Drustan leaned against the windowpane. Nay, not only was the looking glass quite awkwardly large, it flashed brilliant gold and silver in the sun. How could he have overlooked it earlier?
Mayhap, he decided, it had been lying on the ground, and Dageus had picked it up. And mayhap he was merely saying something along the lines of “Oh, my, how peculiar, where did you come from?”
Drustan’s silvery eyes narrowed. But why would a mirror be lying about on the front lawn? They had gardeners. Surely one of them would have noticed such a thing and relegated it elsewhere. How had it gotten there? Perchance dropped from the sky?
He was getting a bad feeling about this.
“Are you coming, love?” Gwendolyn called.
He heard the sound of the shower spray change as she stepped beneath it. In his mind’s eye, he could see her; water sluicing down her beautiful body, glistening wetly on her smooth, pale skin. He adored modern plumbing, couldn’t get enough of his wife when she was soapy and slippery and feeling frisky.
Below him, Dageus was now shaking a fist and shouting at the mirror.
Drustan closed his eyes.
After a long moment, he opened them again and cast a longing glance in the direction of the running shower and his gloriously naked, wet wife.
Then a glare out the window.
He exhaled gustily. “I doona think so, love. I’m sorry,” he called, “but ’twould seem Dageus is, for some unfathomable reason, having a heated discourse with a looking glass out on our front lawn.”
“Dageus is doing what with a heated horse and a looking glass?” Gwen exclaimed from the shower.
“Discourse, sweet, discourse,” he called back.
“Huh?”
He sighed again. Then, “He’s talking to a mirror,” he called much more loudly. “I must go discover why.”
“Talking to a—oh! On the front lawn? Dageus? Really? Wait for me, Drustan! I’ll just be a minute,” she yelled back. “This sounds positively fascinating!”
Drustan shook his head. Fascinating, his woman said. She had the oddest perspective on things sometimes.
He smiled faintly then, suddenly far less chafed by the prospect of yet another ruckus in his life. After all, wasn’t that what life was about?
Ruckuses.
And if a man was truly blessed, he got a woman like his Gwendolyn with whom to share them.
“Pick me up, you ham-fisted oaf. The bloody frigging sun is bloody frigging blinding me,” the mirror snarled.
Dageus blinked down at the glass. ’Twas lying faceup on the lawn and stuffed nigh to bursting with an enraged Cian MacKeltar.
One of his ancestor’s hands was braced at the side of the mirror on the inside of the glass, the blade of his other hand to his forehead as if shielding his narrowed eyes from a glare.
For a long moment, Dageus simply couldn’t find any words with which to form a sentence. Then, “What the hell are you doing in there, kinsman?” he managed blankly.
There was a man inside a mirror. His relative. His ancient relative. He thought he’d seen it all, but he’d ne’er seen aught like this. Dozens of questions collided in his mind.
“Sun. Blinding. Pick me up,” his ancestor snapped.
Dageus glanced up. The sun was directly above him.
He glanced back down. Mystified, he bent and stood the glass up on end, facing him. He handled it gingerly, trying not to touch much of it. Because his grip was not firm, it slipped from his fingers and nearly went right back down again. He scarce managed to catch it in time.
“For Christ’s sake, be careful with the damn thing!” his ancestor hissed. “ ’Tis made of glass. Sort of. In an odd sense of the word. Are you always so clumsy?”
Dageus stiffened. “Are you always such a foul-tempered arse? You’ve the manners of a blethering Lowlander. ’Tis no wonder you’ve such a bad reputation.”
“I’ve a bad—” His ancestor broke off, raising his hands as if to ward off further talk on that topic. “Forget it. I doona wish to ken what they say about me.” He glanced around the lawn. “Where the hell have you taken me?”
“Castle Keltar.” Dageus thought a moment, then added, “A second Castle Keltar, not the one you likely knew.”
A muscle worked in his kinsman’s jaw. “And how far would this second Castle Keltar be from Inverness?”
Dageus shrugged. “Half an hour or so.”
“Let me guess, you interfering barbarian. For some reason, you took my vehicle?” the mirror snapped.
“I’m a barbarian? Look who’s talking,” Dageus said indignantly.
“You bloody fool, you will go back down there and get my woman. Now.”
“Your woman? The lass ’twas with you in the store?”