Morna's Legacy 04 - Love Beyond Measure (26 page)

“Of course I am. Now, stand yerself up for we need to secure the beastly witch before she wakes up.”

Cooper looked down at Jinty as he stood, wrinkling up his nose in disgust at the blood that was running down her face.

“What are you going to do with her?”

“Do ye want me to tell ye the truth, Cooper? Or do ye wish me to tell ye what I should tell a child?”

Cooper turned his head at her—of course she already knew his answer. “The truth…always.”

“Aye, fine. I’ll kill her lad. Once she wakes and we’ve had a bit of a discussion, I will put her in the ground. No one harms me family, lad. Does that bother you?”

Cooper didn’t know what to think about that. It was wrong to kill people, but this woman had also meant to kill him. “Has she hurt other people?”

Morna nodded. “Many. She was nearly responsible for Eoghanan’s death, and she would have killed ye too if ye hadna thrown the wee rock.”

“E-o!” Cooper shook his head in disbelief. He liked E-o too much to imagine him dead. “Okay, do it, Morna. I don’t want her to hurt anyone else. But…” he hesitated. He didn’t wish for Morna to think him weak. “Don’t hurt her. I don’t think there’s really any need for that.”

Morna’s face dropped in disappointment, but she nodded as she pointed outside the door of the cottage. “Aye, fine. Once she is awake, I willna cause her much pain, but now that she is asleep, I willna bring her around back carefully.”

Cooper watched with wide eyes as Morna mumbled a spell underneath her breath and turned to leave the cottage. With each step, Jinty’s body dragged along behind Morna on it’s own, the blood from her nose leaving a nasty trail.

The sight of Jeffrey collapsed next to a pool of his own blood and vomit brought me to my knees. Finding one of Cooper’s shoes next to him sent me into hysterics. I could do nothing but scream and cry over Jeffrey’s limp body as Eoghanan checked to see if he lived. His pulse was strong and steady which served as some small relief, though it did nothing to numb my panic over Cooper’s absence.

It took only moments before my screams sent Baodan, Mitsy, and Charles running toward us from the castle. Within seconds of their taking in the scene, I was gathered up in Mitsy’s arms as she tried to calm me.

“This poison is the same that was used on me the night of Osla’s death, the same that our mother consumed for so long.”

Eoghanan’s voice was strong, but I could hear the panic and worry in it. The guilt he already felt at not disposing of the witch before now.

“’Tis Jinty, the witch that provided Niall the poison. I believe we passed her cottage on the way here.”

“Aye.” Baodan spoke next to him, reaching out to steady Charles who’d paled significantly. “Ye and Grace ride in the direction ye believe her to be at once, and I will send men after ye immediately. I will stay to aid in Jeffrey’s recovery.” He looked quickly to Charles and then to me. “He will recover. The poison in this dose is no meant to kill him.”

I knew I would hyperventilate if I didn’t get a grip on my panic. The over-rush of emotions would dull my senses, and I needed my wits about me in order to save Cooper. Grabbing onto Mitsy’s hand, I pulled myself up and turned to re-mount our horse, saying nothing to Eoghanan who had already turned in the same direction.

He lifted me quickly onto the back of the horse, speaking calmly to me as he mounted behind me. “She willna have hurt him, Grace. No yet. No without someone to witness it; without that, the act would be pointless, for none would know for certain if ’twas her. I promise ye, I will die before I let her hurt him or ye.”

I breathed in deeply, boxing up any emotion that wouldn’t serve to help me save my son. I’d be damned if I let that bitch hurt my son. She was a fool if she thought she would end the day any place other than six feet under.

A sharp groan from behind me caused me to turn my head, and I looked to see Mitsy leaning forward, one hand on her back.

She saw me staring and waved us onward, smiling through the pain. “Go on. Get out of here, the both of you. It’s just…gas.”

Eoghanan nodded and nudged the horse into a run, but not before I heard her scream once more in Baodan’s direction.

“Holy shit, Baodan, my water broke.”

*

I did nothing but pray for my son’s safety as we galloped toward the pillar of smoke we’d seen earlier. It took us mere minutes to reach it, but it felt like days. I flung myself from the horse’s back the instant Eoghanan pulled the beast to a stop, only pausing at the sound of Eoghanan’s urgent voice behind me.

“Grace, no!”

His voice was as panicked and raspy as I’d ever heard it. Only when his arms came around me to refrain me from stepping toward the cottage did I see what he looked at.

A trail of thick, fresh blood ran down the steps of the cottage, marking a trail all the way to the back of it.

“No! Oh God, no!” Sobs racked my body as I collapsed in his arms, screaming uncontrollably.

“Grace.” Eoghanan shook my shoulders roughly. “Grace, shut yer mouth. This is no over, yet. The witch is still here. Now if ye canna stop yer screaming until we find her, I shall gag ye and strap ye to the horse.”

The calmness of his voice shocked me into silence. How could he not be as lost in the thralls of grief as I was? I looked up into his eyes, ready to throttle him for not sharing my pain, when I understood.

His grief had been temporarily pushed aside by his rage. He would kill the witch for what she had done.

I said nothing, only choked back my tears for the second time and followed him around the cottage where he was forced to clamp his hands over my mouth once again to keep me from crying out in relief.

There, standing not fifty yards from us, was Cooper, his hands on both hips as he looked in the direction of the billowing smoke and the woman who stood in front of it—Morna.

It was only then, after my eyes adjusted to the shock of seeing Morna in such an unexpected place that my ears began to hear what she said to Jinty, who she had strapped up against a tree, panic in the young woman’s eyes.

“If yer only transgression was being foolish enough to fall for Niall’s lies, I suppose ye could be forgiven, but ye are responsible for the deaths of others. No only that, but ye tried to harm me family. No one does that, lass.”

The witch Jinty snarled, thrashing against the magic chains which held her, as she spit in Morna’s direction.

I threw a quick glance to Cooper who had yet to see us. I expected him to look afraid; instead, he looked fascinated. I wanted to run toward him but refrained, not wishing to interrupt the witch’s confrontation.

“Ye can twist yerself about in these chains all day, curse me under yer breath all ye wish, but I am more powerful than ye will ever be, lass. Ye will die today, but take comfort that ye willna suffer. Ye can thank the boy for that. I will snap yer neck with the flick of me wrist before I toss ye into the flames.”

“Do it.” Jinty’s words were raspy and hideous, the hatred in her eyes enough to chill me through. “But with me last breath, I damn ye and all yer…”

She was given no chance to finish her curse. Before her last words, there was a terrible crack, and the witch’s head fell limp against her shoulder. The chains that held her body vanished, and she fell back into the flames, disappearing before all of our eyes.

Morna turned away from the flames and walked toward Cooper as we watched. She spoke to him gently. “Are ye alright, lad? I dinna mean to scare ye, but the lass was mad if she thought I’d let her curse me family at the end.”

Cooper nodded, giving her a brief grin before his eyes finally shifted in our direction. As he ran toward me, Morna turned and addressed Eoghanan as if she’d known we’d been there all along.

“Eoghanan, for God’s sake, release Grace. Jinty is gone now. Ye doona mean to keep her from hugging her son, do ye?”

“How are ye here, Morna?”

“Ach,” Morna waved a dismissing hand toward the pillar of smoke. “Cooper sent for me.”

Eoghanan released me, and I charged Cooper who wrapped his arms around me but pulled away as I clung to him. “What’s the matter with you, Mom? Did you not have a good time on your honeymoon?”

“What? Cooper, are you joking? You were just kidnapped, and you think I’m upset because I didn’t have a good time on my honeymoon?”

“But Mom…” he pulled back as far as he could in my vice-like hold on him. “I wasn’t kidnapped. Not but for a minute, and I knew Morna was coming for me anyway so I just didn’t worry too much.”

“You didn’t worry.” The tone of my voice seemd to be frightening him more than anything else had so I struggled to pull it into one of some normalcy. “Cooper, you worry about everything.”

“I didn’t because of the red rock, Mom.” He said it so plainly, as if I were the fool for not knowing what he meant.

Morna’s spoke as she waved us all near to her. “Shall we return the three of ye to McMillan Castle? And Cooper,” she reached out to pat his shoulder, “I think it might be best if ye allow me to explain.”

Whether it was really Cooper’s red rock or just Morna’s uncanny ability to know everything that went on with her family, no matter the century, no one cared. We all realized how unusual it was for her to make a travel herself—having not done so since she’d left her own time as a young girl.

She’d not only arrived in time to save Cooper, but to provide a remedy for Jeffrey, and to gift Mitsy with a, while not painless birth, certainly a more pleasant one. After the chaotic and emotionally draining afternoon, all was returned to right within the castle by evening.

Mitsy and Baodan welcomed their beautiful and ridiculously chunky baby boy, Rodric McMillan, at sundown. For the first time in his life, Cooper was out for the count before supper. His little adventure with the horrific witch, Jinty, had been far more traumatic on his parents and stepfather than it had been on him.

I sat on the edge of Cooper and Jeffrey’s bed watching them both sleep when Eoghanan appeared in the doorway, his hand extended toward me.

“Come to bed, lass. I doona think either of them shall open an eye until morning.”

I stood and, after kissing Cooper on the forehead, joined Eoghanan, taking his hand as we walked to our bedchamber. When we reached the doorway, I turned to stop him, gathering his face in my hands as I kissed him gently.

“My entire life, there have been only two men that I loved so much I couldn’t measure it, couldn’t get a grasp on how much they meant to me, couldn’t fathom what my life would look like without them. Now…there are three. You are the person I didn’t even know I wanted but needed so desperately. One day, I want to make two dozen more Coopers with you.”

He ran his thumb along my brow, kissing me gently on the top of my head as he gathered me in his arms and carried me inside. “I want nothing more than that, Grace. But, lass, mayhap we doona start tonight.”

I laughed as he lay me on top of the bed, nodding in agreement as we crawled beneath the covers in unison. For the first time in a week, we lay in each other’s arms and slept like rocks.

It defined perfection.

Two Weeks Later

Cooper walked hand-in-hand with Morna to the pond’s edge, his heart a little heavy at the thought of saying goodbye.

“Are you sure you have to leave? There’s a bunch of rooms in this castle, and most of them are empty. Believe me, I know. I’m always sneaking inside them.”

Morna squeezed his hand before bending to hug him. “Aye, Jerry needs me much more than all of ye. He canna cook to save his life. I worry he’ll starve to death without me.”

Cooper laughed, pulling one of the black stones out of his pocket and extending it in Morna’s direction. “I guess you’re right. Are you sure you want to go back this way? You get kinda wet.”

“I think it only fair that I subject meself to the same treatment I did each of ye, aye?”

Cooper hugged Morna’s neck before pulling away. “Yeah, I guess so, but I hope you’re a good swimmer. Hey, can I ask you one more question before you leave?”

“Aye, what do ye wish to ask?”

“It’s about my dad. He’s so alone here. Everybody has someone else but him.”

Cooper watched as Morna stood and smiled down at him, twirling the black stone through her fingers. “Ye are here for him.”

He shook his head, exasperated. “I don’t count. He needs somebody to kiss and stuff…like Mom and E-o.”

Morna winked at him before she drew her arm back to let loose the stone, her words barely escaping her lips before the rock touched the water, and she vanished.

“All in due time, wee Cooper. All in due time.”

Coming Summer 2014…

Jeffrey’s story

In Due Time—A Novella,
Book 4.5 of Morna’s Legacy Series