Page 3 of Rekindled (The MacTavish Heirs #5)
In which Catriona wakes up in a fairytale gone wrong.
Catriona…
I’m not sure which is worse.
How I feel, or how I smell.
Cautiously raising one shaky arm and sniffing, I scrunch up my nose. Aye, I smell like a cat vomited on me. Or fifteen cats.
As for how I feel, this tops my twenty-fifth birthday when the girls got me absolutely blootered by lining up twenty-five shots of Scotch. I made it to twelve before I passed out. The expression on Ma’s face when I woke up in my childhood bed was chilling.
“Why’m I here?” I groaned.
She folded her arms, gazing down at me icily. “You somehow escaped your cousins. And your bodyguard. And your driver. An Uber dropped you off here. The driver said this was the only address you could remember. I paid your two-hundred-and- twenty-pound tab. I’ll be expecting that back.”
“Ah, sweet Mother Mary, tell me Da dinnae see me,” I’d whined.
There was an arch of her elegant brow. “He wanted to leave you to sleep it off on the front lawn.”
That’s pretty much my current state.
Sadly, I dinnae wake up in my childhood bed. This room is enormous and stuffy and looks a lot like Queen Elizabeth’s bedroom, all gilt and enormous mirrors, velvet couches and chairs and this ridiculously opulent four-poster bed, all done up in blue and silver.
If Queen Elizabeth and her wee yappy dogs were still alive.
“God rest her soul,” I mumble, crossing myself automatically. Even that much movement sends a lightning bolt of agony through my skull and I put one of the big, fluffy pillows over my face, hoping I might smother myself.
“I remember… Hot Yoga with Kenna,” I mumble. “That explains the smell.” My throbbing head and mouth, dry as dust, that’s from… “Those fecking arseholes stabbed me with some kind of knockout juice. Propofol, maybe, or Etomidate?”
Getting angry is burning away some of the residual drug fog, enough to let me shakily sit up. Based on the way the light is streaming through the floor to ceiling windows, it's late afternoon, which means I’ve slept for maybe twenty-four hours. Stupid bastards couldn’t even get the dosage right.
“Fecking amateurs.”
As if my voice activated some alarm, the door bursts open and a smallish, fussy-looking man comes bustling in with a tray held expertly high in one hand and a bundle of clothing thrown over his other arm.
“Miss MacTavish, you’re awake.” He’s got a musical voice with a strong French accent, dressed in a perfectly pressed gray suit, white shirt and a bow tie. That’s a lot of dressing up. I have a feeling he’s the sort who irons his pajamas and breaks out into a rash at the sight of a pair of jeans.
“I appreciate your keen powers of observation,” I sneer. “Are you the arsehole who stabbed enough night-night juice into my neck to stun an ox?”
He sighs. A deep sigh, indicating his exhausted disappointment in his fellow man. “No, that would be my employer’s head of security. He is often over-enthusiastic when it comes to his work.”
“If sloppy as hell counts as enthusiasm, aye.”
“Oui…” He gives himself a brisk shake. “I am here with some outfit choices for your evening meal. A full wardrobe will arrive tomorrow and you will have more of a selection.”
I laugh, right into his face and it’s oddly cleansing. “You’re overestimating the time I’ll be spending here. The Chieftain of my clan will be blowing open your front gates by tomorrow morning, I’m thinking.”
He gives me an oddly sad little smile. “I fear you are incorrect, Miss MacTavish. But I’m sure you will feel better after a bath and a bit to eat, oui?
” He pulls the cover off the tray with a little flourish.
There are delicate bone china plates laced lavishly with gold with a pile of freshly-baked pastries, cut fruit, and mince and tatties.
“I am not certain the chef created the… beef and potatoes in the correct Scottish style,” he says a bit apologetically, “but I thought a home-style meal might feel more comforting.”
“You’re very kind for a murderous kidnapper,” I say, eyeing the mountain of food. “This looks grand. Have ye poisoned it?”
“What? Pardonnez-moi, mademoiselle, but do you think we would poison you after all the trouble my employer took to bring you here safely?” He looks genuinely insulted.
“It would be difficult for me to be assuming any good intentions after your people murdered my bodyguard. ”
“I see your point, but you will find the rest of your stay with us will not be so sauvage, so uncivilized,” he says, snapping out a white linen napkin with all the flourish of a headwaiter and placing it on my lap. “I shall leave you to your meal.”
“Thank ye. Can I ask your name, then?”
He gives a stuffy little bow. “édouard, at your service.” Gracefully absenting himself before I can ask anything else, he leaves me to the quiet of this enormous, opulent bedroom and the overwhelming spread of food.
Extricating myself from under the heavy tray with some difficulty, I hurry over to one of the three sets of French doors and shove them open. Not locked, so whoever took me is mighty confident about holding me here.
When I step out on the terrace, I see why.
Everything around us as far as I can see is wilderness.
The house is perched on a cliff and jagged mountain peaks surround it.
Looking up, I squint against the sun. This is a fecking castle, with proper towers and battlements and maybe twice the size of the MacTavish House on our estate in Edinburgh, which is only slightly smaller than Buckingham Palace.
“A castle,” I scoff. “Are ye fecking kidding me right now?” The design is Moorish, with intricate tilework and horseshoe arches. There’s a courtyard in the center of the structure with an enormous fountain. Banners are hung everywhere in rich jewel tones like deep red, purple and sapphire blue.
It’s easy to picture knights on horseback racing into the courtyard to defend the palace against raiders.
The architecture makes me think we’re in the Middle East, maybe, but the mountains seem a little too lush and green for that.
Lucas would never have let this happen.
I angrily shove the thought away and I’m hit with a stab of guilt for poor Boyd. My bodyguard dinnae deserve that end. He has grandchildren, for feck’s sake! When I find the arsehole who’s done this, I’m cutting his kidneys right out of his fecking back.
***
Blootered - Scottish slang for getting completely shitfaced