The Chieftain's Yule Bride - a Highland Christmas novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions #10) (7 page)

"Okay.  So I only know what my people looked like from the late eighteen-hundreds when photography really took off.  And yes, I look quite like my people on the Harper side, but once it gets back a century, all that's there is the blonde hair and paleness, maybe one or two features.  So to see a painting from two centuries ago – is that about right? – someone who's
exactly
like me... that's why I got such a shock.  But I know who the artist was."

He stopped still and she turned. "Do you now..."

"My great-whatever-grandfather the minstrel.  I recognized the brushstrokes, the style.  My Auntie Harper has some of his landscapes.  He was the last of the true Harpers, the ones who played clarsach around the country.  He must have been here.  And he painted a lot on his travels to make extra money.  But he only ever did landscapes.  Or so we thought."

"Mystery solved, then."

"Some of it.  I've been seeing portraits of your clan chiefs going back how many years?  About five centuries or more?  None of them look
exactly
like you beyond some family resemblance.  I mean, they're all very tall, and the warrior muscles and the black hair and dark eyes are there, but they're not
you."

She'd noticed that much?

"...That's the weird part, you see.  How could he know that a girl would be born looking exactly like me, the way I wear my hair and everything?  It's like he
invented
me.  It can't be coincidence."

"Likely not."

The way she was staring up at him, so intense in her telling, those pale blue eyes so bright...

"And it doesn't explain why I recognized you too, Callum MacKrannan."

He ran a hand over the back of his neck.  "No."

She leaned in closer to speak low. "And there's something funny about that room with the Celtic carvings.  You
know
there is.  It got to you too, didn't it?"

He cocked his head.  "Maybe."

"Are there more rooms like that in the castle?"

She took his lack of answer for an aye, and laughed.  "My Auntie Harper would freak out in there."

"Would she now... does she collect Celtic deities as well?"

"Oh
she
has them
all,
and more than one of some.  Her favorite is the Cailleach.  Nine of her along the mantelpiece.  But it doesn't take one of the northern fey to sense the atmosphere in that room of yours.  Not anything bad, though.  Is it because the portrait was in there?"

He stepped away from her then and looked at his wristwatch.  Had to, or he'd have pulled her in for a good kissing and damn the consequences.

"Want to come and meet Tara now?"

"If she's the one in charge of the honeymead, yes, I do.  But I'd like to talk more about this later.  Unless you have other commitments?"

There was a glint in her eye that told him what she was really asking.  Did he have something more important waiting at home, such as a wife.

"My commitments are to my clan and to keeping my guests happy.  In that order.  But the clan are managing fine."

Maybe he should ask her about the theme for the wedding.  Or maybe no'.  Let her be the one to tell him what she wanted.  Besides, it would no' be happening anyway.  He'd let it play out until the last minute, just to make sure she didn't go off and book it elsewhere, but Freya Harper would belong to none but himself.

That became his want when he'd twice carried her in his arms upstairs, and a bloody certainty when he'd seen her lying on his bed in the room he'd used until last year.  It had taken much willpower for him no' to lie down with her there and then, and kiss her and touch her and lick every bit of her until it was something far better than shock that made her faint.

MacKrannans only ever wed for love.  All except his own people would expect him to marry an heiress to bring the millions needed for the upkeep of a castle like this.  No' happening.  Never met a supremely rich lass yet who would survive a day in his clan.

Freya Harper was the one for him.  His gift.  The Fair Lass of Monlachan was off to a fine start as wife to the future Chief of MacKrannan with her knowledge of Celtic deities and a spey-wife for a grandmother.  He could no' have asked for better.

First he needed to get her off hotel grounds so that she stopped being his customer. 

He led her into the Brewery offices and Tara came to greet them in her white labcoat and hairnet.  She made a show of holding up Freya's hand to the light to see her engagement ring and he saw her sneaking in much palm-reading while she was at it.

"The bees are settling down nicely this morning, chieftain.  All is well."

"Glad to hear it.  Do you have enough Yule Brew for Miss Harper's wedding?"

"I could spare two barrels.  And there's the Royal Jelly Liqueur, of course.  It's always popular for weddings.  An aid to fertility, they say."

"Oh we won't want that!" said Freya, appalled and amused all at once.

"Dearie me... do you have plenty of bairns already, then?"

"None.  We don't want children.  Not for a long while, anyway."

"Ah well, let's hope you can talk him into it while you're still young.  No doubt we'll still be doing our Royal Jelly range on mail-order when he decides he's ready."

Tara's cheery disapproval was miles out of line, though nothing worse than Freya would be used to with the normal blunt honesty of her fellow countrywomen.  Rustic charm had its limits when you were running a business, and it was luck that Freya was a Scot who tolerated such directness.  But Tara had hit the mark with who was holding back.

The lass got flustered and defensive, which seemed out of character.  "Zavier is at the top of his profession and we work together.  I do a lot of travelling."

Tara wouldn't leave it be.  Any who knew her as the Grandam Wisewoman would detect a bit of prophecy coming out when she said,  "I'd like to see you home with a brood of bairns at your feet, lass.  Two strapping brown-eyed lads and a wee lass as fair and bonny as yourself."

"Oh... interesting.  That's what my Auntie Harper used to say but I can't think where the brown eyes would come from when both of us have blue.  Well, who knows.  Can we talk about candles now?"

"You were wanting the ones in the shape of Christmas Trees."  A hint of censure there.

"Zavier did, but we're going for a different theme now.  Plain dipped candles in varying sizes would be nicer..."

Tara beamed at that.  She'd been against moulding her beeswax in daft shapes no matter how much customer demand there was.

"...And about the Yule Brew.  You're sure two barrels will be enough?"

"Oh aye," said Tara.  "Though you'll need to speak nice to my bees.  They don't let every bride have it, my dear."

Here it was.  This was why he wanted to be with Freya at the Brewery, to see how she reacted.  Most young brides laughed at this part.  A pride welled up in him when her eyes went wide and she nodded in all seriousness.  "Of course."

Could Tara be any more chuffed?  Her own matronly chest puffed out to fill her labcoat as she nodded right back.  "Of course.  Aye, you'll do grand."

MacKrannan Castle got weirder and weirder.  Or more ordinary by the minute, if Freya reverted to her childhood.

She'd grown up among the fey women of the Highlands with their tea-leaf predictions and horseshoes and omens and daily protection against witches.  Where she came from
everyone
who kept bees engaged in regular conversation with them, and she hadn't missed how pleased both Callum and Tara had been when she didn't argue... or sneer, as many brides would.

The MacKrannans were so traditional in their ways that Freya felt very much at home – the home she'd deliberately moved away from to escape traditions just like these.  She'd wanted to be
normal.
The colossal amount of Second Sight she'd been born with just attracted the wrong kind of friends once she hit her teens, and the more Auntie Harper developed her, the lonelier Freya had become amongst people her own age.

Nobody normal could understand what it was like to walk into the university and see things like an ambulance shadowing a professor, a pushchair in front of a fellow student, a cleaner with a prosthetic leg... and none of those items real yet.  But they would be by the time she'd graduated, and many, many more like them.  She never told anyone except Auntie.  Once in a while she also saw people's deceased relatives standing beside them as bright as the living, and had to check herself from including them in the conversation.

So she'd made her choice.  Far better to beseech the spirits for her abilities to be gone from her, to let her be normal.  Auntie had been awfully disappointed and hurt, but Freya was determined and the spirits had complied.

No more psychic stuff.  She'd swapped courses from History to Business and got a job in hotel design, a career that was far removed from anything esoteric.  Such things were fine if you stayed in the Highlands.  Freya would rather have travel and adventure... and now with the bees thing and that Celtic room, she almost wished she'd accepted a Las Vegas wedding.

And the portrait?  Uncanny – just as Callum had described it, but far easier to deal with. 

He seemed to be in a hurry as they left the Brewery.  Only fair, when she'd monopolized him all morning.  The estate was a big place to run and the hotel seemed to be rather busy for early December when most places like it were half-empty.  Her own booking for a suite had been accepted only after her call had been transferred to the Events Manager because of wanting her wedding there so soon – the same man who'd just disappeared to Glasgow with the bridegroom.

"You've been so kind, Callum.  Thank you.  I should let you get back to work."

"Is that London code for you
wanting away now?"

"Not at all!  No... I really should sit down and plan out everything I want before Robbie gets back from Glasgow, but my head's too full of that portrait to concentrate today."

"It would be.  What are your plans, then?"

"I'll go to the Spa.  Think I need a good long thorough massage after everything this morning."

He turned his head away sharply.  She'd meant it innocently, yet the second she'd said it her mind was whipped back to lying on that bed with him watching her.  Groggy though she'd been at first, she'd definitely seen something more than concern in him.  He wasn't alone in thinking about more than the portrait and her immediate health.  What girl
wouldn't
spare a passing daydream for a man that looked like Callum?

Change the subject.  Say something else quick.

"...Or I might go up to Monlachan instead.  Have a look at Auntie Harper's landscapes and find out what she knows.  The suspense is killing me.  Would that be alright?  I give you my word not to tell out anything about the Celtic room or..."

That got his attention.  "Hope you're no' thinking on driving.  You were passed out no' an hour ago."

"Honestly, I have never fainted before in my life.  It must have been the shock.  Can't imagine many people would still be standing if they saw that.  And it's not as if I banged my head or anything."

"I'll take you to Monlachan."

He was looking away over the mountains as he took long strides.  With anyone else on the planet Freya would have trotted ahead and faced him, asked him why he'd want to make a five-hour drive each way for this and why he assumed he was welcome to join her.  With this chieftain she simply said, "Thank you.  We can be there and back in a day if we leave early.  What day's best for you?"

"We'll go now.  My car."

Zavier never minded where she was or who she was with.  Now she wasn't quite so sure.  Suddenly that comment about a naughty weekend with a caber-tossing lover came back to hit her and it was her turn to look away.  Her face must be a very bright pink.

Now was the time to tell Callum she'd be taking the rental car.  Alone.
 
And she may have done that if she hadn't justified it all to herself with how many questions Auntie Harper would have about the portrait, and how much better it would be if he was there to answer them.