The Return of Black Douglas (3 page)

Consumed by mounting desire, he drank in the pure lines of her lithe limbs, the perfect silence of her nudity. He took delight in her lack of shyness as he uncovered her. Her body came alive in the glow of the fire, rendering it translucent and as priceless as a rare vielle waiting for its strings to be strummed.

He saw the look of uncertainty in her eyes. He wondered if he might have misjudged her, that she wasn’t in his bed of her own free will. Unless, of course, she had been sent to seduce him or to inflict bodily harm. But how could she do so? The only weapons she possessed were a body and face created to seduce and rob a man of his wit and wisdom.

He kissed her throat. He kissed the hard crowns of her breasts. He threaded his hands into her hair and leaned forward to kiss her soft, full lips, gently nipping, tracing their shape with his tongue, and then plunging into the sweet, warm depth of her mouth. When she groaned, his body hardened with desire.

He kissed his way across her throat and down to her breasts, moving possessively over them, kneading and learning their shape and softness. His thumbs teased her nipples to hard peaks that he warmed with his breath, before he tasted them, while his hand skimmed the flat planes of her belly and dropped lower. He held her close, for she was too perfect and too precious to let go. He wanted her to desire him, to put her arms around him, giving of herself as completely as he would himself to her.

Lying there, listening to her soft breathing, his thoughts consumed with images of what they could do together, he did not feel the ghostly touch of a hand to his brow, for it was as soft as the breath of a sleeping babe and gone swiftly. He was ready to make love to her one moment, and the next he was suddenly groggy, as if he consumed too much ale. The overpowering need for sleep began to creep slowly over his consciousness, and he fought against it. He held the woman fast, as if by doing so their entwined bodies would become one.

Alysandir slept on, not knowing that although he was the chief of the powerful Clan Mackinnon and protected that which was his, he had no power over the shimmering, sifting grains of time slipping beyond his grasp. Nor could he keep the delicate beauty beside him in his bed.

Chapter 4

O, then, I see Queen Mab

hath been with you.

She is the fairies’ midwife…

And in this state she gallops

night by night

Through lovers’ brains,

and then they dream of love.

—
Romeo and Juliet
, Act I, Scene 4
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
English poet and playwright

“Wake up,” Elisabeth shook Isobella again. “You’re sleeping like you’ve been drugged.” She placed her hand over Isobella’s forehead and saw the bottle of Benadryl. “How many of those pills did you take?”

Isobella groaned and opened her eyes. “Two, I think.” She put her hand to her forehead. “My head is splitting. I had the strangest dream.”

“You look like you’ve been ravaged and washed up by the tide. I hope the dream was worth it.”

“It was wonderful.” She remembered strange, vague images of lying in bed. She sat straight up and gasped. “Oh, Lord!”

“Don’t stop there.”

“I dreamed I was in a castle, in bed.”

“Were you alone?”

Isobella put her hand to her head. “I was in bed with a great looking guy, and he wanted to make love to me.” She sighed dreamily. “And I wanted him to.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t recall what he looked like, but I remember thinking he was gorgeous.”

Elisabeth laughed. “Aren’t they all? If only we could swap the duds of reality with the gods of our fantasies.”

“I never realized the mind could be such an erogenous zone.”

“Heavens, Izzy, you’ve got sex on the brain this morning.”

“Yes,” she said, woefully, “and what an unfortunate place to have it.” She grinned impishly.

Elisabeth looked at her watch. “Okay, enough daydreaming. It’s time to bid Romeo good-bye. I’ll go down and order breakfast, and you can join me when you’re dressed.”

“Order me a doppio macchiato in about half an hour.”

“Sex always works up an appetite,” Elisabeth said, laughing as she dodged the flying pillow and slipped through the door.

Half an hour later, Isobella was eating and thinking she was happy Elisabeth was with her. She hoped the trip would draw them closer, for they had never been as close as most twins. Their interests and personalities were quite different. They couldn’t agree on books, movies, clothes, cars, or what constituted a handsome man. Elisabeth was outspoken and impatient. She got to the heart of the matter quickly. Isobella tended to take her time and smell the roses along the way, wandering down unknown paths and sometimes getting lost. About the only thing they had in common was that they were identical twins.

While Isobella daydreamed, Elisabeth paid the tab. Soon they were on their way to the ancient Douglas strongholds of Threave, Castle Douglas, and Beloyn Castle, located in Dumfries and Galloway.

Elisabeth was driving. Isobella wanted to remember the night before, but a vague, greyness prevented her from recalling anything concrete. She wasn’t sure if her experience had been a dream, reality, or both, although she did have bruises and love-bites, which made her think it had been both dream and reality. And that could land her in a mental institution if she dared tell anyone.

She didn’t have a clear image of him. Other than that he was devilishly handsome, no distinct features came to mind. Weren’t his eyes blue? She feared a gloomy state of sadness and hopelessness as her future. Why was he a dream lover instead of the real thing?

“If you’re thinking about Jackson, stop!” Elisabeth said.

Isobella sighed. “There are 8,395,963 men in the state of Texas, and I can’t hold on to even one.”

“Stop thinking about him. Who would take tango lessons to be able to dance with his fiancée on their honeymoon and then run off to Argentina with the dance instructor instead?”

“A jerk!”

Elisabeth nodded. “Exactly. The best thing he ever did for you was to give you the check for five thousand that we used to pay for this trip. Who knows? You might meet someone here.”

Isobella was already drifting off to sleep.

An hour later, she was jarred awake and heard Elisabeth say, “Sorry, I didn’t see that pothole.”

“I needed to wake up.” Isobella looked around. “Are we almost there?”

“Yes. I’m getting excited to see Douglas’s portrait, but I have my doubts about his being a ghost. You’ve always believed.”

“I believed in ghosts when we were kids. Later, I knew it was impossible. Now, I don’t know. A lot of references in those old family documents attest to the fact that he appeared a time or two other than to our four—or was it five—times great-grandmother, Meleri Douglas.”

“What century was that?”

“Eighteenth. Back to your question, I think I
want
him to be a ghost. I had very strange feelings at St. Bride’s yesterday.”

“Those documents might be based upon myth, rather than fact. In real life, there aren’t many happy endings. Prince Charming’s line died out a long time ago, if it ever existed. I wish I could be more like you, Izzy. You got all the dreamer genes. As for me, I’m a boring reality check. I think Scotland’s getting to me.”

Isobella laughed. “Perhaps that’s why I was so moved when we visited St. Bride’s Kirk. The Black Douglas could be considered the romantic ideal, could he not?”

“Tell me you aren’t going to fall for someone who has been dead for almost eight hundred years!”

“I can’t. We might be related.”

Later that afternoon, after visiting the first two castles on their list, they turned down a narrow, winding road in picturesque countryside and Isobella caught a glimpse of Beloyn Castle. It sat upon rock, as if it rose straight out of the ground. Part of the structure lay in ruins, for over the centuries the owners had never wanted to repair the damage, preferring to leave it as a reminder that the castle had been destroyed by King James. Now, it was a stalwart fortress, with its crow-stepped gable, baronial turrets, and unusual combination of aloofness and warmth.

Isobella studied the massive walls of yellowing stone, with creeping ivy growing in a roofless tower and dangling from arrow slits. Her imagination ran rampant as she envisioned the walls covered with fine tapestries and silken arras and set with fine glass windows. Beneath those rudely cut stones, scattered among the gaunt ribs and splintered timbers of once-vaulted ceilings, lay the stories of great love, lavish feasts, and births and death, of betrayal, torture, mayhem, and murder. She was irresistibly drawn to this tangible link to the past, both romantic and tragic, for it was the home of her Douglas ancestors.

She stretched lazily, for it was a warm, sunny day and the world around her was as splendid as any rendered by an artist’s brush. The sun shone down with an almost liquid brilliance that turned the trees in the distance into a shimmering of great shadows and light, just as it had for centuries. She was awed at the secrets and whisperings the trees could tell of great warriors and battle-weary knights who once rode beneath their noble branches or hid from the English in the shielding embrace of dense foliage.

The road curved and she saw the white fence of a cottage, the tawny gold of a thatched roof, the glazed green of a chestnut tree, and the sparkling blue of the river against the rich brown tones of the road that curled before them. She caught the haunting sound of a bagpipe, the dull humming faint and melancholy. “I wonder who is playing.”

Elisabeth slowed and turned onto the graveled parking area. “Playing what?”

“The bagpipes.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

Isobella rolled down the window. “Hear them now?”

“No.”

Isobella shivered. “It’s freezing in here. Turn down the air.”

“We didn’t rent a car with air conditioning.”

Suddenly, Isobella felt very cold and very frightened.

Chapter 5

Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe,

And sometimes I think we’re not.

In either case the idea is quite staggering.

—Attributed to Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008)
English science fiction writer

Beloyn Castle

Scottish Lowlands

Present Time

The door was huge, heavily carved, and studded with brass. The marks of hundreds of years did nothing to mar its beauty. Isobella rapped the lion’s head knocker. A group of birds flapped out of a nearby tree as the door opened.

A stout, middle-aged woman said, “You must be the Douglas twins. I am Mrs. Kinsey, the housekeeper you spoke with earlier. You may call me Claire.” She opened the door wider. “Do come in.”

The entry was dark until Claire drew back the heavy, velvet drapes and sunlight spilled into the room. “As I explained earlier, the castle is closed while the earl and countess are in Italy. If you will follow me.”

They passed a true medieval hall, huge, with thick walls covered with tapestries and deep-set windows. The fireplace was enormous, and the stone floors, although bare, were highly polished. A lovely rood screen stood along one wall. “I bet these walls know a lot of secrets,” Elisabeth said.

“Yes, and some are quite blood-curdling,” Claire replied.

The sisters exchanged glances and followed her through a long gallery, which contained a great curved stairway, massive and wide. “Who plays the bagpipes?” Isobella asked.

“No one, not since the earl’s grandfather died.”

Isobella’s attention was suddenly captured by a painting, and her heart pounded excitedly. At least five feet wide and eight feet tall, the portrait was ornately framed in gilt and worth a fortune. She wondered why it captivated her. Beloyn Castle was in the background. The two dogs were Scottish deerhounds. She shivered and felt a chill to her neck, for what disturbed her was the man in the painting. He was quite magnificent and so lifelike he seemed a living, breathing entity.

He stood with his legs planted far apart and his arms crossed in front of him, with a great black cape swirling out behind him, a glimmer in his deep blue eyes, and a smile upon his lips. His hair was as black as sin, and she felt she had seen that face before, which was impossible, considering that the brass plaque beneath the portrait declared it to be of Sir James Douglas.

A chill passed over her. “The Black Douglas,” she whispered.

“Yes, it is.” The phone rang. “If you will excuse me,” Claire said, and hurried away.

“So, that is what he looked like,” Elisabeth said.

Without realizing she did so, Isobella put out her hand and touched the bottom of his boot, where the cape curled around it. “It’s really you, isn’t it?”

And everything went black…

***

When Claire returned to the gallery, the twins were gone. She went upstairs. She searched the eight bedrooms and then the rest of the castle. When she saw their car still parked outside, she called the earl.

“Yes, my lord, I searched every bedroom in the entire wing and then the rest of the castle, top to bottom.” She glanced toward the great staircase and gasped. “Dear Mary and Joseph! The Black Douglas is gone from the painting.

“No, my lord, I haven’t been in your Scotch. Yes, I am standing two feet from the portrait. I see the place where he was, faintly outlined, but his image is no longer there. It is as if he stepped right out of the painting and took those girls with him.”