Tall, Dark and Kilted (36 page)

Arms folded and ankles crossed, he was looking right at her, clearly amused.

And she knew without asking that he was absolutely not a medieval minstrel.

She also couldn’t shake the odd sensation that she’d seen him before. A notion that, although unsettling, was a lot better than if he struck her as some kind of Scottish ax murderer. Scotland was surely safer than certain parts of Philly, but even she had heard of the occasional weirdness.

Trying to look as if she encountered dark-clad mystery men in castle ruins all the time, she hopped down from the window and dusted her hands.

“Nice day for a walk, h’mmm?” She tried for casual.

The man said nothing.

But at least he hadn’t moved.

She forced a friendly American smile, but let her mind race to what she could use as a weapon. Maybe the jagged edge of one of the candle jars if she smashed it quickly enough.
Does frankincense essential oil temporarily blind people if it’s dashed in their face?
she wondered.

The man just kept studying her, an odd smile quirking across his lips.

Cilla dropped her own smile. It wasn’t working, anyway.

She swallowed. “Are you from around here?”

“Scotland?” His deep burr said that he was. “Aye, so I was . . . once.”

Cilla blinked. She didn’t like the way he’d said that.

“Once?”

He glanced aside, and she saw that he’d tied his sleek raven-black hair in a shoulder-skimming ponytail. He looked back at her as quickly and pushed away from the wall, taking a few steps toward her.

“Aye, once.” His smile faded. “ ’Twas long ago and a time best forgotten.”

“ ’Twas?”
Cilla slid a look at the two candle jars, wondering if she could spring for them.

It was one thing for Hardwick to use the occasional ’tisey and ’twasey. But this guy, though definitely a bit on the odd side, looked way too modern for such language.

She backed up against the wall, resting her elbow on the window ledge in a hopefully innocent-looking gesture. Even if she didn’t have time to smash a candle jar, she could use one to bop him on the head if he tried anything funny.

She almost choked at the thought.

He looked powerfully muscled, certainly Hardwick’s equal in strength or close to it. It was also a pretty good bet that he’d be fast on his feet. As for the damage his hands could do, she didn’t even want to consider it.

In a word, he appeared lethal.

“I think I’ll just be going . . .” She slid a look down the long door-and-window-filled corridor, not at all surprised that it now seemed even more sinister.

A dark passage filled with slanting shadows and the weird sense of strange little creatures darting and scampering here and there, flitting just out of sight before the eye could catch them.

Her fingers stretched for the candle jar.

His hand snapped around her wrist. He’d moved before she could blink.

“Hey!” She tried to yank free.

He smiled again, his grip like iron.

“The candles wouldn’t have worked.” He released her but crowded her space, looming tall before her, blocking her escape. “Not as you meant to use them. They would”—he rubbed his chin as he eyed her bard-conjuring goods—“have shielded you, though.”

“Shielded me?” Was that high-pitched squeak her voice?

“Aye, they’d have protected you well. If they were still burning.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She grabbed her candle jars and the frankincense bottle and stuffed everything in her rucksack.

It alone would serve as a weapon if swung deftly.

Mr. Ponytail met her eyes, challenging. “Ach, you ken well enough what I mean, Cilla.”

His words jellied her knees.

He knew her name.

She caught her breath, heart thumping. “How do you know who I am?”

“How is it that you do not know who I am?” His lips twitched. “I thought you would have guessed by now.”

“I think you’re mad.” Cilla tightened her grip on her rucksack, making ready to swing. “Maybe you heard Robbie and Roddie use my name when we stopped for tea in Collieston. There were other people in the tea shop. You could have been one of them.”

“Ah, but you disappoint me.” He clucked his tongue. “To think I troubled myself to come here.”

“You needn’t have bothered, but you can have the place to yourself.” Cilla started away. “I’m leaving.”

“Without hearing what I’ve done for you?”

Something in his tone stopped her. “I know you’re not the minstrel.”

He laughed softly. “I could be him if you wished. Nothing is impossible.”

Cilla felt her pulse skip a beat.

Slowly, she turned.

He stood at the window, facing her, his tall, broad-shouldered form dark against the great expanse of the silvery twilit sea. Something about the way he angled his head and watched her made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

She was
sure
she’d seen him before.

When he laughed again, his eye corners crinkling and his whole face broadening in a wide, self-satisfied grin, she knew where.

“Oh, my God!” Her eyes flew wide. “You’re the devil! The red devil face at my window!”

She’d known the devil face had been real.

He clapped a hand to his heart and screwed up his face in a mock wince. “Recognized at last, though I must own that I am not himself, nae. Merely a favored keeper of a small corner of his boundless dominion.”

She stared at him, trembling. “But the mask—”

“The
mask
and that wretched bird’s meddling ruined what was meant as a warning to Seagrave.” A look of remembered annoyance flickered across his face. “I wanted him to know how close I could come to you.”

He glanced out at the sea, then back at her. “Had I bothered to look deeper into the goings-on at Dunroamin I would have foreseen Gregor’s interference with the Up-Helly-Aa mask and chosen another guise for myself. As it was, some of my root-dragons were causing havoc at the time, misbehaving, and my mind was otherwise occupied.”

“Root-dragons?” Cilla swallowed, fear constricting her chest.

He didn’t seem to hear her, his gaze once more on the sea.

She moistened her lips, gauging how she could escape.

Up to now she’d believed he was just a loony. Now that he’d mentioned Gregor’s name, she had little choice but to believe him.

She was talking to the devil!

And it didn’t matter a whit whether he was the real one or, as he claimed, just some kind of hellish guardian. Either way was just a bit too much.

Ghosts, she could handle.

Vampires, werewolves, devils, and demons weren’t her cuppa.

She was a paranormal-light kind of gal.

Unfortunately, she knew without asking that he wasn’t going to let her go anywhere until he’d had his say. And—she must be really losing it—but for some oddball reason, seeing his flash of perturbation when he’d mentioned Gregor and the mask made him seem less scary.

Almost . . . human.

So she put back her shoulders and took a deep breath, trying to look braver than she felt. “Why did you want Hardwick to see how close you could get to me?”

“Because”—he leaned against the window ledge, crossing his legs at the ankles—“I meant to threaten him with your soul. He needed to see I could take it if I desired.”

“You meant to take my soul?”

“It was a consideration, aye.”

Cilla stared at him, pretended bravura forgotten. “And now?”

She had to know.

“I chose otherwise.” He flicked a pebble off the window ledge, watching as it fell to the sea. “I decided to return Seagrave’s soul instead. So to speak, of course, considering his soul never left him. Only his life—”

“What?”
Cilla’s eyes rounded.

Her heart slammed into her ribs and her blood roared in her ears. “Are you saying he’s a real man again? You broke his curse?”

“You could put it that way, aye.” He lifted a hand, examining his knuckles. “Though hearing the words makes me wonder what possessed me to do the like. I never did care for that cocky bastard.”

“But—”

“Touch her and I’ll kill you!” Hardwick burst into the courtyard, sword swinging. “A thousand times if that’s what it takes!”

“Indeed?” The Dark One looked unconcerned.

“Hardwick!” Cilla ran between them, flinging her arms wide. “No fighting . . . please!”

He grabbed her, yanking her behind him. “Stay out of this, lass,” he ordered, his voice terse. “You’ve no idea what he can do. I have to fight him.”

If he had the strength.

He’d spent the best part of the day trying to sift himself to Seagrave. Again and again, he’d failed, each attempt either not working at all or only getting him to the outermost reaches of Mac’s lands.

Until he’d summoned all his will for one last effort that landed him facedown in the mud of the path leading to his former home.

He’d needed forever to push to his knees.

Then he’d staggered about like a drink-taken fool, picking his way through weeds and fallen masonry and only gaining some semblance of his strength when he heard Cilla’s voice coming from the depths of the ruin.

Her voice and a laugh he recognized at once.

He shuddered, determined to keep her from the fiend’s clutches if it was the last thing he did.

“Conjure a blade, Dark One.” He narrowed his eyes on his foe, fury pounding through him. “We both know you can. Fight me like a man. . . . If you dare!”

The Dark One remained where he was, leaning arrogantly against the ledge of a window that had once been one of Hardwick’s favorites.

“I can summon a thousand swords,” he taunted, recrossing his legs casually. “One for each death you’ve threatened me with. But alas”—he sounded bored—“I’m here for another reason.”

Hardwick balanced his blade, readying to lunge. “Name one good enough to keep me from running you through.”

“It would be foolhardy.” The Dark One’s gaze dipped to his mud-splattered kilt and the dirt smudges on his knees. “Not wise at all in your condition.”

“My condition?”
Hardwick glared at him.

The Dark One shrugged. “If you do not know—”

“I know that my blade craves blood.” Hardwick flung his left arm behind him, seizing Cilla’s wrist when she tried to clutch at him. “It’s been too long since its thirst’s been quenched!”

“And how long has it been since you’ve been a man?”

“That’s a fool question if e’er there was one.” Hardwick refused to answer it.

A Highlander was
always
a man.

And on a more practical note, the Dark One knew to the hour how long Hardwick hadn’t been a flesh-and-blood man.

He wouldn’t be baited.

Especially not in front of Cilla and, with surety, not when she was crying.

He blinked, catching the bright glitter in her eyes out of the corner of his own. The funny way her lower lip quivered and her breathing seemed to have gone all shallow and
gulpy
.

“O-o-oh, don’t you see?” She twisted free of his grip and tossed back her hair. “He’s lifted the curse. You’re whole again, just as before! That’s why he’s here. He came to tell me.”

She flashed a look at the Dark One as if they were old friends.

Hardwick frowned.

The Dark One may once have been a man, but Hardwick doubted he’d ever been anyone’s friend.

Sheathing his sword, he folded his arms. “That canna be.” He dismissed the notion at once. “You forget I sifted myself here. Were I
others
again, I would no’ have been able to do that.”

“And you’ll ne’er be able to do it again.” The Dark One drawled the words. “Transporting yourself here used the last reserves of such powers left to you. They’ve been dwindling ever since you hurtled back to life through the redemption tunnel.”

Hardwick snorted. “Redemption tunnel! I’ve ne’er heard the like in all my centuries.”

The Dark One arched a superior brow. “Perhaps because you were cursed and forbidden entry?”

“And you sent me into such a miracle-spending place?” Hardwick put his hand back on his sword hilt. “I dinna believe it. I ken your trickery.”

Annoyance flashed in the Dark One’s eyes. “You wouldn’t comprehend a thimbleful of my capabilities. Though I’ll ask if you haven’t felt weakened of late? Easily wearied and desiring mortal needs, such as sleep and other pesky habits?”

Hardwick set his jaw, not about to admit the like.

True as the queries were.

As unobtrusively as he could, he slipped his sword hand behind his back and flicked his fingers to summon his shield.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, this time using more vigorous wriggles. But he failed anew. His shield didn’t appear in his hand as was its usual wont.

In the window, the Dark One’s lips curved in a knowing smile.

A smile without warmth.

“It’s quite true, I assure you.” His voice was smooth, sovereign. “But if you persist in doubting me, I’ll regret my largesse so much that I’ll reverse your good fortune!”

At his words, Cilla stifled a sob.

Hardwick shot a glance at her, not missing that she’d blanched. The hand she’d pressed to her mouth trembled. She really did believe the whoreson. And seeing that she did gave his heart an unexpected lurch. His stomach clenched and churned, disbelief making it impossible to hope.

A pain, sharp and stinging, squeezed his heart.

He drew a deep breath, considering the Dark One with distrustful eyes. “If this be true . . . to what do I owe the honor?”

His foe threw back his head and laughed. “Not yourself, be sure of it!”

“What, then?”

His face sobering, the Dark One glanced aside, his gaze skimming out over the dark waters of the North Sea to the distant horizon beyond. When he turned back, he wore a grieved expression so surprisingly sincere Hardwick almost felt sympathy for him.

Knowing better, he folded his arms instead, waiting.

The Dark One pushed off the window ledge, a whiff of sulfur swirling around him. “It was your lady, Seagrave. I . . .” He made a gesture, looking annoyed again. “I should not have gone to Dunroamin—”