Claire Delacroix (4 page)

Morgan bristled at the disapproval she sensed from him. She looked like a tourist and she knew it, but this sort of clothing was practical for traveling. And it wasn’t as though she was the first American tourist he had ever laid eyes on!

“I asked whether you were all right,” she repeated in her best facsimile of Justine’s businesslike tone. “You said you were bleeding.”

His eyes narrowed assessingly, though he did not answer her directly. “Well, I would well recall a lass as bonnie as you, that much is for certain.” His words rolled in a brogue that was delightfully Scottish and totally unaffected, and to her own dismay, Morgan couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

He then winked with devilish charm. “Be a good wench and fetch me a wee dram of whisky.”

Whisky! Now Morgan smelled the telltale whiff of the liquor and guessed how he had come to fall down the stairs.

Her tone turned harsh but she didn’t care. “You don’t seem to have hurt yourself too badly for falling down drunk!”

His smile flashed unexpectedly and he fingered his head. “Ah, lassie, you are only thinking as much because you have not got the ache between your ears that I have.”

Morgan bristled at further confirmation of his state. “You’re lucky to only have a headache to show for your drinking,” she charged, hearing the heat of an old wound in her words.

The man whistled under his breath, then winced. “Bold as brass. That will not be earning you much in your trade.” He eyed her legs again with open appreciation, then shoved himself to his feet.

Morgan was dismayed to realize how much he towered over her and darted up another step so she could at least look him in the eye. When his fair brows drew together, she wasn’t at all certain this was a good place for her to be.

Maybe trotting down these stairs had not been the best idea. She did have a tendency to act first and think later. Morgan glanced around and realized the only way out of the small chamber was back up the stairs.

“Do not be getting skittish on me now, lass.” He pushed his hand through his hair, his blue gaze fixed determinedly upon her, and his voice rumbled in a most unsettlingly confidential way. “You have got to know that I was only thinking of your fortunes. Fetch me a wee dram and I will see you have a roll unlike any other, and coin for your own as well.”

His bold wink left no doubt as to what kind of roll he meant.

Of all the nerve!

It wasn’t reassuring in the least that Morgan was still simmering from that first glance. She sputtered for a moment before she managed to take refuge in indignation. “How dare you talk to a perfect stranger like that?”

To Morgan’s dismay, he laughed, the rich sound filling the tower room. “You must be the most cheeky whore I have yet to meet,” he murmured, a grin still lingering on his lips.

“I am
not
a whore!” Morgan snapped.

He blinked, then his fair brows drew together. He shoved a hand through his hair, leaving it tousled in a boyish manner at odds with the severity of his expression. “Nay? What manner of spouse would let a woman run about dressed as you are?”

The idea of a husband telling Morgan what she could or could not do struck a nerve and she heard her own voice rise. “If I had a husband, he wouldn’t tell me what to wear!”

“Would he not, then?” The man’s sapphire gaze was assessing, though he seemed to muse as much to himself as to Morgan. “And why would he be listening? Why, a man could just toss a wee lass like you over his shoulder...”

Morgan’s mouth went dry as he stepped closer, a sensuous gleam in his eye.

“Morgan!” Justine’s call came at the perfect moment.

“
Here
!” she cried in response. With one last glance at the man, Morgan scampered up the narrow steps.

But in her hurry to escape, she slipped.

Morgan yelped, clenched her camera and gritted her teeth. She bounced off two stairs before landing with a
thumpity-thump
all the way at the bottom again. The jolt of her landing made her camera go off, because her finger was still on the shutter.

The flash was blinding.

“Ach! The light!” The man swore vehemently under his breath, but Morgan had a few curses of her own.

Another shot wasted! Morgan shoved the camera back into her bag in frustration, hating that she was so useless with mechanical things.

She didn’t even have a chance to think about what Blake would say before the kilted man squatted down beside her. He braced his arm against the wall above her shoulder, effectively trapping her in her ignoble sprawl. Morgan couldn’t take a breath, he was so close.

His blue, blue gaze was fixed upon her again and Morgan’s mouth went dry. She was far too aware of the tanned strength of those legs, let alone how close they were to her own. Beneath the tang of the whisky, Morgan could smell the musk of the man’s skin, and her traitorous toes curled inside her boots.

She really could pick ‘em.

“Are you all right, lass?” he asked with surprising gentleness.

“I have to go,” Morgan said hastily, but he did not move.

Then the Polaroid clicked and the sound of the emerging picture echoed loudly in the tiny room.

Her companion glanced pointedly at her bag, his eyes bright with curiosity. “What manner of sorcery made that light? You had only a wee box in your hand.” He cocked his head at the sound of the whirring. “It hums like some fey insect in there!” He reached out a hand. “Let me see, lass.”

Morgan’s fingers closed proprietarily over the straps of her bag. Was he a thief? The last thing she was going to do was display her recently acquired camera to this man! “No! It’s just a camera.”

“Just a
what
?” He looked, remarkably, as though he did not know the word, though his eyes shone with intelligence.

Where had this man been for the last century?

“A camera. You know.”

His firm lips twisted. “Nay, lass, I know of naught that can blaze that brightly with such speed. Let me have a look at it.” He leaned closer with obvious curiosity. Morgan inched backward, convinced he was trying to trick her.

It was disconcerting how quickly she found the stairs at her back.

Morgan swallowed and looked up at the determined man leaning over her. “You can’t see it,” she insisted and hitched the bag higher over her shoulder. “You have to let me up.”

The way his gaze darted over her made Morgan’s blood heat in a most troubling way. He might have spoken but Justine’s cry carried from overhead.

“Morgan!”

The man’s head snapped up. “Morgaine!” he whispered. His gaze blazed into hers. “She called you
Morgaine
!” His voice was low as though he barely dared to voice her name. “Why?”

“Because it’s my name. Morgan Lafayette.”

Alarm flickered through those blue eyes. “You
are
Morgaine le Fee!” he hissed through his teeth.

Before Morgan could make sense of that, he lunged to his feet. He jumped backward - as though he were suddenly leery of her - and seemed surprised to find a solid wall behind himself.

Morgan took advantage of the chance to scramble to her feet.

His gaze flicked between the wall and Morgan. Evidently he was noting escapes just as she had a minute earlier. If Morgan had been more composed, she might have found the change of roles funny.

“Sealed up the passage, have you?” he demanded suspiciously, then his eyes narrowed to sapphire slits. “I suppose that is all the proof a thinking man needs of your powers.”

Morgan had never met anyone whose eyes so clearly revealed their thoughts, even ones as inexplicable as his seemed to be.

“And I must pass you to escape,” he mused. “Some sort of test, is it, then?”

A test? What on earth was he talking about?

Suddenly Morgan recalled his demand for whisky and understood. The man was drunk as a skunk! No wonder he made no sense!

Trust her to find the only drunk in this place and to find him attractive! Hadn’t she learned her lesson?

Morgan reached for the railing, determined to not make the same slip twice - in more ways than one. “Well, at least you weren’t hurt by your fall. Perhaps you’ll think about this the next time you have a whisky.” Morgan smiled brightly. “I’ll just be going now.”

And she fled up the stairs.

“Wait!” he cried with such dismay that Morgan halted to look back at him and saw that he was about to follow after her. His eyes were bluer than blue, the appeal within them as clear as crystal, and he certainly didn’t look drunk.

Something within Morgan melted with dangerous ease.

“What are you wanting from me, Morgaine?” he asked huskily. He put one foot on the bottom step, revealing those bronzed legs to singular advantage.

Morgan’s mouth went dry. Her impish mind immediately recalled the offer he had already made, before she forced herself to remember where she was.

And what kind of man he was. A drinker, a troublemaker, possibly a thief, apparently a womanizer.

A man a whole lot like Matt.

His question alone should have been enough to remind her of those last ugly months with Matt. How often had Matt asked her what she wanted of him?

And how seldom had he
listened
to her simple answer?

Hundreds of broken promises flooded through Morgan’s mind, the memories alone enough to make her heart ache once more. She blinked her tears away, tears not for Matt but for her own stupid trust, and squarely met the stranger’s gaze.

Been there, done that, Morgan reminded herself forcefully. And never again.

“Nothing,” she said firmly, though she might have been answering Matt rather than the attractive stranger below. “I don’t want
anything
from you.” She waved a hand toward the top of the stairs, wanting to make sure he understood she wasn’t alone. “They’re waiting for me.”

Without waiting for a reply, Morgan turned and ran as though her life depended upon it.

* * *

Chapter Two

The bump on Alasdair’s head throbbed as he watched the delicate marvel of Morgaine le Fee dance up the stairs. Aye, she was all he had heard of her and more, an enchantress of the highest order. What manner of woman would flaunt such shapely legs before the eye of a red-blooded man?

Incredible as it seemed, Alasdair had indeed been sent to confront a powerful sorceress within her own den. He thought furiously, but there was no other explanation. It did not help at all that the whisky, the fall and Morgaine herself had left his thinking all tapsal-teerie.

His first idea, that she was a whore hired by the lads to muddle his wits in good fun, had been a reasonable one given her garb. But then the other details had not added up.

If the bite of her tongue - another attribute held to be Morgaine’s, he reminded himself - had not made the truth clear, then that flashing box had made her identity obvious. That Morgaine had hidden it away after he had caught a glimpse of it only hinted further at the power of its sorcery.

And every laddie knew that Faeries had eyes the shade of new grass.

Alasdair liked to think that there was a more sensible explanation for his plight, but he had terrible feeling it was not to be.

For what mortal woman could have been so fetchingly beautiful as she? Just the sight of her made a heat unfurl in Alasdair’s loins - the unnatural power of it should have told him sooner who stood before him. Like a blood-red rose Morgaine was, delicate and alluring, yet the barb of her viper’s tongue was as brutal as the rose’s hidden thorns.

Aye, he should have guessed the truth sooner.

’Twas fortunate for Alasdair that she’d had her dark tresses bound back. Had her hair been loose, who could have guessed what havoc she might wreak! He remembered well enough the tales of what might happened when a sorceress unbraided her hair.

Aye, Alasdair would do well to recall the manner of foe he had engaged. She was a wily one, one who caught men in the net of her allure and never set them free. Already she had sealed off the passageway that led to his compatriots and so seamless was the barricade that Alasdair knew it must have sorcery at its root.

’Twas clear enough that he had already riled Morgaine with his accusation that she might be a whore. He was a fool and then some! Alasdair could think of a thousand options of how she might torment him, each lovingly detailed in his gran’s tales, and he liked not a one of them.

He was in a mess of trouble, there was no mistake. Alasdair took a deep breath and shoved a hand through his unruly hair, wincing as his fingers brushed the bump on his skull. The only way out was the same way the enchantress had gone.

But what cruel fate awaited him at the top of the stairs?

“Morgan!
There
you are!” A woman’s voice rose above, drawing Alasdair’s gaze reluctantly upward once more. “Are you ready for lunch?”

’Twas clear enough that the only way he would ever see the mortal world again would be to convince Morgaine to send him there. Perhaps he had only to ask her of Scotland’s fate. Alasdair had no idea, but one thing was evident.

He could not afford to let Morgaine le Fee out of his sight.

Alasdair took a deep breath, swallowed his trepidation, then climbed the stairs two at a time. After the shadows below, the brightness of the sunlight made him blink.

How long had he slept?

A castle was spread before him, its towers and turrets of fantastical design. Alasdair immediately spied the sorceress, her shapely legs snaring his gaze with beguiling ease. He deliberately looked to those Morgaine met, and found a pair of men attired in garb strange to him, yet similar to her own.

Well, he had never been one to avoid a deed, however unpleasant it might threaten to be. Alasdair stalked in pursuit, determined to see this matter settled as soon as possible.

He had obligations to fulfill, after all.

* * *

To Alasdair’s surprise, the threesome were engaged in a dispute by the time he reached them.