Under an Enchantment: A Novella by Anne Stuart Read Free Book Online

“Are you leaving?”
    “ They want to lock me away,” she said, seemingly a non sequitur. “If I won’t marry Torquil and sleep in his bed, then they’ll lock me away. I wouldn’t mind, but I should miss the sea, and the hills, and the creatures of the forest. So I’d best behave myself, for now. You’d best behave yourself as well, my selkie.”
    He didn’t correct her address. “Why should I?” “Because they don’t trust you. Neither my brother nor Torquil, and while they smile and say all the right things, they are capable of great evil. Smiling, damnable villains,” she said.
    “ You read too much Shakespeare.”
    “ I know,” she said. “It was ever a failing of mine.” And she disappeared, humming beneath her breath. An old Jacobite song that had been outlawed years ago. “Over the Water to Charlie.”
     
    “ Making war on women is a shameful business.” Malcolm didn’t turn. He’d heard Collis’s approach, and while he’d wondered just how much he’d observed, the old man’s caustic observation gave him the answer. “I won’t hurt her,” he said.
    “ You already have. Were you to go into the sea this night and never return, she’d mourn ye.”
    “ That’s not my problem.”
    Collis shook his head in a disapproval. “I’ll help ye,” he said. “For the sake of Catriona. But I don’t hold with hurting helpless craitures. If you wound Ailie, you’ll have me to answer to.”
    Malcolm looked down at the sturdy, bandy-legged old man and told himself he should be amused. Unfortunately there was little to lighten his dark mood. “You and half the island,” he said. “She won’t suffer for anything I’ve done.”
    Collis just looked at him, uncertain whether to believe him or not. And then he nodded. “Ye’re a man of your word,” he said. “I’ve brought fish for your dinner.”
    Malcolm almost asked him if they were still alive and wiggling, but he controlled his dark humor. Collis wasn’t quite sure what he thought of Malcolm. He’d asked him very little—they’d come to an agreement without much talking. He knew Malcolm came from Catriona, but he didn’t know he was her son. For all Malcolm knew, Collis might truly think he was a selkie.
    It didn’t matter. People could believe what they wished. It would prove nothing but useful to have people think he was a seal creature, an enchanted being. The less people knew, the better.
    He wouldn’t hurt Ailie. Seduce her, yes, so that Torquil was painfully aware of it. Get her with a babe, as his father had failed to do. A fitting revenge on the man who’d sired him and then tried to have him killed.
    And then he’d disappear, leaving the daughter of Finlay Wallace pregnant. There’d be gossip, of course. From what little he’d seen of Ailie, she’d probably scarcely notice her disgrace.
    Perhaps Collis was right—it was a shameful thing to hurt an innocent like Ailie. But his dark revenge would be far sweeter than a dirk in the belly of Torquil Spens. She’d spent her life being prey to the whim of her menfolk. His use of her would be nothing new. And he had every intention of giving her pleasure as well as a bairn.
    He glanced around him, surprised to notice he was now alone. Collis was moving around in some other part of the deserted cottage, and Malcolm could smell grilling fish. At least tonight he wouldn’t be expected to bite the head off a trout.
    He could still feel the touch of her fingertips on his lips and her lips. He wanted more than the brush of her mouth against his. He wanted her body wrapped around him, her hair a plaid for them both. He never thought revenge would be near so sweet.
    Deep in the forest that fanned out behind the village, covering half the tiny isle of St. Columba, lay a clearing. In that clearing stood a circle of stones, ancient, beyond time, towering above the ground. The villagers kept away from the spot, known as the Seal’s Dance. It was haunted, they said, a place for