Page 38 of A Rogue in Twilight
He nodded, took her arm, and helped her toward the library door.
“My grandfather,” she said then. “He says that when he was a young man, he lived with the fairies for seven years as their willing hostage.”
“Seven years,” he repeated slowly. Skeptically.
“Well, to be fair, it felt like seven days to him.” She limped into the library.
James stared after her, dumbfounded. Osgar padded up beside him, looked at him, and then followed Elspeth.
“Go on, fairy hound. Follow your wee mistress. Keep her safe, hey?”
But that felt like his job. His responsibility. He exhaled sharply, pushed a hand through his damp hair. Tired, excited, unable to rest, not wanting to leave her alone here, he was not quite sure what to do next.
Seven years with the fairies? That gave him pause. His grandmother’s will expected him to find a fairy bride. Had fate led him straight to her?
He huffed. Anything was possible, so he was learning at Struan House.
She settled ona chair in the spacious, book-lined library room, wanting to rest and think. James went through to his study through the connecting door, glancing back at her for a moment with a rueful smile.
Nothing could be decided at this late hour, when both were tired and distracted by what had happened outside. She believed that she had seen the Seelie Court. It had seemed too real to deny. James insisted he had not seen them. Many did not, and she would let it go, thankful that he could remain practical andinnocent—without a vision in his memory that would challenge his view of the world.
The fire was low but still bright and warm, and she held out her hands, glancing around. Rain sheeted against the windows again—what a dreadful, extraordinary night.
The library soared with polished wooden shelves crammed with thousands of books, and a wide round mahogany table filled the center of the room. Various chairs and small tables were arranged around the room, but her chair was closest to the fire.
The heat felt good, and the damp nightgown was already drying. She glanced toward the study door and outlasted an impulse to knock. Glancing about the library again, she noticed a glass case that held several objects, vases, pedestal cups, boxes, glass figures. The firelight glittered over them, bringing out the sparkle of gold, silver, and crystal.
Stones as well. She stood and went to the case to look more closely. One shelf held an assortment of colored gemstones and crystals with beautiful striations. One stone, placed on a velvet-covered pedestal, glinted blue in the low light.
Turning, she picked up a candlestick from a small table, lit its wick at the hearth, and returned to the glass case.
The blue stone was as big as her palm, round and crusted with crystals, sliced through its center to reveal concentric rings of rich layered color that ranged from indigo to palest blue.
She gasped. Could this be the blue crystal she had come to Struan House to find? Had it been in the house all this time?
Years ago, her grandfather showed her a rock very much like this one. That day was the first time he had explained his ties to the fairy realm. Another day, she had followed him to Struan lands and the back garden, where he plucked a blue crystal chunk of stone from a high crevice and had inserted it into a niche in the rock.
She jiggled the door handle on the case and saw it was locked. The other pieces inside the case looked valuable—stones, buttons, arrowheads, cups, vases, other things. If she could hold the blue stone in her hands, she might know it was the one. It was like a living thing, a powerful key to unlock the fairy world, so her grandfather had insisted.
And though Grandda only visited every seven years, he could not get through the portal without the stone. She had to get it for him.
Then she remembered something else. Grandda had mentioned that he had promised to find fairy gold that was stolen long ago. Somehow that was tied to the mysterious blue stone too. If her grandfather could fulfill the bargain, theDaoine Síthwould be satisfied. Donal would be free of his obligation. She would be free too, never again pursued as she had been that night.
She breathed out in relief. At last she had found the stone, and now she must ask that it be returned to Granddda and the MacArthurs who had once owned Struan lands.
Chapter Ten
He had notseen any blasted fairies out in that storm, despite Elspeth’s insistence that they had ridden through. Should he doubt her sanity—or his own?
Firelight flickered over the old canopy bed as James lay on the coverlet, still dressed but for boots. Propping an arm behind his head, he lay sleepless, staring at the embroidered fabric of the overhead canopy.
Coming to Struan House had plunged him knee-deep into fairies and whatnot, from the banshee in the foyer to Grandmother’s fairy book, to a fetching girl who saw fairies riding about at night. He had seen trees whipping dangerously in the wind, and a strange mist filled with shapes he could not define. This place was full of superstitions and legends, and his grandmother had ordered him here deliberately to deal with them.
At the moment, he had more immediate concerns. Elspeth had taken over his every waking thought. Compromise or not, he wanted her desperately—and had ever since he had met her at Holyroodhouse, the day he had kissed her behind a potted plant. He was well and truly caught, and did not care if it was by her design or by fate.
Not long ago, he had nearly taken her on the grass in the middle of a storm. That was how besotted and beside himself he had become. He could not justify it, and he wanted to make it upto her. However blithely she wanted a little scandal to free her from an unwanted suitor, she could hardly have wanted that.
He rubbed a hand over his eyes. He wanted to marry the girl, and soon, but he would have to convince her. Ridiculous as it seemed, she might qualify as the Highland fairy bride that Lady Struan’s will stipulated he find. That was fortunate, for this marriage seemed inevitable, practical, and necessary.
