The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (35 page)

“Aye.” She smiled at Curran.
Though a bit overdone with death
.

Curran pushed back his chair and stood. “Time for dancing,” he shouted. “It isn’t a proper wedding without dancing. And ale. Plenty of ale. Away to the barn!”

With a great cheer, the wedding guests rose, echoing, “Away to the barn!” Gossip and laughter bounced off the walls then into the sky as they all trooped outside.

Morrigan found herself swept on a tide of folk who shook her hand or spoke advice in her ear as she smiled and searched for Curran, who had gone missing. She wondered briefly why they weren’t using Kilgarry’s beautiful ballroom, but as she entered the brightly lit and decorated barn, smelling of hay and horses, she decided this was much better, especially for the present crowd. When Curran reappeared he’d changed from his formal wedding clothes into casual garb he might wear when riding on his land. He clasped her elbow and bowed elaborately, causing her to laugh and return the gesture with a deep curtsy.

The hired fiddlers began a duet, and were joined by a tin whistle and flute. One man set the beat with a hand-held drum and another played a clàrsach. The music swept into the traditional shaimit reel and bounced off the high wooden timbers.

Curran seized Morrigan’s arm and pulled her to the dancing area. Padraig, Malcolm, and Quinn stayed by the punch barrel, which held a concoction brewed from whisky, sugar, and boiling water. Violet and Tess took turns stirring it as they engaged in flirtations disguised behind insults with the lads from Skye.

For several moments she and Curran danced alone, but with the help of the whisky— she remembered it was called
uisge-beatha
— and soul-stirring music, their guests soon joined in, singing and shouting the words to the tunes as they dipped and whirled.

Morrigan’s circumspect sips of punch began to add up to a drink or two. Through the wild, sweaty uproar and disjointed, reverberating sound, the image of
him
returned. The tall thin man with the black hair and bleak eyes.

She heard a faint, familiar voice, but couldn’t place it.

Come to me. I’ve waited so long
….

CHAPTER FIVE

AODHÀN ENTERED THE
barn after everyone else. He hated dancing, though his feet seemed to know the proper movements.

Curran and Morrigan had moved off the dance floor and were chatting with the priest and minister. Mrs. Ramsay appeared to have difficulty catching her breath— no surprise when one considered the daft folderols women bound themselves in. In this setting, there was no hint of red in her hair, only rich, dark brown that made her seem like a different woman altogether from the one he’d watched in the glen.

Father Drummond clasped Morrigan’s hands, kissed her cheeks, and accepted the glass of punch Fionna offered him. The bride’s aunt, Isabel, led the old man to a chair where he could watch the festivities more comfortably. He enjoyed immense popularity with Protestants and Catholics alike. His opposite was William Watson, the minister, who held himself stiff, cold, and mysterious, his collar of office as formal and unapproachable as armor. Curran spent only a moment with him before pulling his wife into the center for another dance.

Seaghan spied Aodhàn and crossed to his side. “I vow you look like a ghost,” he said. “Have you had too much to drink?”

Aodhàn shook his head. “I may suffocate, thanks to this bloody necktie.”

“You’ll survive,” Seaghan said callously. He glanced at Morrigan’s aunts. “I’m going to get reacquainted. Beatrice and I were allies of a kind, once. Wish me luck.” Setting his shoulders, he stalked towards the woman in black.

Aodhàn backed up until he felt the wall against his spine. Ill at ease, dressed in stiff, borrowed clothing, he knew his scowl would keep most of these folk at a distance— and that was how he wanted it.

Seaghan and Beatrice whirled by. Seaghan sent his comrade a private grimace.

One of the young men from Skye cut in on Morrigan and her husband. The lass changed arms and allowed the lout to waltz her away. For a moment they twirled without incident then Aodhàn saw him draw closer— too close. No doubt he was drunk, and had lost whatever kernel of sense he’d been born with. Lowering his head, the stripling said something, his mouth curving into a leering grin. Mrs. Ramsay acquired the taut mien of a cornered rabbit and overtly tried to create more space between them. Glancing over at the barrel, Aodhàn saw the other Skye lads watching and sniggering.

Curran was dancing with young Rachel Urquhart, her babe tucked securely in the crook of his arm. He’d noticed nothing, no doubt certain in his naïve heart that all was safe in his own barn at his own wedding.

Don’t ask me to do this. He is your brother, my lord
.

Whose was that voice? Why did it keep invading his damaged brain? Why did it speak the same words, over and over, and only around Curran?

When next the bride waltzed by, Aodhàn tapped, harder than necessary, on the fool’s shoulder. “May I?” he asked, and stole her so swiftly, the daftie was left blinking like a sheep.

Her thankful gaze sent confusing pain mingled with thrills of pleasure down his spine. It took every mote of willpower to tamp down the erection that wanted to claim her right now, here, on the polished floor, to feel her respond beneath him. He could hardly bear the thought that there might be a bit of that Skye lout in
him
.

But no. He hadn’t grown hard for a woman in years… not since he’d come out of the ocean.
She
caused this craving, a need he’d thought destroyed years ago.

At least that’s what he told himself.

Could she be Seaghan’s daughter? Where was the nymph from the portrait tonight? Why did she seem so cursedly familiar?

* * * *

Much like the day she’d met Curran Ramsay, Morrigan felt she might leap out of her skin. She hoped this time she wouldn’t make a fool of herself spouting whimsical nonsense about Greek heroes. Thank goodness, Aodhàn Mackinnon didn’t resemble the dream-lover.

Her flesh tingled where his palm pressed against hers. She felt another tingling at her waist, where his other hand rested. The sensation worked its way through her body as though she were a tree, struck and consumed by a thousand-armed lightning bolt. “I doubt I’ve ever known anyone as tall as you, Aodhàn Mackinnon,” she said, for she could think of nothing else, and she must say something. “Dancing with you fair puts a crick in my neck.”

“Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “I’m helpless to change it.”

His hair was long, falling past his shoulders, slightly threaded with silver. Some was pulled into an untidy knot at the back of his head. Beneath heavy brows, framed in thick black lashes, his eyes were green, like subdued light under forest cover. They seemed guarded: not suspicious in the way of Curran’s solicitor, but possessing rather the look of a man who willfully refused to trust anyone.

“Seaghan told me he pulled you out of the ocean.”

That odd tingling strengthened, as though his skin was suffused with crackling friction, or maybe it was a conducted charge from the Devil’s spear, if this ill-tempered frown was any indication.

“Aye. He did.”

She tried a beguiling smile, knowing the power it held with most men and wanting to see if it would affect him. “He says you need a wife, now Curran’s married.”

One brow lifted, but other than that, there was no reaction.

She glanced about at the dancers. “Everything is so well managed here. There’s really nothing for me to do. Perhaps I could help find you one.”

At last. A short, rusty grin. “Why would you want to waste your time in such a useless manner?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Something about that brief smile made her want to coax another. “My Aunt Ibby’s near made a livelihood out of matchmaking. She brought Curran to Stranraer to see what she could start.”

Was he grave? She had to be careful not to label him too soon. It couldn’t be easy, having an entire life’s memories lost in the ocean.

“It appears to have worked,” he said.

“I was cross at first.”

“As I’ve been with those who have tried it on me.”

“So others have already tried. I see.” She paused. “You’ve no wish to marry, sir?”

“I’m not a sir, a lord, or even a gentleman.”

She smiled. “What shall I call you then? Mr. Mackinnon? Aodhàn?” She shook her head. “No, neither of those sounds right. Mackinnon. Aye.” The name rolled so readily off her tongue she half-believed she’d said it a thousand times. She tried again, hesitantly, paying attention. “Mackinnon.”

A change came over him. His eyes turned glacial. His lips tensed. She felt odd as well, half-drowned in jumbled emotion. “Could we stop?” she asked. “I’m thirsty.”

Tess gave Aodhàn whisky and Morrigan sugared ale.

“I’ve never seen Aunt Ibby laugh so much,” Morrigan said. “She’s pleased with herself.”

Aodhàn said nothing but glanced at the big open doors on the other side of the barn. She sensed his discomfort as though it spawned in her own stomach. Any moment he’d make an excuse and leave.

“It’s so hot,” she said, using her fan. “I wonder if it’s cooler outside?” She strolled towards a smaller door, also open, that led to an enclosure, walled in with a dry-stone fence. Elation bloomed when he followed— she’d been half-sure he wouldn’t, and she did want to continue talking to him.

Someone had decorated the space with paper lanterns and bales of hay. Candlelight through colored paper gave off a lacy glow.

The crisp September air revived her. She faced him, meaning to say something about the beauty of the night, but the words trailed off at the sight of a reddish vapor eddying around his upper body. She stared, entranced, all plans for conversation forgotten.

He returned her stare. She realized she’d lifted her hand, was reaching out to this fascinating curiosity, and lowered it, blushing. Retreating a step, she managed a smile. “So, Mackinnon,” she said. “You don’t want to settle down?”

His brow creased. He swirled the whisky in his glass and leaned against the wall, resting his forearm on the capstones. “There are times I feel I can scarcely breathe I’m so settled. But if you mean married, no. Any female daft enough to consider it would soon be throwing herself into the Sound to get away from me.”

“You’re satisfied then, with only Seaghan for company?” The mist of color disappeared when he leaned against the wall. Maybe she’d imagined it.

“Aye, well, there is his cooking. If I say it’s wanting, I’m being kind.”

“So, in order to eat decently, you must wed. Does Glenelg have a good selection of young ladies for you to choose from?”

“There are a few. Mostly in your house, but they’ve wisely never noticed me, not with two young louts right under their noses.”

He must mean Violet and Tess. “Rachel Urquhart’s a comely lass. What a sweet child she and Padraig have. I wonder why he waited so long to begin a family.”

“He didn’t. His first wife, and their son, died.”

“Oh.” She started to touch her stomach but stopped herself in time. “Did she die in childbirth?”

He shook his head. “A fever killed the child when he was five months old. His mother died soon after, of starvation and madness.”

Morrigan stared. “Madness?”

“They were cleared in ’53. Padraig wouldn’t put them on the emigrant ship.”

“I was born in ’53.”

“You were more fortunate,” he said, nodding. “Seaghan has told me Padraig’s wife nursed you as well as her son, for as long as she could.”

Morrigan swallowed three times before the lump in her throat would allow her to speak. “Aunt Ibby said my papa fed me goat’s milk.”

“You’ve gone pale.” He picked up her glass from the wall and handed it to her.

She sipped. “Folk bring it up. The
clearings
, the
troubles
. But nobody will explain. My father refused to speak of it.”

He paused. “This isn’t the time,” he said. “Not on your wedding day.”

“It’s so horrible?”

A brief shrug, and, “Aye.”

She gazed at the forest beyond the outer paddock. “Now that I’m here, where he grew up, I intend to learn all of it.”

“Why wouldn’t he tell you?”

“He thought women stupid. ‘Misbegotten leeches,’ he liked to call us. But he has no say now. If I want to discover what happened when I was born, he cannot stop me.”

“Well then, be careful… Morrigan. Knowledge could be worse than ignorance.”

So he wouldn’t call her
mistress
, or
Lady Eilginn,
like everyone else. Her hand released the glass and crept forward, stopping when she felt his sleeve. “Why do you say that?”

“Secrets are kept for a reason.”

With disturbing certainty, she knew what it would look like if he smiled. A mesh of lines would crisscross a certain way at the outer edges of his eyes; one line would be longer than the others, beneath his left eye. There was a… a tic there, too, but only when he was angry. She saw herself touching that spot, pressing to soothe it. She was filled with the sensation that this face had long delighted her, just as she thought she knew the words he would say during the act of love.

No one can have you but me
.
Only me
.

“I feel as if I know you,” she said then stopped, embarrassed.

Another murmur rose to the surface.
You will marry me, Lilith.

The tips of her fingers felt his sleeve shift. “Do I? From Stranraer, maybe?” she asked.

“There you are.” Seaghan burst upon them, as shocking as a clap of thunder.

“Seaghan.” Morrigan drew away, appalled to see how close she’d moved to Aodhàn.

“I see the lout is troubling you. Did I not give you fair warning? He could make the archangel Gabriel leap into the pit of Hell. Say the word, lass. I’ll fetch my dirk and slit his throat.”

“I don’t think so. At least not yet.” She glanced into Mackinnon’s eyes. They revealed nothing now, but it didn’t matter. An instant past she’d seen the same bewildered craving in them that simmered even now through her blood. She knew it as certainly as she knew a babe was forming in her womb.