Some Enchanted Waltz (30 page)

“I woke up here and couldn’t remember my last name, let alone you or Adrian or even being on a ship. If it weren’t for Adrian I’d have gone mad. He said our last name was MacNeill and you were a businessman from America. He said we met in Italy last year, and courted. He spent weeks sorting through the wreckage to find you. Oh, Papa, you have no idea what a comfort Adrian has been to me these past weeks.”

Sure I can.
  Dan smiled and tried to look paternal.

“He insisted we marry right away, to protect my reputation, as you were presumed dead. Amazing, is it not.”

“Yep.” Dan agreed with a quick jerk of his head.
Damned Amazing. Every man dreams of finding a beautiful woman washed up on shore with no memory
.

Finished with his pipe, he looked about the room for an ashtray to set it into until it cooled. Tara gestured behind him, and a footman who had previously tried to bludgeon him with a tapestry frame offered him a silver plate with lowered eyes. A guy could get used to having staff.

A female servant entered with the glass of port on a tray, and a glass of sherry for Tara.  Dan gingerly took the crystal goblet in his large hand when a sharp clicking noise echoed from across the room, raising the hackles on the back of his neck.

“Arise, away from my wife or I’ll drop you where you stand.” A rich, deep Irish brogue echoed in the great hall. Dan stood up slowly and turned around. A tall, well dressed man of about thirty advanced with an antiquated firearm leveled at Dan’s chest. He’d half expected this Lord Dillon to be a man old enough to be her father; a lecherous sort who was fat and balding. This dude could break hearts without even trying. He looked an awful lot like the guy who played in the
Highlander s
eries from the 1990s, Duncan Mac-Something or other. Dan could see why Tara would fall for the dude.

At the moment, Lord Dillon’s eyes held a predatory gleam in them, an air of authority rather than the apprehension that had punctuated Dan’s visit to rural Oz. The common populace feared him because of his size. Dillon didn’t appear to be the least bit intimidated. Dan knew the man would have no qualms about dropping him like a deer as he gazed down the barrel of his ancient rifle with cool gray eyes.

“Adrian.” Tara moved to come between them. “Don’t you remember my father?”

Dan merely looked from one to the other, the tall, dark Irish lord of this century defending his wife, a slender, red haired historian from the future, a woman who found nothing peculiar about her surroundings or her sudden marriage to a stranger.

His combat Medi-Vac training from twenty years ago kicked in. In direct lightning strikes the brain injuries could be subdural hematomas or intracerebral hemorrhage. Wide scale brain injury could result due to the electrical injury or a prolonged apneic period following the strike. Long-term complications, aside from paralysis (which didn’t appear to be evident) included amnesia, dementia, disrupted reflexes, and balance/ gait disturbances. The victim could also suffer depression, anxiety, permanent memory deficits and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In short, Tara was lucky to even be alive, let alone walking and talking normally. Whether her amnesia was temporary or permanent was impossible to discern. There were no hospitals with MRI’s at the ready to assess the damage to Tara’s brain. Right now, this was the only reality she knew.

Dan’s decision was not difficult. “You better have a good excuse for holding a gun on me and kidnapping my daughter before I break your little toy with my bare hands.”

Tara placed herself in front of the loaded weapon. “Put that down before you hurt someone.”

The dark lord had no choice but to lower his weapon. He gestured for her to come to him, which she did without hesitation. He placed an arm about Tara protectively. The look in his eyes was that of a cornered animal. He regarded Dan with wary, anxious eyes, waiting for him to proclaim they had never met and Tara had been taken advantage of.

And Tara stood at his side, leaning against the handsome rogue with complete trust in him and with a convenient ignorance as to the truth of the situation.  

“Forgive me, I didn’t recognize you in those . . .” Lord Dillon gestured to Dan’s pathetic attire. “The servants claimed a deranged man was threatening my wife. I had no idea it was you.”

“I hardly expect you would recognize me.” Dan couldn’t resist twisting the knife a bit. The wolf before him stood his ground without flinching.

Dan regarded their host with the cold accusing eyes of a true father whose daughter had been taken advantage of. Lord Dillon looked back with a sullen haughtiness that was unexpected, given the situation. Guilty as he may be in deceiving Tara, it was clear he had no intention of giving her up.

Weary from his long trek in miserable weather, Dan sat on the rickety stick of furniture they called a chair and held his head in his hands. All the way here he figured Tara would recognize him and that would be that. He hadn’t expected to be welcomed into the bosom of her ‘family’ as her father. Dan lifted his head to study her.

Tara was gazing up at her husband with adoration. And the fierce Lord Dillon became a tame wolf as his granite eyes melted into silvery pools of devotion.

It was obvious the pair were in love. Talk about lightning striking, barely six weeks since they arrived in the province of backwards, and Tara had gotten herself hitched!

Excuse me for thinking you needed my help, Lady Dillon!

Chapter Nineteen

Adrian swallowed second glass of brandy whole as he paced about his study.

Running his fingers through his hair, he tried to collect his rambling thoughts into some sort of manageable chaos.

This was the worst day of his life.

Paradise had turned into a nightmare. He imagined the worst, being called out by her father, and being deprived of his lady love forever.

“
I only meant to protect both of us from the hangman’s noose. The soldiers would have hanged you after they’d defiled you that night in the barn. They thought you were a spy.”  
Adrian mentally prepared his defense against the weeping enchantress he imagined as her father, the giant MacNeill, lead her into the mists, the secret lair of the fairies, away from him forever. “
I came to love you, sweet Tara, don’t leave me
.” 

He returned to the brandy decanter. Finding it empty, he launched it across the room. He wouldn’t give her up, damn it. Not without a fight. She was more important than this castle, the Fianna or his bloody title. He could take her and flee to Europe.

Yes, Italy would be perfect this time of year, a honeymoon in a secluded villa.

Spinning about, he was about to tug the bell pull when cold reality crushed his delusion of stealing her away to a secret villa.
They
would find him. The giant would follow their flight and likely others of the fey race.

It was no use running and he couldn’t hide. The day of reckoning had come.

Adrian rubbed his eyes, stumbling toward the desk. The fairy folk were displeased. They sent her father, one of the true Fianna, a giant of Finn MacCoul’s renown, to fetch his daughter back to their home in the mists. He slumped ungracefully into the chair, rubbing his hand across his face to try to clear his thinking. The room was moving.

He laid his head across his arm on the desk, praying he could convince the giant MacNeill not to take his daughter back to the Tuath an Danaan.

*  *  *  *

Dan balanced the pipe between his teeth, pondering fate as he lay soaking up to his chest in a steaming hot bath. Who would believe a lightning surge through an old piece of shit radio transmitter could hurtle two people into the past?

Not just the past, but also to a place halfway across the world?

It could only happen in a Sci-Fi movie. Marty McFly had a time machine, a freakin’ sweet car that ran on plutonium so he could go
Back to the Future
. He and Tara were stuck here, probably for the rest of their lives.

The Irish lord clearly didn’t expect his catch of the century to have a father show up ruining his fun. Dan held the trump card, both of them knew it.

Yet, if he called the Viscount’s bluff, what would happen to Tara and himself?

If confronted, with his back pressed against the wall the arrogant lord could make life miserable for them. He could have Dan thrown in a prison or hanged as a thief. He could claim Dan was lying, trying to blackmail him; the possibilities were endless and the punishments were disgustingly brutal and painful in this century. The tales he’d heard at the O’Ryan cottage were enough to turn the strongest man’s stomach: pitch caps, the triangle where a man was tied up and whipped until his skin was literally gone, and house burnings that went on under full view and a nod of approval from the law.

Aside from his own skin, which he was particularly fond of, there was Tara to consider. With her memory damn near erased, she believed she belonged here, married to Lord Dillon in holy matrimony. Poor kid might crack up if he exposed the scoundrel, and end up locked away in a mad house or in the tower room for the rest of her life.

Hell, I always wanted to have a kid,
Dan thought. And Tara had been like a daughter to him, even if they were really only co-workers. Dan sank down low in the tub, submerging himself up to his chin. Best to play things close to the cuff. As near as he could tell, free accommodations didn’t get any better than this in 18th century Ireland.

*   *   *   *

Tara found Adrian slumped over his desk, passed out and reeking of brandy.

She tried to rouse him, only to have him murmur in his sleep strange words about Finn MacCoul and his giant band of warriors. He opened his eyes briefly. 

“I wish you wouldn’t get drunk like this.” She scolded. “It gives you the strangest notions. Next thing, you’ll be asking me to give you a pot of gold.”

She had hoped to have a celebration dinner. Let him lie there until morning. Nothing was going to spoil this night. Her father was alive and he was here, able to answer all the questions about her life that were lost to her. She closed the door of the study and fairly danced down the hall toward the dining room.

 At dinner, she watched her father wolf down the contents of his plate, forcing herself to allow him to enjoy his meal before attacking him with questions. She drank in his image as they sat cozily at one end of the long table. With his silvery blond hair clean and combed, his scruffy beard neatly trimmed by Adrian’s valet, he looked a good deal more civilized than when he’d shown up earlier in worn and dirty clothing.  Dressed now in the loose green velvet robe, he looked like an ancient king.

In the mad scramble to find something for him to wear after his bath, the servants had scoured every corner of the castle. Unable to find anything to accommodate her father’s size they plundered the attics, garnering an antique velvet dressing robe that looked more like a theater costume from Shakespeare’s time. The rich forest green velvet had sable trim on the collar and sleeves and had been embellished with swirling threads of gold and silver.

“Where did you get the clothes you wore here? Surely they were not the clothing you wore on the ship?” Tara commented. “They looked two sizes too small.”

Chewing a slice of beef, he held up his fork to acknowledge her question until he could answer. He swallowed, took a hearty draught of ale, replying, “The priest supplied them. My jeans were so mangled up they wouldn’t be decent, my shirt was ruined from the lightning burns, and my dingo boots were ruined by the salt water. Damn shame.”

“Glengarriff has a shoemaker, I remember seeing the sign as we passed through on our way to Cork. We will send for the tailor tomorrow. How is everything, Father?”

“Delicious. It’s not MacDonald’s but I could get used to it.”

Tara’s eyes widened. “
MacDonald
’s? The golden arches.”

“You remember that? Well, that’s something.” Her father seemed pleased.

“I thought it was my mind playing tricks until you mentioned it. They don’t have such things here.” Tara gestured to the stately dining room as she spoke. 

Her father pushed his chair back from the table, wiped his mouth on the napkin beside him, and regarded her with a satisfied smile. “What else do you remember?”

Tara toyed with her fork. She looked down at her untouched plate, wondering if she should confide in him. What if he told Adrian and both of them thought she were nuts? Yet, there were so many things buzzing about in her mind, fantastic, magical sorts of things that had no place in the world about her.

“It’s okay, kid. I understand how primitive this place must seem.” The deep baritone soothed Tara’s frayed nerves.

“Adrian believes I came from the fairy folk. At least, that’s what he tells me when he’s had too much of Jasper’s home brewed whiskey.”

“Oh, the Irish and their Leprechauns!” Her father laughed. “I suppose I’d see fairies if I drank enough moonshine, too.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Could be to our  advantage.” He muttered, appearing to tuck that tidbit of information away for another time. Her father reached for her hand, completely enfolding it in his large fist. “Tell me what you do remember about our home. I promise, I won’t laugh.”