think you were dreaming,” he said.
She frowned, flushed and bit her lower lip. “I screamed?”
“Like an alley cat,” he informed her. He stepped back himself. In this pale light, in this strange moment, he suddenly realized just how arresting a woman she was. Not just beautiful, but fascinating. Eyes so intensely blue, bone structure so perfect and refined, her mouth so generous. Her features seemed carefully drawn, as if they had been defined by an artist. And despite the vivid color of her hair and her eyes, there was a darkness about them, as well.
“I woke you,” she murmured. “My deepest apologies.”
“I wasn’t actually sleeping, but I am surprised you didn’t wake the entire castle. Or maybe you did,” he added. He couldn’t refrain from a dry smile. “Maybe they’re creeping down the hall now, afraid to come in and find out what’s happening.” He left her and walked to the door, opened it and looked out. Then he shrugged. “Well, castle walls have been known to keep the sounds of the tortured from traveling too far.”
She still stood there, tall, elegant, strangely aloof. He found that he was annoyed to be so concerned. She seemed to be the head of this wretched gang that had the gall to “invent” history and entertain others with their perception of the past. “Are you all right?” he asked her.
“I just … I’m fine. And I’m truly sorry.” Her words were sincere. Her eyes were still too wide. And she seemed to be afraid of something.
Him? No. Something in her nightmare?
Bruce hesitated. Leave! he told himself. He didn’t want them here. Lord, with everything else going on …
She shivered as she stood there. That was his undoing.
“The wretched room is freezing. Why didn’t you build yourself a fire?” he demanded.
“I …”
The uncertainty seemed so unlike her. She’d been a tigress, arguing with him before. Impatiently he strode to the fireplace, dug behind the poker stand for kindling, laid it over the logs and struck a match. Hunkered down, he took hold of the poker to press it deeper into the pile of wood. He wondered if that had been a mistake, if she was going to think that he’d turn and take the poker to her.
But she was still standing, just as he had left her. To his sincere dismay, he felt a swift stir of arousal. The flannel should have hung around her like a tent, but it was sheer enough for the light to play with form and shadow. And there was that hair … long, lustrous, blond, curling around her shoulders and breasts.
“A drink. You need a drink,” he told her. Hell, he needed one.
She lifted a hand suddenly, obviously regaining some of her composure. “Sorry, I don’t have any.”
“Thankfully you didn’t jimmy the wardrobe,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.”
He went back through the bathroom and opened the wardrobe, found the brandy and poured two glasses from the left-hand shelf. Returning to the bride’s room, he found that she had taken a seat in one of the old upholstered chairs in front of the fireplace.
He handed her a glass. She accepted it, her blue eyes speculatively on him. “Thanks,” she told him.
“They say it will cure what ails you,” he told her, lifting his glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” she returned. A little shiver snaked through her as she took a long swallow. “Thanks,” she said again.
He set his glass on the mantel, hunkered down and adjusted the logs again. A nice warmth was emanating from the blaze now.
He stood, collected his glass again and took the chair by her side.
“So … do you want to talk about it?”
A twisted smile curled her lips. She looked at him. “Sure. It was you.”
“Me! I swear, I never left that room,” he protested.
“I know. It was very strange. It was as if I had wakened and … there you were. Only, it wasn’t really you. It was you—as you might have been—in historical costume. It was very, very real. Absolutely vivid.”
“So I was just standing there, in historical costume? Well, I can see where that might be a bit unsettling, but those screams … It sounded as if the devil himself had arrived.”
She flushed slightly.
“You were in more than costume.”
“Oh?”
“Were it a picture, the caption might have read, ‘Speak softly and carry a very big and bloody sword,'” she said.
“Ah. So I was about to lop off your head. Sorry, I may be irritated and rude, but I do stop short at head-lopping,” he told her, then turned, getting comfortable in the chair. “Don’t you think you might have gotten a bit carried away with your historical fiction?”
“I have to admit, I’ve scared myself a bit,” she murmured. “I made up a Bruce MacNiall, only to find out that he exists. Well, in the here and now, that is.”
Bruce shook his head, wary now. “You must have known some of the local history.”
“No, not really. We hadn’t ever been to this area when we decided to attempt this venture,” she assured him.
It sounded as if she was telling the truth. And yet …
He swirled the brandy in his glass, studying the color. Then he looked at her again. She couldn’t be telling the truth.
“There was a Bruce MacNiall who fought with the Cavaliers. He opposed the armies Cromwell led and beat them mercilessly many times. At first, he even survived Cromwell’s reign. But he and some other Scottish lairds kept at it, wanting to bring Charles II back from
Europe and see him crowned king. He was eventually caught when one of the lairds supposedly on his side turned coat. That man was killed by MacNiall’s comrades, but unfortunately MacNiall rode into a trap and was caught himself. He had defied the reigning power, which was Cromwell. You know the penalty for that. He received every barbarity of the day that was reserved for traitors.”
She turned to him, blue eyes enormous. Then she closed them and leaned back, looking ashen.
“Hey, sorry. It’s history. I didn’t get the sense that you had a weak stomach.”
She shook her head. “I don’t,” she said flatly, and he realized that the particular history he was giving her was more disturbing to her than it was to him.
She looked at him. “He didn’t murder his wife in a fit of jealousy, did he?”
Bruce shrugged, watching her closely. “No one knows. There was some rumor that she kept company with a certain Cromwellian soldier—whether true or a pure invention, I don’t know—and that she disappeared from the castle. It’s historical fact that MacNiall was castrated, disemboweled, hanged, beheaded and generally chopped to pieces. But as to his wife, no one knows for certain.
