A Kind of Magic (24 page)

“Aye,” he agreed with her annoyed tone, and helped her untangle from the makeshift blanket. “Magic’s hard on a body, that’s for certain. Does your head hurt from the potion?”

She rolled over to look at him and propped her head up on her hand. Her breasts were making a serious attempt to escape from the confines of her chemise and she noticed that Rowan noticed. While he looked down her dress, she looked at him. He needed a shave and a shower wouldn’t have hurt either, but he was absolutely 137

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gorgeous. Was that an aftereffect of the drugs? Or maybe Rowan was absolutely gorgeous.

When he finally drew his gaze up to her face, he touched her forehead. “Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Good. The White Lady said you’d take no harm from her potion.”

“Did she?”

“Aye. I think we’ve slept over long. Time we were up and doing, wife,” Rowan added, though he didn’t rush to get to his feet. He was oddly content to just be side by side with Maddie for a while longer.

Maddie looked tousled and wanton with her hair wild about her face, looking at him through half-closed heavy lids and with her lips a bit swollen from the many kisses they’d shared last night. He liked her looking this way, soft and ripe and womanly. He kissed her now, no more than a soft brush of lips against lips that left her looking startled and him feeling pleasantly warmed.

He wanted to get her home to Cape Wrath and into the bed they should have started sharing days ago. In order to do that they were going to have to get up off the White Lady’s floor, get out of her house and get on with the journey. What he wanted to do even more than get home to Cape Wrath was to roll Maddie onto her back and repeat last night’s lovemaking right here and now.

Instead he made himself stand up. He held out a hand to help her up as he said,

“We have a lot of time to make up.”

“That’s for sure,” Maddie said as she sat up. “I’ve to get to work on the chimney and the loom and…”

“And the bairns. We can’t forget the bairns.”

Maddie had no idea what bairns Rowan was talking about nor did she care to speculate on the subject. “Right.” She adjusted her clothing and looked cautiously around the White Lady’s house. She didn’t see any bubbling pot over the fire. Or even any fire in the hearth. Or the White Lady herself. Maddie gave a relieved sigh.

“Let’s get out of here,” she urged Rowan. “Before the crazy lady gets back.”

“Such disrespect!” Rowan gave her a playful pat on the behind. Actually more of a caress than a pat. He liked the feel of the sweet, soft curve of her rear.

When she threw him a startled look over her shoulder, he very nearly burst out laughing. He didn’t know why but he was as giddy as a lad this morning. Maybe it was just the sight of her lovely freckled face that set his heart singing and made his mind as bubbly as sea foam.

He tried to frown, tried to assume his normally serious manner, and found that he simply couldn’t. “Maddie, lass, you’ve stolen my dignity,” he said as he wound his kilt around his hips.

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Maddie had found a comb. She was bent forward with hair in front of her face as she made a desperate effort to untangle her thick curls. She parted her hair with her hands and gave Rowan a bemused look. “I think you’re still stoned, hon.”

Aftereffects of a drug or not, she had to admit she liked seeing Rowan this way. He was all bright and cheerful and bouncy. Cute. Yes, he was definitely cute. Not that she was fool enough to mention this to him. She had brothers. She knew how much they hated to be called “cute”. It was as though the word desecrated everything their macho hearts held dear. She didn’t imagine this sword-wielding Highlander would take the term any better than her Montana cowboy siblings. So she kept her thoughts to herself and went back to combing her hair.

“I’ll find us something to break our fast,” Rowan said, and actually cheerfully hummed while he set about the searching the White Lady’s cupboard.

Maddie enjoyed the sound of his voice. She enjoyed the simple task of grooming.

She even enjoyed the gnawing hunger in her stomach. All these things were real-time, solid, normal parts of life—except maybe Rowan’s lively pleasure in the day. She told herself that his behavior might just be the normal consequences of his having gotten laid and had more to do with physical satisfaction than reaction to drugs. The thought gave her hope that Rowan might have a loving core beneath his usually dead-serious and downright grumpy façade. She liked to think she’d brought that out in him, but also cautioned herself that it was too early to tell. They had been drugged and who knew what the side effects were or how long it was going to take to wear off.

Right now, she told herself, the best thing to do was concentrate on normal activity.

By the time she’d finished the normal activity of braiding her hair, Rowan had found the bread, cheese and fruit they hadn’t gotten to last night. He divided it in half and they set to wolfing down the meal without any further conversation. Maddie didn’t feel rude about breaking into the White Lady’s store of food. She figured anything they took from the woman was in compensation for the bizarre happenings she’d put them through.

“Magic,” Maddie muttered darkly, and reached for another wedge of cheese.

Someone began banging hard on the door before her hand reached the food. She and Rowan both whirled around. Rowan’s hand went to his long dagger when a man outside shouted, “Lady! White Lady, we need your help!”

Maddie took a step toward the door, only to be halted when Rowan put a hand on her arm. When she glanced inquiringly at him, her heart sank. All the seriousness was back in his expression. Worse, his eyes were lit with a deep, consuming anger.

Seeing the man who’d been so happy a moment before like this sent a shiver through Maddie. “What?”

The man called out again. “Harboth,” Rowan said. He looked and sounded more dangerous than she’d ever seen him before.

“That doesn’t sound like Burke.”

“It’s not.” He moved past her with a lithe, deadly grace.

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Rowan made sure he was between his wife and the enemy before he flung open the door. The man standing before the door was Allen Harboth. The look of angry surprise on his enemy’s face was almost enough to restore some of Rowan’s joyful mood.

“Aye, it’s me,” he told the rival clan leader. “What are you doing on my land?”

“This place belongs to the White Lady,” Harboth pointed out. “I’ve come to see her.”

“She’s not here.”

“Don’t stand there looking hard and evil, Rowan Murray! Get out of my way.”

Rowan stepped closer to the door as Harboth tried to get past. “I said she’s not here.”

Maddie didn’t understand Rowan’s annoyed response to the man at the door. The stranger sounded desperate. Maybe he thought he desperately needed one of the White Lady’s dangerous potions or her erstwhile fortune-telling abilities. As misguided as peoples’ faith in the woman was, Maddie didn’t think Rowan had any business trying to keep the man out.

“Why are you being rude?” she asked, stepping up behind Rowan. “Hello,” she added as the blond stranger looked over Rowan’s shoulder at her. “You look like Burke Harboth. Are you two related?”

The stranger’s annoyed expression softened somewhat when she spoke to him.

“He’s my brother.”

“Then you’re one of the evil Harboth clan. Would you be Allen?” The Harboth nodded. “Which explains all the hostility.” She touched Rowan on the shoulder. He spared her one quick glance before going back to glaring at his enemy. “Why don’t you let Mr. Harboth in?”

Allen Harboth smiled at her, it was a smile so charming Maddie couldn’t help but smile back. He wasn’t as gorgeous as Burke. Allen was shorter, thinner, his features more saturnine than boyishly attractive, but the resemblance was very clear. The Harboths certainly weren’t an ugly family. This man also had a decided presence. It was the same sort of presence Rowan wore so well, an aura of command and responsibility.

Facing off with each other, the two men exuded buckets of manly aura at each other.

Or maybe it’s just stubbornness, Maddie thought, and firmly used a hip butt to ease herself between her husband and the newcomer. She could have sworn that Rowan actually growled when she got between him and his foe. She didn’t suppose what she’d done was a very good idea but she was afraid Rowan was ready to draw the very sharp, very long dagger he wore on his belt. The last thing she wanted on this already difficult morning was bloodshed.

“I’m Maddie,” she told Allen Harboth. “We don’t know where the White Lady is
.”

And happy to keep it that way,
she added to herself. “You look like you could use some help.”

“Woman!” Rowan snarled.

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Maddie backed up a step then another, forcing Rowan to move or get his feet trodden on. Allen Harboth followed them into the little house.

“I need help,” he said. “And so do you, Murray,” he added to Rowan. “So listen to me. Thank you, lass,” he said to Maddie. “Are you the White Lady’s apprentice?” he asked her.

“She’s my wife.”

Despite the threat in Rowan’s tone, Harboth kept his attention on her. “Of course. I should have guessed. Burke told me that you were a fair, fire-haired beauty.”

He took Maddie’s hand and kissed it. No one had ever kissed her hand before. It certainly wasn’t the sort of thing likely to happen on Montana ranches or Scottish oil rigs. She wasn’t even sure it was supposed to happen in the medieval Highlands but then she remembered being told that the Harboths sent their sons off to France for as decent an education as it was possible to get in the Middle Ages. Allen had obviously returned with a bit of sophisticated polish along with a knowledge of the Seven Liberal Arts.

She wasn’t surprised when Rowan complained, “Keep your hands off my woman.”

She wasn’t sure she was flattered either since Rowan sounded more disgruntled than he did romantically possessive. It didn’t help that Allen half smiled and lifted an eyebrow sardonically at her in response to Rowan’s words. She forced her attention back to the original subject before letting herself become a bone of contention between two men who were already rivals. From this point on, she decided, any attention paid to her by either man would only be because of their ongoing family feud.

“What sort of help do you need?” she asked. “What do you mean about the Murrays needing help?”

“Burke’s been hurt,” Allen told her.

A cold shiver of dread went through Maddie. “How badly?” Damn. She wished she knew something about medicine.

“Again?” Rowan scoffed. “What happened to him this time?”

Allen scowled but he kept his attention on Maddie as he said, “A blow to the head.”

“He has a hard head,” Rowan said. “And not much in it to be rattled.”

“I found him not far from here,” Allen went on to Maddie. “That’s why I thought to bring the White Lady to him.” He finally looked at Rowan. “When Burke came home from Cape Wrath he told me he was determined to wed your sister.”

“He’ll do no such thing!”

“That’s what I told him. I told him that he’d not wed her without your permission.”

“When hell freezes over.”

Burke nodded. “I don’t like their liking for each other any more than you do, Murray, but it’s been going on all their lives. He’s had most of the women in the Highlands but that hasn’t changed his feelings for the girl. Even three years in the stews of Paris weren’t enough to cure him of her, though there was no end of his trying.”

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“No doubt he came home with the French pox from his manly efforts.”

Maddie touched Rowan reprovingly on the arm. “Don’t be mean, Burke’s a sweet boy. Is he hurt badly?” She asked Allen.

He shook his head. “Rowan has the right of it when he says the lad has a hard head but the Lady should look at him.”

Maddie remembered the sweet, narcotic fumes of the concoction the woman had brewed last night. “Her idea of medicine is the last thing anyone needs.”

The scent still lingered faintly in the air, reminding Maddie of all her strange dreams of magic, mystery and love. Thanks to the potion, she might never be sure of the truth of what had happened between Rowan and her. Maddie mourned the fact that all her memories of conversations about love and trust might be false—nothing more than wish fulfillment brought up out of her own lonely psyche. Maddie truly hated the White Lady for putting a barrier of doubt in the already prickly relationship she had with Rowan.

“Her advice would be welcome as much as her potions,” Allen said. “But since you’re already here, Murray,” he went on, finally looking at Rowan, “we’ll have to talk face-to-face without her intercession.”

Rowan stepped around Maddie. Standing toe-to-toe with Allen Harboth he demanded, “What would you need the White Lady’s intercession for?”

“To tell you that your sister and my brother ran away together to be wed across the border.”

“What!” Rowan roared.

“They agreed to meet at Scammon Cove yesterday. Well, they met all right and discovered that Scammon Cove is where another band of Norsemen from up in the Orkney’s have made their summer raiding camp.”

“Micaela.”

Shock and dread went through Rowan as he said his sister’s name. Fear for her completely wiped out any traces of anger at his sister or suspicious hatred of the Harboths. His head spun and his knees told him that he very much wanted to sit down.

It was only Maddie’s strong hand under his elbow that kept him upright for a moment.

He exchanged a quick look with his wife. He would have kissed her and thanked her for the support and strength he drew from her steady gaze had Allen Harboth not been there to see them.

If Allen Harboth—if all the Harboths—would just leave his family alone, there would be no crisis with Micaela to begin with!

It took Rowan a moment to bring the words out but he swallowed and asked what had to be asked. “Does she live?”