The Scottish Witch (17 page)

And that was why she’d grown so unreasonably annoyed with him earlier.
I care for you
wasn’t enough. She wanted more.

And yet he couldn’t return her love. Not without paying a price, and that price was too high.

“I don’t think we should meet any longer,” Portia heard herself say.

He frowned. He’d been walking toward her but stopped. “Portia, that is nonsense. Of course we should meet—”

“
No
,” she said cutting him off. “And I’m not saying this because of Lizzy. I don’t
want
to see you any longer.”
I don’t want you to fall in love with me.
But she kept that to herself. “We’re done.”

He rocked back as if she’d physically hit him but Portia knew better than to linger. She loved him. And she could never let him love her in return.

In that moment, she felt her heart break.

He took a step toward her, his expression concerned. She couldn’t let him touch her. She mustn’t.

This time Portia didn’t walk away from him, she ran, dashing headlong into the woods.

H
arry started after Portia. He understood what was happening with her. Her responses, her behavior were like those of so many women who had thought they’d caught him. She was angry, disappointed.

He should let her go. The truth of their relationship would be easier for her this way, except Harry didn’t want to just let her go.

Portia was more than some woman he bedded. He’d never slept with a woman longer than a day or two, and yet, for the past week and a half, he’d been meeting her in the bothy, and it hadn’t all just been sex.

When he was around Portia, he relaxed. He valued her honesty, her wit, her view of life. She was a bit of a rebel like him, and yet traditional, and a survivor. Those were all qualities he would have used to describe himself.

Of course, Portia was more passionate about what she believed in than he was. Harry knew he was jaded. The world had made him that way, but Portia was still untouched and he found her refreshing.

Now, everything had changed, and he didn’t understand why—no, that wasn’t true. He understood.

He’d wager all he owned that Portia was still angry at him for referring to her as his mistress. He needed to explain more . . . although he’d already attempted to explain himself.

She would want an apology and Harry did not apologize. In his view of the world, a man didn’t have regrets. He couldn’t afford them. They would cripple him. He wouldn’t be able to go on. He hadn’t even apologized for that fateful day on the battlefield in Vitoria—

“Ye are wise to let her go,” Crazy Lizzy’s voice said from behind him.

She’d come out of her hut and sat on a stool by the door.

Harry faced her. “Because she will be my death?” he asked, repeating the accusation she’d flung at Portia before she’d collapsed.

The crone’s smile grew crafty. She raised a finger of warning. “I saved your life. Leave her be, Chattan. Leave her be.”

“What do you know of Fenella?” he demanded, walking toward her.

She stood up, her beady eyes alive with defiance. “I know there is nothing you can do. You are doomed, Englishman.
Doomed
.” With those words, she ran inside her hut and slammed the door.

Harry walked right up to it. He would tear down her home if she pushed him too far. He grabbed the door and attempted to open it. The door was barred against him from the inside.

“I’m not finished with you yet,” he said. “Open this door.”

There was no response.

Harry put his shoulder to the door. Using all his strength, he shoved it open, breaking the wooden bar she’d used. He entered the hut, and then stopped.

Lizzy sat on a stool before her fire. She was staring into the flames and mumbling to herself. Her arms were full of the strangest dolls. They were made of twigs and nuts, stuffed cotton and scraps of whatever she could find. She was holding at least eight, her shoulders hunched protectively over them as if they were children.

“Leave me alone, leave me alone,” she said repeatedly without looking at him standing there.

He started for her, and then he smelled the air. In the smoky haze hung the pungent incense of opium. She’d thrown it on the fire. The scent of it was filling every crevice of the hut.

He backed toward the door.

Crazy Lizzy turned to him, still holding her dolls, rocking on her stool. The pupils of her eyes were black pools.

And he longed to stay there with her.

Instead, he turned on his heel and threw himself out the door. Outside, he grabbed huge gasps of air, trying to clear his lungs. His nerves were stretched thin. He wanted to return to that hut. He wanted to disappear in it.

Ajax nickered as if understanding that something was afoot. Harry moved to the horse. He had trouble mounting. His head spun and he had started to shake.

A month ago, he had taken a cure, sweating out the need for drink and opium, fighting his demons alone. And there wasn’t a day that passed that he didn’t think of returning to them—that is, until he’d met Portia.

Her sweet body and her quick mind staved off evil desires. She’d kept him strong.

But she had run away from him, and he suddenly realized he didn’t know if she would come back. Never before had he given a care whether a woman stayed or whether she went. But Portia was different.

Harry threw himself over the horse. A black despair threatened to engulf him. Fenella knew his weaknesses. She was using every power at her disposal to stop him from breaking the curse—including taking Portia away from him.

“Walk on, boy,” he whispered to Ajax.

The horse began moving, and Harry felt his strength start to return.

He’d been right to come to Glenfinnan. Fenella
was
here. He imagined her presence in the shadows. She was watching, waiting. He prayed he had the courage to battle her. He’d never met an enemy who knew him better than he knew himself.

As he regained his senses, he directed Ajax away from the road leading to Monty’s estate. Instead, he rode to Camber Hall. The house was dark. It appeared deserted. They’d probably all gone to bed.

Could Portia have dismissed him so easily?

Harry did not know the answer but he had an uneasy sense that all was not as it should be this night.

Portia had been an innocent in this venture. And because of him, she was now a part of it. He trusted his instincts. There was danger.

Fog drifted across Camber Hall’s drive, hovering in its woods. Clouds covered the light of the waning moon.

It was the winter solstice, he realized with a start. December 22, his sister Margaret’s birthday. She’d been pleased that it was to fall on such an auspicious day. Christmas was three days away . . . and suddenly, Harry
knew
that he was supposed to be here at this place and at this moment. He wasn’t certain what it all meant, but he
was
to be here.

In that moment, he felt the presence of his ancestors, of all those good men who’d had their lives destroyed by a witch. The battle lines were drawn. He could feel it in the air.

He pulled Fenella’s book and his pistol from his saddlebags. He checked the weapon. It was loaded and ready.

He moved to the tree line bordering Camber Hall’s lawn and took his post in the shadows. The book in one arm and the pistol in his other hand, he stood guard over Portia.

Chapter Fourteen

T
he wind had kicked up a pace. It rattled Portia’s window and seemed to creep in from every nook and corner of her room.

She had returned to the house distraught and frightened, but if Minnie or Lady Maclean had noticed anything amiss, they didn’t say a word. They were both involved in their own affairs, both happy with life. There had been no questions about her ventures through the day. They’d sought their beds after a day full of plans and with anticipation for what the morrow would bring.

Portia had never felt such discontent.

She had walked away from Harry. No, she had
run
from him, and at a time when he might need her.

Lizzy’s prediction frightened her, and yet, the crone was a poor, mad soul. She wasn’t right in the head, and Portia knew it. Since when had she given credence to the woman’s rantings? Why now?

There was no answer to those questions save for her sense that something was amiss.

Portia had no appetite for the dinner Glennis had left for her. She went to her room, curled up in a ball on her bed and wept, so miserable she’d not bothered to build a fire in the hearth or light a candle by her bed. She cried until the pillow was soaked and she didn’t have the strength to shed another tear.

She loved Harry and he would not, could not love her.

However, he had offered for her to be his mistress.

The pain of that proposal, the humiliation of it, still resided in her. It was easier to focus on that dishonor rather than how she could never have him for her own.

What if he had offered to make her his wife? Then what?

And of course that he had made the suggestion of his keeping her was her own fault. She had done nothing to make him believe she wouldn’t entertain such a position. She’d thrown herself into his arms and, in defiance of convention and propriety, had sneaked away every afternoon to meet him like some shepherd’s daughter. And she hadn’t held back in her affections. She had not been decorous and proper but had initiated their lovemaking, had even been at the bothy waiting for him impatiently on many an afternoon.

Even now her traitorous body yearned for him, but the truth was, the game had changed. She’d discovered she wanted what he was not willing to give.

There had been a time when Portia had wondered if the sameness of her life was to continue on forever without any variation. She’d wanted
more
in those days without knowing what “more” was.

Now she wished she could return to where she’d once been—a time when she’d not risked anything of herself.

Harry would never love her. The curse had seen to that. He avoided love, and if he hadn’t, someone more beautiful and more clever than Portia would have caught him long before now.

And then there was Crazy Lizzy’s warning. Portia didn’t know what the woman meant with her prediction of Harry’s death. However, the threat gave Portia one more reason to stay away from him. To protect her own heart, to protect
him
, she must stay away from Harry.

Portia heard a soft feline growl from Owl before the cat jumped up on the bed. Until now, she hadn’t known the cat was present in her room.

Owl stalked the length of the bed before reaching Portia’s arm and rubbing her face against it. Portia reached over and scratched Owl’s ears.

“
Now
you show up,” she whispered to the cat. “Where were you earlier when I needed you?”

Owl rolled onto her back and playfully batted at Portia’s fingers before reaching up to nudge her hand for another pet. Portia obliged, laying her head on the mattress so that she was practically nose-to-nose with the cat. Even in the dark, Owl’s eyes appeared large and human in their understanding.

“
Are
you a reincarnated soul?”

The cat began purring.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Portia whispered.

The purring didn’t stop or change.

“I see,” Portia said. “It is for me to decide.” She lightly touched one of Owl’s folded-over ears with one finger.

Owl grabbed her finger with both paws, as playful as a kitten.

“What shall I do, Owl? I love him. Yes, I’ve been foolish. I didn’t think of anything beyond the moment when I let him make love to me. It was so wonderful,” she confided to the cat. “Every moment in his arms has been heaven. Except now I want what I cannot have. He’s too above my touch, Owl. I’m like Icarus whose father made him wings out of wax and he thought he could fly. But he went too close to the sun, and fell to earth. I thought . . .” She paused, her heart as heavy as a stone in her chest. “I thought I could fly. Now I realize I’m probably like every woman Harry Chattan has ever met. I’m just one more. I had thought I’d be the exception or, at least, able to control my emotions. My father’s callousness did not rub off on me and I suppose I should be glad, but it just hurts so much—
ow
.”

Owl had bitten her finger.

The cat jumped to its feet and then leaped off the bed. She padded to the closed bedroom door and meowed.

The bite had hurt. Portia couldn’t tell in the moonlight if there was blood. Sitting up, she sucked the hurt away, frowning at the cat. “Why should I do anything for you?” she asked, and then was struck by the obvious realization the door was shut and had been ever since she’d gone to bed. Owl had not been in the room, or had she? Harry had her imagining Owl had ghostly powers as well.

Owl meowed at the door, impatient, insistent, sounding very much like what she was, a spoiled cat.

If Portia didn’t do as Owl wished, then the cat could yowl at the door all night.

Portia rose from the bed. She still wore her evergreen cambric day dress with its long sleeves. She pushed her hair back from her face. Her curls were going every which way. She should take a brush to it after she changed into a nightdress. She was exhausted but it wasn’t the tiredness that led to sleep. No, she felt spent, defeated, and overwhelmingly sad.

She opened the door. Owl went out, then stopped in the dark hallway, a silver shadow. Portia started to close the door, and the cat slipped back in.

Frowning, Portia said, “I’m not playing this game with you.” She started to shut the door, but the cat boldly put herself in the doorway. “Move on,” she ordered. “Make a choice. In or out.”

Owl grabbed the hem of her dress with her teeth and pulled.

It was a strange action for a cat.

For a second, Portia stood in indecision. The cat wanted her to follow.

Owl turned to go out the door.

Portia was tempted to shut the door, but then a new apprehension reared its ugly head. Her first thought was Harry.

“Is he all right, Owl?”

The cat came back into the room and circled around Portia’s feet before starting out the door again.

Portia knelt and held out a hand. Owl bit the tip of her finger. The cat was urging her to follow.

Fear, Portia discovered, was a contrary emotion. She feared following; she feared not following.

But what if Owl was merely a cat wishing Portia to chase mice with her?

Or what if Harry’s suspicions were right and there was more to Owl than met the eye?

“Rose?” Portia asked. Again, Owl circled around her.

“
Fenella
,” she said, as if challenging the cat.

Owl came up on her hind legs, placing her paws on Portia’s arm and kneaded. Was that a sign that Portia had chosen the right name?

“Why can’t you speak?” Portia said, rubbing the cat’s head. “If you were reincarnated, why couldn’t you have chosen a talking parrot?”

A purr was the only answer she received. And perhaps she was being silly. She was placing human characteristics to an animal. If her mother or Minnie overheard her, they would think her ridiculous.

With a sigh, Portia rose, but before she could take a step away, the cat ran in front of her path. Owl looked up at her expectantly as if to say,
I thought you were coming with me.

“I need to put on my shoes and my spectacles.”

The cat made a low, throaty trill and went to the door.

“This is too strange,” Portia said, and yet Owl was very clear in what she expected. Portia picked up her spectacles from the bedside table, adjusting them on her nose, before pulling on her walking boots. She followed Owl out the door.

All was quiet in the hallway save for the faintest sound of Lady Maclean’s snoring. Portia went down the steps, Owl right at her side. She took her cloak off the peg by the door and threw it around her shoulders.

The last time she had gone out into the night had been to pretend to be Fenella. Now, Portia might very well be letting Fenella herself in the guise of a cat lead her to who knew where.

On the front step, Owl looked back to see if Portia was behind her. The moon had come out behind the clouds and the cat’s coat had a ghostly hue.

“Yes, I’m coming,” Portia said, and closed the door.

F
rom his post in the shelter of the tree line, Harry thought he saw movement on the front step—and then he did see Portia standing there. She pulled the hood of her cloak up around her head and took off with great purpose across the yard, disappearing behind the house.

Harry reached for Ajax’s reins. The horse had been sleeping. He’d actually been snoring, a sound that Harry found annoying since it made him tired.

“Come on, my friend,” Harry said, putting Fenella’s book in his saddlebags and tucking the pistol in his waistband. He lifted the reins over Ajax’s head and put a foot in the stirrup. “We are on the chase.”

Mounted, Harry trotted around the side of the house. Portia was just disappearing in the woods. To his surprise, he realized she was heading in the direction of the bothy.

Harry kicked the horse forward, giving Portia plenty of room to walk ahead of him.

Through the woods midnight-quiet, he could hear her voice. She was talking to someone—and then he realized she was talking to the cat. Was she following the cat to the bothy?

Nothing made sense in this day. Nothing.

When he was close to the clearing where the bothy was located, Harry hung back. He dismounted and tied Ajax to a tree. The horse knew he was close to the cottage where he’d spent agreeable hours grazing while Harry had been taking his pleasure with Portia. He rumbled his protest.

“I’m sorry, old friend, but you are best tied up right now.”

With a pat on his horse’s neck, Harry went out into the clearing. He didn’t see anything amiss. He also didn’t see Portia, and he grew afraid.

What was the matter with her? She should have more common sense than to traipse around the countryside in the dark.

By the light of the solstice moon, all appeared calm and serene, and yet Harry’s instincts warned him to be prepared for anything.

He walked toward the bothy, pushing aside his coat and reaching for his pistol. He moved slowly, stealthily. “Portia?” he said, daring to call her name.

A woman gasped her surprise, the sound coming from inside the bothy. Harry rushed forward, just as Portia started to run out of the cottage.

They collided in each other’s arms. He had cocked the hammer. He now pointed the pistol in the air as his other arm came around her.

“H
arry,” Portia said, startled to find him right outside the cottage’s door. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” he said. He had a hold around her waist as strong as a vise. “Why are you going prowling around in the dark? Don’t you have more sense than to go out alone?”

The criticism stung. “I could ask the same of you.”

“I was watching over you,” he said.

“Watching?” She frowned. “Whatever for?”

“You were upset when you left that madwoman’s hut. I wanted to be certain you were safe.” He had not let go of her.

“I’m safe,” she said, not really wanting him to let go. An hour before, she’d been weeping over never feeling his arms around her and now she had him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Owl wanted me to come here,” she confessed. “And I don’t know why I did. I suppose it was all that talk of reincarnation and the incident with Lizzy today . . . I, well, the cat acted as if I should follow and she led me here.”

“Where is she now?” Harry asked. He released his hold around her waist to go into the cottage, his hand reaching for and finding her hand. He laced her fingers with his. He held his pistol up and ready.

The moon through the open window cast a ray of light upon the floor. “I don’t know,” Portia said as he looked around the room. “She came in here and I followed and then I lost track of her. It was as if she disappeared into the corners. But it doesn’t mean anything, Harry. She’s a cat. Cats have the ability to vanish when they wish.”

“As effectively as this cat seems to do so?” Harry asked, his skepticism clear.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed, turning to her, and she was aware of how close they stood to each other.

She didn’t dare look up at his face. He was her weakness. She should step away now, but she didn’t.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

He uncocked the pistol. “I was worried about you. This afternoon you were upset.”

“I see.”

“I stood guard.”

“Over what?” she asked.

“Over you.”

She stood silent, suddenly aware of the racing beat of her own heart, feeling his pulse as well, even through his gloved hand. He didn’t speak, either. She knew she should leave. She didn’t want to.

“Portia,” he said, her name barely a whisper, and that was all it took. With a shuddering breath, she looked up at him, and she was lost.

There was so much concern in his expression, it was the excuse she needed to rise on her tiptoes and plant a kiss on his lips.

Foolish, foolish Portia
, she thought, a sentiment that was wiped from her mind when he set his pistol on the window ledge, put his arms around her, and kissed her back.

They knew what each other liked. Their lips always fit together perfectly and this moment was no exception.

His hand smoothed the curve of her hip. He held her tight, possessively against him. He was ready to make love. He wanted her, and that she could evoke such strong passion in her lover filled Portia with joy.