Hidden Jewel (Heartfire Series) (22 page)

None too talkative this morning, the Mackintoshes headed down the mount after pointing him in the general direction of their daughter. Apparently still angry at her family over the deceit she had uncovered, Ailill had not shown up for breakfast; sitting at table amongst the farmhands had been uncomfortable, a tangible frustration over the lack of the girl's presence hung thickly in the air. James and Annie fairly prickled with it and Fallon had seemed to silently loom over the room at large, like a queen watching over her own personal serfs. The workers had eaten as fast as Micah had ever seen them, disappeared within ten minutes to begin work for the day, leaving a tower of dirty dishes in their wake. Feeling badly for the mess, the men normally rinsed and stacked, he'd stayed behind to help the maid, a small woman with wren-brown hair and sharp, birdlike features, and who went by the unlikely name of Ellfie, to clear away the mess. Why the Mackintoshes kept a maid was beyond Micah; their massive home was always impeccably clean, as if an army of maids went through the place ten times a day to wipe away all traces of habitation.

This Ellfie proved to be a gossipy type, which Micah had found irritating right off. He did not give a damn who was seeing whom down in Willow Wisp, or who had broken what law, or who's family would be moving to the area come Fall. The majority of the
he said-she said
fell on deaf ears, until the blathering maid said a name that hit him like a fist in the gut.

He'd been wondering where Ailill was all morning, she was at the forefront of his mind; the maid mentioning her name with an oh-so-casual air put him instantly on his guard and he looked at her so sharply that she flinched.

"What about Ailill?" he demanded, not at all casual in tone or demeanor.

"Oh, well, the daughter of the Mackintosh, she's leavin', Sir; next week at the latest."

He really hated being called Sir; it made his skin crawl. He and Jacob had come to this place with far less than most people; not even a spare change of clothes, the plaids wrapped tightly about their half-frozen shoulders worn through in spots. It had been embarrassing, to say the least, and even then the workers had spoken to them as if they were something better than the poor boys they had always been. It had taken weeks to get everyone to call them by their given names.

"Please," he said, nostrils flared in irritation at the chirpy woman. "Don't call me
Sir
. I am Micah, that is all. And what do you mean Ailill is leaving? Where'd you hear that?"

Though she had shrunk back at his rather harsh tone, Ellfie took the proverbial bait and sat down after a quick glance around to be sure they were alone. Micah pulled out the chair nearest and sat, his innards clenching hard enough to make him feel ill.

"
Everyone's
talkin' about it, S- mmm, uh, Micah. They're all sayin' that the old woman with the ghostly eyes demanded that Ailill... mmm, well, couple with... you, and with your brother, the first night she was here, and when the girl refused to do it she was threatened with never returning to Scotland as long as she lives." Pausing, Ellfie glanced about, making certain they were still alone, though in this house it had often seemed the exact opposite, as if the very walls had ears and hid vast secrets which she could not even begin to fathom. She leaned closer to the handsome man, as if she'd always been his closest confidant, though his beautiful eyes remained hooded, as always.

"It seems," she went on in a half-whisper, "that Ailill's decided to leave anyway, and since the woman lied to her, about her friends dying and all, she has chosen to just do
it
get it over with so she can go home. She hates it here, everyone says so, and there's word that she hates her parents for sending her away when she was a baby, only to insist that she come back now, to live here at Hidden Jewel." The narrow cheeks pinkened appropriately with the admission, but her eyes gleamed with an odd light as she looked him over, a hunger for yet more news to spread. Micah was disgusted by the woman's tactics, cursed himself silently, viciously, for falling so readily into her trap.

"And? What of it?" he demanded after a moment, easily feigning prior knowledge of all she had said. The close-set brown eyes widened in surprise.

"Oh, well, I didn't think you knew, is all. I know how much you like her; everyone does, and if she plans to use you just to leave, well..." Ellfie fidgeted under Micah's cold scrutiny, almost too frightened of the huge, intimidating man to look away.

"Yeah, so? Who wouldn't like a woman as beautiful and intelligent as Ailill? Who wouldn't want to be used by the likes of
her
?" He flashed a wicked grin, leaned close as if the bird-woman were
his
closest confidant; so close that her nostrils flared delicately with the minted scent of his hot breath. "Hell," he went on, seeing his effect on the tiny bird, liking the power he suddenly felt course through his veins. He had a fair amount of pride, after all, despite his meager beginnings. "Who wouldn't want to bed her as often as possible in a day?" the man queried, his tone dangerously soft. "Who wouldn't want to fuck her senseless, break her overused sense of self-worth like the bitch that she is? I know I would, if I could get her cornered long enough to lay a finger, or a tongue, on that luscious body; give me long enough to lift that tiny skirt and I'd fuck her like a dog." Reaching out one long finger, he flicked the front of the woman's blouse just over her left breast, hard enough to make her jump in startlement, one thin, work worn hand coming up to cover the pebbled nipple beneath. Answering the movement with a wolfish grin, he whispered, "Y'all ever been fucked like a dog, Ellfie?"

Emitting a strangled gasp, her head shook rapidly side to side. She leaned as far as the back of the chair would allow and stared at him with dawning horror. Barking a laugh, he half-stood, loomed over her in the most menacing stance he could muster, and growled, "Maybe that's 'cause y'all talk too damn much, ya gossipy wench.
Maybe
if you'd shut your mouth for five minutes a man might see something attractive in you, and maybe,
just maybe
, if you could stop spreading tales about your leader's private lives, and that of every other person in town, you'd get the chance to be fucked like a dog, Ellfie Quinn. Fucked into submission like a bitch in heat."

Raising himself to his full height of six and a half feet, Micah threw back his head and let out a full, ringing howl, eerily wolflike, realistic enough to make the woman's wan face drain completely of color. Without another word, he stepped to the door and was gone.

He found her, at last, in the massive garden, and nearly laughed aloud at the sight. On hands and knees, Ailill crawled backwards a foot at a time, her bare feet practically buried in the rich mixture of deep brown soil and overripe dung as she carefully planted and fertilized the vegetables that would sustain half the population of Willow Wisp through the mean season. Her hair was pulled back in a french braid, her pretty face half-covered with a large red handkerchief of the sort used by stagecoach robbers in the nineteenth century, or by actors portraying the same role on screen a century later; the image brought on by the sight was highly amusing, until he saw the rows of finely tilled soil on her opposite side. She'd obviously been working on this since first light, a tedious, backbreaking job when done by hand. He wondered why she did not use the tools James kept in the barn, the gas-powered tiller, or at least the seeder that dropped the tiny beans and kernels at regulated intervals. Or, maybe she had, but felt it necessary to work herself into exhaustion covering them over. He didn't know. He did not laugh, either, as he watched unobtrusively from off to her right. She seemed not to notice his presence for once and he took the time to simply observe, to get a sense of her troubles.

And she did seem troubled; not angry, like yesterday, nor indignant, either. Ailill simply seemed sad. As if in agreement, she wiped an arm over her eyes, the motion leaving a streak of dirt over the sharp bridge of her small nose. The dung mixture was not so strong as to make her eyes water, otherwise his would already have been streaming; no, she was crying as she worked, small tears falling into the soil along with the seeds, each one covered over with deft hands. He wanted to go to her, to enfold her in his arms and carry her all the way back to Scotland, away from demanding parents, away from gossiping maids with birdlike faces. He wanted to rescue her from all her troubles, from burdens any normal girl should not have. But Ailill was not any normal girl; she was a warrior born; a musical prodigy; a pagan princess, so apparent in her noble bearing. He wanted to turn away from the sight but found he could not. Instead, Micah moved closer, stepping carefully over the rows she had already worked so hard to make.

"Can I help?" he asked softly a few feet behind her. Unashamed of her tear streaked face, her filthy hands and legs, Ailill turned to meet his gaze.

"I would be grateful," she said formally in Gaelic, nodding to a half-buried row on her left.

Sinking at once to his knees, Micah flashed her a small smile and dug in; his rows were not nearly so neat as Ailill's, but he sat back on his heels beneath a linden tree an hour later and surveyed his work with a pleased grin. Beside him, Ailill's lovely eyes stared out of a tanned, sweaty face, taking in the whole of the late vegetable garden, still mostly soil with but a few shoots peeking up along the edges. With the kerchief removed, a line of dirt was visible beneath her eyes, across the bridge of her nose; her tiny ears came to points at the back edge, noticeable now with her hair pulled to the back of her head. He stared hard at the one on the left but said not a word. It seemed natural for her; his own ears held a similar shape, though less apparent. He smiled, thinking it a cute, somewhat whimsical addition to her moulded form, her clear-cut features.

"God you're beautiful, Abby." He could not have stopped the words if he'd tried. She rewarded him with a sweet smile that almost reached her eyes.

"As are you, Micah. Masculine perfection. It's almost a shame there are more than one of you." He blinked, more surprised to hear the regret in her tone than the strange comment. He was quickly becoming used to the way she spoke, mainly in confusing riddles.

"Did you know that people are talkin' about me?" she asked, surprising him yet again. "They speak o' me hereabouts as if they know me, which they don't. I haven't been here since I was four, fourteen years! James and Annie are strangers to me, my own parents by birth. Even you... are a stranger."

He nodded, though he wished to disagree. "You're right. People are talking about you, Abby." Quickly, and in a quiet voice, he gave her the details of his little chat with her parent's nosy maid. Believing that she deserved to hear the full truth, he omitted nothing. Ailill frowned, looked heartily displeased, slightly affronted by his carefully worded threats to her person, and, finally, she laughed aloud at what he had said, and done, to the small woman.

"You howled? Truly?" At his nod, his sheepish grin, she fell back on the petal strewn grass, and laughed until tears rolled down around her ears. "Och, Micah. You're so clever! I doubt any man has ever spoken to Ellfie Quinn in such a bold manner, much less howled at her." She erupted in giggles again, taking his hand on impulse. "I thank you, for defendin' my honor."

"Hey, no thanks needed, Abby," he drawled, laying down beside her; picking up a peach, fallen in the storm last night, he held it to his nose, enjoying the sweet scent. "I did what any normal guy would do. Besides, now she'll be scairt half to death of Jacob, and because we look alike, she'll keep her distance from me, too."

"Why would she fear Jacob?" Ailill's eyes sparked with the sun winking through the boughs overhead, a deep blue color that captured his attention. He stared into those eyes as he attempted to explain.

"Well, you see, I'm the shy, quiet twin. Only Jacob would say things like that to a girl. Micah would never just reach out and touch someone's breast, but everyone knows that Jacob would, and does. She believes I was Jacob, even though I told her my own name, and when she goes tellin' this particular tale, it'll sound completely normal to the idiots who actually listen to her chatter."

"Aye, and they wouldn't believe it if she said it was you? Why?"

"Nope, because I am an untouchable virgin. Jacob has intentionally let everyone know it."

If he said it as a means to shock her, it didn't work. Ailill's eyes flashed with a gleam that made it clear she'd been well aware of his own purity all along. Her look put him on edge; he rolled to his side, heedless of adding yet more stains to his clothes, and looked at her hard, defensive.

"I may be a virgin in the technical sense," he said, a bit more offended than usual though she had said not a word. "But I can assure you, Abby, that I
ain't
a prude. I'm not lacking in any area of sexual experience, except that one, and I believe that when the time comes I'll know exactly where to stick my cock." He eyed her coolly, not caring for the way her lips twitched at the corners, as if she were trying not to smile; or to laugh.