Emerald Embrace (17 page)

When she had done so, she thanked him sweetly, and was rewarded by another shy smile.

She started off.

It did not take her long to reach the village. She walked Desdemona along the docks, watching the fishing boats way out on the water. The sea seemed calm that morning, calm and blue and deceptively serene. Nothing of the Dragon’s Teeth could be seen from here. The whole world seemed peaceful.

She turned toward the village, hoping that she would be able to find the Cunninghams’ place. She did so, easily enough.

Young Michael was in the front, chopping wood. He was a big lad with heavily muscled shoulders. He nodded her way with courteous respect, but it seemed that he watched her warily, as if she might be the enemy.

“Hello, Michael, is your mother about?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “Me mum is helpin’ out at the inn,” he told her. “Can I give ye tea or aught meself, milady?”

“No, thank you, Michael,” she said, and knew that he had been hoping she would refuse the invitation. “I didn’t know that there was an inn. Could you point me toward it?”

“Aye, and surely, that I can,” he said, and dropped the ax he had been swinging. He walked toward her, and one of his heavy hands fell upon Desdemona’s neck as he pointed down the road. “’Tis there, on to other side of the church, there. Ye canna quite see it from here, but ’tis there.”

She was looking down at his hands. They were very large and broad, and even his fingers were powerful and heavy. She realized that he had ceased speaking, that he was looking at her. She smiled. “Thank you.” Then she paused. “Michael, has your sister come home as yet?”

He shook his head, some invisible mist falling over his eyes like a shield. “No, lady, she’s not,” he told her.

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded. What he was really thinking, she did not know.

She thanked him for the directions and nudged Desdemona and followed the trail down the hill along several more cottages very much like the Cunninghams’. And then she passed by a field of bracken and wildflowers and came to the church. Beyond it, she saw the inn.

There was a wooden sign swinging from a handsome iron pole in front. It simply announced that this was the Creeghan Inn and that all were welcome.

Martise dismounted and stared up at the building. It was freshly painted in a bright white. There was a wide porch with tall handsome columns, and the windows were trimmed in forest green that seemed to blend with the natural beauty of the Highlands.

In front of the porch were rows of artistic rings set atop heavy brass horses that resembled the knights in chess. Martise tethered Desdemona and climbed the steps to the porch, then entered by the large double doors.

The hallway offered a hospitable warmth. Martise stood there and looked about. To her left was a large room with a crisply burning fire in a big bricked grate and numerous covered tables strewn about. To her right was a second room, but the door was more than halfway closed, and she could see little inside. She heard laughter, though, and men’s voices, and assumed that that would be the private pub, the men-only room, where the workers and fishermen would come to wet their dry and weary throats. The room to her left was for ladies and children—and husbands, if they had a mind to join their wives.

It was an inn, and she was sure that, up the long stairway, there would be rooms for guests. She was equally sure that Creeghan was a small and out-of-the-way village, and that guests could not be very frequent.

The door to the room for men opened wider and a plump figure appeared, wiping her hands upon her apron. She looked up.

“Can I help ye—why, ’tis Lady St. James!”

It was Peggy Cunningham herself. Martise smiled. “Yes, Peggy. I rode in to see how you were doing.”

Peggy shrugged. “Well and good, I reckon, milady. But come, come in. The wind is down today, she is, and still the air grows sharp and chill already. We’ve sweet mulled brandy with cinnamon, and if I say so meself, ’tis grand as any anywhere. Sit, Lady St. James, and I’ll see to your comfort.”

“Oh, I don’t really need—”

“But ye must!” Peggy insisted.

Martise took a seat at one of the tables before the fire. There was a young woman with a child at another table toward the far corner of the room. She nodded to Martise and smiled shyly. Martise returned the smile.

And Peggy was back, and there was another plump woman at her side, and a very tall, slim old man with her. “These be the Douglases, Lady St. James, Katie and Micky, and they do run our inn here and were most anxious to make your acquaintance.”

Katie Douglas bowed as if she were meeting royalty, and Martise rose and took her hand and smiled. “’Tis my pleasure, Katie, Micky,” she said.

“We’re ever so pleased to have ye,” Katie said. Peggy set the mug of brandy down before her. Martise saw, beyond her, that several of the men had come quietly from their own section to stand behind Micky.

“We heard tell about your ankle, Lady St. James,” said one of the men, twirling his red fishing cap in his hands. He said the last with a wickedly strong accent then went on. “Doc MacTeague told us yer efforts to save the poor downed sailor, and we were all proud to have ye, we were.”

She arched a brow, startled and surprised, and smiled. “Well, I’m glad to be here.” She was, she realized, quite a curiosity. Perhaps any stranger would be a curiosity in such a small place.

“It was very sad that the ship should go down,” Martise offered.

People were taking seats around her. Peggy had moved on, and was now serving ale to the men as they took their chairs. The woman who had been sitting in the corner with the child had moved forward, too, and now sat in the arms of one of the young sailors.

“Ships do come, and ships do go down,” the man with the red cap said. Peggy handed him a mug of ale and he smiled. “Why, ’tis the way of such a land, ye know!” he told her.

Katie, no longer quite so awed by her presence, pulled out the chair opposite. Her merry blue eyes danced with the crackle of the fire from the hearth. “These be the Highlands, milady. Not just Scotland, but the Highlands. Why, Vikings came to our shores, they did, and brought their gods and goddesses, but the Romans didna dare to touch us, for our chieftains then were fierce and more bloodthirsty than their own.”

Micky bounded into the conversation. “Aye, indeed, ships do wreck upon our shores!”

“Perhaps we shouldna be tellin’ the lady about such happenings,” the man with the red cap said.

“No, it’s all right, it’s fascinating,” Martise assured him.

“Why, the laird himself has boasted that Lady St. James fears no ghost!” Peggy proclaimed proudly, as if Martise were of her own making.

“Are there many ghosts, then?” Martise asked with a smile.

“Oh, aye, milady, that there are!” the red-cap man promised. He introduced himself as George Mahaffy, and then went on. “They say ’tis the land, they do. Sheltered, private, fierce!” His eyes twinkled. “When the Vikings came, we werena so Christian, as it were, preferring the gods of the Druids and those of the harvest. Why, milady, days gone by, ’twas said that our virgins were sacrificed to the harvest, that there were dances about the Maypole, and when All Hallows’ Eve came, lasses were taken, here and there, each year.”

“Aye, and even now,” Peggy murmured, her eyes far away, “virgins disappear.”

“And ships wreck upon the shoals.” Katie sighed. “But then”—she laughed—“we are all of Creeghan, eh? And the castle has its own haunts. Why, ’tis like it has stood forever, for in ancient times, they were our chieftains, the Creeghans. We’ve legends and stories galore, and all of them fascinating. We do love our Creeghan lairds, that we do.”

“The good ones and the evil!” Micky agreed happily. He smacked his lips around his ale. “Eric Creeghan did fight the later horde, and ’tis said that he impaled thousands of men upon his sword that he named for the rock and the castle. And Jarrett Creeghan, hundreds of years later, defended us from the English and from the Orangemen, and kept us independent, no matter who the monarch sitting on the throne down in London! Our throne!” he muttered, “with the Stone of Scone beneath it.” He was both confused and outraged at such an idea—Micky was certainly one citizen of Britain who would not have himself associated with his English neighbors. “No matter, they have always defended us.”

“Dark and fascinating, and always!” Katie told her, leaning forward.

“Aye, dark as devils, and with their devils’ own eyes,” Peggy said. She winked at Martise. “Always seducing the ones they would have, as if there was some power within them. Many, many a lass has borne a Creeghan bairn—”

“So we think ourselves Creeghans often enough,” Micky interrupted.

“Ah, but they are handsome, are they not?” Katie said wistfully. “And the lairds are always tall and fierce, and they will have what they will!”

“Strange sometimes,” the young woman murmured suddenly. She rose and walked over to stand before Martise. Her eyes fell full upon Martise’s, and even as she stood there, it seemed that the wind began to rise outside. The fire flickered warm and bright, but outside the day darkened. Night was coming.

The pretty girl smiled, and as the fire touched her face, it seemed that there was something magical about her and that she wasn’t merely speaking, but performing. “We are a strange people ourselves, Lady St. James. Catholic—when most of our land is Protestant. We’ve eked out a hard life, and that’s a fact. And our ancestors at times made their living by the sea—by the shipwrecks that cast their salvage upon our shores. And our great Creeghan lairds have been known to go through one wife after another, and there have been rumors aplently that the castle is filled with bones other than those of the dear departed lairds and ladies!” She smiled, laughing.

“On nights with full moons young lasses do disappear! In ancient times our priests practiced strange rites, and we danced naked beneath those moons! The laird was the god of the ceremony, and he alone was dressed in a dragon mask, and wore a black cape, until he chose his virgin for the night that all might find fertility for the winter.”

“I dare say that I canna imagine our laird this day in a dragon mask!” Micky hooted.

“I see our present laird as easily as any other!” the girl said. “He is a Creeghan, and such men beckon, and women come. He is no different than the others. He is perhaps more powerful, and more beguiling, as fierce as any before him, aye, and strange! Stranger than ever since God or the devil did claim his lady wife from his side …” Her voice trailed away. Martise could not tell if there was a twist of suspicion to it.

But they were all still and silent, as if a ghost had come among them.

And then a deep, rich voice bellowed out with amusement, and they all turned with a jump toward the door.

“Strange, Cassie? Thank you, lass, I dare say.”

The laird of Creeghan was among them. Dark—as dark as the tales had been. He was dressed in black again, a black cavalry shirt, black breeches, his black boots, and a black cloak about his shoulders that must have reminded them all of the one worn by the dragon deity who ruled the ceremonies by the light of the full moon.

His hair was again windswept and wild about his forehead, his features as bold and striking and handsome as any god’s might be.

And his sharp eyes, green-gold, burning their fierce and startling fire, and falling upon them all, one by one.

He was smiling. Subtly, the curve of his lip adding to the deep and dangerous fascination of the man.

“Oh, me lord!” Cassie gasped, hopping back from the hearth and keeping her distance from the man. Her husband, Martise noted, did not leap to her defense, but kept to his chair, his mouth open as he gaped at Bruce Creeghan. “I meant no harm, me lord, and surely I didna, I swear it! We were telling tales—”

“So I heard.”

“And the storyteller within me came a wee bit carried away, and that’s it, I do promise.”

He arched a brow, still smiling. “’Twas a good story, Cassie, I’m sure. We’ve many of them hereabouts.” He swept off his cape. Micky was quickly at his side to take it from him and hang it from a hook by the door. Katie was instantly upon her feet.

“Laird Creeghan, will ye speak yer pleasure, will it be whisky or ale or brandy, heated and sweet?”

“Whisky, Katie, please.” He took the seat across from Martise that Katie had just vacated. He seemed to sprawl slightly, and stared at her with his lashes heavy over his eyes, his gaze intrigued. “Have you enjoyed yourself, then, milady?”

“I always enjoy a good story,” she told him.

He nodded. Katie brought his whisky and he sipped it, still staring at her. He smiled, and glanced to George Mahaffy. “Did any of you tell her just how strange some of our clans can be?”

“Ach, the story from last week!” George said.

Bruce smiled at Martise, eyes glittering. “Indeed, we’d had a fine family among cliffs and tors like this, above a road, the only road, for some, into Edinburgh. It seems they’d send out their lasses, fair and beautiful, and their lads, young and strong, and equally beautiful. And they’d find unwary travelers and see that their horses were lamed or their carriages broken. And then they’d solicitously promise aid and invite the poor weary travelers to a meal. And seduced—and beguiled—the men and women would stay, blessing the Lord that they should have had their problems among strangers who were so very kind.”

He leaned ever closer to Martise. The fire seemed to rise and flash in the hearth, and his eyes might have been part and parcel of the flame.

“Then they were slain by the very beauties who seduced them, and indeed, they were there for supper, they were there to be supper, and it seems that this clan survived by cannibalism for years and years, selling off the goods of their victims when they did not need them, using all parts of the bodies.”

Martise, caught up in this tale as well as any other, gasped. “Cannibalism! I don’t believe you!”

He leaned back. “’Tis true. We are a barbaric people, don’t you agree?” he asked pleasantly.

“Ah, but my dear Laird Creeghan!” she exclaimed. “I’ve heard that ghosts do roam the castle, but from all accounts, these ghosts are in full possession of their flesh and all their limbs!”