Beyond the Highland Mist (9 page)

“You’ve laid a
geis
upon me with your bloody wish, Grimm!” Laird Sidheach James Lyon Douglas was heard to howl to the starless heavens later that night. Beyond a circle of rowan trees Adam stoked a bank of embers and made a sound a shade too dark to be laughter.

Adrienne sat in the darkness on the edge of her bed for a long time after he’d left, and flinched at his husky howl that rose to touch the moon. A
geis?
A curse. Bah! She was the one cursed.

To him, she was just like all the rest, and the one thing Adrienne de Simone had learned was that where a man was concerned she couldn’t tolerate being one of all the rest.

Guilty as the legions who’d fallen before her, she wanted this man called the Hawk. Wanted him with an unreasoning hunger that far surpassed her attraction to the smithy. There’d been something almost frightening about the smithy’s eyes. Like Eberhard’s. But the Hawk had beautiful dark eyes with flecks of gold dusting them beneath thick sooty lashes. Hawk’s eyes hinted at pleasures untold, laughter, and if she wasn’t imagining it, some kind of past pain held in careful check.

Right
, she told herself caustically.
The pain of not having enough time to make love to
all
the beautiful women in the world. You know what he is. A womanizer. Don’t do this to yourself again. Don’t be a fool, Adrienne.

But she couldn’t shake the discomfort she’d felt each time she’d forced herself to say cruel and hateful things to him. That perhaps he didn’t deserve them. That just because the Hawk was a dark and beautiful man like Eberhard didn’t mean he was the same kind of man as Eberhard. She had a nagging feeling that she was being unfair to him, for no logical reason whatsoever.

Ah, but there is a logical explanation for how and why you’ve suddenly vaulted back from 1997 to 1513?
She snorted derisively.

Adrienne had learned to examine facts and deal with reality, regardless of how irrational the immediate reality appeared to be. New Orleans born and raised, she understood that human logic couldn’t explain everything. Sometimes there was a larger logic at work—something tantalizingly beyond her comprehension. Lately, Adrienne felt more surprised when things made sense than when they didn’t—at least when things were odd she was on familiar territory. Despite its being highly illogical and utterly improbable, all five of her senses insisted that she wasn’t exactly in Kansas anymore.

A dim memory teased the periphery of her mind…. What had she been doing just before she’d found herself on the Comyn’s lap? The hours before were hazy, uncertain. She could recall the uneasy feeling of being watched … and what else? An odd scent, rich and spicy, that she smelled just before she’d … what? Adrienne pushed hard against a blanket of confusion and succeeded only in making her head throb.

She struggled with it a moment, then yielded to the pain. Adrienne muttered a fervent prayer that the larger logic behind this irrational reality treat her with more benevolence than whatever had thrown Eberhard her way.

Too bad she hadn’t lost some of those really, really bad memories. But no, just a few strange hours; a short gap of time. Perhaps the shock of what had occurred was muting her memory for now. But surely as she adjusted to this new environment she would figure out just how she’d managed to travel through time. And figure out how to get back.

But then she wondered, did she really want to get back to what she’d left behind?

In the morning, Adrienne splashed icy water on her face and assessed herself in the blurry polished silver disc hanging above the basin. Ah, the little luxuries. Hot water. Toothpaste. What did she pine for the most?

Coffee. Surely somewhere in the world someone was growing coffee in 1513. If her luscious husband was so anxious to please, perhaps he would find it for her—and quickly. She’d need a full carafe every morning if she continued to lose sleep like this.

By the time the Hawk had left her room last night she’d been shaking from head to toe. The lure of the smithy was but a dim echo of the pull the man called Hawk had on all her senses. Just being in his presence made her feel quivery inside and weak at the knees—far worse than Adam had. She snorted as she recalled the Hawk’s rules. Four of them had been to stay away from the smithy. Well, that was one sure way to irritate him if she felt like it. After she got her coffee.

Adrienne rummaged through Janet’s “trousseau” seeking something reasonably simple to wear. Donning a lemon-yellow gown (how did they make these brilliant fabrics in this age?), she accented it with a gold girdle at the waist and several gold arm cuffs she found. Soft leather
slippers for her feet and a shake of her silvery mane and coffee assumed the priority of breathing.

“Coffee,” she croaked when she’d finally managed to wind her way through the sprawling castle and find several people enjoying a leisurely breakfast. There were a dozen or so seated at the table, but the only ones Adrienne recognized were Grimm and Him, so she issued the word in their general direction hopefully.

Everyone at the table stared at her.

Adrienne stared back unblinkingly. She could be rude too.

“I think she said coffee,” Grimm suggested after a long pause, “although I’ve heard more intelligible sounds from some of our falcons.”

Adrienne rolled her eyes. Morning always lent a husky quality to her brandy-rich voice. “I need coffee,” she explained patiently. “And my voice is always like this in the morning.”

“A voice to cherish, smooth and complex as the finest malt Scotch,” the Hawk purred. His eyes lingered on her face, then slid gently down to her toes. How in God’s name could a mere look make her feel as if he’d peeled her gown from her body slowly and deliciously?

“Didn’t that fellow from Ceylon leave a store of odd things in the buttery? And I’m Lydia Douglas, by the bye, this rapscallion’s—”

“Mother—”

“Hush. You botched the wedding and you’re making a fine mess of things now, so just hush.”

Adrienne forgave him for almost everything at that moment, because he looked like a small boy as he blinked in
silence. “My lady,” she said, attempting a curtsy and hoping she’d addressed Hawk’s mother correctly because she liked the woman instinctively, even if she had given birth to that overbearing womanizer.

“Lydia is fine, and if I may—Adrienne? Hawk told me it’s your address of preference.”

“Adrienne is wonderful. Coffee?”

Lydia laughed, obviously unabashed by this single-minded obsession. “I take it you’re used to having the strong brew of a morn. My healer tells me it has rejuvenating properties and is a natural energizer.”

“Yes.” Adrienne nodded vehemently.

“The buttery, Hawk,” Lydia encouraged her son.

“You’re going to let me go?” he asked caustically.

“Since when do you listen to me?” Lydia asked with a twinkle in her eye. “Take your new wife to find her coffee. And Adrienne, if you need aught else, even a commiserating ear, do find me. I spend much of the day in my gardens. Anyone can point you the way.”

“Thank you.” Adrienne meant it from the bottom of her heart. How nice it was to have someone extend a friendly welcome! Someone not male and beautiful beyond endurance.

“Come.” The Hawk extended a hand to her. Refusing to touch him, she said sweetly, “After you.”

“Nay, lass, after you.” He motioned. He’d follow the sweet curve of her hips past the horned minions of hell.

“I must insist,” Adrienne demurred.

“As must I,” he countered.

“Go,” she snapped.

He folded his powerful arms across his chest and resolutely met her gaze.

“Oh, for God’s sake, do we have to fight about this, too?”

“Not if you obey me, lass.”

Behind them Lydia half laughed, half groaned. “Why don’t the two of you just walk side by side,” she said encouragingly.

“Fine,” Adrienne snapped.

“Fine,” the Hawk snarled.

Lydia laughed until tears twinkled in her merry green eyes. Finally—a lass worthy of her son.

S
IDE BY SIDE.
S
HE DIDN’T HAVE TO LOOK AT HIM.
T
HANK
G
OD
for small favors.

“And here we have the buttery,” the Hawk said as he unlocked the door and pushed it open. Adrienne’s spirits rose. Her nose twitched delicately. She could smell coffee beans, spices, teas, all manner of wonderful things. She practically vaulted into the room, the Hawk at her heels. As she was about to plunge a hand deep into the woven brown sack from which issued the most delicious aroma of sinfully dark coffee, the Hawk somehow managed to insinuate himself between Adrienne and her prize.

“It would seem you quite like your coffee,” he observed, with too keen an interest for her liking.

“Yes.” She shifted her weight from foot to foot, impatiently, but the man had a lot of body to block her way with. “Move, Hawk,” she complained, and he laughed softly as he gripped her waist with his big hands, nearly circling it.

Adrienne froze as a scent even more compelling than her beloved coffee tantalized her nostrils. Scent of leather and man. Of power and sexual prowess. Of confidence and virility. Scent of everything she’d imagined in her dreams.

“Ah, my heart, there is a price—” he murmured.

“You have no heart,” she informed his chest.

“True,” he agreed. “You’ve thieved it. And last night I stood before you in agony whilst you ripped it asunder—”

“Oh give over—”

“You have odd sayings, my heart—”

“Your heart is a puny black walnut. Wizened. Shriveled.” She refused to look up at him.

He laughed. “Lass, you will keep me amused long into my twilight years.”

“Coffee,” she muttered.

“The toll troll must be reckoned with.”

“And just what does the toll troll wish?”

“This morn, ’tis simple. Other days it may not be. Today your coffee will cost you only a wee kiss.”

“You think to dole out the coffee to me in return for kisses?” she exclaimed, disbelieving. And in spite of herself she tilted her head back and met his gaze. Well, almost. Her eyes snagged and held about three inches below his eyes on his perfectly sculpted, beautifully colored lips. A man’s lips should not be so well formed and desirable. She forgot about coffee as she thought about tasting him, and her traitorous knees started to get all wobbly again.