No Other Woman (No Other Series) (32 page)

But she fought not to shiver, for he lay at her side, holding her, trying to keep her from the cold, silent then as his eyes kept focus upon the rock above them. She stroked the contours of his face.

" 'Tis a pity I am the one left without a coat of fur," she said softly. "For 'tis said that I would control you, if you're a demon, beast, or selkie, that is, if I could but steal that Douglas tartan perhaps, hide it away, and have you in my power."

A slow smile curved into his lips and he turned his gaze to her. "You don't think that you've enough in your power, m'lady?"

She shook her head. "I hold only what you give, Laird Douglas, and you are capable of being quite stingy!"

He laughed, and held her more closely. Then his expression sobered as he said softly, "I lost everything once; including my own identity. I fear to lose everything again, life itself this time, if I do not take the gravest care. You are among what I can most easily lose."

"Does that mean then, m'laird, that I am something you wish to have—and keep?"

He rolled toward her, twirling a strand of her hair in his fingers. "I have come back for all that is mine," he informed her. "And you will note, I believe, that I am quite willing to fight for what is mine. I will not be betrayed again, and though I do believe in your innocence, I promise as well that I will readily kill any man guilty of treachery against me again, and if a woman were guilty, my love, I do swear that she would pay the price."

"But—"

"Shawna," he said, his touch then upon her chin so that their eyes met, "I have told you, I believe you. You say that you have told me the truth; that there is nothing more you know, there is nothing more at all that you can tell me about the past. Then I believe you."

She found it very difficult to breathe. She wanted to be as they were then forever. His warmth, his strength—his tenderness—all given to her. The curve of his smile serious yet gentle. His touch... a lover's touch. The warmth that remained when passion was spent.

"I swear to you..."

His lips touched hers.

"I believe you."

"I love you, David."

"Sweet Jesu! How long it took to draw those words from you!" he exclaimed.

She flushed, pushing suddenly against his chest. "It might have aided you in that quest, Laird Douglas, had you thought to speak such words yourself!"

"I told you quite clearly that I had wanted you forever."

"Wanting is not the same."

"Ah, well, I wanted you because I loved you."

She smiled slowly, her lashes lowering. She had never thought she'd feel such happiness.

Yet a feeling of unease fluttered within her stomach. She had kept nothing from him that mattered. And perhaps, one day she would share with him the years they had lost as openly as she prayed he might share the pain of his past with her.

But not now.

"You were speaking of the years before when you spoke of wanting me," she said very softly.

"Aye."

"Well... that was then," she said matter-of-factly, meeting his gaze again. "This is now."

"Dear God, are you never satisfied?" he demanded gruffly.

"Indeed, but—"

She gasped as he rolled atop her once again, his eyes boring into hers, bright with passion once again. "You were a gorgeous child, headstrong, impetuous, annoyingly so—I thought you needed a good switching many times."

"If this is a declaration of love—" she protested.

"Hear me out. Where was I? Ah! then, you were no longer a child. You grew into a woman—gorgeous, headstrong, impetuous—and arrogant."

"Now, really—"

"And I wanted you. You were young Lady MacGinnis, and I cared for you. Then you were the very beautiful young woman I had known and cared about all of my life, but you had changed, I had aged, and I wanted you, I admired you, I loved your determination and your courage and aye, even your reckless loyalty to your family. In my heart I knew that the day would come when a goodly distance could be kept no more, when you'd finally tease too far, and I would have what I wanted—all quite properly, of course. I had intended eventually, I'm quite certain, to ask Gawain and Lowell—and you, of course—for your hand in marriage. You seduced me into wanting you, but just being yourself, with your pride and your sense of duty and loyalty and energy and all those other things about you—you seduced me into love. Five years has changed nothing. I've had you, and I want you more. I was in love with you before, and I am deeply, grievously in love once again. Now, m'lady, will that do?"

Her eyes wide upon his, she smiled.

"Quite well!" she whispered.

"Good. Because such an impassioned, rousing speech has impassioned and aroused other things as well. M'lady, you may feel free to simply whisper again—with tremendous ardor, of course—that you love me, then you may proceed to show me with that desperately fevered ardor."

She still stared into his eyes.

"Well?"

"Oh, aye! I love you, David, dear God, you cannot believe how deeply, how desperately—"

"I'm quite willing to be shown," he whispered. And he kissed her.

And made love to her.

The fire blazed red and orange across the stone walls.

Until finally, the fire burned out, and the soft light filling the cavern was pink and gold.

The tide had receded.

And dawn was breaking.

Shawna was loath to leave the cavern, but David was anxious to return her to the castle.

"I still don't understand why you don't just announce your presence today."

"There are still things I must discover," he said.

"But how am I to get back into the castle? I can't just walk through the front door naked—"

"I would flay you alive," he assured her. "I've shirts in my trunk, and plenty of tartan. You can walk through the forest to the passageway entry kilted in Douglas plaid. I'll escort you back to your tower room."

He dressed himself in black shirt and breeches, then helped her don his cotton shirt and his tartan. The water was shallow then in the cavern, and David, wearing his boots, carried her through the foot or so of water that still pooled within the cavern until they came out to the embankment of the loch beyond. He caught her hand, quickly leading her around the loch and into the depths of the forest, where they entered the passageway together, taking it back to the castle, and therein, through the secret stairways and corridors of Castle Rock until they came to her tower room.

Once there, he paused long enough to hold her, and kiss her very deeply once again.

"You go nowhere without my brother, Shawna, do you hear?"

"Does your brother know of this?"

"Aye, he will. But on this, you must obey me, Shawna, do you understand?"

"Aye. But I don't understand what—"

"Shawna, for the love of God, have faith, I beg of you!"

"I do have faith," she said softly.

She did have faith. She loved David; she had loved him all her life, she thought. And he had whispered those same words to her. Tall, dark, towering, fierce, so striking with his bronzed muscle, flashing green eyes, dark auburn hair. That he did not just want her, that he had told her he loved her, was a dream that she'd not dared wish might come true.

But she was afraid. Uneasy. She didn't know why.

"David—"

"I must go."

He smiled, brushed her lips with his own once again, and disappeared through the shifting break in the stone that led back to the secret passageway.

Shawna watched him go.

Then she felt a strange sensation of dread sweeping through her.

He would not be betrayed again. She had not betrayed him! And still... She was afraid.

Something was going to happen.

And there would be nothing she could do to stop it.

Chapter 17

Brother Damian stood at the bar in the tavern, slowly sipping ale, listening to the farmers and sheep and cattle herders gossip and speculate in whispers as they sat at the various planked tables about the tavern. Some ate the mutton stew offered by the tavern's kitchens for lunch, others drank ale, seeking not nourishment, but companionship.

"If y'be askin' me, 'tis simply more of the same," one old-timer said quietly, his head bowed low so that his voice might be heard just by the comrades at his table. The old man was leathered, his hair and thick beard more white than gray. He had bright blue eyes, and despite his seventy-odd years, he remained straight and sturdy as an oak. He was a Menzies, loin Menzies, father of Mark Menzies, the foreman of the miners. "There's strange things brewing in the castle on the hill, and that's a fact."

"Since before the old Laird Douglas died," protested a handsome younger man in his twenties, Hamell, one of the Anderson lads. He looked carefully around the room.

Brother Damian, standing with his ale, thought that the lad might be looking about to see if his father was in the tavern.

Hamell Anderson leaned forward, barely mouthing the words to old loin. "It began the night of The Fire."

"D'ye think it's the witches?" loin demanded.

"Are y' serious, man?" Hamell demanded.

"The American lass is gone, isn't she?"

"Aye."

"The Night of the Moon Maiden comes tomorrow. Perhaps the lass is intended to die on the altar."

"Ach, old man! Ye've lost your mind, surely!"

"Strange things been brewin'."

"Aye, like the lad."

"The lad?" Old loin looked puzzled. "Ah, y'mean your brother, Danny, the wee thing caught in the mines?"

"Aye. I mean Danny," Hamell said quietly. He looked down at the table, not meeting old loin's eyes. "Danny... came out of the mines with the help of a
beastie."

"Things do indeed haunt the mines; my boy has told me so," loin said grimly.

"Well, no one would be slaying a lass on the Druid Stone; we'll all be about to see that it not happen," Hamell said harshly. "And don't you go ruinin' the holiday for us all! I've my costume and mask set; the servants at the castle have been setting out the kegs of wine and ale all morning in preparations for tomorrow night. I've worked on me caber throw for the contests, and I've a lass to meet for the dancing! Don't go making something eerie of the fun we've planned on havin'!"

"It's the lass your planning on havin', eh, boy?"

"I intend to ask her to wed," Hamell said indignantly.

"After the... er, festivities?" loin suggested.

"Now, loin—"

"I'd not spoil a celebration, and that's a fact. I'm not the trouble. 'Tis the witches," loin said.

"The witches?"

"Aye, Edwina and her lot, talking Mother Nature, making their herbal cures and potions and all! You look to it, boy—'twill end that the witches have some shenanigans and say in all this!"

"Don't you be talking such rubbish!" came a sharp, feminine cry from the door.

Brother Damian, who had been deeply involved in the men's conversation, turned in surprise to see that Edwina had come into the tavern. She wore a cloak against the chill of the November day, yet, as he watched her, Brother Damian's eyes narrowed.

"Ah, now, Edwina—" loin protested, his cheeks flushing.

"I've done nothing but good for you, loin Menzies!" Edwina said, coming straight to the table. "My herbs have cured those carbuncles upon your back many a time, and my remedies have soothed your old feet many a night as well."

"Now, Edwina—"

"Don't you 'now, Edwina' me, Mister Menzies!" Edwina said angrily, and sweeping off her cloak, she went back behind the bar, drawing a pitcher of ale for a farmer who hailed her across the tavern.

Brother Damian took his chances and slid into the seat alongside loin Menzies. Menzies looked up at him, surprised and wary. Brother Damian smiled reassuringly. He'd been a bit of a fixture at the tavern for several days, coming and going, and building up something of a trust among the people here.

"She's worried, you know. About Laird Douglas's sister-in-law. And we must still find the lass."

"Aye!" loin said, looking at the table.

"In truth," he said quietly, "you know, Menzies, that I've come on pilgrimage to do a bit of studying on the lore hereabouts, and quite honestly, the ancient sacrifices were associated with Druid practices, and not with the Wiccans."

"She'll be mad at me, now," loin said, sniffing toward where Edwina worked at the bar. "She'll let me old body rot before she gives me aid again."

Brother Damian drank deeply from his ale, then looked across the table at Hamell Anderson. "There's been no clue here in the village as to the missing girl, eh?"

Hamell shook his head, and sipped foam from his ale. "But loin may have a point. If witches were out for a sacrifice, they'd want the likes of an important young maid, don't y' think, Brother Damian?" Anderson's eyes lit seriously upon him. "But then again, wouldn't they be seeking the likes of someone even more important perhaps? Like Lady MacGinnis herself? Unless, of course..."

"Aye, and of course, what?" Brother Damian demanded.

Hamell Anderson shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, if someone deeply believed in his or her religion—not minding what that belief be—he or she would follow it faithfully."