Chapter One #3
He was hallucinating, surely, for nothing he said made any sense now.
“Papa—” She tried to press him back, but he reached out and seized the paper he’d been reading when he fell ill; Maura had tossed it aside, onto the bedside table. He thrust it into her hands, then collapsed back upon the pillows. “Read,” he commanded in as stout a voice as ever. “Read!”
As if guided by some force from above, her gaze homed in directly on the line that read:
Alec McBride, Duke of Gleneden, has arrived in Ireland for several weeks of angling.
Prior to his return home to Scotland, Lord Preston, Baron of Killane, will play host to the duke for the last week of his visit.
On Thursday, 10 June, Lord Preston will honor the duke with a masquerade ball to conclude his grace’s visit.
One cannot help but wonder if the dashing Black Scotsman will capture the hearts of our Irish lasses as surely as he has captured many a heart in his homeland…
Stunned, Maura went very still. The paper slid from her hands onto the floor. A strange sensation seized hold of her.
“You see, Maura? You understand now, don’t you? The Black Scotsman has returned. He has returned!”
Maura shook her head. “Papa, this man…this duke…”
“I see it, Maura. I know it. Promise me you will find him.”
His breath grew heavy and labored. She almost hated herself for thinking it, but he had not long to live. She could almost see him slipping away.
Tears filled her eyes. “Stay, Papa. Stay.” It was a cry of outrage, a desperate plea, as if she could stop the inevitable.
There was a suffocating tightness in her chest, as if her heart was being chipped away, piece by piece. She battled to hold back tears. It was useless. A tear slid down her cheek, followed by another. She didn’t want to promise. She didn’t want to let go of him. She didn’t want to lose him.
She gripped his hands. He held tight—so tight it was as if lightning flashed inside her brain, her very blood—as if a current of some strange unknown energy passed from his body into hers.
It was believed by many that her father had the sight. It was true things often happened as he said they would. He often dismissed this belief in his usual, jovial way. Yet now Maura realized for the first time—and with an unswerving certainty—that it was the truth.
Some might have argued there was no reason to believe that this man whom the newspaper called the Black Scotsman could possibly be related to the pirate of yesteryear, the Black Scotsman who stole the Circle of Light.
Yet, with an uncanny certainty, Maura felt the truth to the core of her being.
This man, Alec McBride, Duke of Gleneden…
carried the blood of his pirate ancestor, the Black Scotsman.
Her father cried out, “I see in your eyes that you feel it, too. That you understand. That you know it as I do. Oh, aye, girl, it was his ancestor who stole from us, stole everything. Go to him, Maura. Seek him out. Go to Lord Preston’s and find this Black Scotsman and follow him to his home—to his lands, for it is there you will find the Circle.
Find it and bring it home, child. Take back what is ours.
End this curse, that our lands and people will again be blessed with good fortune.
Promise me, Maura. Promise me you will find this man.
Promise me you will find the Black Scotsman. ”
Her throat was so raw she could barely speak. “Papa, I do not know—”
“You will find a way, my child. You are the one. The only one who can save us. I feel it here.” He thumped his heart. Tears filled his eyes.
Just as tears filled hers.
“Promise me, daughter. Promise me you will bring the Circle home, home where it belongs.”
Her voice was but a shred of sound. “I promise, Papa.”
Relief flooded his eyes. Then all at once he tipped his head to the side. “Listen,” he whispered.
A sound echoed eerily through the night.
The howl of a wolf.
And there were no wolves left in Ireland.
An odd shiver filled her heart. It was a sign, she realized. A sign that transcended belief and reason and explanation. A sign of all that had been…
And everything to come.
He squeezed her fingers. “All will be well, my darling Maura. All will be as it should be.” A faint smile graced his lips. Her promise had given him peace, she decided vaguely.
The thought came the instant his grip slackened. The very instant she was aware of life draining from his body.
Downstairs the clock tolled midnight.
Now she knew what was different about this day, for it came to her then. Her father, the earl of McDonough, chief of the Clan McDonough, had died on the very day the Black Scotsman had stolen the Circle.
Two hundred years earlier.
Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Maura kissed his brow. “I will not forsake my promise, Papa,” she whispered. “I will not.”
She rose to her feet, a determined resolve beating in her blood, her very heart.
She would honor her promise to him. She would bring the Circle home to their lands.
She would not fail him.