Sarah Gabriel (17 page)

“The fairy riding,” James said suddenly. “Is that why some are frightened of it?”

“They fear the fairies will take them away, aye.”

Elspeth knew that James thought of the night they had both nearly been taken, and she knew it puzzled him. “How long ago was this treasure said to be hidden?” he asked.

“Three hundred years,” Donal intoned.

“And how is it to be found? Are there clues?”

“No one has sorted it out yet. Once it is found there are two keys to open it. One is a certain stone. And the other—” He nodded toward Elspeth. She shook her head to silence her grandfather from telling all her secrets.

“You were searching for a stone in the garden at Struan House,” James said, turning to Elspeth. “What of the piece in the library case, the blue agate?”

“Did you find the blue stone?” MacArthur leaned forward.

“If it is the one, it is at Struan House,” she answered.
“Even so, the key is useless without the treasure. What does it unlock? We do not know.”

“A bit of gold, a few gems, a box of ancient gold or silver—treasure is found now and again in the Highlands, left by early cultures,” James said. “It could easily be taken for fairy gold. I can see how the legend would arise.”

“This is real,” Donal said abruptly.

“If so,” James said, “how would one know it was, ah, fairy gold? And how could it possibly be returned?”

“Once it is found, I know how to return it,” Donal replied.

Elspeth listened, realizing that James puzzled over this, with so little logic applied. She saw him shaking his head slightly, half to himself. “Since this MacArthur fellow was an ancestor, is there family lore or clan legends that might provide clues about the treasure?” he asked.

“This treasure needs two keys, one the blue stone, the other…well, Elspeth and I know what that is. Without their treasure, the fairies lack their full power, and they need human help to find what is missing. That ancient MacArthur nearly outwitted them,” Donal said. “The fairies of this glen remain unhappy because of it.”

“Why is this cache so important to them? That is, if they exist,” James added.

“The precious stones and elements come from their own hill, and so contain power for them,” Donal explained. “Without it they are not as strong as they could be. They are not at ease.”

“A fairy’s purpose in life is to be happy, in harmony with all aspects of life and the earth,” Elspeth added.
“Living is an art to them, an expression of pleasure and delight and enchantment. They cannot fulfill their purpose if something has been taken from them and they are uneasy.”

“They are a temperamental lot,” Donal MacArthur said. “They do not forget.”

“We often call them the Good Neighbors,” Elspeth said. “And they would be better neighbors if they had their gold again.” She and Donal glanced at each other, and James saw an understanding there. A secret. They knew something more that they did not share with him.

“Certainly people over the years have looked for this treasure,” James said.

“Some greedy souls, aye, especially those who do not believe in fairies,” Donal MacArthur said. “But the wrath of the
daoine sìth
falls on those who try to outwit them.”

“An interesting tale. I will be sure to note it down for Grandmother’s book.”

“Oh no, you must not put all of this in the book,” Elspeth said quickly.

“I thought local legends were the point of Grandmother’s book,” he answered.

“The legend of the lost fairy gold is common knowledge here,” MacArthur said. “But Elspeth is right—you must not write down all the details. Some part of it must be left out. The fairies will be angry if their secrets are told.”

“Grandda, enough,” Elspeth said. “Our guest has little patience for the fairy lore. He does not believe a word of it, I think.”

“Actually I find the tale of the lost treasure very intriguing,” James countered.

“But you do not
believe
it,” she answered softly. “There is a difference.”

“I believe,” he replied, “what is proven to me.”

“He’ll believe soon enough. He’s writing the fairy book, he’s drinking the fairy brew,” Donal MacArthur said, “and he’s very taken with you, lass. He’s fallen to the glamourie.”

“The glamourie?” James asked.

“It’s all over you, sir. Yon lass has the knack of it.”

“Ah,” James said, and courteously inclined his head. “That she does.”

S
tirring in the dark of night, still groggy, James was unsure what had woken him. Though he had not dreamed, he felt as if he had heard voices, seen people around him. Sitting up, he needed some fresh air to clear his head. The fairy brew, as MacArthur had called that exquisite liquor, had been stronger than he thought.

Dressing quickly in trousers and boots, he shrugged on the borrowed frock coat over his shirt, leaving neck cloth and waistcoat aside, and quietly left the house, intending to stroll the grounds. Passing the kitchen garden and a walled flower garden, he followed the long earthen lane that led past stables and outbuildings to three weaving cottages. These backed against a hill to one side, with a sweep of orchards and meadow to the other. The night was cool and misty, and a little moonlight sliced through overhead clouds. Fog curled along the ground as he walked, and he saw translucent rings around the bright moon, the sky clearing overhead after so many days of rain.

His brisk footfalls echoed strangely, and soon he heard the clacking rhythm of a loom. Ahead, faint
light showed in the windows of one of the weaver cottages. Was Elspeth up late, too, unable to sleep? The loom clicked and shushed in a fast cadence, as if its weaver was passionate about the work.

Detouring from the lane, he approached the door, about to knock, then realized that it was not the cottage Elspeth had used earlier, but the one beside it. He stepped sideways to glance through the small window beside the door.

Donal MacArthur sat at the loom, lit by the glow of a single lantern, the rest of the room shadowy. Immediately James noticed how quickly the man worked, shifting and moving in the same way that Elspeth had, lacking her grace, but all speed and certainty.

Then James stared. The man worked so fast that his hands, as well as the shuttle and moving parts of the loom, were near a blur. The tartan, a red pattern, gathered quickly on the roller—more quickly than seemed humanly possible.

He blinked, rubbed fingers against his eyelids, looked again. The loom whirred, clicked, and shuddered while the weaver sped through his work. The incredible pace seemed beyond what any man could sustain.

Had the whiskey had been that strong, James wondered, that he was dreaming? Was he in his bed, and not seeing this at all?

“Come away.” A hand touched his arm, and James turned, startled to see Elspeth. She pulled on his coat sleeve. “James, please.”

He pulled her close so that she, too, could peer through the window. “Look at that,” he said. “What in blazes is going on?”

“Hush,” she whispered, and touched her fingers to
her lips, then his. The contact sent a shudder through him. He circled his arm around her, felt her arm fit around his waist, felt the silk of her hair as she pressed close against him.

She wore a dark plaid shawl, and he saw that she was in a night rail beneath, the gathered fabric pale in the night. Her dark hair was loose and long, and the tartan covered her nearly like a cloak; his coat was dark, too, and so neither of them could be seen easily. Still, he drew her off to the side with him.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “Did you follow me, or did that infernal clacking noise wake you?”

“I woke from a dream,” she said, “and knew you were out here. I knew Grandda was here, too, and that I must find you.”

“Woke and just knew,” he said.

“Just knew. I feel you,” she whispered. “It is as if I can sense you, wherever you are, as if you are…part of me.” She touched his arm, and he saw a soft blue spark go between them.

My God
, he thought, stirred and amazed by what she said, what he felt, and what he had just seen. Had she meant love? And had that been a phosphorescent effect? His mind whirled on two paths at once, but the first won out. “Elspeth—” He slipped his hand over her hair. She lifted her face, her willingness echoing desire, matching his own. He wanted to tell her, then, that he loved her. He had only begun to realize it.

“Come away with me,” she whispered in his ear. “We should not be here.”

“A moment,” he murmured, his mouth at her earlobe. He felt her catch her breath, sigh. “I want to
sort this out.” He meant more than the grandfather weaving away.

“We must not watch this,” she insisted.

“Your grandfather is working the loom like the devil himself. Tell me what you know of it.”

She hesitated. “It is the secret of the Kilcrennan Weavers that you see here. And Grandda’s own secret, long guarded. So we must leave—” She tugged at his arm.

“Secret? It’s near inhuman.” He glanced again through the window. Caught in the whirlwind of the weaving, Donal never looked up, even as he snatched another roll of cloth from the loom and set the frame again, absorbed in his work at that steady and astonishing speed. “I saw you today at the loom. You were all skill and grace.” He brushed his knuckles along her cheek. “But what he is doing in there is unearthly.”

“It is not of this earth, what he does.”

A chill slid down his spine. “You had best explain that.”

“It is the fairy gift upon him. Listen, now. Years ago, Grandda was given the ability to weave a month’s work in an evening. I was given a gift, too, but mine is not the weaving. Mine is the Sight.”

“You make an art of the weaving. What do you mean, fairy gifts?”

“Abilities bestowed by the fairies,” she said, “personally. Like a…spell.”

“Away wi’ you,” James said gently. “I did not have that much whiskey.”

She was sincere, her eyes wide and earnest. “It is because of the whiskey that you see this tonight. The fairy brew can allow us to see fairy magic for a little
while. Without a few sips of the whiskey,” she said, “you would simply see a man at the weaving.”

Stunned, James had no reply for that. He recalled that Donal had made a similar remark. “The Sight,” he murmured. “Your grandfather called it the gift of the fairies. I thought it was simply another term for the Highland Sight.”

“Sometimes, but in my case it was bestowed by the fairy ilk.”

He wanted to deny what she was telling him, but he had a strange, dreadful sense that it could be true; the small hairs lifted on his arms, on his neck, and he felt an odd warning knell in his gut. Yet he could not accept it unquestioned. “What do you mean?”

“My grandfather can weave dozens of plaids in a long night, when the magic comes over him like this,” she said. “Most weavers—I myself, and I am good—can weave a decent length of tartan in a few days. I wonder if he wanted you to know, James. He gave you the fairy brew that he shares only with me, and later he set to his weaving, aware that he might be seen.”

“So this is a deliberate…revelation for my benefit?” He had almost said
spell
.

“Possibly. Still, I do not want him to catch us here. Donal MacArthur has a fierce pride, and he is always careful to keep the fairy magic secret. But for you,” she said, looking up at him thoughtfully. “Just you.”

“My dear girl,” he whispered, for she stood that close, the night wrapping round them like a cool blanket, “any moment now I shall wake in my bed, with the taste of last night’s liquor in my mouth, and a banging in my head. And I want to know…if you will be there beside me when I wake.” As he spoke, he let his fingers drift down over her shoulder, her upper
arm, his thumb brushing past the swell of her breast. “I want you to be there.”

“Hush,” she said, so softly that he ached to hear it again. She set a finger to her own lips. Then she took his face between her hands, slender and cool on his skin, and she lifted on her toes and kissed his mouth.

Slow, tender, a surprise and a delight—the kiss sank through him, crown to sole, and he felt himself surge, craving instantly. He caught her by the waist, dipped his head, kissed her hard and fast and sure, so that she arched a little, moaned under her breath. And he pulled back.

“That was real,” he whispered. “This is real.” He snugged his hand against her waist, let his thumb trace under the delicious weight of her breast. She caught her breath, her hands clenching his arms.

“Jamie,” she breathed, pressing against him. He stopped for a moment, closed his eyes. Long ago, his mother, his father had called him that—since then, only his twin sister. But it sounded so right when Elspeth said it, too.

He drew a breath. “There is no proof you can give me,” he went on, “of fairy magic instead of…well, whiskey.” His heart pulsed like a drum. Leaning down, he nuzzled his lips over her brow, her cheek, traced down to touch her lips, and kissed her.

Her lips opened naturally under his, and he heard, felt her sigh against his mouth. This time she drew back and then, oddly, pressed her finger to his brow for a moment. “Now,” she whispered, “look through the window again.”

He did, holding her by the waist. He glanced through the window. The weaver, hard at his work,
seemed to glow—a haze of golden light shimmered around him, his hands, the loom, even around the cloth as it spooled onto the roller.

“It is real, what you see there,” she whispered.

For a moment, he saw a shimmering around her, as well, and the elusive silvery sparkle that sometimes appeared in her eyes. “I do not understand this.”

“Sometimes it is enough to trust, and believe.”

Trusting easily was not in his nature. Yet from the moment he had met Elspeth, she had challenged him to believe what he could not easily allow. Certainly she had a sort of magic about her, but he told himself it was her charm as a woman, and his own strong, masculine nature. Elspeth had captivated him as no woman ever had, and now, once more, she was pushing him to think beyond what he accepted as true.

“What you did just then—touching me, and I saw—” He stopped, shook his head, felt something of a fool. Surely that had not happened. “The whiskey is working on me.”

“In a way,” she said. “I tasted a bit of the fairy brew, too. It allows me a gift that does not come readily otherwise. It is not the spirit, but the fairy dew itself. Tasting the dew of a flower at dawn will do the same thing. I touched you where the fairies bestow the gift of Sight, knowing that you, too, might be able to see what cannot be seen.” She smiled. He continued to see a rim of brightness around her.

Enough
, he thought, and nearly stepped back, nearly tossed up his hands to dismiss all of it—all but her, solid and real, before him. “All I saw was a man weaving like a lunatic. And here before me, a lovely girl.” He brushed his hand over her soft hair, and let his thumb graze over her cheek until he traced the
curve of her lower lip. He lowered his head to kiss her again, drawing her lower lip out gently, slipping the merest tip of his tongue over hers. She opened her mouth a little, inviting him.

Oh aye, that was real and reassuring, touch and response in himself, and her. He needed her more than he could ever tell her, and wanted her for his wife, aside from any obligation or responsibility. He wanted to spend his life with her.

Yet she did not want that, and he did not know why.

Her passion was as genuine as his own, though, he was sure, for she caught her breath and pressed against him, her mouth urgent and vibrant, lush and soft, against his own. She pulled back a little, looked up. “Something more is real here,” she whispered. “Your feelings. And my own.”

Once again, she knew—he had not said, had only realized the depth and power of what he was feeling—and yet she knew. “You,” he whispered, “are a conundrum to me. And I…love that in you.” He could not say more, though his heart pounded.

“Please, come away,” she said, and this time he turned with her to move through shadows and fog. As they passed her own weaving cottage, James took her arm to pull her into a dark recess beside the outer wall, turning her so that her back was to the cottage. Setting a hand to the cool, damp stone, he tucked his other hand at the small of her back and pulled her tightly against him. And there, where they stood swathed in that blackness and silence, he took her into his arms and bent his head to kiss her again.

And again, deep and fervent kisses, then slow and tender. A sort of wildness was upon him, his heart
thudding, hands savoring the feel of her against him. He told himself to slow, stop, consider. But so long as she was kissing him like this, with opened lips and the curious touch of her tongue, so long as she pressed against him, she had to know. He was filled and hardened and aching for her now, and so long as she had equal fervor, he followed the craving’s lead.

So he stood with her in the lee of the stone wall, and lost himself in needful kisses and touches. Sliding a hand under her plaid shawl to rest at her taut waist, he felt the gauzy cloth of her night rail bunching under his palm. She felt slender and warm, and the awareness that only the night shift was between his hand and the fullness of her body made him quicken all through, like fire. Kissing him, she ran her hands over his shoulders, then tucked inside the lapels of his coat, where he wore only the shirt. That warm touch teased, tantalized him, and he pressed her against the wall, allowed his hunger, his craving to show. Even then, he knew he must master the passion, and himself, for he teetered on the brink. He was changing, he was opening, and it unsettled him.

All he had known, his reliable, routine, dull life, so carefully constructed over the last years, had begun to shift in a matter of days. What seemed dreamlike and fantastical to him was acceptable and unquestioned to her. And his feelings, too, were expanding somehow. That scared him most of all, for he had guarded those so carefully.

So he simply lost himself to the freedom of the moment and her acquiescence, her fervor. She felt so warm and real in his arms, under his mouth, his fingertips—he could rely on that. Her elusive magic, whatever it was in her that lured him like this, he could surrender
to that for now. Moment to moment, kiss and touch and caress, he need not think or question. Not yet.

By nature a thinker, a scientist, a man who questioned and preferred evidence, what he had seen at the weaver’s cottage had stunned him. But now he was caught in a force from within, his body demanding, his heart needful, and rational wisdom receding. He resisted for a moment and drew back to look at Elspeth. She tilted her head to invite another kiss, her lips full, breathing ragged, hair sifting and tousled. She felt it, too, as he did, and she was so beautiful and willing that his heart ached.