She glanced up as he came in and couldn't help the instant smile that spread across her face. "Good morning, Ian," she said, rising to her feet.
"Morning, lass." He clutched her shoulders, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. It was polite and impersonal, that peck. But the gentle squeeze of his hands on her shoulders suggested something just a little more intimate. Something private, just between them.
As he straightened, he frowned, and sniffed. "Mint?" he asked, nodding at her teacup.
She nodded.
"Rose only brews the mint when someone's queasy. Are you ill, Kira?"
"Queasy is a good word for it. I couldn't eat breakfast."
He tipped his head to one side, a sudden worry clouding his face. "Why are you queasy then? Nerves or jet lag, or have you come down with something more serious?"
"I saw a ghost last night." His brows rose, and he searched her eyes. "Several of them, actually. They kept whispering my name. And like an idiot, I went wandering into the pitch-dark hall to get away from them and wound up falling down the stairs."
He sucked in a breath and his expression shifted from worry to full-blown fear. "And you're all right?" He swung his head toward Aunt Rose, who'd just reentered the room, carrying her china teapot with wafts of minty steam floating from its spout. "Did you phone the physician? Are you sure she's not sufferin' with some hidden injury or—"
"We checked her over quite carefully, Ian. She's fine, I assure you, save for the tummy ache, an' I daresay that's more from stress than anything else. It's unsettlin' the first time you come face to face with the dead."
He looked horrified as his gaze slid back to hers, but Kira only rolled her eyes. "I'm ready to leave if you are," she said. She took a final sip of her tea, and then set the cup on Aunt Rose's tray.
"Should we expect you for dinner, then, Kira?"
"No," Ian answered for her. "We'll return by nine, for the reading of the will. Don't expect us a minute sooner." He met her eyes as if seeking approval. She gave it with a nod and a blatantly grateful smile.
They moved quickly through the castle, into the entry hall, and out the front door. She was nearly running for the car she saw waiting at the end of the drive, and Ian kept pace, opening her door for her and then circling the car to get behind the wheel.
As soon as he got the thing in motion, he looked worriedly her way. "If you're not feeling up to a day on the town, Kira—"
"I am, don't worry."
"Can't help but worry. I've always believed your aunts to be a wee bit…well, dotty, where their ghost stories were concerned. I hope you don't mind me sayin' so."
"I don't."
"But you saw them with your own eyes, though?"
She frowned. "I saw…mist. Or fog. Vaguely tall and narrow, almost human shaped. It could have been anything. The humidity here, a trick of the light, or even some kind of illusion set up by my aunts."
He shot her a quick look. "They're honest women, Kira."
She met his eyes. "Are you sure about that? I think they're a little bit—how did you put it?—dotty. Who's to say they're not dotty enough to try to prove to me that what they believe is true, and to go to any means to do so?"
"I just don't think they'd do that."
She lowered her head. "Esmeralda doesn't like me."
"Esmeralda doesn't like anyone," he told her.
"Do you think she might be orchestrating all of this to try to scare me away?"
"But why would she want to do that, Kira?" he asked.
"For the money? You said I had to be present for the reading in order to inherit. If I leave, they get my share."
"They've more money than God already, lass. They'll never live to spend it all. They couldn't want for more."
She pursed her lips. He rounded a curve, and pulled the car into a pulloff alongside the dirt track that passed for a road. Then he shut off the engine and got out, opened her door, and took her hand.
Smiling, she followed where he led, over lush grasses, meandering through a few trees, until they came to the shore of a glimmering blue lake, its surface just as still as glass. "It's beautiful," she whispered.
"Aye, and just the thing to relax you." Taking her hand, he led her closer to the shore, and she saw the little dock, with the rowboat tied to one side. A picnic basket sat in its bow, and oars stood at the ready.
"We're going out on the water?"
"Aye, and I've packed us a lunch as well. I hope your appetite returns to you by midday ."
She nodded, and he got into the boat, then held out a hand and helped her board it as well. When he clasped her hand, she caught her breath, and met his eyes. Neither of them had spoken of this—this thing between them. But they were both fully aware of it. She knew he felt it just as much as she did.
She sank down onto the seat. He'd put a velvet cushion atop the hard metal of it. He took his seat as well, facing her, and gripped the oars.
"Did they say anything to you?" he asked.
"Who? The aunts?"
"The ghosts."
She pursed her lips. "I don't believe in ghosts, Ian. And I don't believe in curses, either."
He blinked. "So you finally made your aunts tell you about the curse."
She nodded.
"And you don't believe in it?"
"No."
"How do you explain the way the women of the family have died, then?"
"My mother's death was an accident. A freak accident, yes, but an accident all the same. They happen."
"And your grandmother?"
"Sailing is risky. Or maybe it was murder, did you ever think of that?"
"No, lass, it was an accident. I saw your grandfather after. It was clear as day. He loved her. Now, the death of your great grandmother, Lily, that one may well have been murder. A gun in the hands of your great grandfather, Angus, that went off accidentally. He fully expected to inherit her fortune, or so the story goes. But even then a Stewart was employed as the MacLellan women's attorney. My own grandfather. So the will was iron clad, and there were provisions excluding him from a penny should his bride die, even by accident, at his hand."
Kira leaned back on her hands and watched the ripples his oars made in the crystalline water with each stroke. And then she lifted her gaze to watch the way the muscles in his arms did likewise.
"She knew that if she died at his hand, that would mean he had been unfaithful," Kira mused.
"Aye."
"And had he been?"
"Aye. He ran off with the baker's wife, as soon as the courts ruled the will valid, and non-contestable. Local gossip had it they'd been seeing each other all along."
She sighed, her stomach relaxing as she listened to the steady, gentle splash of the oars in the water, and watched the sky slinking slowly past overhead. Blue, blue sky, with puffs of white cloud, fragrant air that smelled of flowers she couldn't hope to name, and the fresh, slightly fishy aroma of the lake. And beneath it all, the cologne he wore, so subtle she only caught faint, tantalizing whiffs of it when the breeze moved just so. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and inhale deeply.
"Do you know of any others?"
"Others?" he asked.
"Other MacLellan women who've died by their husband's hands."
He nodded. "There were three others. One died in a fire, after her husband rolled over in his sleep and tipped the oil lamp. One choked to death when he fed her a bit of fish that turned out to have a bone in it. One was crushed by a castle stone. She stood on the grounds looking up as her spouse worked on repairs. He knocked the stone free and it flattened her." He shook his head slowly. "And then of course, there was the first one. Miranda, the MacLellan witch who cast the curse."
She nodded. "I can see why the aunts are so convinced."
"I canna' see why you aren't, lass. One or two deaths might be coincidental, but six, since the MacLellan witch penned those words?" He shook his head slowly. "Were I a MacLellan female, I might be more inclined to give it credence, even just as a precaution."