Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors) (11 page)

“I’ll try. Leave your number with the girl at the front and I’ll give you a ring when I’ve finished. Probably be two weeks. We have a waiting list, you know.”

Bella nodded, thanked him again, and turned toward the front of the shop. The laddie gave her a long look from the back. Maclean stepped around the counter and in close, without touching him. He leaned toward his ear, until he could smell the overripe body beneath the lad’s clothes.

“Ye’ll no’look at her again without the proper respect, or I’ll make my home in your wee shop. Do ye hear me?”

The lad heard him.

It suddenly occurred to Maclean that whenever he stood up for Bella in his thoughts or actions he became more mortal and less of a ghostie. Something to keep in mind for the future, but just now he was otherwise occupied.

The lad was looking as if he might faint, his face white, with the freckles standing out like grains of sand. He
was
only a lad, Maclean reminded himself, probably at the age when all he thought about was lassies, and Bella was very much the sort of girl that men dreamed of at night. But even a randy lad needed to learn respect.

“Who’s there?” he gasped, swinging around wildly.

“Never you mind,” Maclean whispered, stepping away, out of reach. “Just make sure ye do what she asked ye to do an’ I’ll no’ return. Otherwise…” He reached close again, and gave the boy a clip behind the head, not hard enough to hurt him seriously, but enough to send him stumbling against the wall.

“Oooh God!” He cowered, covering his head with his arms.

“Do ye promise?”

“I promise, I promise, just leave me alone.”

Her transaction completed, Bella had left the shop, and Maclean, satisfied with his own result, hastened after her.

A shower of rain had come through Ardloch while they were inside, making the paving shine, and there were less cars and people about. Maclean sniffed the salt of the ocean and smiled.

Bella was still holding her jacket tight about her, and as Maclean watched, she zipped it up to her neck and then dug her fists into the pockets. It hung down to
midthigh, covering her, so that it was difficult to know how curved and gorgeous she was underneath it. Maclean frowned as he watched her, remembering how he had thought once before that Bella was ashamed of her body. The lad had been admiring her—not so subtly, it was true—but instead of getting angry, Bella seemed to think his glances were some kind of judgment on her, and not a favorable one.

Maclean tried to peer into her face, but her head was bowed, her hair falling about it, and there was a crease between her dark brows. Aye, Bella wasn’t happy.

Maclean slipped his hand around her arm, curving his fingers about her elbow in a firm, strong grip. Her head swung up, startled, and for a moment he let himself pretend that she could see him, that her eyes were looking into his rather than slightly past his nose.

“You’re a lush beauty, Bella Ryan. You have a body any man would be happy to die dreaming of. You canna blame the lad for looking at what he will never have, even if he is a randy wee bastard. Dinna let him make you feel uncomfortable, you are far too fine for him. You should hold your head up and be proud.”

For a moment she stared, shocked by his words, and then laughter bubbled to her lips and made her cheeks glow and her dark eyes shine. She put her hand to her mouth and her shoulders shook. Maclean wondered why she found his words so humorous, but with her eyes sparkling and her face flushed she was so delicious that he wasn’t insulted one bit. In fact he joined in with a guffaw of his own.

“Maclean,” she managed at last, “you’re nothing like the legend.”

“Och, well, I think that must be a good thing,” he replied cautiously.

“Yes.” Bella bit her lip and sobered. “I know you’re trying to help, but it’s just…” She glanced at him sideways. “Women have come a long way since you were around, Maclean. We demand to be treated as equals, we have our own lives and aren’t dependent on men. We’re not objects, not things to be owned or checked out…eh, inspected, like cattle in a market stall. You think it’s okay that…that
boy
in there admires my…my assets, as long as he isn’t too obvious about it. Well, it makes me angry when I’m being judged solely by the size of my breasts.”

Maclean cleared his throat. He had noticed the size of her breasts from the first moment he saw her, and the sight of them still made him dizzy with lust. But he didn’t think he should tell Bella that when she was looking so fierce.

“Why are men like that, Maclean? Like…like animals.”

“Aye, em, well, that’s a difficult question. Mabbe it’s because men’s brains are closer to those of beasts, Bella. Wolves only think about eating and sleeping and…em, female wolves, don’t they? Why should a man be any different?”

“I see. So women have evolved and men are just slower at it.” Bella smiled and nodded. “Good point. Are you a beast, Maclean?”

Jesus, she wasn’t one to skip around a thing. Maclean decided that if she was being direct, then it was only fair he should be, too.

“Aye, sometimes I am verra much a beast, and some
times I lock my beast away in his cage, but he’s always there. I can never be entirely free of him and I dinna think I would want to. He’s what keeps me alive.”

She nodded, and her beautiful face was somber. “So I should beware? Thank you, Maclean.”

He cleared his throat again. “Where do we go to now, lass?”

Bella gave a sideways glance in his direction. “We’d better get on to the museum now, and then I need to stop in at the library.”

There was something in her manner that made him suspicious. Bella was up to something and she wasn’t very good at hiding it. “What
is
a museum, woman?” he asked brusquely.

“Well”—Bella wouldn’t look toward him at all now—“there are different museums. Clothing museums, train museums, toy museums. This is a folk museum, which preserves Ardloch’s past; places like this help us to understand days gone by.” Bella tucked her hair nervously behind her ear. “I seem to remember seeing your name in there, Maclean.”

Was that what was wrong with her? Was she thinking he’d make a commotion? Was she testing him in some way?

Maclean felt his heart sink. He didn’t want Bella to know how desperate he was. Her opinion of him mattered, and he didn’t want her to think him a lesser man.

“Lead the way, lass,” he said, with as much bravado as he could manage.

Just as Bella remembered, the Ardloch
Folk Museum was well presented. Sadly, places like this were often nothing more than a repository for junk, but the Ardloch museum was well thought out and there was an attempt to give it relevance to the people of the area, while at the same time catering to any tourist who might wander in.

The front of the museum was built as a “black house,” a replica of the simple home of a Scottish rural working family. The single living space had been divided by partitions into rooms, each one telling its own story of hope and struggle, with placards describing life in the nineteenth century.

Bella paused in a room where the mannequins in their Highland costume looked almost real in the shadows. There was a brief retelling of Culloden and the Clearances, as well as stories of the rise and fall of the Scottish coastal herring industry, and the emigration of Scots to other parts of the world.

That was when Bella realized she had lost Maclean. She decided not to make a fool of herself by calling out his name and waving her arms. She’d set up this test for him and now he’d disappeared—in a manner of speaking. Never mind, he was here somewhere and in a moment he’d probably scare her witless, putting his arms about her and pulling her back against his big hard body, his breath hot and shivery in her ear. The man had definite sex appeal—last night had proven that—but she mustn’t encourage him. She’d just tried to explain to him how insulted she’d been by the behavior of the boy in the electronics shop, and now she was dreaming of Maclean’s hands on her.

The two things were very different, she knew that, but she wasn’t sure if Maclean did.

She was part of the present and he belonged to the past. She couldn’t rely on him, she couldn’t begin to think of him as permanent in her life. He might vanish again tomorrow if the sorceress came for him and…

“Oh God.” Bella stopped her thoughts right there and wondered for the hundredth time whether she was insane. And for the hundredth time she decided she wasn’t. This was really happening to her. Maclean was here, with her, and whatever the reason for it, she was glad.

And that was the scariest thing of all.

A family, mother and father and two children, had begun to make their way through the cottage. The children’s shrill voices echoed beneath the low, dank ceiling. “Yuk, I wouldn’t like to live in here!” “It smells!”

Bella smiled. It
was
rather dark and smelly, but most houses in the past were. The modern citizen didn’t realize how lucky she was with plumbing and sewerage and
air-conditioning, not to mention toilets and showers and deodorant. In Black Maclean’s day, life had been precarious enough without worrying if you were on the nose—though as far as she could tell, Maclean didn’t smell.

There was a small display on Highland superstitions and folklore, and she cast a doubtful look at an artist’s impression of the Loch Ness Monster. It looked a bit like the thing in her dream, with its wet skin and scales. Bella shuddered. Her dreams were beginning to worry her: First the hag had foretold Maclean’s arrival and then she’d mentioned the
Fiosaiche
and the between-worlds. She had read about people suddenly developing the power to see into the future, but those cases didn’t seem to apply to her….

Her heartbeat sped up.

An arrow was pointing toward a glass case in a nook with a sign:
THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK MACLEAN
.

Bella moved unwillingly in that direction.

A large cardboard replica of a Highland warrior stood, all hairy and fierce, a sword in one hand and a targe—a Highland wooden shield—in the other. When she’d first seen it, Bella had laughed aloud because it was nothing like the Maclean of her imaginings. Now her heart quickened again as she leaned toward the glass case and began to read the so-called legend.

THE BLACK MACLEAN
ONE OF SCOTLAND’S
MOST SHAMEFUL STORIES

Another arrow pointed onward, to a second placard on the other side of the warrior, above a plaster mockup of Castle Drumaird. Bella took a step, just as the door behind her slammed shut, trapping her in the small room.

“Bastards.”

The boiling fury in his voice made her jump, but Bella managed not to cry out. There wasn’t much space in here, and she could feel him beside her, the heat and rage of his body like a physical force. If she closed her eyes she could visualize him in his kilt and black velvet jacket, his hair loose to his shoulders and his eyes pale and piercing.

Bella had convinced herself she would be able to tell if Maclean was lying. She needed to jolt the truth out of him. What sort of man was she dealing with? Was her belief in him real, or just part of her fantasy? Now she wondered whether she was safe.

Maclean knocked against the cardboard warrior, making him rock on his base as if he were spoiling for a fight. “This is no’ me!”

“I know, Maclean. You look nothing like—”

“I dinna run away!”

“Maclean—”

“I saved my men from dying at Culloden Moor for a cause I could see was lost. Lord George came to me that night, before the battle.”

“Are you sure?”

“
I remember it.
He dinna get my message, but he
came anyway. He was unhappy with O’Sullivan and the prince, and he told me I should go. He said he was sorry he had called me out on such a fool’s errand.”

“He did?” For a moment she was stunned.

“I dinna run away from the English, and I dinna make a deal with them.”

She tried to think how she could prove it. How did you prove the honesty of a man? And she knew she couldn’t, not with dusty documents and old letters. A man’s worth was in his voice, his words, his strength of character….

“What is this?” he whispered, his arm brushing her shoulder as he turned to the replica of Castle Drumaird and the second part of the legend.

“Maclean—” she began, but it was too late.

THE BLACK MACLEAN
SHOWS HIS TRUE COLORS

The Black Maclean.

His breathing was thick. She moved closer still, felt his kilt brush against her legs, and searched with her hand until she found his fingers. They were clenched around the handle of something…oh God, his broadsword. Was he going to attack the display? She slid her hand into his and squeezed, hard, to get his attention.

“Maclean, listen to me,” Bella said, drawing on her dwindling courage. This had seemed like such a good idea! “You got home safe and sound, and then you marched northwards, into Mhairi. Why did you do that? Did you take on the Macleods through sheer bloody-mindedness? I know that the Macleans and the Macleods fought, and this time the Macleans lost. You were killed. Your men were killed. There was no one left to protect your people at Fasail—the old folk, the women and children—when the English dragoons came riding in.”

“The Macleods killed me? I died under Auchry’s blade? But Auchry was a coward and a worm! He would never dare raise his sword to the Black Maclean!” And then the rest of what she had said registered with him. “English dragoons? The red army was at Loch Fasail?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. They killed everyone, Maclean. And they burned Castle Drumaird and every other building
to the ground. Nothing was left standing. That’s why Loch Fasail is empty today. It’s been empty for two hundred and fifty years.”

Maclean’s hand had turned cold, his fingers losing their strength.

He couldn’t seem to breathe.

Nothing was left standing.

Bella’s words repeated in his head. Numb, he tried to take it in. His lands deserted, his people murdered. He’d thought that whatever had emptied his lands must have taken place many years after his time. And Bella was saying it was his fault? No, it couldn’t be so. He didn’t believe it.

“News filtered through to the authorities, eventually. In the muddle and confusion after the defeat at Culloden the killings went unreported. The Macleods of Mhairi knew and when they were questioned about it long afterwards they blamed you. Said you had come boasting about your deal with the English, so full of yourself, wanting to celebrate by stealing their cattle and their women. You fought each other in a vicious battle, and this time you lost. You were already dead when the dragoons came to destroy Fasail.”

He tried to see himself as the villain in Bella’s book, boasting about his bargain with the red army, knowingly betraying all he believed in, but he could not, he
would
not.

“Why are you saying this, woman?” he cried in frustration. “Is it to torment me? There is more to the story, there must be. You have but skimmed the surface. My people died, and I was not there to protect them, but if
ye think I would do such a thing without a just reason, then you wrong me. You wrong me!”

There were voices in his head, like a great wind howling. His people dying, slaughtered as the English dragoons rode through them like scythes through long grass. And he wasn’t there to stop them. He wasn’t there to save them. According to Bella, he was exchanging death blows with the Macleods over a few mangy cattle.

“The ‘upright Macleods of Mhairi,’” he sneered. “They were thieves—Auchry was the worst of them. He struck me no death blow! He would have been too busy hiding in some wee hole in the ground. Only Ishbel was worth something, and even she…” His fingers held hers so hard it hurt. “Ishbel Macleod, she’s at the heart of this thing.”

“Ishbel?” The name was new to Bella.

“Auchry’s daughter. I took her hostage for his good behavior, to stop
his
stealing from
me
.” Then, when she was silent, “’Tis no’ unusual to take hostages. I did no’ hurt her. I wished to marry her.”

“And did you?” she asked quietly.

“No.”

That was all, just the one word, but Bella must have felt the weight of secrets behind it. He could hear the questions forming in her mind. Behind them the door began to open. Maclean reached back and held it closed. His voice was a harsh croak: “Bella, ye must believe me.”

But of course she kept on. Searching for her version of the truth.

“Did you make a deal with the English at Culloden,
only to have them break their word and follow you home to Fasail?”

“Bloody hell, woman, is it likely I’d let those bastards into Fasail?” he roared. “And if I did, if I knew they were coming, then I would no’ have run away. I never ran away from a fight in my life!” Behind them the door rattled but he pressed harder against it, keeping out whoever wanted to get in.

He sounded so sincere, so passionate. Bella wanted to believe him, she really did. “Most so-called legends are hearsay and lies spread by enemies. That’s why I am writing my book, so that I can tell everyone what
really
happened. The English dragoons always denied their part in it, although the garrison at Fort William was famous for its brutality. But then again, maybe the massacre wasn’t official—there were plenty of renegade bands around with little regard for the lives of—”

“Bella.” Maclean’s voice sounded strained. “I made no deal with the English, and they dinna follow me back to Loch Fasail. Ye must believe me. I command it!”

He stumbled against her, his fingers bruising hers. Big, hardened fingers used to fighting; a warrior’s hand. Bella gasped, clinging to him, praying he had enough self-control not to lose it.

“You can’t command something like that, Maclean. If I believe you, then it’s because
I
choose to, not because you order me to. Tell me about Ishbel.”

“I’ve tried to remember more, but remembering hurts.”

“Unpleasant memories can be painful, I understand that.”

“No.” He groaned. “It
hurts
like a hammer in my head, like my brain is being boiled in oil.”

“Oh.” She swallowed, and even in his own pain he could see she was upset. Did the past have such an effect upon her, or was it just
his
past? Bella wanted him to be perfect, and he wasn’t. She wanted him to be a hero, and if what she was saying about him was true, then he was far from that.

“You were a chief who cared for his people, who was willing to walk away from a fight to save his men’s lives. You could have been a great man, and then you blew it. You’re famous, Maclean, but for all the wrong reasons.”

“This piece of paper”—he crashed his hand against the glass display—“says I was dead by the time the red army came into Fasail. I wasna there to protect them.” His voice sounded wretched. “I didna even know that was what had happened. I left Fasail in good order. I was a good chief, and I believed that when I died all was well!”

He was in painful earnest. Despite the damning words of the Black Maclean legend, Bella believed him. She had made her choice. Whatever happened two hundred and fifty years ago at Loch Fasail was done without his knowledge.

A familiar excitement arced through her. History had wronged Maclean, and Bella must put it right. This was what she was good at, what she had been born to do.

“You will remember,” she said, trying to soothe him. “Why else would you be here? And maybe when
you do it will explain why the sorceress brought you back.”