floated toward him as if she couldn’t help herself. She made the magical pull between them palpable. Anna could almost see the attraction dancing around her, the way she always felt herself drawn to Connal. But wasn’t all love magic? What else could make a person entrust their whole heart to someone else?

  Vanessa raised a trembling finger toward the face of Duncan’s donkey mask, then turned her palm and cupped his cheek. “I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again. Your music is as beautiful to my ears as your features are beautiful to my eyes.”

  Sorcha snorted, the sound loud and carrying. Erica poked her in the ribs while Anna held a finger to her lips in warning.

  “I do like that wig on her, though,” Sorcha said, turning to Fenella. “Help me put my hair in little braids like that for when I’m May Queen, would you?”

  “Why are you assuming you’ll be May Queen? It could be me again—or Fenella,” Erica said.

  “Fenella? Who’d vote for Fenella?”

  Anna squeezed her wrist. Hard. “I might, for one. Now be quiet, all of you, and pay attention.”

  The wings went quiet after that, but Sorcha and Erica continued to glare at each other, and they drifted farther apart until they stood backstage with several feet of flattened grass between them. There was also suddenly a calculation that Anna didn’t like in Sorcha’s expression as she snuck glances at Erica and Fenella.

  That calculation worried Anna enough that she decided to bring it up when she and Connal sat working together by the fireplace in his study late that night. She set aside her last-minute checklists and glanced over at him.

  “I wish you were coming to the play tomorrow night. Couldn’t you at least come stand behind the curtain?”

  Connal glanced up from reading the director’s notes on his latest screenplay. “You and Brando can handle anything that goes wrong. If anything goes wrong.”

  “I’m not s
o sure about that. Sorcha’s all worked up about being May Queen, and she’s plotting something. But even if she manages to restrain herself, aren’t you curious to see how the play turns out? This is your accomplishment from start to finish.”

  The firelight flickered across his skin and reflected in his eyes. “It’s only an accomplishment if it turns out well, and I’ll have the video that Angus is making.” Leaning forward, he kissed the top of Anna’s hair. “Don’t worry. It will all work out.” He set the pages of the screenplay on the floor and pulled her toward him. “You know that, don’t you? Everything will be fine.”

  “I’ll be gone in six days. That doesn’t seem fine at all,” she said, hoping he would contradict her. That he would finally say something about the future, about staying. About them.

  “I know you want everything to be settled, but there’s time. I—” He stopped himself and smoothed her hair where he had ruffled it.

  Anna waited, hardly breathing.

  “You what?” she prompted when he didn’t go on.

  “Nothing.” He turned her toward him. “Just will you trust me, Anna? There are things I need to say to you, but not until the festival is over and things settle down. It wouldn’t be fair to discuss things now.”

  She swallowed her frustration. “Fair? I don’t understand.”

  “I know you don’t, and I’m sorry for that. Please, just trust me.”

  She wanted to trust him, but trust couldn’t take care of the purely practical matters, like the fact that she had a plane ticket that said she was leaving two days after the festival was over, and an apartment that she was paying rent for, and a bank account that was slowly dwindling. She’d been doing her best not to worry about those things, but she couldn’t help it. And whatever happened between them when the festival was over, it had to be on terms that left her self-respect intact. She couldn’t gamble her entire future on Connal, on any man, especially when he let things remain unsaid because—why?

  Yes, why?

  She couldn’t think of a reason, unless he hadn’t decided what he wanted. Or he had decided and wanted to wait to let her down gently at the last minute so she didn’t have to stay around to face him afterward. He was an actor, he could pull that off, and he was kind enough to try to do that for her.

  He smiled, a beautiful, almost wistful, smile. “Come here, Anna.” Rolling her gently onto her back, he spread her hair out on the soft carpet and propped himself on his elbow looking down at her. “Do you know how beautiful you are? You try so hard at everything you do. You worry so much, watching people, trying to figure out what they’re thinking, what they want, what they need. I would love to throttle your mother and Henry and your sister for making you believe that love is that conditional. But I have to balance your fear against what’s fair to you. Do you understand?” He shook his head. “Of course you don’t. How could you?”

  “You’re talking in riddles.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” Connal sighed. “Maybe I should stop.”

  He bent his head slowly and kissed her, and she let herself melt against him, let herself kiss him back with an edge of desperation brought on by the knowledge that their time together was drawing to a close.

  “I wish you would at least come to the ball,” she asked as he helped her back into her coat to walk her home a few minutes later. “Moira would love that—and so would I.”

  “As much as I’d love to dance with you both, Vanessa invited a London critic up to see the play. He’s booked in at the Braeside for Sunday night, and Van’s already invited him to the ball as her guest. I can’t argue against that because he could make a big difference for next year’s festival. But you could skip the ball and come here instead. Or skip part of it. We could have our own ball here, you and me and Moira.”

  Anna thought of the three of them alone, pretending to have a ball in the cold, empty room downstairs, dancing by themselves surrounded by walls and gates designed to keep people away. She swallowed down a hard lump of sadness. Or maybe the ache in her chest was caused by the thought of the festival going on again next year, possibly without her.

  It was ironic that the one man who had made her strip her heart of all protections and made her fully alive was himself living a life so constrained he was barely living. She’d been thinking of asking Elspeth if she could stay a little longer, but was there any point? What kind of a future could there be for the two of them if Connal couldn’t open himself up to the world? How could she be sure he would open himself up to her? How would she know how much was pretense? That wasn’t the way she wanted—or deserved—to be loved.

  He hadn’t even said the word. She hadn’t said the word.

  She needed to start putting the pieces of her own heart back together.

  It was time for her to prepare to say good-bye.

  Queen of the May

  I’ll have grounds

  More relative than this—the play’s the thing

  Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

  William Shakespeare

  Hamlet

  Friday morning began with rain. A flood of rain.

  Fortunately, the tent where the play was to be performed had already been set up for the last rehearsal, and the booths for the craft fair were also set and ready. Everything would be dry that needed to be dry, Anna assured herself, and they could finish putting up the signs and final touches once the rain had stopped. Even so, she lay in bed awake as the clock ticked on toward four o’clock. The rain sheeted down the panes of her window. Had they closed the tent up securely when they’d left the night before? Was the plastic sheeting anchored with sandbags the way it was supposed to be fastened? If the rain got inside behind the stage, they’d have a muddy mess to soak into costumes and put everyone at risk for slipping.

  So many things could still go wrong. She didn’t need this new extra bit of worry.

  She pulled herself out of bed, dressed hurriedly, and retrieved a flashlight and the keys to the borrowed Vauxhall from the kitchen. After scrawling a hasty note in case Elspeth woke up and came downstairs, she dashed outside to the car.

  On the way to the village, water splashed in brown sheets from the tires. The high beams let her see only about a foot in front of her, and with the moon behind the clouds, the glen was an angry black. Only an occasional outdoor light shone here and there to reveal where a dwelling stood, but at least the road was mercifully obstacle-free. Brando had instructed Davy Griggs, on pain of never casting another wager for anyone in the village, to keep his bloody sheep penned up for once.

  Anna parked as close to the tent as possible. With the hood of her jacket drawn tight around her head, she switched on the flashlight and walked the perimeter of the huge white structure, checking extra carefully near the back where the stage and dressing areas were set up behind rented velvet curtains all ready for the performance. She found three places where the extra tenting material had been draped awkwardly, leaving thin rivulets of water running down inside, but she adjusted the flaps and kicked the sandbags back in place.

  On returning to the house, she found herself wide-awake. There was no point going back to bed, so she wrapped herself in a quilt against the cold that had seeped into her bones, made herself a cup of coffee, and went back over the schedules and tasks one last time to make sure she’d thought of everything.

  “Don’t tell me you worked all night?” Elspeth asked, coming downstairs at seven o’clock.

  “No, I just got up early,” Anna said, repressing a yawn, and she dragged herself back to the sink to put on a second pot of coffee.

  Working through the task lists went more quickly with Elspeth’s help. Shortly before noon, Anna drove them both through the drying mud to the village where they spent the afternoon setting up the folding chairs, making sure the booths were correctly numbered, supervising the other volunteers, and doing as much as they could to get a jump on the prep for Saturday’s Highland Games events. Visitors began to trickle in, a steady stream
of cars splashing through the puddles on the single-track road and pulling either into the parking lot at the inn or continuing on to the camp site or caravan park.

  At six-thirty, Vanessa, Julian, and Pierce swept into the tent. The rest of the community actors trickled in. In a fit of caution, Anna had bought bottled water, diet sodas, packaged Tunnock’s Tea Cakes, and sealed packets of cheese at the store and left them in the dressing area with strict instructions for someone to watch the food every second—and not to allow any other food or drink to be brought in. Just in case.

  At a quarter to seven, she left the tent and hunted for Moira and JoAnne, who should have arrived already. Peering past the people standing in line for play tickets, she searched the courtyard of The Last Stand, but there was no sign of them or Connal’s Audi.

  She stopping beside the table where Davy Grigg’s wife was selling tickets. “Have you seen JoAnne or Moira, Lissa? They didn’t come past here, did they?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.” Lissa shook her head and frowned up at Anna from beneath a frizz of blond curls that were doing their best to escape the bun that was meant to contain them. “But I was going to send someone to find you. We’ve near sold every ticket if you count what we’ve held back in the front for the VIPs. Want me to start selling the ones for Sunday?”

  Anna squinted up at the—thankfully—cloudless sky. It promised to be a spectacular sunset, so she decided to take a risk. “The weather’s good, and we’ve still got the sixty extra chairs we ordered for the Highland Games. Let’s open the sides of the tent and add extra rows of seating. You can sell those at a two-pound discount, and we can try to save some more of Sunday’s seats.”

  “Fine by me,” Lissa said.

  “Good. I’ll go find some help to get the chairs set up. If you see JoAnne and Moira, ask them to wait here for me, would you?”

  Lissa nodded and turned her attention to selling tickets to the young couple next in line, and Anna hurried off toward the inn. At The Last Stand, the pipers were gathering in the courtyard to begin the procession that would mark the festival’s official opening. On the bright side, none of them, including Angus and Rory, had killed each other yet.