The Curse of Clan Ross by L. L. Muir Read Free Book Online Page A

o’er his shoulder.” He paused, looking down at the hole until his frown softened into something akin to pity. His voice softened also. “They’d let her have no water, no food, no light. Not even a blanket. So for a while he did wonder if his sister would survive long enough for the others to carve their way through. They couldn’t very well walk into the hall and be takin’ measurements, could they?  So there was a chance they would be diggin’ up right beneath the bastards’s feet. It was a long wait, aye?”
    He didn’t look up for confirmation. While he paused, the vibrations of his Scot’s burr settled around them like dust too heavy or lethargic to be stirred much by their intrusion.
    “When she could hear them diggin’, she’d cry out to cover the sound. And Montgomery would cry out with her. To be sure the others wouldn’t feel the poundin’, he would throw fits of madness and push the churchmen as far away from the tomb as they’d go.”
    Quinn looked up into Jilly’s face, his eyes black and shiny in the combination of flashlight and ancient shadows, his smile strained.
    “I suppose it was no act after all.” He shrugged. “If their plan was discovered, his sister would die a horrible death...of his own design. Can you imagine it?”
    Jilly could imagine it all too well. When they’d learned tonight of Isobelle’s escape, she had been vastly relieved, happy Isobelle had not died such in such a gruesome manner, and grateful she no longer needed to hate the man whose likeness so closely resembled this Scotsman’s. Actually, after she’d heard the first telling of the old laird’s hare-brained idea to bury his sister alive instead of letting her burn as a witch, she’d wanted to reach back through history and knock him on his butt. Now she just hated the clergy for putting them all in such a situation. What kind of priest would agree to such cruelty?
    “My grandda was told, as was his grandda before him, that by the time they got to Isobelle, she was near dead with thirst, but she lived. One man whisked her away in the night, never allowing her to bid her sister, Morna, godspeed.
    “She had her brother’s promise that the torque would stay put, for Morna’s sake. And so it has. Montgomery sealed the floor and it has been the duty of each leader of Clan Ross to see the cursed thing stays here for all time. The small room below also kept Montgomery’s friends from being discovered while they dug and pounded, and the passages twist and turn so oft, it was easy enough to point to the ceiling down the way a bit and call it the floor of the tomb. In a way, keeping the abomination guarded is likely one of the reasons this castle has stood firm against time, ye ken?”
    “Where is it?” Jilly blurted. Her heart was breaking for these people that lived and suffered so long ago. If her presence here could bring Ivar and Morna together again, she was anxious to get the ball rolling.
    Or maybe the quickest way out of the nightmare was at the bottom of the delusion pool and she only needed to dive in.
    Quinn turned his back and fumbled around against the wall. A muffled clank and a curse built the tension from Jilly’s toes up to her shoulders. When he turned back to them, he held what looked like a dusty metal tennis visor without the elastic. He held it close to his body as if he feared the women would snatch it and run, which strangely enough, Jilly felt the urge to do.
    The necklace closely resembled its replicas for sale in the souvenir shop except for two chunks of white held to it with prongs, like diamonds on a ring. Bones. Pieces of them, anyway. They had to be. Around the outer edge were the familiar Celtic symbols.
    “One from a Ross and the other from a MacKay, I would think,” said Loretta or Lorraine. Jilly could not pull her eyes away from the morbid jewels long enough to study hands.
    She no longer felt the urge to touch the thing but she kept open the option to jump through the