Under an Enchantment: A Novella (3 page)

Chapter 2

“
Torquil’s been looking for you.”

Ailie paused at the gate of the dower house, fighting the frisson of uneasiness that stretched up her backbone. She wasn’t afraid of man or beast, enchanted creature or wild animal, but Domnhall the seal hunter came close to making her cower. Not that she was about to let him see it.

She turned, smiling up at him with a particularly witless look, meant to disarm. “He knows where to find me, Domnhall,” she said in a tranquil voice. “When did you start taking his messages?”

“
I don’t mind doing him a favor or two,” Domnhall said, his small, dark eyes sweeping over her in a look that could only be called predatory. “Knowing he’ll be paying his debts, sooner or later.”

“
He has debts to you?”

Domnhall looked displeased at her quick question. He was a huge man, broad, just beginning to go to fat as he reached into middle age, with mean eyes, rough hands, and a cruel nature that had been whispered of on St. Columba for years. He took delight in killing innocent things: the seals who came too close to his fishing nets, the birds that flocked near the hovel he called home. It was rumored he’d even killed the young woman he’d married and buried in record time, but there’d been no proof. People steered clear of him, eyeing him warily. All, that is, except for Torquil Spens, who wasn’t averse to using any tool that came to hand, no matter how tainted.

“
You’re smart enough when you’re paying attention,” he said. “Not quite as mazed as you’d have one think, are ye?”

She smiled sweetly. “Not mazed at all, Domnhall.”

“
Where were ye just now?”

She could have told him it was none of his business. If she were the sort of woman her family wished her to be, she would have done just that, with cool dignity. But she wasn’t the woman they wished her to be, and never would be. “I was off to see the selkie.”

His reaction was instantaneous, and she cursed her flapping tongue. “He’s either a seal or a man,” he said in a low, evil voice. “And I kill seals.” He looked down at his brutish hands, and Ailie could see the dried blood beneath his dirty fingernails. “I wonder what color his pelt will be.”

“
You’ll leave him alone, Domnhall MacAlpin,” she said fiercely.

He looked at her from his great height, unmoved by her fury. “And who would make me?”

She fought the panic that swept over her at the thought of brutish Domnhall going after the man at Collis’s croft. He was swift and brutal with a knife—she’d watched him skin a seal once, and been heartily sick afterward. The slender, wiry strength of the selkie would be no match for him.

“
There are powers, Domnhall,” she said. “Creatures of the night, who could haunt you and chase you. The spirits of the ones you’ve murdered, following after you, driving you mad. There’ll be no escape for you, none at all, until you run screaming into the sea.” Her voice sounded like an ancient curse, called down upon his head, and he turned pale.

“
I don’t believe in such things,” he said, backing away from her.

Ailie smiled at him serenely. “You’d be wise to do so. You never know when your deeds will come back to haunt you.” And turning her back on him, she continued down the narrow path to the dower house. She could feel him watching her, and the skin at the back of her neck prickled. He meant her harm. She knew it, with instincts ancient and sure. She just wasn’t certain what form that harm might take.

The dower house was small, cozy and snug, even in its current state of disrepair. She and Margery had left the manor house, taking up residence in the abandoned cottage as soon as Duncan was safely in the ground, and despite the cobwebs, the rotting wood, and drafty comers, she felt more at home than she’d ever felt in the grander residences of her father or her husband. Margery did her best, gradually making inroads on the ruined house, and Ailie was content with the ramshackle existence.

There was a fire burning in the grate in the small drawing room, and the smell of roast chicken filled the house. Ailie sank down in the shabby chair, holding out her bare toes to the warming fire.

“
There you are, mistress,” Margery said, appearing in the doorway, her broad, kindly face creased with worry. “People have been looking for you.” Ailie had steadfastly refused to answer when addressed as Lady Spens, and Margery had given in with weary grace, settling for the more general term when she couldn’t be prevailed upon to call her Ailie.

“
So I gather. Torquil for one,” she said, trying to keep the unhappiness out of her voice.

“
Your brother for another. And me without a clue as to where you’d gone. You’re not wearing black either. It’s not decent, mistress. Your husband isn’t even cold in the ground, and you’re wearing colors. It shows a lack of respect.”

“
I forget,” Ailie murmured, though she hadn’t forgotten a thing.

“
And your shoes, mistress!” Margery clucked. “You’ll catch your death, wandering around like a bairn in the summer. Dinna ye realize that we’re living here by your family’s permission? If your brothers think I can’t watch over you, they’ll make you come back to Angus’s house, and you wouldn’t like that one bit. His wife’s a spoiled young shrew, particularly now that she’s carrying a bairn, and Angus has never shown ye much kindness.”

Ailie simply shook her head, feeling her long hair fan out around her. “They can’t make me,” she said.

“
Yes, mistress, they can. Try to behave yourself, my lady. It wouldn’t take so much. Let me braid your hair, put away your colors, find your shoes. Walk quietly, with your head tucked down. You don’t want any more whispers.”

Ailie glanced at her maid curiously. Margery had been with her since she turned fourteen and confounded her family with her airy ways, and while she’d never understood her fey mistress, she had a stubborn, well-placed loyalty to Ailie’s welfare. She simply didn’t always recognize what was best for Ailie.

“
And what would the whispers say, Margery?” she asked calmly enough, tucking her legs underneath her, settling her skirt around her. The hem was caked with mud from Collis’s front yard, and absently she remembered the feel of the selkie’s hand on her wrist. She could still feel the warmth of his flesh against hers. She would have thought a seal-man would be cold to the touch.

“
They’d say you were mad, mistress. They could put you away, in a place where no one could see you, no one could help you.”

“
It might be better than marrying Torquil.”

“
Have a care, mistress. Torquil Spens is a decent enough man, and he wants ye. He’s your best hope of any kind of happy life.”

Ailie thought of Torquil, of the bland blue eyes and plump mouth, the silvering hair and sturdy jowls. He was a much kinder man than Domnhall MacAlpin, for all that he used the seal hunter for his dirty work. He’d take good care of her, Ailie knew. Keep her safe. Protected. Imprisoned. With no chance of escape or freedom ever again.

Ailie leaned back in the chair, smiling wearily. “I’ve accepted it, haven’t I? Sooner or later he’ll wed me, whether I say him aye or nay. At least I’ll have a chance to dance with the faeries beforehand.”

Margery shook her head in affectionate worry. “You and your faeries, mistress. They’ll be the death of you.”

Ailie thought back to the selkie. Malcolm, with the sea-green eyes that reached out and touched her. He was mysterious, enchanted, a far cry from the ordinary men and tedious everydayness of life. It was no wonder she was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

“
The faeries won’t hurt me, Margery,” she said softly. “Nor the selkies. Man is the only creature I have to fear.” Margery looked at her with perplexed tolerance. “The sooner you’re wed,” she said heavily, “the better for you. At least Torquil will protect you from your family.” She started out the drawing-room door, her tread heavy on the worn floorboards.

“
Aye,” whispered Ailie to herself. “But who will protect me from Torquil?”

And unbidden, the memory of the selkie rose before her, like a faerie vision. And in the overwarm drawing room, Ailie shivered.

His mother had been a strong woman. A sturdy, gentle creature, with a fearless sense of right and wrong, one she’d done her best to instill in her wild young son, Catriona MacLaren had a saint’s heart and a poet’s soul, and Malcolm had loved her with all his reckless being.

He’d been a sore trial to her, growing up. He’d been rebellious, reckless, and the guilt still plagued him. Catriona had known he’d been devoted to her, just as she’d known how much he cared about his younger sisters and the man he knew as his father. She’d understood his uncertain temper, his rashness, his fierce need for justice and revenge. She’d always been able to reason with him, make him see both sides of the issue. But she was gone now, died of a fever last Christmas, holding the hand of her husband and her son, the two men she’d loved dearly and had never been able to see.

It was James MacLaren who’d told him the story, the man he loved and respected, the man he thought was his father. James MacLaren, who let his grief drive him too deep into the whisky bottle and loosen his tongue, who told his son the truth, and then regretted it ever since.

“
I found her, lad,” he’d said, staring into the fire, the unfamiliar power of the whiskey clouding his gaze. “She’d managed to cling to an old piece of jetsam, and she was bobbing up and down in the angry sea, her black hair spread out around her, matted with blood. It was a chance in a thousand that she’d survived so far, a chance in a thousand that I was out that day in the dory, more for sport than for duty, and happened to see her in the distance. By the time I reached her, she’d slipped beneath the waves, and I dived down after her.

“
I was afraid I’d lost her,” James continued, pouring himself another dram from the now half-empty dark bottle. “I couldn’t see her anywhere in the murky depths of the sea. And then a dark shape swam by, sleek and graceful, and I knew it was a seal. I followed it, until I thought my lungs would burst, and he led me to your mother as she drifted down through the water, her hair flowing out around her.

“
Even as I brought her into the boat I was afraid it was too late. She was scarce breathing, and her skin was dead white. I tried to force air into her, and she began to choke and cough. And she opened her eyes to me, her beautiful green eyes, and she was blind.” His voice broke.

Malcolm held himself very still. He’d heard this story, he and his sisters, throughout their lives. The wondrous, romantic story of how their parents met and fell in love, when his father saved Catriona from the sea.

But this time it was different. There were ominous undertones to the tale, and it was his father’s deep, angry voice that told it, not his mother’s soft, sentimental one.

“
They’d done it to her, lad. She told me the truth, and she made me swear I wouldn’t take vengeance for it. It was my cross to bear, along with hers, and I thought I’d made my peace with it. But now... now...”

Malcolm took a step closer. His mother would never talk about her childhood or the years before she married James. Now, finally, the empty spaces would be filled. “Tell me,” he said.

James looked up at his son, with love and affection in his blue eyes. “She lived on the island of St. Columba. She was the only daughter of a good family who’d fallen on hard times. She was a bonnie lass, one who made the dire mistake of thinking she was in love with the wrong man.” He’d known what was coming. He almost stopped his father, afraid to hear. But Malcolm MacLaren had never admitted fear in his entire life.

“
Your mother knew right from wrong. She had no intention of giving herself without the blessing of the kirk. But yon Lordship had other ideas. He took her, by force, and she was too ashamed to tell anyone. In truth, there was no one she could tell. Her parents were old, bowed down with worry, and there was naught they could do against the power of a man like His Lordship.”

“
What happened?” He barely recognized the sound of his own voice. He sounded like a hungry wolf, raw and angry.

James looked away, into the fire. “She found she was carrying a bairn. And when she went to the man, to make him take responsibility, he drove her from his manor house with threats. But he knew he couldn’t get away with his behavior. It wasn’t as if Catriona was a simple village lass, made to be despoiled by the gentry. She was from an old family, a good family, and he’d be made to pay the price.

“
So he and his friends got together. His best friend and his cousin and the man hired someone to kill her, to get rid of her with no questions asked. She never told me who’d done it, who’d taken her into a boat, out into the sea. The one thing she told me was that she’d fought, and he’d hit her in the head, knocking the sense from her, and thrown her into the sea. And she’d never seen again.”

“
How did she survive?”

James shook his head. “Heaven only knows. The seals saved her, perhaps. Or the grace of God. Somehow she found herself clinging to a piece of wood, her vision gone, clinging until I found her. I brought her back to Glen Corrie and nursed her myself. I wouldn’t let any of the servants come near her. Even my own mother wasn’t allowed to touch her. She almost died then, caught in a fever and a terror so deep I feared for her mind as well as her body. And then one day the fever left her, as fast as it came upon her. And as soon as the banns could be read, we were married.” He leaned back against the wooden settle, looking older than his son had ever seen him.