Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy (13 page)

"My dad's dream come true," Rob said. His leg touched hers. "One of us kids playing professionally. He taught high school band for thirty years."

"My parents gave me all the lessons," Amy said, "but they think I could have done better things, like be a doctor or a lawyer."

They talked about Shawn.

"He decided we were having a Bash for Brass." Rob laughed; the sunlight flashed off his blond hair. "All the brass players. He wouldn't take no for an answer. He had this huge cookout for all of us, families and everything. He pulled me in, asked my advice, treated me like his best friend. Kind of let me know I was his new best friend, you know, and what Shawn says, goes."

Amy nodded, understanding. "Remember how he came into the first rehearsal walking on his hands? He was looking at me the whole time, seeing if I was watching. And he kept it up through that whole rehearsal. Kept turning his head. He hung around when I was talking to other people, for weeks, and I didn't get it, because he was so upfront with all those other women, asking them out, and well—you know what that means with Shawn. But he never talked to me, at first."

"You turned him down when he finally asked you out. Twice. He told me about it over beer once. What changed your mind?"

Amy stared over the water to the pine-covered hills. "I saw a different side to him," she said. "When my mother was so sick, he bought me a ticket home to see her. He slid it under my door, and tried to run away, but I caught him. I made him come in, and he was a different person. He talked, like a real person, not like the strutting bravado in the spotlight he always was at rehearsals. He told me his dad died unexpectedly and how important it was to say good-bye to my mother, if...." She paused, biting her lip. "If it came to that. That's when I started to fall in love with him." Rob grabbed a pebble and shot it hard, skipping it—two, three, four staccato, accented beats—across the water. Amy went on. "And when we do the arranging together, he's different. It's like he's ashamed of this good person inside him."

"He's not ashamed." Rob snorted. "Because that good person really isn't there." He glared at the water, slapping gently at the rocks, just inches from his tennis shoes. "He knows how to put on an act, that's all."

"I just can't believe it was an act that night," Amy said softly. They were silent for another minute before she said, "We were here yesterday. Right on this rock. Do you ever look at things that have been here for hundreds of years, and wonder, who else sat here? What things have happened right in this very spot?"

"Children fishing, boys playing soldiers," Rob said. "Couples falling in love."

Amy smiled. She didn't pull her hand away when he took it in his. "How mad do you think he'll be?"

"With Shawn, it's a big explosion, but then it's over. Or he might come out and make a joke of it. Try a prank on us, maybe."

"Yeah, I can see Shawn trying a prank," Amy said. They sat silently for another few minutes. She stared at the water. Rob's hand wrapped warmly around hers. It could be so much better than it was with Shawn. She'd never be afraid of angering—really angering—Rob. He would even welcome a child, she thought. So why, inside, did she feel only emptiness at the touch of his hand?

The slightest of sounds drew her head around, and she jumped up with a short, sharp scream, eyes wide, hand on her chest. "Shawn!" she yelped. "You scared me half to death! Put that knife away!"

Glenmirril Castle, Scotland

Shawn faced the five stone faces, two clean, three with bushy beards in shades of red, gray, and silver. Fake, he wondered? How did they manage three such similar actors? Another discomfort took up residence in his brain. He rubbed his temple, wanting coffee. A day shouldn't start without it. Iohn pushed him to the side. "Hold your tongue a moment, Niall." He stepped forward, bowing to the assemblage.

"Young Iohn," the man in the center rumbled. Shawn struggled to understand the man's accent, even as he studied the craggy face, weathered and as red as his beard. A scar ran from his temple to his jaw. Heavy white and auburn eyebrows rose in fury above blue eyes, as piercing and brilliant as the water outside. "You found him."

"My lords." Iohn rose from his bow. "I beg your leave this once. I know not what has happened, but my lord Niall is not in his right mind. See how even now he rubs his head?" They all looked at Shawn. He dropped his hand. "He has never once missed an assemblage or shirked any duty. He has been babbling nonsense and behaving oddly. I fear he is taken ill, perhaps from the arrow wound? Or his head? He took quite a blow, the night of the cattle raid."

Shawn watched studiously. If these were indeed actors—noting how the word if had crept into his vocabulary—they were playing it to the hilt. Not a sign of a wink or nod, or noticing he wasn't playing his part. As if the script had indeed been written for an addled Lord Niall to step into the middle of their playacting.

Which it certainly could not have been.

No cars in the car lot. Sheep transporting themselves in without a truck. His head hurt. He didn't want to think this hard. A giant brick oven where there had been ruins, and people who freely buffeted others, mindless of lawsuits and brain injuries. He looked around the hall, at the tapestries, roaring fires in the giant hearths, rushes on the floor.

"Step forward, Niall," rumbled the clan chief.

Shawn stepped forward, weak-kneed and grateful he was no longer wearing the tartan of these people's enemy. Don't be ridiculous, he chided himself. But he wondered if he'd been kidnapped from the tower and carried to the most rugged, wild part of Scotland where old ways still held sway. Maybe they meant to hold him for ransom. He was an important man, after all. He shook his head. Then it made no sense for them to be calling him Niall. So they must be living history actors.

"Speak, Niall."

"I'm...I'm not Niall," Shawn said. A thud to the back of his head sent a new jolt through his unhappy body, and suggested this was not an acceptable answer.

"Niall, your jests are well known. Usually, however, they are in good form. This is not. You missed a very important meeting."

"If he is ill, my Lord...." suggested Iohn.

"He looks the picture of health. He is robust and has color in his cheek. Though his speech is odd."

"'Tis too much ale," said Iohn.

"Can I speak?" Shawn asked.

"Speak," commanded the Laird.

"No more punches?" He cast Iohn a dirty look, rubbing his head.

"Punches?" asked another of the stone faces.

"He appears to mean buffets," suggested another, smaller man, studying Shawn curiously.

"Ah," said the first. "Pu-unches." He tasted the word. "Punches."

"No buffets," the chief commanded Iohn.

Shawn pulled himself to his full height, though it increased the nausea in his stomach. "I'm Shawn Kleiner."

He waited for their awe.

The men looked back and forth, quizzically, at one another. "What is he saying? He's not so old."

Shawn cocked his head at this odd statement before remembering the Gaelic word
sean
meant old.

"Why does he talk of shawms?" asked another.

"I did say he was speaking strangely," Iohn said.

"I'm a musician," Shawn snapped. The pounding in his head kicked into another violent crescendo. Whoever they were, they ought to have at least heard of him. Unless he really was, somehow, deep in the wilds of Scotland.

"Yes, Niall, you've great skill on the harp."

"No!" Shawn shook his head, making drums pound inside. "I don't play harp. I mean, I play loads of instruments, I can play a little harp, but not well. I play trombone."

"Trumboon?" A voice creaked from one of the craggy faces. "What's this?"

Shawn struggled to think. If this was the wildest, oldest part of Scotland, what could he tell them? "It's long. It's got a bell." He gestured with his hands. "It's got a slide." He motioned with his right arm, in and out.

Most of the faces remained blank, but the Laird's awoke with understanding. "Niall, my lad! You were listening when I told you about sackbuts! But you've never touched the one the gypsies gave me."

Beside him, Iohn coughed loudly. "O' coorse he hasn't."

"O' coorse not," echoed one of the five, a young man. "'Tis but a fantasy woven in his delusions. Mayhap the blow to the head is more serious than we knew."

The chief studied Shawn. "Niall, tell us why you missed the council."

He spread his hands helplessly. "I'm trying to tell you...."

"No more of this nonsense!" roared one of the older men, half rising to his feet, and Shawn felt uncomfortably certain this was not acting. He stepped back.

"Look at him stepping back from us," said a man on the right. "Can this be the bold young Campbell who stole a kiss from the Laird's own daughter!"

"That will not be discussed!" thundered the Laird. "Young Campbell knows what will happen ere he touches my daughter again before they are wed! You say you did not know of the meeting, Niall. Where do you say you were last night?"

"I was just visiting yesterday. We drove out here."

"'Visiting?' You live here."

"Drove what? Cattle? 'Twas two days ago."

"A car," Shawn said. They stared at him blankly. "I was having a picnic in the tower."

"Picnic?"

"I was eating dinner in the tower."

"What a peculiar thing to do!" said the man to the Laird's right, stroking his beard. "You ate in the great hall, at this very table with us."

"No, I didn't...." Shawn paused at the look on their faces. He made, perhaps the mistake, of glancing down. Under the table were five pairs of legs, three of them rough and old, covered in leather boots, two pairs young and sturdy. From the top of each boot jutted the hilt of a large knife. How would they react to a stranger in their midst? He had a feeling xenophobia didn't begin to describe the situation here. His gut twisted. Perhaps it was best to become who these people thought he was.

"I had dinner in the tower...later," he amended. "I had something to drink, and I fell asleep," he finished lamely. The Lady Allene—he would enlist her help. There was talk of a journey. He would simply walk away, as soon as he got out of the castle. The orchestra would be wondering where he had gone. Certainly Amy would have the decency to tell them, and they'd come looking.

And what would they find? Had he somehow been taken to a place similar to Glenmirril, or had they come into the castle while he slept? But that, of course, was ridiculous. They couldn't build the castle up around him and bring in sheep and change bedroom decor while he slept. He gave his head a shake, willing the room to stand still.
I had too much to drink,
he told himself.
Somebody put something in my drink. This makes no sense
.

The men at the table watched him closely. His decision made—he would be this Niall until he could get away—he bowed, as Iohn had done. "My Lords.…" The words sounded foreign, but he was used to fooling people. This would work. "My Lords, I beg your forgiveness. I drank too much. I overslept. I forgot. It won't happen again."

A nodding of heads and a string of reprimands flowed and ebbed around the table.

"I truly beg your forgiveness," Shawn said. "I'm ready for the meeting and anything I need to do today. Although...." He had to account for not knowing the things they would expect Niall to know. "I think...I remember hitting my head in the..." What was it Niall had been doing? "In the sheep raid."

"Cattle, Niall, they were cattle," said the smallest lord, looking worriedly at the other men.

"Yes, I meant cattle, and my head has felt...foggy...since. I'm having a hard time remembering...uh, remembering some things. I beg forgiveness...." It seemed like a good expression; it had brought nods of approval last time. "If I seem not myself."

He committed himself to charming a few girls and finding out what he needed to know. And he wondered again if the orchestra had noticed he was missing. Schmitz needed an answer, and would come looking for him. Damn Amy for leaving him here and getting him into this mess. What in the world had got into her, anyway? He wondered, not for the first time, why he attracted such temperamental women.

* * *

"Bring this woman some clothes!" Niall averted his eyes from the woman, and addressed the man.

The white-haired man in front of him looked—stunned. He should jump, show fear perhaps, or defiance, but this dazed look on his face—was the man an idiot? Were they both idiots, let loose by uncaring kin to wander the shore half dressed? Barely dressed, Niall amended. He tried to keep his eyes off the woman, not wanting to shame her.

But the man looked at her, and she at him. Agitated gibberish flew from her mouth.

"English, Shawn," the man said dryly, turning back to Niall. "The atmosphere's great and all, but we still don't speak Gaelic."

"English?" Niall switched tongues. His back stiffened. His eyes narrowed. He scanned the loch, its misty water lapping just inches behind the man's feet, and the mountains, rising as they always had, beyond. He raised the dirk an inch.

"Very funny," said the man. But he gave the knife a dubious glance. "What did you say?"

"Bring this wooman some clooz." Niall spoke slowly in English, his eyes on the man's.

The woman gave, suddenly and inexplicably, a laugh, looking down at her small, tight garments. The shirt, a shade of pink Niall had never imagined in clothing, bared her entire arm. She wore trews! "You're joking! I mean, you really are joking, aren't you? I know you hate this shirt, and I'm sure you're mad at me for leaving you in the tower."

Niall turned his attention full on her, dumbfounded, meeting her eyes. She spoke so quickly, and such a bastardization of the English tongue that he caught only half her words. But she was clearly not the least ashamed of her state of undress! And leaving him in the tower? Was she mad? He turned back to the man, who looked at him curiously with another nervous glance at the dirk. "Shawn, maybe you should put the knife down," he said. "The joke's gone far enough."