The Presence

  Instead, she had called an agency that investigated ghosts.

  She looked into his eyes. There had been laughter in them, and fun, but she was surprised to realize that he actually seemed a little distracted, as well. She had thought he was entirely into the act, but maybe he had just been going through the motions.

  She turned away, disturbed. “I should really give Kevin and David a hand,” she murmured, heading toward the kitchen. “We’ve an incredibly full house.”

  “I’ll take the horses,” Ryan said.

  “Look after Wallace. I’ll tend to Shaunessy,” Bruce said.

  Gina and Thayer followed Toni into the kitchen. Since there were so many people there, Toni was glad they’d come in, though Kevin was so well prepared that he probably could have handled a crowd of a hundred. The scones were in baskets, there were a number of stations with cream and sugar, and he’d had the tea prepared well before the crowd came filing in.

  The crowd was always eager to talk, but tonight, more so than ever. News about the discovery of the ancient remains had traveled fast, and the group was ex cited to be the first ever to see their little drama played out with the great Laird MacNiall portrayed as innocent.

  Finally the buses left, but Lizzie and Trish remained. And after everyone pitched in with the cleanup, Toni decided that Thayer was going to have to be his charming self and deal with their guests. She excused herself and went upstairs.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it?” Ryan said.

  Bruce, putting up the last of Shaunessy’s tack, glanced over at him. Ryan was patting the roan’s nose, studying his eyes and the great head of the horse.

  “Quite frankly, I haven’t,” Bruce said, realizing himself for the first time that it was the absolute truth. He knew horses, and he’d never seen anything like this. The vet believed that the roan had gotten into something. Eban had seen to it that the stables were swept completely, lest it be some kind of infection caused by molding hay or bad grain. But only the roan had been infected. The vet had commented that it was akin to a child eating something disagreeable, having a bad night and clearing his system, waking up just as good as ever.

  He walked over to study the roan himself. Wallace’s eyes were clear and sharp, a sure sign that he was over what had plagued him.

  “He’s doing well now, it seems,” Bruce said. He patted the horse. “Good lad,” he murmured, then told Ryan, “I’m thinking, come the weekend, we’ll move him. You did a damned good job here of cleaning the place out, and Eban came in and did more, but we might move both the boys and I’ll get a real crew out here. These days…well, you get some kind of a germ or bacteria and you can’t tell quite what’s going on. The vet took some blood samples, too, so maybe we’ll know more soon enough. Good thing is, he’s looking fine right now.”

  Ryan grinned suddenly. “Hey, speaking of fine, we were something, eh? In the States, we couldn’t have attempted such a thing! If one of us had nicked the other, there would have been law suits and all that. Where the hell did you learn to do all that?”

  “Well, over here, we have mock tournaments and such, just like you have Revolutionary and Civil War reenactments.”

  Ryan grinned. “Well, I don’t mean to brag, but damn, were we good!”

  “Aye, that we were.” Bruce gave him a wave and started back to the castle. He looked at the stone, climbing to the night sky, and realized that he had something very special. Time and reality had made him lose his appreciation. The Americans had brought it back.

  Ryan followed him, and when they entered the castle, they could hear laughter coming from the kitchen—not surprising since the car belonging to the two women they’d met in the village remained in the drive way. Bruce had actually enjoyed the night, but he wasn’t anxious for any more company.

  “Sounds as if we still have company,” Ryan said.

  Bruce nodded. “Well, enjoy,” he murmured, heading for the stairs. It was his castle; he could opt out.

  He entered his room to find Toni sitting by the hearth, staring at burned-out embers. She was wearing a contemporary cotton T-shirt nightshirt, her blond hair caught by the light, her features grave. When she saw him, she brought a pensive smile to her lips.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

  Her smile remained uncertain, though she shook her head. He came to her, taking a seat on the side of the bed. He tried to calculate the time he had known her. A speck of dust in the span of his life. But it seemed natural that she was there, and beyond the obvious of a great sexual relationship, there was something better in the fact, as well. He’d known he’d come up the stairs and find her waiting. And he’d liked it.

  Apparently she tried to shake off whatever was bothering her. “You and Ryan…wow. You played off each other unbelievably,” she told him.

  “It wasn’t half bad, was it?” He picked up her fingers, idly stroking her hand.

  “Of course, if you’d worked for me in the States, I would have fired your ass,” she told him, eyes sparkling as they touched his. “You were very late.”

  He arched a brow. “I got held up with Robert in Stirling.”

  “Oh?”

  He offered her a grimace. “We were at a pub and found out that one of the barmaids had failed to show. The fellow who owns the place is a bit of a bastard, so he wasn’t in the least concerned, but we felt we had to look into it. We found out where she’d been living. It seems she packed her bags, so…”

  “I’m glad,” Toni told him. “Luckily, you don’t need much rehearsal.”

  “We both know what we’re doing.”

  “Apparently,” Toni agreed.

  “So that, in a nutshell, was my day. Thinking something might be wrong, finding out we were both getting a little punch drunk due to events. So, I repeat, what’s wrong?”

  She didn’t answer right away, but stared back at the dying embers. “Bruce, is this place supposed to be haunted?”

  He laughed, then sobered when she stared at him. Still, he couldn’t quite help the smile. “It’s a castle. Centuries old. What do you think?”

  She flushed. “Well, it is haunted, you know.”

  He sighed. “Toni, I let the place go to hell. Aye, that I did. But from the time I was a wee lad, I knew the place was mine. I have spent a great deal of time here. Not a single ghost has ever darkened my door.”

  “I see your ancestor a bit too frequently,” she told him.

  He groaned. “Toni, I know the dreams are plaguing you, lass.” He shook his head. “Is the castle supposed to be haunted? Aye, definitely. Bruce MacNiall supposedly rides the forest and wanders these old halls. There are other tales, as well, and we do have one bloody history. But that’s just it. Somewhere in the past, you heard the stories. I believe with my whole heart that you came here thinking you made up the past. But there are all kinds of books out about Scottish ghosts. They’re as prevalent as Scottish sheep. And someone may not have gotten the names or the place right, but the story has probably been written up. You simply heard about it.”

  She bit her lower lip lightly. “Haven’t you ever…felt something? Had a sense of déjà-vu, a premonition?”

  A premonition? Aye, and it was you in the water, facedown so I couldn’t see your face, just the trail of your hair, and my heart was in my throat. And worse. Once, when I was a cop with the Edinburgh Police Department, working a sad case indeed, I was able to crack it because I could put myself in a fellow’s shoes.

  “Toni….”

  She pulled her fingers from his light touch and gripped both his hands.

  “Bruce, I need you to take me to the crypts.”

  “What?”

  “Please!”

  “Toni, I think it might be better if I don’t take you to the crypts.”

  She shook her head. Her eyes were a true sapphire, touching his. Earnest, sincere and alarmingly desperate.

  “Look,” she said. “We haven’t known one another long, but I admire you, and I’ve come to re
spect you tremendously. I’ve come to care about you, too, and I believe that you feel something for me. So I’m begging you…please, please, just humor me on this. I know it sounds crazy. But you have shown me a great deal more than simple tolerance regarding my strange dreams. You’ve helped me, been with me, made me feel sane. Help me with this, now…I’m begging you!”

  “Take you to the crypts…now?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been there at night.”

  “Toni, I keep that door locked—”

  “I’ve been there,” she insisted. “Bruce, I can describe it to you! There’s a winding stone stairway almost immediately after the door opens. Then there are arched hallways, like in the catacombs of a medieval church. And there’s a tomb and monument to Bruce MacNiall, the king’s loyal Cavalier, at the end of one of the hallways. I’m assuming it was designed sometime years after his death.”

  Bruce stared at her with certain astonishment. It wasn’t impossible that the group might have gotten in to the vaults, but…

  “I don’t particularly want a circus made out of the family crypts,” he said.

  “Surely even Thayer has let those girls leave by now!” she said, smiling. “I’m afraid he’s been the odd man out here,” she added. “We both used to be a bit on the loose, but since you returned to the castle…well, Gina and Ryan are as close and old hat as Ma and Pa Kettle, David and Kevin have one another, and once you arrived…”

  He noted that she didn’t say And I have you. But Toni wouldn’t. She would never be so presumptuous. And yet…

  He reached out and smoothed a tendril of sun-blond hair.

  “All right.”

  She smiled, her appreciation evident, and he thought he actually heard a thump in her heartbeat.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Think we’ve given them enough time to clear out?” he asked.

  “We can see.”

  He nodded. “I’ll need the key.” The great skeleton key was kept in a drawer in the wardrobe. The thing was ancient, as old as the door and the metal bolt.

  He joined her, grimacing, and took her hand as they left the room and started out. They moved silently along the hallway to the top landing, then paused.

  “Hear anyone?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head. “They could still be in the kitchen,” she said.

  “We’ll check it out. However,” he reminded her, “they are my crypts.” She smiled at that.

  They walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was spotless—and empty.

  “Want a brandy first?” he asked her.

  “I’m all right, really,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “Okay, then I’ll have a brandy.”

  He poured them each a small snifter, watching her as she sipped the fiery liquid. “There’s something more you want,” he said.

  “I’ll tell you when we get down there,” she said, sip ping the brandy. Again her eyes touched his, searchingly. She cast her head slightly at an angle. “You don’t dress up like an ancient laird and run around in the middle of the night, right?”

  He arched a brow. “Nae, lass, I really don’t.”

  She swallowed the last of her brandy, then waited patiently for him.

  “You really want to go down to the crypts in the middle of the night?” he asked.

  “I really don’t. But…I don’t suppose I could make you understand. I can’t make myself understand.”

  “All right, then.” He set the glasses in the sink. “Shall we?”

  He offered her a hand again and they went back into the secondary hall, to the door that led downward to the crypts. She winced as the old metal scraped and groaned. He pushed the door inward. “It is a winding stairway, with very old stone. I’ll lead. Be careful.”

  “You still don’t believe me, but I’ve been here,” she whispered. Though there was really no need for a voice so soft, the night, the circumstances, seemed to demand it.

  Bruce started down, hitting the light switch on the side of the wall. They moved down carefully. But at the foot of the stairs, Toni paused.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing…well, there weren’t cobwebs before, and I had no idea there was a light switch.”

  “We’ve had lights down here since the nineteen-thirties,” he told her with a trace of amusement. There weren’t, however, terribly powerful bulbs lighting up the place, and the medieval arches led to a natural state for shadows.

  Moving slowly, they walked by shelves and effigies, until they reached the end of the hallway where the man history had recalled as the “great” MacNiall had been laid.

  “You know what actually happened to him,” Bruce said. “He met what they called the ‘traitor’s end.’ But his execution was carried out by a mock court right out in the forest. When Charles II returned to claim his throne, he ordered that Bruce MacNiall’s body be recovered from the forest and that a tomb be made. The king even paid for the marble and the artist’s work.”

  Toni stood pensively for a moment, staring at the tomb.

  “It’s you,” she whispered.

  “I beg to differ. It’s not me. I’m right here,” he told her.

  She flushed, glancing at him. “But it is uncanny. There are hundreds of years between you, and yet…the resemblance is so great.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe we see more than there is.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Genetics can be very strange.”

  “True,” she murmured. “And yet, does it ever make you feel…?”

  “Uneasy?” he asked, slipping an arm around her shoulders. “Never, since I grew up here. And I used to love to bring friends down. We’d tell ghost stories our selves and run up the stairs screaming, and my da would get mad. We were typical kids. But the great MacNiall isn’t still with us, Toni. He lived out his life. He lived hard, passionately, and he arrived here, as all men will. I like the history. I like the fact that the family he served with such ardent loyalty returned that favor in the person of Charles II, restoring him to his home. It’s legend, Toni, history and myth, nothing more.”

  She smiled, inching just a bit closer to him, still staring at the grave and the marble effigy of his ancestor.

  “Bruce, there’s a second sarcophagus behind the first.”

  “I suppose they believed that one day they would find the bones of his beloved.”

  “They’ve been found now.”

  “Aye. But who knows when the forces that be will release the remains, eh?”

  She turned to him, solemn, deeply concerned.

  “Bruce, she needs to be given a proper burial, here, with her laird.”

  “Well, lass, I’m sure that she will be. In time.”

  Toni shook her head vehemently. “They may try to keep her. The levels of preservation were rather bizarre. Someone may want her in a museum. Bruce, you can’t let it happen!”

  He looked down at her, smiling a little. “Ah, Toni, so you think my ancestor comes back, hauntin’ your dreams at night, to have his lady buried at his side? They’ll want a bit of my blood, you know. To verify that the lady was my great, great—whatever!—grandmother. And then she’ll come home. When it’s proved she is my ancestor, I’ll bring her home.”

  “I’d really like it if we could rush them as much as possible,” she said.

  His smile deepened. “All right, but…”

  “But?” she queried.

  “I’ve a bit of problem with it all, you see. I haven’t always been the most religious of men, but I do have a rather deep-set belief that there is a greater power—God. And perhaps, because like all men, I don’t want to consider myself merely mortal, I do believe in an afterlife. But I also like to believe that beneath it all, we’re something finer than the weakness of flesh and bone. And that being the case…well, Bruce MacNiall did not want his bones to lie here for him to be legend, to find his peace in death, or whatever. And though, certainly, I’d not want t
he remains of an ancestor treated with anything less than respect, I cannot believe that an ancestor of mine would haunt you, tease or torment you, over earthly remains.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t think he’s tormenting me,” Toni said. “He just wants to make sure that the remains of what was once the living, breathing woman he loved are treated with the due respect to which you refer.”

  He swept his arms around her tightly, caught, even here, in the realm of the dead, by the sapphire sincerity within her somewhat anguished gaze.

  “We’ll see to it, eh?” he said softly. “Now…if you don’t mind, it has been a bitch of a day. Shall we?”

  She nodded, smiling, and led the way out of the crypts. But at the base of the winding stairway, she paused.

  “What now, Miss Fraser?”

  She flashed him a smile, and shook her head. “I…Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “No, nothing, really. Just a sense of…”

  He sighed. “Toni!”

  She exhaled. “Just a sense that someone was be hind us!”

  “Shall we walk back?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  They proceeded up the stairs. He followed her, watching the way the cotton clung to her curves. At the top, she stopped again, looking back at him.

  “What?” she asked, perplexed.

  “Keep going,” he said.

  Outside the door, he paused to close and lock the door. It creaked loudly.

  “I did know what it looked like, exactly!” she whispered. “I told you, right? And I knew that the tomb would be there, knew that the old Bruce and you were spitting images of one another.”

  “Aye,” he said.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “I don’t know…exactly. Aren’t you going to admit there’s something a bit weird about it?” she queried.

  He shook his head.

  “No?” she said.

  “Not tonight.”

  “Then why were you staring at me?”

  He caught the innocent confusion in her eyes.

  “I hate to admit to having feelings of a rather base inclination at the moment, but frankly, Miss Fraser, I was watching your hips, the machinations of the way you moved, and thinking I wanted nothing more to do with the dead, the old, the past. I find that my concern right now is extremely focused and has everything to do with the present. The immediate present. Dare I be crass? Madam, I was watching your ass.”