Beyond the Highland Mist

Page 109

On the Island of Morar, the Queen smothered a delicate laugh with a tiny hand as strains of the new play drifted across the sea. Adam snarled.
The fool had been gloating for months now over his defeat of the Hawk. Smugly he had said to the King, and to anyone else who would listen, “He may have been pretty, but he was no match for me. Just a stupid pretty face.”
The King cocked a mischievous brow, unable to resist taunting the fool. “Stupid, is he? Defeated, was he? My, my, fool, ’twould seem we named you thusly in truth. The legend of the fairy fool has just been rewritten. For all eternity mortals shall remember your defeat, not his.”
The fool loosened a giant howl of rage and disappeared. This time, Finnbheara went directly to his Queen’s side.
“The fool goes to the Hawk,” he told her. Adam was in a dreadful temper, and the fool had nearly destroyed their race once before. The Compact must not be broken.
The Queen rolled onto her side and measured her consort a long moment. Then she offered her lips for his kisses and Finnbheara knew he was once again in the good graces of his love.
“You did well to tell me, my dear.”
Sometimes, very late at night, Adrienne would dream that she walked the green slopes of Dalkeith again. The fresh tang of salt air scented with roses would lick through her hair and caress her skin.
In her dreams the Hawk would be waiting for her by the sea’s edge; her kilt-clad, magnificent Scottish laird. He would smile and his eyes would crinkle, then turn dark with smoldering passion.
She would take his hand and lay it gently on her swelling abdomen, and his face would blaze with happiness and pride. Then he would take her gently, there on the cliff’s edge, in tempo with the pounding of the ocean. He would make fierce and possessive love to her and she would hold on to him as tightly as she could.
But before dawn, he would melt right through her fingers.
And she would wake up, her cheeks wet with tears and her hands clutching nothing but a bit of quilt or pillow.
CHAPTER 34
1 APRIL 1514
HE WAS NEAR. THE HAWK COULD FEEL HIM AS HE SAT IN HIS study polishing a toy soldier to a smooth, sealed grain while he watched the dawn move over the sea. A tingling awareness started at the base of his spine and worked its way up, heightening all his senses.
The Hawk smiled darkly and laid the toy carefully aside. Something wicked this way comes. Aye. And I am ready this time, you bastard!
The Hawk crossed his study to his desk and rolled the thick sheaf of parchment, tucking it into the leather girth of his sporran. He was ready to use it, but only after he had the satisfaction of fighting the smithy on mortal terms.
He stepped into the morning feeling more alive than he’d felt in months. Hold fast and believe in me, love, he whispered across the centuries.
Because love and belief were serious magic in and of themselves.
“Come out, coward,” he called, his breath frosting in the chill morning air. The snowfall had stopped a few weeks ago, only sparse patches remained, and soon spring would grace Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea once more. As will my wife, he vowed fiercely. For days now he’d been tense, knowing something was about to happen. Feeling it in his heart, as the Rom sometimes suffered their premonitions. Then, this morning, he’d woken in the wee hours knowing the time was at hand. The battle would be waged this day, and it was a battle he would win.
“Come on! ’Tis easy to fight anonymously. It only tells me you’re too much a coward to declare yourself and face me,” he taunted the misty air.
He felt foolish for a moment, then pushed the feeling brusquely aside. Adam Black was near, he knew it clear to the marrow in his bones, goaded by the minstrel plays and a fool’s weakness.
“Foe! Face me! Cowardly, puny, sniveling whelp. I bet you used to hide behind your mama’s skirts as a wee lad, didn’t you? Quiver and taunt from behind a lass as you do now?” Hawk scoffed into the silent morning. “You used a lass as your pawn. Anyone could have played such a weak game. I challenge you to a true contest, gutless worm.”
The breeze kicked up, more puckish now, but still no one came. The air swirled thickly in a rush of fast-scuttling clouds with black underbellies. Hawk laughed aloud, feeling exhilaration and strength course through his veins.
“Mortal man knows the truth about you now, Adam—that you couldn’t win my wife, that she scorned you for me.” Naturally, he omitted the truth that Adam had temporally convinced him that Adrienne had gone willingly. But the Hawk had regained his senses, along with his belief and trust in his wife. “I know she rejected you, smithy! I know you forced her to leave me against her will. She chose me over you and the whole country knows it now.”