The Dark Highlander

Chloe blushed.

“ ’Tis in the tower library,” Silvan added. “But hurry back, we’ve much to discuss and Nellie has shown me a most amazing thing.”

When Dageus loped out of the hall, Silvan patted the seat beside him. “Come, m’dear,” he said with a warm smile. “Bide a wee with me and tell me of yourself. How did you meet my son?”

When was she ever going to come up with a suitable answer for that? Chloe wondered wryly. She glanced away from his penetrating gaze, blushing a bit.

“The truth, m’dear,” Silvan said softly.

Chloe glanced back at him, startled. “Am I that transparent?”

He smiled reassuringly. “Knowing my son as I do, I doona believe ’twas an ordinary meeting.”

“No,” she agreed with a gusty little sigh. “We didn’t exactly meet. We … er, well, it was more like we collided. . . .”

Her story made him laugh aloud and Silvan couldn’t wait to repeat it to Nellie, who would savor every word of the outrageous tale. The lass was a fine storyteller, melodramatic enough to keep things lively and exploit the good parts for all they were worth. Funny, too, with a self-effacing sense of humor that was most appealing. The lass had no idea how bonny and unusual she was. She considered herself “a bit of a nerd.” After she’d defined the word, Silvan decided a nerd was a fine thing to be. (That he himself fell into the “brainy, not particularly graceful, and a little bit backward” category might have influenced his opinion a wee.) Aye, the telling of the tale was a lovely bit of word-weaving, and the tale itself reeked of the fated meeting of a Keltar and his mate.

While she spoke, he deep-listened. He sensed a pure heart in her, a heart like Dageus’s, more sensitive than most, wildly emotional, hence carefully guarded. He heard her love for his son in the slightly husky timbre of her voice. A love so strong that it fashed her a wee, and she was not yet ready to speak of it.

That it was there was enough for Silvan. His son had indeed found his mate. He pondered the irony of the timing, even as he blessed it.

One thing gave him pause, however: She still didn’t know what was wrong with Dageus, and there was a newly blossomed bit of fear in her heart.

He understood that well. When a heart realized it loved was also, paradoxically, when a heart learned to fear most deeply. She wanted to know what was wrong with Dageus, yet she didn’t want to hear aught that might spoil their joy, and Silvan suspected she’d have a bit of a battle with herself before she finally got around to asking.

When Dageus handed Chloe the fifth Book of Manannán, the senior MacKeltar decided he was besotted with her. She handled the tome with utter reverence, touching naught but the barest tips of the edges of the thick pages, staring with huge wondering eyes.

And sputtering. “B-b-but this isn’t s-supposed to even exist and—oh, God, it was written using the early L-Latin alphabet! Do you think I could trade one of my relics for this?” she breathed, turning a gaze on Dageus that Silvan himself would have been hard-pressed to deny.

Och, aye, the lass could happily pass hours as he himself was wont to do, puzzling over the ancient texts, delighting in the stories therein. Nerd, indeed. And Dageus, well, Dageus seemed fair frozen by the prospect of denying her aught. He rescued his son swiftly. “I’m afraid it has to stay here, m’dear. There are reasons certain tomes have ne’er been made available to the world.”

“Oh, but you must at least let me read it!” she exclaimed.

Silvan assured her she could, then focused his attention on Dageus. The discovery of the chamber library had invigorated him, made him feel a score of years younger and given him a whole new sense of what it meant to be a Keltar. And in that chamber, surely there were answers to their problems. He could scarce wait to show it to his son. Enjoying the moment, he said with studied nonchalance, “I’m assuming I’m no’ the only one that wasn’t aware of the chamber library beneath the study?”

Dageus made a choking noise and his startled gaze flew to Silvan’s. “Beneath the study?”

“Aye.”

Dageus grabbed Chloe’s hand, tugged her from the chair, fought a little battle with her as she tried to hang onto the text, plucked it from her hands and firmly deposited it on the table, then dragged her along as they hastened after Silvan.

When Silvan applied pressure to the left brace beneath the mantel on the hearth, the entire side of the hearth swung out, revealing a passageway behind it. He explained how Nellie had, one day in a fit of energetic cleaning, stumbled upon it whilst sweeping cobwebs from beneath the mantel and scrubbing black soot from the stone face of the hearth. She’d grasped the brace while scrubbing and the next thing she’d known the fireplace was moving, with her clinging to it.