Mia Marlowe (26 page)

The torches had never burned brighter in the Great Hall. As Twelfth Night revelry built to a fevered pitch, the folk of Bonniebroch ate as if there was no tomorrow. They played like children and drank like lords. Some of the younger and more foolish had been coaxed into the English game of Snap Dragon. The chanting and cheering made burnt fingers and mouths seem almost worth the trouble of trying to snatch raisins from flaming brandy.

Alexander had donned full Highlander regalia for the occasion. Some men didn’t have the legs for a kilt. Lucinda was sad to admit that her father was one of them. Erskine MacOwen’s belly protruded almost as much as Meg Liscomb’s, the eternally pregnant member of the Bonniebroch household. In stark contrast, her father’s legs were so skinny one of the wags in the hall had asked Mr. MacOwen if those were his shins peeping beneath his kilt or if he was riding a chicken.

But Alexander’s legs were magnificent, heavily muscled and sturdily straight. As he moved around the room, laughing and talking with his retainers, his plaid swirled about him. If Lucinda half closed her eyes, she could imagine him as King of the Fair Folk, magic sparking from the folds of his tartan with every step. His stiff Englishness was gone.

To one who didn’t know about the curse, this night would have seemed an idyllic culmination of Christmastide. But when Alexander’s gaze met Lucinda’s, she saw the carefully hidden misery in them. He knew what he must do to save these people.

And it wasn’t in him to do it.

However, the folk of Bonniebroch didn’t know that. Sure their laird would complete the third task, whatever it might be, they threw themselves into celebration with a will, singing and pushing the tables aside so they would dance furious reels down the length of the Great Hall. Even the young piper was less wheezy than usual.

After two sets, Lucinda begged off further dancing and retired to her place on the dais. Alex led the rotund little Mrs. Fletcher out onto the floor to wild cheering and stomping as the piper launched into a comical rendition of “The Maid I Adore.” All eyes were on the pair, but Lucinda’s were drawn to a flicker of movement at the far end of the room.

Sir Bertram Clarindon leaned on the double-door jamb watching the dancers with the rest of the party. Then he looked over their heads to Lucinda and smiled.

She’d been more than relieved when Alexander’s friend had made himself scarce during supper. Charming, if not classically handsome, he’d reportedly been cutting a wide swath through the ranks of the upstairs maids. Anything that kept him out of her husband’s path this night was cause for rejoicing. If Alexander wasn’t confronted with his friend’s presence, he wouldn’t have to make the horrible choice before him.

Lucinda felt terrible for the people of Bonniebroch, but her heart ached for Alexander’s wretched choice even more. She rose and, squeezing around the tight knots of revelers, made her way across the room to Clarindon.

He bowed beautifully, as always. “My lady, you are the moon and the stars this night.”

“Good even, Sir Bertram,” she said, taking his arm and leading him into the vaulted vestibule outside the feasting hall. “I wonder if ye’ll take a turn with me.”

“Delighted,” he said, covering the hand she’d slipped into the crook of his elbow with his warm one. “In fact, you’re the one I was coming to see.”

“Really?” Sir Bertram had been correctly cordial to her but had never sought her out before. “Why?”

A wicked glint flashed in his usually mild eyes. “Well, there’s a new game I’d like to introduce you to.”

“Not another like Snap Dragon, I hope. Mrs. Fletcher will be doling out salve for burns for a month.”
Or she would if the folk of Bonniebroch had another month.

“Oh, no. Nothing like that.” He laughed as they stopped before the long mirror, propped against the wall opposite the tall double doors that led out to the bailey. “This game is sort of like hide-and-seek. It’s called . . .” He clamped a firm grip on her forearm. “. . . Capture the Chatelaine.”

Then Clarindon stepped through the silvered glass and yanked her behind him. She was enveloped by a clear substance with the consistency of jelly.

Once they cleared that gelatinous layer, Lucinda sucked in a surprised breath and coughed at the frigid air that met her lungs. Alexander had tried to describe what the trip between the mirrors was like, but he’d failed to mention the bone-chilling cold. She was too stunned to resist Clarindon’s hand on her arm and too frightened to pull away. She might tumble out of the tunnel of light through which they seemed to be traveling and into the abyss she glimpsed beyond the transparent walls.

Just as she was convinced she’d freeze into a solid block of ice, they passed through another jelly-like layer, which was mercifully warmer. She held her breath till they tumbled out of another mirror and into a dank chamber that smelled of rot and mold and ancient decay.

“Is this the castle’s dungeon?” she asked in a small voice.

“You might call it that.” Clarindon’s eyes flashed in the darkness, golden orbs with no soul behind them. “I called it home for the last three hundred years.”

Lucinda pulled a name from her memory of Alexander’s recounting of his visit to this misbegotten place. It belonged to the sorcerer behind all of Bonniebroch’s woes. “Morgan MacRath.”

“In the flesh.” MacRath sketched a bow, a less elegant one than Clarindon customarily offered, and cast her an oily smile. “Well, in someone else’s flesh, at least.”

“What’s happened to Sir Bertram?”

“Oh, he’s still in here.” He thumped his chest with a closed fist. “Just a bit . . . submerged at present. The weaker mind will always yield to the stronger, ye see. Ye’ll yield to me as well, milady.”

Then he dragged her screaming into the dark.

 

 

Callum Farquhar leaped up from his desk and flew to the looking glass. He didn’t pause before plunging into its silvered depths. For the first time in three hundred years, something was urgent.

He hadn’t sensed MacRath in the secret passageways behind the mirrors. He’d had no advance warning that the sorcerer had escaped the dungeon and taken possession of Sir Bertram’s body. It wasn’t until Farquhar overheard the conversation between Lady Bonniebroch and Clarindon outside the Great Hall that he began to sense something was amiss beyond the fact that midnight was fast approaching.

Lady Bonniebroch’s ripping trek through the mirror with Clarindon leading the way was proof positive that another spirit was involved. No human could travel those secret paths on his own. Farquhar felt such cold malevolence emanating from Clarindon, he realized MacRath had taken charge of Lord Bonniebroch’s friend.

Quick as thought, Farquhar zipped through the passageway and shot out the looking glass near the Great Hall. He didn’t slow his pace, streaking through the closed doors and finally coming to rest in the center of the long room. He manifested a good ten feet above the ground and several times larger than his size in life.

“Lord Bonniebroch,”
Farquhar thundered in mind-speech, casting a wide net so that everyone present could hear his voice echoing in their heads.

The assembly froze. None but Lyall Lyttle and the various lairds over the years had been able to see Farquhar. The residents of the castle knew he was there, of course. They were pleased enough to take orders from the old steward since he had more sense than any of the living, but they were also grateful he kept to his tower and relayed his instructions through Lyttle and his meticulous journal. It was one thing to be aware of a disembodied spirit in their midst. Quite another to see one in full fury.

The long case clock chimed a quarter to midnight.

“The hour is almost come, milord,”
Farquhar said.

“You will not force my hand in this, spirit.” Eyes blazing, Lord Bonniebroch stepped toward Farquhar. “You know the intent of my heart. I canna kill my oldest friend.”

In the thick of merriment, the laird had lost track of his lady. Alexander’s head jerked around and he scanned the hall for some sign of Lucinda. He bellowed her name, but when the last echo died, there was no response. “Where is she?”

“Arm yerself, milord.”
Farquhar held out his ghostly hand.
“I’ll bear ye company as far as I may.”

 

 

When they emerged from the looking glass in the dungeon, Farquhar was still talking, still explaining that Morgan MacRath meant to use Lucinda for some magical rite to unward the gates of Bonniebroch. MacRath was yet bound to the castle, but if he undid the spell, he’d be loosed upon the world.

“And that’s bad enough no’ to bear contemplating,”
Farquhar said as Alex drew a deep breath and shook off the effects of the trip between the mirrors.
“If MacRath is disembodied a second time, it’ll be all up with him. The only way to save the Lady Lucinda now is to kill . . .”

“My old friend,” Alex finished for him, his voice hard as the stone of the castle. “Hurry up, man. Where are they?”

Farquhar cocked his head, listening.
“This way.”
He vanished down a dark corridor that led off from the central chamber of the dungeon.

Alexander broke into a mile-eating trot to keep up with the spirit. Fortunately, Farquhar cast a luminescent glow so Alex could clearly see where he was going. The stone beneath his feet had been polished smooth by thousands of feet over hundreds of years.

Then at the end of the tunnel, the ghost stopped abruptly. The corridor opened into a large vault sparsely lit with torches crammed into fissures in the gray rock. A subterranean lake glinted in the dark, its surface black and oily. The place smelled of centuries-old dust and bat guano and magic. Alexander half expected a water horse to rear its snaky neck from the depths of the lake.

“Why have we stopped?” Alex demanded.

“The way is warded against my kind.”
Farquhar brushed a hand toward the opening and golden sparks trailed his spectral fingertips.
“I canna go forward, but ye must. They’re no’ far from here now. Tread carefully. While MacRath bides in the body of Clarindon, his magical powers are suppressed, but what he can do is give yer friend more strength, more speed, more cunning than ever he had in times past.”

The old ghost laid a palm on Alexander’s chest and the cold of it sank into his marrow, freezing his insides.
“Nae matter what ye may see, what ye may hear, remember ’tis no’ truly yer friend ye meet here in this evil place. Banish mercy from yer heart, lad, for ye’ll receive none.”

“Friend or no, if he’s harmed Lucinda, he’s already outlived mercy from me.” Alexander drew his claymore and bounded into the large chamber, calling his wife’s name.

“Alex!” Her tone was shrill. “I’m here! He—”

He moved toward the sound. Relief that she was still alive and panic over her cut-off voice vied for first place in his heart. He fought the urge to run toward her. If MacRath had set a trap, he didn’t want to fall into it before he had a chance to confront him.

Alexander followed the edge of the body of water, staying away from the obsidian surface of the becalmed underground lake. It was brighter ahead. When he peered around a rock outcropping, he saw Lucinda. She was bound to a tall stalagmite that rose to within an inch of joining the corresponding stalactite dripping from the distant roof.

A gag kept her from calling out, but Alex could see the whites of her eyes all around. She was alive, but terrified.

With reason.

Clarindon stood before her, muttering some incantation while brandishing a wicked-looking sword tip in strange patterns before her midsection. Alex took another step and a rock gave beneath his tread, sliding toward the lake. Alexander kept his feet, but the scraping noise made Clarindon turn toward him.

“Ah! There you are,” his friend said.

“Step away from her.”

Clarindon’s familiar expression of mild annoyance turned to one of undisguised loathing for a couple blinks. Then he smiled. “It’s only me, Alex. We’re playing a little game here, your lady and I. We expected not to be disturbed. If you don’t leave at once, I shall be very put out.”

The voice was still his old friend’s, with the same inflections, the same means of expression, but the way Clarindon’s eyes flared in the dark reminded Alexander that there was really nothing of Sir Bertram here.

“Consider yourself more than inconvenienced, MacRath.” Claymore raised above his head, Alexander charged. When he was near enough he brought the sword down in a lethal arc, meant to cleave the sorcerer from neck to navel.

MacRath met the blow with his sword, turning Alex’s blade harmlessly to the side. Then he launched into a blistering attack that had Alexander giving ground, something that had happened so rarely when he sparred Clarindon in practice that he could count the number of times on the fingers of one hand. The strokes came furiously and Alexander whacked solidly back at him, but none of his blows connected.

Clarindon had never been this accomplished a swordsman.

It’s not him,
Alex reminded himself as he took a wicked swipe at his friend’s middle, which missed by inches.
It’s MacRath.

The fight boiled over the stark lakeshore, each fighter making use of the odd rock formations to give cover or provide an advantage in leverage. The world sizzled down to the next thrust, the next parry, the next desperate lunge.