“I was making a point. Why do you want that wretched gargoyle so badly that you’d come to London with a false identity?” she demanded. “Why shouldn’t you address your cousin directly?”
He laughed darkly. “Come, now, what could I possibly tell ye, given the circumstance? What assurances do I have that ye will no’ use it against me? Or repeat what I say to yer sister, or a friend—or the very person who would bring me harm?”
At the suggestion of someone besides her harming the pompous man, Anna’s curiosity was piqued so dramatically that she almost burst with it, and she quickly crossed her heart. “On my honor, you have my word. I will not breathe a word of it to another living soul!”
He chuckled and reached out to untangle a curl of her hair from her earring. “I’ve no’ seen such glee in a woman’s eye,” he said quietly.
That served only to pique what was now an insatiable curiosity. Grif seemed to read her mind, and, still chuckling, he dropped his hand and fell, unceremoniously, onto the settee. “No. I canna say,” he said cheerfully.
Anna was instantly beside him, sitting as close as she dared, her hands clutched tightly together on her knee, facing him. He grinned proudly, and his green eyes danced with the childish delight of having a secret.
But Anna was completely undeterred and inched closer to him. “I swear, I cross my heart, that I shall not breathe a word of it!” she promised, crossing her heart again.
“No,” he said again, casually shaking his head, and yawned, just like a lion—big and long and terribly nonchalant. “I canna trust ye—”
“But you can!”
“No.”
“Grif!” she exclaimed, and leaned forward, so that her head was in front of his and he had to look at her. “Whyever not?”
He grinned at her effort, caressed her cheek with his finger. “Because, lass, the secret involves the object of yer adoration and his family.”
“Really, what could Drake Lockhart possibly have done to you?”
“What the English have done to the Scots for centuries. Stolen what is rightfully ours.”
She scoffed at him. “Drake Lockhart would never steal!”
“Ye donna believe me? Then hear this,” he said, his voice going quiet. “Centuries ago, the Lockharts were split by civil war. One half—the cowardly half—fled to England. The other half—the true brave souls— remained in Scotland.”
Anna edged a little closer, all ears.
Grif suddenly sat up, so that his face was just inches from hers, and glanced around as if he expected someone to be nearby, listening. “When the cowards fled, they took something that was quite precious to the Scottish Lockharts. So precious that, decades later, the Scots came to London and took it back. But the English Lockharts could not bear to let the Scots have it, so they returned to Scotland and took it again.”
Anna nodded eagerly. “What? What did they take?”
He snorted. “The beastie, lass!”
“You mean they went back to Scotland for that gargoyle?” she exclaimed incredulously.
“’Tis a beastie!”
“But… why would they steal it?” she demanded, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
“Because of its value. But the Scottish Lockharts, they took back what was rightfully theirs. And the English came again, only this time, they didna know about the curse,” he whispered ominously.
“The curse?” she whispered excitedly.
“Aye. It was during the Jacobite War of ’46 …do ye know it?”
“Yes, yes,” she said hastily, inching toward the edge of the settee. “Those loyal to the deposed King James sought to restore his successors to the throne.”
Grif blinked with surprise. Anna frowned. “I told you that I was a student of Scotland.”
“Aye, that ye did. All right, then, when Cromwell and his murderers came to Scotland, among them was an English Lockhart. He came to Talla Dileas under the guise of friendship, but he stole the beastie, for he was an Englishman and, therefore, a bloody rotten bounder. But the laird of Lockhart was angry,” he said, ignoring Anna’s gasp of indignation, “and he went high into the Highlands to call on Donalda.”
“Donalda?”
“Aye, Donalda the henwife.”
Anna shook her head.
Grif sighed at her ignorance. “A magic woman, aye?”
“Oh! Yes, yes,” Anna said, and gestured for him to go on.
Grif grinned lopsidedly. “The laird called on Donalda and beseeched her to put a curse on the English Lockharts, which of course she was proud to do, for no self-respecting Scot can abide the English—”
“And?” Anna interrupted him.
“And she did.”
“So… what is the curse?” Anna asked, leaning forward.
Grif looked over his shoulder again, gestured for Anna to lean forward even more. She leaned so close that she could smell the balsam in his cologne, could feel his breath on her ear as he whispered, “The curse is that the Sassenach who takes possession of the beastie will forfeit possession of his…or her virtue.”