No Other Woman (No Other Series) (9 page)

"Shawna?"

Shawna banged her head, trying to rise and turn as she heard the voice of her lady's maid, Mary Jane Campbell.

"Shawna, are you quite all right?"

No, she wasn't all right. Her head had been spinning in confusion since she'd awakened; now, it was killing her.

She stood, rubbing her head, facing Mary Jane. Her maid was just a few years her senior and they had been together, except for when Shawna had left Craig Rock, since they had been children.

"I'm-—fine. Thank you. No, actually, I'm not fine. I, er, had a rather rough night."

"Oh, aye, strange night, wasn't it?"

"I'm sorry?"

Mary Jane walked on into the room, drawing open Shawna's wardrobe, setting out undergarments and toiletries so that Shawna could wash and dress. "The moon," Mary Jane said, flashing Shawna a quick smile. She was a slim, pretty girl with light green eyes and dark brown hair. "The moon, the way it kept coming and going behind the clouds. It kept me up half the night as well."

"Did you... see or hear anything unusual?" Shawna queried.

Mary Jane shook her head. "Shawna, y'know me well. I lay in my bed, covers to my chin, and I didn't move the night. What would I see or hear in my bed?"

"It seems amazing what one can see or hear from her bed," Shawna muttered.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Never mind. I'm sorry. I suppose I'm quite late. Get a message out for me, will you? The miners should take some free time this morning."

"Free time?"

"Aye, free time."

"They work for hourly pay, Shawna—"

"And they shall be paid for these hours."

"Your great-uncle runs a tight ship."

"Well, that's true, but it is the nineteenth century, and it is my ship to direct. Gawain will understand. Time is lost every day now when the workers argue over going into the shafts. So this morning, they will have free time. They should have tea with their wives and babes."

"Shawna, that is brilliantly generous."

"I'm afraid it isn't. I wish that I had thought to be so generous, but actually, I overslept. I meant to be up and about far earlier, but... well, you know, there was that wretched moon. Anyway, I shall get the reverend, and we'll have a service at the mine in, say, two hours."

"Shawna?"

"Aye?"

"I don't mean to overstep my bounds..."

"Since you've been doing so all our lives, why on earth would you want to stop now?" Shawna inquired.

"Fine!" Mary Jane said, laughing. "You must realize, your great-uncle will be furious about the lost time."

"Uncle Gawain will have to go hang."

Mary Jane flashed her another smile. "I shall hope and pray that he does not decide to shoot the messenger."

"He may grumble, but he'll save his anger for me. Go quickly, please. I'm certain many of the men will have left for work already. Oh, wait!"

"Aye?" Mary Jane queried.

"You've been up and about awhile?"

"Aye, that I have."

"And there have been no reports of anything unusual?"

"Like what?"

"Well, you know, the miners have been so nervous about the shaft."

"Yes?"

"Well, has anything at all unusual occurred? Sightings in the graveyard? Reports of ghosts perhaps—or bodies lying about?"

Mary Jane shook her head. "Bodies lying about! Nay, Shawna, there's not been a report regarding a single corpse, and that's a fact!"

"No one has been reported missing?"

"Missing?"

"Aye, a villager who didn't return home from the pub or the like?"

"Shawna, are you quite all right?"

"I'm... just concerned about what's going on with the miners. That's all."

"You think there are ghosts in the mine shafts?"

"Of course not.... I'm just looking for logical explanations."

"I see. Well, we've no missing husband who lost his way home and fell into the mine shaft to beat against the walls. None that a wife will admit to, at that."

With a last smile, Mary Jane closed the door to Shawna's room.

Shawna walked up the steps to the balcony and looked out upon the day. The Druid Stones looked bright beneath the rising sun. Hills and valleys sloped and rose in emerald beauty, studded with the colors of wildflowers. The loch shimmered in the light, and the craigs and cliff rising from it to spread across the hilltops were caught up in glittering silver color, stalwart as steel. Cattle dotted the fields. The landscape had never appeared more serene. As if the tempest of the night could not possibly have occurred.

Yet knowing that it had, that David was out there somewhere, Shawna hurried down from the steps, approaching her washstand, ripping her nightgown over her head. She sluiced her face and throat with cold water, shivered, soaked herself again, and paused.

She had imagined nothing. The subtle, but unmistakable, unique male scent of him lingered about her body. She trembled and grew warm, then picked up her water pitcher and doused herself with the chilly water from head to toe.

What in God's name was she going to do?

What could she do? David had cleanly disappeared. There was no body by the loch. And if she betrayed him again in any way...

Yet, she could not believe that anyone in her family had set out to kill David.

So what had happened?

God, she yearned for the truth!

And perhaps the truth could be found in helping him.

There was but one thing to do for the moment, she determined.

Get past the night.

And begin the new day. Forewarned...

And forearmed.

* * *

She did begin the day. Definitely late.

But by ten-thirty, Shawna had summoned the Reverend Massey, and she stood by his side at the entrance to the main tunnel dug out of the rugged cliffs near the loch.

The miners and their families were assembled nearby, the men with their caps in their hands, the women with their heads bowed.

"Shawna MacGinnis, do you think that this will work?" the Reverend Massey asked worriedly.

Shawna lowered her eyes, hiding a rueful smile from Massey. Would it work? She was trying to convince miners that a shaft couldn't be haunted while she was halfway convinced she was mad, and carrying on with a ghost herself.

"Reverend, whether it 'works' or not, a blessing on the mines would be a good thing, would it not?" she asked.

"Aye, aye," he said, after a minute of thoughtful frowning.

"Be strong!" Shawna told him encouragingly as she looked at the crowd of sixty or so people who had come to hear the blessing. Her great-uncle Gawain, flanked on either side by her cousins Alistair and Alaric, were watching them, waiting. Alistair caught her eyes upon him. He grinned and winked.

Shawna had managed to depart Castle Rock without seeing Gawain, Alaric, or Alistair. She was determined on her own way, but it seemed more prudent to have her own way now and argue about it later, rather than risk a public argument.

"Please proceed, Reverend," Shawna urged. The people were beginning to grow restless.

"Uh-humm!" the Reverend Massey said, clearing his throat. He lifted his hands to Heaven. "My good people, let us pray!" he invoked, then dropped rather slowly to his knees.

Everyone followed suit. Before closing her eyes in prayer, Shawna saw that her great-uncle Lowell and cousin Aidan had come as well, and were kneeling at the far left side of the crowd. Aidan offered her an encouraging smile as Alistair had done, and Lowell, as gentle a man as Gawain was rough, winked as Alistair had done. It was a pity. She didn't see nearly as much of her great-uncle Lowell as she did of Gawain; Lowell and Aidan had maintained residence at Castle MacGinnis to keep up the MacGinnis ancestral home.

She wished now that she had stayed there herself. But along with all the business-related reasons for her maintaining her residence at Castle Rock, the recently deceased Laird Douglas, David's father, had asked her to do so himself. No matter what, she wouldn't have been able to have refused him. Since Gawain had run many of the affairs of both estates for years, he had decided to move to Castle Rock, too. His two sons, Alistair and Alaric, had joined him there.

From across the crowd, she saw Aidan arching a curious brow at her. She realized that she had been frowning.

She tried to smile.

She should have remained in her own home, no matter what the old Douglas laird had asked of her, no matter that he and her father had been the closest of friends. She should have known that "ghosts" could come back to haunt Castle Rock.

"Father in Heaven," the Reverend Massey intoned, "we ask your blessing on these thy children who work the earth; we ask your blessing on these coal mines which offer so many here sustenance. Oh, Father, hear our prayers, through the infinite goodness of your son, Jesus Christ, grant us your goodness and mercy. Bless this work we partake of in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; be with us in all our endeavors, bless each man, woman and child who works within the mines..."

The prayer went on and on—once the Reverend Massey had got started, he found passion in the event. Shawna found herself opening her eyes. Alistair's eyes were open as well. He was still watching her, his expression amused. His blue eyes sparkled; his handsome face was cut by a broad grin. She shook her head in warning, and he lowered his eyes dutifully.

At last the prayer ended. The Reverend Massey implored them all to go and work dutifully and in peace. When they stood, Massey was approached by a young woman with a baby on her hip, and Shawna discovered that Mark Menzies was at her side, thanking her for the arrangements that morning. "The men are enthusiastic about their work once again." He lowered his voice. "Aye, and still, it would be best if I knew myself what causes the sounds that haunt the mines at times!"

"You've heard these sounds yourself?" she asked.

Mark started to reply but paused, and she realized that Gawain had come behind her.

"I was thanking m'lady for the prayer, MacGinnis," Mark said politely.

"If a blessing matters to the work, then a blessing there must be," Gawain said.

"Aye, the blessing will work well," Mark said, smiling at Shawna with warm admiration, "as will my lady's care that the men be given a few special hours, paid hours, with their wives and bairns."

"Aye, my niece does have a woman's sympathies and sensitivities!" Gawain acknowledged, smiling. The smile was a fierce one. It meant that she should have discussed her plans with him.

"M'lady Shawna, would you have some of our tea?"

Shawna spun about to see that the speaker was Gena Anderson, young and very pretty if somewhat fey, one of the village lasses whose father had worked in the mines. The girl was offering her a steaming mug. The miners' wives, it seemed, had brought tea and scones, as if the blessing constituted a celebration, a reopening of the mines themselves. She took the warm cup from the woman, thanking her. As she did so, an arm slipped around her waist and she spun about to see Alistair at her side.

"You're jumpy this morning, eh?"

"Am I? Sorry?"

"You needn't be sorry. Ah, cousin! The lady bountiful—you do it so well!" he teased. Though they were actually second cousins, since Gawain was her great-uncle, they had always referred to one another as cousin, as she did with his brother, Alaric. Aidan, likewise, was Lowell's son, and Lowell was her
great-
uncle as well, but in the Highlands, the word "cousin" could easily stretch several generations.

He lowered his voice. "And you must have run like the wind down the steps to escape the castle and the walls before Father could stop you and offer his opinion on your generosity!"

"I simply walked out," she lied. "None of you happened to be about."

"How convenient! But I do believe you've done quite well."

"We are responsible for these people's lives, you know," she reminded him primly. Looking about, she saw one of the very young children who worked the exceptionally narrow corridors of some of the tunnels. She knew that children were drastically overworked everywhere—in the big cities such as Glasgow, London, and even New York—but it still horrified her to realize that the very little ones went into dangerous places. She had fought her great-uncle tooth and nail on the matter of the children, and here, they were allowed to work no more than a few hours a day.

The little lad she noted now was one of her favorites. Though he was one of the Andersons of Craig Rock, it was obvious that the boy had MacGinnis blood as well. He had the telltale ink black hair and blue eyes. More. He had the handsomely shaped eyebrows that distinguished her family members. In fact...

She glanced sharply at Alistair, who had been known to seduce more than a few of the village maidens. There had been a rumor at one time that he, one of the gentry of the manor, had seduced the very pretty young Gena Anderson. Whatever had happened, much of it had taken place while Shawna had been away, and talk of it had ended.

"Have you had more to do with the lives of some of these people than I might have previously imagined?" she demanded of Alistair.

Alistair laughed, shaking his head, completely unashamed of whatever his sins might be. "Now, cousin, you go too far! Would you blame me, fair cousin, for the fact that too much inbreeding has occurred throughout the centuries in our secluded
Helands,
eh?"

"Inbreeding, my—" she began.

"Ach! Such language from the lady bountiful!"

"M'lady!" Mark Menzies called. "Will ye come? The Reverend Massey will give a special prayer for the left shaft!"

"Of course!" she called.

Alaric, Alistair's older brother, was beside them then as well. "Menzies, I'm not sure Shawna should go into the mines!"

"No, no!" Shawna insisted softly, squeezing Alaric's hand. "I must go; if it's not safe for me, then it's not safe for the men."

"Shawna, there are differences here!" Alaric told her firmly. He was far more like his father than Alistair; very serious in all his endeavors, a big, gruff, Highlander. From the time they had been children, he had been serious. He was a handsome man, much like Alistair in appearance, but he lacked his younger brother's quick grin and easy style of living. Like her great-uncle Gawain, Alaric reminded her of a Highlander of old, a man who could easily be a savage warrior, painting his face, shrieking out a battle cry, and rushing into the fray with little but raw courage behind him. She smiled at the thought. Her cousins were so difficult. Alistair and Alaric, Gawain's sons, Alistair the charmer, Alaric the hulk. Alaric nearly ten years older than she was, Alistair just four. Then there was Aidan, Lowell's only child, a decade older than Shawna like Alaric, the very quiet and thoughtful one, steady as a rock. They, with her great-uncles, were her family, and she loved them all. She missed her father dearly. He had been somewhat of a cross between Alistair and Alaric, built like a warrior of old, gruff—and charming. Shawna didn't remember her mother, who had died before she was a year old, so these men were her closest kin. And now, Alaric was determined on being as protective as a father, speaking to her firmly. "You're Lady MacGinnis; these men are miners. These men know the mine, and you do not, little cousin."