Dawn had broken very nicely with Oliver Phillips’s arms around her, followed by several very lovely kisses that had led to yet more of the things they had enjoyed during the previous night, things she thought she could safely leave off the pages of her own book just as Mistress Constance Buchanan had discreetly left them off her own.
The subsequent arrival of visitors hadn’t been entirely unwelcome. Oliver’s mates were braw and charming and ‘twas obvious they were very fond of her husband. Jamie, too, seemed pleased with Oliver’s care of her and she had agreed that Young Ian could certainly do worse than to learn his company manners from the Duke of Birmingham.
She’d understood Jamie’s concern over leaving that same book in 1583. The saints only knew what sort of havoc it could wreak on someone not quite as sensible as she had been. She had consoled herself at first with the thought that it simply couldn’t have survived intact for very long.
That thought had been countered rather unpleasantly by reminding herself that Sinclair McKinnon’s scribblings had been almost perfectly intact in that abandoned McKinnon chapel. The saving grace there was that his writings had been contained in a decently fashioned stone box whilst her book had been exposed to the elements.
She’d leaned against the wall next to Oliver’s sword, enjoying the view of him being teased ferociously by his mates andbearing it manfully, and contemplated other things. Master Sinclair’s pages had survived thanks to their weathering the years in a box, true, and in her day there she’d known of two hiding places that might have served the same sort of purpose. One had been the loose stone in her brother’s bedchamber, something she was certain he had no idea about.
The other had been a similarly loose stone along the back wall of the witch’s croft. She’d always thought the spot was altogether too small to hide any stray MacLeods—no matter what her uncle Lachlan had claimed—but the idea that it might possibly have hidden a book had been worth a look at least.
So she’d left Oliver and his mates to discussing the intricacies of something called football and slipped outside to do a little investigating on her own. She hadn’t but rounded the side of Moraig’s house before she’d realized that she would never reach that loose stone at the back of Moraig’s house. The first reason was that someone had added to the croft, covering the wall in the process.
The other was that she’d run directly into Kenneth MacLeod loitering in a time definitely not his own, accompanied by a large knife and his own foul humors, and he had captured her without hesitation.
The only positive things she could think of about the whole damnable exercise was that he hadn’t slit her throat right off and he’d been so unnerved by Moraig’s house that he’d dragged her away from it. If nothing else, Oliver would continue his life without the memory of her shrieking herself hoarse before she died.
Not that she had any intention of crying out—nor dying, for that matter. She wished she hadn’t left her blade in the refrigerator, but she’d made do with less before.
“I say we slay her here!”
Mairead looked at Master James who was standing five paces away from her and wished he would stand a bit farther away. She was most assuredly going to need another endless shower in Moraig’s glorious bathing chamber just to remove the spittle that seemed to be flying everywhere each time he shouted something else.
That was a man who she very seriously doubted had even managed a first date.
“We have to take her back with us,” Kenneth growled.
“Stop saying that,” Master James spat. “We’re here where she is!”
“Which is not where you want her to be,” Kenneth said, “but you’re too stupid to understand that.”
Mairead had opinions on the wit of both of them, but imagined it would be best to keep them to herself.
“She’s in demon garb!” Master James howled.
Mairead had to agree with that, at least. She was very fond of her black clothing, mostly because Oliver thought she was very hot in it. She did indeed feel very hot, but she suspected that at present that was merely from nerves.
“We have to return to the faery ring in the grass,” Kenneth said, sounding as if he might be on the verge of weeping with frustration.
Mairead would have suggested that Master James push him fully toward that place so she might escape his blade and run, but Kenneth’s hand in her hair suddenly was painful enough that she had to bite her lip to keep from making any sort of noise. Oliver favored silence as well, she knew.
She knew that because she had just caught sight of him moving silently through the trees. She didn’t dare look for the rest of his lads, though she strongly suspected they were there as well.
“I’ll go,” she said suddenly. “Please, please just let me live long enough to see the hall once more!”
Master James stopped frothing at the mouth long enough to look at her in surprise. “Why?”
She manufactured a little noise of grief. “So I might go to the fire knowing that I’ve cleansed my clan of this evil.”
“Let’s go, then,” Kenneth said, taking the knife away from her throat.
He obviously thought his hand buried in her hair would be enough, which she supposed she might agree with. She put her hand against her throat as if she could scarce control her grief because possibly losing a finger to his knife was better than losing her life, though she had no intention of giving up either.
It took far less time to reach the edge of the forest than she thought it might, though she had every confidence that Oliver and the lads would have followed her. She stopped still when she found not only Tasgall waiting there just outside the faery ring, but Deirdre as well.
She gasped, but that was likely because Kenneth was suddenly no longer standing behind her and his removal from her person had almost broken her neck.
“Are you all right?” Oliver asked urgently.
