Duncan favored me with a pained smile that made his eyes glisten. “Maureen means ‘star of the sea.’ It was my ma’s name.”
A lump lodged in my throat, making it difficult to do more than nod. I watched as Duncan crossed to his bookshelf and placed Maureen II next to his prized first editions of Shakespeare and Dickens. Then he returned to capture my hand. “Thank you,” he murmured.
Never breaking eye contact, he bent over my hand and raised it to his mouth. The minute his lips touched my skin, his eyelids closed. Waves of heat radiated from his kiss to warm my whole body. After what seemed like an eternity, he let go with a sigh.
Now or never
,
Kenna.
Butterflies started an impromptu kick line in my stomach as I cleared my throat. Duncan’s eyes
opened to regard me curiously as I sputtered, “I — uh, I never apologized for, you know, leaving you on the bridge. I’m sorry.”
His body stiffened, and the emotion drained from his face until it was a stony mask. With cool detachment, he replied, “I know you are.”
He grabbed his leather saddle bag. “Thank you again for the present. I’m late. Please forgive me for taking my leave. I trust ye can show yourself out.” Then he was gone.
I stood in the entryway, listening to his footsteps on the stairs until the world fell silent. As I crossed to the door, a painting on the wall drew my attention. I remembered the oil color which I’d christened “Landscape with Bovine” from my very first trip to Duncan’s rooms. I’d dismissed the pastoral scene as boring. What I’d failed to comprehend before now leapt out at me.
Behind the grazing cows and off to one side, a giant beanstalk ascended into the clouds. In the top corner, nearly off the canvas, was a pair of legs in mid-climb. This deceptively peaceful picture hinted at the difference between a cow and a bean for those who had eyes to see. And clearly I hadn’t. It was too late to embrace an adventure with a handsome prince in a secret kingdom. I’d wasted my chance. The best thing I could do for Duncan now would be to save Doon, and then return to my boring, cow-filled world with as little collateral damage as possible.
A
fter the encounter with Duncan, I wandered aimlessly through the royal gardens. Eventually, I ended up under the wide stone arch. Although I hadn’t consciously directed my footsteps, I realized it had been my destination all the same.
This was the site of our epic make-out session during my last visit. It was here where my heart had admitted what my head obstinately denied — that I was in love with a prince from a different world. Under this very arch, I’d voiced my concerns about staying.
“What if you experience a Calling? Then I’d be stuck here — ”
“Shhh.”
Duncan’s fingertip had brushed my lips.
“If you stay
,
I’ll give you my heart and never ask for it back.”
I shook my head to clear the ghosts.
Duncan obviously remembered our childhood connection — little allusions he’d made during our previous time together made perfect sense now. With a simple confession, he could have rewritten our history. Why hadn’t he told me the truth before it was too late?
A sob hitched in my throat. I didn’t even realize I was crying until my hand came away from my face wet. Using my sleeve like a tissue, I blotted my leaky eyes.
For Duncan and me, there was no going back to before — I understood that now. Last night he’d confessed that we weren’t meant to be together. Despite the twisted past that entangled us, he was trying to move on with Ana. The sooner I got out of his way, the better.
“There you are.” Vee’s voice preceded her down the path. I took one last swipe at my eyes and then turned around to face her with a soggy smile.
She pulled up short and inspected me with a critical eye. “Uh-oh. What’s going on?”
I dug right down to the bottom of my soul . . . and stuffed my messy emotions away. “Nothing.”
Closing the distance between us, she said conversationally, “I’m the queen, you know. One word and I can have whoever made you cry thrown in the stockade.”
That would go over well — having her boyfriend’s brother arrested. Besides, I was the one in the wrong. Even though Duncan had withheld critical information about our past, I hadn’t remembered him — among other transgressions. “Does Doon even have stockades?”
She shrugged. “I’ll have some built.”
In silent agreement, we started strolling away from the arch toward the lake. After a couple dozen unhurried steps, Vee asked, “So is this about Duncan?”
“Like you didn’t know that already?”
“I don’t know the specifics. What happened?”
Rather than give her a straight answer, I shrugged off the question. “Nothing worth talking about. Are you ready to search the catacombs?”
She raised an eyebrow to indicate she’d caught my change of subject. “Jamie asked me not to go without a guide.”
“What?” I stopped in my tracks, which prompted her to turn and face me. “You told him?”
“Chill!” She backtracked a couple of steps as she spoke so that she could keep her voice low. “I didn’t tell him about the cottage or the books. Just that the tunnels under the castle were the one place we hadn’t looked for answers.”
“And?”
“And he agreed that it was a good idea. But apparently the catacombs are like a labyrinth, miles of tunnels and full of dead ends. They were created as secret passages for warfare. But since the Miracle, hardly anyone even goes down there.”
Great. We needed to find a needle of an axe in a dusty, old abandoned maze of a haystack probably riddled with rats and spiders. Just let me write that on my bucket list — right below destroying the limbus and putting an alternate dimension between me and Duncan.
“He promised we’d figure it out as soon as he got back.”
For a moment, I forgot what we were talking about. “Figure what out?”
“The catacombs . . . What did you think we were talking about?”
Vee squinted at me — not her usual
I’m peering into your mind
squint but full on nearsighted old lady mistaking a rabid rodent for a Chihuahua. The pinched expression was an unfamiliar one.
“You okay?”
She lifted her hand to her brow, shielding herself from the slanting light of the afternoon sun. “Just missing my sunglasses. The sun’s giving me a headache.”
I chuckled. “I totally see an opportunity to extend the
Queen Vee fashion line. Panes of colored glass and wire frames. Very steampunk chic!”
My bestie smirked on top of the squint so that her eyes disappeared altogether. “That’s not a half-bad idea.”
“Take it,” I quipped as I looped my arm through hers and steered us down a narrow offshoot of the main path heading away from the sun. “As long as I get half the profits.”
When she stepped into the shade the tension melted away, allowing her face to open up. “Much better,” she sighed. “So . . . you still haven’t told me what’s going on with you.”
I dropped her arm and picked up my pace. Vee followed. Waiting me out was one of her specialties, along with figuring out Doonian curses and executing the perfect handspring. After a couple dozen steps, I recognized the setting from my most recent garden encounter with Duncan. “Do you remember the imaginary friend I had when I was little?”
“How could I forget Finn?” Her forehead puckered, and I knew she was puzzling out what he had to do with my earlier waterworks.
“Turns out he was no six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch-tall pooka.”
“A six-footed what?”
“A
pooka
, as in Harvey the imaginary rabbit . . . Never mind. I called him Finn because he had a long name I could never remember.” I paused, my words made difficult by the sinking feeling in my stomach. “I’m pretty sure his full name was Duncan Rhys
Finnean
MacCrae.”
Vee stopped in her tracks to blink at me. “Duncan
appeared
to you when you were little?”
I nodded. “Every summer for six years.”
Vee pointed to the lone bench in the enclosure. “Sit!” She
waited for me to comply and then sat beside me taking my hand in hers. “How come you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t remember until recently — well, when I was in Chicago. It all came back in a rush. Finn and Duncan and all the crazy dreams that — ”
“What dreams?” Vee gripped my fingers painfully. When I yelped, she eased off, but just slightly. “Sorry — you never mentioned you were having any dreams.”
I shrugged. “Throughout high school and then right before we left for Scotland. They weren’t as clear as what you had with Jamie and I never saw a face, just a shadow — so I didn’t really think much about them. Until Chicago, when Phantom Duncan started appearing in my day-to-day life like something from a Noel Coward play.”
Vee regarded me with equal parts shock and amazement as she gently touched my arm. “You and Duncan have a Calling.”
“It’s worse than that. I’m pretty sure he remembers the time we shared as children. When you and I first stumbled into Doon, I had no clue — but I think he did. Looking back, he dropped all kinds of cryptic hints about our past. There were times he’d look at me so expectantly, as if he were waiting for me to have a revelation. But he never actually said anything. Why didn’t he just tell me?”
I hunched forward, covering my face with my hands. Vee ran a soothing hand up and down my back, just as she had when I’d learned about my aunt’s death. Although I’d never told anyone, I’d been mourning two losses . . . because in losing Gracie I’d also lost my summers with Finn.
Vee continued to rub my back. “What did Duncan say when you asked him about it?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “Kenna, you have to talk to him. Before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late,” I moaned.
“Do you still love him?”
“Of course. I love him so much that every molecule in my body aches. But I blew my chance.”
“Listen to me. You two share a divine gift. You’re meant to be. Like Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Their relationship started out rocky, and they had to overcome some huge obstacles, like his pride and her prejudice, but it was worth it in the end.”
At least she hadn’t said Romeo and Juliet. “No. We’ve got too much baggage. He’s trying to move on with Analisa and I’ve moved on with Wes — ”
Her hand stilled as she said, “That’s total bull. You don’t care about Weston.”
“Fine. I’m trying to move on without Duncan. So that he can be happy. He deserves that.”
“What about you Kenna? What do you deserve?”
Nothing . . .
As soon as the thought sounded in my head, my resolve crumbled into great heaving sobs. A well of misery burst forth. As much as I wanted to blame Duncan for not speaking up about Finn, it was my mistakes that had cost us everything. It was all my fault. And the price of those selfish actions was any future involving my happily ever after.
Eventually, Vee led me back to my room and tucked me into bed. My throat ached something fierce, but I was too exhausted to ask for a glass of water. Grateful for the reprieve from my own pity party, I pulled the duvet over my throbbing head, curled into a ball, and willed sleep to suck me into oblivion.
T
he girl slept like the dead. If Kenna didn’t answer my knocks in the next thirty seconds, I was going to have to hunt down Eóran and steal his keys. I knew from experience that denying one’s true feelings was exhausting work, but it was nearly ten o’clock in the morning, and we had a kingdom to save. I raised my fist and hit the wood in quick succession.
While I was stunned that her imaginary friend, Finn, was actually Duncan, it didn’t take a psychic to read the underlying currents of tension between them. It was almost painful to be in the same room with their fake smiles and clandestine glances. But Tristan and Isolde they were not — at least not if I had anything to say about it.
Tapping my foot, I counted to ten, and just as I turned to walk away, I heard footsteps and muttering from within.
The door flew open to reveal my sleep-mussed, squinty-eyed best friend. “What in the — ”
“Get dressed. I found a guide for the catacombs.” I pushed into the room and shut the door behind me.
“Okay,
Your Bossiness
, but not before my coffee.”
“I’ve already sent for it.” I marched into her bedroom in search of something sensible for her to wear while traversing subterranean tunnels, and stopped cold. “How do you find anything in this mess?” Articles of clothing covered every surface. The dress she’d worn the night before sat crumpled in a ball at the end of the bed.
Kenna shuffled into the room, and after a wide yawn answered, “I have a system.”
“Oh yeah?” I arched a brow. “Then where might one find the leggings and tunic I had sent to you?”
“Oh, that . . .” She wandered around the room kicking piles of cloths. “Oh! I’ve been looking for these!” She held out a pair of pink granny panties with Thursday written in glitter across the front.
Ignoring her antics, I walked over to the open wardrobe and searched through a multitude of autumn-colored maxi dresses until I found the forest green and brown outfit I was seeking pushed into the corner.
When I held it out, she took it and eyeballed my royal blue belted tunic and charcoal leggings tucked into sleek, knee-high black boots. “Next time we’re dressing like Robin Hood’s merry band, I’m going to need some of those boots.”
“These were custom made for me.” I pointed my toe to show off my new footwear. “The process takes almost a month from start to finish. Just say the word, and I’ll take you to the cobbler for a fitting.”
Silence.
Kenna pulled her PJ bottoms off, and I went back to straightening, trying not to read anything into her lack of response. Whether to stay or go was her decision, but that didn’t mean I’d roll over and play dead either. A little BFF guidance was in
order — when she was ready to hear it. I gathered the stack of folded clothes and reminded myself to fight one battle at a time.