Pirates of the Angui (Cipher's Kiss Book 1): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance

by Heather Walker

  Ned said nothing. He lay in the same place, flat on his back against the pillow.

  In the end, she couldn’t stand being in the same room with him any longer. She snatched her prosthesis off the floor, strapped it around her leg, and raced out.

  Chapter 23

  Ned lay on the bed and listened to the silence after the door slammed. So there it was. She had finally told him the truth. So much the better. Now they could move forward with their lives and get busy on the work that had to be done.

  He gazed out the window. She might not come back. If she didn’t, then she proved her own point that she wasn’t the woman he thought she was. If she couldn’t face this, then he better find someone else.

  That could take another several thousand years, but what difference did it make to him? When it came to women, he wanted the best or nothing. Ree and Zita set the bar impossibly high for the rest of womankind. It would take someone pretty exceptional to catch his attention again.

  The sky darkened to dusk. The inn breathed all around him. Where was Ree right now? She no longer concerned him. If she left him, she would have to take care of herself. She might run straight to Malcolm Gunn. Then what would he do? If that happened, he would treat her as an enemy. No one could remain neutral in this war. He would carry on his investigation to the Isle of Barra and find out what Clan MacNeill knew about the Cipher’s Kiss. What Ree did was Ree’s business.

  Night fell outside his window, but he still didn’t move. A pall fell over the world, now that Ree was no longer in it. He went back to being a dead body, the way he’d been before he met her. He could live in that senseless, worthless existence for centuries and never feel a thing. He knew that living tomb better than anyone.

  All of a sudden, the door latch clicked and Ree came into the room. She shut the door behind her and sat down on the bed next to him. She hesitated to look him in the eye. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have walked out like that.”

  He took her hand. “Ye’ve no need to apologize to me, lass.”

  She stared down at their hands entwined. “I…I want to do this…if you still want to.”

  “Ye ken I want to, lass. I never didnae want to.”

  She nodded down at her hands. “I just…you know, I never told anybody before.”

  “Ye’re no killer, lass,” he murmured. “I, on the other hand—I’ve killed thousands of people, so ye’ll need to come up with something much more dangerous than that tale ye just told me to get me to leave ye alone.”

  “My parents—” Her voice cracked when she said those words. “They never blamed me, you know, but I blamed myself. I saw it every time I looked into their eyes—how sad they were, how they didn’t know how to talk about my leg and everything. I couldn’t stand the guilt, so I never told anybody.”

  “What about yer friends?” he asked.

  Her head shot up. “What?”

  “Yer friends. Ye told me ye started that company of yers with four of yer friends from childhood. They must have kenned ye before the accident, did they no’?”

  “Yeah, they knew me before,” she replied.

  “Then they must have kenned yer brother too. They kenned he died in the wreck, did they no’? They kenned all about it, and all about ye losing yer leg and all, and they loved ye and respected ye and wanted ye in charge of them just the same. Am I right?”

  She blinked at him. The truth sank into her thick skull for the first time. Ned watched the wheels turning, and the veil benighting her eyes fell away.

  “It’s no’ just me, lass,” he went on. “I’m no’ the only person in this world that can see ye for who ye really are and ken the truth about ye and what happened to ye and still want ye—all of ye. Yer friends love ye. They ken ye didnae kill yer brother on purpose, and they still want ye as a leader and a friend. They dinnae care that ye have only one leg. Ye’re just as good to them as if ye had two, and it’s the same for me. I have seen ye in combat twice. Ye’ve ridden a horse across the Highlands, and ye’ve proven to me ye’re one of us now. Ye’ve no more to hide from me or anyone else. Ye’ve no reason to hide it, for it’s no’ shameful or filthy or any other foul name ye can call yerself.”

  She lowered her eyes to her hands. A tear streaked down her cheek, but it wasn’t a tear of unbearable pain anymore. He’d finally got through to her, and nothing held them apart anymore.

  He pulled her down on top of him. At the same time, he threw back the coverlet and pushed her under it. “Come on. It’s getting late, and it’s time we were in bed.”

  She burrowed under the covers, and they came together for all time, even if they still had all their clothes on. She still wore her prosthesis, but that didn’t matter anymore. They both recognized it and accepted it for what it was. It was part of her, and it would be part of their lives from now on. That’s all there was to it.

  He kissed her, and she gave herself over to him. She offered no resistance, but her movements evinced a certain hesitancy he didn’t notice last time. She wasn’t sure of herself. She was shy of him touching her. She searched his eyes for approval. She let herself be vulnerable and fragile as never before.

  He took his time and let her come to him at her own pace. She kissed him in slow, delicious swirls and never took her eyes off him. He read her all the way down to the bottom of her soul. No secrets held them apart. If she ever doubted, she would tell him. He knew that now.

  All of a sudden, she broke away and stared up at him in wide-eyed wonder.

  “Eshmun Hamilcar hanno ashtzaph byblos rae

  Zephon anana akilokipok silatuyok anik toe

  Takiyok keorvik suluk yo

  Uyarak ek chua lo.”

  Ned frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s the spell,” she replied. “You’ll need to learn it so you can teach it to me when we meet up in 2018. I live in a city called San Francisco in California on the other side of America. I was born there in April 1992. That’s how you’ll find me.”

  “We’re no’ going to meet up in 2018 because ye’re going to stay with me,” he countered. “Do ye think I’d let ye go back after all this?”

  “Something will happen, and I’ll have to go back,” she replied. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. If I don’t go back, we’ll never meet.”

  “We already met,” he argued. “I already said the spell, and ye already came back. We’re together, and we’re no’ going to separate if I have anything to say about it.”

  She pushed herself up on her elbow. Her hair trailed in front of her face. “Listen to me, Ned. I’ve been thinking about this. If you and I meet up in 2018, it means that I’m dead and you never found the Cipher’s Kiss. If I stay here, we will have failed in our mission. I have to go back.”

  “Then the whole thing’s a fool’s errand,” he countered. “We may as well give up now.”

  She shook her head. “Not necessarily. We could find it in 2018. Maybe that’s why I went back. Maybe the answer is back there, and you and I have to meet up there to find it.”

  He shot upright. “Do ye ken what ye’re saying? Ye’re saying I’m to spend the next three hundred years alone.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” she replied. “You’re the one who’s always saying you’ve got all the time in the world. What’s another three hundred years to you?”

  “Three hundred years before I find the Cipher’s Kiss is nothing,” he replied. “Three hundred years without ye—that would be the worst torture I can imagine.”

  “Spend three hundred years alone now so we can spend the rest of eternity together. It’s one or the other. It’s either that, or I’ll be dead in about eighty years and you’ll never see me again—ever.”

  He launched himself out of bed and paced around the room. “How can ye do this to me? How can ye lie with me in my bed and then stab me in the guts like this? Do ye think I’m a stick of wood or something that has no heart? Ye cannae ask me to ken ye’re out there in the world somewhere, and I must drag me aching car
cass through one year after another without ye. Dinnae ask me that, lass, for I cannae do it. It’s more than any man can bear.”

  She put out her hand to him. “Come back to bed. We can talk about this.”

  “I’m no’ talking about that or anything else,” he snapped. “Ye’re no’ going back.”

  “Okay, okay,” she breathed. “We won’t talk about it anymore. We’ll just keep going the way we always have.”

  He eyed her across the room with his hands on his hips. His mind refused even to consider the possibility of losing her after everything that had happened.

  She leaned farther forward. “Come. Please.”

  He caved before her. He got back in bed, took her in his arms, and closed his eyes, but he didn’t relax. He couldn’t. The awful possibility that he might lose her kept tormenting his mind. He couldn’t accept it.

  Ree didn’t push him. She held him in her sweet embrace until he softened enough to kiss her. Her warmth enveloped him. She was still here. She encompassed his whole world, and he lost himself in her.

  She wasn’t going back. She wasn’t leaving him. He wouldn’t allow it.

  Chapter 24

  Ree woke early in the morning and slipped out of bed, being careful not to wake Ned. She washed her face and combed her hair, put on her prosthesis and got dressed. Standing at the window to get a look across the channel to Barra, she spied a man lurking just outside a fringe of trees beyond the Inn’s yard.

  She recognized the kilt and tight-fitting blue jacket buttoned up his chest. A swath of tartan plaid hung across his shoulder, and he wore his copper-red hair braided behind his neck as usual. Malcom Gunn raised his gaze toward her window and looked right at her.

  Her heart skipped a beat. She turned around to see if Ned was awake, but he was still snoring softly. She turned back to the window, and Malcolm was gone.

  Should she wake up Ned? Were the Gunns even now surrounding this inn, or was Malcolm just following her as he’d said he would? Maybe she had imagined seeing him there, and the apparition had vanished just as quickly.

  No, that was impossible.

  Ree hurried to the bed and sat down next to Ned. She passed her hand across his forehead and stroked his hair back. “Wake up, Ned.”

  His eyes fluttered open. “Huh?”

  “Malcolm Gunn is outside,” she murmured. “I just saw him outside the window.”

  Ned struggled out of the covers. “Ye did? Where is he now?”

  “He disappeared. I turned around for an instant, and he vanished. He must be following us.”

  Ned scratched his head and frowned. “Och, well, that’s to be expected. He’ll no’ follow us to Barra, I’ll wager.”

  “What are you going to do about him?” Ree asked.

  “Do about him?” Ned asked. “Why, nothing. There’s nothing to do about him even if he does follow us to Barra. We’ll get out there, and we’ll let the MacNeills deal with the Gunns for a change. They’ll no let the Gunns come anywhere near us so long as we’re under their protection.”

  He got up and grabbed his kilt. He covered his manhood with his tartan before covering his sculpted chest with his plaid.

  Ree watched him strap his sporran to his waist. “You’re not concerned about this?”

  “I kenned one of that lot was following us,” he replied, pulling on his boots. “I didnae think it would be the big man himself, but it’s no different if it is. I suppose he’s taken a personal interest in ye and that’s why he’s here. No matter. On we go to Barra and see what’s afoot. If he comes, he comes, and the more the merrier.” He buckled on his saber and gave her a quick, smacking kiss. “If ye see him again, ye let me know. Now come on. We must arrange the boat crossing before it gets too late in the day.”

  While they ate breakfast, Ned chatted with the innkeeper’s wife about paying passage over to Barra. She stuck her head in the parlor and shouted out, “Bernard! Bernard are ye awake?”

  A grunt answered her. After more shouts, an ancient mariner with bleary eyes stumbled into the bar. He spoke in grunts to the landlady until she faced Ned, saying, “Bernard will take ye across for one pound Sterling.”

  “Done,” Ned replied. “I’ll want to be delivered to Castlebay, to Kisimul Castle.”

  Bernard cocked one bushy eyebrow at him. “The Castle?”

  “Aye. Can ye do it?” Ned asked.

  “Aye. For a pound Sterling I’d do a sight more.” Bernard tipped his hat and spun on his heel, heading for the back door.

  Ned returned to the table where Ree waited for him and sat down across from her. “I hope ye’re no’ prone to sea sickness, lassie.”

  “Expecting a rough crossing?” she replied.

  “If the Gunns are following us, aye. I didnae think they’d catch up with us so soon, but now that they have, we must make the best of it. The sooner we get under the MacNeills’ protection, the better.”

  “Where do you think the Prometheus is right now?” she asked.

  “I wouldnae like to guess,” he replied. “She’s no’ here, so she’s no good to us. I can only hope she’s safe somewhere far from the Gunns.”

  They finished eating and emerged from the inn into a windswept day. Bernard pulled a small sailing craft onto the beach in front of the inn as the wind tossed up whitecaps on the ocean beyond. A crag of black land that was the Isle of Barra cut across the horizon.

  Could the Cipher’s Kiss, or some clue to solving it, be waiting out there for Ree to discover? Her conversation with Ned the night before still hovered around the periphery of her mind. Now that she had finally accepted her feelings for him, she didn’t want to go back to her own time. She wanted to stay with him and let this fledgling love take wing, but it couldn’t be. She had to go back. She didn’t know why yet, but when she gazed across the channel to Barra, she knew she was right. She would find something over there, and she would have to go back. She couldn’t stay here and grow old with Ned when the Angui’s future depended on the Cipher’s Kiss. That took precedence over everything else.

  “Come, lass,” Ned told her, as he took her hand and led her toward the boat.

  The landlady back at the inn had given her a thick woolen blanket to wrap around her shoulders, but it barely cut the wind. She cowered in the boat and pulled the blanket over her head. Even then, the wind stung her cheeks and numbed her lips. She closed her eyes and braced herself to endure the crossing.

  Ned helped Bernard with the rigging, and pretty soon, the little craft bobbed over the chop on its way out to sea.

  Ree drifted into an interminable nightmare of cold. Her mind shut down. She didn’t care about anything but getting to the end of this trip.

  Out of the haze of cold, Ned touched her shoulder. “We’re there, lass.”

  Her head popped out of the blanket, and she beheld a castle rising on a tiny island in a close harbor between two dark headlands. The castle covered most of the island and came down almost to the water’s edge.

  A tall man and an equally tall woman stood on the shore to meet the little boat. The man wore a kilt, and the woman wore a length of similar tartan wrapped around her shoulders. It wound around her to form a dress like the one Cora had worn. Her silver gray hair tumbled over her shoulders. The pair smiled when the boat grated on the rocky beach.

  “Ye must have taken yer lives in yer hands crossing on a day like today,” the man told Ned.

  Ned threw his arms around the man and thumped him on the back. “It’d take a good deal more weather than that to stop me crossing with the Gunns on my tail.”

  “I should have kenned ye didnae come all that way just for the pleasure of me company,” the man replied. “Now introduce me to this block of ice ye call a companion.”

  Ned helped Ree out of the boat. Her teeth chattered so badly she couldn’t speak to introduce herself.

  “This is Ree Hamilton,” Ned told their host, “and she’s already proven herself a mean fighter against the Gunns, so dinnae trifle with her.”


  The man laughed, and the woman’s eyes twinkled.

  “This is Hamish MacNeill, Chief of Clan MacNeill and master of this castle,” Ned told Ree. “This is his lady, Rosalynn.”

  “That’s enough of the introductions.” Rosalynn took Ree’s arm. “Come inside and get warm, lass. Then we can hear all about it.” She led Ree toward the castle.

  White stone walls made up its structure, and heavy black beams help up the ceilings. Ree had seen grander castles on her last trip to Europe, but she’d never been so happy to see a fire roaring up the chimney in the room Rosalynn escorted her to.

  Rosalynn settled Ree into a chair facing the fireplace and then fluttered around her, fussing with the details for her guests. She handed Ree a mug of steaming broth, which Ree sipped in grateful ecstasy.

  Ned stood next to the fireplace, warming his hands while Hamish sat in a nearby corner chair.

  “I didnae think ye kenned about it, but I had to find out. Have ye heard of it?” Ned asked.

  “I have heard the Stones of Uist possessed the power of the Old Ones, but I never heard of leaving any potion to sit among them,” Hamish replied. “As for the wicknot root, every child kens about that.”

  “Could it be one of the ingredients?” Ned asked.

  “Anything’s possible,” Hamish replied. “I dinnae understand how it could have sat under our noses all this time, and we didnae ken it.”

  “The Gunns have kept it hidden,” Ned remarked. “They hid it in an obscure book in their libraries on Orkney, never suspecting one of us would come and find it there.”

  “It was a brilliant stroke of luck, if it’s true,” Hamish replied. “Ye still dinnae ken if it’s real or just a fanciful tale.”

  “It’s the best clue I’ve got to go on,” Ned replied.

  “No more talking about that,” Rosalynn interrupted. “Ye’ve got a lady here to tend to.”

  Ned turned around and looked at Ree. “She looks all right to me.”

  “I’m okay,” Ree blurted out. “This soup sure is good.”