Fairy Tale (26 page)

He decided he’d wait to kiss her after all.

“Come back to the castle with me, Marsali.”

She was tempted, so tempted. Standing against the cliff in his chieftain’s garb, he might have been made of magic himself. For all his dark arrogance, for all the sins he had committed, there was a core of goodness running through him, and that incongruous combination of shadow and light had stolen Marsali’s heart.

“I’m not coming back,” she yelled at him. Shaking her head, she backstepped another few inches up the path as the
wind buffeted her body. “I’m still angry at you anyway. Don’t try to stop me.”

He glanced down, terrified they were going to be blown off the path onto the rocks below. He’d never felt such a fierce wind. “Marsali—”

“Don’t even try to touch me,” she warned him. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I can’t control it. I don’t know what I might do next. I could end up killing us both.”

Damn it. Every time he went to grab her, the wind forced him away. “Where will you go, lass?” he shouted. “Who will take care of you?”

“I’ll take care of myself,” she assured him. “I managed to do it before you came.”

“Make this wind stop blowing, Marsali.”

“I’m not sure how yet, my lord.” She grinned suddenly, pushing her hair out of her face. “Besides, I like it. Aye, I like the power. Is this what you feel like when you sit in your chair and give orders?”

He didn’t retur
n her grin, fighting a panic born
of fear and frustration. She could disappear, and he’d never see her again. MacFay could take her, and he wouldn’t know until it was too late.

“Give me your hand, Marsali.”

He tried to catch her as she darted higher up the path; it was a game to her now, wielding her power, but he himself was caught in the howling tail of the wind that rose in her wake. Salty foam and sand blew in his face, blinding him. When the air finally cleared, she was gone.

The sea grew calm. The wind died to a teasing whisper. If there was any consolation in the fact she had escaped him, it was only that MacFay would probably not be able to catch her either.

Cursing the helplessness that was intolerable to his nature, he stalked up the path to his horse. Where would she go? If this weird scene was magic, and he doubted it, what would happen between them now? Was she as powerful as she seemed? The thought was as intriguing as it was frightening.

Chapter

22

D
uncan was roused from the depths of his dream by the sound of loud snorting in his ear.

He opened his eyes, wincing at the light that poured through the unshuttered window like a waterfall. A wet whiskery nose nuzzled his unshaven jaw.

He swallowed, afraid to look. After several moments he turned his head on the pillow. God help him. He wasn’t alone.

It wasn’t a wet nose. It was a porker’s snout. He was sleeping with a pig.

“What the bloody hell!”

The raspy tenor of his roar sent blood pulsing into the constricted blood vessels of his brain. The brandy bottle , that had nursed him to sleep rolled off his naked chest. As he bolted upright in his bed, Effie’s girl piglet, Ailis, wearing a frilly maid’s lace cap, scrambled under his legs for protection. The boy piglet, Alan, went off to sniff at the bottle that had fallen to the floor.

Duncan stared down at the twitching snout that poked between his feet, then he roa
red again. Ailis scrambled out
from between the chieftain’s
legs in terror. Alan squeezed
his plump belly to the floor. T
he twins hated it when people
yelled.

The door burst open, Edwina and Effie bumping shoulders in a contest to see who could enter first. The room reeked of brandy fumes. The chieftain sat in the middle of his bed wearing nothing but his trousers and roaring like a wounded lion. Ailis cowered under the coverlet.

Edwina tutted under her breath. Effie whisked the bottle away from Alan’s snout, her voice maternally reprimanding. “And you only a babbie,” she said as she straightened. “The chieftain ought to be ashamed of himself for corrupting an innocent wee beastie.”

Duncan groaned and lifted a pillow to his head. Her strident voice raked like a fingernail across raw nerve endings.

“This room smells like a distillery,” Edwina said, her nose twitching in distaste. “I wouldn’t dare light the fire for fear of an explosion.”

Duncan lifted Ailis from the bed and deposited her on the floor, ignoring her squeals of protest. “Did Marsali come back this morning?” he asked in a voice that sounded like it came from the depths of a dry, dusty well.

“Marsali isn’t coming back,” Effie said cheerfully. “She’s going to live on the moor with the men forever. Ye’ve offended her good and proper this time, my lord.”

Edwina leaned up against the wall. “By the way, Major Darling is waiting for you downstairs, Duncan. He wants your official permission to raze—how did he put it?—‘a few of the eyesore cottages and trees that stand in the way of his road.’ ”

“The bastard!” Effie exclaimed, standing in the doorway with a wriggling piglet hooked under each arm. “Ye’re going to stop him, aren’t ye, my lord? You willna let him destroy homes?”

Duncan frowned, lowering the pillow. He wasn’t listening to them. He thought he heard Marsali’s voice in the courtyard. He rose stiffly and went to the window, squinting his bloodshot eyes to make out the figures below. No. It was only a kitchen maid scolding Lachlan for stealing her fresh oatcakes.

He cursed under his breath. Well, they’d finally come full circle, he and Marsali. She was the little outlaw again, back on the moor with his clansmen, and he was a prisoner of his
heritage and hating himself. He put his hand to his temples, massaging the tension that smoldered behind his eyes.

“You are going to stop them, aren’t ye, my lord?” Effie asked, watching him closely.

He turned and gave her a blank look. “Stop who from what?” he said hoarsely. “And why does everyone make himself at home in my bedchamber?”

“Stop the British soldiers.” Edwina frowned in disapproval. “You know, you really did make quite a mess of things last night. And Major Darling has been waiting over two hours for you to get up.”

Duncan headed for the washstand and quaffed the contents of the water jug in one greedy swallow. He grimaced at his reflection in the mirror. He’d been hoping that last night hadn’t really happened. Disjointed images flashed through his mind and made no more sense in the light of morning than they had in the wee gray hours.

Marsali, a maelstrom of unleashed emotion. Marsali, hurt and humiliated in the hall, flirting with MacFay. Raising the wind and the sea. Running away with that hawk. Fragile and furious, finally testing her wings.

She was gone. He could feel the castle slipping back under its spell of darkness, and he was slipping too, returning to the cold crypt of self-control. How the hell had he allowed it to happen?

He backed away from the mirror, staring morosely across the room. She held the upper hand now, and it didn’t make him very happy. Still, while he’d never meant to hurt her, he couldn’t let her run around openly defying him. He should never have let his emotions override his better judgment.

“I’ve never seen him like this before,” Edwina told Effie in concern. “I hope to God he pulls himself together before he goes to London. No one would believe he was the ‘Merciless Marquess of Minorca.’ ”

Duncan turned stiffly and walked to the door like one of his lead soldiers. “What did you say this captain’s name was?”

Edwina and Effie shared worried glances. “He isn’t a captain, Duncan,” Edwina answered. “The man is a major, but no matter his rank, you can’t greet him—”

“A major. Well, bring out the French brandy then. Find that ass Abercrombie while you’re at it.” He glanced down at himself with a frown. “What the hell happened to my shirt?”

“Ye threw it off the watchtower last night when the ghosts started to fight,” Effie said, grinning in enjoyment. “Would ye like to borrow my plaid?”

M
arsali wa
s driving everyone mad by midmorn
ing. Now that she’d discovered magic, she couldn’t resist experimenting with her power. No cow, cairn, or clansman escaped her determined attempts at enchantment.

At first the clan sought her out in the moorland cave she claimed as her own, encouraging her efforts. She tried to change Donovan’s calf into a bull, but the calf ran away.

She tried to grow hair on Lachlan’s thinning scalp, and that didn’t work.

She even tried to remove the birthmark on Owen’s neck, and he swore she’d made it grow larger.

“Oh, well.” Lachlan leaned back against a boulder outside the cave, rubbing the sore spot where she’d banged her uncle’s wand repeatedly on his pate in an effort to sprout hair. “Ye’ve done yer best, lass. Perhaps what happened last night was a freak of nature.”

Marsali frowned. “I wish that were true, Lachlan, but I’m afraid I’m cursed with my power, and if I were speaking to Fiona and my uncle, I’d ask for their advice on how to summon it at will.”

“Do ye really have the power, Marsali?”

She lifted her shoulders in a wan shrug. “I suppose so. I mean, I raised the sea a bit, and there was a fair wind blowing. But I don’t know that I’d care to do it every day. It takes something out of a body. You should have seen the chieftain when he tried to grab me on the cliffs. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him look frightened.”

Marsali was quiet for a moment. She told herself it felt like heaven to be away from that dank, confining castle. No nasty chieftain to order her about, to criticize her clothes, her behavior, her beliefs. No one to scowl at her and tell her to put out her chest. What a relief to have escaped the dark spell of his power.

But the truth was that she felt miserable; she hadn’t slept a wink, convincing herself all was well in her world. For one thing, her body had kept her awake, thrumming like a harp as the residue of last night’s emotional storm faded away.

For another, Duncan’s dark face haunted her every time she closed her eyes.

I care for you, lass.

He cared for her. She cared for him. You’d think it would be a simple enough situation. But the trouble was that the chieftain complicated everything with his twisted outlook on life.

He was hurting, and because of it he had hurt her too. Well, now they were both unhappy, and what did it prove?

“Put a spell on the chieftain, Marsali,” someone suggested. “Make him go away fer good, lass.”

“I tried to have Uncle Colum put a spell on him,” she explained glumly. “That’s what’s gotten me into so much trouble in the first place. Magic is conspiring with my own human weaknesses to throw me into the man’s arms.”

Owen looked alarmed. “What do you mean, Marsali?”

She drew a stick figure of Duncan in the dirt with her wand, sighing wistfully. “Uncle Colum cast a spell to make the chieftain and I fall in love with each other, but only my half is working. The MacElgin is a horrible tangle of human emotion that even magic cannot touch.”

Lachlan and Owen traded troubled looks as she sank down onto her knees, staring at the crude drawing of the chieftain. “But we thought ye wanted to marry Jamie MacFay,” Lachlan said.

“Aye.” Owen nodded in agreement. “Ye were angry as hell when the chieftain denied the betrothal last night.”

Marsali sighed again, frustrated by her inability to make them understand. “But I didn’t really want to marry Jamie, don’t you see? I only pretended to because t
he chieftain wanted me to, and I
was tired of obeying his orders and
it
…
it just seemed easier than admitting I had true feelings for him, which of course I didn’t realize until he looked at me like that in the hall after he caught Jamie with that woman. It was that look of his that did it.”

Lachlan folded his wiry frame down onto the dirt, his bushy eyebrows drawn into a frown.

Owen made a fuss of picking bits of gorse from his plaid.

Neither man could make out a word of sense in anything she’d said, but they did understand that their Marsali was unhappy, and that somehow it was the chieftain’s fault.

She rose, shaking her head. “There’s nothing you can do to help. I’ve brought this all on myself, and now I’ve the burden to bear of knowing magic, which you would think would be a nice thing.”

“Aye, a helpful thing,” Owen murmured cautiously.

Lachlan nodded. “Ye would think so.”

Marsali stood at the mouth of the cave, staring out across the moor at the castle. “Even magic couldn’t make the chieftain fall in love with me, not that I wanted him to, mind you. But it just goes to prove that I was right: If something is meant to be, it will happen anyway. Magic or not.”

A
few minutes later, Marsali’s young nephew came bursting into the cave to summon her. Her sister-in-law, Bride, had gone into hard labor. Gavin, as usual, was useless, and could Marsali lend a helping hand? Better yet, Bride wondered if Marsali could bring her magic and get the whole damned business over with fast.

Marsali had gone off like a martyr, carrying her wand and praying that she didn’t end up changing Bride’s baby into a goat. Clearly her life was no longer her own. Power carried grave responsibilities with it. No wonder Uncle Colum had taken to months of self-isolation in his secret hideaways.

L
achlan and Owen watched her leave in silence, not voicing their concern until she was riding across the moor into the woods.

“Dear, dear,” Owen said, shaking his head in sympathy. “Puir lassie, to have fallen in love wi’ the chieftain. What a wretched fate.”

Lachlan scowled. “She’s no in love wi’ him, ye nitwit. ’Tis the MacFay the lass is pining for.”

“The MacFay?” Owen blinked in surprise. “But she said—”

“Aye, and when does a woman ever speak the truth when it comes to love? Anyway, the question is, are we going to help Marsali?”

“Help Marsali what?” a gruff voice demanded from the mouth of the cave.

Owen glanced up as Johnnie joined their circle, his weathered face tired and unsmiling. “We’re tryin’ to help Marsali win back the MacFay.”

Johnnie brushed off the oatcake he’d found outside. “And why would she want to be winning the MacFay? He’s a pig.”

“She’s in love wi’ the pig,” Lachlan explained morosely.

Johnnie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Aye? And I’d have sworn she loved the chieftain.”

“P’rhaps she’s in love wi’ them both,” Owen offered shyly.

Johnnie whistled through his teeth. “What a mess.”

“Aye,” Lachlan said. “ ’Tis why I never fell in love, thanks be to the good Lord for tender mercies. Damn, I wish she could have fallen in love with the chieftain instead of Jamie.”
Johnnie bit into the oatcake, crunching in agreement. “The chieftain intends to leave us in a month,” Lachlan continued, “and like it or not, our lives have changed for the better since his return.”

“They have?” Owen asked, incredulous.

“Aye,” Lachlan said. “For one thing, the bairns don’t shoot me in the bum every time I run to the stables. And for another, no one has died from Cook’s potage in almost two months.”

“He loses his temper a lot though,” Johnnie said. “Especially at Marsali. Where is the lass anyway? I have something important to discuss wi’ her.”

“She’s off to the cottages,” Lachlan answered.

Johnnie frowned, lowering his voice. “The Sassenachs are threatening to tear down more homes for their road, my ma’s cottage, old Tynan’s the tanner, and even Marsali’s brother’s place. The time has come for a show of strength.”