No Other Woman (No Other Series) (4 page)

Andrew slammed a fist on the table, staring at her. "You challenge an act of God, Shawna MacGinnis?"

"Did God suggest I lure David to the stables?" she asked softly.

She thought for a moment that her great-uncle was going to strike her, he looked at her so furiously.

"The Fire, girl," he bit out, "was an act of God. And if you'd drag your whole family down to wallow in self-pity, then God should have taken you in that inferno as well!"

"I don't believe that The Fire was an act of God," she said determinedly.

"Are you accusing me of setting The Fire? I tell you, girl, I did not!" Gawain declared, his eyes narrowed in fury. "And what is more, the authorities came, specialists all the way from Edinburgh—at the request of your Laird Hawk Douglas, if you'll recall. No arson was proven, lass."

"Then what did happen?"

Gawain planted his hands on the desk and stared into her eyes. "An act of God!" he said with firm fury.

She stared at her great-uncle, shaken by his vehemence. Gawain felt no remorse for David's death, but at least she was convinced of his innocence as far as The Fire went. Perhaps he could put that night behind him. She had tried to do so, but could not. It would haunt her until the day she died.

"Would it have been more convenient for you if I had died in The Fire as well?" she queried.

He exploded again with an oath of impatience. "Good God, lass, that you could accuse me so! But the night is past, and your kin live, and these miners live, and two hundred souls make their livings on these lands. If you want to be part and parcel of the future of Craig Rock, then you must get beyond the past. And live for the future."

Shawna watched him and nodded slowly. She looked back at the letter on the desk once again. "I wonder why he is coming now."

"Well, that, girl, I cannot tell you," Gawain said, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared down at her where she sat in the chair. "Or perhaps I can tell you. Every fool one of us sent condolences to him at his father's death. He must have got the idea that he should come home and claim his property, though God knows what he'd rightfully be doing here, or why any MacGinnis would express concern that he come. Unless someone has a different reason for wantin' him here," Gawain mused. "But be forewarned that he is due. Due—with his new wife and 'friends.' A pack of violent, heathen, dangerous savages, I imagine."

"Uncle, Andrew Douglas may be half-Sioux, but he is an intelligent and extremely well educated man. Whatever his beliefs, he's certainly not a heathen. He mourned his brother's death with what we could certainly consider to be Christian anguish—"

"And demanded an inquest and had us all with our throats bared to the hangman, girl. I had thought that we were well and good done with him." He wagged a finger beneath her nose and warned, "You keep your wits about you, Shawna MacGinnis."

"I'll certainly do my best," she murmured dryly.

"You think before you open your mouth, eh?"

"What could I tell him, Uncle Gawain? What in bloody hell do I know?" she demanded angrily.

"Don't talk to me in that tone, girl."

She knew he didn't like her tone. He didn't like the entire conversation, especially her references to the events of the night of The Fire. Those events had been swept into the dark recesses of their minds.

Coming back now, it seemed, to haunt them all.

"You provided the wine, Uncle," she reminded him with sudden quiet determination.

He stared at her for a long, hard moment.

"Aye, lass, I provided the wine. You were confident you could charm the man to sleep. We needed the documentation of your fool cousin's thievery. I tell you this—I didn't want the man dead."

After all this time, she was startled by the pain that could still seize her. "Then who did?"

"It was a fire, girl, a sad, pathetic thing, nothing more. Have y'not heard a word I've said all night?
The Fire was an act of God!
And don't you go letting the Douglas make more of it, do you be understandin' me, girl?"

He didn't wait for her reply, but exited the office in a blur of MacGinnis plaid.

When he was gone, Shawna looked down at the letter again, and at her fingers, which were still trembling. She let out an oath of impatience against herself. There was brandy in the lower right-hand corner of the desk. She pulled it out and started to search the drawer for a glass. She gave up the search, taking a long swallow straight from the bottle. It seared her throat, but warmed her body deliciously. She started to drink more.

She was nervous. When she was nervous, she drank far too quickly.

Just as she had drunk far too quickly the night of The Fire.

She swore again, standing up. She was going to go to bed. She was glad that Andrew "Hawk" Douglas had married again and found solace when he had no one left on the Douglas side of his family. She'd done well with his people and his estates. He owed her his thanks.

Even if she had passed out, drugged, just moments before his brother had died....

She left the office. The castle was quiet as she hurried to the master's chambers.

Once there, she paused. Sometimes, she still wondered what she was doing here, in Castle Rock. Specifically, in the master's chambers.

But the administration of the castle, the properties, and the mines had always been done from Castle Rock; to be lady here, it was necessary for her to live where the people expected their lady to live. And as to the master's chambers, if she was to make her claim to the title of lady within her own family, it was necessary as well that she command the master's space as her own.

Sometimes, still, she shivered to be here.

And sometimes, the pain was oddly poignant. She could remember David clearly. Remember him here. Remember his touch.

She wasn't going to dwell on the past, she determined with an anger that belied the very sentiment.

She shed her clothing and climbed into her nightdress. She was tired, exhausted.

She lay down, praying for sleep.

It was a long time coming.

Yet when she slept at last, she dreamed. Nightmare images flooded her mind.

It seemed that she had barely closed her eyes before she awoke with a start, choking back the scream that had risen in her throat from the force of her dream. In it she had been running in the hills, aware that she was being chased, terrified of what would come at the end of it. When she looked back at her pursuers, all that she could see were shadows in the mist.

Like shadows, her pursuers were strange, constantly moving shapes, ever-changing as they came ceaselessly closer and closer.

They might have been selkies, creatures of myth and magic, beasts that could shed their coats and adopt human forms. But they were still dangerous creatures, for they remained beasts inside.

They had kept coming and coming, silent as they ran over the green-carpeted hills. Coming closer, closer, encircling her. They hadn't been selkies at all; rather, they had been strange human beings, half-naked, bronze and copper in color, wielding axes, hatchets, bows and arrows. They'd been adorned in feathers, and in her dream she had known that they were savages from America, that they had come for vengeance. The mist continued to swirl all around them, then from that mist there stepped another man, this one clad in Highland colors, kilted and broached, his sword in his scabbard, his dirk set into the sheath at his calf. This one walked straight toward her, this one stared straight into her eyes, and he knew her, knew the truth of all that had happened, and it was then that the scream rose in her throat....

Until she awoke. Hot, yet shivering, her heart beating quickly within her chest.

She rose, trying to calm that racing beat, to slow her breathing.

Dear God, but she was shaken tonight!

She smiled mockingly at herself as she walked to the window, looking out upon the mist-shrouded night. Naturally, she was having nightmares. The new Laird Douglas was coming to Scotland to see to his affairs. Andrew Douglas—Hawk—to those who knew him well. A man who was half American Indian. Her dreams might well be filled with vengeful savages, eager to learn the truth.

What was the truth?

That question had plagued her for five years now, during the time right after The Fire when she had stayed, the time when she had run to Glasgow, the time when she had returned. And now, knowing that David's brother was coming back, she was starting to live with the nightmare again.

Because she had lured David to his death.

Oh, God, not intentionally!

As angry as she might occasionally get with her family, she loved them all. Gawain, Lowell, Alaric, Aidan—and Alistair. Alistair especially, perhaps. He and she were so close in age; they had always been friends. But she'd never meant harm to David, even for Alistair's sake. Her kin had needed time, only time, and she had meant to give them that. But it had been time itself that had betrayed her in the end; fate had played her cruelly. The only good to come of it was that she would never be so innocent again, never so malleable.

Nor, she thought, would she ever live without the nightmares.

She suddenly felt as if she had to escape the confines of the castle, the heavy stone walls that surrounded her.

The shimmer of moonlight on the loch seemed to beckon her. She slipped her white-fringed shawl from the hook by her door, sweeping it around her. She quietly opened her door and stepped barefoot from her room.

This is madness,
she thought. She was like some poor fey creature, rushing out to see the moonglow on the water when it was well past midnight. She told herself firmly that she couldn't ran away from the past, the future, or the nightmares.

Still, the urge was with her. She needed to get out. She ran down the steps to the hall.

The great hall of Castle Rock was empty. She stood on the last step for a moment, surveying it. The great hall at Castle Rock had been much the same for centuries. A massive table in the center, carved hardwood chairs around it, and tall-backed chairs facing the hearth that ran at least half the length of the far wall. The stones that comprised the walls were ancient. What ghosts might linger here, she wondered, then shook off the fanciful thought. The hall was simply caught in the stillness that came with the night. The world itself was quiet.

She hurried out the massive wooden doors to the courtyard, through the high gates, and down the slope of rich, verdant grasses toward the loch. Ahead of her loomed the massive Druid Stones.

Chapter 2

Though the mist was rising, moonglow fell upon the earth, illuminating the ragged cliffs, the rocks, the sweeping plains and vales of the landscape. Soft light, countered by shadow, fell upon the shimmering loch, where again, great cliffs rose on either side of the shoreline in the central valley.

The night was warm for November in the Highlands, quiet and still. Then the man rose from the water, alone and as naked as the bare rock surrounding him, a man as hard and unyielding as that same rock in shape and form, bred and born to the harsh and beautiful tors and craigs of the land around him. His was both a wild and rugged breed of men, a people who had stood their ground for centuries, battled, won and lost, and even into the present day, preserved both honor and individuality. Like many of his ancestors, he had suffered at the hands of the treacherous. And again, like many of those who had come before him, he had survived the malicious intent of others, and come back a more powerful and wary man.

Indeed, he was back.

Laird of all his land.

But none knew it. So far, he mused, he was king of the night. His castle was a cave.

His choice.

For now.

He stood, shaking back a thick length of dark hair. Despite the unseasonable warmth, it was cold enough for him to shiver fiercely, and long for the warmth of his clothing.

Yet he paused, staring upward, suddenly not noticing the chill that assailed him, for from where he had risen from the loch he was given an excellent view of the countryside. Castle Rock to his far right upon the highest cliff, Castle MacGinnis to his far left, both commanding great sweeps of the landscape. Indeed, neither was a manor that could be much coveted by modern standards; both structures had been built long ago, when Highland lairds had determined to take Norman architecture and use it to their own purposes. When William the Conqueror had seized England and looked to Scotland, wary chieftains had seized upon the talented Norman stonemasons instead, and thus had risen these structures. The years had added hidden alleyways and priests' nooks, since religious wars had been waged and Jacobite princes had had to be hidden, but very little had been done to add the modern concepts of comfort and beauty to the strongholds. Castle Rock was the older of the two edifices, standing upon the highest tor, and overlooking the largest amount of property. It was grander in scale, the seat of the Douglases of Castle Rock, a fortress of unique historical significance.

Castle Rock was his.