The Dark Highlander

Earlier, while he’d been in the kitchen, not quite brazen enough to tear open the envelope, she’d snooped instead through his notes—what she could read of them. It appeared that he was translating and copying every reference to the Tuatha Dé Danaan, the race that had allegedly arrived in one of several waves of Irish invasions. There were a few scribbled questions about the identity of the Draghar, and numerous notes about Druids. Between her major in ancient civilizations and Grandda’s tales, Chloe was well versed in most of it. With the exception of the mysterious Draghar, it was nothing she’d not read about before.

Still, some of his notes were written in languages she couldn’t translate. Or even identify, and that gave her a kind of queasy feeling. She knew a great deal about ancient languages, from Sumerian to present, and could usually target, at least, area and approximate era. But much of what he’d penned—in an elegant minuscule cursive worthy of any illuminated manuscript—defied her comprehension.

What on earth was he looking for? He certainly seemed to be a man on a mission, working on his task with intense focus.

With each new bit of information she gathered about him, she grew more intrigued. Not only was he strong, gorgeous, and wealthy, but he was unarguably brilliant. She’d never met anyone like him before.

“Why don’t you just tell me?” she asked point-blank, gesturing at the book.

He raised his gaze and she felt the heat of it instantly. Throughout the day, when he hadn’t been utterly ignoring her, the few times he’d looked at her, there’d been such blatant lust in his gaze that it was eroding every bit of common sense she possessed. The sheer force of his unguarded desire was more seductive than any aphrodisiac. No wonder so many women fell prey to his charm! He had a way of making a woman feel, with a mere glance, as if she were the most desirable woman in the world. How was a woman to stare into the face of such lust, and not feel lust in response?

He was leaving soon.

And he couldn’t have made it more clear that he wanted to sleep with her.

Those two thoughts in swift conjunction were abjectly risky.

“Well?” she pressed irritably. Irritated with herself for being so weak and susceptible to him. Irritated with him for being so attractive. And he’d just had to go and return those texts, confounding her already confounded feelings about him. “What, already?”

He arched a dark brow, his gaze raking her in a way that made her feel as if a sudden sultry breeze had caressed her. “What if I told you, lass, that I seek a way to undo an ancient and deadly curse?”

She scoffed. He couldn’t be serious. Curses weren’t real. No more than the Tuatha Dé Danaan were real. Well, she amended, she’d never actually reached a firm conclusion about the Tuatha Dé or any of the “mythological” races said to have once inhabited Ireland. Scholars had dozens of arguments against their alleged existence.

Still … Grandda had believed.

A professor of mythology, he’d taught her that every myth or legend contained some reality and truth, however distorted it had grown over centuries of oral repetition by bards who’d adapted their recitations to the unique interests of their audiences, or scribes who’d heeded the dictums of their sponsors. The original content of uncounted manuscripts had been corrupted by shoddy translations and adaptations designed to reflect the political and religious clime of the day. Anyone who devoted time to a study of history eventually realized that historians had succeeded in gathering only a handful of sand from the vast, uncharted desert of the past, and it was impossible to vouchsafe the terrain of the Sahara from a few mere grains.

“Do you believe in this stuff?” she asked, waving a hand at the jumble of texts, curious to know his take on history. As smart as he was, it was certain to be interesting.

“Much of it, lass.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you believe the Tuatha Dé Danaan really existed?”

His smile was bitter. “Och, aye, lass. There was a time when I didn’t, but I do now.”

Chloe frowned. He sounded resigned, like a man who’d been given incontrovertible proof. “What made you believe?”

He shrugged and made no reply.

“Well, then, what kind of curse?” she pressed. This was fascinating stuff, the kind that had led her to her choice of career. It was like talking with Grandda again, debating possibilities, opening her mind to new ones.

He looked away, stared into the fire.

“Aw, come on! You’re leaving soon, what harm is there in telling me? Who would I tell?”