Waking the Princess (44 page)

"I will not. Now look at this. It may keep you content for a day or two." He fetched a box from a table and came back to the bed, sitting on the edge.

Christina took the box, gasping, for it was of hammered and chased silver, trimmed with engraved brass panels, its base large enough to fill Aedan's two spread hands.

"Oh! It looks like a reliquary box, meant to hold a religious object or something very precious." Christina gently lifted the latch. Inside was a book with a cover of delicate silver over leather, holding bound parchment sheets.

"I have no gloves on," Christina said. "I should not—"

"It will not suffer from your touch this once. Go ahead. I think there is something important in there."

Gingerly she lifted the volume and opened the fragile pages with care, studying them in silence. "These first few pages look like the muster roll in the Dundrennan Folio," she finally said.

Aedan peered at it. Like the military roster in his father's library, the page was covered in neatly written columns. He could tell that it listed names. "Can you read it?" he asked.

"It's an early genealogy of your family, I think," she said tentatively, turning another page. "Yes, there—Aedan mac Brudei, see it? And—oh!" She gasped, tipped the book closer. "Here is her name, too.
Liadan nighean Math-ghamainn,
Daughter of the Bear... Oh, dear heaven," she added softly.

"What?" Aedan leaned over her shoulder.

"It describes her.... Listen to this. 'Liadan, Daughter of the Bear, wife of Aedan mac Brudei, mother of Artorius the Fair, mother of Cunedda, mother of Niall, Diarmid, Aengus, Ivor, Brithnic, Eiri, and Ealga the beautiful.'"

"Good heavens," Aedan remarked, genuinely surprised. "She lived to have... nine children with Aedan?"

Christina stared up at him. "If so, then she did not die as a young woman and a bride."

"Unless she fell into that deep sleep when she was nearly a grandmother."

Christina shook her head, then looked up with tears in her eyes. "Aedan, look at this." She pointed to some lines of text.

"My love, I cannot read Old Irish," he said gently.

"It says, 'Liadan, natural daughter of the Bear, the
dux bellorum,
the great Artorius.'"

"Artorius... My God! Arthur was her father?" Stunned to his core, Aedan peered down at the elegant, tiny Celtic lettering.

"He must have been. Oh, Aedan!" A tear slid down her cheek. "Here is more—'Liadan, natural daughter of Artorius the Bear, and her husband, Aedan mac Brudei, elders on our council of war.' She sat with her husband on a council of warriors!"

"As the natural, not legitimate, daughter of Arthur, she had the right. Perhaps she was even a warrior herself," he mused.

"It was possible for women in ancient Celtic societies," she said. "But how wonderful to know that she lived to be an elder. So Princess Liadan did not languish and die young after all." Christina took Aedan's hand. "You know what this discovery means—the legend of Dundrennan is wrong."

Aedan felt his throat tighten. "Because Liadan did not die tragically, as the stories claim."

"She must have lived a full life as a mother, a wife, and a counselor of her people."

"My God," he said. "We only knew part of her story through the old legend. No one knew how it ended for them."

She smiled through tears. "His magic worked, after all. He did bring her back. She lived."

"Magic?" Aedan tilted his head, puzzled.

"I have not yet told you what I found in the folio. Aedan mac Brudei wrote those verses on the page after his bride became ill, I think." Her lip trembled, her voice caught. "He used writing like a charm, so that he could weave a spell of love and healing to bring his wife back. And it worked—somehow it worked. She did not die, and they lived a long life together. He loved her so much," she added, sniffling. "And she must have loved him equally. She wanted to come back to him, and followed his spells. I don't know why, but I'm sure of it."

"He loved her more than life," he murmured. "Nothing could separate them. Two halves of a soul, compelled to draw together again."

"That is poetry," she whispered.

He laughed a little, and drew her into his arms, holding her close. She sniffled, her damp cheek against his. Aedan kissed her again, soft and deep, lingering.

"We'd best put this away before it's ruined by tears," he said, teasing, and took the pages to set them in the reliquary. His mind was spinning. He took her hand again.

"Aedan," Christina said slowly, "you know about treasure trove law, which governs historical finds on Scottish soil."

"Aye," he said. "All that we found will go to the museum."

"Except in cases of inheritable goods. Then treasure trove does not apply."

He blinked in surprise. "Inheritable goods?"

"The book is a record of your ancestors, and establishes that the treasure belonged to Aedan mac Brudei—and thus to his heirs. You are his direct male descendant. So the treasure belongs to you, and to Dundrennan. All of it. I believe that the government cannot claim it from you in such a case. The goods are yours exclusively, because they were not listed as part of your father's estate. They were found on your property, left there by your ancestor."

"My God." Stunned, he glanced at the reliquary, then at her again. "But I could not keep the treasure. The gold of Dundrennan belongs to Scotland. To the whole of Britain."

"And to you," she said. "No matter what you finally choose, your troubles are over, I think."

"My troubles were over," he said, leaning toward her, "the moment you arrived at Dundrennan House."

"If only you had known," she said, smiling mischievously.

"Aye," he murmured. "This must mean that the curse on the lairds of Dundrennan is broken, since the princess woke up after all. Though perhaps it never existed at all. We just believed the tradition over all these generations."

"Either way, the spell is broken," she breathed. "So with the curse lifted, what will the current laird do?"

"Find happiness at last," he said, touching her cheek, "with his own true love." He tilted her chin and kissed her lips, long and slow. Then he drew back and touched her nose.

"Why, madam," he said. "You're not wearing your spectacles."

"They were lost in the mud."

"So they were. My brother-in-law is a physician in Edinburgh—he specializes in conditions of the eye. I'd like you to consult with him. My wife should not have to purchase her spectacles from an itinerant merchant."

She stared up at him. "Your wife?"

"Aye." He smiled. "I am wondering if you would marry a laird recently free of a curse, and not yet used to the idea."

"Ever the pragmatic Sir Aedan," she said, laughing. "No romantic proposal or declaration of undying love for you."

"My darling," he murmured, "we can fill this old house with romance and love and family too if you wish." He framed her face in his hands. "Christina, I love you and I want to marry you—if you will have the laird of Dundrennan."

He had opened himself to her, more vulnerable than he had ever been. Yet he felt privileged to be blessed with this. She was the missing part of his soul, somehow, now reclaimed.

"Marry the laird who swore never to love?" she whispered, her lips but a breath from his.

"The very one," he murmured.

"Mm, but are you not promised already?"

"Amy will not have me." He touched his nose to hers. "She thinks I am dull."

"And so you are, a bit." She nipped his lower lip. "Reliable, earthy, strong, quiet—if that is dull, I particularly love it." She pulled away to regard him. "What of the young woman I saw you kissing not long ago? Miss MacDonald?"

"Ah, Dora. I took her to see Connor in Edinburgh. She has a serious eye condition, but Connor thinks he can help her, thank God. She was ecstatic at the news and was only thanking me."

"Oh, Aedan, I thought—well. Of course you would be her benefactor. That's wonderful."

"I will, but Amy may have to do without a few yards of tartan and chintz, so I can divert funds for Dora."

She kissed his cheek, his jaw, his lips, until he pulled back.

"Christina, you have not answered my proposal. I have much to recommend me. I come of good family. My father was a famous poet. He would have adored you, by the way."

"And I him," she said, giving him a coy and luscious smile. "What else recommends you?"

"Well," he said, "the queen will be visiting my home in two weeks. Perhaps that will impress you. And I come of good lineage. Have I ever told you my middle name?"

She shook her head.

"Arthur."

She laughed outright. "Aedan Arthur MacBride—a wonderful name. You could give it a son someday."

"I could, with your help," he whispered.

She nuzzled at his earlobe, sending swirls of excitement and more through him. "So the laird of Dundrennan would take a simple antiquarian?"

"If she would take a dull engineer," he said, and as she laughed her delight at that, he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, deep and hard and endless.

The End

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