Love Everlastin' Book 3 (38 page)

"Och, Roan, Deliah is as
delicate as a butterfly!" Lachlan exclaimed.

"Aye, and possibly as
flighty as one," Roan countered humorously. "Flitter here...flitter
there."

"Flitter yer brain," Lachlan
gurgled.

"All right," Winston cut in,
casting each man an exasperated look. "Sorry I asked."

Leaning to, Roan winked at
Lachlan and clapped Winston on the back. "Just razzin’ you,
Winston. In truth, I think ye're a bloody fool to even question yer
love for her."

"Ta three bloody fools,"
said Lachlan.

Three tankards clinked in
the toast.

"How are you men doin’?"
asked Silas from the end of the counter. "Needin’ anither
refill?"

Collecting his companions'
responses with a glance, Roan said, "We're fine, for now." Then he
muttered out the left side of his mouth, "The women will skin us
alive if we go home pissed."

"I dinna care for tha'
expression," said Lachlan. "Pissed. Sounds like I've wet maself.
Now fuddled, there's the proper word for bein’ in yer
cups."

Winston chuckled and shook
his head. "Drunk works fine for me."

Lachlan repeated the word,
emphasizing the roll of the R. "Fuddled," he insisted, raised his
right hand and gestured for Silas, who came right away.

"Anither bitter?"

Lachlan shook his head.
"Have you a fuddlin’ cup?"

Silas' smile faded. "A
wha'?"

"A fuddlin’ cup," Lachlan
repeated with a hint of impatience. "You know...from which to get
fuddled, mon!"

With a bewildered shrug,
Silas returned to the end of the counter. Roan released what
sounded like a strangled laugh.

"Wha' is a fuddling cup?"
Winston asked, laughter brightening his eyes.

Exasperated with their
ignorance, Lachlan polished off his bitter before explaining. "Tis
a drinkin’ vessel resemblin’ three wee rounded urns stuck
thegither. You fill it wi' Scotch, rum—wha’ever—pass it to someone,
and tell them they have to finish one o' the urns as a gesture o’
friendship. The gimmick is, the insides o’ the urns are opened to
one anither. The drinker ends up havin’ three times as much as
expected, and gets fuddled—drunk or pissed, whatever you want to
call it. I canna believe you've never been properly
fuddled."

"Weel," Roan sighed,
theatrically serious, "but I have ridden in a steel bird. A fair
exchange, I think."

Lachlan passed Roan a scowl.
"I know wha' a plane is. I've seen them in the skies. But you canna
compare one o' those to the pleasure o' finishin’ off a fuddlin’
cup."

"Flyin’ fuddled sounds
appealin’ to me," said Roan.

"Here, here," Winston
agreed.

"Flyin’ fuddled," Lachlan
murmured thoughtfully, then bobbed his head appreciatively.
"Fuddled would be the only way I'd get in one o' those
contraptions."

"Wha' do we have here?"
mocked a loud voice from behind the men. Roan was the only one to
recognize Arnald Markey's gravelly voice. He was one of the men
Roan had brawled with before Christmas Eve. "Well, if it isn't the
lord o’ Kist House!"

"Bugger off," Roan grumbled,
keeping his back to the man. He passed a warning glance to Winston
and Lachlan not to take the man's bait.

"Ah, Lord Ingliss, forgive
this intrusion," Markey blustered, his voice raised to attract the
attention of everyone in the pub. "I was just wonderin’ wha'
possessed you to come amongst we peons? Aren't you afraid our
commonness might rub off on you?"

Roan pointedly sipped his
ale. Winston clenched his teeth and stared straight ahead. Lachlan,
however, turned on the stool and grinned wickedly into the man's
pasty face.

"Tell me, sir," Lachlan
began, his tone light, his mood seemingly cheery, "is it you wha'
smells so ripe, or are you carryin’ somethin’ dead in one o' yer
pockets?"

Roan gulped and grimaced.
Winston, too, knew what was coming.

Markey pressed his face
closer to Lachlan and sneered, exposing crooked lower teeth and a
missing tooth in the upper center. "I don't believe I have the
displeasure o' knowin’ your name, sir."

"Lachlan Baird."

"Oh...shit," Roan
groaned.

Winston ran a hand down his
face.

Markey straightened, his
expression one of comical bewilderment. Two other men, larger in
height and girth, left their chairs and came to flank
him.

"Lachlan Baird?" Markey said
with uncertainty. "Are you related to tha' devil from Kist
House?"

"Lannie," Roan warned, but
Lachlan nonetheless slipped to his feet and laid his coat across
the stool. He was nearly a head taller than Markey, and a good two
inches taller than the man's edgy cohorts.

"You could say tha',"
Lachlan said with a strained grin.

"I could, could I?" Markey
muttered then inhaled with a snort and squared his unimpressive
shoulders as his gaze raked over Lachlan's outdated mode of dress.
"Fancy yerself a buccaneer, do you?"

Lachlan continued to
grin.

Markey's nostrils flared.
"Carry a sword up yer arse,
do
you?"

Roan whirled on his stool
and got to his feet. "Don't start wha' you can't finish," he warned
the burly threesome.

"Efter tha' last beatin’ you
took, Ingliss, I would think you'd watch yer smart mouth," sneered
McKenna, the redheaded man with the beard, who was standing to
Markey's right.

"Are you talkin’ abou' tha'
love tap you gave me, McKenna?" Roan taunted.

With a loud sigh, Winston
rose to stand between his companions. He wasn't a man who usually
looked for a fight, but he knew it was coming and decided to face
it head-on with Roan and Lachlan.

"Love tap?" McKenna spat, a
sardonic grin contorting his face. His dark eyes narrowed on
Winston then he pursed his lips and kissed the air as he turned his
attention on Lachlan. "You are a pretty boy." His companions
laughed, stoking his egotistical penchant to fight. "So we have us
a likeness o' the infamous ghost himself. But you're just anither
loser, aren't you, pretty boy?"

"No' in ma place!" Silas
cried angrily from behind the counter. "The last brawl cost me a
pretty penny!"

The third instigator, a man
in his early forties named Willy Canabra, cupped his crotch and
cooed, "Which one o' you boys would like to come back to ma table
and sit on ma lap for a spell?"

Lachlan cast his companions
an airy glance, then leveled a mischievous grin on Canabra. "Weel
now, laddie, tis a temptin’ offer, but I have somethin’ a wee
different in mind."

Canabra snorted. "I don't
use tongue on the first date."

"Lachlan," Winston warned,
having scanned the man's thoughts. "They're no' worth the trouble
it'll bring down on our heads."

Lachlan's broad shoulders
moved in a lighthearted shrug. "I'm just bondin’ wi' these
gentlemen, Winston. Dinna get yer breeches in a knot."

Canabra lewdly raked Lachlan
over from head to toe. Then, exposing what remained of the teeth
he'd lost in his last round with Roan, he issued in a mock feminine
tone, "I like a mon who doesn't let fashion dictate his wardrobe.
But I think a bit o' ruffle around the neck, though, is needed.
Don't you agree, Mr. Baird?"

"Aye, a ruffle or two,"
Markey chortled.

The redhead grimaced,
obviously uncomfortable with the direction the taunting had
taken.

Markey brazened a step
toward Lachlan. Roan was about to cut the man off, but Lachlan
whipped up his left arm in a gesture for Roan to stand back and not
interfere. This amused Markey and he chuckled deeply, his eyes
gleaming with malevolence.

"Have you cleavage hidin’
behind yer stays?" Markey jabbed. "For tha' matter, have you balls,
mon?"

Markey released a shrill cry
when Lachlan swiftly gripped the man's crotch with his right hand
and the front of the man's red plaid shirt with the left. As Silas
careened around the end of the counter, and Roan and Winston were
in the process of grabbing Lachlan's arms, the former ghost of
Baird House hoisted Markey off his feet as if he were but a piece
of luggage, and tossed him. Markey flew atop one of the round
tables and crashed with it to the floor.

A camera flashed repeatedly
as all hell broke loose.

* * *

The Audi skidded sideways
across the steep incline of the driveway. It would have nose-dived
into the ravine if not for a low wall of ice high-centering the
vehicle, leaving the front wheels dangling in the air. Roaring with
laughter, Lachlan fell out the open driver's door and into a heap
on the ground. Winston gingerly climbed from the back seat, while
Roan, shocky and overly conscious of his churning stomach, unfolded
himself from the front passenger seat. Once he was standing, he
sucked in a breath to steady himself. Cold air hit his lungs and
helped to ease his queasiness.

"You're a bloody lunatic!"
Winston gasped, glaring at Lachlan. He braced himself against the
side of his car and watched Lachlan struggle to his feet. Twice
Lachlan stood and twice he fell, still laughing, still lost to its
weakening throes.

Roan walked around the back
of the car and hauled Lachlan to his feet. "Quiet down, mon! You're
loud enough to wake the dead!"

Roan's unconscious choice of
words only re-stoked Lachlan's mirth and he howled with laughter.
His feet were unsteady beneath him. All that kept him afoot was
Roan and Winston positioning themselves to each side of him and
gripping his arms.

"Wi' any luck, the women
will be asleep," Roan grunted, matching Winston's cautious steps as
they guided Lachlan across the slick ground. "Ma head can't take a
scoldin’."

Winston remained silent and
stewing in his own juices. It had been reckless of him to allow
Lachlan to drive. They were fortunate they'd made it back to the
estate in one piece. But the roads had been vacant of drivers and
the laird persistent, and Winston just drunk enough and roughed up
enough not to care until that moment the car had nearly plunged
into the ravine.

A zephyrous caress swept
through Winston's skull and brought him to an abrupt halt. He
ignored Lachlan and Roan falling to the ground when he spun around.
His intense gaze swept the snowscape.

His gaze focused on a
mysterious tree looming across from the carriage house. Blinking,
he took a few steps toward it. No, there had been no tree there
before. The thick trunk appeared to be woven of many trees, and the
leafless branches fanned out and draped like an open umbrella. He
thought he glimpsed a glowing green ring near the base of this
strange twisted oak, but it vanished in the blink of an eye,
leaving him unsure whether he'd actually seen the glow at all. Then
he believed he could hear faint voices. The words were
indecipherable, minute tickling bursts against his
eardrums.

"Wha' is it?" Roan asked
irritably, again on his feet and again holding up Lachlan, who was
quiet but for his labored breathing.

"Nothing," replied Winston,
attributing the phenomena to too much ale and the punches he'd
received at Shortby's.

Roan scratched his head. "I
don’t remember a bloody tree bein’ there."

Lachlan struggled to balance
himself on his feet. "No...no tree. Must be a fugment o’ our
imaginations, aye?"

"Figment, no’ fugment,"
muttered Roan.

Winston shivered. "We better
get inside before we freeze to death ou' here."

"I think ma testicles are
already frozen to ma legs," Lachlan groaned.

"Charmin’ image," said
Roan.

Silently, cautiously, the
threesome made their way across the private road. It was Roan's
suggestion they cut through the rhododendron hedge instead of
following the driveway to the carriage house, a short cut, he
reasoned, that would save them a good five minutes. And right now,
five minutes seemed an awfully long time to subject themselves to
the bitter cold of the night.

However, cutting through the
hedge proved to be a mistake.

Winston was the first to
feel something catch him across the shins. Something taut and
unyielding. He toppled forward, dragging the others with him, and
plunging them all into what at first seemed to be a very large,
tenacious spider's web. The more they struggled, the more entangled
they each became. Curses in Scottish, Gaelic and English rang
through the night. Arms and legs flailed against the restraints.
Roan managed to crawl beyond the hedge before the webbing further
tightened. He hit the ground and released another stream of
expletives.

To add to their
consternation, shrill boyish cries rent the air as they were
repeatedly assaulted with hard objects.

"Take that!" a familiar
voice shouted. "We ain’t scared of you!"

"Kevin!" Roan gasped, in
time to spare himself from what could have been a serious blow to
the head with a child's wooden baseball bat.