“The secret niche and the box hidden in it,” Maria said, returning with an ice pack. “Any leads on that?”
“No, but he’s having his brothers check into who might have called you and about the accident. So maybe something good will come of it anyway. Do you realize we have no passports now?”
Maria sat down on the couch beside her. “Yes. Harold’s trying to make arrangements for us to get the paperwork to file for some.”
“Did the police say anything about the car accident?”
“They want to talk to you. What are you going to do about tomorrow when we start setting up for the filming to begin?”
“I’ll be there.” Julia rose from the couch, and Maria hurried to help her to her bedroom. “But for now, I’m going to sleep.”
Her expression worried, Maria watched Julia as she climbed into bed, placed the ice pack over her ankle, and then pulled the covers over herself. Julia tried not to wince when even the covers hurt her foot.
“You don’t have to go with me in the morning,” Maria said.
“I do. I need to write this book, and I need to…” Well, Julia wanted to get her grandfather’s permission to ask Ian to look for the box. “I need to sleep. I’ll be fine, Maria. How are your wrist and your back?”
Maria gave her a disgruntled look. “Unlike you, I know when to rest. I’m doing great. Sleep well.” She padded back to her own bedroom, and when the bed next door creaked, Julia closed her eyes to sleep.
But she couldn’t sleep after all. Her ankle throbbed for a couple of hours, and she couldn’t quit thinking about the box and whatever was contained within. Or about Ian and his kin, and how she really wanted to ask his permission if she could look for it. Might as well keep this strictly on a business basis.
Her eyes and mind tired, she climbed out of bed. She limped into the kitchen to speak on the phone there and turned on the light. Not having her mobile cell phone was the pits. Figuring she should make up another ice pack, she grabbed the dish towel and filled it with ice cubes. Then she glanced out the window at the dark night, punched in her grandfather’s number, and hoped the hour was decent for him. Her brain was too foggy to figure out the time-zone differences.
She sat down at the small kitchen table and propped her foot up on another chair, laid the ice pack over her ankle, and listened as the phone rang and rang and rang. She hated how her grandfather refused to get an answering machine. Hanging up the phone, she thought about writing a little on her story, but then the phone jingled and she jumped. She grabbed the phone and said, “Hello, Grandfather?”
But it wasn’t her grandfather’s voice.
“Hello, Julia MacPherson, daughter of Dermott MacPherson, granddaughter of Findlay MacPherson, great-granddaughter of Conaire MacPherson. Shall I go on?”
On hearing the cold Scottish brogue, she felt a chill snake down her spine. Instantly, she wondered if this was the man who had called Maria in L.A. The man who had threatened her. How or why he knew so much about Julia made her heart quicken with concern.
“How do you know it wasn’t Maria answering the phone?” She hastily glanced at the kitchen window, no curtains, the woods dark, and another chill of concern flooded her veins. He was watching the cottage.
“I know all.”
He had to have seen her turn on the light, probably even tried to call her, but she was trying to get hold of her grandfather. She moved into the living room where the lace curtains wouldn’t hide her, either. Not from a lupus garou’s eyes. If he was a lupus garou. The wolf in the fog came to mind.
“Who is this?”
“You’re mine, lass.”
Ignoring his comment and trying not to let him know how much his call had unnerved her, she said, “The film is taking place, whether you like it or not.”
“Do you know what this is all about?” he asked, his voice soft and deadly.
All at once she had the sickening feeling this wasn’t about the filming at the castle.
If he’d been angry or shouting, she could have handled it better. But she had to agree with Maria. The man sounded dangerous. “Ian MacNeill got the contract for his castle instead of yours,” she said slowly.
“Ian MacNeill is it now, love?”
Hell, she’d made the slip again. “Laird Ian MacNeill,” she corrected.
“No matter. He’s a Scottish laird because he owns a plot of land.”
A castle, she wanted to say. Not just a plot of land. And he had to be something, a baron or an earl or something, didn’t he?
“Anyone can buy a title and call themselves a laird nowadays. Just do a Google search if you don’t believe me, lass. You will find all kinds of sites that sell land in Scotland so that women can become ladies and men can become lairds. The title means little.”
She didn’t want to believe him. Yet she did. Doing a search would be easy, if her laptop hadn’t gone up in smoke with the car, and then she could see if what he said was true. Unless he knew she couldn’t do a search. Sure, because he probably knew all about the accident. Had caused it even.
“Do you know what’s in the box, love?”
Her heart dropped. The box. He knew that it existed. Why would he know about the box? Dread bunched in the pit of her stomach. Did he know what was in it?
“What box?” she asked, attempting to sound genuinely confused, not rattled.
He didn’t say anything. She collapsed on the sofa and put her foot up on the pillow still sitting on the coffee table. “Hello? What box?”
“Ah, love, you try a man’s patience. Laird MacNeill won’t allow you to explore the castle at your will.”
“What do you think is in this box that you believe exists?”
“Why, love, you don’t want to know.” The phone clicked dead.
The blood pounded in her ears as her heart continued to race. She took a deep settling breath. Maria had been right. The man sounded serious about this. The only way she could fight back was by knowing the truth. She quickly punched in her grandfather’s number again.
To her relief, she heard her grandfather’s voice. “Hello?”
Julia blurted out without preamble, “Someone knows about the box. About me. He warned me not to look for it. But I can’t anyway, Grandfather. Not unless I’m allowed to ask Laird Ian MacNeill’s permission. I can’t do this.”
She heard her grandfather’s breathing on the phone so she knew he was still there, but otherwise silence filled the airway.
“Grandfather?”
“You can’t ask his permission,” he finally said, his voice gruffly stern.
“What’s in the box? Why would this man be threatening me?”
Again prolonged silence.
“Are you still there?”
“It’s a betrothal contract. For the Lady MacPherson to mate with the Sutherland, and failing that, the first female direct descendant born to Conaire MacPherson to the current laird of Argent Castle.”
Julia knew there had to have been at least a half a dozen or more female descendants of Conaire MacPherson through the years. But if Lady MacPherson had mated with a Sutherland, was Julia one of them? That was an awful thought because she would now be Ian’s enemy. But if the first one had not satisfied the agreement, had one of her kin mated a MacNeill since they had ruled the castle for some time?
She suddenly felt sick to her stomach, thinking of how Ian had touched her so intimately. In a voice that was barely audible, she said, “Ian MacNeill isn’t distantly related to me, is he?”
As if he hadn’t heard her, her grandfather said, “You are the first female descendant in a long line of male descendants.”
With her lips parted, she stared at the table and leaned back hard against the couch, not believing that could be true. Trying to remember any talk of females born on her paternal side of the family, she came up blank.
“The contract would have been drawn up so long ago that no one in this day and age should have to honor such an agreement. The contract can’t be valid today.” If her grandfather was saying what she thought he was saying, she was Ian MacNeill’s betrothed.
“You know our ways,” her grandfather said. “Lupus garous live long lives. We honor our commitments.”
“So…” She cleared her suddenly very dry throat. “So I’m supposed to be betrothed to Ian MacNeill?”
“The current laird of Argent Castle. As long as he’s the laird, then yes.”
“Then if we’re to honor this contract, why are you having me locate it in secret?”
“I meant to destroy it, Julia.”
She frowned. “But you said we honor our commitments.”
“So many years have passed, and we have had no females in the family tree for all that time, so the later generations seem to have forgotten the contract. I assumed no one would know of it, but if someone locates it, then we’ll have to agree to the terms. I don’t want you tied down to someone that you don’t care for, Julia.”
Something was being left unsaid. Her grandfather had been too concerned about this. “Why now?”
“I can only assume he learned of the document recently. Whoever it is has been blackmailing your father and me. He doesn’t want the agreement found. He doesn’t have a copy. The only one that exists is in that box. Conaire meant to take the box when he left the castle, but he didn’t have enough time. Getting his family out safely was his primary focus. So now, once I destroy the contract, it’s done.”
That sent a chill rocketing up her spine. “But who would…” She stopped to think of the men she’d met: Ian, his brothers, the couple of men standing guard, a handful of others who acted as bodyguards or had spoken to Ian on the curtain wall. How many were part of Ian’s pack, his clan? Then there were the two men she had seen in the woods. The same ones she’d seen at the airport.
“Ian’s family is short on money,” she said under her breath. What if that was the reason one of them was blackmailing her family?
