Under the Highlander's Spell Read online

  A knock interrupted their concerns and forced a different set of worries on them.

  “You will be kind to her?” Artair asked of his brother, knowing Bethane waited beyond the closed door.

  “I want my brother home,” Cavan said sharply, and called out for her to enter.

  Bethane entered with a flourish, her cheeks dashed pink, her green eyes aglow and her smile generous.

  “What an honor to be invited to your solar, Cavan,” she said, and extended her hand to his.

  He took it, and she held firm to it with both hands for a moment, then smiled wider and released his hand.

  Bethane nodded. “You will serve your people well.”

  “I am more concerned at the moment with finding Ronan,” Cavan said, and directed her to one of the chairs in front of the large hearth where he stood.

  She stretched her hands out to the warm flames. “Winter will be upon us soon.”

  “And I would like my brother home for the solstice.”

  “Your brother is a strong one. I have no doubt he will find his way home,” Bethane said.

  Artair stepped forward and sat in the chair beside Bethane. “Why did Ronan leave your village?”

  “Someone followed him,” she answered.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this when I first asked?” Cavan asked, bewildered.

  “I had given my word.”

  “To who?” Cavan demanded.

  “Your brother,” Bethane said softly.

  Both brothers shook their heads.

  “Yet you tell us now?” Artair asked, as confused as Cavan.

  “Enough time has passed to ensure Ronan’s safety, which was what he had asked of me.”

  “But we’re his brothers,” Cavan said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  Cavan and Artair stared at each other, shaking their heads until Artair looked at Bethane and glared at her.

  “Ronan was protecting us!”

  She nodded, smiling.

  “From what?” Cavan demanded.

  “That I’m not at liberty to say,” Bethane said regretfully.

  Cavan began pacing in front of the hearth. “This makes no sense.”

  “Did Ronan know of our victory against the barbarians?” Artair asked Bethane.

  “Yes, he did,” she confirmed.

  “Then why not simply come home?” Cavan asked with annoyance.

  “It isn’t that simple for your brother,” she said. “And I would suggest that you let him be, for his own safety.”

  “Ronan’s in trouble?” both brothers asked at once.

  “He will tell you all of it when he sees you,” she said.

  “That’s not good enough,” Cavan said curtly.

  “I’m afraid it is all I can offer you.”

  “Do you tell me you refuse to answer any more questions?” Cavan demanded.

  “Of course not, but I doubt my answers will satisfy you,” Bethane said firmly.

  “You speak in constant riddles, while I want facts,” Cavan said.

  Bethane stood. “Riddles lead to facts. Think about it and you may learn something. Now I must go see how my people fair.”

  She had dismissed Cavan rather than him dismissing her.

  “I should be furious with her,” Cavan said after she left. “I should lock her up in the dungeon until she decides to tell us what we want to know…and yet I can’t, for I feel I have something to learn from her words.”

  “Besides, we don’t have a dungeon,” Artair said, grinning.

  “Shut up,” Cavan warned, and dropped into the chair beside his brother. “Don’t tell me this doesn’t disturb you. It sounds as if our brother is in more trouble than we first thought. But with whom and how, and how the hell do we help him?”

  “According to Zia, we can’t. It would appear that our interference would only make it worse.”

  “We can’t just leave him,” Cavan said, exasperated. “We must do something.”

  “Then let us find out what is going on before we rush into anything,” Artair suggested. “Once we know what we’re dealing with, we’ll be better able to formulate a plan of action.”

  “Good idea,” Cavan said. “But where do we start?”

  Artair smiled. “I will talk with Bethane and find out.”

  Lachlan burst into the room. “You better hurry. That fool Neil is causing more problems.”

  Artair entered the great hall behind his brothers to hear Neil complaining to the bishop that the witch was working her magic on them and they would soon be under her spell like all the others there.

  “Zia helps my wife and sons,” Cavan said.

  “We do not know that!” Neil shouted. “She could be hiding away mixing her potions, casting her spells…” He lowered his voice. “…bringing evil down upon us.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Artair whispered to his brothers.

  “I’ll help,” Lachlan offered.

  What angered Artair even more was the way the bishop let the man rant on. In any other village or keep, Neil would have had others believing him by now, and if he were allowed to keep it up, he might just get a few in Caithness to start doubting, and that would be all they would need.

  The bishop finally raised his hand for silence, then turned his attention to Cavan. “When night falls, I will have the wedding documents in my hands and speak with Zia, or I will inform the council of your reluctance to cooperate and have a troop dispatched here to take Zia into custody until further notice. And then the Sinclares would be investigated for harboring a witch.”

  Fury rushed through Artair like a raging fire, and he barely managed to contain himself. No options were left to him. How did he protect his wife?

  “See it done,” the bishop ordered Cavan before retiring to his bedchamber for afternoon prayer.

  Artair took a menacing step toward a retreating Neil, but Lachlan blocked his path. “There are more important things to worry about. Save him for last.”

  Bethane entered the hall then, and Artair stared at her, as did his brothers, as if she might provide them with a solution.

  She walked over and patted Artair’s arm. “Speak to Zia.”

  “What good will that—”

  She shooed him away. “Speak with her.”

  He didn’t argue, and as he walked away he heard her order Cavan, though in a pleasant tone, to visit his wife and sons, and Lachlan to take his mother for a much needed walk.

  Artair shook his head. He wondered how it seemed that Bethane always sensed how people needed healing even if they appeared well. She always knew the right thing to say or the right advice to offer or how to listen. He truly admired her.

  He found Zia alone in the sewing room working on a tiny robe.

  She laughed, patting the seat of the chair next to her. “Honora just realized that she would need to double the clothes she had made, so I’m helping her.”

  “She and the babes do well?”

  “They are wonderful, and ready to leave the confines of her bedchamber,” Zia said, placing the garment aside and reaching for Artair’s hand. “But you didn’t come looking for me to ask me about Honora. What has happened?”

  He covered their clasped hands with his other hand, hoping in some strange way that they would be bound together so no man or force could separate them.

  “Speak up,” she ordered, “for your silence frightens me.”

  He kissed her softly, brushing his lips across hers, then recounted in fine detail what had just happened in the great hall.

  Zia sat silently for a moment and then spoke. “For your family’s safety, it is better I leave here.”

  Artair stood and yanked her out of her seat. “Don’t you dare let me ever hear you say that again.”

  “But—”

  “Never!” he warned adamantly.

  Zia pressed her hand to his chest. “You tremble—”

  “With anger that you could even think to leave me.”

  Zia gasped. “I
do not choose to leave you. I choose to keep you safe.”

  “I,” he said empathically, “keep you safe.”

  “I,” she emphasized equally, “keep you safe.”

  He lowered his lips to hers. “Then we do it together, but never, ever, do we part. Promise me.”

  She did, and he captured her promise with a kiss.

  They hugged each other tightly.

  “What are we to do?” Zia asked.

  “I don’t know, but your grandmother suggested I speak with you, and I’m glad she did. Just holding you in my arms make me feel better.”

  Zia nestled closer against him. It wasn’t until a few minutes had passed that he realized she was crying softly.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, upset, trying to pry her burrowed face away from his chest. He finally managed to grab her chin and force her to look at him, and her tear-filled eyes broke his heart. “Everything will be fine, don’t worry.”

  She sniffled and shook her head, freeing her chin from his grasp. “It isn’t that. It is when I see your passion flair that I know and feel down into my soul how very much you love me, and I know how lucky I am to have found you.”

  “We’re both lucky, and I intend for us to stay that way. As for how it happened?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I believe the magic of love will find a way to help us now.”

  “That isn’t practical,” she teased.

  “We—our love—were never practical from the start. Why should it be any different now?”

  They both laughed, and after a brief kiss Zia said, “There’s something I must tell you.”

  He sat in the chair, pulling her into his lap. “Tell me, I’m listening.”

  “I want to tell you the story I just heard, about my mother and father.”

  Artair nodded. “I’d like to hear it.”

  Zia recited the story her grandmother had told, growing teary-eyed once again.

  He kissed her and hugged her close. “How sad for them and for you. I would have never believed someone could die from a broken heart, but now I know it is possible.”

  “I felt the same as you when my grandmother told me, but there is more.”

  “More that causes you hurt?” he asked with concern.

  She nodded.

  He held her tight. “I am here for you and always will be.”

  She smiled and rested her hand to his cheek. “That is good to know, for my father is in your home at this very moment.”

  Artair scrunched his brow and shook his head. “I don’t under—” He grew pale. “Oh my God! Bishop Aleatus is your father.”

  “Yes, he is. My grandmother warned me that the information could prove more dangerous than helpful and told me to be careful what I did with it. That is why I waited to tell you.”

  “It is a secret no one would have blamed you for keeping,” he said, “but I’m glad you entrusted me with it.”

  “But what do we do with it? Will it help us or harm us? That is what I have been trying to decide.”

  Artair thought a moment. “Your grandmother claims that your father loved your mother beyond all reason. I cannot see a man who loves a woman so deeply do any harm to the child born of their loving union.”

  “You think I should tell him who I am? Though my grandmother says he will know, for I look just like my mother.”

  “Then how can the bishop not love you, his daughter?” Artair encouraged.

  “We don’t know that for sure. Perhaps the years have not been kind to him and he is now bitter.”

  “A few moments ago I told you I believed the magic of love would help us find a way out of this mess.” He smiled. “I believe it just has. You need to believe the same.”

  Chapter 34

  Zia held firmly to Artair’s hand as they approached the solar. She was grateful to him for speaking with Cavan and assuring that their meeting would be a private one with the bishop. She was also grateful that Artair chose not to divulge her secret to his brother. He left that choice to her.

  Zia fussed with her short hair, though it had grown longer since it had first been cut, she wished it was at a more proper length.

  Artair grabbed hold of her hand. “You are beautiful. It makes no difference about your hair or anything else. Your father will only see his daughter, and see the woman he loves in you.”

  She released a sigh. “I am so glad you are here with me.”

  “I’ll be right beside you the whole time. You can depend on it.”

  Artair opened the solar door, and she kept hold of his hand as she entered the room.

  The bishop sat in a chair facing the burning hearth. She couldn’t see him, or he her. The only part of him she did see was his hand draped over the arm of the chair. His fingers were lean and long, like hers, and showed little signs of age, and he wore a sizable emerald ring on his middle finger.

  “Come stand in front of me, woman,” he ordered. “I wish to see this supposed witch with my own eyes. And don’t think you can bewitch me, for I am a man of God.”

  Zia looked to Artair, and he kissed her cheek quick and gave her a little shove to get her moving.

  “Do not keep me waiting,” the bishop said curtly.

  He loved your mother beyond reason. I could see it in his eyes the day his family tore him from her arms.

  Her grandmother’s words rang strong and clear in her head, and she lifted her chin with pride and walked forward to meet her father.

  The bishop lifted his head when she came to stand in front of him.

  “I have been—” His ringed hand flew to his chest and he gasped. “Oh my God! It can’t be.” He shook his head. “Is that you, Blythe?”

  Tears instantly filled Zia’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks upon hearing her mother’s name. “No, Father, it is your daughter Zia.”

  The bishop struggled to get out of his chair as tears raged from his eyes, and Zia reached down to help him. He immediately grabbed hold of her.

  “My daughter? My beloved Blythe gave me a daughter?”

  Choked with tears, Zia could only nod.

  The bishop’s slim hand touched her face tentatively, as if trying to prove to himself that she was real. “You look exactly like your mother.”

  “I didn’t know if you would remember her.”

  He shook his head and kept hold of her arm. “I could never forget the woman I love. It broke my heart when I was forced to leave her, and my heart broke again when I heard that she had died. I wanted to die too, but it seemed life had different plans for me.” He smiled through his tears. “And now I know why.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  His smile turned sad. “I could see why you might think that, but I’m relieved that you had the courage to face me anyway.”

  “I wanted to meet you,” Zia said. “I wanted you to know I was your daughter and that I prayed every day to the Heavens, since I was young, to bring my father home to me.”

  “If I had known, I would have left the Church and come for you. Nothing would have stopped me.” He shook his head. “I should have been stronger and fought harder for your mother. I should have clawed my way out of the cell my parents locked me in.”

  “They locked you away?” Zia said incredulously.

  “Until I agreed to study and commit my life to the Church,” he said sadly. “And once I learned of your mother’s demise, I knew there was nothing left for me. I would never love another woman as I did your mother, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.”

  “You and Mother suffered a cruel fate.”

  “But look what our love produced,” he said, his whole face lighting with a smile. “Sit…Sit and tell me all about yourself.”

  Artair nodded to Zia and slowly backed out of the room, leaving father and daughter to discover each other.

  Artair sat in the great hall at the table before the hearth, enjoying a tankard of ale for the first time in days. He took his time, didn’t have to rush, didn’t hav
e to worry. Zia would be his wife, and she would be protected not only by him, but by her powerful father. And though he had no confirmation of this from the bishop, he knew it to be so. One only had to see the look of love in the bishop’s eyes to know that he would see no harm come to his daughter.

  The magic of love had worked magic.

  “You look mighty content for a man whose wife may be burnt at the stake,” Lachlan said, joining him at the table.

  Artair filled a tankard for him. “I believe all is going to work out well.”

  Lachlan leaned across the table and whispered, “Learned how to cast a spell, did you?”

  “Learned how to perform magic,” Artair said with a gleeful grin.

  Lachlan looked aghast. “Are you sure you’re my brother? He’s too sensible to believe in magic.”

  “The magic of love proved me wrong.”

  “Good Lord, another brother lost to love,” Lachlan said, laughing. “Where is the love of your life?”

  “Talking with Bishop Aleatus.”

  “What?” Lachlan near choked on his ale. “I thought that meeting wasn’t until later, and what are you doing sitting here so calmly?”

  “To answer both questions, Cavan arranged for a change of time, and I know something you don’t,” Artair said smugly.

  “And you’re not going to tell me, are you? You…” Lachlan muttered a string of oaths only his brother could hear.

  Artair just laughed feeling free to really enjoy.

  Cavan entered the hall from outside, swinging his cloak off his shoulders and dropping it on the table next to where his brothers sat. “By the happy look on your face, Artair, I would assume the meeting with the bishop and Zia went well.”

  “It’s still going well,” Artair said.

  “You didn’t stay with her?” Cavan asked, surprised.

  It was Bethane who answered, entering the hall. “It wasn’t necessary for him to stay. All goes well and will continue to do so. Isn’t that right, Artair?”

  Artair saluted her with his tankard. “That’s right, Bethane, but then you knew this day would come, didn’t you?”

  “It was inevitable,” she admitted. “Now I will go tell Addie and Honora we have a couple getting married tonight in a private ceremony.”