Chapter 2 #2
“She came just now, Brother, but I cannae understand her,” he told Tasgall as he carried the small woman over to one of the big hearths and carefully placed her on a bench by the fire.
As the flames wafted toward him she clutched at his hands, refusing to allow him to leave her, so he nudged the bench back to a safe distance.
“’Twas a gold-clad spider in the passage behind the lass, and ’tis likely the facking thing bit her. Send for the healer, I beg you.”
The laird ordered two guards to fetch Benedict Miller and Alec, the clan’s war master, then came over with a bucket of sand to douse the fire in the hearth.
Ava also joined them and crouched down to touch the newcomer’s arm.
To Darro’s surprise his brother’s wife spoke to her in the same musical language.
“Sorry, it’s okay, I speak English,” the woman said, looking up at the laird’s wife. “I don’t understand. How can you be here? You’re dead… I…” She then tilted her head back to look at Darro and went very still. “No manches.”
When her eyes rolled back in her head, Darro quickly grabbed and supported her with his arm, holding her upright as he studied her now-pale face.
The delicate woman weighed no more than a half-sack of grain, which worried him as much as her swoon.
He noticed for the first time the blood on her mouth, which appeared swollen as if she’d been struck there. Who would hurt such a fragile female?
“My lady.” His heart sank when she didn’t respond to his voice. “Do you ken her, Lady Ava?”
“Not personally, but I have heard of her. She’s a journalist.” The laird’s wife picked up and studied a large rectangular pendant hanging from the woman’s neck.
“This says her name is Esme Martinez. She works for Monterey Today. She must have covered the crash that supposedly killed me in the outside world, or she wouldn’t think I was dead.
” She frowned at Darro. “What did you do to scare her like that?”
His heart clenched. “Naught that I ken, my lady.”
“A journalist?” Tasgall echoed, sounding puzzled.
Ava thought for a moment before she said, “Ms. Martinez investigates people, places and events and reports what she learns about them to the public. What she reports is called news.”
“Like a scout, then,” Darro said, disturbed by the thought of Esme doing such dangerous work. Did no one protect the women of the modern world?
“Somewhat similar to that, yes.” The laird’s wife regarded the limp woman. “She’s also awake now and listening to everything we’re saying. Don’t have another hissy fit, Ms. Martinez. News of my death was greatly exaggerated.”
“Okay.” Esme opened one eye. “Then tell me, Agent Travars, where am I?”
“You’re still at McKeran’s Castle,” Ava said. “This one is located in another dimension that has us all trapped in a time loop.”
As the laird’s wife explained how the castle had been cursed to become an enchanted prison, Darro watched Esme’s face.
The fact that she had concealed reviving from the swoon baffled him as much as why she had looked upon him as if seeing a demon.
Now she reacted to the more fantastic details being related by Lady Ava with only a flick of her lashes now and then; her expression never changed.
She also kept her full attention on the other woman while holding onto his tunic with her small, delicate hands.
What told him of her fear was the way in which her grip grew tighter by the moment.
Darro had no intention of releasing her yet.
Indeed, he wondered if he could find an excuse to keep holding her for the rest of the night.
Hadn’t Alec done that when his lady Olivia had been forced into the spell trap?
Yet now that someone else had come in, Tasgall would want answers, and would order him to obtain them.
If he were a wall watcher or stable hand instead of second to the laird, he could stay with her, and see to her comfort while another took his place.
No one but him had ever served as the senior chieftain of the clan, likely because no one had ever coveted his position.
While the laird’s wife spoke, Darro let his resentment ebb by silently admiring Esme’s unusual beauty.
He’d never encountered a woman with such sunshine and shadow coloring; her golden brown skin reminded him of the cairngorm stones that his lady màthair and her druid tribe had used in their rituals.
They, too, had a luscious gleam of peach and rose when the light moved over them.
Her skin also seemed very thin and soft, like the fine, amber down feathers that as a lad he'd once found in the abandoned nest of a golden oriole.
The flames from the nearby torches picked out gray and white glints in her hair, which otherwise appeared so black it was darker than the night sky.
Her eyes were a brown so dark they resembled onyx, and were framed by thick, dense black lashes that lent her a slumberous look.
The shapeliness of her lips made him imagine kissing her. He hated that she had been hurt there, for she had the loveliest mouth, with a fullness that begged to be tested.
Although he’d assumed she was very young, he now sensed a maturity that had not been evident before.
Her poise, the alertness in her eyes, and the manner in which she took in everything without speaking a word suggested strongly that she was a woman grown.
She might be small, but her attention was that of an archer poised to release an arrow.
She also had beautiful curves as well, although he tried not to gawk at her body.
Everything about her made him think of fire made flesh.
How shall she fare here? Darro suspected she would have trouble adjusting to her new life in their enchanted prison.
Yet what could he do to help her when there was no real chance of escape?
Her gaze shifted to him after Ava finished telling her about the spell trap, and a flicker of uncertainty passed over her pretty face.
She’s already distressed.
“You neednae worry, my lady,” Darro murmured to her. “Here you shall be safe, I promise you.”
She began to smile, and then froze as Farlan McKeran and the clan’s new chatelaine entered the hall. The couple, who had overcome terrible trials in order to survive the last magical attack on the clan, now went everywhere together.
“This can’t be real,” Darro heard her whisper. “None of it.”
“’Tis as real as you and me, lass.” He took hold of her hand, rubbing his thumb over her delicate knuckles. “Believe in your senses.”
Esme gave him a strange look. “Maybe you should convince me of that later, mi vida.”
“Looks like we have a newcomer,” Grace Johansen said, smiling as she approached them. Tall, fair and with the flawless features of a Norse queen, she radiated elegance and beauty. “Hello, I’m Grace, the clan’s chatelaine.”
Her husband, one of the more congenial McKeran, bowed. “Welcome to Dun Talamh, my lady.” His handsome face lit up with one of his fetching grins. “I’m Farlan McKeran, the clan’s seneschal and Grace’s husband to be.”
For a moment Darro thought Esme might swoon again, but she gripped his arm as she got to her feet and peered at both women as if not trusting her eyes.
“What is it?” Ava asked.
“Just trying to believe what I’m seeing.
Everyone but me thinks you killed yourself,” she told Grace before she regarded Ava again.
“Everyone and me knows you’re dead. They found your body in a burned up wreck at the bottom of a cliff, so how can you be here?
Ay, Dios mio. It wasn’t your body,” she said, answering herself before the laird’s wife could, and pressing a hand to her forehead. “This is so crazy.”
Darro nearly reached to pull her back into his arms before he remembered she didn’t belong to him. “’Twas likely the enemy who cursed our clan that made it seem as if our ladies died in your world.”
“The enemy.” Esme looked even more confused. “How could anyone from your time fake a death in mine? The enemy doesn’t work at the coroner’s office, right?”
“I was a federal agent and because I was investigating a potential serial murderer, my people would have called in every law enforcement office in the state to help look for me,” Ava said. “My guess is someone used magic to transform that victim into me, and that way they closed the case.”
Esme blew out a breath. “So it was, what, like another curse?”
“Wait a sec. Why would anyone think that I committed suicide?” Grace asked. “It can’t be because I sold all of my mother’s things before I disappeared.”
“They found your rental car abandoned by Lovers Point,” Esme told her. “My editor’s theory was that you were so depressed you jumped in the ocean from one of the cliffs there and drowned.”
“Oh, please.” The chatelaine’s expression darkened. “My mother hated me, and used me, and made my entire life miserable. I wasn’t happy that she died, but it didn’t depress me.”
“I didn’t buy it, Ms. Johansen,” Esme said. “I thought someone wanted to make it look like you were a suicide. That seems to fall in with what happened after Agent Travars came here. If it was magic, then maybe this enemy guy really did use it on both of you.”
Grace nodded. “Makes sense. They probably did something similar to Olivia—she was forced into the spell trap before I got here—and now you.” Sympathy softened her big brown eyes. “Did you leave family back home?”
“No husband, kids or parents. Just lots of aunts, uncles and cousins.” Esme rubbed her eyes for a moment and then turned around to look at Darro. “What’s your name, mi vida?”
At last she remembered he was here, he thought, and rose to his feet to bow to her. “Darro McKeran, my lady.”