“You truly believe this lass will just drop everything and come rushing o’er to Scotland?”
Gwen smiled. “If I know Elisabeth half as well as I think I do, once she sees the portrait we sent her, she won’t be able to resist.”
Elisabeth had completely forgotten about the package by the time she finally returned to her office that evening.
The Beanpole had not forgotten. He’d plastered it with dozens of Post-its for the janitorial service that said: TRASH. PLEASE REMOVE IMMEDIATELY.
Gritting her teeth, Elisabeth plucked the offensive Post-its from the package, balled them up, and tossed them in random disarray on the Beanpole’s neat-as-a-pin desk. It was hell sharing an office with someone she didn’t like. Just walking in the door some mornings raised her blood pressure twenty points.
Dropping her notes on a chair, she eyed the crate. Her curiosity piqued, she rummaged through the Beanpole’s desk for a screwdriver, happily mussing everything and—feeling childish but unable to resist—depositing one wet and thoroughly chewed piece of gum atop a tidy pad of Post-its in his top drawer, then went to work prying the crate open.
A painting indeed, she thought a few minutes later as she awkwardly hefted the large, heavily wrapped item from the crate. There was a thick, creamy envelope taped to the wrapping, with her name scrawled on it in handwriting that was vaguely familiar.
She considered the letter and the package a moment, then chose the package. Propping it up against the crate, she began peeling away the brown paper wrapping.
The first strip she tore off revealed a man’s nipple.
Now that’s more like it, her id purred and, for a change, Elisabeth echoed the sentiment. She might not give men much credit for emotional maturity, and she might prefer to keep them safely at arm’s length so they couldn’t get close only to go walking out at a critical moment, but she certainly could appreciate eye candy.
The second strip she pulled away revealed a man’s navel, centered in rippling muscle.
“Wow,” she breathed, as she fell to unwrapping it with enthusiasm. Wouldn’t the Beanpole just have a freaking heart attack if he walked in now? she thought, laughing softly.
She bared more of it in strips. A grassy knoll. A night sky. A brilliant purple-and-black tartan, that ended above powerfully muscled calves and clung to lean hips. More of that sculpted stomach and chest. Strong arms and broad, powerful shoulders. All the makings of a woman’s most primitive fantasy …
The laughter died abruptly in her throat as she tore off the last remaining strip, revealing the magnificent man’s face.
Er … faces, she amended uneasily. For the man had two, and the breath hitched in her throat.
She stared in silence for a long, long time, feeling something stir within her that made her deeply uneasy. Curiosity. Fascination. An intense unbidden flash of sensual awareness.
For heaven’s sake, she chided herself, blowing out an uneasy breath, it’s only a picture!
But it was more than that. He radiated a barely harnessed, fantastic energy. The man—and he was every inch raw male, dripping dark, intoxicating sexuality—had been painted standing on a grassy slope, with silhouettes of standing stones behind him. The night sky was the backdrop; a velvety canvas pierced by glittering stars. Clad in only a kilt, he was magnificent, with skin like golden velvet poured over steel, a sculpted physique, and silky, black-as-midnight hair that spilled down his back and over one shoulder. His chiseled face was exotic, almost impossibly beautiful.
But the beauty ended abruptly, or rather, to the left it ended, for the man’s face turned both ways. One face turned right, breathtakingly handsome, with glittering golden eyes, firm pink lips, an arrogant blade of a nose, and a strong jaw. Stunningly male, stunningly sensual, it made places low in her belly feel tight.
The other face turned to the left was evil incarnate. The eyes were completely black, with no whites. The sensual lips were pulled back in an animalistic snarl. Whereas the face to the right dripped heat and a playful sexuality, the face turned to the left was hard, aloof, and icy. Powerful. Dangerous.
Dark as sin. And intensely seductive. In a dangerous kind of a-smart-girl-would-run-like-hell way.
What kind of painting was this? And why had it been sent to her?
Feeling strangely breathless, Elisabeth fumbled for the envelope and tore it open. Withdrawing a thick sheet of expensive linen paper, she tossed the envelope on her desk, unfolded the letter, and glanced first at the signature.
Gwen Cassidy, she thought, smiling at the memory of her brilliant physicist friend with the warped sense of humor. Although they’d known each other for only two semesters, they’d bonded instantly, sharing complaints about the bureaucratic political nightmare that Harvard could often be, a common and general distrust of men, a mutual loathing of “short jokes,” and a love of romance novels, the steamier the better.
They’d met when Elisabeth had been in her second year of undergrad, and Gwen in her second year of the Ph.D. program. One of the most promising up-and-coming theoretical physicists Harvard had ever boasted, Gwen had suddenly dropped out midterm and disappeared. Shortly thereafter, she’d sent Elisabeth a brief note, with no return address, apologizing and promising to be in touch soon. A promise she’d not kept.
Elisabeth had missed her and had often wondered what had become of her. Why was she writing to her now? And what was the deal with the painting?
Merely thinking of it drew her gaze, and it had the same impact on her again. Her breath caught in her throat and she got a funny feeling in her stomach. Poor man, she thought. So tortured, so … lost.
So incredibly sexy.
She forced her gaze back to the letter.
Dear Elisabeth, it began, I know it’s been a long time. I hope you remember me! I’m married now, and the man in the portrait is my husband’s brother. Enclosed is a check for ten thousand dollars.
Ten thousand dollars! Elisabeth snatched the envelope off the desk, and sure enough, there it was, tucked inside. Payable to Elisabeth Zanders. Ten thousand lovely dollars. She gaped at the check for a moment, decided that kissing it would be tacky, then returned her attention to the letter.
Please purchase your plane tickets and whatever else you may need for a stay in Scotland. Your salary will be fifty thousand dollars—
“What?” Elisabeth gasped.
—for three months of your time. (Did I mention my husband is rich?) If you’re able to help Dageus, you’ll receive a bonus of double that. When might we expect you? Oh, and by the way, it’s a self-portrait. Dageus painted it of himself.
The letter dropped from Elisabeth’s suddenly nerveless fingers. Eyeing it warily, she peered down at it. Then she knelt beside it.
It did say fifty thousand dollars.
Elisabeth snatched up the letter.
Call me. Followed by a phone number.
“But I’m not qualified, Gwen,” Elisabeth shakily informed the empty office. She remained on her knees because they felt too wobbly to hold her at the moment. Fifty thousand dollars would change her life. Teetering perpetually on the brink of financial disaster, she lived in a spartan efficiency apartment, and had been surviving on Bumble Bee tuna and mac and cheese for far too long. While her fellowship covered her tuition, the meager stipend she got for living expenses barely kept her head above water. “I’m just a student. I’ve never done any real counseling. I haven’t even finished my Ph.D. yet.” Not to mention that she still had her internship, dissertation, and up to two years of supervised practice to complete before she could get licensed.
I know you don’t have your degree yet, and I know you aren’t licensed, but that’s okay. I recently corresponded with Dr. Taylor and he told me that you’re the finest in the department. (He couldn’t say enough good things about you!) I think you’re perfect for the job.
“What job? What exactly is wrong with him?” Elisabeth wondered aloud.
“And now you’re bringing pornography into ou
r office,” observed a dry, disgusted voice behind her. “As if those trashy novels aren’t bad enough.”
“Dr. Benpohl!” Elisabeth jumped up, clutching both letter and check tightly to her chest.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me that since he has two faces, it’s somehow work related? Split personalities and all, hmm? I know I should be more tolerant, but Ms. Zanders, I really wish you’d get the hell out of this office. And my life. For good.”
Elisabeth eyed Dr. Benpohl a long moment. Then she glanced back at the portrait. Then back at Dr. Benpohl. Then at the largest check she’d ever held in her hands. Made payable to her.
Live now, her id urged.
It has nothing to do with living, she rebuked silently, this is a career decision. Being hired to work with a patient before she’d even completed her degree would enhance her already impressive credentials, and provide fodder for her impending dissertation.
A personal sabbatical wouldn’t be too difficult to arrange. Although Benpohl didn’t like her, he was the only person in the department who didn’t. She could file for a leave, and be on her way in a week, maybe less. The job would get her away from the Beanpole, and that in itself was an irresistible temptation.
And the money—fifty thousand dollars and a possible bonus! It seemed too good to be true! But that man …
Elisabeth glanced back at the painting, firmly suppressing a flash of unease. Surely he didn’t really look like that in real life. No man was that attractive. He’d probably, suffering delusions of grandeur, painted himself twenty times more attractive than he actually was. Not to mention that he’d painted himself wearing a kilt, she mused, as if he fancied himself a medieval warrior or something equally silly. I bet he’s a foot or two shorter, balding, and overweight, she consoled herself with the thought.
She wondered what his problem might be. It couldn’t be multiple personalities as the Beanpole had proposed, because treatment for that kind of condition took years of expert therapy. Whatever his problem was, she mused, fifty thousand dollars was definitely incentive to try. Were Grandma Maggie still alive, even she, who’d taught her to always err on the side of caution, would have agreed.
She was going to do it, she realized with a thrill. When was the last time she’d done something so spur of the moment?
Uh … can you say never? her id commented dryly. And you’d better burn a bridge behind you so you can’t change your mind.
Suddenly feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, feeling giddy in fact, Elisabeth could think of one bridge she’d relish torching. Drawing a deep breath, she flashed her nemesis the first and only genuine smile he would ever receive from her. A farewell-and-good-riddance smile. A you-are-a-bug-beneath-my-shoe-and-these-shoes-are-walking smile. The thought of not having to see him every morning was intoxicating. “You know what, Beanpole—”
“Benpohl,” he snapped.
“I’m going to do just that. Leave, that is. You can take this office and stuff …”
The rest of what she said she’d never repeat in polite company, but there were times when getting things off one’s chest was positively cathartic. Repression bad, heartfelt communication good.
Psychology could be so simple.
“Did you tell her anything about his, er … condition?” Drustan asked.
“How could I?” Gwen said, with a little sigh. “Write her a letter and tell her that I married a sixteenth-century Highland laird whose brother is possessed—”
“I despise that word, Gwen,” Drustan said softly.
“Whose brother is sharing cranial space with thirteen ancient Druids,” she corrected.
“It does come off rather badly either way, doesn’t it?” Drustan said, wincing.
“She’d never believe it. In fact, she’d come rushing over here to treat me. I’m counting on the advance and the painting to get her here. Once she’s here, I’m counting on the salary I promised to keep her here.”
“But when she arrives, what then?”
“I’m not sure, Drustan,” Gwen said. Tucking her fringed bangs behind her ear, she sighed pensively. “I guess I’m hoping the details will sort themselves out along the way. All I know is that it could take you and Christopher years to translate all the books and documents up in Silvan’s old tower, and Dageus doesn’t have years. He may not have months. I can’t sit around, watching him get worse, and do nothing. If there’s any chance at all that she can help him, we have to try.” Her eyes misted with tears. Watching Dageus suffer, watching her husband frantically searching for a way to save him, was breaking her heart.
Drustan’s gaze softened. He kissed her, murmuring encouragement that she do what she thought best. Which made her feel doubly guilty for not telling him precisely how she hoped the details might sort themselves.
It wasn’t exactly Elisabeth’s professional expertise she was after.
No psychologist was going to be able to solve Dageus’s problem; it simply wasn’t that kind of problem. Dageus being lonely and not having a mate of his own was part of what had gotten him into this mess to begin with. After much consideration, she’d concluded that the only thing that might be able to save him was the power of love.
A woman’s love.
Something worth fighting for.
Granted, it was a gamble, but there wasn’t much left to lose.
While Drustan and Christopher concentrated their efforts on an exhaustive search through the hundreds of Keltar journals and records and books—a search she feared would yield nothing—Gwen intended to pin her hopes on a good old-fashioned miracle. Funny, she mused, a year ago she hadn’t believed in anything that couldn’t be explained by science, and now here she was angling for divine intervention. Heavens, how meeting her husband and falling so deeply in love had changed her!
“Trust me, Drustan,” Gwen said softly. “I think Elisabeth Zanders might be just what Dageus needs.”
And, with the mysterious logic of a pregnant woman who’d found love where she’d least expected it—at the bottom of a treacherous ravine at that—she suspected that Dageus MacKeltar might just be what Elisabeth needed, too.
3
INVERNESS, SCOTLAND, TEN DAYS LATER
BY THE TIME ELISABETH ARRIVED IN INVERNESS, SHE WAS no longer feeling giddy. In fact, she was exhausted and seriously questioning her sanity for dropping everything and rushing off to Scotland.
Resting her head on the steering wheel of the recently wrecked rental car, she tried to summon the energy to climb out and announce herself at the MacKeltar’s castle.
And just where is Gwen, anyway? she wondered wearily, rubbing her eyes.
She’d been up since five o’clock yesterday morning. She’d forced herself to get up early so that when she caught the ten p.m. flight out of Boston that night, she’d sleep through most of the flight. She’d planned to wake up bright and cheery in London, gracefully adjust to the five-hour time difference, and spend her six-hour layover happily devouring the latest Nora Roberts novel.
As if.
On the flight over she’d been wedged into a seat between two young boys whose parents had cleverly requested seats ten rows behind them and had been blissfully snoring away before the plane had even taken off. The boys, positively bristling with excitement, had pestered Elisabeth with nonstop questions. When she’d finally closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, the boys had whipped out Game Boys and for the duration of the flight her eardrums had been assaulted by a metallic bleep-bleep-ZOOP! What fitful sleep she’d managed to snatch had been full of creepy little monsters stalking her with ray guns.
Upon landing in London, she’d tried to make up the lost sleep on a bench in an out-of-the-way corner, but had belatedly discovered that the coffee in the airport apparently had some kind of illegal stimulant in it. For the entire six hours, she’d sat bug-eyed and jittery, worrying about whether she’d turned the iron off before she’d left, set the thermostat high enough that the pipes wouldn’t freeze, and
myriad other nagging details.
By the time she’d arrived at Inverness airport at five-thirty Scotland time, she’d been awake for thirty-one hours straight and was having a hard time concentrating on simple tasks like making sure her zipper was up after going to the rest-room. She’d loitered in a sleep-deprived fog at the airport for another two hours, waiting for Gwen to pick her up, before it finally occurred to her to call and find out what was keeping her.
No one answered at the number she’d been given.
Never one to admit defeat, she’d trudged off to rent a car, only to find the steering wheel on the right side, which was unequivocally—to anyone in their right mind—the wrong side of the car. Oh, she’d known Europeans drove funny, but she hadn’t expected to be driving much, and certainly not the first day she arrived.
After practicing in the parking lot for half an hour, she’d felt secure enough to venture out onto the roads, clutching a map with bewildering names she couldn’t pronounce. Then she and a mailbox (how was she supposed to know where the left side of her car was when she was busy trying to avoid the dratted sheep that kept catapulting themselves onto the road?) had gotten into a bit of a tussle. At thirty-five hours, and counting, without sleep she’d been offering her Visa to an elderly and amused man with a thick burr, who’d shrugged it off, pointed her in the right direction, and told her she was nearly at the MacKeltar castle.
Castle? Life had taken on distinct Twilight Zone qualities.
Seventeen long-haired sheep ambling straight down the center of the road as if they owned it (possession being nine-tenths of the law, she was hardly in a position to argue, though she’d certainly shouted enough nasty things out the window) and thirty minutes of a thick, swirling snowfall later, she’d slipped into the icy drive of the MacKeltar castle, shaking with exhaustion.
It was nearly ten in the evening.
Smoothing a hand over the small portion of hair that remained plaited, she forced herself to get out of the car. She lugged her luggage up the steps, then stopped and tipped her head back, gazing up at the castle. Snow dusted her cheeks and lips, then melted swiftly on her tongue as her jaw dropped gently.