Trusted By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance

by Rebecca Preston

  "Is he okay?" Melanie wanted to know, feeling a pang of sympathy for Aelfred. "Is he really sick?"

  "He'd be a lot better if he'd been sleeping properly," Maeve said with a click of her tongue, and Melanie grinned at the reproachful tone. "I've told him in no uncertain terms that the night sky means it's time for bed, so I'm hoping that particular pattern at least will start to stick. He'll mend. He's got a nasty cold — much like yours, I suspect."

  "Poor Aelfred," she said softly, shaking her head. "Can't catch a break, the poor guy."

  "It's fairly common, for newcomers to the Keep to fall ill," Maeve said with a soft smile. "You'll be well again in a few days. I've brought some broth — it should keep your strength up. Special recipe," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

  "Thank you," Melanie almost whispered, feeling choked with emotion. "Thanks for taking care of me."

  "You're family, as far as I'm concerned," Maeve said simply. "And I'm looking forward to getting to know you better, Melanie Orwell. But right now, you get some rest."

  And with that, she was gone, leaving Melanie with a bowl of steaming broth to drink and a feeling of warmth deep in her stomach that no amount of feverish shivering could dislodge. Family. She was family, she kept thinking to herself as she sipped the broth, feeling utterly spoiled. They were going to take care of her, they were going to keep her safe… and when she'd finished the broth, she felt as strong as an ox. But she wasn't going to go charging out of bed and disobeying Maeve's instructions… so she set the bowl neatly on her bedside table, turned over and fell promptly back into a deep, restful sleep.

  The next few days passed more or less like that. When she woke, the broth bowl was gone, and a humble but delicious little dinner of bread and soup was in its place. She finished every bite, grateful for the gentle fare for her sensitive stomach, and sat up for a little while longer, gazing out of the window as the last of the sunset light drained from the sky. It was strange. Back in her old life, she'd have been unbelievably bored with nothing to do, lying in bed… she'd always spent her sick days either reading or watching TV, catching up on old shows she'd been meaning to binge, making the most of a Netflix subscription that usually went unused when she was busy at work. She'd have been horrified by the prospect of trying to keep herself busy with no books or TVs around… but now, lying here in bed, she was more than happy to just keep her own company and let the time go by.

  And once a few days had gone by, she found herself feeling much better. The fever broke about three days after she'd fallen sick, and when Maeve discovered she was on the mend, she smiled so broadly that a pair of very charming dimples appeared in her cheeks. After that, she was allowed to have visitors — all of the other time-lost women came to see her, first one at a time and then in groups, all reminiscing about how unwell they'd gotten during their first few days at the castle.

  By the time she was back on her feet, she was feeling almost normal again, and she had a celebratory breakfast in the dining hall with all of the other women on her first day back on her feet. She still felt weary, and a little unwell, and she tended to get dizzy when she stayed on her feet for too long, but overall, she could tell she was on the mend. And after a hearty breakfast, she was almost feeling normal again. But when she asked about Aelfred, who she knew had fallen sick at around the same time as she had, she got worried looks and head shakes.

  "He's still unwell, I'm afraid," Maeve explained when Melanie went to find her, curious to know how her friend was doing. "He must have been struck harder by the cold than you were — perhaps because he wasn't sleeping, or perhaps because the difference between the Fae and this world is bigger than the difference between the present and the past. I'm not sure."

  "Did you get sick when you came back?" Melanie asked curiously.

  Maeve's silver eyes were thoughtful. "You know, it's been so long that I don't remember," she said softly, laughing a little. "I may well have. I'm not too worried about him," she added with a wave of her hand. "He'll mend sooner or later. But his spirits are rather low. He's asked about you a few times, too," she added with a knowing little smile that Melanie chose to ignore for the time being.

  "Could I go and visit him?" she asked, tilting her head. "I mean, I'm already mended, it's not like I could catch his cold… and it might cheer him up," she added, trying not to blush.

  Maeve nodded. "I don't see why not. You'd be welcome to take him his lunch, actually," she added, nodding toward a bowl and tray that had been set out next to one of the enormous pots the kitchen staff used to cook soup and stew for the people of the castle.

  Trying to suppress the giddy joy in her chest at the prospect of seeing Aelfred again for the first time in several days, she nodded, filled the bowl with soup, then set off for the room that her friend had told her was his.

  Sure enough, the windows were shuttered, and the atmosphere was gloomy in the room. She'd knocked on the door and received a weak invitation to come in, so she knew he was awake… but the figure sprawled out under the quilts looked abject and miserable. As she set the tray down on the table by the bed — the layout was rather similar to her own room — she heard him cough weakly and struggle upright, and she winced a little at the hoarse, hacking sound.

  "You poor thing," she said softly.

  He made a sound of surprise. "You're not Maeve," came his voice, hoarse from coughing and very suspicious. "Melanie? Is that you?"

  She smiled, pulling the curtains back from the window to allow a little more light into the room. There he was, stretched out in the bed — he looked paler than usual, his silver eyes half-shut and his pale blond hair tangled and messy from all the tossing and turning he'd clearly been doing on the pillow, but to her amusement he was still just as gorgeous as he had been in full health.

  "Yeah, it's me. How are you doing?"

  "Oh, I didn't want you to see me like this," he groaned, pressing a hand over his face as though to hide it from her view and turning away. "I'm dying, Melanie."

  He sounded so convinced that she would have worried — if she hadn't already spoken at length to Maeve about his condition. She'd said that he had a nasty cold, but no more… even if he seemed convinced that he was inches from death, he certainly wasn't.

  "Is that so."

  "Yes. My body has betrayed me. A fire surges through me at every turn, and then a blizzard of ice. My lungs are full of mud and sludge and my throat is beset with demons that burn and scorch me."

  "You're a poet when you're sick, huh?" she pointed out, taking a seat at his bedside and gesturing to the soup. "Soup will help."

  "I don't think so," he said wretchedly… but he did sit upright and take the soup into his lap, taking a few tentative spoonfuls and wincing as he swallowed it. "Misery."

  "I know," she said softly, reaching out to pat his arm. "It's tough."

  "Forgive me my selfishness. How are you faring? Maeve told me you had fallen ill, too, but you look well enough —"

  "I recovered," she said, raising an eyebrow. "After a few days. I just… got lots of sleep and did what Maeve told me, and now I'm okay."

  "Stronger than I by far," he said softly, laying his head back on the pillow as the soup bowl lurched dangerously in his hands. She reached out to rescue it, fighting the urge to laugh. The melodrama was real with this one. If Maeve hadn't forewarned her, she'd be seriously worried that he was actually not long for this world… instead of just languishing in the grips of a tremendous man flu.

  "Tell you what," she said softly, as his eyes jerked back open.

  "What?"

  "I have a recipe for a soup," she said, thinking back to her childhood, to the recipe her father had always made her when she was sick. "It's a magic recipe," she said, mirroring what he'd told her. "My mother's recipe, actually."

  "Healing magic," he breathed.

  "Why don't I make it for you?" she suggested, tilting her head. "I'd have to talk to Maeve and some of the kitchen women about getting the ingredients, but…" />
  "Yes!" He reached out for her desperately, a look of vivid desperation on his handsome face. "Oh, Melanie, yes, please heal me, please share your mother's power with me —"

  She fought the urge to laugh again, nodding solemnly, as though they were making a serious pact. "I will," she promised. "I'll bring you some tomorrow for lunch, alright? But until then, you have to rest. The magic only works if you're rested," she added, improvising a little on a theme that her father had invented. "You have to stay in bed and get as much sleep as possible, and then and only then will the soup chase away the rest of the sickness."

  "I will," he promised, reaching out to seize her wrist in one clammy hand.

  He really does have a fever, she thought, looking down at him with pity and sympathy foremost in her mind. And men were notorious for not being good at tolerating much discomfort, for all that they bragged about their pain tolerance. He truly was suffering.

  "I will rest as best as I am able, Melanie. I will ensure that the magic can do its work."

  "Alright," she said softly. A part of her wanted to lean down and kiss him on the head, but she sternly warned herself away from that idea. "I'll leave you to get some sleep, okay? And when I come back I'll have — magic soup."

  She closed the curtains again and left him to his sleep, shaking her head a little as she closed the door behind her. A week ago, she'd never have imagined that she'd be lying about magic soup to a Changeling man in the grips of a nasty cold that he thought was going to kill him… they always said that nobody could see the future, but this was really taking it to a new level, wasn't it?

  She headed for the kitchens, determined to do her best version of her mother's soup recipe. It was an old favorite of hers. She didn't do a huge amount of cooking — enough to get her by, of course, and she had a few old favorites that she made just about every week, but she got takeout more than she was really proud of, and she didn't exactly consider herself a strong chef. But the Sick Day Soup, that she could make well. She spent a little while rummaging through the kitchen, retrieving the various vegetables that she recognized, and improvising with a few more unfamiliar ones, like the parsnips that she was already developing a taste for.

  In the end, the soup was easy enough to make — even though she had to ask for assistance in stoking an actual fire to cook it with. Part of the recipe involved leaving the soup overnight and then heating it in the morning, but by this stage the kitchen women had gathered around to watch this strange recipe from the future, and they were more than happy to keep an eye on it for her — and to make sure it didn't get jumbled up in what was served for dinner that night. Pleased with her efforts, she dined with the other women, all of whom were delighted that she was on the mend, and then headed for bed nice and early, well aware that she still needed plenty of sleep to fight off the last lingering traces of this cold.

  In the morning, she felt almost like herself again. It seemed that the worst of her symptoms were more or less gone, and aside from a lingering cough, she was feeling all but restored to her usual self. With a spring in her step, she headed downstairs for breakfast and ate with Nancy, who was delighted she was feeling better… and very interested in the fact that she'd been cooking for Aelfred.

  "Is he really that unwell?" she asked when Melanie described the languishing man.

  "No," she said with a roll of her eyes that made Nancy giggle. "But you know how men get when they're sick."

  "Oh, yes. I've seen Malcolm brush off an open wound as a scratch but let him catch the tiniest little cold and he's suddenly dying of the plague."

  They laughed together over breakfast, and then parted ways, Melanie heading into the kitchen to gather a bowl of medicinal soup. The ingredients themselves weren't really that special — they were tasty and filling, full of nutrients, but that was always true of vegetables. The secret of the soup, she suspected, was the belief that you had in its power to heal you. And she was hoping that Aelfred's belief in her promise that the soup was magical would be enough to bring him out of his wretched illness.

  If not, she was just going to have to learn to cast spells for real.

  Chapter 16

  It took a little while for the soup to warm up, and Melanie was impatient. She was looking forward to seeing Aelfred, she realized, a little embarrassed by the thought. Even sick and feverish in bed, his hair lank, his face drawn and pale with his illness, he was still a sight for sore eyes… and she still really enjoyed his company. This was definitely a crush, wasn't it? It had been so long since she'd felt anything other than mild irritation with a man that it surprised her to realize how fond she was growing of Aelfred. Well, it didn't need to mean anything, she told herself firmly. Attractive men had always existed and would always exist. And he was the first guy she'd met here. Maybe it was some kind of trauma response… she'd gotten infatuated with the first man she'd met here as a kind of coping mechanism for the distress of being ripped away from everything she knew to be dumped in a bizarre and unfamiliar new world. Well, that was fine. She could handle a little crush.

  She just knew that the other women were going to make it into something bigger than what it was. Just because they'd all gotten married to Grant men, didn't necessarily mean that that was going to happen to her. She wasn't ready for marriage, first of all, medieval Scotland or not. But she could definitely use a friend… and her friend, more to the point, could use her help at the moment. She spooned out some of the warm soup into a bowl, smiling to herself as she remembered what Aelfred had said about magic. It wasn't actual magic, she knew that — no wands waved, no mysterious ingredients sending up multi-colored steam from the water… but a bit of tender care could have the same effect, now couldn't it?

  She headed up the stairs to his room and found it quickly, raising her hand to tap softly on the door, and waited until she heard the weak invitation to come in. Sure enough, there lay Aelfred, wan and mournful-looking among the tangled sheets, his hair tangled and his eyes beseeching as he looked up at her.

  "Good morning," he managed, and she sighed softly at how hoarse his throat sounded. She poured him a glass of water and he sipped it gratefully, his pale silver eyes fixed on her face. "How are you feeling?"

  "Better than you, I bet," she said, raising an eyebrow at him. "You poor thing. Better or worse than yesterday?"

  "Well, your company cheered me immensely," he said, coughing a little. "But I'm afraid I may yet succumb to this disease."

  Maeve had told Melanie that the patient was on the mend well and truly, so she didn't pay much attention to that dire threat. But she let a worried look cross her face regardless and settled herself down in the chair at his bedside. "Well, I have good news. I was able to reassemble my mother's magical soup recipe."

  His eyes widened. "You brewed a potion for me?"

  She grinned. "In a manner of speaking." She'd decided she wasn't going to lie to him about the soup — even though it might weaken the placebo effect a little, she didn't want him getting the wrong idea about magical powers she may or may not possess. "It's warm, hearty soup. The magical ingredient is care, that's all."

  But Aelfred didn't look particularly surprised by this. "Of course," he said with a nod. "All magic is intent."

  "No, I mean… I'm not a witch, or anything. Neither was my mother. There's no magic, just care."

  He accepted the bowl from her, tilting his head to the side with a small smile on his face. "What makes you think that care isn't the strongest magic there is?"

  Melanie thought about that as he ate, smiling to herself a little. She supposed he had a point. She'd always felt better, as a child, when her father brought her soup — but it had also boosted her mood and made her heal quicker when he spent time with her, brought her a glass of water, checked in on her just to make sure she was okay. Maybe the secret ingredient really was another person caring about how you were feeling. Maybe 'magic' was a little more complicated a concept than she'd given it credit for.

  "Delicious," Ae
lfred sighed, setting the emptied bowl aside — she was pleased to see how quickly he'd eaten it. "Thank you, Melanie."

  "Any time," she said with a soft smile, resisting the urge to reach out and push an errant lock of blond hair out of his eyes — the gesture would have been too tender, too meaningful, even though her heart pounded at the thought of touching him. "We Burgh travelers have to look out for each other, right?"

  "I am in your debt, Melanie Orwell," he intoned solemnly, his eyes sliding shut.

  She rose to her feet quietly, pleased to see that he was drifting off to sleep — by the look of the messy bed, he'd been restless for several days, and a good long sleep ought to do him good. Still smiling, she slipped out of his room and headed down the corridor. Maeve came to find her later that evening, all smiles. It seemed that the soup had done the trick — that afternoon, Aelfred's fever had broken, and he was well and truly on the mend. It had been a nasty illness, though, and it would likely be a few days before he recovered his full strength.

  And Maeve proved to be right about that. It was five days until Melanie saw Aelfred in the dining hall again, looking much more his regular self as he served himself a bowl of porridge for breakfast. She'd been intending to sit with the women again, but she couldn't help herself from exclaiming with delight, hurrying up to his side. He beamed down at her.

  "My savior," he greeted her with that bright smile that always turned her head.

  "It's good to see you with a bit of color in your cheeks again," Melanie said with a grin. "How are you feeling?"

  "Good as new, thanks to you," he said firmly, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder gratefully. "Your soup was the instrument of my healing." In the end, she'd brought him three more bowls before the pot she'd made had been fully depleted.

  "Bed rest and a warm room helped too, I'm sure," she said drily. "But I'm glad you're feeling better."