The Presence (19 page)

She moistened her lips. “I didn't know.”

“You're white as a ghost,” he said.

“Am I?”

He was still staring at her with the greatest concern.

As if…she weren't all there.

Subtlety be damned.

“I want something,” she whispered.

“Aye?”

“To be with you.”

“I've been doing nothing but waiting,” he said, the words so quiet, and yet so sincere, that they were like a caress against her.

She wasn't aware that she moved, or that he did, either, but she was suddenly melded against him. He was very much alive, a vital block of heat and fire, warm
ing the ice that had seized hold of flesh and blood and bone. Her head fell back and she met his eyes just a split second before his mouth descended to hers.

This time, he stripped back the covers before he laid her down. And as he moved away, she rose back up herself, tearing the gown from over her shoulders, making her way on her knees to the place where he sat at the foot of the bed, shedding clothing. She edged against his back, lips, kisses, tongue falling against the breadth of his shoulders. And when he turned to her, naked at last, she could not be held away, but continued her wild, near frenzied search and exploration of his flesh.

He caught her by the midriff at last, pulling her against him, and she felt the full force and passion of his kiss, as driving as any power or rage of lust. They fell back together, entwined, hands and mouths seeking as if they were both mad. She tried to crawl against him, and he murmured to her, his voice deep and husky, “Ah, careful, lass. With that jumping, we're bound to have something bent or broken!”

She found herself laughing, still desperate, smiling as she was drawn beneath him, then breathless and silent as he thrust into her with a strength she sincerely doubted could ever be bent or broken.

She vaguely felt the sheets beneath her, the softness of the bed, vaguely heard the crackle of the dying fire. The room was bathed in a red and burnt-orange light, and it flickered upon his face and shoulders and chest. Then everything seemed to blur into a shadow blaze as the need within her spiraled and rose and, once more, seared into her with cataclysmic wonder.

She was wrapped in his arms, aware again of the feel of the sheets, damp now, the sound of the fire, a softer
rustling still, and the glow of the embers. His weight eased from hers, but not his hold. No, never, please God! she thought. He pulled her against him, flush with his form. She was aware of his chest, chest hair, breath, the cradle of his hips, the now flaccid pres sure of his sex against her. His fingers smoothed back her hair.

Time passed in a glory of soft sounds, gentle caresses, light…

“You are…” he murmured.

She waited, but nothing came. Then she smiled. “You are, too,” she whispered.

His arms tightened. She felt the way their hearts beat then, almost together, just enough out of sync so that she knew there were two.

When she slept, it was without dreams. And when she woke in the night with a start, she felt his arms around her still. So she closed her eyes again, and her sleep was deep and restful.

 

“He's weird, and that's all there is to it,” Gina said, shivering.

“Eban?” Toni asked, startled.

They were in town. Despite the fact that Robert Chamberlain had the original documents, they were taking a set of copies to Jonathan. Though they had more faith in Robert Chamberlain, they had a bit of sympathy for Jonathan, as well. The castle, and the forest, fell under his jurisdiction.

At the moment, they were seated at a wrought-iron table in the garden section of a pub known as Angus's Alley. It did a fair business, drawing a luncheon crowd from tourists and folks visiting from the larger cities. Bruce wasn't with them; he'd left early on business.
They were their own little sixsome again, which was pleasant because, among one another, they didn't have to take care regarding what they said.

And Gina wasn't hedging her opinion at the moment.

“Eban, yes!” she hissed. She jerked her head to the right. He was not far from them, just off the road, feeding a dog. He was talking to the animal.

Ryan winced, his eyes light as he looked at his wife. “I talk to horses.”

“Yes, and Toni talks to any animal she comes across. I've seen the two of you.”

“So what's the difference?” Kevin asked her, biting into a piece of steak. “Yummy. There should really be more gourmet Scottish restaurants in the States.”

“There is one in New York,” David told him absently.

“What's the difference?” Thayer said, repeating Kevin's question, and staring at them as if they were a bit daft. “Don't you all ever let anyone answer a question before you go on into another train of thought entirely?”

Kevin shrugged.

“The difference?” Gina said. “Watch Eban! It's as if they're communicating back to him. Yes, Ryan, you and Toni speak to any mammal you come across, but you don't expect the animals to give you answers back!”

“'E's just a wee bit touched in the head,” Thayer said. “I feel sorry for the poor old boy.”

“I don't,” Gina said, not even attempting to hide a shiver. “I feel…scared.”

“I'm sure he's harmless,” Toni said, yet she remembered how terrified he had made her, just the day before.
But that had been because her imagination had gotten the best of her.

Had last night been her imagination, too? Or insanity. That morning, the door to the crypts had been bolted, just as it had always been. But she knew, if she insisted it be open, that she would find everything below just as she had seen it.

“Eban works very hard. We've seen him work!” she added.

“Thank God, I'm married,” Gina murmured. “I think I'd be scared in my castle room if it weren't for Ryan.”

“Great,” Ryan said. “She keeps me around because she's scared.”

Gina flashed him a warning stare, but Ryan just grinned.

“Eh! If the old man starts giving you too much trouble, lass, remind him I'm around!” Thayer said, winking.

“There you go,” Gina told Ryan.

“Well…if worse came to worst, David and I would let Gina have the old Duncan Phyfe sofa that's in our room,” Kevin said.

Gina shuddered. “I don't think I could take the activity in your room!”

“All right, all right, the lot of you! Break up the lust fest. A few of us—” Thayer paused, glancing at Toni. “Okay, maybe it's only me these days, but there's no one sleeping in my room, so I'd rather not hear about the writhin' and strainin' going on around me, eh?”

Gina burst out laughing. “Thayer, you could have your pick of girls! I've seen the way they look at you when we go in pubs and the like.”

He shrugged.

“You're too picky,” she told him.

He was thoughtful for a minute. “That I am. And I've decided I want an American lass.”

“And why is that?” Toni asked him.

He shrugged. “I like the American way. Free from the shackles of tradition, and all that rot.”

Gina laughed. “But you were willing to go in with us on the castle?”

“Well, in truth, that's all changed now, hasn't it? It seems like we're on a borrowed pound at a roulette wheel, eh? Just trying to make back our bet.”

“We'll make it back,” Gina said determinedly.

“Thanks to the largesse of our host,” David murmured, and he stared across the table at Thayer suddenly. “Hey, did you know that he'd been a cop?” he demanded.

“How could he have known he'd been a cop?” Toni demanded. “He hadn't even known that he'd existed.”

“Oh, yes, right,” David said.

“You're starting to sound British!” Kevin told him. “Right-o, cheerio and all that!”

David looked at him and sighed.

“Well, when in Rome, you know,” Ryan offered.

“But Laird MacNiall—a cop!”

“
Was
a cop,” Gina said. “I wonder what he does now,” she mused, looking around at all of them.

“Hey, don't ask me!” Kevin said. “I didn't know that lairds were…well, anything. I just thought they sat around being…lairds!”

“I don't think it works that way anymore, does it?” Toni asked Thayer, smiling.

“Well, these days, anyone who owns enough land collects rents,” he said.

“Does he own a lot of land?” Gina asked.

Thayer shrugged, still looking at Toni. “The constable said that Laird MacNiall owned half the village, remember?”

“Hmm,” Gina murmured. “So…he's simply rich.”

“Strange, if he has money you'd think there would be servants swarming around the family home,” David murmured.

“And instead, no one,” Ryan mused.

“There's Eban Douglas!” Kevin reminded him.

“And he's weird!” Gina said again.

“So we're back where we started,” Ryan said, standing. “Gina, we should get those documents over to Jonathan's office.”

“We were supposed to see Laird MacNiall's deed today, remember?” Thayer murmured. “I guess now we just have to accept that it's legit, huh? After all, he wound up not being with us.”

Gina sighed. “Ryan and I will go to the constable's. I'm sure we have to fill out a police report, as well, but I imagine that, for the time, one of us giving the information and signing the report will be all that's required.”

“Two of us,” Ryan reminded her.

“Two of us. The rest of you can wander. Toni, you said that you wanted to walk around the old kirk and graveyard, right?”

David groaned. “Don't you want me to take the documents to the constable's office?”

Toni stood up. “David, go shopping. And Kevin and Thayer…you can sop up some more ambience at the pub, if you like. I'm fine on my own.”

“I would like to see if we can't find some…classier paper products for our tea and scones,” David said.

“They're definitely not into paper plates the way we are in the States,” Kevin agreed. “But they've lovely shops. Maybe we can find something.”

“I don't mind going with you, Toni,” Thayer said.

“You sure?” she asked him.

“Not at all,” he assured her.

“Well, then…”

“Hey! Someone remember to pay the bill!” Gina said. “And don't take more than a couple of hours. We'll meet at the pub at the base of the hill at four, okay?”

They all started out in their different directions. Ryan and Gina headed west, in the direction of the village square. David and Kevin went no more than a few feet before being caught by a store window, and Thayer and Toni headed east, slightly up a hill, toward the kirk and the surrounding graveyard.

Thayer seemed distracted. Toni set a hand on his shoulder. “You all right?” she asked him.

He flashed her a smile. “Aye, fine, why?”

She shook her head. “You've just seemed…not you, lately.”

“Since our bubble was burst?” he asked.

“I guess.”

He smiled, and pointed toward the kirk. “I can give you some local history. It was begun in the twelve hundreds, and the current structure and form dates back to the fifteen hundreds. Naturally, it was built as a Catholic church, and is now a part of the Church of Scotland. It has some remarkable stained-glass windows. It also has some beautifully carved tombs on the interior—Italian
artists were brought in to honor various states men, poets, knights and ladies, and so on. In the truly dour days of Cromwell, the reverend was a plucky fellow who managed to hide most of the treasures, so little was destroyed.”

She smiled at him, impressed. “Have you seen it, then? I thought you'd never been in this area before we arrived.”

“Never been in it in m'life, cousin. I looked it up on the Internet. They've actually got quite a decent Web page.”

Toni laughed. “Great.”

A small stone fence surrounded the kirk and the graveyard, and there was a white picket gate, which Thayer swung open for Toni.

When they entered the kirk itself, she was awed and amazed. For such a small village, it was really phenomenal. The stained-glass windows surrounding the length of it were in blues that would have done Tiffany's proud. Picking up a flyer at the rear as they entered, Toni read that the pulpit had been carved from a single huge oak in the 1540s, and she walked to it, marveling at the intricate lion designs that graced it.

“Incredible workmanship, huh?” Thayer whispered to her.

She nodded. “Gorgeous.”

“Come see some of the MacNialls buried here,” he said.

“I thought…” For a moment she hesitated. “I thought that they were buried in a crypt at the castle,” she said.

He shrugged. “I'm sure some are. But come here.
Look.” Pointing, he showed her a fairly modern tomb that occupied space against the western wall. “Our MacNiall's grandfather, or a great uncle, certainly. ‘Colonel Patrick Brennan MacNiall, RAF, born April 15, 1921, died June 8, 1944, on distant shores, serving God and Country. May he fly with the angels now.'”

“He must have died just after the D-day invasion in World War II,” Toni said. “How sad.”

“Very. For thousands of men,” Thayer commented. “Look, here's an older one. ‘Laird Bruce Eamon MacNiall, a great protector of men and honor, born October 4, 1724, and gave his life for right and freedom, Flodden Field.'”

“They had a tendency to be on the wrong side of a battle, huh?” Toni murmured.

“History always decides the wrong side of a battle,” Thayer murmured.

Toni nodded. “Quite true. And we have a tendency to romanticize many a lost cause.”

“Shall we wander around outside? Or did you only want to look for MacNialls?” Thayer asked.

Toni was startled, but when she looked in his eyes they seemed guileless.