Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy (9 page)

BOOK: Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy
3.46Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Allene glared. "I'll no stay home waiting again, Niall Campbell! How would you, to know I was out there in danger while you sat home sewing?"

"Were sewing my duty," he said, his voice rising, "then I should sew. Someone must prepare for the men who will come home wounded."

"I'll not sit home sewing your shroud!" Allene insisted.

"If you prevent me doing my duty by following where you dinna belong, there'll be more shrouds needing sewing," he said, equally fiercely. His eyes grew dark in the setting sun. His face colored in temper. "Other women wait for their men. Did your father raise you to think you are above them?"

She clenched her jaw and stared at the stone floor. "My father raised me to do my part. I'm strong. I can fight."

"Which is why the women need you here," he said softly.

"You'll be safer if I go!"

"No." He saw her in a cage, displayed like an animal, like poor Lady Mary. Over his dead body. "You'll not endanger yourself."

"Our people are safer if two go." She hurried on. "If you are injured or caught, I can finish the journey and raise Hugh."

"I leave on the morrow. Alone. I had hoped for a pleasanter good-bye."

"Then say I can go."

He touched her shoulder. "Give me a proper good-bye, because I am going. Alone."

"You'll not get a proper good-bye, because I'm going with you."

Niall touched her cheek, despite her anger. He would not see her for many weeks; if things went poorly at Stirling, forever. He grabbed her, kissing her with a passion he'd rarely dared, his hand pressing in her thick auburn curls. She hugged him tightly, returning the kiss.

Equally suddenly, she shoved him back. "You'll no turn me from my purpose like this! You'll see: I'll be wi' ye when ye leave." She spun and marched to the stairway, brushing by her lady. The maid dipped a small curtsy to Niall, avoiding his eyes, and followed her mistress.

Niall thought of the revelry in the hall below: a last night of merriment before the morning's final conference on his journey, and the danger that would follow close on its heals. His blood churned. Damn her! She'd be fuming and plotting. He'd be loving her and angry all at once. The festivities below lost their pleasure. He glowered out at the loch. Mist bubbled like a witch's potion, creeping high up the castle walls. A wisp of it curled around his feet. He tucked his tartan tightly around himself, bunched his cloak into a pillow, and curled up against the tower wall. He thought about Allene and the future he'd envisioned with her. If only she didn't go and make his job difficult! He shifted, trying to get more comfortable, and hoped, at the very least, for a good night's sleep before his journey.

Glenmirril Castle, Scotland, Present

They waited, with the picnic basket, by the loch behind the castle. Shawn skipped stones across the water and made small talk, soaking in her long, black hair and small, white teeth, the lyric sound of her voice.

She pulled off her shoes to wet her toes. "Cold!" She shivered. "I wouldn't want to swim in it!"

When the last car left the parking lot, he pulled her to her feet. "I found a way in," he said.

For the first time, she smiled a real smile. "Shawn, we can't. We shouldn't be doing this."

"I like seeing you smile." He stopped, facing her. "You used to do it all the time. Come on! Let's go!" As enthusiastic as a young boy, he pulled her up a steep, bramble-covered embankment. With some agility and more luck, he boosted her on the top of the wall, and handed the basket up. She lowered it gingerly to the other side, leaning dangerously far down, then helped him climb up beside her. They dropped down, rolling in the grassy courtyard. Shawn trapped her under him and kissed her. She lay still. He ran his hands over her long hair, spreading across the grass, and touched her face.

"Why are you so different when we're alone?" he asked. "When we're with other people, you act like you can't stand me kissing you."

Amy rolled to her side, pushing him off. "When we're with other people," she said, "you kiss me like it's a show to put yourself in the spotlight. When we're alone, I feel like you really mean it."

He nodded, with a slight frown, and after a moment said, "Let's have our picnic. You're going to love it!" He grabbed the basket, grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet. "Last one there is an out of tune oboe!"

"That's redundant!" She laughed, racing him to the tower. Inside, with the sun just beginning to dip, it was dimmer than it had been.

"Up to the top," Shawn said. "The view's something else!" He led her up rough, stone stairs, past an arched window with a stone cross set in its aperture. They emerged into a ten by ten square, shielded by high walls, and the peculiarly bright light that comes just before the real sunset. Hills and loch stretched beyond the horizons. Mist floated in ribbons on the water's surface.

Amy shivered.

"What's wrong?" Shawn asked. "It's warm up here." But he took off the red tartan, and wrapped it around her shoulders. He stretched out his arms, feeling the glow of the sun and the warm evening air on them. The scent of the bluebells, tucked in the picnic basket, drifted across the tower.

"I don't know," she said. "It just feels...." She paused, looking around the tower. "The flowers have such a strong smell." She took them out, smelling them, and with a shake of her head, laid them in a corner.

"They're in a smaller space."

"But it's open here. On the stairs, it would have made sense. But—it just feels like—like tension up here."

"Tension?" He looked around the tower. "Come on, you've read too many ghost stories about these old Scottish castles. What is it, the ghost of the woman who picked too many bluebells?" He laughed. "Let's eat. Roast beef? Boiled potatoes?" He settled himself on the flagstone floor, pulling plates and food from the basket. Next came six bottles of beer and a fluted wine glass.

Amy groaned. "I told you I hate beer. Especially now."

Grinning, Shawn lifted out a slender, ruby bottle. He held it up, enjoying the pleasure that lit her face. "I listened this time."

She took the bottle. It sparkled like a jewel in the evening light. She gave a small gasp and delighted laugh. "It's the Merlot I love! I didn't know you knew!"

"I know more than you think." He uncorked the bottle with a pop and poured her a glass. "To us."

She raised the glass hesitantly to his beer bottle. Her smile slipped a little.

"No toast?" he asked. She hesitated. "Out with it," he said. "What's wrong?"

She lowered her glass, untasted. "You were right," she said. "We're having a nice day."

"But?"

"Shawn, you don't want to hear it."

He stared at her for several moments, not missing her hand resting on her stomach. He took a deep swallow of his beer. "Maybe not," he said. "Are you...?" He stopped. He didn't really want to know if she was pregnant again. He wanted this moment, this time in his life, to go on forever. "I was thinking," he said, instead, "about what you asked me earlier. Why I'm with you." She raised her head, watching him with less than the trusting eyes he'd hoped for. "I don't really know. I just know I feel different with you than with...." He stopped.

"With Caroline, with that backstage bimbo?" She finished for him. "How flattering."

"She was with Rob." He stared at the flagstones. She had no proof. Caroline wouldn't say anything. Everyone in the orchestra knew better than to upset him; and carrying tales to Amy upset him. Nobody told her. Ever.

"Uh-huh."

He wondered, uncomfortably, if she did know. He hated hearing her sound so cynical, but he'd never given her any reason to doubt him. He didn't want to hurt her. He kept all of it well hidden, after all, never carried numbers, canceled the history on his cell phone, never opened his e-mail in front of her. He took another slow swallow of beer, watching her.

She shook her head suddenly, as if making a decision. "I can't help it, Shawn. I know you don't want to hear it, but even with these wonderful days, something inside me is dead. Ever since the baby...."

He set the beer down, hard. "I don't want to talk about that."

"You're not the only one here! I want to!"

"It's over. You know it was the only thing to do!" He scoffed. "Can you imagine me as a father!"

"Yes, I can," she whispered. "I see so much in you." Her eyes softened. "I could see you as a father then, and I still can, if only you could see that good in yourself!"

"I see plenty of good in myself!" He shot to his feet, the beer bottle dangling from his hand. "So does everyone in this orchestra! I make them a ton of money!"

"Yes, you've done a lot for this orchestra. We were only half alive before you came. Think how much good you could do for your own child!" She scrambled to her feet.

He thumped his arms onto the northern wall, glaring out at the mist curling up the mountain's black face. "You agreed to it."

"I did not!" she exploded. "We fought for two weeks over it! I was afraid of being abandoned. You said my parents would disown me. I was afraid I'd lose my job." She lowered her voice. "Like other people have."

His shoulders stiffened. "We're not discussing it. We're alone in Scotland's most romantic castle, and you want to ruin it!"

"I'm hurting inside, Shawn!" Her hands fell on the shoulders of his tunic. Her breath brushed his neck. "I've tried it your way, stuffing it in, ignoring it, hoping it would go away, and I can't! It's eating me alive, that I did it, that we did it, that I have this awful secret, and there's no one else I can talk to! And we have to face it again...."

"Well, you can't talk to me, either!" He turned abruptly, shaking her hands away, and stabbed her with a stony gaze. "Life's about having fun. A baby—that's not fun for me. This carrying on, like it's something to cry over. That's not fun." He gulped the last of the beer, willing it all away. Caroline! Pregnancies! Angry Scotsmen and counterfeit money! Why did these things happen to him!

She stepped back, stricken. Her lower lip tensed. "I want to go home."

"Well, I don't. We came here to have dinner and make love in the sunset." He dropped back to the floor, patting the stones beside him.

Amy quivered with tension, glaring down at him. "You just told me to shut up and stuff my feelings back out of sight so they don't bother you. And now you think I want to make love to you?"

"Yeah. You always do."

She shook her head. "Not this time. I can't do it anymore, giving myself to a man with a stone where his heart should be. Give me the car keys." She thrust her hand out.

"You didn't get your international license. You can't drive."

"Watch me."

Shawn laughed, digging in the pocket of his baggy, medieval trews. "I know you, Amy. You won't jaywalk on a deserted street. I paid good money for this meal. I'll be out when I'm done." He flipped the keys at her, much harder than necessary.

She caught them in a neat overhand. "I will expect my grandmother's ring back as promised," she said in clipped tones, "or I will raise a holy hell in every possible corner of your life, till you wish you'd never thought up that idiotic story about tinagle connectors." She threw the tartan down at him.

"I didn't make...."

"Stuff it, Shawn. I saw Jim while I was waiting in the lobby. He almost died laughing, said there's no such thing on a trombone. Thanks for humiliating me, on top of it. Maybe some day you'll come clean about what you needed—make that wanted—the money for."

"Hey, that's not fair!" He jumped to his feet. "I needed that money! There was this big Scot. He was coming with his friends to beat the living daylights out of me!"

"Did you sleep with his wife? You probably deserved to be beaten to a pulp." She shoved past him, glaring back from the arched doorway at the top of the stairwell. "I cannot believe I've stayed with you this long!" She spun on her heel. Her voice floated back up from the dark staircase. "I cannot believe I kept thinking there was something better in you!" He ran to the western wall to see her emerge from the tower into the courtyard. Mist swirled around her ankles. "Everybody told me there was nothing better there!" she shouted up at him.

"Bull!" he shouted back, leaning over the tower. "They love me!"

"You have no idea what they say behind your back," Amy yelled. "Selfish, self-centered, obnoxious, loud! They're just afraid of your temper. Arrogant!" She turned and stormed across the courtyard, tearing through tendrils of mist grabbing at her legs.

"I am not loud!"
he bellowed. She disappeared into the gate tower without looking back. Shawn leaned against the wall. After a minute, he yanked out another beer, wrenched the cap off, and threw back a long gulp, his Adams apple bobbing. They were his friends. They loved him. Amy was just mad. Damn Jim for telling. Aw, hell, thought Shawn. He couldn't have known.

Now the abortion. That disturbed him on some level. But it wouldn't, if she'd let it go. He crossed the tower, sipping his beer, and gazed over the wall toward the loch. Its waters had turned deepest blue with the dying light. Mist had thickened and crept up the castle walls. In the distance, a cow lowed, and a car engine rumbled to life.

He spun. A car engine! He dashed back to the western wall, peering frantically across the mist-filled courtyard and the gatehouse walls on time to see the small white rental car roaring out of the parking lot above, spewing dust.

He swore violently. "Amy!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. The cow lowed back in response. She'd left him! She'd actually driven off, stranding him fifteen miles from the hotel, with night falling! He swore again, and kicked the wall. His leather boots offered no protection against stone bulwarks. He grabbed his foot, hopping up and down and swearing. "Hey, my wallet's in the car!" he shouted after her, but with less force. "My ID, my credit cards!" He shivered in the cooling air. He was stuck fifteen miles from his hotel in this ridiculous tunic and medieval shirt, and not even a few dollars to get a taxi.

Aw, damn it, he swore again. She'd come back. She'd get a mile down the road and have a panic attack at having driven illegally; she'd cry and beg him to drive her home, and he'd win her back like he always did, insist first that she allow him to show her the depths of his love, here at the top of the tower, under the stars.

BOOK: Blue Bells of Scotland: Book One of the Blue Bells Trilogy
3.46Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Irish Rebel by Nora Roberts
Encore by Monique Raphel High
Hitched by Erin Nicholas
Hide and Seek by Sue Stauffacher
Double Share by Lowell, Nathan
Bowl of Heaven by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven
Twisted Tales by Brandon Massey
Duck Duck Ghost by Rhys Ford
Blood Flows Deep in the Empire by N. Isabelle Blanco