The Curse of Clan Ross

by L. L. Muir

  “Someone is coming. Put yer arm about me neck so they won’t wish to interrupt.”

  Jilly stuck her arm over his shoulder and wrapped it awkwardly around his neck. She only heard a low chuckling as someone passed them, and a moment later she was breathing fresher, less rumpled air.

  “Come. Ye’ll want to be speaking with Morna, will ye no’?”

  Jilly stumbled along in shock as Ewan pulled her along through the main gate and around and between cottages in the outer bailey. The willy-nilly placement of the homes gave the impression that someone had tossed a rock behind his head and wherever it landed, they’d erect the next house.

  At last some windows burned bright with welcoming light and Ewan led her to the door. He cleared his throat, waited a moment, then let himself and Jilly inside.

  “Morna Ross...er Gordon, Jillian Rose Mac-eye.” Ewan pointed to a woman sitting on the edge of a bed, then at Jillian.

  “That’s MacKay,” she couldn’t help but correct.

  “’Tisn’t.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Ewan, leave the lass be.”

  The last came from Morna and when Jilly watched her rise and walk toward her with a regal bearing any queen would envy, she had the overwhelming urge to curtsy.

  Must be the dress. She never wore dresses, except to church, and the only thing she remembered praying for was that her grandmother would not feel like attending, and if she did, that the old woman wouldn’t offend anyone too badly. It was such a chore running around the meetings, smoothing feathers ruffled by her grandmother’s too-honest comments.

  “Isn’t honesty what a church is for?” the old woman would argue.

  Dresses and Sundays were miserable memories.

  “Are ye a witch, then?”

  She was tempted to tell Morna that if she were looking for witches she might try the Muir household, but that information was probably told in confidence. Logic told her pissing off a witch, let alone two, was not the wisest move.

  “I’m no witch, but I did come to get you and Ivar back together. That is, if you’re interested.”

  The only show of the woman’s emotion had been the sudden clutch of a chair when Jilly had carelessly dropped Ivar’s name into the room.

  The silence that followed was deafening, and then just as quickly, forgotten.

  “I’m interested in anything a visitor has to say, of course.”

  The lilt in Morna’s speech reminded Jilly of the woman who had shown her the back route into the Great Hall where she could catch up with the tour group, and where she’d first met Montgomery. Ish. All her sentences sounded like questions.

  “I’m sorry. I should have put it more delicately. It is a long story, how I came here. Maybe I should start at the beginning.”

  “Please.” Morna pulled out the chair she’d been clutching. “Sit.”

  Jilly sat while Ewan stood and peeked out the window every few minutes, undermining his confidence that Monty would not also predict this move on her part.

  “I’m well aware of the prophecy, Jillian. I have lost the three people I love and the prophecy is the only thing that keeps me from complete despair.” Morna pulled a stool close to her and sat.

  And if Jilly hadn’t come? Would it have turned out like the Shakespearean play, with two bodies together only in death? Would they have been driven to that? And how long would they have waited?

  “Have ye a man?” Morna looked so frankly into her eyes, Jilly had to turn away.

  She studied her fingers. The only man who popped into her head was this woman’s brother. She supposed it was possible what kept her from remembering anyone in her own time with much clarity was that she was presently not present in it.

  The more likely possibility was that she was lying. There had been no one. A few crushes. A few dates here and there, but those had ended when Grandma got sick.

  “Someday I will,” she declared, both to Morna and to herself. She would not be alone. Not like poor Monty was going to be.

  “That’s a fine spirit, Jillian. Ivar is my man. My only man. Of course I have a husband, but if ye’re here to break that bond, I’ll love ye doubly.”

  Jilly smiled and nodded. If she took Isobelle into her own century Cinead Gordon would be long dead. Even in the sight of Grandma’s God, she assumed that would be acceptable.

  Morna swallowed hard. Her hands were shaking as she clasped them over and over again in her lap. Ending her marriage must have been weighing heavily on her mind.

  “You were telling me about Ivar.” Jilly tried to sound cheerful.

  A deep breath and a smile changed the other’s appearance into the young woman she must be.

  “Oh, Ivar. Ivar. Ye’ll have to forgive me. I haven’t said his name in the presence of another in so long, it sounds odd to me ears.” Morna sat forward and took Jilly’s hand in both of hers. They had stopped shaking, for the most part. “It has been a long year for the both of us, aye?”

  “Has he written to you much?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve not heard a word since Montgomery took me to the Gordons. ‘Struth, I’ve not heard his voice since Monty caught us at The Burn and sent Ivar home with a bloody leg and no horse. On my weddin’ day, Ewan told me that Ivar was recoverin’ fine. ‘Twas a wonderful gift.”

  Holy crap. Morna had no idea whether Ivar still wanted her or not. What Jilly wouldn’t give for an old- fashioned telephone system right then. Or even a town gossip from West Burnshire.

  How in the world am I going to find out if Ivar is interested?

  The gasp from Morna scared Jilly for a second before she realized she had spoken that last out loud.

  “Jillian Rose Mac-eye!”

  “That’s MacKay.”

  “Jillian. Ivar is waitin’. I know it as sure as ye’re sitting there.”

  Jilly didn’t have the heart to tell the woman just how good the chances were that she was, indeed, not sitting there at all. Just wait until she told her they’d be taking a less than scenic route into the future and the reason why she would be able to marry Ivar was because her husband would be deceased—doornail style.

  “Ye don’t understand love. Not yet.” Morna gave a curt nod, like Grandma used to do when she meant, “and that’s that.”

  Jilly had no idea she would miss the old woman so intensely. In every situation, she knew what the old woman would think or say, or else Jilly would wish Grandma could have been there to see this or that.

  “I loved my grandmother, more than I realized, but I’m sure that doesn’t count.”

  “Oh, Jillian, of course it counts. I think the time we’re allowed in Heaven will be the same amount of time we’ve spent loving others.”

  “If that were true, my grandmother has already been kicked out, I’m afraid.” Jilly tried to laugh, but couldn’t.

  “Doona say such things, lass.” Morna gave her a very motherly frown in spite of obviously being younger than she, then she clasped a small pouch that hung from a tether around her neck and murmured something.

  Jilly had forgotten what a superstitious people she was dealing with.

  “Sorry.”

  “Not at all, lass. Not at all.” The pouch disappeared behind Morna’s own plaid bib. “Meantime, the love I referred to is the kind of love ye’ll find with yer own young man, if ye be as fortunate as I have been.” Morna turned to look into the fire. Her voice changed, turning almost...reverent. “The kind of love that tells ye that his heart still beats because ye feel it a’ thumpin’ in yer own chest. Ye know his thoughts upon ye as ye lie down to sleep, his hands on ye—through the power of his dreams alone.”

  This was far too personal. Had the woman no pride? She was going to get such an education in the future. She hoped the 21st century Juliet would still find her Romeo appealing.

  “If I were to die, he’d ken it. When he is anguished, I ken it. I look at the moon and feel the glow of it on his face. I remember the sweat of him sometimes and it makes me weep with hunger
to smell him, to taste him again.”

  The fire crackled obnoxiously. Ewan cleared his throat.

  “When we were together, I wanted to press myself into him so deeply that I’d come out the other side. That’s what it is like, to be one. It’s not the bedding of a wife that binds a husband to her. That is nothing. Nothing.” She frowned for a moment, but her eyes still stared, unblinking, still seeing far beyond the flames. “Do ye know what makes me very sad for the rest of the world?” She turned back to Jilly. “For Monty especially?”

  Jilly shook her head.

  “It’s that true love is so rare a creature that it is fierce hard to find when ye’re looking for it. When ye don’t believe in it at all, it could lie down at yer feet and ye’d walk right o’er it.”

  Morna’s knowing gaze sent chills up and down her spine like a pinball shot back and forth between two bumpers. Did she see Jilly as that woman who would be walked over?

  Jilly shifted in her seat.

  “Ivar MacKay is the blood in my veins, and without the promise of ye, I would not have lasted long without him.” Morna looked at her hands. “Who knows if we’d have lasted until winter had ye not come now.”

  And just like that, all four Muir sisters were forgiven. And Montgomery Ross could go to Hell.

  “So I take it you’re interested, then?” Jillian asked in her best Mrs. Doubtfire brogue.

  Morna laughed like a drunkard. Jillian smiled and cried in harmony. And when they were finished, they turned as one to look at Ewan.

  It was rather nice for a change, to be on the giving end of the stick. The VMC, The Victims of Muirs Club, was about to get a new member.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Montgomery was finally getting some needed sleep. Amazingly enough, he’d been able to push aside his frustration of having Jillian in his bed without him, trust the MacKay assassin into Ivar’s hands, and leave the rest of the night’s deeds for Ewan to tend.

  The man acted masterfully when Monty would have stumbled right upon them at the rear of the keep. Too masterfully. Monty had played the part of a passer-by, but he’d let the bastard know with his low laugh that Ewan would pay dearly for his too-clever improvisation.

  “She vexes me as well,” he’d said. Ewan did not yet know the meaning of the word. As soon as he could rouse himself in the morning, he was going to vex his cousin with his fists.

  And with a smile on his face, Montgomery took a deep breath and let sleep take him, trusting the lass would be where she was supposed to be in the morning. If all went as planned, she’d be trusting Ewan to make arrangements to have Morna and Ivar meet with her in a pair of weeks.

  # # #

  At the rate she was going, Jilly would end up an adrenaline junkie. Amazing really. Breaking out of Castle Ross gave a bigger rush than breaking in.

  She felt powerful, Oprah-ish even.

  “He tells me where I should be in the morning? I don’t think so.”

  At the moment, Ewan was riding West for MacKay lands. She felt terrible asking him to go in the middle of the night, but he had to be back before the sun rose in the morning to set the next piece of the plan into motion.

  If you wanted a crack at the cheese, you had to get the cat out of the kitchen.

  Jillian made her way to the stables as stealthily as possible, dragging along a cloak that could have been tailor-made for a New York Giant.

  Funny how horses in the fifteenth century smelled exactly the same as in the twenty-first. The hay smelled the same, crackled the same under her boots, and for a moment, Jilly stood still, daring to close her eyes for a few seconds and imagine she was home. Wyoming. Janna’s barn. Hurrying to saddle their horses before her friend’s mother could think of another chore for them to do.

  There would have been the smell of fresh milk squirted on the floor for the kittens to lick up. There would have been the sound of a powerhose as Ed, Janna’s uncle, washed down the milking stalls. In fact, there would be little beneath her feet that wasn’t concrete; you couldn’t strip-mine germs from dirt.

  This is better.

  The sweet-but-dusty scent of hay was backed by the taste of heather in the air. The bare earth was...well, earthier. There was nothing of bleach in this barn, no thick plastic gloves necessary to protect one’s hands from harsh chemicals. When a horse stretched out to pee, it frothed and bubbled into the earth. As natural as dust to dust.

  And speaking of dust to dust, if she didn’t hurry, she may just miss Ivar MacKay, and her own bones would turn to powder right along with the rest of these folks.

  Along with Montgomery Constantine Ross, whom she’d recently wished to Hell.

  Jilly’s gut clenched. It was silly, of course. Here, in his time, he was as alive as she had been in hers. The fact that he would remain just a figure in history wouldn’t mean his life would not be full. Not enjoying the longevity of her time wouldn’t mean he’d feel cheated. Dying in some silly feud with the MacKays would be the real crime. If she removed the major player in that little battle, at least the laird would get the long life he was supposed to get.

  Her gut relaxed, but just a sgoash. That had been Grandma’s favorite measurement. A sgoash. And just now, Jilly missed her much more than a sgoash. If the old gal were there, she’d talk Jilly right out of any feeling of sympathy for a Scot, let alone a Ross.

  Conniving hooligan, she’d call him. Can’t throw him, can’t trust him. But Jilly couldn’t make herself believe as her grandmother had. There were plenty of secrets hidden behind those gorgeous coffee-colored eyes, but she also believed there was something in those eyes just for her.

  She brought out something in him. She couldn’t fathom it. No one had ever looked at her as if she were special and she was often tempted to look behind her, to see at whom he was looking. A few times, she had turned, but there was no one there, no other woman, no ghost making his eyes sparkle with interest. Only her.

  Tears prickled her nose at the suspicion that no one else would see her that way again.

  And so, with that heavy thought in her chest, Jilly rode out through the portcullis in the very wee hours of the morning with the Gordon plaid wrapped over her head, hoping the slump in her shoulders would convince the guards she was forlorn Lady Morna and would let her pass.

  What the devil was wrong with her? This was Scotland of old, laid out before her eyes, ancient but fresh air to fill her lungs. Before her was the light at the end of the tunnel. She was about to finish what she’d come to do, and all she could think about was how much she missed the inside of her prison. Had she gone over the edge? Contracted some syndrome that made her fall in love with her captor?

  Holy crap.

  There went her gut again. Clenching. Unclenching. Clenching again. Adrenaline ebbed and flowed in her blood as she alternately accepted, then denied, then accepted again the probability that she could indeed be whipped on Montgomery Ross.

  Holy crap. Holy crap.

  She felt warm inside, like she’d slipped on fuzzy slippers that formed to her feet.

  It didn’t matter, though. There was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t take him back with her. She’d screw up that Michael J. Fox rule. Montgomery Ross lived to a ripe, albeit lonely, old age. His cousin, Ewan, would be the great-twenty-some-odd-grandfather of the future version of Montgomery. The Original had improvements to make on that castle of his. If he didn’t, if he didn’t go on, handing down that tale of Morna, Ivar, and Isobelle, the town of East Burnshire, Scotland would not survive off the revenue from the telly-folk.

  The image of Jock, scrubbing away at that over-polished bar, planted itself firmly in her mind and it brought with it all the weight of responsibility the modern Montgomery must feel.

  Correction: would feel.

  It wasn’t just Morna and Ivar, Loretta and Lorraine, or their medieval counterparts who needed Jilly to finish her task; an entire generation of East Burnshire-ites needed her to do so without messing with their lives. Jilly could not st
and to let down any one person, let alone a small population.

  Falling in love with Montgomery was a notion she could not entertain now. Later, maybe, after being back home for a few months, she would let herself think about him, would allow herself a good cry over him, over what might have been. But she couldn’t afford such an indulgence now.

  Later, when it was safe, she would think about him all the time.

  Jilly never remembered guiding her horse; the animal must have gone that way regularly, or else there were no other roads to take. North, South, East or West. How simple this life would be. Leave your home and you had only four choices. She traveled East.

  # # #

  Damn her.

  How on earth had she done it? After years of kinship and friendship, after naming the bastard his successor should anything happen to him before he had grown sons to replace him, Ewan had turned traitor—

  —in favor of an Englishwoman.

  He had to give his cousin due respect for his playing, however. If he weren’t so good at it himself, he would never have guessed Ewan was lying through his whiskers.

  “I’m sore sorry, Monty. I canna believe I fell to sleep while I was supposed to be a watchin’. It’s no’ too late, though. Ye can catch her by sundown, sure.” Ewan was talkin’ so fast, Monty had to ask him to repeat himself three times already. “Ye can have the whole of the Scottish sky to bed down under. With her. If’n ye catch her.”

  Monty rubbed his chin thoughtfully. What could she have said to the man to get him to help her? How could she possibly pay Ewan enough to turn colors?

  “If ye’d rather I went after the lass, Monty, I’ll do it. I don’t want to risk her wee neck by bringin’ her back in the dark, ye ken, but I’ll keep my hands to meself.” Ewan turned toward the stables.

  “Hold, Ewan.” Bastard. If ye touched the lass, ye’ll be dead come morning. “I’ll go after her.”

  Monty’s stomach lurched. Betrayal for breakfast never sat well. He’d eaten that meal before.

  “Dinna trust that she rides poorly, Monty. A lass like that is capable of anythin’. I’d bend yer head and ride hard, I would, once it’s clear she’s headed East.”