Sleeping was out of the question.
Pacing the room did nothing to still the restlessness within her.
“David, where are you?” she said aloud to the empty room, but he was hidden somewhere in the walls, he did not respond,and an intuitive sense of emptiness led her to believe that he was definitely not within hearing distance.
In the end, she slipped a white linen robe over her high-necked, smocked nightgown, slippers upon her feet, and exited her bedchamber. She came slowly down the first flight of steps and held very still on the landing. She stood not far from the master’s chambers, near the room where Sabrina Connor had slept. And down the hall were the rooms Gawain, Alaric, and Alistair had chosen within the keep. Not a sound, aside from the wind whistling through the turrets, could be heard. Myer, Mary Jane, and some of the other servants kept quarters on the floor above, near her more recent tower abode, yet not a soul seemed to be about at this hour. Naturally. It was the middle of the night. All doors were closed. What went on behind them, no one knew.
Except, of course, perhaps David. Who roamed the walls at will.
Shawna hurried silently down to the great hall. Brandy remained upon a tray on the large, planked table, and she helped herself to a snifter. Gas lamps remained lit there, and something of a fire remained in the great hearth. She sipped brandy, staring at the flames. She looked around at the walls.
“If you’re here, come out and talk to me!” she demanded aloud.
She heard footsteps behind her and spun around, her eyes wide.
But David hadn’t appeared.
It was Alistair, a snifter of his own in his hands.
“What are you doing here?” Shawna asked.
“Drinking. And you, cousin?”
“I’ve just come for the fire—and the brandy,” she said.
Alistair took one of the high-backed chairs before the fire, watching the flames jump and dance. “It’s a curious place we live in, isn’t it?”
Shawna, watching him, shrugged. “Not so curious. It’s home. We are what we are.”
“Highlanders!” Alistair lifted his snifter to her. “A breed apart. We think ourselves great chieftains still, when Scotland and England are joined, when technology rules the rest of the world, and we all seek to rule it!”
She arched a brow to Alistair, convinced that he’d had his share of brandy already.
“I like what we are, Alistair,” she told him. “We are more a part of the world at large than you imagine, yet distinct with our tartans, our pipe tunes, and more.”
“We work like dogs in the mines,” he said flatly.
“We are entrusted with the livelihoods of many.”
He smiled, once again lifting his snifter very high. “The great lady magnanimous. Thank God that you are Lady MacGinnis.”
“Is that a sore point with you, Alistair?” she demanded.
He shook his head, smiling his most charming grin. “Nay, for I’ve not your talent for leadership, cousin. And I love you—as a cousin should—with all my heart. I wouldn’t begrudge you a thing. If you were not Lady MacGinnis, my father would be Laird MacGinnis, and after him Alaric. And God knows, if it were still the ancient days, Uncle Lowell might well want to battle me for the title, whether Aidan had an interest in it or not. But actually, I do like the sound of the pipes. I like our slightly strange holidays, and I like the wind in the rocks at night and the whistling in the caves and caverns by the loch. I like our tartans, and our dress, and our stories of beasts and sea creatures and more. I just wish…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Alistair?”
“I wish that the Night of the Moon Maiden would come and go. I wish that Sabrina would be found. I wish that…”
“What, Alistair?”
“Well, there is evil, of course. And it must be rooted out.”
“Evil,” Shawna said, growing nervous.