Legends (9 page)

Abashed, she looked away and grumbled halfheartedly, “Even if we canna trust each other, can we find some neutral ground and exist in peace?”

“Until I’m rescued,” he countered.

“Until I set you loose,” she corrected.

He took her injured hand again. “All right. It’s a deal. Want to shake on it?”

Elgiva eyed him with mock disgust. “Want to wear your nose a little more to the left?”

“Nope. Let’s make peace.”

“Peace, then.”

With that truce a Kincaid and a MacRoth did something that broke seven hundred years of tradition. They began to enjoy each other’s company.

Elgiva stood on a grassy knoll, one hand resting on a cairn that was as old as Scotland. It was, in effect, a war memorial. Knights had ridden past it on their way to battle, each taking a rock to toss away on the journey. Each of those who returned placed a new rock on the cairn in gratitude.

The era of knights had faded; the ritual had not. Whether on their way to fight a rival clan or riding against the English, the highland warriors took and replaced the stones. Elgiva had removed one before the trip to America.

Her battle was far from over. She watched the gloomy winter skies impatiently. In the distance she finally saw two men crest a ridge. She rushed forward eagerly. When she reached them, she hugged Rob and nodded to Duncan.

Rob had reverted to his favorite clothes—black trousers and a bright yellow sweater. A large wool drape in the yellow-and-black tartan of the MacRoths was held by brass pins at his shoulders. The ends hung down both sides of his body, swaying against his thighs in the gusty breeze. Pulled at an angle over his chestnut hair was a yellow tam. Duncan, who stood beside him grimacing in the wind, looked gray and dull by comparison.

“How’s the devil Kincaid today?” Rob asked.

“Still as happy as when I radioed you two nights ago. He’s never stopped expecting to be rescued at any minute, but he’s not chomping at the bit anymore. He and I have been playing card games and chess—oh, he’s a competitive beast, but so am I! And he’s told me all about his family—”

“Is he your prisoner or your guest for tea?” Duncan demanded loudly. “I don’t approve of this fraternization.”

Even Rob frowned a little at her enthusiasm. “You’re not getting fond of the man, are you, Ellie?”

The pang of guilt she felt was submerged in a wave of indignation. “If the man comes to like me,
wouldn’t that serve our goal? I’m just trying to win his change of heart so that hell no’ regret it so much when he loses his land deal. After all, I’m the one who has a lifetime of jeopardy ahead of me if he won’t forgive and forget!”

“Douglas Kincaid doesn’t forgive and forget,” Duncan said sourly. “That’s why you’re wasting your time trying to turn him into a pet. You should be teaching him to fear you; not to kiss your hand.”

Rob looked at their kinsman with barely leashed disgust. “My sister knows her plan, Duncan. We’d best leave her to it.”

“Aye,” Elgiva said proudly. “We’re in no danger of losing our catch—”

“I was about to tell you, Ellie”—Rob’s eyes darkened—“some high-priced investigator is working on Kincaid’s case. A man named Audubon.”

“He came to the village asking for you and Rob,” Duncan interjected. “I put him off, but he’s suspicious. Rob’s hiding out in the old Lockhart cottage, to be on the safe side. This Audubon has figured something out, though he doesn’t know specifics yet.”

No news could have alarmed her more. Elgiva realized that her hands had risen to her throat in a gesture of self-defense. Slowly she forced them down to her sides. “He may find me, but he won’t connect anyone else to the kidnapping. No matter what he suspects. And that’s as we planned it.”

“He’s not just some hired lackey of Kincaid’s,” Duncan told her. “They’re old friends. They were soldiers together in the Vietnamese War. Kincaid saved his life. In fact, that’s how Kincaid got that little scar on his face. He was hit by shrapnel carrying the man to safety. This Audubon has a debt of honor to repay.”

Elgiva shut her eyes and groaned with dismay. Even so, a small part of her noted that Douglas’s scar had been won through bravery, and she was glad. She looked at Rob and Duncan worriedly.
“There’s naught we can do to protect ourselves that we haven’t already done. Just let me know if you hear any news.”

“Aye. Be sure to call in at your regular times.”

Elgiva nodded. “I’ll be heading back now.”

From his back Rob took a knapsack stuffed with supplies. As he helped her slip it over her shoulders he asked, “By the by, does the great Kincaid live like a pig without all his valets and maids to look after him?”

Elgiva laughed. “Oh, no. He’s very neat. When he washes his underwear, he hangs it out on the cell bars in neat little rows, briefs all evenly spaced, all turned with the crotches in the same direction—” She stopped when she saw Rob staring at her in shock.

“The bastard puts his personal items out where you can see them? Even Jonathan wouldn’t have done that, and he was your husband. Are you giving Kincaid liberties that would shame Jonathan’s memory?”

Elgiva’s anger flared. She had been a good wife, and everyone knew it. “Let’s not talk about Jonathan. I won’t have you lecture me, Robbie MacRoth. You’ve no call to. Nor have you any understanding of what it means to marry at a young, ignorant age.”

“Just because Mother passed on before she could arrange my marriage banns—”

“You’ve had a freedom of choice I never knew!”

“Ellie, you never complained about it before.”

“I’m not complaining now. But don’t lecture me about Douglas.”

“Douglas
, is it?” Duncan yelped. “I hope you’re not calling the reiver by his personal name.”

“Aye, and he calls me Goldie,” Elgiva snapped. She glared at both men with equal rebuke. “And when the moon is full, I take him out to meet the Elf Queen and we dance together in the glens!”

She blew Rob an angry kiss and marched away,
her defenses raised so high that she couldn’t see the folly of her own protests.

Douglas was in great danger of declaring that he didn’t want Goldie to step into the next room, much less leave him alone for her long daily walks. He tried to tell himself that he was simply so damned bored that anyone’s company would have been precious.

But he wasn’t the kind of person who needed a lot of company. One didn’t get to the top of a business empire by seeking out other people, but rather by making them seek
him
. With Goldie he woke up in the middle of the night only to watch her sleep. She was definitely special.

Now he lay on his stomach, his chin propped on a pillow at the foot of the bed, one long arm hanging off the side. Sam lay just beyond the bars, muzzle on paws. Sam made groaning sounds from time to time. Not only was he stuffed to the jowls from a lunch of roast mutton and butter cake, he was disgruntled because for once Goldie had left him behind.

Douglas idly withdrew his leather sandal from under the bed. He tossed it outside the cell. It fell in the far corner beyond the fireplace. He waved toward it. “Fetch, Sam.”

Sam lumbered to his feet, yawning, retrieved the sandal, then dropped it just inside the bars. He sat down and looked at his master as if waiting for more.

An idea came to Douglas. He got up and glanced around the cottage, then pointed to a neat little bundle of clothes on the foot of Goldie’s bed. “Fetch.”

Sam brought the bundle back. Douglas untied a soft cotton undershirt. Inside was an array of sweet-smelling clothes, freshly washed and dried. He lifted a bra made of nothing more than sheer white lace. The mental image of Goldie’s firm, abundant flesh
peeking through that lace made him shut his eyes and indulge in a lusty daydream.

The daydream was suffused with a tenderness that quieted him. As much as anything he wanted to hear her whisper his name, and he wanted to see her amber eyes light up with trust.

Sam woofed impatiently, breaking the spell. Douglas put the bra aside and picked up a pair of mittens. A label was sewn inside the cuff of one. He whistled in surprise.
Woolens by Elgiva MacRoth, Druradeen, Terkleshire
.

Elgiva. He said the lyrical name over and over, thinking that it suited her beautifully, being so Gaelic and so old-fashioned. Elgiva MacRoth. What had her married name been? Why didn’t she use it?

He ran his fingertips over the mittens, marveling at the workmanship. Elgiva MacRoth, a weaver. It made perfect sense. Weaver of fairy tales. Weaver of enchantments. Feeling as if he’d learned a great deal more than her name, he put the mittens back in the bundle and set it aside. He pointed toward the sideboard across from the bed. “Fetch.”

Sam had more choices this time, because the sideboard contained a variety of objects. He came back carrying a small bound book with gilt edges. Douglas opened it and stared in amazement. It was a diary of sorts. It started on the day of his kidnapping. The notes were cryptic, but he absorbed them with fascination, and certain ones he read many times.

Slowly Douglas shut the book. His fingers played over it, stroking. The warmth and confusion inside him was a torment. He was not accustomed to being any kind of prisoner, and now he was trapped not only by bars but also by warring emotions.

And if Elgiva MacRoth ever learned that he’d read her diary,
war
would be a mild description for what she’d wage in revenge. Carrying both her clothes and the diary, Douglas rose and went to the cell bars. He couldn’t aim well enough to make certain that he’d toss the diary back atop the sideboard.

So he did the next best thing—with a graceful underhand swing he popped the diary onto her bed, then followed with the bundle of clothes. Maybe she’d think that brownies had been at work.

Sam galloped over to retrieve everything again. “No!” Douglas called. The dog halted near the bed and looked at Douglas curiously, awaiting new orders.
On a whim Douglas gestured toward the open door to the front room. “Fetch!”

Sam disappeared into the room. Douglas heard rustling and bumping noises. Then Sam came back, his tail wagging proudly. He trotted straight to the cell and deposited his gift into Douglas’s outstretched hand. Its long cord trailed onto the floor.

“Well, well, well, she kept this a secret,” Douglas said happily. He lay down again and, smiling with anticipation, tucked the radio microphone under his pillow. He had a hostage of his own now, and she would have to pay dearly to get it back.

Elgiva and Rob had agreed upon a routine. She would radio him three times a week between midnight and half past. If she failed to call, he would show up at the cottage within an hour.

Two days after their rendezvous at the cairn she sat down at a small table in the front room and flipped a switch on her radio unit. Then she reached for the mike.

After a stunned moment, she rose and peered behind the radio. No mike. She scanned the tabletop as if the mike could hide in plain sight. She searched the wooden floor under the table. Growing frantic, she searched the whole room—under the stove and sink, inside the shower stall, even on the storage shelves along the walls.

The mike
had
to be in the room. Elgiva muttered out loud, “All right, my playful brownies, I
know
you’ve been at work here, just as I know I didn’t leave my diary laying atop my bed the other day.” She blanched as the twin mysteries of the displaced diary and the missing microphone connected themselves to an answer. Douglas! But how?
Fetch, Sam
.

Furious, Elgiva slung open the door to the main room and strode across to his cell, her robe flapping on either side like the wings of an angry terry cloth
bird. The room was dark except for the small electric lantern on Douglas’s table. He sat in a dramatic pool of light, putting his bold, beautiful script on sheets of notebook paper she’d given him. He had asked her to send management notes—anonymously, of course—to his assistant in New York.