Tall, Dark and Kilted (8 page)

“Yikes!” She jumped when a broken-handled casserole pot rolled off its perch and tumbled forward, nearly conking her on the head before it bounced onto the carpeted floor with a dull thud. “What’s all this?”

“Not the library.” The housekeeper was right behind her. “That’s the closet where we keep buckets and whatnot to catch the drips from the roof.”

“The roof leaks?” Cilla couldn’t believe it.

“Aye, it does.” Honoria snatched up the casserole pot. “Only in the worst rainstorms, but then the plink-plinkety-plonks of the dripping water is so loud that a body can’t hear itself think.”

“Aunt Birdie and Uncle Mac didn’t mention—”

“There’ll be much they haven’t told you about the goings-on at Dunroamin, but”—the housekeeper caught her eye—“you’ll be hearing it soon enough.”

“Aunt Birdie told me there are difficulties.” Cilla stepped aside as the older woman thrust the casserole pot back into the chaos and shut the closet door. “Do you think someone deliberately damaged the roof?”

“Age and wear damaged the roof and naught else.” Honoria started down the corridor again. “Though I can tell you that your aunt and uncle meant to have the roof repaired some while ago and would have done if business hadn’t taken such a bad turn.”

“Oh, dear.” Cilla hurried after her, hot shower and bed forgotten. “Water drips can do all kinds of damage to an old house like this.”

“Exactly.” Honoria didn’t break stride. “And that’s just what we suspect certain bodies are hoping.”

“But who would want to hurt Uncle Mac and Aunt Birdie?”

“Someone up to no good is who.” The housekeeper’s voice was sharp. “And one thing is sure as I’m standing here”—she stopped before a magnificent carved oak door, one hand on the latch—“it isn’t ghosties what’s causing the furor.”

Cilla blinked. “Ghosties?”

Behind her, she thought she heard a rustle of wool. Kilted wool—she knew the sound well—coming closer, as if to listen in on their conversation.

Unfazed, the housekeeper sniffed.

“Aye, ghosties, if one was of a mind to believe such twaddle.”

“I thought you believed in them.”

“Ach, and I do right enough.” Her tone rang with conviction. “But there are ghosties and
ghosties
, and I’ll no’ be buying that a gaggle of them want to scare away Dunroamin’s paying residents.”

Leaning close, she pinned Cilla with a stare. “I don’t just work here, see you? I live and breathe this house. I know every creaking floorboard, every groan in the woodwork, each sticking window, and which shutters rattle in the night wind.”

She straightened, her hand still on the door latch. “I also know Dunroamin’s ghosts. The bogles we have here, such as poor Margaret MacDonald, love Dunroamin and would never seek to frighten folk.”

Cilla wasn’t so sure about that, but before she could voice an opinion, the housekeeper swung open the library door and three things leapt at her, chasing Honoria and her bogles from her mind.

One, she’d never seen so much plaid.

Though the requisite mahogany bookcases lined the walls and the handsome fire surround gleamed in the expected black marble and the usual ancestral portraits held pride of place throughout the large room, a palette of tartanware covered every other inch of available space.

Heavy velvet drapes styled the windows in a sett of deep red squares and stripes. Instead of the customary Persian carpets, richly patterned plaid rugs lent warmth to the wide-planked polished floor, while tartan wallpaper peeked from between the bookshelves, gilded picture frames, and occasional molting stag heads.

Even the scattered sofas and wing chairs welcomed in various-shaded tartan dress, some offering the additional comfort of several folded plaid blankets and stout tartan-covered ottomans.

In short, the library bulged plaid.

Cilla blinked, the colorful array almost hurting her eyes.

The housekeeper, clearly immune, strode past her into the candlelit room. Looking wholly in her element, she made straight for a long, tartan-draped table near a wall of tall, mullioned windows.

Spread for tea with generous servings of oatcakes and cheeses, cakes and chocolate-dipped biscuits, and large silver platters of salmon and thin-sliced roast beef, it wasn’t the tartan tablecloth that took Cilla by surprise—not after seeing the room—but the two multiarmed candelabrums illuminating the tea goods.

Real wax tapers burned in the wall sconces, as well, and a quick glance around showed no modern lighting at all.

Today’s world treads easy at Dunroamin, and our residents appreciate feeling embraced by earlier times.

Aunt Birdie’s words—spoken years ago in Yardley—rushed back to Cilla now. Dunroamin really was like a living history museum; a place where those who loved old things could take refuge.

Only the dear old things she’d expected to find crowding the library, listening to Uncle Mac’s afternoon tea talk by the fire, proved so scarce in number they could be counted on one hand.

And that was the second thing that surprised her upon entering the room.

The third, and most alarming, was Uncle Mac himself.

Larger than life as he was, he couldn’t be missed and Cilla spotted him right away, despite the dimness of the shadowy, candlelit room.

As expected, he strode to and fro before a crackling hearth fire, his pipe in one hand and a glittering crystal dram glass in the other.

He was definitely holding court, emphasizing each booming word with a grand flourish of his smoke-trailing pipe. His reflection in the huge gilt mirror above the mantelpiece gave the illusion that two Uncle Macs paced there, kilt-swinging, red-faced, and agitated.

Cilla froze.

She lifted a hand to her breast and shook her head.

Then she blinked and knuckled her eyes, but she hadn’t been mistaken.

Uncle Mac—a man who defined merriment—was furious.

And he was ranting about ghosts.

Viking ghosts.

Chapter 4

“Vikings, my eye!”

Mac MacGhee stabbed the air with his pipe. “I dinna care who says they saw a ghostly band of horn-helmeted Norsemen slinking past my peat banks—I say they saw bog mist!”

Cilla stared at him, too surprised to step out of the shadows near the door.

She did press a hand to her cheek. She needed it there to keep her jaw from dropping.

She’d never seen her uncle so upset.

That he was stood beyond question. His ruddy face glowed apple red, and he’d swelled his great barrel chest like an enraged Highland bull.

“If not bog mist”—he glared at his audience from behind a cloud of cherry-scented smoke—“then sea haar.”

“Here, here.” A dapper-looking gentleman with a bald pate and a trim silver mustache puffed at his own pipe and nodded enthusiastic agreement.

Uncle Mac swung toward him. “Next they’ll be seeing mermaids swimming in the Kyle!”

“Jolly right.” Silver Mustache shifted in an overstuffed plaid chair and crossed his legs, revealing heavy hill-walking boots that struck an odd contrast to his neat gray suit. “Mist or moon glow, I say they also took a dram too many before they went to bed.”

“Pah!” A tiny white-haired woman seared him with a stare. “I know what I saw and I’ll not have either of you say me otherwise.”

An equally petite woman caning her way to the well-laden tea table took her side. “Just because neither of you saw them doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”

Reaching the table, she began helping herself to a generous serving of roast beef and boiled potatoes. “Only the other night, I heard whooping out over the moors. Shouts, they were, and in no language of this day!”

“You heard geese.” Uncle Mac glowered at her.

She waved the serving fork at him. “I heard Vikings! I’d recognize their yells anywhere,” she declared, jutting her chin. “I’m of Norse descent, after all.”

Uncle Mac snorted.

Show me a Highlander who isn’t
, Cilla thought she heard him grumble beneath his breath.

The first old dear—the white-haired one—leaned forward then. “Leo saw them, too,” she announced, stroking the little black-and-tan dachshund curled on her lap. “He growled at them out my window.”

“Hah!” Silver Mustache slapped his thigh. “Like as not, your fool bird was sitting on the ledge.”

“Leo doesn’t growl at Gregor.” The tiny woman sat back in her chair, looking smug. “Only you.”

A flurry of coughs and titters rippled through the library.

“Enough!” Uncle Mac tossed down his whisky and sent a warning look to the other residents.

Silver Mustache and the tiny woman exchanged challenging glares.

“Becalm yourselves.” Honoria stepped between them, bearing cups of tea and a plate of chocolate biscuits. “Whatever was seen, we’ll soon get to the bottom of it.”

It was then that Cilla saw the shield.

Round, studded, and looking suspiciously familiar, it appeared to
hover
in the shadows near one of the Jacobean window bays.

She sucked in her breath when it settled on a cushioned window seat, perfectly upright as if someone had propped it against the leaded panes.

Propped, or held it.

Her heart began to thump and she started to back out of the room, but a swirl of her aunt’s exotic perfume enfolded her, announcing Aunt Birdie’s arrival just as she appeared at Cilla’s side.

Across the room, Silver Mustache pointed the stem of his pipe at the housekeeper. “I say it’d serve better if you passed around digestive biscuits rather than chocolate ones.”

He slid a narrow-eyed look at the white-haired woman sitting near him. “I’ve some chewable tablets in my room if that should fail.”

“I do not suffer from indigestion.” The woman purposely bit into a chocolate-coated biscuit. “Though”—she dabbed at her mouth with a linen napkin—“you could easily give it to me.”

“Maybe I should just slip up to my room.” Cilla spoke low, her gaze on the shield.

“Oh, don’t mind them.” Aunt Birdie clearly didn’t see the thing. “Those two always bicker.”

“Even so—” Cilla jumped when the shield moved.

Only a few inches, but still . . .

It’d slid sideways, as if someone pushed it out of the way to sit down.

She swallowed.

Aunt Birdie’s eyes twinkled, her attention still on the two warring residents.

Happily oblivious to anything else, she hooked an elegantly manicured hand through Cilla’s arm.

“That’s Colonel Achilles Darling from Bibury in Gloucestershire—the northern Cotswolds—and Violet Manyweathers,” she confided, leaning close. “The colonel joined us after his wife’s death. Word is, his one great love was a Strathnaver lass from these parts. He never forgot her, or so the tale goes, so when he could, he came north to finally be near her.”

“Violet Manyweathers?”

Surely the two weren’t lovebirds.

“Oh, no.” Aunt Birdie shook her head. “The colonel’s long-lost love died years ago. She’s buried nearby. Violet is local. She was born in Melness, the tiny crofting hamlet just down the road.”

Cilla nodded.

It was hard to concentrate knowing
he
sat in the window seat.

She glanced down, making certain that her top wasn’t clinging too tightly. It’d been bad enough to have her nipples pucker when he’d swept her with such a heated look in the stair tower.

Something told her then and there that he was a breast man, and that was definitely where he’d fixed his gaze now.

She could feel it sliding over her. Dipping into the deep-shadowed swells of her cleavage and gliding round to caress and explore every nuance of her sleek, weighty fullness. The way she grew heavier beneath his stare and the sweet, hot-pulsing thrill of knowing his gaze on her.

Much to her annoyance, it was a pleasurable sensation.

Embarrassed, she tilted her chin in the air and hoped her aunt would think the room’s chill was responsible for her jutting, tightened nipples.

“Manyweathers doesn’t sound like a Strathnaver name.” She jumped on the chance to get her mind off of Mr. Wasn’t-Really-There and his nipple-stirring stares.

She also didn’t want to think of Margaret MacDonald, Dunroamin’s onetime nursery ghost whose sad plight, if true, implied that ghosts could have wholly legitimate reasons for walking among the living.

If
he
had a valid reason for haunting Dunroamin, she was sure she didn’t want to know it. Hoping she looked no more than mildly curious, she tapped a finger to her chin and pretended to ponder.

“Are you sure Violet’s from around here?”

“Oh yes.” Aunt Birdie glanced at the tiny woman. “She married an Englishman—Mr. Manyweathers of London—and, like the colonel, decided to come here when she found herself alone. She missed the far north and claims she never adjusted to London.”

“And Gregor?” Cilla already knew Leo the dachshund was Dunroamin’s resident mascot. “Violet’s bird?”

Aunt Birdie smiled. “He’s a great skua. Violet—”

“A great
what
?” Cilla’s eyes widened.

Now she did have something else to think about. She’d expected a canary or a parakeet.

“Great skua,” Aunt Birdie repeated. “They’re large brown predatory birds also known as bonxies.” Her gaze flicked to the colonel. “Violet found him abandoned with an injured wing when he was just a wee little thing. It was quite a sensation, as bonxies usually nest in the moorlands of the Northern Isles. Violet nursed him back to health. She set him free in due time, but he decided to stay.”

“In her room?”

“Heavens, no.” Aunt Birdie’s eyes twinkled. “Gregor lives outside, though he doesn’t stray far. What he does do”—she leaned close to whisper in Cilla’s ear—“is make the colonel’s life miserable. That’s why he wears those heavy boots and a deerstalker hat.”

Cilla glanced at him, just now noticing the tweedy dual-rimmed cap with the telltale side flaps on a small table beside his chair.

“The bird dive-bombs him?”

Aunt Birdie nodded. “He has, yes. That’s what bonxies do. They swoop down on anyone they view as a threat. Gregor”—she waved a hand as if to lighten the bird’s transgressions—“mostly just pecks at the colonel’s feet whenever he dares to go outside.”