Chapter 6 #2
He searched his vast repertoire of cheeky replies for something suitable, but came up with nothing. It would certainly have been useful to draw attention away from the highly unsettling feeling of timelessness he felt by just looking at her, but it was apparently not to be.
The longer he knelt in front of her, the more intensely he found himself wishing they could remain there forever.
It was all he could do not to reach out and pull her into his arms. He didn’t dare, and for more reasons than just her damaged tailbone.
So, instead of doing what he wanted—which he was quite sure would be the height of idiocy—he merely reached out and touched her hair.
She closed her eyes and shivered.
He understood.
The saints pity him, he did not want this. He prayed for a distraction of monumental proportions. A rain shower, an earthquake, a tempest of any kind. Anything to break the spell.
Bagpipes started up in the distance.
Her eyes flew open. “Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Oh, aye,” he said, in relief.
“It’s just like at Culloden. Playing that same song.” She looked at him. “A friend of yours?”
He managed to shake his head. “Never met the bloke, but he seems to haunt me quite regularly.”
“Haunt? Haunt as in ‘it’s such a haunting melody,’ or haunt as in ‘it’s being played by a ghost’?”
“The latter.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Neither do I,” Patrick said. He didn’t, and technically that was true.
Belief ceased to exist in the presence of sure knowledge, didn’t it?
“Can’t deny the lad has some skill, though, whoever he is.
” And in whatever century he learned his trade, he added silently.
For himself, Patrick thought the piper’s battle dirges sounded quite a bit like fourteenth century, but that was just his opinion.
He held out her clip, then kept his hand outstretched after she took it.
“Now we have our exit music, shall we go?”
She put her hand in his. She shivered.
He was hard-pressed not to.
“I don’t know you,” she said, sounding as if she were trying to convince herself.
“I’m Patrick MacLeod.”
“That’s not what I mea—oh, never mind.” She shook his hand. “I’m Madelyn Phillips.”
“A pleasure.”
She looked at him for another moment or two, then took a deep breath and looked away from him. “This is some place you have here.”
“Hmmm,” he agreed.
“It’s like we’ve gone back in time.”
“By the saints, I hope not,” he muttered. He stood up and reached down for her other hand. “Carefully, now. Up you go.”
She stood, swayed, gasped, then got her feet under her like a newborn colt—namely very unsteadily and with not a great deal of grace. But she didn’t complain.
“I don’t think I can walk quite yet,” she said.
“Could you bear to be carried?”
“I don’t think I can handle that, either. I can get there myself. Just give me a minute.”
He waited patiently, then put his arm around her and helped her the last five feet to Moraig’s house.
He raised his hand to knock on Moraig’s door but found that was unnecessary. The door opened.
“Ah, Patty,” she said with a smile, revealing several teeth already gone the way of all men. “Ye’ve brought your lady.”
He made a noncommittal noise. His lady? The saints preserve him if that was the case.
But he said nothing to contradict Moraig.
He brought Madelyn in and set her down in a comfortable chair near the hearth.
He let the soothing sounds of Moraig’s muttering in Gaelic wash over him.
It made him feel at home—Moraig’s pointed looks notwithstanding.
“So,” Moraig said, looking at Madelyn closely, “what ails her?”
He answered in Gaelic. “Fell off her horse and landed upon her fetching backside. I couldn’t see carrying her to my house.”
“Especially since you’ve nothing there to aid her.” Moraig looked at him with disapproval. “A few herbs might serve ye, laddie.”
“Might,” Patrick agreed. He didn’t even own an aspirin. He wasn’t about to stock his cupboards with anything else.
Moraig was seemingly unimpressed. She began barking orders at him, and he obeyed before he thought better of it. He was halfway through making Moraig’s healing tea before he realized what he was doing. He shot Moraig a quick look only to find her staring at him with a smile. He scowled.
“I’ll finish this for you, old woman, only because I have great respect for old women, you in particular.”
“You have healing hands, Patrick. You shouldn’t deny your gift.”
“My hands have no gift left, as the past amply demonstrates,” he said shortly. He handed his Yank her tea. “Here,” he said in English, “drink this. It will cure what ails you.”
“Thank you,” she said. She turned to Moraig. “Thank you,” she said in Gaelic.
He wondered if he should be embarrassed to have spoken so freely in front of her, or if she deserved it for not having told him what she knew. “Where did you learn Gaelic?” he asked.
“I don’t know it. You’ve heard the extent of my repertoire,” she said. “My parents are linguists.”
“What else do you speak? Just so I’m prepared.”
“A romance language or two—Italian, French, a little Portuguese. Some German. Enough Russian to get to the bathroom. You?”
“Bathroom phrases in a language or two,” he admitted. No sense in giving her more details than she needed. His travels hadn’t been in vain. “Are you a linguist, too?” he asked.
“Nope. A lawyer.”
“Interesting choice.”
“I have an interesting family.”
Patrick had to stop himself from asking any more questions about her.
He didn’t want to know more. He didn’t want to like her.
He didn’t want to like the way she smiled, nor the way her eyes twinkled, nor the way she squeaked when she hurt.
By the saints, what he needed was a woman with some endurance, not a lawyer in orange plaid pants who couldn’t keep her seat on a useless nag.
He stood back in the shadows and let his list expand.
She was a less than perfect patient. After her first swallow of tea, she demanded all sorts of information about what was in it, what would come next, and why Moraig lived in the woods.
Argumentative. Irritatingly so.
“I don’t believe in the woo-woo herb business,” she announced as Moraig felt her head for lumps.
Impolite as well.
“I think I regret setting foot on that horse,” she said as Moraig felt down her spine.
Weak-minded, he decided. She should very seriously regret getting on Whoa Bullet’s back.
“Do you have any Advil?”
Well, there was little sense in even commenting on that. “You need to sleep,” Moraig announced. She looked at Patrick. “See her home, my lad.”
He looked at Madelyn. “I’ll be right back, then we’ll get you back to the inn.”
“Oh.” She rubbed her tailbone uneasily, but didn’t put up a fight. “If you think so . . .”
He didn’t like the way she gave in. Why wasn’t she demanding to know his plans?
And why did she have to have that bloody mass of riotous curls, curls that Moraig’s firelight seemed to have been created to dance in?
He left Moraig’s humble home before he had to look at her anymore. He strode back up to where he’d left his horse. The Black was there keeping company with that silly Whoa Bullet who’d already gotten his reins tangled in a particularly troublesome bit of brush.
Patrick took off Bullet’s bridle and stored it in the saddlebag almost on top of what on further inspection looked to be Miriam MacLeod’s best veggie pasties.
He reconsidered. Maybe he would be doing Miss Madelyn a favor by keeping her lunch safe in his icebox.
Then again, with his icebox’s notorious reputation for powering off without provocation, perhaps it would just be best to eat them at his earliest opportunity.
He liberated the saddlebag, fixed Bullet’s bridle to his saddle, then sent him home with a slap on the rump. Bullet, now that he had no passenger, seemed to find the journey worth no more than an amble.
Patrick swung up on Black and turned him toward home. He enjoyed the ride, especially since he was sitting comfortably. He didn’t envy Madelyn her next pair of days.
He quickly made his way home, but pulled up short outside his walled courtyard. He slid off his horse and landed softly. What was this? Trespassers were rare, but he did get them occasionally. But generally not ones as nosy as this one.
He was waiting in the shadows of a tree as the intruder rounded the corner. Not a professional thief, if his lack of stealth was any indication. Just a snoop, probably.
The man bent to peer into Patrick’s kitchen window. Patrick stepped up behind him and poked a stick in his back.
“Who are ye?” he snarled. “And what do ye want?”
“Assault!” the man squeaked, throwing up his hands. “I’ll sue!”
“Be a bit hard to sue if ye’re dead,” Patrick said.
The man went still. “I am Bentley Douglas Taylor III, Esquire, and if you hurt me, I’ll see you in jail for the rest of your life.”
Patrick snorted. “Again, that’d be a bit hard to do if you’re dead. Fortunately, you’re not worth the effort.” He tossed his stick aside, put a hand on Bentley Douglas Taylor III, Esquire, and spun him around. “Now, my friend, what are you looking for?”
“My fiancée.”
“Your fiancée,” Patrick repeated. Would some daft wench actually agree to wed with this buffoon?
“Madelyn Phillips. Perhaps you’ve seen her.”
All the more reason not to like that dark-haired wench. She obviously had no taste in men. Patrick looked at Bentley Douglas Taylor III coolly.
“What does she look like?”
“Tall, dark hair, overweight. Dressed in horrendous orange plaid pants. I’m surprised she hasn’t busted out of them already.”
Patrick took an immediate and thorough dislike to the man. “May have spotted her somewhere,” he said.
“Where?” Taylor demanded.
Nowhere you’ll be able to follow.
He looked at Taylor sternly. “Best get yourself off my land before you find yourself in more trouble than you’ll fancy.”
Taylor looked primed to argue, then seemed to reconsider. He pursed his lips, then walked slowly back across the courtyard. Patrick watched him until he’d put himself quite slowly and apparently unwillingly in his Jaguar.
Patrick watched him for a moment or two to make certain he was turning his car on and leaving, then he saw to his own business.
He put up Black, had a pasty or two, then walked across his courtyard.
Taylor was sitting in his running car, a frown on his face.
Patrick got into his Range Rover and headed for Moraig’s.
Taylor could stay and snoop if he wanted.
Nothing to steal that he could put into his car and carry away. The house was safe.
Taylor seemed less determined to stay than to follow. Patrick wondered, as he watched the man in his rearview mirror, what had ever possessed Madelyn to find herself attached to the wretch. Insufferable prig.
The Jag slowed.
The Jag stopped.
The Jag slid around a bit, then eased backward into a very well-formed bog.
Taylor got out, stepped up to his knees in muck, then began waving and hollering.
Patrick smiled grimly. Served the fool right. He supposed he’d have to fetch him soon enough, if only to get him back on the road.
But later. For now, he’d best rescue Madelyn from Moraig. The saints only knew what kind of tales that feisty old woman had been telling. Not that he cared what Madelyn thought, no indeed. He didn’t like her. She would be easy to get out of his mind.
Very easy indeed.
And he would start putting her far from his thoughts immediately after he’d dropped her off at Roddy’s, where he wouldn’t have to look at her, listen to her, or, the saints pity him, touch her again.
If he felt that electricity one more time, he just might never rid himself of the feeling.