Beyond the Highland Mist

Page 94

“Who are you?” Adrienne choked as tears filled her eyes.
Adam turned her slowly in his arms until she faced him. His face was icy and definitely not human in the grayish half-light. “The man who’s going to destroy your husband and everything at Dalkeith if you don’t do exactly as I say, lovely Adrienne. I suggest you listen to me very, very carefully if you love him.”
Hawk couldn’t find Adam. He couldn’t find Grimm. And now he couldn’t find his own wife. What the hell kind of wedding day was this?
The Hawk paced through the lower bailey calling her name, his hands clenched into fists. On the ridge, people had already started to gather. Clanspeople were arriving in droves from miles around. Come twilight there would be nearly seven hundred plaids gathered on Dalkeith’s shore; the Douglas was a large clan with many crofters tilling the land. Earlier in the morning the Hawk had sent his guard into the hills and vales announcing the laird’s wedding this eve, thus ensuring the attendance of every last person, young and old.
But there wouldn’t be any wedding if he couldn’t find his wife.
“Adrienne!” he called. Where the hell had she gone? Not in the castle, not in the gardens … not at Dalkeith?
Nay!
“Adrienne!” he roared, his pace quickening to a run. Calling her name, he sped past the falcon broch.
“Hawk, I’m here!” He heard her cry echo behind him.
“Adrienne?” He skidded to a halt and turned.
“I’m right here. Sorry,” she added as she closed the door to the broch and stepped outside.
“Don’t ever leave me again without telling me where you’re going. Didn’t you hear me calling you?” he growled, fear roughening his voice.
“I said I’m sorry, Hawk. I must have been woolgathering.” She paused where she stood.
Hawk’s heart twisted in his chest. He’d found her, but why hadn’t that erased his fear? Something nagged—a thing intangible, yet as real and potentially treacherous as the jagged cliffs of Dalkeith. There was an almost palpable odor of wrongness hovering in the air around the broch.
“Lass, what’s wrong?” he asked. Every inch of him tensed as she stepped out of the shadows that darkened the east side of the squat tower. Half her face was deeply shadowed by the sun’s descent, the other half was visibly pale in the fading light. Hawk suffered a fleeting moment of impossible duality; as though half her face was smiling while the other was drawn tightly in a grimace of pain. The macabre illusion chased a spear of foreboding through his heart.
He extended his hands, and when she didn’t move from that strange half domino of light and darkness, he strode brusquely forward and pulled her into his arms.
“What ails you, sweet wife?” he demanded, gazing down at her. But he hadn’t pulled her forward far enough. That hated shadow still claimed a full third of her face, concealing her eyes from him. With a rough curse he back-stepped until she was free of darkness. That shadow, that damned shadow from the broch had made him feel as if half of her was becoming insubstantial and she might melt right through his hands and he would be helpless to prevent it. “Adrienne!”
“I’m fine, Hawk,” she said softly, sliding her arms around his waist.
As the fading light bathed her face, he felt suddenly foolish, wondered how he could have thought, even for a moment, that there was a shadow eclipsing her lovely face. There was no shadow there. Naught but her wide silver eyes brimming with love as she gazed up at him.
A trembling moment passed, then her lip curved in a sweet smile. She brushed a stray fall of dark hair back from his face and kissed his jaw tenderly. “My beautiful, beautiful Hawk,” she murmured.
“Talk to me, lass. Tell me what fashes you so,” he said roughly.
She flashed him a smile so dazzling that it muddled his thoughts. He felt his worries scattering like petals to the wind beneath the soft promises unspoken in that smile.
He brushed his lips to hers and felt that jolt of immediate response tingle through his body from head to toe. What shadow? Foolish fears, foolish fancy, he realized wryly. He was letting his imagination run wild at the slightest provocation. A silly shadow fell across her face and the great Hawk suffered visions of doom and desolation. Bah! No lass could smile like that if she was worried about something.
He took her lips in a brutal, punishing kiss. Punishing for the fear he’d felt. Punishing, because he needed her.
And she melted to him like liquid flames, molding and pressing herself against him with fierce urgency. “Hawk …” she whispered against his lips. “My husband, my love, take me … again, please.”