by Jill Jones
Robert Gordon was a civil attorney, had never tried a criminal case. But his eyes glowed with the intrigue of this revelation. Would she turn a knife into his perfidious heart? As written here, she acknowledged that it would be difficult for her to call him husband. Even if Mary did not participate personally in the murder of Darnley at Kirk O’ Field, it was clear from these pages that Mary Queen of Scots hated her husband.
He raised his shaggy brows and turned the page.
Chapter Thirteen
Pain sliced his heart as surely as the the knife had cut his finger only moments before. He knew when he looked at her again, he would see pity in Taylor’s eyes, like the pity that still reflected occasionally in the eyes of his friends and neighbors in Stonehaven, even after all this time. Duncan Fraser hated pity. It was a useless emotion. No amount of pity could restore his sons to him, and its very presence was an odious reminder of his guilt in their deaths.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Taylor whisper, but he did not reply. He was glad Pauley had not heard the sound of the knife striking the table, for it would have frightened him. He put his hands on the boy’s shoulders to gain his attention, then pointed to the cot and nodded. The boy did not argue, but took the woolen blanket from its peg and lay down beneath it with a smile and a look of deep contentment on his wretchedly filthy face. In a moment, he was asleep.
Duncan closed his own eyes, wanting to erase all the tender feelings that were flooding through him at the moment. It was hard enough fighting his attraction to Taylor Kincaid. He could not allow himself to become attached to this urchin as well. The whole situation where the child was concerned was impossible to begin with. Even if he and Taylor managed to return to their own century, it would not be right to drag Pauley along with them. He belonged in this time, in this place. He tried his best to convince himself of this, but his heart, instead of listening, was arguing back.
This boy had nothing to live for in this time, it said. He was neglected, abused, in poor health, starving…Why should he be left to this fate?
Duncan didn’t have the answers to any of these questions when he returned his attention to Taylor. “What did you say Greta told you about him?” he asked heavily, taking a seat on the cushion in front of the fire, leaving the only chair in the place vacant for Taylor.
She cleared her throat. “She told me that he was ‘daft’ because he was the child of the ‘divil’. She accused his mother of being a witch and said that folks here think that she was thrown over the cliff by the fairies because she was the wife of the devil.” She sank onto the chair behind Duncan, her legs almost touching his back, and let out a long sigh. “Can you believe such horrible ignorance?”
“There is horrible ignorance in our own time,” Duncan pointed out. “It just takes on different forms.”
The fire began to burn low, and Duncan reached for a stubby, gnarled piece of driftwood to fuel it again. “He’s a remarkable survivor,” he said at last, searching for a way to repair the awkwardness that had dropped between them at his vehement response to her questions about his children.
“Who do you suppose his father was?” Taylor asked quietly.
Duncan had an unpleasant suspicion about that…incest was not uncommon in the lonely wilds even in the modern age, and it had been more prevalent in ages past. But he didn’t share this with Taylor. “Who knows? Obviously no one who gave a damn about him…” He heard the bitterness in his voice.
He felt a soft touch on his shoulder. “This must be very painful for you,” Taylor said. “I’m a good listener, in case you need one.”
He touched her hand. Her skin felt like silk, cool and soft and smooth. She curled a slender finger around one of his massive ones. He grasped all of her fingers and ran his thumb along the feminine fingertips. He was tempted to tell her about Peter and Jonathan. And Meghan. He’d never talked to anyone about them, or his guilt, or his anger, or the desolation that comprised his life. He hadn’t eased his burden, because he found it difficult to share his private torment, even with close friends. Odd that he would consider doing so now. Taylor was a virtual stranger. Besides, he argued, deciding against taking her up on her offer, she didn’t need any more problems. She was having a hard enough time coping as it was.
With her other hand, she combed her fingers through his hair. Her caress was tender, comforting, pleasurable. It had been a long time since he’d felt a woman’s touch, and suddenly his entire being was starved for more. Starved, indeed, for a meaningful human relationship. Perhaps that was why he had allowed himself to become so taken with the raggedy child that now slept soundly on the cot.
It was a dangerous, vulnerable place to be.
“My guess is that high tide will be around dawn.” He changed the subject, attempting to steer clear of the dangerous emotions that Taylor threatened to unleash. “If there is any way that boat will float, we’ll try to get out of here tomorrow.” He felt Taylor withdraw her fingers, and he missed their warmth.
“Can’t we just push it into the water?” she asked.
“The thing weighs thirty tons.”
“Oh.”
Duncan could feel the heat of her body where her legs skimmed his back. He turned and looked up into her face. Her skin was radiant in the glow of the firelight. Her golden hair, freshly brushed, hung sleek and straight, curling just slightly beneath her chin. Her lips were full and pink.
Unable to resist, he took both of her hands in his, entwining their fingers. His eyes searched her face for any sign that his overture was unwelcome, but her steadfast gaze held his, her eyes inviting him to swim in their wide, blue depths. He drew her from the chair and moved to make room for her beside him on the cushion. Fleetingly, he wondered if there was a man in her life, or a family, but as she did not resist him, he decided that must not be the case.
He cupped his large hands around her fire-toasted cheeks, feeling beneath his fingers the fine bone structure, the soft skin. He saw her eyes close and her lips raise to meet his. His heart thundered as he bent to taste their sweetness. At first, he kissed her as a boy relishes the first taste of an ice cream cone, gently, savoring the delight to come. But the very softness that met his lips, the smell of her and the taste of her replaced his gentleness in an instant with fiery desire. He let his kiss shift into one of demanding passion, and he embraced her with a desperation born of years of empty days and long, lonely nights. With a hunger for warmth and understanding. With a need for a woman that suddenly welled within him, blinding him to all forethought and consequences.
He felt her return his kiss with equal passion, her response seemingly as hungry and desperate as his own. They fell back against the cushion. He cradled Taylor’s head in the crook of his arm and with his lips never leaving hers, he ran his hand along her slender arm and over the curve at her waist. She pressed into him, and he heard a small moan escape from her throat.
The sound reached his rational mind somewhere through the fog of his passion and rapped on the door of his sensibility. What on earth was he doing? His body ached for this woman, and yet, to simply satisfy that animal desire in the heat of the moment was to violate the integrity with which he strove to live his life.
He released Taylor with regret but determination. “I…I’m sorry,” he said, breathing heavily. “I don’t know what…”
Taylor gave him an enigmatic look, an odd mixture of frustration and relief which was immediately replaced by a small smile. She touched her finger to his lips, and he felt her trembling. “Shhh,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”
Later, Taylor lay alone on the cushion by the fire, sorry that Duncan had felt obliged to leave her for the night and sleep on the boat. She blamed herself for what had transpired between them. She’d sensed his despair and had felt the need to reach out and console him. But she’d responded to him for another reason as well, she admitted. She needed consolation of her own. She’d read somewhere that people caught up in unusual events, like being trapped in earthquake debris or
held hostage, often did extraordinary, out-of-character things they could not later explain.
And their situation definitely fell into the category of “unusual events.”
Two days ago, she’d never heard of Duncan Fraser. She thought the Ladysgate was just another primitive legend perpetuated by ignorant people and that time travel was the invention of fools and dreamers.
Then suddenly, all that had changed in a dreadful, inexplicable chain of events that shook the very foundations of her existence. Her fast-held beliefs, or rather disbeliefs, in such supernatural hogwash as time travel had been blown apart.
As had, it would seem, her determination to remain at a safe emotional distance from this man.
She was sorry he’d left, but grateful at the same time, for she didn’t trust herself at the moment, even though consciously she knew her feelings for Duncan sprang from their bizarre circumstances and nothing more. She was also glad to have some peace and some time alone. It gave her a chance to try to sort out what had happened to her and to consider what might happen next.
If she allowed herself to accept as reality that she had actually travelled through time, regardless of the horrific situation she seemed to have landed in, she should be making more of the experience than she was, professionally speaking. Instead of panicking and wanting only to find a means of escape, she should be taking better advantage of the opportunity to record this incredible adventure. When she somehow made her way back into her own time, and she would not allow herself to think otherwise, this would make a great movie.
Now that she had clear proof that some myths, such as the legend of the Ladysgate, had their basis in truth, she would have to give up Legends, Lore and Lunatics and put together another show. Or write a screenplay or a book. At the moment, she wasn’t certain what path her career would take after this. With a small stab of guilt, she considered the shows she had produced in the past and wondered if any of the legends she had taken so lightly, even poked fun at, had their basis of truth behind them as well?
She sighed. Too late to do anything about it now. Oddly, worrying about the future of her once all-consuming career seemed pointless to Taylor at the moment. First, she had to get back to that future.
Pauley stirred in his sleep, and she glanced at the boy. Now there was something important to think about. And the real dilemma she faced. If this unutterably pathetic child fled with them into the future, what responsibility would she have for his life? Unlike Duncan, she felt they had every right, even an obligation, to take him away from this awful place. He needed medical help. He would receive an education. In their time, he would be treated as a member of the human race instead of some unwanted animal.
Duncan’s reluctance to take him along made Taylor believe he wanted no part of helping the boy. Maybe it had to do with the deaths of his own children. It would be understandable if he did not want to get emotionally involved with another child. She wondered what had happened to his kids. And his wife. After his terse explanation that the children had been killed, he’d offered no further information about the circumstances, and she didn’t press him, sensing that his emotional wounds were still very raw.
But if Pauley went home with them, and if Duncan declined to be involved with the child, then his welfare would be up to Taylor. Was she ready for that responsibility?
The entire concept of motherhood was foreign to her.
And single motherhood, she’d observed from the lives of some of her friends, could be a nightmare.
But Taylor was not inclined to run out and find a daddy for the boy. Her entire adult life had been carefully planned and executed to insure her personal freedom. Her reaction to being unable to have a child had made her selfish in that way. She didn’t want to be tied down to a family.
Or at least she didn’t think so.
She weighed the idea for a moment and decided that the best option would be for her to find a loving family to adopt him. But looking upon the sleeping boy, her heart opened into a larger space than it had ever encompassed, and she knew that she’d passed the point of no return where he was concerned. Whether Duncan agreed with it or not, she would somehow convince Pauley to take her hand when they went through the gateway. She would deal with the consequences on the other side.
But would they make their escape that easily? She recalled with a shudder Greta’s tale about the woman who’d tried unsuccessfully to return through the Ladysgate and had been burned as a witch instead.
Or what if the tide rose sufficiently to float the boat, enabling them to go back through the structure, but on the other side it was still the seventeenth century? She wondered what sailors of that time would think of the modern power boat, and decided that it would scare them witless. They might be attacked with cannons, like in the days of old.
But then, she thought, unable to suppress an ironic grin, these were the days of old.
Another even more startling idea occurred to her. What if they went through and ended up in yet another time period?
She groaned. The very thought gave her a headache.
The most likely scenario, she decided, would be that they would not make good their escape before the threatened invasion by Cromwellian troops. What then?
They would have no choice but to take refuge in Dunnottar Castle. She grimaced at the thought of having to associate with the likes of Greta Fraser, and she was uncertain just how safe they would be. What if Greta decided to spread the rumor that Taylor was a witch? It was possible, especially if they showed up with Pauley.
Taylor tried to remember what Kenneth had reported about conditions at the castle. The governor, what was his name, Ogilvy, had said that food would be scarce…wait a minute!
Ogilvy.
Quickly, she reached for the zippered pouch which was slung over the back of the chair. Ogilvy. Wasn’t that the…? In the confusion of the events of the last two days, Taylor had completely forgotten about her meeting with Robert Gordon, and the photocopied letter in her bag.
By the light of the fire, she dumped the contents onto the cushion…camera, lipstick, hairbrush, the remaining candy mints, a small notepad, a ball point pen, and yes…there it was, the photocopy of the letter.
Her hands trembled slightly in excitement as she unfolded the paper. She made her way again through the cramped handwriting and strange spelling:
In this the Yeare of Our Lord Sixteen Fifty-Two—
To my Lady Keith, Countess Marischal,
‘Tis with great trepidation that I attempt to smuggle this message to you, for I am at extreme risk of revealing a secret not ken even to my husband, the Governor of Dunnottar and servant to your husband, the valiant Earl Marischal.
But the winter has been long and harsh, and food scarce, and our small regiment filled with complainte. With the coming of springe, we have been warned by our spies that the heavy English guns will be moved from Dundee to our very doorstep, and when we must endure the battering of these cannon alongside our hunger and discontent, God only knows how long we can sustain. My husband has been loyal in his pledge to the Earl Marischal to hold the Castle and the royal regalia for the King, but events are moving swiftly, and he must needs arrange for the removal the croun, suord and sceptre to a safer repository, for they will surely fall to the English if Cromwell’s troops penetrate the castle walls.
But ‘tis with another relic, a secret member of the Scottish regalia, that I treat with thee in this communication. When Mrs. Drummond, that brave dame, brought forth in safety and secrecy the Honours of Scotland from Stirling to Dunnottar, she also carried upon her person a fourth relic, the “Scottish Rose” she called it, and a diary and a letter written by Mary Queen of Scots, expressing her most fervent wish that the Scottish Rose become part of the royal regalia when strife ended and the warring factions in Scotland were united in peace. Alas, will that day ever come?
The Scottish Rose is a golden chalice shaped like a single rose and once studded round with rubies, although only one
now remains. The unfortunate Queen placed the cup in the safekeeping of her loyal serving women just before she was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. Descendants of these ladies have passed it down through the years, keeping it ever secret but within close proximity to its brother Honours.
Because of Queen Mary’s wish that it remain secret until peace and unity are achieved in our poor kingdome, I am not inclined to move the chalice to the new hiding place of the other Honours. Instead, I have taken measures to hide it deep within the belly of the castle rock.
I fear that all in the castle may die for protecting the Honours, but it is our duty to defend these sacred emblems of Scotland. I write you this in the event we are murdered by Cromwell’s men, so that a woman of virtue such as yourself will know of the existence of the Scottish Rose, and when the blessings of peace and unity come at last to our land, you, or your own representative, will find it and eventually install it in its rightful place alongside the croun, suord and sceptre.”
Your humble and loyal servant,
Elizabeth Douglas Ogilvy
“In the year of our Lord 1652,” Taylor repeated softly. Next year. Could it be? Could this letter supposedly written to her own ancestor not even have been penned yet? She went to the window and gazed out into the night, thinking about the story Robert Gordon had told her about Dunnottar Castle and the Honours of Scotland. And the letter’s referral to the Scottish Rose. Was that what lay ahead of her if they didn’t escape tomorrow?
Her fingers lingered momentarily on the camera, considering this story’s potential in the future. If indeed this was 1651, and Cromwell’s army was headed this way, then the Honours of Scotland were likely in the castle. Along with Queen Mary’s Scottish Rose, if Mrs. Ogilvy’s letter was for real. Taylor could hardly suppress the sudden excitement that thrilled through her. She wished Duncan were there to expand on the story, but decided she must be careful not to ask him about the Scottish Rose, since Mrs. Ogilvy had indicated that its existence was secret.
