Enraptured (39 page)

“That's why we discussed putting it in the safe in the butler's pantry as soon as we got to Duncally,” Violet explained.

“Even so, he might have decided it would be safer to sneak in and steal it at night from the pantry,” Aunt Elizabeth pointed out.

“That's true.” Coll smiled fondly at the older woman. “So we also talked about going to Baillannan this evening. Of course we wouldn't have. We would have been waiting for him when he broke in.”

“And we discussed taking it tomorrow to the bank so he would know he had to strike very soon or it would be quite out of his reach.”

“You are so clever!” Mrs. Kensington exclaimed admiringly. “I cannot imagine how you had the courage to carry on the pretense, Lady Violet. I would have fainted from fear.”

Coll sent a laughing glance at Violet. “I dinna think Lady Violet is given to fainting. Or fear.”

“My main worry was that our exchange would sound too rehearsed and make him suspicious.” Violet decided she would not share the terror that had risen up in her when she thought Ross might shoot Coll.

“Mine was that Will wouldn't have been on the watch today, and it would have all been for naught,” Coll added.

“Fortunately he was there. And he took the bait.” Jack sipped his wine. “Naturally, while Coll got to put on a grand
show, my part was to spend the day crouched in the bushes, waiting.”

“And an excellent job you did of it, too, my love.” Isobel grinned as she patted his arm.

“You are all safe; that's the important thing. And you don't have to worry about him stealing the treasure,” Mrs. Kensington said happily.

“The unfortunate thing is we still have no idea where the treasure is.”

“I had hoped that the hiding place was marked with the sign on Coll's knife,” Violet told them. “But we have not found the symbol anywhere. We've searched the old castle, which seems the likeliest place. I even examined the standing stones, thinking perhaps it had been carved on one of them.”

“Coll's knife?” Aunt Elizabeth looked puzzled. “Why would your knife be a clue to the gold Papa brought back?”

“Because it was Sir Malcolm's knife—or so Meg believes.”

“Oh, no, dear, it could not be Papa's knife. That was on him. Isobel and Jack found it with . . . his body.” Tears glimmered in Elizabeth's eyes.

“Nae, not the long knife he carried on his belt. It was his sgian-dubh.” Coll reached behind him and pulled out the small knife, holding it out to Elizabeth.

“Oh! Yes.” Elizabeth studied it, nodding.

“Do you remember it, Auntie?” Isobel leaned forward hopefully.

“The sgian-dubh? No, I'm afraid I cannot remember what Papa's sgian-dubh looked like, though of course he
wore one. But it seems likely this one was his, doesn't it? Since he and Faye were the guardians.”

“The guardians?” Violet stiffened.

“Yes, dear, you know, the guardians of the tomb.” Elizabeth pointed at the hilt of the knife. “That mark is the one that's on the barrow.”

F
or a moment there was
dead silence in the room. Elizabeth glanced around. “I don't understand. Why is everyone looking so odd?”

“Of course!” Violet let out a long breath. “The barrow!” She looked at Coll. “That must be what Faye meant. She was talking about their ancient ancestors—the ones who are buried in the barrow by the ring.” Violet turned to Elizabeth, her excitement growing. “You called Sir Malcolm and Faye Munro the guardians?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth, unsettled by everyone's reactions, was clearly relieved to be on more solid ground. “It is one of the legends about the loch. Part of the pact between the lairds of Baillannan and the goodwives of the Munros.”

“The pact?”

“Not a formal one, of course. Just an ancient tradition. No one knows how or when it began. The two families, the Munros and the Roses, were given the duty of protecting the old ones.”

“ ‘Those who went before,' ” Violet quoted Faye's journal.

“Exactly.” Elizabeth nodded. “The Baillannan, of course, protected by force of arms. He was the landholder, the fighter. The Munros were more . . . the protectors of the spirit. The ones who preserved the traditions.”

“That is what the symbol means.” Violet pointed to the sgian-dubh, now lying on the table beside Coll. “The Norse rune meant protection. The Ogham letter was the sign of the yew tree—which stood for death and eternity.”

“And rebirth,” Elizabeth added. “That was the significance of the Long Night.”

“The Long Night?” Mrs. Kensington looked around blankly.

“It's what they called the winter-solstice ceremony long ago,” Isobel explained. “Wasn't it, Aunt Elizabeth?”

“Yes. It was celebrated by the Old Ones, or so they say.”

“I am familiar with the idea that the ancients observed the solstices—the very people, perhaps, who lived in that village we are excavating.” Violet's eyes glowed with enthusiasm. “It was a religion that centered on the land and the elements. They celebrated the planting of the crops in the spring and the growing of them in the summer, and so on. The winter solstice, coming in the darkest part of winter—the longest night, as you say, Lady Elizabeth—was vitally important for reaffirming their belief in the return of the spring, the crops. The death of winter, followed by a promise of rebirth and renewal.”

“But they no longer actually practice that religion.” Jack looked puzzled. “Do they? I mean, the people around here don't gather at the circle on the shortest day of the year.”

“No. They moved past that a long time ago.” Isobel smiled. “There's nothing done there now.”

“Not by the public,” Elizabeth hedged. “But that is what the legend is about—the protectors preserved the tradition of the Long Night.”

Everyone stared at her. Finally Isobel said, “Are you saying that the laird and a Munro healer went to the standing stones on the winter solstice?”

“No, dear, of course not.” Elizabeth smiled fondly at her niece. “They went to the tomb.”

“Ma?” Coll's jaw dropped.

“Papa?” Isobel looked equally astounded.

“Oh, no, John and Janet no longer practiced the tradition,” Elizabeth agreed. “Or, at least, they never told me if they did. But the tale is that such was the duty of the Munros and the Baillannan. They were also bound to keep all others from violating the barrow and the ring—as Meg saved the Troth Stone last summer, you remember.” She turned toward Coll.

Coll seemed too stunned to answer, but Isobel said, “But what did they do at the tomb?”

“I've no idea.” Elizabeth shrugged. “It was no longer done by the time Janet and John and I were of age. When my father died, my brother was just a boy, even younger than I, and of course Janet was a baby. There would have been only Janet's grandmother to continue it, and she was getting on in years. My brother and Coll's mother were modern-thinking people. I don't believe they took up the practice again. But Faye and Sir Malcolm might have done so.”

Violet looked at Coll. “Do you think that is what Faye meant? That she hid it somewhere around the tomb?”

“Aye.” He gazed back at her. “Or in it.”

“Inside? But how could she have gotten inside? The entrance is blocked by rubble.”

“Ah.” Coll grinned at Violet. “Now
that
is one of the Munro secrets. I know another way in.”

“Do you really know how to get into the barrow?” Violet asked a few hours later as she sat at her vanity table, brushing out her hair.

Coll lay on her bed, arms linked behind his head, gazing at her with a lazy heat in his eyes. He had waited to come to her room until he was sure the servants had retired for the night. Though he had returned to Violet's bed, he still did his utmost to keep her reputation safe.

Watching her take down her hair was one of his favorite occupations, Violet knew. More than once he had taken the brush from her hand and brushed her hair himself. Then he had sunk his fingers into her hair and massaged her scalp with his fingertips, which had melted her right down to her toes. Now that she thought about it, Coll's watching her brush out her hair was one of her favorite things, as well.

“In theory, I do,” Coll replied. “I've never actually gone inside. But there are two stones above the entrance that can be moved. It's a drop down, so you have to take a rope and secure it to climb in and out.”

Violet shivered. “It's a little frightening, isn't it? To think of going down into that tomb in the dark.”

“Aye, a bit.”

“Not knowing what will be inside. Or even if the structure
is still safe.” She paused, contemplating the idea. “It's exciting as well.”

He laughed. “I'm not surprised to hear you say that.”

“Do you think your mother continued the tradition? That she went into the tomb on the solstice?”

“No. Ma was a practical sort who believed in the here and now. She knew the old stories, the old ways, well enough, and she used to tell us stories that would make our hair stand on end.” He smiled reminiscently. “But she dinna believe them. My great-grandmother was a bitter old woman; looking back on it, I think she mourned Faye all her life. I suspect she raised my mother differently; she scorned the old ways with Ma—after all, they hadn't saved her daughter. Inside, though, Gran was still bound to them; she was the one who told me about the Long Night and the way into the barrow.”

“And you never tried to go in there?” Violet swung around on the stool to face him, setting her brush aside.

“I did not. There
are
those of us who are reluctant to disturb the dead.”

Violet made a face and crossed to the bed to sit beside Coll. “Still, I find it difficult to believe that you didn't want to explore it when you were sixteen.”

“I thought about it once or twice.” He toyed with the sash of her dressing gown, idly untying it, and grinned at her. “But I never had a wicked companion to urge me to sin . . . until now.”

Freed from the sash, her robe sagged open, but Violet chose to ignore it. It was more difficult to ignore Coll's thumbnail dragging along her thigh. “Did she tell you what this Long Night ceremony entailed?”

He shook his head. “Not really. They may have had to spend the night there.”

“With all the remains?” Even Violet was daunted by that prospect.

“I don't know. Perhaps it was a test of their resolve.” His reply was distracted. His eyes were on his fingers, busily bunching the material of her nightgown in small increments, shortening it bit by bit. “The main thing was to be there when the light came in.”

“Why? What light?”

“The sunrise.” Violet's legs were exposed now up to her thigh, and Coll slipped his fingers beneath the hem of the gown.

She giggled and lightly slapped his hand. “Coll, stop it. Tell me what happens at dawn.”

“You're a hard woman.” He heaved a dramatic sigh and stopped the movement of his hand, leaving it there, warm and firm against her skin. “Very well. The story is that inside the barrow at dawn on the winter solstice, the sunlight shines in and strikes the altar. It only happens on that one day at that exact time.”

“Coll . . .” Violet's eyes glowed. “What a thing to see. It would have seemed a visible proof of rebirth.”

“Not to mention substantiating the words of their holy men. A grand way to assure everyone that their faith is justified.”

“You're a cynical man.”

Coll's agile fingers moved upward again, teasing across her sensitive flesh. Violet closed her eyes as she leaned back, bracing her hands on the bed.

“Nae, not cynical. Just a man who seeks a different sort
of truth. Ah . . . there, I think I have found it.” He watched her as her face softened in pleasure under his teasing fingers.