The Presence Read online

  Kevin and David had spent their hours in the shops looking for plates and plasticware, and they were delighted with all their little purchases.

  Gina decided that they had to have haggis, since it was the national dish, but Bruce begged out of it being the meal for the entire table.

  “Hate the stuff,” he told her.

  “But it’s the national dish!” she protested.

  “Aye, it’s the national dish, and do you know why?” he asked her, eyes sparkling. “It’s made from the cheapest pieces of meat—”

  “Body parts,” David put in.

  “Aye, body parts, because we were too broke here most of the time to be using the best cuts ourselves. But, by all means, Gina, have the haggis. They actually do an excellent sirloin here, and the lamb chops are phenomenal, especially considering that we’re in a local pub,” Bruce finished.

  Toni opted for the salmon, while Thayer, David, Ryan and Kevin went along with Bruce, ordering the sirloin. Lizzie and Trish decided to try the lamb chops.

  “Sure you want haggis, Gina?” Ryan asked. “I’m not trading my meal with yours!” he told her.

  She made a face at him, but when it came her turn to order, she asked their waitress, “What do you think of the haggis?”

  The woman glanced at Bruce. “Should I be tellin’ her the truth, Laird MacNiall?”

  “Indeed, Catherine, aye,” he said gravely.

  “I think we keep it on the menu for the tourists,” she said, causing everyone to laugh. Gina switched to the sirloin.

  By the end of the evening, Thayer had planned to spend the next Monday driving Lizzie and Trish down to Glasgow to show them some of the sights there. Kevin and David were planning holiday decorations for the castle. Gina was ever so slightly crocked and affectionate in her husband’s arms. And the light in Bruce’s eyes offered amusement and a flicker of intimacy that Toni found both touching and seductive.

  Whatever ridiculous doubts and fears she had regarding him—and the ghost of his ancestor—seemed to have dissipated completely. She couldn’t wait to be back at the castle, and back in his arms.

  But it wasn’t to work out that way. When they arrived, Eban was there to meet them. The roan had taken another turn for the worse, and he’d been out with the animal, doing his best to keep him up and walking, but he was wearing himself out. Toni was ready to run out with Ryan, but Bruce stopped her.

  “I’ll tend to the roan with Ryan,” he said.

  “But it sounds as if Wallace is really sick,” she said, upset. “And I didn’t see him at first when I should have—”

  “I’ll be calling the vet, Toni. It will be all right.”

  “How are you going to get a vet at midnight?” she asked.

  “The rewards of a small village, where everyone knows everyone,” he told her. “It’s all right. Toni, trust me, I know something about horses.”

  “Toni!” David set an arm around her. “It’s best if you let them handle this, you know.”

  He was right. She would be emotional, and maybe in the way.

  Bruce took her arm, leading her toward the castle. “Wait for me?” he queried. “Well, get some sleep, if you can…but in my bed?”

  She looked into his eyes and nodded. The excitement she’d been feeling was definitely tempered now with worry for the horse, but there was something more that he gave her with his words and the gentle brush of his eyes—comfort and assurance.

  “The doc will take care of old Wallace,” he said.

  So she went on upstairs and showered, then slipped into a gown and into his bed. Restless, she stood up and looked out the window. The lights remained bright in the stables.

  She went back to bed, where she tossed and turned, her mind filled with the events that had occurred since their arrival. An hour passed, and she was still staring at the ceiling. Finally her eyes closed, and she slept. Then…she felt a touch. She opened her eyes, and he was there—at the foot of the bed.

  His sword was not dripping blood this time. Instead, it was sheathed in the belt and holder that sat around his hip, on his plaid.

  She sat up, staring at him, wishing that she could scream, make someone come running, making the apparition disappear. And though his face was Bruce’s, she no longer thought that he was the Bruce she knew.

  Staring into his eyes, she ran her hand over the sheets at her side, praying that maybe Bruce had come up while she was sleeping. But he wasn’t there. And with the man at the foot of her bed looking so exactly like him…she began to question her sanity again. And to question the man with whom she was falling in love.

  “Don’t do this to me!” she whispered.

  But he remained, turning and heading for the door.

  “No!” she said.

  He waited at the door until she rose and followed. Then he headed down the hall to the stairway.

  Toni came along, barefoot, shivering in her gown. She didn’t understand why she didn’t scream then, or call out, waken someone else. If they didn’t see him, then she was crazy.

  But at least she would know for certain that he wasn’t the man she knew, flesh and blood, playing tricks on her.

  Yet, if they didn’t see him, then she was following a ghost.

  He paused at the landing, and a fierce tension suddenly gripped his features, as if he found it painful there. Then he looked back, as if to assure himself that she was following.

  “You know,” she said quietly, “you have a descendant here. You couldn’t just appear before him, huh?”

  There was no response. He started down the stairs.

  Her heart was pounding. Cry out! she told herself. But still, she didn’t.

  He came to the great hall and waited again. When she neared the bottom of the stairs, he walked on to the secondary hall, and from there…to the door leading to the crypts.

  “No, please!” she told him.

  Nae, lass, the “please” be to you.

  Did the ghost speak, or did the words just somehow echo in her head?

  “I really don’t like the crypts!” she whispered.

  The door, bolted and rusted by day, was open. He went down the spiral stone stairs, and she followed. Once again, he led her to his grave. And then he was gone.

  In the shadows, in the must and darkness of the dead, she spun around, frantically searching for him. “What do you want? Just what is it that you want? Annalise has been found. And they know…they know you didn’t do it!”

  But there was no answer, and she felt again as if the light began to disappear as soon as she lost him. She was incredibly frightened, and furious, as well. Why did he bring her here, then leave her alone in the shadows and cold, desperate to get back up the stairs?

  She ran, nearly tripping in her scramble to regain the level of the hall. Once there, she burst out the door, across the smaller hall and then the great one, and up the stairs. She hesitated on the landing, thinking that David and Kevin would have to screw their sex life or intimacy that night because she was going to burst in on them and tell them that they were getting out of the castle then and there.

  But as she stood on the upper landing, she heard someone humming. Looking down, she saw Ryan coming out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hands. He looked up and saw her.

  “Toni?” he said, and frowned.

  She must have looked wild, she was certain. With him in the living flesh, walking across the hall, her panic subsided.

  “I, uh, how is Wallace?” she asked.

  “Fine for the night. The vet is convinced he’s getting into something that’s making him get this colic, though he can’t figure out what. But he’s good, Toni. Honestly, I wouldn’t lie to you. You could have asked Bruce. He’s up there now. In fact, he’s been in for a while. You can go to sleep, and rest assured, old Wallace is doing well.”

  She smiled, glad to realize that he thought she was standing barefoot and in a nightgown on the landing because she was so worried about the horse.

  “
Good night, Ryan. And thanks,” she said.

  She turned and fled back down the hallway, bursting into Bruce’s bedroom. He had showered and was in a towel. He seemed distracted, and when he looked up and saw her, his face was filled with tension.

  “I was about to gather a search party,” he said. “I told you that I’d tend to the horse, Toni. And he’s doing well.”

  She nodded. “Yes, thanks.”

  She was still standing in the doorway.

  “Are you coming in?” he asked her.

  She nodded, but didn’t move.

  “Toni, what on earth is the matter with you?”

  She swallowed. “Bruce, you weren’t standing at the foot of the bed in a kilt about fifteen minutes ago, were you?”

  “What? I was out with the horses, with Ryan.” He sighed. “You’re dreaming again?”

  She shook her head. “No…no, I don’t think that I’m dreaming. I think that I’m seeing the ghost of your ancestor.” She gritted her teeth, watching the astonishment and total incomprehension that spread over his features.

  “Toni, ghosts don’t exist,” he said.

  “I’m seeing the ghost of your ancestor,” she said firmly. “And he keeps taking me down to the crypts.”

  “That door is bolted,” he said harshly. “I keep the only key.”

  “Come with me,” she told him.

  “Toni, I’m wearing a towel. I’d have to get dressed. You’re barely dressed yourself, you know. That thing is entirely see-through.”

  “Come now,” she insisted.

  “In a towel?”

  “We’re the only ones up,” she said, and turning, she went back down along the hallway.

  “Toni, dammit!” he said, but followed behind her.

  She realized she was almost running. He caught up with her on the stairway, swearing as he gripped her arm—he’d almost lost the towel.

  “Toni, this is insanity.”

  “I’ll show you!”

  She wrenched free, and tore through the main hall and the secondary hall. At the door to the crypts she stood dead still. It was closed.

  She grabbed the handle and tugged, but it was firmly bolted. She felt him behind her, felt his doubt and skepticism. And then her own.

  She turned into his arms. “I saw him!” she insisted. “He opened this door, I went down it!”

  “Toni, please, let’s go to bed?” he said.

  She was shaking, cold as ice. He lifted her, hugging her close to him as they traveled back the way they had come. He tried to tease her. “Don’t wiggle too much. I’ll lose the towel.”

  She wasn’t wiggling. She wasn’t moving.

  “Toni…!” he murmured, distressed by her fear. She shook her head, curling her arms around his neck.

  He opened the door, still ajar, to the master’s chambers with his foot, and closed it the same way. He laid her upon the bed and told her, “I’ll get you some tea…brandy? Something?”

  “No!” she said, rising to throw herself into his arms again. “No, no, don’t leave me, even for a second.”

  “Toni, it’s all right here—”

  “No, just hold me. Make love to me, be with me, alive, vital, flesh and blood. Do what you do so well, make everything else in the world fade away!”

  “Toni!” he whispered again, his slate eyes searching her own.

  “Now, please!” she begged.

  And with that, he complied. His lips found hers, and tonight they were gentle, slow, even hesitant. But she wouldn’t have it. Not that. She was fevered, clinging to him, pressing the kiss until it became one of the most volatile passions. She ripped away his towel, frantic to be against him, to rid herself of every barrier between them. She was frenetic, electric against his flesh, needing every bit of heat and warmth, fevered, chaotic….

  Until he caught hold of her, bore her down, gripped her wrists and began a far slower, far more sensual seduction, bathing her flesh with fire, with the brush of lips, teeth, tongue, hands, all eliciting a deep, slow hunger and anguish, and making her feel cherished, taken….

  And as she had longed for, ached and needed, the world faded. Every thought was gone except for the perfect fit of his body to hers, the thunder of heartbeats, the drive of his sex, his hips, the frenzied arch and writhe of her own.

  She soared, flew and exploded beneath him, then felt the burst of searing warmth within her that was his climax. And still, there was the feel of him within her, growing softer, a part of her…his arms, holding her.

  “Toni…”

  “No, not tonight. Please, don’t talk tonight!” she begged. “Just…hold me.”

  And so he did.

  Interlude

  “Bruce, please. Before God, I do not know what this man has said to you, but you are my life, and I’d not be tray you, ever. Dear God! I love you, Bruce!” she whispered.

  And looking down into her eyes, those pools of blue, sapphire with sincerity and the sweetness of the bond that had been theirs forever, he knew that she spoke the truth. He drew her to her feet.

  “Ah, so he lied, and has not come as yet. But he will come, Annalise. Perhaps the Lord Cromwell has not taken to ordering the demise of the families of men such as myself, but neither would he punish a man, here, in what he considers the wilds of Scotland, a land of savages, who took a captive…and misused her. Our son is safe enough, following the young king in France. You can stay here no longer.”

  “Where would you have me go?” she whispered.

  “To the Highlands. To the clansmen there, honor-bound to protect you, my love.”

  “We could bring danger upon those men. And here, the castle—our son’s inheritance—could fall to the enemy.”

  “A castle is mortar and stone, no more. And though no troops have come, in their eyes, the property is confiscated by the government, as it was. Nae, our hope is in the return of the king. And whether we are here or not, the day the king returns in triumph as Charles II of En gland will be the day we are justified, and all is restored.”

  She shivered suddenly. “What if that day never comes?”

  “It will,” he declared staunchly. He stroked her chin, reveled in the soft feel of her flesh and the beauty of her fine features. And more. Something that transcended anything mortal. The way that she looked at him. And all that they shared.

  “I must get you away. Tonight.”

  “As you wish,” she told him.

  He held her against him, taking a brief moment to feel the heat between them, the beating of their hearts, a pulse that slowly melded, as well. He inhaled the scent of her, and thought that this, being together so, loving a person with such great passion and being loved in return, was heaven. And he was humbled.

  He pulled away from her.

  She smiled, her lips damp, wistful and sensual.

  “There’s not so much as a night we could spend together first?”

  “Not in this house,” he told her, ruing the words. “We must get into the forest.”

  She nodded. “I’ll get my things….”

  “Bring little. We must travel fast.”

  She was quick, and she knew that his words were wise. As she prepared, Bruce spoke with his steward and his men, explaining that he was taking his lady away, and that, until the world was right again, the people mustn’t give their own lives in a battle. But if they came, to allow the troops of the Protectorate in, let them do what they would, take what they craved, even unto the very stone of the castle. When Annalise came down to ride with him, many wept, but she gave them her cheerful, beautiful smile, swearing that all would be well.

  And they rode together, both of them upon his great black mount.

  He brought them into the forest. Finding a cove deep in the security of ancient oaks, he laid out his mantle, and there, surrounded by the softness of the night’s breeze, the verdant richness of the woods, upon a bed of pines, he made love to her. As the moon waned high above them, he held her against his heart. Entwined, they found a
night’s rest, beauty and peace.

  As the sun rose, he heard the snap of a branch. Leaping to his feet, he grabbed his sword. Somehow, they had been betrayed.

  The sound was distant still, so he fell to his knees, waking her, his finger to his lips. “Dress, quickly. I’ll leave the stallion. Take him ever north and westward, climb to the Highlands and await me.”

  “Where are you going? What are you doing?” she demanded with alarm.

  “Leading them astray.”

  “No!” She threw herself against him.

  “Annalise! I wage battle constantly, I know what I’m about. You must be away. Please, if I know that you are safe, I can fight any man!”

  She rose, finding her clothing, scattered about, as he kilted himself into his tartan in silence. He held her then, once more. One last kiss.

  “Go!” he urged her.

  He bent low and moved silently, at first, until he had put distance between them. Then he let his presence be known. And he heard the activity in the forest, heard the horses, moving now far more carelessly through the trees.

  He knew that his enemy waited before him, and his path veered just in time for the men to jump out from their hiding places too late.

  His sword felled them both with a mighty swing.

  But there were more.

  Suddenly he was surrounded.

  He found a path through the trees behind him, drawing them on. He was caught, and he knew it, but he fought like berserkers who had long ago come to Scotland, joining their Norse and Danish blood with that of more ancient tribes. He fought, not for his life, but for time—time for Annalise to depart to champions in the north.

  That day, he brought down man after man. Yet, to no avail. For his enemy had amassed quite an army, and the men were bitter and incensed at the losses they had sustained in previous battle. Alone, he bore their assault, sustained wound after wound, and battled on.

  Finally he stood in a field of corpses, but his great sword had been broken, and he was on his knees, blood dripping down his forehead into his eyes. The men around him backed away as Grayson Davis strode into the copse.