by L. L. Muir
“You may walk above, along the battlements if you like.”
Jillian bit her lip, then released it, frowning. “Alone?”
“Nay. I’ll escort you.”
“Good. I mean, thank you.” She raised her chin. “That would be great.”`
Was she afraid? For a certainty she was stubborn. Did he dare hope she was lonely?
“Unless you’d rather be on your own, Jillian.” Monty shrugged and looked to the fire behind her. “If you’re partial to solitude -- ”
“No! No, I’m not. I mean, thanks, but that’s all right. You can tag along.” Her gaze fell to her fingers as they smoothed at a knot in the table’s surface. “Just in case...just in case I get lost or something.”
Not for the first time, he supposed he should have fostered some border lads, to keep a better ken of the oddities of the English tongue. She wanted him along. He understood that. This tagging business might prove to be something pleasant, surely not something she would allow just any man to do.
Now she was staring at his knee. Her hand twitched, as if she were tempted to touch it -- as she’d touched his chest earlier. Did she want convincing he was real? Odd. Whenever she was out of his sight, he’d been hard pressed to believe the same of her.
She snatched her hands back to her lap, the coward.
His chest began to swell of its own accord, but he contained it, along with swelling in other parts of himself. She pretended indifference; he would as well.
Monty’s home seemed to move beneath him a bit.
His breathing had faultered, he realized. One great breath and his vision steadied. The next deep breath was filled with the scent of fire-warmed Jillian and he pulled it in, reluctant to let it escape, wanting it on his tongue as long as it was there for the tasting.
Did she crush blossoms beneath her very arms?
Get a hold of yerself, mon, or you’ll be falling at her silly green feet.
Monty mounted the stairs behind her, amused at the way she would hurry ahead of him, as if she thought shaking her rump a wee bit faster might discourage him in some way. He’d have killed anyone for dressing his future daughters in trews, but at the moment, they were a blessing to behold. She must be a poor lass indeed to be wearing such worn clothing. She obviously knew not how to ply a needle enough to mend it. The strange blue fabric had holes in mighty odd places and he caught himself watching for the sunny patches of skin that could be seen now and again when she stepped just so. Her knee was especially enchanting. Her thigh he had to ignore or go mad.
She spun on him, catching him mid-grin and none too happy about it.
“Must you follow so closely?”
He answered with another grin. At least she’d lowered her voice as they were now upon the battlements and their voices would carry in the misty darkness.
She huffed her frustration out through her nose, pushing away a thin wisp of earthly cloud that had boldly climbed high this night. When her eyes widened and her cheeks pillowed into a smile, he knew he was in for something devious.
“If you are going to walk so close, you must tell me about Ivar MacKay.”
He did some snorting of his own. That man’s name had been too much in his dealings this day and he was wont to be rid of it.
“No.”
“Then you can’t walk with me.”
Foolish lass. He’d do as he pleased.
He reached over and took her hand, linking it in his elbow as he turned and headed down the wall walk. She would have to stroll with him or surrender her limb. Thankfully, she understood and trotted along next to him until he slowed.
“Did you know him well?”
Ah, she hadn’t understood at all. But what harm would be done in talking a wee while? At least neither Morna, Isobelle, nor Ivar himself were here to argue the details with him.
“He was as a brother to me.”
Her free hand clasped around his upper arm, as far as the wee thing could reach, in a gesture that was pure sympathy.
“I’m so sorry. How awful for you.”
She peeled her hand from him and blushed before turning to look out upon the clouds building slowly beneath them, removing them from the world he knew. If his clansmen looked up, they would detect nothing above the wall. With her dark hair, she nearly blended into the blackness so well she could neatly get away from him if he didn’t watch closely.
“When they tell the story, in the future mind you, they say Ivar and Morna were separated because of her duty to marry a Gordon.”
“And they’d be right.” He didn’t bother stopping her from speaking her mad little mind. Future indeed. But he was in no mood for further fashing tonight. His senses were centered on the steps they would take when they went back inside. He knew she would go to his bedchamber; it was where she had slept before. He would tell her just whose bed it was after they were both in it.
“In the f…where I come from, there is a story, a tragedy really, called ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ It is the tale of two young people who fall in love, only they come from feuding families. There are a whole bunch of complications, but they manage to marry secretly. Then, when they are forced apart, they decide to die rather than live without each other.”
A daft woman from a daft place if they told such tales.
“A silly story. What man would kill himself for a woman’s sake? If he were much of a man, he could always find another. The woman must have turned his head, tricked him into it.”
“That is beside the point.” She slipped from his grasp, but only to place both hands on her delightful hips.
“So, you admit she tricked him into taking his life?” He loved it when she got her ire up. Apparently, she was partial to her silly story.
“She did n...well, she...there was a misunderstanding.”
“Ummm.”
“That’s not the point. The point is, they were so madly in love with each other it was a tragedy to keep them apart and it ended badly.”
“Madly in love.” He’d stressed the ‘madly’.
“Oh, you big oaf. I’m sure you have no idea what it is like to be madly...deeply in love with someone. Surely you don’t feel strongly about that widow woman.”
“I’ll not speak of it with you. What I have or have not experienced is no’ your concern.”
It was all he could do to keep from grinning. The poor lass was being eaten alive with jealousy. A fight between her and the widow would be something to see. Too bad Jillian was not to be seen at all.
“Can’t you understand?” she whined in a seductively low voice. “That is just the problem. If you had known real love you couldn’t possibly have kept Romeo and Juliet -- I mean, Ivar and Morna -- apart.”
He started walking again, alone.
She wasn’t jealous at all. She was plotting against him. The latter was infuriating. The former was like a bucket of Highland spring water poured over his head.
“Off to bed with you now.” He turned and stomped toward her.
She nearly started out of her skin.
Good.
“We’ll speak no more of your silly story, or of your treacherous family. You will sleep in my chamber. I’ll sleep in the other. And if you are not there come the rise of the sun, I’ll hunt you and Ivar MacKay down before e’er it sets again.”
And so saying, he strode past her, determined to clear his mind of former friends, sisters, and a wee visitor he should have left for dead in Isobelle’s tomb.
* * *
Jilly could kick herself. She’d done it again, said the wrong thing. And now her allotted time outside was going to be cut short.
“Wait. Please.” Jilly kept her voice low, but with the thick mist in the air, it carried to him easily enough, because he turned. Then he crossed his arms and waited, for an apology, no doubt. “I don’t want to go in just yet.”
His arms uncrossed and he walked back to her.
“And I don’t want to be up here alone. Would you mind sticking around?” She b
it her lip.
“You use the oddest words to ask me to stay.” He walked over to the wall and leaned out between two merlons.
The gap was wide enough for two, so Jilly lifted herself up and leaned on her elbows beside him. He didn’t seem to mind or notice how tight the fit.
“Is it always this foggy?”
“What have frogs to do with the mist?”
“Not frogs.” She laughed. “Fog.”
He chuckled. “I ken what you meant, lass. It was a poor jest.”
He kept his gaze forward while he spoke, so she copied him.
“So? Is it always this misty at night?”
“Nay, some nights it is oddly clear.”
She shivered, and without looking at her, he snaked his arm about her shoulders and they instantly fit better.
Good Lord, there was something more effective than leather!
She struggled to act nonchalant. He never noticed a thing.
Apparently they’d discussed the weather and there was nothing else to talk about. She would have killed for a topic to broach. Maybe she could cover the weather again.
“This is weird. Your whole clan could be gathered down there and you would never know it.”
“Aye. It is usually like this.”
He’d said that already. Was he not even paying attention to their conversation? He sounded a bit distracted.
“If the mist were gone, if the sun were bright as the nooning hour, and my entire clan laid out before me, it would feel like this, like something stands between us; they on one side and myself, alone, on the other.”
Jillian didn’t want to break the spell -- poor choice of words. She’d never peg him for a sentimental kind of guy. Maybe he was just trying to explain how it was lonely at the top.
“Is it because you are their leader that you feel so separate?”
“Nay, Jillian. After the events of the year past, they see me as a monster, aye?”
Whoa. He had her there. Surely she hadn’t called him Laird Monster to his face.
She shifted uncomfortably, but he didn’t move his arm.
“I see you believe me to be the same.” He turned and looked at her briefly, nearly begging her to deny it, but before she could, he had turned back to look out once more on the white sea.
“If it is any consolation, you are not remembered that way.” She breathed deeply, making a memory of the smell of him.
“And how, in the fae future, am I remembered?”
“Well, you live quite a long time.” She hoped that would cheer him out of the melancholy that surely the fog had brought on. “And you get credit for tons of renovations on your castle, but I see you haven’t done those yet.”
He suddenly straightened and removed his arm, leaving her far too chilled to be attributed to the temperature. He cleared his throat, but made no move to turn away.
She was suddenly very scared of what he was going to ask.
“And...children? Do I have any children?”
She couldn’t bear to tell him the truth and she suspected he wouldn’t be able to bear hearing it.
“I don’t know about that.” She sounded a little bit breezy, so she tried to tone it down. “I was just told about things that pertained to the castle, and to the prophesy.”
He relaxed, but remained aloof, and she was struck by the feeling that Montgomery Constantine Ross was as tragically lonely as one Jillian Rose MacKay. Even with her standing within a foot of him, he was on an island. And knowing how lonely he was destined to remain pissed her off big time. If at the end of all this, she was able to change just a smidgen of history, it would be for this man to find someone to love.
She didn’t want him to find this woman until after she was out of the picture, of course. But surely there was no harm in wanting a handsome, brawny Highlander to herself for a little while.
At least until she pissed him off again, which doing her duty here was bound to do.
“Maybe I was more tired than I thought, Laird Ross.”
“As am I, lass. But I meant what I said.”
“And what was that?”
He raised his eyebrows innocently, then worked his bare hand up behind her head as he’d done once before. She was cool, casual, and didn’t so much as smile as he bent to kiss her.
The jealous mist swirled around them, between their cheeks and noses, demanding attention she didn’t have to give. She couldn’t feel her feet, or the ground beneath them. She was blissfully aware of his hands, of his chest beneath her fingers, of each breath he took against her face. And when he exhaled, her cheek felt covered with peach fuzz.
If she found herself on the top of some spire when she opened her eyes, she would not be surprised, nor would she care.
He pulled back enough to speak, but pressed his forehead to hers.
“If you’re not here come morning, you and your conspirators, whoever they be, will die by my newly sharpened blade.”
Fully alert now, Jillian knew one thing and one thing only as she marched back to the bedchamber she’d been assigned: she would be damned if she would be there in the morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It had to be midnight, but thankfully, Jilly felt recovered from her little adventure in the tomb. Time travel, it seemed, did not come with jet lag.
Rumaging silently through trunks with only the light of one candle to help her, it took a long time for Jillian to find what she was looking for. Finally, one square of wool plaid unfolded into something besides yards of material.
A dress. Of sorts. Remembering the blue gowns of the Muir sisters, she realized she needed something to wear beneath it and her own t-shirt wouldn’t do, so she kept digging.
If the man owned a chest of drawers he could keep this crap better organized. Two old slippers were found, but not together, of course. In fact, they’d been in two different trunks.
Didn’t any women clean up in here?
Judging from the stiffness of the skirt, whoever wore this one did so long ago. She would have liked to see if Isobelle had been her size, but in all likelihood a grumpy ogre of a man currently inhabited the sister’s room, one who would get even grumpier if he caught her planning her escape. The old stuff would have to do.
The slippers fit only because they stretched. If Cinderella would have lived in this century, she would have lost her prince as it looked like this woman’s feet couldn’t have been bigger than a five. A five that stretched to an eight, thank goodness.
No undergarments were found. No blouse-like concoction to wear beneath the dress that was not only sleeveless, but open from shoulder to waist. Her t-shirt would have to do after all, but thankfully, she had also found a brown cloak with a hood. She could conceal the flaws of her costume nicely.
No mirror. Of course not. It was probably best the man not know how incredible he looked. But then again, he probably did know. Widow What’s-her-face probably told him all the time.
Well, she could have him. Jillian, as proxy for Isobelle’s ghost, had been invited to leave, so that was what she was doing. She hoped he and his Sorcha would be very happy together.
But they wouldn’t be, would they?
She remembered him blaming her for ruining his wedding, but she had never asked how. He didn’t seem to be too broken up about it, after all. And if he really believed women were interchangeable, she certainly wouldn’t be the cause of his melancholy. Something much more than a broken heart was headed his way and she pitied him.
A kiss and a threat in the same breath? I don’t think so.
There was nothing she could do about it -- nothing she should do about it. Even if she had never seen a Micheal J. Fox movie, she would know, somehow, that she shouldn’t mess with history.
Montgomery Constantine would have to be sad. It was his destiny.
But Ivar and Morna had disappeared from history’s pages. Ivar had no sons, no daughters. Never married, never led his clan in battle or anything else, or so the modern sisters had told
her. With all that time on their hands, scoping out possible torque models while volunteering at a genealogical library, surely they would know.
Morna had married a son of the Gordon’s laird, but they had no children. Cinead Gordon, however, married another woman two years after his first marriage, and had half a dozen daughters. Morna supposedly died of a broken heart. If they staged her death, made it look like she jumped off a cliff or something, history would go on, uninterrupted.
Knowing all this beforehand, Lorraine and Loretta were right to expect the lovers to join them in the tomb. Did they also know Jillian would have to go back for them? At least the guy in that one movie went back with appropriate clothing, not sporting lime-green-ostrich-skin-cowboy boots, a leather jacket, not-so-Lucky jeans and a souvenir t-shirt plugging a band called “Swagger.”
Thankfully, the bib of the dress covered “Swagger.”
The hem hit her mid calf, but there was nothing she could do about it. The slippers only stretched because they, too, were made of wool; if they got wet, she’d end up with size five feet the hard way. And the cloak must be Laird Bloody Monster’s because the excess more than made up for the shortness of the dress.
Who cared? Surely there were no fashion police in fifteenth century Scotland.
The great thing about stone steps was they didn’t squeak when tread on. With her boots, jacket, and jeans stuffed into a cool leather pouch, Jilly crept down the stairs and headed in the opposite direction of the hall. She had yet to see it, but there had to be a back door somewhere. Hopefully it was as well greased as the massive slab that served as the front entrance.
She bumped into the wall, then edged along until she found the door. Without the later additions to the castle, there really wasn’t much to the back of it, and it was disturbing that the passages through which she’d been creeping with Lorraine and Loretta had disappeared completely.
Days ago?
One day in the tomb. One day out. Two then. Ages…
The back door was well greased. Too bad someone was waiting for her.
