Page 76 of A Rogue in Moonlight
“I knew she was there.” He smiled. “I have seen her, and her ilk, before.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You saw herjust now?” Fiona stared up at him.
“Not this time. But I felt her presence.” He had revealed too much, which was unlike him. The ease he felt with Fiona MacCarran, the trust building there, continually surprised him. “I have seen such before.”
“So you have seen the woman?” Her blue eyes were wide in her pale, lovely face, with a flush to her cheeks—brought on by kissing, and perhaps the drink, and he should have been more careful with her—but she was beautiful, alluring, creamy skin, sparkling eyes, hair like dark silk. He did not want to talk. He only wanted to kiss her again. He only nodded.
“Not her, perhaps, but others like her. When I was young,” he said firmly, straightening away as if to distance himself from the truth he was about to tell her, “I sometimes saw—unusual lights, and people that others did not see. A small beautiful woman, and other strangers. Just now, I sensed one of them was near,” he confessed.
“You did not say so.”
“I keep such things to myself. Some Highlanders have the ability to see the Fey, with or without the whisky. It is a natural ability among some of the MacGregors of Kinloch and their kin—like the MacArthurs. Other clans too.” He felt he was admitting too much—felt foolish about it as well—yet he wanted her to know.
She was not merely intrigued and curious. Fiona MacCarran hadresponded to the fairy brew in an extraordinary way that said something important about her, something she might not know herself.Fairy blood, he thought. That was said to be what gave some Highland folk the ability to see the Fey. She might not know it, but she must have the ancestry. Reaching out, he brushed his fingers over her hair. “I am very careful about who drinks the fairy brew. It has a strange effect on a very few people.”
She tipped her head. “What does it do?”
“It opens the veil between worlds so that some can see the Otherworld of the Fey.”
“Belladonna can do the same, but the visions are not real. It is a drug, then.”
“Not a drug. It has to do with Highland ancestry. If the bloodline includes the fairy ilk—the ability may appear.”
“It did seem very real. Do you add something to the drink?” She did not look pleased. “You ought to label it if so.”
“There is nothing special or harmful added to the brew. It is a simple recipe.” He thought of the morning dew gathered from the flowers up on the mountain, in the little glade that his father had shown him years before. “Legend says fairy ancestry grants the power to only a few who taste their ancient whisky recipe. For anyone else, it is just a very good whisky.”
“I do not understand.”
“If your ancestry includes fairies, you may have the ability. So they say,” he added.
He saw her go a little pale. “Fairy ancestry,” she echoed, and nodded. “Tell me, do the Fey make the brew themselves? But if they do not exist, how could that be? Wait. You make it yourself, you said so.”
“I make it, just like the lairds of Kinloch before me. By tradition, only the laird himself can make it according to an old and secret family recipe. The fairies made that condition long ago, so the legend says. I suppose it seems quite mad.”
“Not to me. My grandmother wrote about fairies, and now my brother, a scientist, does as well. And I know a little about the power of conditions,” she added, sounding wry. “Are there more secret legends of fairies among your kin?”
“Every clan has its legends, and we have ours. Some are known, some we keep to ourselves. This particular tradition claims that the fairies require secrecy from Kinloch in exchange for the recipe of fairy brew. That secret is passed down from the laird to his heir, and only the closest kin may learn it. A grandfather. A father. A son, a daughter. A wife,” he added. He felt the urge to tell her more. Suddenly, keenly, he wanted Fiona to be part of that circle. He pressed his mouth tight, folded his arms against the feeling.
“We have legends in our family too that might seem odd to some. And my grandmother’s will is certainly—” She paused, shook her head, drawing the brocade robe snugly about her. “Well,” she went on, “can you tell me more, or is it not permitted to speak of it? After all, I did see the fairy of the whisky just now,” she pointed out.
“The fairy of the whisky! Perhaps that is who you saw.” He smiled at her description. “Very well, since she appeared to you. According to the old legend, long ago a laird of Kinloch did the fairies a favor, and in return they gave him a recipe known only to the fairy ilk. We must make it a certain way, and can only give it away, and only to a few. We must never sell it or profit from it.”
He was telling her more than he should. It felt like a promise for the future.
“Then you cannot make much quantity,” she replied with a half laugh. “It is not economical.”
“Not very. It is blessing from the fairies, not a means to an income.”
“They must have given it to your kin for a very special reason.”
He leaned a hip against the table, folded his arms. “One of my ancestors saved the life of a fairy woman one night during a blizzard.He brought her to his house and revived her with a dram of whisky to warm her.” No harm in telling her the legend, he told himself. But each revelation, each secret, brought him closer to—to some commitment he dared not pursue. He trusted her—that was all, he told himself.
“So you can make it but must never sell it, only give it away. A lovely tradition.”
He nodded. “One must never profit from a gift the fairies bestow freely. The recipe is known only to the laird and his wife, and passed down to a son or a daughter, though so far it has only gone to sons and sons, and thus stays with the MacGregors of Kinloch.”
