“You should. You have a big day tomorrow.”
She smiled at Aunt Rose at the reminder of her plans with Ian.
“Nothing is to happen between you and Ian, lass,” Esmeralda said. “We don’t need another MacLellan woman dying at her husband’s hand, and while Ian is a good man, he’s also a Stewart. It would be courtin’ disaster. And he doesn’t deserve the stain of your blood on his hands.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Aunt Esmeralda. It’s one day touring the countryside. I’m not going to fall in love and marry the man.” And yet just saying the words made her feel inwardly giddy. Thank God she could spend the day with him tomorrow, and get a break from all this superstition and paranoia.
“See to it you don’t.”
The women rose, and left the room, Esmeralda flicking off the light and closing the door on her way out.
Kira lay still for a long moment, before she noticed the wisp of luminous mist glowing from a far corner of the room. She sat up in the bed. “Miranda?” she asked. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
There was no sound. No movement, other than the gentle swaying and swirling of the mist.
“You’ve been trying to tell them, haven’t you? But you’ve given up. Is it because they got the message, or because they just won’t listen?”
Again, no words. No movement.
“I think they’re wrong,” Kira said. “I really think they’re wrong. And if there’s a way to set your spirits free, and I can find it, I’ll do it.”
Promise.
Frowning, Kira strained her ears and her mind. Had she just heard the word promise, or had it all been in her imagination?
She thinned her lips. “Yes,” she said softly. “I promise.”
And just like that, the mist vanished. Gone as if it had never been there. And it had been so thin, so insubstantial, that she might never have truly seen it at all.
But she was pretty sure she had.
Chapter 5
Ian arrived, and made his way into the sunny breakfast room, where Kira sat in a window seat, sipping tea.
She glanced up as he came in and couldn’t help the instant smile that spread across her face. “Good morning, Ian,” she said, rising to her feet.
“Morning, lass.” He clutched her shoulders, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. It was polite and impersonal, that peck. But the gentle squeeze of his hands on her shoulders suggested something just a little more intimate. Something private, just between them.
As he straightened, he frowned, and sniffed. “Mint?” he asked, nodding at her teacup.
She nodded.
“Rose only brews the mint when someone’s queasy. Are you ill, Kira?”
“Queasy is a good word for it. I couldn’t eat breakfast.”
He tipped his head to one side, a sudden worry clouding his face. “Why are you queasy then? Nerves or jet lag, or have you come down with something more serious?”
“I saw a ghost last night.” His brows rose, and he searched her eyes. “Several of them, actually. They kept whispering my name. And like an idiot, I went wandering into the pitch-dark hall to get away from them and wound up falling down the stairs.”
He sucked in a breath and his expression shifted from worry to full-blown fear. “And you’re all right?” He swung his head toward Aunt Rose, who’d just reentered the room, carrying her china teapot with wafts of minty steam floating from its spout. “Did you phone the physician? Are you sure she’s not sufferin’ with some hidden injury or—”
“We checked her over quite carefully, Ian. She’s fine, I assure you, save for the tummy ache, an’ I daresay that’s more from stress than anything else. It’s unsettlin’ the first time you come face to face with the dead.”
He looked horrified as his gaze slid back to hers, but Kira only rolled her eyes. “I’m ready to leave if you are,” she said. She took a final sip of her tea, and then set the cup on Aunt Rose’s tray.
“Should we expect you for dinner, then, Kira?”
“No,” Ian answered for her. “We’ll return by nine, for the reading of the will. Don’t expect us a minute sooner.” He met her eyes as if seeking approval. She gave it with a nod and a blatantly grateful smile.
They moved quickly through the castle, into the entry hall, and out the front door. She was nearly running for the car she saw waiting at the end of the drive, and Ian kept pace, opening her door for her and then circling the car to get behind the wheel.
As soon as he got the thing in motion, he looked worriedly her way. “If you’re not feeling up to a day on the town, Kira—”
“I am, don’t worry.”
“Can’t help but worry. I’ve always believed your aunts to be a wee bit…well, dotty, where their ghost stories were concerned. I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
“I don’t.”
“But you saw them with your own eyes, though?”
She frowned. “I saw…mist. Or fog. Vaguely tall and narrow, almost human shaped. It could have been anything. The humidity here, a trick of the light, or even some kind of illusion set up by my aunts.”
He shot her a quick look. “They’re honest women, Kira.”
She met his eyes. “Are you sure about that? I think they’re a little bit—how did you put it?—dotty. Who’s to say they’re not dotty enough to try to prove to me that what they believe is true, and to go to any means to do so?”
“I just don’t think they’d do that.”
She lowered her head. “Esmeralda doesn’t like me.”
“Esmeralda doesn’t like anyone,” he told her.
“Do you think she might be orchestrating all of this to try to scare me away?”
“But why would she want to do that, Kira?” he asked.
“For the money? You said I had to be present for the reading in order to inherit. If I leave, they get my share.”
“They’ve more money than God already, lass. They’ll never live to spend it all. They couldn’t want for more.”
She pursed her lips. He rounded a curve, and pulled the car into a pulloff alongside the dirt track that passed for a road. Then he shut off the engine and got out, opened her door, and took her hand.
Smiling, she followed where he led, over lush grasses, meandering through a few trees, until they came to the shore of a glimmering blue lake, its surface just as still as glass. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“Aye, and just the thing to relax you.” Taking her hand, he led her closer to the shore, and she saw the little dock, with the rowboat tied to one side. A picnic basket sat in its bow, and oars stood at the ready.
“We’re going out on the water?”
“Aye, and I’ve packed us a lunch as well. I hope your appetite returns to you by midday.”
She nodded, and he got into the boat, then held out a hand and helped her board it as well. When he clasped her hand, she caught her breath, and met his eyes. Neither of them had spoken of this—this thing between them. But they were both fully aware of it. She knew he felt it just as much as she did.
She sank down onto the seat. He’d put a velvet cushion atop the hard metal of it. He took his seat as well, facing her, and gripped the oars.
“Did they say anything to you?” he asked.
“Who? The aunts?”
“The ghosts.”
She pursed her lips. “I don’t believe in ghosts, Ian. And I don’t believe in curses, either.”
He blinked. “So you finally made your aunts tell you about the curse.”
She nodded.
“And you don’t believe in it?”
“No.”
“How do you explain the way the women of the family have died, then?”
“My mother’s death was an accident. A freak accident, yes, but an accident all the same. They happen.”
“And your grandmother?”
“Sailing is risky. Or maybe it was murder, did you ever think of that?”
“No, lass, it was an accident. I saw you
r grandfather after. It was clear as day. He loved her. Now, the death of your great grandmother, Lily, that one may well have been murder. A gun in the hands of your great grandfather, Angus, that went off accidentally. He fully expected to inherit her fortune, or so the story goes. But even then a Stewart was employed as the MacLellan women’s attorney. My own grandfather. So the will was iron clad, and there were provisions excluding him from a penny should his bride die, even by accident, at his hand.”
Kira leaned back on her hands and watched the ripples his oars made in the crystalline water with each stroke. And then she lifted her gaze to watch the way the muscles in his arms did likewise.
“She knew that if she died at his hand, that would mean he had been unfaithful,” Kira mused.
“Aye.”
“And had he been?”
“Aye. He ran off with the baker’s wife, as soon as the courts ruled the will valid, and non-contestable. Local gossip had it they’d been seeing each other all along.”
She sighed, her stomach relaxing as she listened to the steady, gentle splash of the oars in the water, and watched the sky slinking slowly past overhead. Blue, blue sky, with puffs of white cloud, fragrant air that smelled of flowers she couldn’t hope to name, and the fresh, slightly fishy aroma of the lake. And beneath it all, the cologne he wore, so subtle she only caught faint, tantalizing whiffs of it when the breeze moved just so. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and inhale deeply.
“Do you know of any others?”
“Others?” he asked.
“Other MacLellan women who’ve died by their husband’s hands.”
He nodded. “There were three others. One died in a fire, after her husband rolled over in his sleep and tipped the oil lamp. One choked to death when he fed her a bit of fish that turned out to have a bone in it. One was crushed by a castle stone. She stood on the grounds looking up as her spouse worked on repairs. He knocked the stone free and it flattened her.” He shook his head slowly. “And then of course, there was the first one. Miranda, the MacLellan witch who cast the curse.”
She nodded. “I can see why the aunts are so convinced.”
“I canna’ see why you aren’t, lass. One or two deaths might be coincidental, but six, since the MacLellan witch penned those words?” He shook his head slowly. “Were I a MacLellan female, I might be more inclined to give it credence, even just as a precaution.”
“I feel sorry for them,” she said.
He stopped rowing, pulling the oars in and settling them into their brackets along the inside of the boat. Then he dropped a small anchor over the side. “The ghosts?” he asked.
“No, my aunts. Aunt Emma, especially. She’s beautiful. She’s too young to lock herself away from any possibility of love.”
“Aye. Frankly, my father’s been pining for her for nigh on ten years now.”
Her brows shot up in surprise. “Really?”
“You didn’t spot it, then? I always find it so obvious when he’s near her.”
“I guess I was focused more on his son,” she said softly.
He reached out and took her hands in his. “Aye, I found myself quite distracted as well. Have been since I first heard your voice on the telephone, lass.”
She smiled shakily, as he held her eyes with his.
“Your Aunt Esmeralda—she’s warned me nothing is to…transpire, between us.”
“Ian,” she whispered. “Are you really going to let my Aunt Esmeralda tell you what to do?”
His gaze lowered, focused on her lips. “I donna think I could, even if I tried. An’ I’ve no desire to try, Kira.”
“I’m very glad to hear that, Ian.”
He leaned closer, and she did too, their faces, their mouths, moving nearer, and still nearer, until at last, they touched. The kiss was tender, barely more than a whisper, at first. And then it changed as his arms crept around her waist, his hands tugging gently. She slid off her seat, and onto her knees, between his thighs. Her arms hooked around his neck, and his tightened around her waist, pulling her against him until the only thing between their bodies was their clothing. And she resented even that thin barrier.
He kissed her more deeply, more passionately, his mouth parting, his tongue dancing and plunging. Her hands buried themselves in his hair, holding his face to hers as she opened to receive him. God, this was good, Kira thought. This was insanely good.
It was as if she’d known him forever.
It was as if she’d been waiting, just for him, all her life.
When they finally came up for air, he stared into her eyes, panting, breathless. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer in her chest, and she was dizzy, giddy, and her skin, she was convinced, had become hot to the touch.
“I’ve never felt anything this powerful before,” she whispered.
His eyes were utterly sincere as they stared into hers, more emotion swirling in their depths than she had ever seen before. “Nor have I. Not ever, lass. And I don’t mind tellin’ you, I want you so badly right now I can barely contain myself.”
“I want you, too, Ian.”
He nodded. “I’m…I’m not an American, lass. This isna the sort o’ thing I take lightly.”
“Ian, I may be an American, but that doesn’t mean I take sex lightly.”
“I didna mean to suggest—I only wanted you to know I’m not like other men you may have known. When I make love to you, Kira, it’ll mean somethin’ to me.”
Her heart was melting in her chest.
“An’ it will’na be today,” he went on. “We have to give it some time, to be sure this is real. ’Tis far too soon, and far too powerful a feelin’ to be treated lightly.”
“It’s also,” she said, staring up into his eyes and imitating his brogue, “far too powerful a feeling to be ignored.”
“I won’t be ignorin’ it,” he promised.
She nodded, though she wanted to push a little harder. A little harder, hell, she wanted to push him down in this boat and climb on top of him.
And yet, something held her back. She didn’t know what this feeling was, burning her up from the inside out. It wasn’t like her. It was almost as if something beyond her were feeding the fires.
He pulled her across his lap, and snuggled her close in his arms. She nuzzled his neck, and relished feeling more cherished than she ever had. “I can wait for you, Ian. But please don’t make me wait too long,” she whispered.
“If I wait too long, Lassie, I think I may well die from the wanting.” And then he lowered his head and kissed her again.
Chapter 6
The great room was crowded with strangers. Family, Kira thought, but strangers to her. She wanted to stick close to Ian, would have felt a little more comfortable at his side, but he was at the front of the room with his father.
The aunts had set things up as if this were some kind of a party. Every surface of the great room, all of the ornate tables and stands, were laden with food. Trays of finger sandwiches and hors d’oeuvres of every imaginable sort lined one. A five-tiered silver serving tray held fresh fruits, with dishes of sweetened cream for dipping. Serving platters overflowed with raw vegetables and a variety of dips. Crystal punch bowls with fountains spewing in their centers stood at the room’s four corners. The dishes were fine china. The napkins were linen.
They’d dragged in more chairs than had been in the room previously, though there had already been plenty, sofas and love seats and thickly cushioned easy chairs and the like. Now there were several rockers and some folding chairs added to the mix. And there were people in every one of them, and others standing, nibbling from their oversized plates, and sipping from their crystal punch glasses.
The focal point was the fireplace, at the front of the room. Gregory and Ian sat in easy chairs that were situated at angles on either side of a small table. In the center of that table was a large manila envelope.
As Aunt Esmeralda led Kira from one group of strangers to the next, introducing her wit
h lists of names and family connections she would never remember in a million years, she looked his way every little while. Not so much for reassurance—she wasn’t the shy type. But more because she so loved looking at him. And every time she did, she found him returning her gaze, his eyes always smiling, the dimples in his cheeks always there. There was more, too, in the way he looked at her—more than just a smile. There was desire, and a tenderness with it that tended to make her throat want to close up a little, and her heart to race a bit faster.
Gregory cleared his throat, and the steady hum of voices fell instantly into silence. “If you would all find a place to sit, we can begin.”
People moved, then, meandering around, finding chairs or convenient corners in which to stand, refilling their glasses one last time, or snatching a few more snacks from the offerings to carry with them to their places. Within a few more moments, everyone was quiet again, and still, and all eyes were riveted to Gregory.
He reached for the envelope, tore it open, and extracted from it a sheaf of papers, their length longer than the standard size. He tugged a pair of bifocals from his breast pocket, perched them on his nose, and then looked out over the tops of them. His steady gaze skimmed everyone there, lingered for a long moment on Kira’s aunt Emma, but when it finally settled, it settled on Kira herself.
“Being that I was Iris’s personal solicitor, I already know the contents of her will. But I am the only one who knows it. She assured me of this.” He glanced at his son as he said that, and Kira saw a tiny frown appear between Ian’s brows. As if he were suddenly worried.
But why would he be?
“Iris was,” Gregory went on, “something of a rebel. I’m sure those of you who knew her are aware of that. She resented some of the restrictions placed upon her by MacLellan family traditions and certain—er—beliefs. And in her final act, she attempted to strike a blow against them.”
Esmeralda tensed. Kira saw it from the corner of her eye. Rose and Emma both moved closer to her, standing on either side as if they’d appointed themselves her personal protectors.
“I, Iris MacLellan,” he read, “being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath all of my worldly possessions, assets and wealth, indeed everything that I have accumulated throughout my lifetime on this planet, to my great niece, Kira MacLellan.”