Kiss of the Highlander
Read Kiss of the Highlander Online
Authors: Karen Marie Moning
| Kiss of the Highlander |
| Highlander [4] |
| Karen Marie Moning |
| Random House Publishing Group (2008) |
A laird trapped between centuries...
Enchanted by a powerful spell, Highland laird Drustan MacKeltar slumbered for nearly five centuries hidden deep in a cave, until an unlikely savior awakened him. The enticing lass who dressed and spoke like no woman he'd ever known was from his distant future, where crumbled ruins were all that remained of his vanished world. Drustan knew he had to return to his own century if he was to save his people from a terrible fate. And he needed the bewitching woman by his side....
A woman changed forever in his arms...
Gwen Cassidy had come to Scotland to shake up her humdrum life and, just maybe, meet a man. How could she have known that a tumble down a Highland ravine would send her plunging into an underground cavern -- to land atop the most devastatingly seductive man she'd ever seen? Or that once he'd kissed her, he wouldn't let her go?
Bound to Drustan by a passion stronger than time, Gwen is swept...
KISS OF THE HIGHLANDER
A Dell Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Dell mass market edition published September 2001
Dell mass market reissue / June 2008
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2001 by Karen Marie Moning
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33784-3
v3.0_r1
Contents
This one’s for you, Mom.
When I raged, you listened
When I wept, you held me
When I ran away, you brought me back
When I dreamed, you believed.
Woman of immeasurable wisdom and grace
You have been all that a mother could be
And more.
“I cannot believe God plays dice with the Cosmos.”
—A
LBERT
E
INSTEIN
“God not only plays dice.
He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.”
—S
TEPHEN
H
AWKING
H
IGHLANDS OF
S
COTLAND
1518
PROLOGUE
“The MacKeltar is a dangerous man, Nevin.”
“What are you going on about this time, Mother?” Nevin looked out the window and watched the grass rippling in the early morning sun beyond their hut. His mother was reading fortunes, and were he foolish enough to turn around and meet Besseta’s gaze, she would interpret it as encouragement, and he would be lured into yet another conversation about some bewildering prediction. His mother’s wits, never the sharpest blade in the armory, were dulling daily, eroded by suspicious imaginings.
“My yew sticks have warned me that the laird presents a grave danger to you.”
“The laird? Drustan MacKeltar?” Startled, Nevin glanced over his shoulder. Tucked behind the table near the hearth, his mother straightened in her chair, preening beneath his attention. Now he’d done it, he thought with an inward sigh. He’d gotten himself snagged in her conversation as securely as he’d gotten his long robes entangled in a thorny bramble a time or two, and it would require finesse to detach himself now without things degenerating into an age-old argument.
Besseta Alexander had lost so much in her life that she clung too fiercely to what she had left—Nevin. He repressed a desire to fling back the door and flee into the serenity of the Highland morning, aware that she would only corner him again at the earliest opportunity.
Instead, he said gently, “Drustan MacKeltar is not a danger to me. He is a fine laird, and ’tis honored I am to have been chosen to oversee the spiritual guidance of his clan.”
Besseta shook her head, her lip trembling. A fleck of spittle foamed at the seam. “You see with a priest’s narrow view. You can’t see what I see. This is dire indeed, Nevin.”
He gave her his most reassuring smile, one that, despite his youth, had eased the troubled hearts of countless sinners. “Will you cease trying to divine my well-being with your sticks and runes? Each time I am assigned a new position, you reach for your charms.”
“What kind of a mother would I be, if I didn’t take interest in your future?” she cried.
Brushing a lock of blond hair from his face, Nevin crossed the room and kissed her wrinkled cheek, then swept his hand across the yew sticks, upsetting their mysterious design. “I am an ordained man of God, yet here you sit, reading fortunes.” He took her hand and patted it soothingly. “You must let go of the old ways. How will I achieve success with the villagers, if my own dear mother persists in pagan rituals?” he teased.
Besseta snatched her hand from his and gathered her sticks defensively. “These are far more than simple sticks. I bid you, accord them proper respect. He
must
be stopped.”
“What do your sticks tell you the laird will do that is so terrible?” Curiosity trumped his resolve to end this conversation as neatly as possible. He couldn’t hope to curtail the dark wanderings of her mind if he didn’t know what they were.
“He will soon take a lady, and she will do you harm. I think she will kill you.
Nevin’s mouth opened and closed like a trout stranded on the riverbank. Although he knew there was no truth to her ominous prediction, the fact that she entertained such wicked thoughts confirmed his fears that her tenuous grasp on reality was slipping. “Why would anyone kill me? I’m a priest, for heaven’s sake.”
“I can’t see the why of it. Mayhap his new lady will take a fancy to you, and evil doings will come of it.”
“Now you truly
are
imagining things. A fancy to me, over Drustan MacKeltar?”
Besseta glanced at him, then quickly away. “You are a fine-looking lad, Nevin,” she lied with motherly aplomb.
Nevin laughed. Of Besseta’s five sons, only he had been born slender of build, with fine bones and a quietude that served God well but king and country poorly. He knew what he looked like. He had not been fashioned—as had Drustan MacKeltar—for warring, conquering, and seducing women and had long ago accepted his physical shortcomings. God had purpose for him, and while spiritual purpose might seem insignificant to others, for Nevin Alexander it was more than enough.
“Put those sticks away, Mother, and I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. You needn’t fret on my behalf. God watches over—” He stopped midsentence. What he’d nearly said would encourage an entirely new, and at the same time very old and very lengthy, discussion.
Besseta’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, yes. Your God certainly watched over all of my sons, didn’t He?”
Her bitterness was palpable and made him heartsick. Of all his flock, he’d failed most surely with his own mother. “I might remind you that quite recently He was
your
God, when I was granted this position and you were well-pleased with my promotion,” Nevin said lightly. “And you will not harm the MacKeltar, Mother.”
Besseta smoothed her coarse gray hair and angled her nose toward the thatched roof. “Don’t you have confessions to hear, Nevin?”
“You must not jeopardize our position here, Mother,” he said gently. “We have a solid home among fine people, and I hope to make it permanent. Give me your word.”
Besseta kept her eyes fixed on the roof in stubborn silence.
“Look at me, Mother. You must promise.” When he refused to retract his demand or avert his steady gaze, she finally gave a shrug and nodded.
“I will not harm the MacKeltar, Nevin. Now, go on with you,” she said brusquely. “This old woman has things to do.”
Satisfied that his mother wouldn’t trouble the laird with her pagan foolishness, Nevin departed for the castle. God willing, his mother would forget her latest delusion by dinner. God willing.
Over the next few days, Besseta tried to make Nevin understand the danger he was in, to no avail. He chided her gently, he rebuked her less gently, and he got those sad lines around his mouth she so hated to see.
Lines that clearly pronounced:
My mother’s going mad.
Despair settled into her weary bones, and she knew that it was up to her to do something. She would
not
lose her only remaining son. It wasn’t fair that a mother should outlive all her children, and trusting God to protect them was what had gotten her into this bind to begin with. She refused to believe she’d been given the ability to foresee events only to sit back and do nothing about them.
When shortly after her alarming vision a band of wandering Rom arrived in the village of Balanoch, Besseta struck upon a solution.
It took time to barter with the proper people; although
proper
was hardly a word she’d use to describe the people with whom she was forced to deal. Besseta might read yew sticks, but simple scrying paled in comparison to the practices of the wild gypsies who wandered the Highlands, selling spells and enchantments cheek by jowl with their more-ordinary wares. Worse still, she’d had to steal Nevin’s precious gold-leafed Bible, which he used only on the holiest of days, to trade for the services she purchased, and when he discovered the loss come Yuletide he would be heartbroken.
But he would be alive, by the yew!
Although Besseta suffered many sleepless nights over her decision, she knew her sticks had never failed her. If she didn’t do something to prevent it, Drustan MacKeltar would take a wife and that woman would kill her son. That much her sticks had made clear. If her sticks had told her more—mayhap how the woman would do it, when, or why—she might not have been seized by such desperation. How would she survive if Nevin were gone? Who would succor an old and useless woman? Alone, the great yawning darkness with its great greedy maw would swallow her whole. She had no choice but to get rid of Drustan MacKeltar.
A sennight later, Besseta stood with the gypsies and their leader—a silver-haired man named Rushka—in the clearing near the little loch some distance west of Castle Keltar.
Drustan MacKeltar lay unconscious at her feet.
She eyed him warily. The MacKeltar was a large man, towering and dark, a mountain of bronzed muscle and sinew, even when flat on his back. When she shivered and nudged him gingerly with her toe, the gypsies laughed.
“The moon could fall on him and he wouldn’t waken,” Rushka informed her, his dark gaze amused.
“You’re certain?” Besseta pressed.
“ ‘Tis no natural sleep.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” she fretted. “I promised Nevin I wouldn’t harm him.”
Rushka arched a brow. “You have an interesting code, old woman,” he mocked. “Nay, we did not kill him, he but slumbers, and will eternally. ’Tis an ancient spell, laid most carefully.”
When Rushka turned away, instructing his men to place the enchanted laird in the wagon, Besseta heaved a sigh of relief. It had been risky—slipping into the castle, drugging the laird’s wine and luring him to the clearing near the loch—but all had gone according to plan. He’d collapsed on the bank of the glassy lake and the gypsies had set about their ritual. They’d painted strange symbols upon his chest, sprinkled herbs and chanted.
Although the gypsies made her uneasy and she’d longed to flee back to the safety of her cottage, she’d forced herself to watch, to be certain the canny gypsies would keep their word, and to assure herself Nevin was finally safe—forever beyond Drustan MacKeltar’s reach. The moment the final words of the spell had been uttered, the very air in the clearing had changed: she’d felt an uncommon iciness, suffered a sudden, overwhelming weariness, even glimpsed a strange light settling around the laird’s body. The gypsies indeed possessed powerful magic.
“
Truly
eternally?” Besseta pressed. “He will ne’er awaken?”
“I told you, old woman,” Rushka said impatiently, “the man will slumber, frozen, utterly untouched by time, ne’er to awaken, unless both human blood and sunshine commingle upon the spell etched upon his chest.”
“Blood and sunshine would wake him? That must never happen!” Besseta exclaimed, panicking all over again.
“It won’t. You have my word. Not where we plan to hide his body. Sunlight will ne’er reach him in the underground caverns near Loch Ness. None will e’er find him. None know of the place but us.”
“You must hide him very deep,” Besseta pressed. “Seal him in. He must
never
be found!”
“I said you have my word,” Rushka said sharply.
When the gypsies, wagon in tow, disappeared into the forest, Besseta sank to her knees in the clearing, and murmured a prayer of thanks to whatever deity might be listening.
Any idle feelings of guilt were far outweighed by relief, and she consoled herself with the thought that she hadn’t
really
hurt him.
He was, as she had promised Nevin, unharmed.
Essentially.