Highland Knight Of Dreams - Amy Jarecki Page 0,3
seed to a glorious masterpiece.
“Rose?” Alice asked, bending over and carefully pulling aside the neighboring clump of gorse. “Ah, there it is.”
“Aye, it’s been hiding from me, the elusive bloom. I discovered it only yesterday.” Gran cradled the bud as if it were as precious as a ruby. “I purchased this bush from a passing tinker and planted it on your second birthday.”
“And it hasn’t yielded a single flower until now? Looking as pallid as it does, I’m surprised the thing lived so long.”
“Hmm. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to nurture a living soul until it yields its fruit.”
“You speak as if the rosebush is human.”
“It could be our salvation.”
“Goodness, Gran. You make no sense at all.”
“Perhaps not, but you will take this rosebud and leave it beside Quinn Campbell as he sleeps this night.”
Alice gasped so violently, she nearly toppled. “I beg your pardon? I love you more than anyone in all of Christendom, but have ye gone daft?”
“Not in the slightest.” The old woman’s eyes flashed as she shook her cane. “You were just there today, were you not?”
As the makeshift weapon hissed through the air, Alice backed away from the crook before it jabbed her nose. “Aye and you chided me for it. I cannot creep up on His Lordship. What if he wakes?”
“You must be certain all are fast asleep afore ye near him. Wait until the wee hours, step softly and do not make a sound.”
“Might I take a dirk? I’d rather run a blade across his throat than give him a thorny rose.” As she spoke, Alice’s stomach turned over. Somehow the idea of having the man’s blood on her hands didn’t sit well. It was one thing to lace the burn with a wee bit of poison on the off chance it might make the men a tad ill, but to smite him with her hands? She couldn’t do it, even if the man was a Campbell.
“You will not touch him,” Gran continued. “Whilst he slumbers, whisper that the rose is a gift from the selkies they were so anxious to find—from the queen of the selkies.”
“But what if I wake him? Shall I tell him I’m a selkie…strike fear in his heart? Say if he touches me he’ll not live to see the sunrise?”
“I hope he doesn’t wake.” Gran tapped her fingers together as if she were scheming. “In fact, I’ll wager he will not.”
“But what if he does?”
“The rose is your protection.”
Rolling her eyes, Alice couldn’t help but snort. “A thorny bud that looks as if it will wilt afore it blooms?”
“Calm yourself and cease your worry.” Gran grasped her shoulders. “Before you leave him, you must repeat these words whether he wakes or not: It is a wise man who can harness the power of the rose. Brawn and bravery may come and go but only wisdom can reverse the curse.”
“Curse?” Alice examined the bud more closely. It wasn’t red. Closed, it looked almost blue—violet, perhaps, like no rosebud she’d ever seen. “Are you casting a charm? One that will send a blight over the heir and his kin?”
“Not exactly.” Gran snipped the stem, her lips pursed as if she’d already divulged more about the cryptic rose than she cared to. “I’m testing the waters is all.”
“Are you not feeling well?” Alice asked, quite certain Gran might be growing a tad senile. “I think you might need a tonic.”
Ignoring her remark, the dear woman examined the stem. “Good, there are plenty of thorns.”
“If you ask me there’s nothing but thorns to that rosebush. We’d be better off planting some avens in its place or at least something useful.”
“Oh, no. Not after all these years. I will see justice. I swear it.”
Her grandmother grew more cryptic by the moment. She was pleased with the thorns on some worthless, spindly rosebush? “Just testing the waters?” Afraid to touch the bloom, Alice eyed it, and whispered, “Is there poison in the thorns?”
“Of sorts, but it ought not kill him. Now do as I say and ask no more questions.”
Chapter Two
Alice waited in the old cellars at least an hour after the men’s quiet banter faded and surrendered to nighttime sounds of crickets and frogs. Of leaves whispering in the breeze, and the rhythmic cadence of the surf in the distance. To add to the concert, the chilly air resounded with light, masculine snores. She moved up the stairs only far enough to part the vines and peer across to the men, wrapped in