Perhaps it was the hushed tone in which Malcolm was speaking, or the way the wind had picked up, tossing leaves into a whirlwind between the stones, but Eliza’s skin began to cool and prickle. “Our poor lass was well and truly lost. With only the light of the moon coming through the trees, she began to cry. She wandered about, looking for anything in the shadowy forest to help guide her way. As she pushed through the trees, into a clearing a lot like this one, she saw the flicker of firelight.”
“Someone friendly was there, I hope.”
“Oh, yes. Quite friendly indeed. Bess came into the light to see a tall man sitting by the fire. When he saw her, he stood and pulled back his cloak. She stumbled backwards, her wedding roses falling to the ground.”
“Was he a monster?” Eliza said, clutching at Malcolm’s sleeve. “A troll?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. In her dreams and fantasies, Bess could never have imagined a more seductive man than the one who stood before her.” Malcolm snapped his fingers, the crisp sound making her jump. “In an instant, every thought of her first love—her true love—was wiped from her mind. The glamour he’d put upon her was irresistible.”
Malcolm looked at her for a long moment, his face a breath away from her own. He still drove her to such distraction! Eliza leaned forward to kiss him and he leapt to his feet, pulling her with him. He spun her in a circle, and then dropped her into a dip, her head coming perilously close to the stone beneath her. He lowered her onto it and crouched over her, a gleam in his eye.
“The handsome stranger took Bess into his arms and loved her so well that she trembled beneath him until dawn.” Malcolm nuzzled her neck with the pointed tip of his nose, drawing a sigh from her throat. “When the sun came up, he whispered pretty lies into her ears and set her on the path toward home. Her groom waited for hours at the altar in tears. His bride never appeared. Bess, on the other hand, was aglow with the ecstasy of new love. Alas, her happiness was to be short-lived.
“Though she trekked to the foot of Ben Nevis each day, hungry for the fairy lord’s touch, her strange lover never returned to the stone ring as he’d promised. He’d seduced his prize and abandoned her, just as he’d seduced many maidens before her. Our bonny lass withered and grew weak—even her mother’s prayers were futile. After a time, she died. The hunters and trackers say her shade haunts the forests and the mountain to this day, screaming and weeping for the gancanagh who stole her heart.”
“And are you a gancanagh, my love?” Eliza arched her back as his hands roved over her.
“Perhaps I am. And if so, you should be very frightened.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m about to ravage you into ruin.”
CHAPTER 21
Tap, tap, tap.
Eliza gasped, panic seizing in her chest as she woke. She blinked and looked about the room, wavering lines of color shimmering in front of her eyes. The laudanum she’d taken hours before still clouded her senses, making the shadows wickedly long—the silhouette of the stag’s head above the mantel loomed like a manitou.
Malcolm was gone to Southampton, his side of the bed cold and empty. Lately, especially at night, every wall seemed to breathe and move. An unsettling sense of being watched haunted her in the small hours—a feeling of being stalked like prey.
Even though she didn’t want to believe Lydia, even though the possibility of spirits went against everything in her skeptical nature, as the night stretched onward, it went from absurd to entirely plausible.
The knocking came again.
Fear filled Eliza’s mouth with metal. Whatever it was, it was now above her. And this time, as she watched, a dark shadow skittered over the plasterwork, crawling as quickly as a many-legged insect over the laughing mouths of the frolicking cherubs. Eliza felt for the lamp next to her bed, a whimper escaping her lips. She turned the key, gas hissing through the jets before it ignited. Finally, thankfully, the spark caught, and the room was bathed in soft yellow light.
She lay in bed, frozen in place. Waiting. Listening.
But there was nothing more.
Unable to sleep, she rose and paced about the room for over an hour, her ears pricking at every sound until exhaustion overtook her. She turned down the lights and climbed back beneath the covers. As she was creeping toward the fringes of sleep, she felt Malcolm turn the covers back next to her.
“I’m so happy you’ve returned, my love ...” She smiled and reached for him, hungry for his embrace, but felt only the smoothness of the linen sheets next to her. She opened her eyes.
There was no one there.
But she could feelsomethingthere, looking at her.
Something cold, brittle, and faceless.
With horror, Eliza watched as the frigid darkness next to her bed grew deeper and began to take form. An icy wash of panic scalded her throat as a sudden cacophony of tapping began all around her. She ran down the stairs and banged on Mrs.Duncan’s door. “Shirley, please! Open up. There’s a ghost in my room!”
“I didnae want to tell ye, mum,” Shirley said, holding Eliza’s trembling hand in her own. “I was afraid to say anything. His lordship bid me not to.”
“His lordship doesn’t want to tell me anything, it seems,” Eliza said. She rested her forehead on her hand. Mon Dieu, how her head pounded. “I’ve never believed in such things. My sister tried to tell me about evil spirits. I thought she was being silly.”
“If I may, it might bring comfort to know this particular spirit is nae evil. Just a bit ... lost.”
