Sarah Gabriel (30 page)

“C
ome here,” Sophie said. She took Connor by the hand and pulled him with her across the length of the long room, their steps echoing on polished wooden floors, quieted by plush Turkish rugs in red, blue, and gold. “This is what I brought you here to see.”

He laughed. “Oh? Not to have dinner with your brother, the chief of your clan, and your kinsmen? Not even to meet dear Mrs. Evans, who claims she nearly died of apoplexy the night I snatched you? Not even,” he said, catching her close to him, so that she laughed breathlessly, “to see your childhood home, and the gardens you mucked about in as a child? Just to see this.”

“Aye, this,” she said, dragging him by the hand toward a sideboard of polished mahogany, with a
gleaming glass dome set upon a wooden pedestal draped in red velvet.

Inside the protection of the glass stood a goblet. A simple thing, really, its golden bowl and stem of hammered gold, its base intricately etched with a band of engraved swirls and spirals that matched the border circling the rim of the cup. Set within that engraved upper border was a sparkling chain of small crystals, winking in the light that flooded through the windows of Duncrieff Castle’s second-floor drawing room.

“And this is…” He was determined to tease her a little.

“The Fairy Cup of Duncrieff,” she said. “Our castle’s most precious treasure.”

“I could argue that.” He slipped his arm around her, snugging her close. He peered at the shining goblet. “So this is it. Looks a bit old. Well-used,” he said.

“It’s very old,” she said. “It is said to be made from fairy gold, hammered by fairy goldsmiths. And the crystals were mined deep in the mountains of this glen, so they say, by the fairies themselves.”

“Ah. And this treasure of yours was given to one of the lairds of Duncrieff? The one who deserted Castle Glendoon?”

“Oh, no, long before him, and he did not desert—I’m sure the story will be somewhere in our family records, which contain all the stories of the Duncrieff MacCarrans,” she said. “Many of them were written by the hands of the MacCarrans who lived those very same adventures.”

“I’d rather write music than tales of our adventures together, my love. You had better do that for us.”
“I will,” she said. “The first laird was called Malcolm MacCarran. His fairy wife gave him the cup—a very long time ago.”

“You are determined to tell me the story of the legend, I think, though your kin are waiting for us out on the terrace.”

“I told Robert that we would join them after I showed you the Fairy Cup. Now,” she said, sliding her arm around his waist, “in the time of the mists, so the tale goes, this first MacCarran rescued a fairy woman whose horse had thrown her from a bridge into a river during a summer storm.”

“I nearly did that,” Connor said.

“But you made sure your fairy woman did not get wet. Hush it,” she said, laughing. “He took her to his castle, a small tower in a remote setting, not this current castle. There they shared a warm hearth, a dram, a bowl of porridge, and more, so the story goes.”

“Ah,” he said. “This sounds familiar.” He was genuinely intrigued, but he enjoyed teasing her just a bit longer.

“They fell in love, the laird and his fairy woman, and soon they were wed. I know,” she said, when he drew a breath. “We did that part first.”

He chuckled. “Go on.”

“The MacCarran learned that his beloved was a princess of her ilk—the most ancient sort of fairy, beautiful and kind and of a size with humans, and possessed of powers of natural magic.”

She paused as if expecting him to comment. He kissed her.

“And in their happiness,” she went on, “MacCarran and his fairy bride had three sons, each more
beautiful than the last. The sons inherited gifts from their mother—the Sight, the touch of healing, and the gift of charms and magic. When her children were grown, and although it broke her heart to do it, the fairy left her family and returned to her people, for that was her agreement with her own kind in exchange for those years of joy.”

Connor listened intently now, fascinated, while he circled his arm around Sophie’s shoulders.

“She left behind the legacy of her fairy blood, which now and then bestows the same abilities inherited by her sons, passed on through generations of the MacCarrans of Duncrieff. She left, as well, a golden cup smithed by her fairy kin.”

“Aye,” he said, looking at the goblet with heightened awe.

“It is shaped from what is said to be fairy gold,” she said. “And its rim is set with a band of nine crystals.”

“Some of them are missing,” he said, tipping his head. “Two…no, there are four gone.”

She nodded. “Kate and I each have one. According to family tradition, whenever a MacCarran child is born with the Fairy’s Gift, a crystal is taken from the rim of this cup and set on a chain to be worn for that person’s lifetime. Later it is returned to its original setting in the cup, and that person’s tale is recorded by family members in the Book of Duncrieff, kept in a locked cabinet here, in the castle.”

“And the crystal can create a miracle for its wearer,” he said, “if conditions are met.”

“Our tradition says that the Fairy’s Gift some of us bear brings with it a singular burden. The crystal will grant its wearer one miracle—just one—for the sake of true love. If the privilege is misused, or sum
moned where true love does not exist, the Fairy Cup will lose its magical charm, and never again will a MacCarran inherit the Fairy’s Gift.”

“My God,” he murmured. “I did not know about that risk. What of the empty settings, love? There are two. Is it just age, that two of them have been lost?”

“One crystal, they say, has never been returned. Mystery surrounds that certain tale, and I know little about it. But it is said that its power still holds true, for its love is still ongoing. Legend holds that the lost crystal is in the keeping of the castle’s ghost, the Maiden of the Tower, who has not yet claimed her miracle.”

“Duncrieff Castle?” he asked. She nodded. “Have you seen this maiden ghost?”

“I have not, but my grandmother did. You do not believe in ghosts, fairies, magic, and suchlike, remember?”

“I am learning. Go on. What about the other stone?”

“We do not know what happened to that stone. One tradition claims that it is still in the keeping of the fairy who bestowed the cup on her beloved family.”

“What of the gold said to be hidden here?” he asked.

“No one has ever found it. I always heard that it was only a myth. How lovely if it were true, but—” She shrugged.

He nodded. “And the book you mentioned?”

“The Book of Duncrieff. An old manuscript that we keep here. Tales are added to it in every generation. The first part of the book is so old that we do not open it, do not handle it for fear it will crumble. And to be fair, we do not know if these tales are truth or
fancy, history or just legend. But they are wonderful stories. My grandmother told me many of them as I was growing up.” She smiled, turned into his arms, looked up.

“And our story?” He smiled, brushed his hand over her hair.

“I’ll write it,” she said, “when I have the time. I expect to be very busy for a while.”

“Aye, with your garden projects at Glendoon, and here at Duncrieff.”

“And Kinnoull House,” she said.

He frowned. “Kinnoull? I wish I could say that was true. But even with Campbell dead now, my dear, I have not gained back Kinnoull House. I do not know if I ever will.”

She slipped something out of her pocket. He saw that it was a packet of papers, folded, tied with a ribbon. “Connor,” she said quietly. “I found this. I did not realize at first what it was—then when I looked at it again, just yesterday when we were up at Glendoon, I knew you must see it.”

Looking at her quizzically, he took the packet and opened it. “A letter…” He peered closer. “No, it is—by God, it is the deed to Kinnoull. Where did you find this?” He stepped away from her, astonished, to peer closely at the document, its writing precise and ordered, the royal seal at the bottom of the page.

“I found it in a box in your mother’s trunk.”

“This…is the deed my father owned. It has his signature.”

“There is a letter—aye, there. Your father wrote it.”

He scanned the familiar hand, years since he had seen it. His heart pounded and his eyes seemed
blurred with tears, suddenly. “‘I relinquish my title as Lord Kinnoull and my ownership of Kinnoull House and its environs to my son, Connor David MacPherson’—my God, Sophie,” Connor breathed. “Father wrote this before he was arrested.” He looked at her. “He gave it all to me, every part of it.”

She nodded, smiled. “Kinnoull House is yours.”

“But it’s more than that,” he said, looking from page to page, his mind whirling. “By signing it over to me before he was ever arrested or charged, it means the lands could not be taken from him by forfeit. It was never legal, that forfeiture. The property was always mine. We just never knew it. He never had a chance to tell me.” He looked at her. “But he saved Kinnoull.”

“So it never belonged to Campbell all those years.”

He felt stunned. Simply, wholly stunned. He folded the pages, hands shaking, and slipped them inside the drape of his plaid, next to his heart. Then he reached out and pulled Sophie to him, clasping her close, holding her in silence for a moment.

He pulled back. “Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you.”

She smiled through tears and kissed him, her mouth warm and delicious.

“Sophie love,” he said. “I would never have known this without your help. I can never thank you enough—” He kissed her again, snugged her against him, deep in his embrace.

“You do not have to thank me for everything, Connor MacPherson,” she said primly. “You are a polite thing for a great brigand.”

He laughed. “Now I have something to offer my bride.”
“You always did,” she pointed out. “You just never knew. I would have fallen in love with you for the price of one fiddled song, played at the top of Castle Glendoon.”

“That easy, was it? And all my struggle for naught.” He sobered his smile. “Sophie, I’ve not said it enough. I love you.”

“I know.” She raised up to kiss him. “And I like to hear it often.”

“I truly love you,” he repeated, and pressed his cheek to her hair. “Come on. I’m glad to be shown your wee Fairy Cup, but I’m anxious to go home.”

“Home,” she said, and her voice broke. “Where, Connor? We’ve three homes now—Duncrieff, Glendoon, and Kinnoull.”

“Glendoon is just my rented property, and I think I’ll give it up. It has a beastly great hill.”

“Oh no, you will not,” she said as he led her out of the long, grand room with its polished floors and its golden cup, winking under glass. “My brother is giving us the property for a wedding gift. So I can finish the gardens, and we can refurbish the castle someday.”

“Roderick will be pleased to hear that,” he drawled, and she laughed.

“For a man who had no home, you have more than enough now.”

He stopped, setting his hands upon her slender shoulders. “You,” he said, “bring miracles in your wake, I think. Not just one, but many.”

“A lifetime full of them,” she whispered, and set her hand to her stomach. “There will be another a few months from now.”

He looked at her, lifted a brow. “Is it so?”
She nodded, her skin blushing rosy. “I think so. We’ll wait, and see.”

He pulled her to him and closed his eyes in grateful silence, hardly knowing what to say, his throat tightening.

He led her out of the room and headed down the grand staircase in the old castle, rebuilt years ago. Through a bank of wide windows he saw the stone terrace and glimpsed the others waiting for them—his friends, her family.

And beyond, through the doors to the terrace, he saw a row of pots, each filled with blooming tulips, fresh and bright and lovely.

“Wait.” He stopped, drew her near and kissed her.

Kissed her until her knees faltered beneath her, until she gripped his arms. Kissed her until he felt the fire within him stoke to a fever pitch. And then he drew back, drew in his breath. Her eyes were bright and beautiful, her cheeks flushed with love and with life.

Home. He was truly home, wherever she was.