“I suppose the knights of old have stirred my heart. Chivalry and courage and all that rot.” Especially if that knight was brash and bold and utterly magnificent in a kilt.
Maggie glanced around, as if ensuring that listening ears would not overhear her. “Someday, I intend to pen a novel of my own. Of course, my maw and da would be scandalized.”
Just as Johanna’s fiancé had been. Not that Timothy hadn’t known about the stories she’d penned when her university studies permitted spare hours. He’d simply never dreamed she’d seek out a publisher for her gothic tales. Or that she’d succeed in her quest.
Perhaps, if she’d given up on that dream, he might have placed a ring on her finger and spoken vows at her side. I must think of my future, he’d explained in that utterly civilized, yet quietly cruel way of his. After all, if he were to seek office one day, he needed a woman who could hold her chin high in society.
And Johanna was not that woman.
Odd, how that flash of memory still stung today. Though the echo of his words in her ears brought no sadness now. Only a pinch of humiliation and a dash of anger. And a rush of relief that she’d enjoyed what she now knew was a narrow escape from a man who would’ve made her life a civilized purgatory.
Johanna pulled in a breath and tore her attention back to the present. “You can always use a pseudonym, Maggie. Writers often adopt pen names for their literary personas. What do you plan to write?”
“A mystery, with a ghost or two to make it interesting. And of course, there must a hero. Dashing, yet utterly in need of redemption.”
“Of course. What good is a hero if he does not need to be redeemed?” Johanna left her seat and moved to the tea service on an intricately carved side chest. She poured herself a cup of steaming oolong, took a sip, and gently shifted the conversation. “It seems you and I share a similar interest in mysterious matters and such. Tell me, Maggie, what do you know about a cursed gem—the Demon’s Heart?”
The girl looked up. “What have ye been told about the stone?” Her voice sounded as if she made an effort to seem disinterested, but beneath the surface, excitement infused her tone.
“Enough to arouse my curiosity.”
A wry smile tilted Maggie’s mouth. “’Tis the name my elders gave the stone many generations ago. It’s naught but a ruby, a rather ordinary one at that. A bit larger than most, but that’s not why men covet it.”
“Legend holds the jewel is cursed. Why would anyone wish to claim it?”
“There’s evil in that stone, or so I’m told. It all started with a sorceress, in the sixteenth century, I believe. She used the gem’s powers to bring tragedy upon any who wronged her. Entire families died. Fires. Fevers. Violent rages. Anyone who crossed the shrew met a horrible fate. Finally, she met her own end, drowned in a rain-swollen loch. But it was too late. She’d already passed the ruby to her daughter.”
“What happened?”
“From there, the tale becomes clouded. Some say the daughter lost her heart and the stone to an Englishman. Others claim the evil lass used the jewel’s powers to bring the king’s wrath down upon a rival for the Englishman’s affections. Some time later, the scheming wench lost her own head upon King Henry’s orders. The stone disappeared after her death, only to be recovered shortly before Queen Mary’s coronation. Legend has it the Demon’s Heart was mounted on her crown. After Mary met the executioner’s ax, the ruby was removed and replaced with an ordinary gem, or so the story goes.”
“Surely you give no credence to such nonsense.”
Maggie shrugged. “Who’s to know what’s real and what isnae?”
“The wrath of a woman scorned is hardly a rarity, whether in the nineteenth century or in days long past. Disease and tragedy are not mysterious, but those at a loss to explain the hardships that befell them likely conjured wild tales of curses and magic.”
“Johanna, I’ve heard tales…tales of misery and horror that cannae be explained by rational means. I dinnae know if the curse was so much foolish babble, or if the gem truly held an evil beyond our comprehension. But I cannae dismiss the possibility that the stone holds a power that isnae of this world. Ye may not believe in the curse, but our forefathers believed they had good cause to hide the stone. I would respect their judgment.”
“Why did they call it the Demon’s Heart?”
Maggie’s mouth settled into a mirthless line. “Over centuries, the ruby has left a trail of misery in its wake. The MacMasters ancestors took precautions to guard us against the stone and its evil. I can only pray my brash, non-believing brother does not retrieve the blasted thing from its hiding place.”
Chapter Twenty-Two