She took another step back, muttering, “Nay. Shh.”
His voice grew stronger. “Alanna.” And then a bellow. “Alanna! It’s her—Alanna.”
He struggled up on the pillows and Alanna leaped at him. “Nay! Lie still!” One knee on the bed, she grappled with the violent man, knocking his elbows out from under him as he sought to rise.
He snatched her wrists. His call echoed louder through the night, seeking an answer in the emptiness. “It’s Alanna. Seize her!”
“Be quiet!” She wrenched back to loose herself—into the arms of an attendant.
He jerked her off the bed. With a shove at her shoulders, he spun her around and stared. Gawking, she saw Ian’s face hovering above her. She called on whatever magical powers she possessed to help her disappear.
She did not.
Instead, he gasped and released her as if she burned his fingers.
From the bed came the winded demands, “My ward. Catch the little slut.” Then louder, “Get her, you stupid bastard!”
Grabbing her arms, Ian shook her. “Witch! If you’re the shape-changer they say you are, you’d better change yourself into someone who can ease this man’s death—or I’ll order the English courts to convict you of witchcraft, and I myself will light the first faggot beneath your feet.”
Alanna ran, escaping as if all the bears of England snapped at her heels, and Ian watched her go before turning back to the bed where the sick man wrestled with his delusions.
The very stones along the coast of the Highlands sing with magic. The lone traveler can hear it lingering like the melody of a time long vanished, can smell it in the heather’s spicy scent, can catch glimpses of it through the mist. Magic moves irresistibly into the inner reaches of the soul with each change of the moon, with each rise and fall of the tide.
For the selkies decree that it be so.
When left in peace, selkies live serene lives. They fish the seas, raise their young, and swim with the grace and ease of a seal. For that is what they appear to be. Humans who watch them from the shore exclaim on their manlike antics, smug in the conviction they are superior to those lesser creatures. Yet selkies have gifts humans cannot imagine. They can see feelings. They can control the storms.
And they can take a different form.
Chapter 6
Ian had sworn he would never look directly at the ocean again. When he did, memories of monstrous waves and choking fear overwhelmed him. Yet always the sound of the surf drew him, and this morning he was too weary to resist temptation.
Resting his forehead on the west-facing windowsill in the great hall, he stared out. Rocky inlets and tiny beaches dared the breakers to carve at the land. The waves accepted the challenge, striking, spraying, retreating to try again. The wind brought the salty scent to his nose, and in the air above, black-headed gulls wheeled and gannets croaked their deep-throated song. Yet the vista gave him no relief from his thoughts.
Damn it, that crone did not have powers.
After he’d given up his useless quest for respectability, he’d traveled the world, working for Sebastian Durant, viscount and merchant, and making more money than he believed possible. At no time and in no place, he was proud to say, had he ever seen a ghost. He had never met a fairy or an elf and he’d certainly not had any run-ins with witches.
So why now? Why here, where the sea sang lullabies in his mother’s voice, did he see an earthbound, ugly shape-changer? He had known from the first time he saw the witch she concealed secrets. But he also knew—knew, damn it!—she was as human as…well, as human as everyone else he’d met around here.
Down in the waves, a movement attracted him. The sea was the light turquoise of rare sunny morning, decorated with flecks of foam and segments of…Ian grabbed the arm of a passing serving maid. “What’s that?” He strained to see whatever frolicked on the swells.
Agnes followed Ian’s pointing finger toward the creature. Then she lowered her eyes. “Well, Mr. Ian, it might be a seal.”
Ian ignored the chill that swept him. “But that…that thing has arms. You’ve lived your whole life here. What is that?”
“A log?” she suggested hopefully, digging her toe into the nap of the woven wool carpet.
“A fair log with a head of copper-colored hair?” Ian snorted. “What is the matter with you? Can’t you see—”
“My eyes are na what they used t’ be, sir,” she said.
Hands on his hips, Ian looked at Wilda’s maid, her lips stubbornly sealed. But he could be stubborn, too. “Who would know what that is?”
“Armstrong.”
“Then send Armstrong to me.”
Although Ian’s voice sounded neither too loud nor too harsh, Agnes skittered backward. Ian had that effect on some people. Some people detected the savagery that lurked just below the surface. Other people, like Wilda, saw only kindness.
Ian had never had the heart to disillusion his cousin.
Agnes returned in less than a minute. “Armstrong has just returned from the fishing village, Mr. Ian. He begs ye wait while he tidies himself.”
Ian nodded; he’d smelled that particular mix of fish and smoky peat before, and he would gladly wait while Armstrong washed.
But to his surprise, Agnes lingered, staring outside as if the antics of that creature fascinated her. As if to herself, she said, “Do ye think there’s a tempest a-brewing?”
Ian didn’t think. He knew. With a little concentration, he could bring it onshore or make it linger off the coast. It was a talent he had, although he didn’t admit to it. “The haze on the horizon bespeaks a rough night.”
“I wonder where she hides on such an evening.”
“She?” Ian queried.
Agnes glanced at him sideways, then bobbed a curtsy and hurried across the vast expanse of floor in the well-appointed great hall.
Ian coveted Fionnaway for this great hall. It had at one time been the main room of the castle, and though it had changed through the ages, still the rugged stones of its medieval past made up its walls. Huge tapestries hung in lordly splendor, and two tremendous fireplaces roared in an attempt to heat the room. Rough-hewn beams jutted boldly forth across the ceiling, blackened by fires long dead. History steeped the very walls of this chamber, and if Ian could secure Fionnaway Manor, he would be part of that history. He would have a name of his own—he would be a lord of Fionnaway.
Now Armstrong’s stubby legs carried him across the great hall to Ian’s side. “Sir? How might I assist ye?”
Ian turned from his contemplations and again searched the waves. Glimpsing that living thing that appeared and disappeared in an irregular cycle, he demanded, “There. Can you see it?”
“Oh. She’s back, is she?” Armstrong chuckled, then stiffened. “Aye, I can see it. How can I serve ye, Mr. Ian?”
“What is it?”
“It could be a seal—”
Ian bent his knees and put his face close to Armstrong’s. “I’ve already had this conversation with Agnes, and I don’t expect to have the same one with my steward. You said ‘she.’ Now, who the hell is ‘she’?”
Armstrong examined Ian doubtfully. “’Tis a superstition, Mr. Ian.”
“Like the witch?”
“Ach, nay. I’ve seen the witch with my own eyes. Nay, that thing in the water…some of the more ignorant whisper she’s a”—Armstrong dropped his voice—“selkie.”
Shock, denial, anger, shot through Ian, and his head throbbed in time with the waves. He had come to Scotland with trepidation, and found a refuge. Now he discovered his presentiment of tragedy would not be denied. And not for the first time, he wondered—how could he escape the thing he feared if that very thing was inside him?
Yet he remained perfectly composed, and he kept his voice level. “A selkie.”
Armstrong obviously read Ian’s reaction as confusion. “’Tis only an old Scottish tale, Mr. Ian, of a magical sea creature.”
For only a moment, Ian lost control. “I
know what a bloody selkie is!”
Startled, Armstrong straightened and said with offended dignity, “Most o’ our English visitors dunna.”
“I am not most of your English visitors. I am a damned—” Ian stopped himself. He was hovering on the verge of being stupid.
Jerking at the window lock, he swung the casement open. A fresh breeze rustled through the hall, and he stood within it, eyes closed, letting it blow away the cobwebs in his brain.
When he felt he had regained control, he turned back to Armstrong. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s just that…a ghost? A witch? And now a selkie?”
“Ye dunna have t’ believe, sir,” Armstrong said with dignity.
“But she’s there!”
“Aye, but blame Lady Alanna.”
“Of course. Everything comes back to Lady Alanna.” The woman was haunting him more completely than any mere phantom.
“Lady Alanna loved the sea, just as all o’ the MacLeods have from time eternal. She would swim in the waves, never fearing the currents or the cold, and when she disappeared, we feared the sea had claimed her. Some o’ the old ones, the ones who watch the sea…they say the selkie has Lady Alanna’s features.”
“Her features?” Ian stared at his steward.
“Aye. They say the selkie has the same long braid down her back, that same fair skin. Silliness, I know.” Armstrong pulled a long face. “But ye asked me t’ tell ye.”
Pulling up the lapels on his black coat, Ian leaned out past the casement and strained to see the form bobbing on the waves below. As the wind cleared his mind, he repeated, “A ghost, a witch, and a selkie.” He stared at the flash of bare skin above the whitecaps, and appalled conjecture blossomed in his mind. He pulled himself back in. “Mrs. Armstrong said Fionnaway used to have two witches.”
“Mrs. Armstrong talks too much.” Armstrong sighed like a man long tried. “But aye, we did. I first saw the new witch in the spring on Saint John’s Day—the day young Alistair fell from the hayloft onto a pitchfork. The witches patched him up, with old Mab telling new Mab what to do. So that was nigh on to five years ago.”
“What a coincidence.” Ian grinned as the puzzle pieces fell fully into place. “When did you good men decide this young witch was a shape-changer?”
“Some o’ the villagers were in the woods at night…er, drinking…”
Or poaching, Ian thought.
“And they saw a woman washing herself at the brook. They gave chase and she fled…Well, at the brook they found the witch’s clothes, and realized she’d turned into a hind. How else could one lass outrun three hearty men?”
Ian heard the note of derision in Armstrong’s voice, and risked one more question. “So within the space of one year, Lady Alanna ran away, a selkie with her features frolics in the surf, and a witch who turns into a young woman comes to live in Fionnaway. Tell me, my man, did this fleeing young woman have hair the color of new copper?”
Armstrong’s mouth worked. “Ye’re na telling me…Nay, it couldn’t be.” He marched a few steps away, rotated on his heel, and marched back. “’Tisn’t possible for a young, gently bred woman t’—”
“Not even with a guardian like my father?”
Pacing away and pacing back, Armstrong argued, “Well, with a guardian like him!” He stopped, appalled. “Excuse me, Mr. Ian. I never meant t’ offend ye.”
Ian waved it away. “No offense taken.”
Armstrong went back to pacing. “But the lass couldn’t have kept it up with nary a soul who has exposed her.”
“No doubt there is an explanation, even for this. Certainly the serving women who flew to my assistance the night he woke me screaming for Alanna…” Ian bent the force of his gaze on the agitated man. “The women calmed Leslie with no concern for the witch’s bizarre appearance.”
“Ye are saying my own wife knows about this infamous charade.”
Ian chuckled at the man’s open indignation.
Armstrong pinched Ian’s sleeve between two fingers and shook it. “But Mr. Fairchild is better! Mab—or whoever she is—eased his agony!”
Ian eased himself around so his back rested against the wall, and remembered the sensation he’d experienced while gazing into the witch’s eyes. No wonder he’d felt a link, a common ground of feelings and desires. They both wanted the same thing. They both wanted Fionnaway. “She’d not harm my father, or probably any other living soul.”
Nodding, Armstrong agreed, “No matter how much it benefited her.”
“No, there’s no need for murder.” Ian remembered what she said that night she’d held her knife to his throat. Why waste murder on a man who’s dying?
Indeed, it seemed to Ian that Leslie’s days were inexorably counting down to a single moment of destiny, and nothing could be done to prevent it.
A bustle at the doorway made Ian look up, and he scrutinized the gentleman who walked in. The fellow wore a single-breasted jacket of finest buck-skin. His snowy cravat, tied in a deliberately careless knot, offset his pea-green waistcoat. The loops on his tricot breeches hung over his black, calf-high boots. The young fashion plate looked about with a proprietary air, allowing his gaze to sweep past Ian disdainfully.
That indifference did not gull Ian, and his hackles rose like a deerhound’s at the sight of a bear marauding in his garden. “Who’s that?” he demanded softly of Armstrong.
“Brice MacLeod.” Armstrong kept his expression as carefully neutral as only a good servant’s can be.
Brice removed his leather riding gloves, then his beaver hat, and Ian saw for the first time the fall of copper-colored hair.
“He is Lady Alanna’s cousin,” Armstrong continued, “and the current heir t’ Fionnaway.”
Aye, selkies can transform themselves into humans.
When the world was young, selkies and their magic fit into the landscape of wonder. In those days men gave thanks for the sun and cowered at an eclipse of the moon. They greeted the marvels of nature with awe, and blessed any selkie who shed his skin and walked among them.
Chapter 7
Ian straightened away from the wall. “There’s an heir?”
“Aye, and for these past two years he’s been petitioning the courts t’ have Lady Alanna declared deceased.”
A wave of unexpected betrayal swamped Ian. “I’ve been here more than a month. Why has no one thought to mention this to me?”
“Seven years she has t’ be gone before she is declared dead, and we hadna given up hope for her,” Armstrong said harshly.
That put Ian in his place. He had imagined he would have this estate when his father died. He had thought the servants liked him. But he had been here but a little time when compared with the Clan MacLeod; worse, he was an interloper, an Englishman. They would never give up hope for their Lady Alanna until they saw her dead body, and then they would turn to this Brice.
Ian had viewed Alanna’s return as an obstacle to his inheritance. Now it was clear she constituted only the first in a series of hurdles. Hurdles he would leap, for this only strengthened his determination to have Fionnaway.
“We both know she’s na likely t’ be declared dead now. But we’ll na tell this MacLeod o’ that particular fact. I dunna trust him, ye ken.”
Another gentleman walked in, younger than the other, but crowned with the same red hair and sprinkled with a boisterous display of freckles. He wasn’t nearly as fashionable, or as disdainful, but Ian swore softly.
“Mr. Brice’s brother,” Armstrong explained before Ian could ask. “Mr. Edwin is under his older brother’s thumb, dependent on him for everything. Yet he’s a bit o’ a fool, too amiable t’ be troubled by much.”
“How lucky for me. Is this a MacLeod invasion?”
“There’s no more t’ come. And, Mr. Ian…”
Ian turned back to Armstrong.
“Remember, the man in possession holds the high ground, and ye’re the man in possession.”
Ian drew one thankful breath. He was
wrong about one thing, at least. Armstrong might have never given up hope for Alanna, but he would not happily turn Fionnaway over to Brice. Ian had secured that much loyalty in his sojourn here.
After sharing a curt nod with the steward, Ian sauntered across the floor to greet Alanna’s cousins, the interlopers. Holding out his hand to Brice, he used his best British upper-class accent. “Ian Fairchild, sir. Welcome to Fionnaway. So good to have visitors.”
“Brice MacLeod.” He took Ian’s hand and shook it heartily. “Good to visit the old pile again! Hasn’t changed a bit since my childhood romps here.”
The opening shots had been fired. Ian had established himself as the man in residence. Brice had established himself as the man whose past intertwined with Fionnaway. Ian would call the battle even so far. And as he sized up Brice, he would have guessed they were evenly matched in age, height, and weight, too. But this MacLeod would lose to Ian just as assuredly as Alanna would. Ian would make sure of that.
The younger brother cleared his throat with great importance. “Edwin MacLeod, at your service.” He bowed curtly.
Ian bowed back, noting Edwin’s freckles positively glowed when he stood this close. It matched the glower Edwin gave Ian.
“Won’t you take tea with me?” Ian invited. “Armstrong, ask Mrs. Bridie if she’s made any of her delicious scones.”
Armstrong played the part of dedicated retainer to perfection. “Aye, master, ye know Mrs. Bridie has scones. She’s made them every day since ye said ye liked them.”
A score for me, Ian thought as he and Brice settled beside the fire. Edwin chose to prowl restlessly around the small grouping of chairs and tables nearby. He stopped occasionally and tapped on the wooden panels in one of the most annoying habits Ian had ever noted. Ian guessed his age was no more than twenty-five, and he was totally without finesse, an enemy who made his sentiments clear.
Brice, on the other hand, displayed nothing but a glow of wariness.
“As soon as I heard Mr. Fairchild’s son had arrived, I came at once. As the laird of the Fionnaway MacLeods, it’s my duty to give you an official welcome.” Brice stretched his boots out to the heat, treating Ian to a view of their high gloss and tight fit.