The Highlander's Touch

Page 33

If she’s still alive, Ruby thought, with a silent prayer.
DUNCAN WHISTLED A LIVELY TUNE AS HE MADE HIS WAY to Circenn’s chambers. Things had become quite interesting since the lass from the future had arrived. Circenn had willfully broken an oath and lied, and that, in Duncan’s mind, was nearly cause for celebration. Even Galan had conceded over breakfast this morning that it was something of a breakthrough. Although Galan had pushed Circenn to fulfill his vow last night, this morning he’d admitted to Duncan that he hadn’t seen Circenn Brodie quite so off balance in years. Nor had he seen such a look of fascination on his face as he’d glimpsed when he’d burst into Circenn’s chambers last night. Galan had agreed with Duncan that the lass might be the best thing that could have happened to Circenn, shaking up his rigid rules, forcing him to question himself.
Eighteen generations of Douglases had served the immortal laird of Brodie, and in the past few generations there had been much talk and deep concern about his increasing withdrawal. The Douglases were worried about him. In the not-so-distant past, the laird of Brodie had presided over the courts of his eleven manors. But he hadn’t done so in over a century, leaving it to the various knights he’d appointed in his place to settle his people’s disputes. It used to be that the laird of Brodie had actively ridden out to his villages, talked with and been well acquainted with his people. Now Duncan wasn’t sure Circenn could identify one of his own villagers if he stood before him.
For the past hundred years, Circenn had spent most of his time traveling from country to country, fighting other people’s wars, and never being touched by any of it. He had only returned to Scotland to join the fight for his motherland when Robert the Bruce had been crowned king by Isabel, Countess of Buchan, at Scone.
Duncan’s Uncle Tomas argued that the laird of Brodie needed to wed, that it would draw him back into the joys of life. But Circenn refused to wed again, and they could hardly force him. Duncan’s father had settled for trying to get him to be intimate with a woman, but it seemed that Circenn Brodie had taken another of his absurd oaths and sworn off intimacy.
Circenn’s origins were lost in the mists of time, and the few times Duncan had questioned him about how he’d come to be immortal, the laird had grown taciturn, refusing to discuss it. But while sharing excessive quantities of whisky with Circenn one night, Duncan had come to understand a bit of why Circenn had decided not to become involved with another woman. Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago, Circenn’s second wife had died at the age of forty-eight, and Circenn had admitted, in a whisky-induced confidence, that he simply refused to watch another wife die.
“So, just tup every now and then,” Duncan had offered.
Circenn had sighed. “I cannot. I cannot seem to keep my heart from following where my body goes. If I am interested enough in a woman to take her to my bed, I want more of her. I want her out of my bed, too.”
Duncan had been shaken by that comment. “So spend time with her until it wears off,” he’d said easily.
Circenn had shot him a dark look. “Have you never met a woman with whom it did not wear off? A woman with whom you went to sleep at night, with the scent of her in your nostrils, and woke up in the morning wanting her as badly as you wanted to breathe?”
“Nay,” Duncan had assured him. “Lasses are merely lasses. You attribute too much significance to it. It is simply tupping.”
But it was not simply tupping to the laird of Brodie, and Duncan knew that. Lately, “simply tupping” wasn’t scratching Duncan’s endless itch, either. He wondered if it might be related to aging—that as a man grew older, indiscriminate intimacy began to chafe rather than to soothe.
Recently, Duncan had surprised himself by lingering with a wench past the duration of their physical intimacy, prolonging the afterglow, even asking questions besides “When is your husband expected back?”
Damned unnerving was what that was.
He shrugged, pushing the thought from his mind with a more pleasurable musing about Circenn. He had bet Galan his best horse that Circenn couldn’t bring himself to kill the woman from the future, and it was a bet he planned to collect on. The laird of Brodie needed to come back to life, and perhaps the unusual lass was the one to help him do it.
* * *
Lisa sat in the window of her room in Circenn’s chambers, gazing out at the afternoon. Behind a thick bank of clouds, the sun had passed midpoint and begun its slow descent toward the ocean. She instinctively glanced at her wrist to see what time it was and realized she didn’t have her watch on. She tried to recall if she’d had it on at the museum but wasn’t certain. She often took it off and put it in her coat pocket when she cleaned, so it wouldn’t get wet or dirty. She imagined she must have done so two nights ago and, caught up in her current mess, simply hadn’t thought about it since then.