They found her on her usual park bench feeding the pigeons. Dair sensed Emma’s surprise as they approached. Bess was…different. This morning she wore a green satin ball gown and a black lace scarf over her snow-white hair. Approaching sixty, she remained an attractive woman—as long as one looked past her stage makeup. When she spied Dair approaching, her entire expression lit up. “Alasdair! I didn’t expect to see you today.”
“Hello, Bess.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her wrinkled cheek. “I’ve brought someone to meet you.”
“Oh?” Bright blue eyes turned toward Emma. “Why, aren’t you a pretty girl.”
“This is Emma Tate, Bess. She’s a friend of mine from Texas. Emma, this is Mrs. Elizabeth Dowd, friend both to me and to every pigeon in Scotland.”
The older woman giggled, then smiled up at Emma. “Texas? Is that near Dornoch?”
Dair sighed inwardly. “No, darling. It’s in America. Remember? Texas is where my mother went to live. It’s where I was born.”
“Do I know your mother?”
“The two of you grew up together. Her name was Roslin MacRae.”
Her eyes clouded and her bottom lip trembled ever so slightly. “I don’t remember.”
“That’s all right.” Dair’s heart ached as he took hold of her hand and took a seat beside her. “It’s not important.”
“It’s happening again, isn’t it?”
While Dair fumbled for words, he offered a comforting kiss on her hand. Emma, thank goodness, stepped into the void. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Dowd. May I say that’s a lovely dress you’re wearing?”
“Why thank you, dear.” Bess’s smile chased the shadows from her eyes. “I wear it to annoy Mr. McFarland. He’s up there, you see. Watching. Look across the street at the house with the white shutters. Second floor, last window on the left. He’s always watching me. Not like Margaret, of course, who Dair has hired to watch me and who I truly adore.” She finger waved toward the heavily pregnant young woman seated on a stool at a flower cart. “Mr. McFarland sits up there and stares at me and broods. I’m the one who got away, you see.”
“Oh?” Emma asked, her eyes lighting with amusement. “Tell me.”
Bess did just that. She rambled on about her grand romance with McFarland which led into a discourse on her relationship with a man named Barstow which soon had Bess and Emma laughing together like schoolgirls. When she went on to discuss a liaison with a baker and his talent with tarts, Dair excused himself. He walked over to the flower cart to see if Margaret had anything of import to tell him.
He chose roses for Bess and a bright bouquet of daisies for Emma. “Any more episodes?” he asked the flower seller.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. Shortly after you left yesterday, she wandered over to the fountain and started removing her clothes. She thought she was at the beach. She intended to go swimming. I was able to stop her, but when she came back to her senses…she cried, Dair. She truly breaks my heart.”
“I know. Mine too.” He grimaced at the mental picture her words had painted. Bess’s mental deterioration continued at a faster pace than he’d anticipated. Seeing it disturbed him for a number of reasons—he truly loved the woman—but considering the state of his own brain…well…give him headaches any day over what Bess Dowd was going through. “The good news is I’ve found a place for her.”
“You have? Where? What’s it like?”
He explained about the house in a lovely little village not far from Nairn where Bess had lived with her third husband for almost a decade. It was managed by a physician’s widow and her daughter and son-in-law. “They’ve room for four women and six men.”
“Extra men? Bess will love that.”
“That’s what I thought.” He blew out a heavy breath, then added, “I told them to expect her next week.”
“Oh, I’m so glad. My husband’s mother thinks the babe will come early, and I’ve been worried. I just don’t think I could properly care for Bess in addition to a new baby and a sickly mother-in-law.”
They discussed the arrangements he’d made and he reassured her that the cost was all covered—the Riever had done extremely well these past few nights. “All that’s left is to get her agreement. That’s the part that worries me most. She does love this park.”
“I think she’ll be relieved,” Margaret suggested. “She’s aware of the troubles with her mind. I think knowing arrangements have been made will make it easier for her.”
Dair hoped so. He was counting on something similar in his own situation. He thanked Margaret for her help, then returned to the park bench where he interrupted a story about Emma’s father’s reaction to one of her and her sisters’ pranks. He presented the ladies their bouquets, and the older woman said, “Oh, aren’t you just a dear. This reminds me of when your father brought your mother and me flowers. He called them practice bouquets since it was a week before the wedding. The accident happened later that day. Such a tragedy. The man died way too young. Poor Roslin, I worried the loss made her crazy. It wasn’t a week after his funeral that she just went quiet. Didn’t speak to anyone for two weeks, and when she did talk again, it was to announce that she was moving to America to live with her aunt and uncle. She never got over losing Ryan, but I know it was a blessing to her to find out she was expecting his child.” Then she gasped and brought her hand up to her mouth. “Oh, my. Now I remember your mother. Oh, dear. I’m losing my mind, aren’t I?”
Dair closed his eyes against the dull throb that suddenly flared up in his head. “Bess, I have a surprise for you.”
“Another present?”
The pressure built steadily and came in waves. Dair suspected he didn’t have much time until it burst into a killing headache. As quickly as possible, yet taking care with his words, he outlined his arrangements for his mother’s old friend. Bess grew quiet while he spoke. Emma reached over and took his hand.
When he finished, he waited for Bess’s reaction. The dull throb was growing sharper. He needed to get somewhere where he could be alone fast.
The older woman’s eyes filled with tears and his stomach sank. Then, she said, “Thank you, Dair. You’re a good, good man. Your parents would be proud.”
Turning to Emma, she said, “Roslin once told me that if a McBride and MacRae ever came to me, I was to pass along this message: the fairy ring holds the key.”
It was a curious comment, but Dair couldn’t think about that then. The headache hit with a vengeance, and it was all he could do to stay conscious. He kissed Bess goodbye, then escorted Emma from the park.
Dair was thankful Emma was preoccupied with her own thoughts and didn’t try to converse with him as they made their way along the city streets. He could hardly manage to put one foot in front of the other, much less string sentences together. At the town house, he asked her to join him for dinner, then headed upstairs to his suite.
He fell into bed and gave himself up to the agony. His last conscious thought was,
I don’t want to die here. Please, God. Don’t let me die here.
I
N HER BEDROOM AT
D
AIR
’
S TOWN
house, Emma gave her thoughts free rein. Almost immediately, her knees went watery and she sank onto the thick Persian carpet.
Destiny. Fate. Fairies. Oh my.
Alasdair MacRae. Oh my oh my oh my.
Her head spinning, she asked herself what she believed. Where, once and for all, did she stand on the Curse of Clan McBride? Did she consider it to be nothing more than a story? An interesting bit of fantasy that had entertained her and her sisters’ thoughts over the years? Or did she believe in it? Did she accept the idea that she, Mari and Kat had been given the necklaces for a reason, that they had opportunity to end her family’s bad luck in love for all time?
Emma was an educated woman. A teacher. She shouldn’t be sucked into nonsense of fairy tales and treasure hunts. She was almost thirty years old, for goodness’ sake, and here she was actually considering….
She thought of Casey. Dear sweet Casey. She’d married him and loved him and he’d died three months later. If that wasn’t bad luck, she didn’t know what was.
She remembered Rory Callahan, Kat’s disaster. She thought about Jenny and her father and the Bad Luck Wedding Dress. She thought of Aunt Claire and Uncle Tye and the Bad Luck Wedding Cake. She thought about her dear sweet niece Susie, gone before she had much of a chance to live. Bad luck followed her family like a cloud. Of that there was little doubt.
Emma wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth, thinking hard, looking deep within herself for the truth. Arguing with herself because an answer was so uncertain.
Destiny. Fate. Did she have to believe in the fairies to accept the curse?
Well, curses don’t just happen. Somebody had to make the curse to begin with, didn’t they? But fairies?
The Roslin she’d met had been a bit strange. Beautiful. Ethereal. She could pass for a fairy queen at a costume ball.
Destiny. Fate. Fairies.
Emma blew out a heavy breath. Maybe she was looking at this all wrong. Maybe she didn’t have to know for a certainty all the way down to her bones. Say she chose not to believe, not to follow through. What was the worst thing that could happen?
She could be wrong. She could doom her family to having to fight the ominous black cloud of bad luck and love forever.
What was the best thing that could happen? Well, she could be right. The curse could be like Dair had said, nothing but a story. She’d be protecting herself from being a fool.
She’d also be protecting her heart, a heart already broken by fate, by bad luck. Did she dare risk it again?
What if she did? What if she lost her heart to Dair Mac-Rae? Would that be so terrible? He was a thief and a liar and probably lots of other bad things she didn’t know about. But, he was a good man, too. Today was a perfect example of that. Look at the trouble he’d gone to for his mother’s old friend. Dair MacRae had a good heart—even if he kept it hidden much of the time.
Also, if she was his destiny, then wasn’t he her destiny, too? Wouldn’t he lose his heart to her in return?
It was a heady thought. She could see herself married to the man. Making a home with him. Having his children. Would he be willing to settle in Texas? She hoped so. The idea of leaving her family left her bereft.
And if Jake Kimball was Kat’s destiny, he and Dair were already friends. Wouldn’t that be nice? And Luke would like Dair. They both were men’s men. They’d surely find a lot in common.
Emma drummed her fingers against her knee. If she believed, if fate had a hand in these events, then it stood to reason that she had a chance. That they had a chance. With Dair, Emma could find a love that was powerful, vigilant and true.
Oh my oh my oh my.
It made a curious sort of sense. Wasn’t she halfway in love with him already? Heaven knows she was attracted to him. He made her laugh. He roused all her passions. Didn’t he in some ways—the good ways—remind her of her father? Trace McBride was far from perfect, but no man had a better heart. Dair was like that, too. She saw past his outer…unsavoriness…to the good man inside.
Yes, she was already halfway in love with him. It wouldn’t take much to fall the rest of the way. If she let herself. If she accepted the risk.
Emma made her choice. Destiny, fate, and maybe fairies. That’s as far as she had to go. Down to the bones didn’t really matter. Where the curse came from didn’t matter. The breaking of it did. “I’ll do it.”
From here on out, Emma believed in the Curse of Clan McBride. She believed she had the opportunity to put an end to it for all time. From here on out, by thought, word, and deed, she’d hold to that belief.
It wasn’t until she’d stood and brushed the dust off her skirts before starting inside the house that another thought occurred. Now that she’d accepted Dair MacRae as her destiny, now that she’d admitted to herself that she had feelings for him that ran deeper than a wish to share adventure, she could see no reason not to join him in his bed. Tonight.
H
AMISH
C
AMPBELL STRUCK A
match and held the flame to one corner of the note. The paper caught fire, and Hamish blew out the match with a short puff of air. He dropped the burning note onto a silver tray and watched as the paper curled and disintegrated to fine gray ash.
Excitement hummed in his blood. MacRae had paid a call to Robbie Potter and now Potter had turned to him for information. Turned to him for the book. Hamish crossed the room to the bookshelf that held the antique tome. Removing the book from the shelf, he traced the image on the cover with his fingertip.
Finally, progress. He’d dreamed of this moment for so long.
Half an hour later, he stepped into Robbie Potter’s shop, the book tucked beneath his arm. He locked the door behind him. “Robert Potter?”
“Aye. Aye. Back here.”
Campbell followed the narrow path between bookshelves toward the back of the store until he came upon the bookseller, seated behind a counter, a bowl of mutton stew set before him. Surprise flashed across the bookseller’s face, then he hastily dabbed his mouth with a dingy white napkin. “Mr. Campbell, sir. I dinna expect…oh, goodness.”
“I’ve brought the book, Potter.”
Potter’s mouth dropped open and his gaze flashed to the item in Hamish’s hands. “Ye brought the book here? By yerself? Without any guards?”
Shaking his head, Campbell laughed. “I do not worry about being robbed of a book. The ordinary Scotsman on the street wouldn’t recognize the value of such treasures as do you and I.”
He set it on a nearby table, then motioned for the scholar to take a seat. “At your pleasure, Mr. Potter.”
Potter abandoned his meal in a heartbeat. He cleaned his hands before approaching the table with reverence. The book was bound in animal skin with the words on the pages handwritten in Gaelic. What had caught Hamish’s notice at a small shop in Perthshire so many years ago was the painting of a dirk on its cover.
Hamish had seen that dagger before. He recognized the intricate engravings on the blade and the sapphires, emeralds and rubies on the hilt because Roslin MacRae had stabbed him with it. Hamish had purchased the book, then brought it to Potter to translate.