A Kind of Magic (9 page)

She couldn’t help but look again. Yes, he was definitely naked and beginning to be aroused.

“Well?” he questioned. “What are you waiting for?”

Fair’s fair
, she thought, and took off her bra.

Rowan watched with growing hunger as Maddie took off her clothes. Yesterday he had touched her, been enflamed as he was given a tantalizing hint of the lushness beneath her clothing. He had weighed the fullness of her breasts in his hands, felt them pressed against his chest. She’d fought him then refused him as well she should have.

Now, his throat went dry at the sight of flesh bared willingly if reluctantly for his enjoyment. Desire far stronger than yesterday’s fairy magic took hold of him.

He licked his lips and tried to find words, but words weren’t necessary. Tender emotions weren’t necessary. He kept both his tongue and his feelings in check. Only the deed between man and wife mattered at the moment. He stepped forward and touched her. She put her hands on his shoulders and lifted her mouth to accept his kiss.

Maddie closed her eyes as Rowan’s hands circled her breasts. She wished she hadn’t when all her senses immediately focused on the startling jolt of reaction as his thumbs brushed across nipples already taut from nerves and the room’s chill air. When erotic heat instantly seared through her, she admitted to herself that the reaction was a response to Rowan Murray and not the prevailing air currents. His strong, lean body attracted her and she was glad to know it. It made her feel that much less like a whore when his mouth covered hers. This might not be so bad after all.

Rowan had barely begun to taste the delights of Maddie’s soft lips when the door banged open.

“What the hell!”

Maddie shouted the words in a hoarse screech as she whirled to face the unexpected intruder. She quickly scrambled to cover herself when she saw a pop-eyed Aidan standing in the doorway.

Rowan’s response to the intrusion was to snatch the dagger from his abandoned belt.

50

A Kind of Magic

“Peace,” Aidan called out as he stalked forward and had the decency to cover his eyes with his hand.

Rowan halted in front of the lad. “There had best be a good reason—”

“Iain’s hurt and all the cattle have been taken from the high pasture.”

Such news was more than reason enough. Rowan hastened to his shirt and kilt.

“Harboths?” he asked as he dressed. The question was a mere formality.

“The tracks lead toward Harboth land.”

Maddie stepped in front of him as he started to leave the room. She’d pulled her shift back up to cover her magnificent breasts. “Where are you going?”

“To get my cattle back.”

“But—” She waved toward the bed. Her cheeks were bright red. “What about—?”

Rowan’s jaw tightened in annoyance. Was the woman going to be as bad as a fairy wife after all? Did she really have no sense of duty? Had her matter-of-fact approach been a trick? Of course it had or she wouldn’t have drawn him here in the middle of the day in the first place. He shouldn’t have let himself be drawn and that was a fact. He’d vowed he’d not be like his father and then had taken the first opportunity to abandon the care of his folk for the soft touch of a wanton woman. If it weren’t for the possible loss of vital livestock, he should be glad that this interruption had called him back to his senses.

Without another word he shouldered past Maddie and hurried off to do his duty to his people.

Maddie sat down on the edge of the bed after Rowan was gone. She burned with shame and the sense that she’d made a terrible mistake. It had taken all her courage to take the initiative, to fight her own fears, to refuse to take a passive role in this forced marriage.

“I’m glad you left,” she muttered as she glared daggers at the blank face of the door. That she ached inside with the beginnings of arousal made her humiliation worse.

“I didn’t want you anyway. Not really. I don’t need any man. I never have and I never will no matter what my mama says.”

The candles continued to give off their romantic glow, wildflowers scented the room. The setting only underscored the dreadful ignominy of the situation.

She had done her best, given her best shot and gotten walked out on. Typical.

Maybe he had good reasons. A cattle raid was more important than a roll in the hay. She understood that. It didn’t make her feel any better.

But he could have said something. He could have bid her a fond goodbye at least.

Instead, he just rushed off. It let her know just how unimportant she was to him now that she’d actually gone through with the wedding.

Maybe she’d gone through with the wedding but now she knew there was no way she could ever go through with the wedding night.

“You had your chance,” she said to the shadows, “and you blew it.”

51

Susan Sizemore

Maddie’s words were as much to herself as to her absent husband.

52

A Kind of Magic

“Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You’re Rowan’s first cousin on his mother’s side, but you’re both Murrays.”

“Aye,” Rosemary answered with a firm nod as she continued to spin a thick lump of carded wool onto a drop spindle, making coarse thread out of what looked like a lump of cotton candy on her lap. “We’re kin on both sides but more on his mother’s.”

Maddie was seated in the hall among a group of womenfolk. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since Rowan’s departure to retrieve the stolen cattle. She was spending the time awaiting his return getting to know the people of Cape Wrath, starting with his immediate family. So far it seemed as if everybody in castle and croft were his immediate family.

It was raining outside. The air was damp from water blown in through the tiny windows. Not only damp but smoky from the hearth fire and the few torches set in metal brackets at distant intervals along the gray stone walls. The setting was crude and uncomfortable but she had joined the womenfolk in making the best of it. And while she got to know them, Maddie considered how she was going to return to her own time.

First she needed to find out just what sort of technology was available to her. “Do you have a blacksmith?” she asked.

“Aye,” Rosemary answered. She cast a significant look at the woman sitting next to Maddie.

“Angus is my man,” Flora spoke up.

“But Angus is off chasing the raiders with Rowan right now.”

“Stone masons?”

“With Rowan.”

“Carpenters? With Rowan,” she added before Rosemary could.

Maddie sighed. It looked as if she were going to have to wait until the laird brought the Murray clan home before she could get any real work done. Of course technology might not be the answer here. She had to figure out what happened before she could build a time machine. It would help if she were a physicist rather than an engineer. She wanted to make notes, do some number crunching. She wished she had a laptop or at least a calculator. She supposed she’d just have to get some paper from Father Andrew when he returned from the raid, remembering that she didn’t need a keyboard to write and then get to work. In the meantime, she might as well get to know these people.

She looked at Micaela. The beautiful young woman was working on a piece of sewing. “You’re Rowan’s sister?”

53

Susan Sizemore

“Aye,” the girl replied as she glanced up briefly from her work. Micaela’s eyes were as deep and green as the forests surrounding Cape Wrath. Her hair was a lustrous night black. Her face was fine-boned, her features delicate. She didn’t look a thing like the lanky, brown-haired Rowan. “Half sister,” she added as though she’d read Maddie’s thought.

“Aidan and Micaela are the fairy lady’s get,” Rosemary elaborated. She reached over and affectionately patted the girl’s hand. “It explains why Micaela and Aidan are not always as attentive to this world as they should be.”

“I don’t pine for the land under the hill,” Micaela said softly.

“We know what you pine for,” Rosemary replied.

Micaela blushed while the women around the fire chuckled and exchanged knowing glances. It was enough to make Maddie assume there was a young man in Micaela’s life. She certainly understood a girl as pretty and sweet as Micaela having a boyfriend. She didn’t understand about Rosemary’s claim that a fairy had been Micaela’s mother. She decided that it must be a figure of speech, just a way of saying the girl was unworldly.

She did asked, “You people don’t really believe in fairies, do you?” Okay, so she’d time traveled, but there had to be a more logical, scientific explanation for what had happened than fairies or elves or whatever.

When they all laughed and exchanged knowing looks, she wished she hadn’t asked.

Of course they believed. Not just in fairies but in magic. That’s all they talked about. She wasn’t going to get into it right now. What Maddie was going to do was tend to her knitting, literally, and try to fit in. At least until Rowan Murray came back to disturb her illusion of peace.

All of the women around the fire were busy at some piece of craftwork, including Maddie. She was taking knitting lessons from the young mother named Flora, the blacksmith’s wife. Maddie had learned to knit from her grandmother during a cold Montana winter when she was a little kid so this was more of a refresher course. The needles were whittled wood instead of plastic, the yarn was a heavy thread of undyed homespun wool rather than triple-ply acrylic but the principles were the same.

“This is fun,” she said to Flora, hoping to stave off any lecture on magical beings from Rosemary.

“You learn fast, my lady,” the young woman answered. “You’ll be making your man a knit shirt in no time.”

Your man.
The words stung. He wasn’t hers. She didn’t want him. He was just this—man.

A tall, lanky, attractive, virile, dangerous, impossible—man—who she couldn’t seem to get off her mind.

Rowan Murray was her problem. For better or worse.

At least for the next year and a day, minus one. Or until she could find a way out.

54

A Kind of Magic

Rather than think about Rowan, she considered what Flora had called her.
My lady.

Rowan was the head of the clan. She was his wife.

“For a year and a day, minus one,” she muttered.

“What’s that, my lady?” Flora asked.

Maddie turned to the competent Rosemary for guidance. “Am I technically in charge of the castle while Rowan’s gone?”

Rosemary laughed. “Aye, lass. The household’s yours to command whether Rowan’s here or no. ’Tis your right, do you not know that?”

“I know that noblewomen ran castles of course but—”

“And a hard, unthankful task it is,” Rosemary interrupted. “I’ve been taking care of things while we waited for the lad to settle on a wife. I’ll hand over the keys to the storerooms anytime you’d like so I can get on with my magical studies. And perhaps other things,” she added with a brief dreamy smile.

Maddie was grateful the other woman didn’t seem jealous or upset about giving up her primary place in the clan hierarchy. “Actually,” Maddie admitted. “I’m not much good at domestic stuff.” She glanced at her knitting needles. “Okay, so I can do this but that’s about it in the domesticity department. Grandma taught me how to knit because I was hopeless in the kitchen. It kept me safely out of the way while Mom taught my sisters all the secrets to baking and stuff. Fortunately Dad had more luck teaching me guy stuff. Not that my brothers didn’t have to take turns doing housework and my sisters learned how to fix cars and all but I was the only girl in the family who took to the…” Maddie’s voice trailed off as the women’s stares grew wider, their expressions more confused.

“Are you saying you canna cook?” Rosemary finally suggested after a long silence.

Maddie nodded. “I don’t eat it if I can’t microwave it. And my laundry never comes out soft and bright like in the commercials. I don’t own anything I have to iron. I’m not sure I understand the principles of dusting or making a bed. I mean, you just have to do it again, right? It’s not that I’m a slob, I have a housekeeping service come in when I’m not out working offshore. It’s just that I’m good with my hands,” she went on as all the women continued to stare at her. “I know how to make things work. For instance, I could replace all the plumbing in a house.” She chuckled as she looked around. “If a house has plumbing of course. I’d rather replace a toilet than clean it, if you know what I mean.”

Of course they didn’t. They just stared at her, owl-eyed and gaping in shock. She sighed.

“No, Rosemary,” she said. “I can’t cook.”

“Well, I imagine we can remedy that.”

Maddie recalled the time she’d set the Thanksgiving turkey on fire. “No, I don’t think so.”

55

Susan Sizemore

“There’s more to managing a household than overseeing the cooks,” Micaela spoke up.

“I’m sure there is.” Maddie looked pleadingly at Rosemary. “And I’m sure you’re much better at it than I could ever be. I’ll really appreciate it if you’d keep on doing whatever it is you do so well.”

To Maddie’s relief she nodded. “Aye. I’d be proud to serve you any way I can, my lady.”

Rosemary’s busy fingers never stopped working the drop spindle as they talked.

Making thread was tedious, necessary work. So much of the work these women did was tedious. All of it was necessary. Maddie admired them, knew that the community’s survival depended on every member’s hard work.

“Perhaps you’re meant to be more like a pampered Sassenach lady who never does more than embroider and please her man.”

“No,” Maddie said. “I don’t want to be pampered.”

Micaela gave a romantic sigh. “I think it would be lovely to have nothing more to do than to please the man I love.”

“What nonsense, girl,” Rosemary scoffed. “Don’t let Rowan hear you say so.”

“Yeah,” Maddie agreed with the first half of Rosemary’s statement.

Rosemary turned a sardonic gaze on her. “Though a newly married woman should have a few foolish notions about pleasing her man.”

Maddie was surprised that her tone was bitterly sardonic when she replied, “I’m not the one who went on a cattle roundup yesterday.”