“I’ll be in the woods outside the castle, not inside.” Unless Julia located the secret tunnels her grandfather had mentioned. Although he’d said the place had been too well defended in earlier years for them to try to get back in that way, and in more recent years, they hadn’t been successful with a couple of quick tries to locate the tunnel entrance. A lone female might do the trick.
“Around the perimeter or within the castle—the place is off-limits unless Laird MacNeill gives us permission.” Maria gave Julia a critical look. “Just because he dropped us off at the cottage, he still might not make any concessions for us. Although you can’t tell me there’s nothing going on between the two of you. The air practically sizzles with the way he looks at you. Don’t think I didn’t notice the interest you’ve shown him in return.”
“He got me an ice pack, nothing else. Well, started the bath. Don’t read anything more into it than that. He was just being nice. All right?” What Julia didn’t say was how much she suspected Ian didn’t trust her one bit and that was all his interest in her. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer—wasn’t that the old adage?
Maria motioned to the fireplace crackling with heat. “He started a hot, little fire—probably more than the one in the fireplace. Grabbed a blanket from your bedroom. I imagine he removed your heels and stockings, and no telling what else he would have removed if you’d been agreeable. I’ll bet he also carried you into the bathroom, or he wouldn’t have been leaving it when we arrived.”
Julia’s face heated. She was not about to tell Maria that Ian had kissed her in a way that she’d remember forever. Her ex-boyfriend had never come close to setting her on fire the way Ian had.
Maria’s brows rose. “He offered to remove your clothes, didn’t he?” She laughed. “If we’d had any food, he probably would have fixed you something to eat.”
“He’s a laird. He probably doesn’t know how to cook. But I’ll be careful. Like a wolf in stealth mode.”
Maria’s dark brows rose, and her worried look returned. “You’re not going as a wolf, are you?”
“No.” Not at first. Unless Julia could locate the secret entrance easier that way. “What did you think of Duncan MacNeill?”
“He’s one to watch. Quiet and lethal. As for Laird MacNeill, after Harold took one look at that photo of him, Harold summed him up in four little words, ‘Bad to the bone.’”
“Yeah.” Julia thought of Ian’s image in the photo and of him sitting in the pub. He’d had the same cool look as he did in the photo, his eyes hauntingly perceptive. And he appeared to be in charge, even miles from his castle. How far did his sphere of influence reach? Why didn’t he have an entourage? She imagined a laird would have lots of people tagging along with him everywhere he went, trying to get on his good side, wanting favors. Maybe it didn’t work that way in this day and age.
Ian looked to be around thirty or so, maybe a little older. Not old enough to be so obstinate about not wanting to film at the castle, so set in his ways and not liking change.
“Maybe we can deal with someone else.” Because despite what Maria might think about Ian and her, Julia knew he was wary of her. Maybe she could make some inroads into her project by soliciting one of his lackeys, if she could make friends with someone who could get her inside the castle.
Yet her thoughts flashed back to Ian’s expression, his assessing looks, and his dark eyes watching her, studying her, and perhaps attempting intimidation. She wasn’t easily intimidated. But she had the feeling that sneaking around him wouldn’t be an easy task.
“Don’t count on it. He’s the laird and in charge. Even though I spoke to Guthrie MacNeill, he was only the go-between. Ian is definitely ruling the roost. And hell, I’d say you made a pretty good start on getting his attention anyway.” Maria let out her breath and favored her left wrist. “I know you’re going to the MacNeills’ castle after I leave. Nothing I say is going to convince you not to. You could really screw this up, you know. If you get arrested—”
“I’ll plead I was a dumb American who got separated from the film crew on the way to the meeting and got lost.” Apparently Maria didn’t have much confidence that Julia could slip in and out of places without detection like a master thief.
Then again, attempting to sneak into the underbelly of a castle was a new experience for Julia, so Maria’s concern wasn’t totally unfounded.
“You don’t think that when they drag your bones in front of the laird of the castle, he won’t figure something else was up?”
A horn honked out front. Julia followed Maria outside and waved at Chad. He was the fetch-it guy, a surfer type with sun-streaked blond hair. Young and thrilled to be here, he smiled and waved back at Julia as Maria got into the car.
As Chad backed out of the drive, Julia waved at Maria, smiling cheerfully in an effort to assure her everything would be all right. Maria just shook her head at Julia, full lips thinned in a grim line.
Julia had no plan to get caught during her clandestine mission, but she wasn’t about to wait around until tomorrow to try and slip inside, either.
Chapter 5
Julia grabbed her key to the cottage and locked the door, ready to storm Argent Castle in a surreptitious way.
Already having gotten used to being in the dry cottage, she felt the cool mist lying thickly all over the area and was reminded of the car wreck and her subsequent fear of being followed. And of being injured. Her ankle bothered her just a hint, but she shoved the notion out of her mind and walked at a quickened pace through the ancient Caledonian Forest that linked Ian MacNeill’s castle and the cottage where she was staying.
The forest was like a tie to the past where time seemed to stand still. She envisioned an ancestor of Laird MacNeill, with his men wearing kilts and equipped with bows and quivers of arrows, hunting in these very woods on horseback for deer or wild boar.
Moving at a steady pace, she soon warmed up a bit. But she was getting wetter and wetter, her sweater and jeans soaking up the light, misty rain like a thirsty sponge. She’d considered wearing a jacket, but the fewer clothes the better if she was going to shape-shift. Thankfully, the boots supported her ankles and pine needles cushioned the ground, so except for a gnawing worry that she’d twist her right ankle again, it felt fine for now.
Scots pines towered overhead, the fragrance of pine sap reminding her of Christmas and hiking through northwestern California forests, and the sweet, strong scent of juniper also wafted in the cool dampness. Coming from the direction of the castle, muffled Scottish voices with their distinctive, pleasing burr garnered her attention, and she stopped walking to consider her surroundings. She imagined that the people speaking were within the castle walls, in the bailey, outer or inner, and that no one would imagine a trespasser nearing their domain.
With no known predators in the area—as far as animals that might endanger humans—and no humans wandering about, she felt safe in the woods. She was alone except for a couple of Scottish crossbills feeding on pinecone seeds, one a red male with dark wings and tail feathers, and a couple of others calling excitedly to one another and sounding like they were speaking with a Scottish accent.
The cocky trill of a crested tit added to the forest sounds, and she looked up to see the perky bird sitting on the dead stump of a pine, the feathers on his crown standing straight up like a Mohawk haircut. A golden-ringed dragonfly flittered beside her and vanished, and butterflies fluttered about.
The feeling that she was in primeval woods, transported to the long-distant past, made her imagination run free. She envisioned a clan chief’s daughter dashing away from an enemy clan, seeking shelter in the castle beyond the woods, and praying she’d reach it before she was caught.
But places like this that seemed unspoiled and serene now could have harbored dangerous men throughout the ages, creating a perilous situation for any who passed through the area. Or clans who fought with one another, and if her envisioned chief’s daughter had been from the enemy clan, she’d be in deadly trouble.
She patted her pocket where the script map, a hasty sketch that her grandfather had drawn from memory and given her, had been. She’d taken it out and left it back at the cottage, in case she was detained for trespassing and searched. What would they make of the map? Maybe that she knew where the secret entrance was and planned to break in. That’s why she’d left it back at the cottage.
Only now she couldn’t remember exactly where her grandfather had thought the entrance was. She stalked toward the castle walls to get her bearing but kept to the woods. At the easternmost corner tower, she would skirt around it to the eastern wall. Somewhere along there at the edge of the woods the hidden entrance was located.
Like the mob of curly, white sheep suddenly appearing before Maria and her on the road, the castle unexpectedly loomed across a moat through the screen of trees in which she now stood. Her jaw dropped. The golden sandstone castle walls and the castle inside were spectacular, overwhelming, and impressive, the very tops of the towers disappearing into the fog and giving the illusion they reached for the very heavens.
She glanced to the east, saw the round easternmost tower, and headed deeper into the woods to stay out of sight. But when she finally reached the area along the eastern wall, she could find no sign of a secret entrance. Maybe as a wolf she could locate it with her nose to the ground, smelling any traces of human wanderings or, better than that, any hint of an underground tunnel system by the cooler air seeping out of the edges of a trapdoor or the dampness within an earthen dwelling by its cavelike musty smell. The other option was locating the postern gate, or back door to the castle—the one that had been used by pedestrians or tradesmen and was located on the south side. If she could discover it, that might be an easier way to enter.
Even if she’d had a written invitation to explore every square inch of the castle—which she didn’t and knew wasn’t forthcoming—she felt driven to find a more covert way in. She imagined that was due to her innate sense of adventure, her family’s ties to the land, and her unconquerable imagination, which dreamed up worlds of romance, mystery, suspense, and adventure.