The Curse of Clan Ross (3 page)

Magic necklace?  Are you kidding me?

Eileen smiled hopefully and clapped her hands. Jillian was more than happy to whip off the silly thing and hand it over.

“Looks like you’ll have to save the day, Eileen.” Jilly slung a brief smile in Quinn’s direction, then moved coolly through the crowd to the rear.

She couldn’t say when it had happened, but sometime between packing for the trip and stepping into the Great Hall, she’d forgotten she was only in Scotland to patronize the fragile sisters in their final fantasy. And to prove wrong her grandmother’s life-long conspiracy theory, that Scotland was a dangerous place for their family and no Scot was to be trusted.

She’d just gotten lost in the role she’d been playing, that was all. She’d begun to pity Ivar and Morna and had spent far too long wishing there was actually something she could have done to help them.

Ridiculous. They’d been dead so long even their dust had dust. Twenty-one layers of it.

She now had to keep in mind the second reason she’d come...

When her grandmother had died, she’d tried to pass her paranoia on with her estate, but Jilly refused to believe that a mysterious group of Scots had sinister plans for a specific Wyoming gal who’d never before been away from home. And for what? Her DNA?

Bull.

In another week she’d be back home, safe and sound, wondering what adventure she might try next while standing over Grandma’s grave, telling her how wrong she’d been.

There. She felt better already.

She couldn’t be disappointed that nothing had happened when she’d put on the necklace. Of
course
nothing had happened. She was just disappointed for the sisters. That was all.
 

Jilly was in no mood to stick around and listen to the wrinkled twins tisk and shake their heads. She was out of there.

But as she zipped up her second-hand leather jacket and headed for the door—and a three-mile walk back to town—she could almost imagine Montgomery Ross’s stony form screaming for her to come back and fight.

But Jillian MacKay was done making a fool of herself.

For the moment.

CHAPTER TWO

Castle Ross, 1495

Montgomery Ross took his leisure in his grand chair and let The Gordon come to him. At his right shoulder stood his braw cousin Ewan, and to his left, the Italian’s statue of himself. It did no harm to let the mighty Clan Gordon see him as a Roman-like god who was ever watching over his own.

Posing all those days for the mood-ridden Southerner had been worth the time after all.

“Monty, please.” Ewan spoke low. “I beg ye not to do this. Ye’ve nay thought this through, mon.”

“Oh?” Monty did not turn, but looked steadily at the entrance. “And who else would have me, Ewan?  Every lass on the island kens what became of my sisters. None would risk my affections now when the only two women I’ve loved were either buried alive or made to wish she were dead.”

“I won’t argue that, cousin. But why a Gordon?” Ewan grunted his frustration. “Nothing good happens when there’s one about. If ye marry the lass, a Gordon will be about all the time!  I’d rather ye married a bloody MacKay!”  He dropped a hand onto Monty’s shoulder and dropped his voice as well. “Mayhap ye should look a bit longer. Try the Lowlands. Hell, I’d rather ye kidnap an English lass—”

“Bite yer tongue and swallow yer teeth, Ewan.” Monty shuddered. “Besides, I’m finished with waitin’. I want the past year forgotten. I want sons. And The Gordon is the only man offerin’ up his daughter just now. I’m told she’s comely and quiet—and it wasn’t a Gordon who told me.” Monty wiped the cold sweat from his palms onto his thighs, then quickly returned his hands to their casual pose. “‘Comely’ is welcome, but ‘quiet’ is a true boon.”

“Neither Morna nor Isobelle were quiet.” Ewan snorted and removed his hand from Monty’s shoulder as footsteps sounded on the steps outside.

“Exactly.”

“Oh, cousin.” Ewan pulled his shoulders back and stretched to his full height. “I’ve a foul feelin’ about this...”

The great door opened and The Gordon finally entered looking none too happy, most likely for not being greeted out of doors. When Monty nodded permission for the man to descend the steps into his hall, the laird paused as if he might not wish to accept permission after all.

“Come.” Monty waved the man forward, holding a smile he did not feel. He had to prove his control in all things now, or the other man would never respect him enough to keep him as an ally, let alone a son-of-the-law, especially with all the trouble Morna had been.

The Gordon gradually came forward, all the while eyeing the
statue
as if it might come to life and draw steel.
 

Well done, Mickey
. Poor Italian. He really had hated being called Mickey.
 

“Welcome, Laird Gordon, to my humble home.” Montgomery inclined his head but did not stand. “Ewan, bring The Gordon a chair.”

“Hold, Ross.” The visiting laird raised a hand and pointed to Isobelle’s tomb. “I’ll no’ take me rest in a graveyard, aye?” He turned his back. “We’ll speak out of doors, or not at all.”

The insult Montgomery felt for his sister lit his belly, and dread filled his chest as his temper jumped free of his control, as it used to do. He’d held it in check for months now. Perhaps he could at least avoid a war. As the words bubbled up, however, hope washed away.

“Then I suppose there will be no speech between us, Gordon.” Monty’s venom got the departing man’s attention. “
If
I’m to wed yer daughter, auld mon, the ceremony will take place here, on ground
I consider sacred
.”
 

The Gordon’s entire head turned redder than his hair had once been.

“Yer sister’s grave could not be consecrated and ye ken it.” Gordon retraced his steps until he was once again standing before the grand Ross chair. “How dare ye speak to me—”

“Nay, sir. How dare
you?”
Monty stood and towered over the man who was too proud to retreat a step or two. “This ground is sacred to me in honor of the sister I lost as the unbearable price for an alliance with
you
.” Monty paused to catch his breath and capture his tongue with his teeth. Slowly lowering his arse back on his chair, he allowed the other man a fleeting sense of relief before he continued. “And if ye’d not see yer daughter wed to me here, then ye may take her home. But do not neglect to leave Morna and her dowered lands behind.”
 

Monty pointedly ignored The Gordon’s Runt, Morna’s husband, who now stood fuming at his father’s shoulder—or hip, rather—and instead, looked up at his own stone likeness, searching not only for control, but for a miracle. What could he possibly give The Gordon to stop this wedding from slipping through his fingers as his temper had done?

The answer smirked back at him. He waited for the other laird to follow his notice.

“The pity of it all would be yer lack of Ross grandsons, would it no’?” Monty waited patiently while the Cock o’ the North took in the details of Mickey’s work, no doubt imagining lads of a like build sporting ruddy manes.

The Gordon looked for a time and then some.

“Don’t just stand there, Ewan Ross. Fetch me a chair and a drink.” The old laird waved away his small escort, his gaze still admiring the statue.

The Runt narrowed his eyes in a miniature threat before making his way back outside, and Monty hoped his sister would not have to pay for the insult he’d just dealt her wee spouse.

“My condolences, Ross. I heard Isobelle was as great a beauty as my daughter-of-the-law.” The Gordon sat and accepted wine. “I fancy a ceremony on the morn as I wish to be headed North by the nooning hour.”

The meeting could not have gone better, to Monty’s thinking. In but a day’s time, he’d have someone other than his hulking cousin at his side. Surely, after he and his wife spent some time together, the blasted loneliness would be gone, as if it had never been.

Although he was never one to ignore one of Ewan’s foul feelings, surely this time his cousin was allowing his emotions to rule his tongue. Ewan had ever been as loyal to Morna and Isobelle as he’d been to Monty, and the man begrudged the Gordons not making Morna welcome. After a year, the stubborn woman continued to be unhappy, but their cousin refused to believe any fault lay at her feet.

At this time on the morrow, Monty would have a wife, his clan would have a reason to celebrate, and Ewan’s foul feeling would be proved as naught but a foul humor.

Anything less and someone would bleed.

CHAPTER THREE

“The Pub”, East Burnshire, Present-Day Scotland

Jilly really had no choice; she had to break into Castle Ross or start taking schizophrenia meds.

That flight-or-fight voice in her head had been joined by a decidedly masculine set of vocal chords insisting that flight was no longer an option. She kept hearing, “Get back here!”

Thankfully, the imagined summons was cut short by a band of sorts, made up of the Muir sisters’ contemporaries striking up an almost-lively tune. Soon the only tension left in the air was the fiddle player’s bow as it squealed across the strings. One man pounded on a bodhran, another played a small version of bagpipes, pumping air with a bellows under one arm instead of blowing with his mouth. Only a statue could have resisted tapping its toes to the tempo.

During the castle tour, Quinn Ross had plugged The Pub and mentioned he came here “of an evening.” As soon as he showed,
if
he showed, she planned to borrow one of the dozens of bikes propped up around the village green and do something she’d never done in her life...
 

Break the law.

It was still coming, that holy-crap-moment, and the warning was getting louder in a way she could never explain. Jilly only hoped she wouldn’t be explaining it to a bobbie, or someone from The Yard who wouldn’t have the slightest appreciation for Americans who broke into castles when ordered to do so by the voices in their heads—voices that were fond of whispering, “Here it comes. Here it comes. Ope. Not yet. But it’s coming...”

Jilly chose the path of self-medication and ordered a Green-Toed Faery, doing a slightly dignified, seated jig while she waited for the drink. A giant bag of chocolate was what she really wanted, but the only store in town closed at seven. Seven!  

You would think she was in...Wyoming.

Clutching onto the bar and any excuse for conversation with the bartender, Jilly could feel numerous eyes boring cigarette-sized holes in the back of her jacket. Every now and then she would force herself to turn and look casually about the smoky pub if only to relieve the heat coming through her clothes. She could almost taste burning leather.

The old Jilly would be sitting back at the B&B waiting for someone to tell her what she’d be doing next, but she wasn’t ready to go back to being the obedient help; she suspected that’s all she’d been to her grandmother.

Nope. Her world was going to change—her life was going to change—if she could just keep from losing her nerve. Making her own decisions was a muscle she had to build, and so far, it was barely a swelling under her skin. Breaking into the castle to silence the voices was going to max-out that muscle big time.

Screw the chocolate; what she really needed was some distracting company.

At her quiet end of the bar, the handiest ear available for bending belonged to Jock, the unfortunately-named Scot who was mixing drinks and likely had never played a sport in his life. It looked completely probable that he saved all his energy to reach past his substantial belly to set a glass on the counter. And after watching for the last half hour, Jilly was sure the patrons were trying to keep their spills and watermarks close to the inside of the bar where Jock could more easily reach them, proving once again Scotland was the quaintest place on earth.

But quaint also meant small, and it was entirely possible that Jock was the only one in town who had not heard about Jilly’s failed attempt to end the Ross Curse.

Jock’s fussing brought him back to her end of the counter, a beautiful length of thick wood damaged and re-polished so many times it looked more like a long dark river rock made smooth by water and time. He flung one end of his towel over his red-suspendered shoulder and left it there while he gathered up dirty glasses.

“Bad day at the jewelry shop?” he asked with a wink.

Of course it was also entirely possible that Jock had been the one to spread the word.

Jilly hung her head. She’d been struggling to hold it up all afternoon, and music or no music, she just couldn’t do it anymore.

“Aw, come now, lassie. Dinna fash. Think of it this way, if ye’d have succeeded somehow, it would have ruined the tourist trade, aye?  Turned our wee community into dust. A ghost shire with no ghosts.” He patted her hand with his large smooth one. “So we’re every one of us obliged.”

Jillian raised her head and blew the man a kiss. He’d just moved to the top of her list of favorite Scots. But was he right?  Would ending The Curse mess with the people here?  
 
 

A clang announced the opening of the pub’s wide door, and Jilly scooted closer to the shadows.

She couldn’t help the clenching of her stomach when she imagined the old sisters hunting her down. If she were a clever girl she could think of a way to never have to face the pair again. She couldn’t blame the afternoon’s failure on Lorraine and Loretta, though. She’d latched on to the lure of Scotland like a hungry fish after a shiny bug. The Curse had merely given her an excuse.

Ending the Curse may not be her destiny, but destiny was definitely calling her from the direction of the castle. She merely needed to break back into the castle and call it back. And she need not worry about conspiring Scots, since the place should be empty for the night.

Jilly propped an elbow on the glossy counter, cradled her jaw in her hand, and sighed into her fluorescent drink. It was as sad as it was amusing, this temptation to pull aside the hair on her forehead and ask Jock if she might have a Harry Potter-esque scar on her brow that read “FOOL.”