The Selkie Read online

  The tide, slapping against her rocky perch, sighed over her petty worries and improbable ambition.

  “Thank you,” she answered it politely. “It is kind of you to take an interest in my dreams.”

  And they were merely dreams. She hadn’t even a sound notion of what men over here wanted in a face or figure, let alone a personality. Jillian Foxworthy was blond, had a peaches-and-cream face and an exuberant bust that defied any restraint, a nipped-in waist, and haunches. She was, according to the mode of the day, most unfashionable. But men seemed to love her. They raced after her like an iron horse held to a narrow track, their usual built-in emotional brakes apparently disabled by her aura.

  Hexy looked down. She herself was auburn-haired, at last look that morning, green eyed, and built along slightly less belligerent lines. Except for her slightly pointed ears and the faint childhood scars between her fingers, she was exactly what the fashions called for. Yet men seemed to look right past her. At least they did when Jillian was around. And no one had yet claimed to be driven beyond all control by either her face or body.

  “And what are you describing?” she asked herself, blotting her eyes but missing a seventh tear, which joined the others on her rock to complete a perfect damp circle. “Are you talking about love, or a locomotive—Oh damn it! I am talking to myself again. I may as well be a spinster, for I seem to act like one so much of the time.”

  The sea sighed once more. This time a little more loudly. The strange piping had also ceased. She was truly alone. It was just she and the teasing ocean that she couldn’t seem to make peace with but never found a way to move away from.

  “Well, whatever the male population’s opinion, I am quite indispensable around here, at least for today. That is quod erat demonstrandum. I mean, QED! It wouldn’t do for anyone to suspect that you have a brain or education.” Hexy mimicked Miss Flattery from the employment office: “Advanced education is unbecoming in a woman and completely inexcusable in a concomitant. Even a well-paid one. It is enough that you speak well and present a neat appearance. Do not rise above your station.”

  This was not a sentiment that sat well in an American girl’s ears.

  The sea’s next sigh was a clear warning that, though sympathetic, her seat was about to be overtaken by an anxious moon-driven tide.

  “You are completely correct. It is time and past for me to be getting back to the castle. Jillian will have out a search party to look for me if I’m not back by dark. And then the villagers would start telling stories about me being carried off by mermen.” Hexy stood up and sneezed again. She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief and dabbed at her nose. As an afterthought, she reached down and scooped up a small stone to toss at the sea. It was a ritual that her grandfather had taught her and Rory Patrick, and one which survived here among the locals. For some reason, casting stones at the ocean was supposed to keep sea monsters away. She hadn’t thought about it in years, but Jillian’s vague, half-amused warnings about skulking males hiding on the beach must have brought it back to mind. Really, Jillian’s late husband had done a wonderful job of filling her head with ridiculous stories of sea folk who seduced women, even Hexy herself was half-beginning to believe them!

  “Though perhaps I am being hasty in driving any male away. Heaven knows that I have had no luck in finding an earth-bound sort that I can love,” she muttered. Then she cast the stone.

  Ritual seen to, Hexy murmured: “Now, where might Jillian have left that wretched coat? She said that she was sitting up on a tall, brown rock and watching a seal. Watching a seal—Ha! More like watching some handsome fisherman.”

  Hexy turned about slowly and said another bad word. There were any number of tall, brown rocks to choose from, and as they were taller than she was, she would be obliged to clamber up all of them until she found the blasted coat.

  “Damnation.”

  She might be invaluable, but she was still an employee. Hexy selected a boulder and began looking for handholds.

  Hexy stood in her damp shoes a short time later, the missing coat draped over her arm. As eager as she was to change, she still stood in Fintry’s hall looking at the soot-laden ceiling above its smoldering fireplace and shaking her head.

  It was hard to imagine, but this relic of the Dark Ages was to be her home for the next several months. The thought was lowering. A prison couldn’t be more bleak.

  She turned to examine the entire chamber. The one wall had been most insensibly paneled floor to ceiling in rich carved wood imported from Africa, which gleamed beautifully for the lower six feet. The rest was an ashen gray that quite matched the rest of the stone of the other three walls.

  Fintry was old, a relic from the days when Scotland still needed defensive fortifications. Jillian hardly ever visited it, except in summer months, when the drafts were not too terribly chilly and the weather not too hostile, and even then she stayed only for limited periods of time. Life here was not comfortable. The gas had never been laid on, and no one beyond the village had electricity. She probably would have rid herself of the place if she could have found a buyer, but none had yet offered themselves to the lovely but impoverished widow.

  And, it had to be admitted, there was a certain cachet—especially among wealthy Americans, without whose backing her career would end—to mentioning that one was popping up to one’s castle for a fortnight. It made an impression on naive foreigners who had never had to care for a moldering ruin, and lent Jillian an air of breeding that other actresses did not have.

  Ah well, the place would be getting a spot of titivation now. Miss Foxworthy had found one of P. T. Barnum’s favorite people and convinced him to cough up the money needed for some of Fintry’s more pressing renovations.

  And lucky Hexy; she was getting the fun of staying in Scotland to oversee the renovations instead of going to sunny Italy, where she might collect more material on how not to attract decent men.

  “I should have enjoyed being seduced and rejected by a dark, foreign man. I believe that I am finally ready for a truly exotic lover,” she told the sullen fireplace, and gave a last small sneeze. Her violent allergic reaction was thankfully fading now that she was again indoors.

  As was to be expected, when Hexy looked most ragged, the lovely Jillian came tripping downstairs, her stacked heels clattering loudly on the naked stone treads. Jillian changed shoes several times a day. She had a voracious appetite for all clothing, but especially footwear. She was, in fact, a shoe glutton.

  Hexy went to meet her employer, her moss-stained palms tucked into Jillian’s fur’s delightful folds.

  “Darling! You found it! How clever of you. I don’t know how I manage to lose things! Was it on the rock, like I said?”

  “It was on a rock,” Hexy admitted, eyeing Jillian’s ensemble. “You are going out.”

  “But of course, darling! You know this pile is just too dreary at night. Donny and I are going to dash over to the hotel and have a few gin and tonics and soak up some light and what passes for music around here.”

  Jillian was wearing a stunning black-and-gold-sequined cloche and a black satin flapper coat covered in two-tone gold fringe and embroidered in gaudy Deco designs. Beneath it was an eye-popping gown of gold lame and black velvet equally encrusted with bead and fringe. The whole combination looked lovely by candlelight but was rather loud in anything brighter.

  It was one of Hexy’s least favorite outfits in Jillian’s collection; but then, she did not care for many of Beer’s dresses, which Jillian adored.

  Little as she cared for the dress, Hexy liked its purchaser even less. Donny, known to the rest of the world as Donald Mitchell Healey, wasn’t a bad sort, but he was egotistical and obsessed with things mechanical, and he tended to bore on about his specially designed motorcar, which had just won him some RAC race. He also tended to go about in the evening in tuxedos with silk shirts and shoes with high gloss.

  Scotland, especially so soon after the war, did not run too much toward fash
ion exotica. This was not a wealthy place, and Jillian and Donny were examples of the tasteless but fascinating rara avis that sometimes visited there.

  Donny had another flaw. He seemed incapable of remembering Hexy’s name, preferring to call her Hussy, a quip he found uproariously, and apparently endlessly, funny.

  Before Donny’s time, the one in the driver’s seat had been William Morris, of MG Special four-seater Sports fame, the car that had taken first the racing world—and then Jillian—by storm. Jillian liked men who built automobiles, probably because they lent them to her. Until they actually saw her driving. After that, they always offered a chauffeur along with the automobile.

  Hexy had rather liked William, though she’d found his new lower-chassis cars to be alarming to ride in. It was a pity he hadn’t been able to see his way clear to putting up enough funds to keep Jillian, her new show, and Fintry all in the style to which they were accustomed; but, selfishly, he had wanted to spend most of his money on developing his automobiles.

  “Well, I’ll just go and pack your coat, shall I?” Unable to stop herself, Hexy gave the fur a small caress.

  “You might slip on that yummy black chiffon gown and come with us,” Jillian suggested. And then, with a closer look, she added with masterful understatement: “After you powder your nose a bit. I think you’ve had a bit too much sun and wind. You—you didn’t run into anyone unpleasant, did you?”

  Hexy shook her head, almost smiling at Jillian’s nervous question. “Didn’t see a soul, with fins or without. And no, thank you. You and Donny have a grand time.”

  Hexy didn’t tell the relieved-looking Jillian, but she didn’t plan on wearing that black dress ever again. It had been the black chiffon gown that had gotten her into trouble with James. It didn’t look like something that would belong to a working girl, and she didn’t want any more mistakes being made about who and what she was.

  “You’re certain? Things are so dull here at night.”

  “Absolutely certain. There isn’t much room in Donny’s auto, and I want to make sure that you are all packed up and ready to go when you leave tomorrow morning. You know that Donny gets impatient when he’s kept waiting.”

  “Dear Donny.” Jillian’s tone wasn’t as caressing at it might have been. “Well…as you like, darling. It is grand of you to give up your evening to see to my things. Marthe is good about packing, you know, but she doesn’t have your touch.”

  Or patience. She needn’t have, as her job was secure. Getting anyone to work at Fintry now that the MacKenzie owner was dead, even with the depressed economy, was a Herculean task. There were too many wild stories about the castle being haunted. What few servants there were at Fintry got away with everything up to bloody murder.

  “Have a good time. I’ll see you later this evening,” Hexy said, picking up one of the oil lamps on the downstairs whatnot and turning up its flame.

  “Do you think it will rain? Should I take my fur?” Jillian asked, peering over her shoulder at her dainty slippers in a vain attempt to see if the seams in her stockings were straight.

  They were. Her stockings were always perfect.

  “It is April in Scotland,” Hexy reminded her. “The odds of rain are about fifty percent. But your fur doesn’t go with that outfit.”

  And she didn’t want to let it go. It would be wrong for Jillian to wear the coat right now. Hexy needed to keep it with her.

  Jillian sighed.

  “You are probably right. It will make Donny cross, but he’ll simply have to put the hat on the car.”

  “The top,” Hexy corrected. “And I am sure that he will have done so. He was quite upset at having his upholstery soaked last week.”

  “He was, wasn’t he? Men are so temperamental. Well, good night, darling. Don’t stay up too late fussing with the luggage,” Jillian instructed, magnanimous since she was going out.

  Hexy sank her fingers into the fur coat.

  “I won’t. Good night.”

  She picked up the lamp and hurried upstairs. It was suddenly imperative that she take the coat away from Jillian before she changed her mind and decided to wear it. It was wrong that such a coat should belong to someone like Jillian Foxworthy. It needed to be with someone who would guard it and care for it—and love it as it was meant to be loved.

  Someone like you?

  “Yes. Why not me?” she muttered.

  Chapter Two

  Jillian waited in the hall while her bags were carried out and stowed in the motorcar. She had no choice but to stand by and look ornamental because she was wearing a silly blue hobble gown, which forced her to mince when she walked. Of course, it did show off her figure to perfection, and she didn’t really want to be useful anyway, so being idle while others worked didn’t matter.

  Hexy embraced her employer carefully, keeping a safe distance from her finely executed maquillage and the silver net collar that stood out like an Elizabethan ruff and framed her immaculately groomed face.

  “You know, darling,” Jillian breathed in an undertone, “I could marry again, for he has asked me and it would be most convenient, but I just can’t stick that awful word obey. If only I thought he had a sense of humor about it! But he always does what the earl says, and his father hasn’t any sense of humor at all. I fear this may be a tedious vacation if he is forever importuning me for an answer.”

  “If you can’t bear to repeat the vows with Donny, then you had certainly best wait for another rich orphan like Mr. MacKenzie to come along,” Hexy murmured absently, distracted from the conversation by losing sight of the trunk in which Jillian’s fur coat was packed.

  It had taken an act of will to close the lid on the fur and then to latch it. She’d slept with it last night, rolled in it tightly as if in the arms of a lover, and hadn’t been able to bring herself to actually pack the thing until a few minutes earlier. The pangs of separation were strong.

  She certainly missed the fur more than she did James.

  “I quite agree, darling. I’ll be working on it in Italy. There must be some agreeable rich orphans there.”

  “I’m sure there are.”

  “Now remember what I said. I know you think it’s all just superstition, but—well, stay away from the beach at night. Mr. MacKenzie was always very firm about that.”

  “I know. I won’t let the sea monsters get me.”

  “It’s the lovers, not the monsters, that I worry about. They sound lovely, but apparently they never stay for long, and that won’t do, you know. One doesn’t even get any property out of the arrangement,” Jillian muttered, leaving Hexy slightly nonplussed.

  “Uh—”

  “Anyhow ta-ta, darling.” Then Jillian added mendaciously, but with genuine goodwill: “I’ll write soon, for I know I shall miss you.”

  Jillian stepped back and pulled on her gloves. In another moment she was out the door, her heels making a staccato burst of sound on the flagstone floor.

  Hexy walked out onto the terrace and waved her employer off, uncertain whether she was sad or relieved to have her gone. In this mixture of sentiments, she suspected that she was a great deal like her new northern neighbors.

  Hexy smiled suddenly. Probably she should order up a vast number of willow wreaths to distribute among the abandoned locals, as they had just been deprived of their favorite entertainment and were likely to feel the loss. Gossip about the cost of repairs at Fintry could only come in a distant second to the fun of repeating—and probably embellishing—the salacious details of Jillian’s love life and the goings-on of the London riffraff she invited to visit at her late husband’s castle.

  They would be quite disappointed by Hexy. She was such a boring proxy that they might, in fact, not be interested in her at all—unless she actually was kidnapped by a sea monster. Living here for the summer was going to be a strange sociological experiment. And possibly a lonely one, unless some of the workmen hired to do the repairs on the castle proved to be either very handsome or brilliant conversational
ists—something most unlikely, as there were very few able-bodied men left in the village.

  Ruairidh looked about in bewilderment and some alarm. His skin was nowhere to be found. It should be atop the very rock he was standing on. Quite obviously it had gone astray—but how? The tide had not yet turned its course. There had been no wind to blow it away. No one ever visited this beach at this time of year.

  And yet something or someone had taken his skin.

  For a moment, he wondered if it was the finmen he had smelled up at the furrier’s cottage.

  He knelt down on his hands and knees and lowered his nose to the rough stone, searching for their foul scent. He knew it now, for it had been all about the grounds of the abandoned Crot Callow.

  Instantly he reared back, shocked at the scent that was at once foreign and yet completely recognizable. No one among his people had had firsthand experience with it for several generations, but he knew it all the same. The smell tightened the hair of his scalp and sent shivers over his bare flesh.

  A woman had been here and performed the ritual of summoning! She had come to the sea at sunset and shed her requisite seven tears onto the sea’s stones where they were collected at the high tide—and then she had taken his skin away with her!

  It seemed unthinkable, but there was, at this very moment, when he needed urgently to return to Avocamor with his news, some brash female demanding that he join her in an affair.

  Ruairidh muttered a phrase he had learned from some drunken Orkney merrows and then started angrily up the trail that led to Fintry Castle. This was an outrage! It wasn’t even Johnsmas eve—midsummer eve, the humans called it. The People should be free to bask on the skerries and rocks for weeks yet without being molested by aggressive females! But this one had obviously decided to get a head start on her peers and resorted to the old trick of stealing a selkie skin to get herself a lover.