by Laura Glenn
“I’m sorry.” Leah hoped he knew at least a little English. “But I don’t speak your language.”
What had been an expression of gratefulness faded into a dark expression as his cheek twitched. “You are English?”
She shook her head, nervousness knotting her stomach at the strange, negative shift in the man’s demeanor. At least she could speak with this guy. “No, I’m American.”
The man’s brow knitted together in confusion. He turned toward his companions who approached from behind. After a brief exchange, he faced Leah again.
“What is an ‘American’?”
Her mind fell silent. He couldn’t have just asked her what an American was, could he?
The other three men approached her, taking up positions to either side of the man with the beard and crossing their arms as they stared at her. She shifted her gaze to each man in growing apprehension. “You know, the United States. I’m from across the pond.”
“Across the pond?” He lifted his eyes up past her shoulder to the mountains just behind. “You are a Ruthven? But the Ruthvens do not speak English.”
Leah hesitated, blinking several times in mystification. Was he talking about the loch behind her? “No, the ocean,” she corrected, pointing in the opposite direction.
He rubbed his beard as he stared at her. “But there is nothing past the ocean. Who is your family?”
The uneasiness in her gut intensified. Since when did reenactors refuse to break character in an emergency? “My last name is Gunn.”
His eyes widened with recognition. “From up north near Thurso?”
She arched her eyebrows in surprise. “Well, that’s where my grandfather was from, but, like I said, I’m American.”
A flash of exasperation flew across his features. “What is your name?”
“Leah.”
“Are you alone here?”
She shifted her eyes from the men over to the women and children just behind them. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “Yes. I rented a house just up the hill.”
He turned toward a man with dark-blond hair to his right and spoke. The man shook his head and shrugged.
“There is no dwelling upon this small loch.”
“I was just there.”
The women and children moved forward, eying her with curiosity. The man she had been speaking with patted the head of the dark-haired little girl who grabbed his black tunic. He smiled down at her.
All right, maybe this guy wasn’t so bad. He was gentle and affectionate with the girl just as he had been with the woman and boy earlier. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”
He nodded and tucked the girl’s hair behind her ear. He motioned to the blond man to follow him. Leah pointed out the path up to the cabin and fell into step behind them, glancing over her shoulder now and then just to make certain no one snuck up behind her.
Wait. Where was her sweater? She paused along the shore to search for it.
“What is it, lass?”
“My sweater.” She had dropped it before diving into the loch.
“Sweater? What is that?”
Leah glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, resisting the urge to sigh her annoyance. Yeah, yeah. The word sweater originated in the nineteenth century and wouldn’t have been used in the medieval era. Whatever. “It’s like a shirt or a coat, but knitted out of yarn. Mine is a cream color.”
He nodded and called the other men over as well to join her in her search.
After several minutes, the man approached her empty-handed. “I am sorry, lass, but it appears to not be here.”
She hated giving up but nodded. It must have gotten dragged into the loch as she ran and became so waterlogged it sank or something. It wouldn’t have just disappeared into thin air.
The man started up the pathway leading up the hill and into the woods again. She fell into step behind him and thanked him for helping her to look for her sweater.
Her water-soaked jeans tightened across her thighs, chilling her skin as the cool, late summer breeze chased her. With every step deeper and deeper into the woods, however, disquieting thoughts plagued her. The trees somehow seemed older, the foliage denser, the path more rugged. A chill raced down her spine and she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
A strange warmth from her front pocket seeped into her right hip. She reached inside and her fingers wrapped around the pendant the old lady had given to her. It heated her palm and then chilled.
The dark-haired man stopped as he reached a clearing. “Is this the spot, lass?”
She stepped out from the trees, her hand brushing along a large stone. The mottled-gray color tugged at something within her memory. She lifted her eyes and froze as the two men stared back at her in earnest with nothing but a line of trees about twenty feet behind them.
The cabin was gone.
She stumbled toward the rock and braced against it. The cabin was right there just a half-hour ago. The rock and general terrain seemed accurate, but maybe she’d been confused. Maybe she’d led them the wrong way.
“As you can see, there is no house here, Leah.” The dark-haired man crossed his arms as he stopped within a few feet of her.
“This has to be the place. I was just here. But then I went down to the loch and met this old woman. And she…”
The stone warmed in her hand again. She opened her fingers, allowing it to rest upon her upturned palm, and it glowed for a brief second. As soon as she gasped, the light dulled.
The man’s eyebrows arched in a mixture of wonder and suspicion as he made the sign of the cross. Had he seen it glowing too?
“May I, lass?”
She nodded and he lifted the pendant from her hand. He held it up before him, twisting it around as he studied it.
“Did the old woman give this to you?”
She swallowed the fear creeping up her throat and nodded.
His lips thinned with tension and a glint of knowledge flashed in his eyes. “You have no family here? Not even up in Thurso?”
“No. I am just a visitor.”
A wisp of sympathy passed across his features as the trepidation eased from his shoulders. “You saved my son. Come with me and I will find a place for you.”
Her eyes widened. “What are you talking about? I’m sure the house is here somewhere. I must have led you the wrong way.”
He held up his hand as though to command her silence and, much to her annoyance, it worked. She bit her lower lip.
“You need help, Leah. Let me repay you. Rest assured you will be taken care of if you come with me.”
Her stomach churned. This was all too weird. Was she missing something? “Who are you exactly?”
He enclosed the stone in his fist and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am David, Mormaer of Carron.”
Mormaer?
She’d been fascinated by Scottish history for most of her life, especially the medieval period. Early in the Middle Ages, a Scottish mormaer was most likely the Gaelic equivalent of what the English called an earl. As such, if this man were a mormaer, he would control a vast amount of territory, answering only to the king.
But that wasn’t possible. First of all, no one used that title any longer and, second…
Second, nothing. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. She would not let this weirdo reenactor, who couldn’t bother to break character long enough to even utter the word “sweater”, suggest she’d lost her mind. “Look, I’m happy to have helped your little boy, but I don’t need rescuing. I’m sure the house is here somewhere.”
David pressed his lips together and nodded. “Well, then, lass, I wish you luck. Know I am forever indebted to you and am always at your assistance. You only need to send word.” He stretched his arm out and opened his palm for her to take the amber stone. “Here. You will eventually need this.”
He crooked his finger at his friend who shook his head in seeming disbelief as they passed her
and stepped back onto the trail.
Panicked, Leah gripped the stone in her hand and stared after the men. “Wait!”
David turned, his eyebrows raised.
“What do you mean I’ll eventually need this?”
He gave her a sympathetic smile. “You are on Graham land, lass. Everyone knows about that old witch and her stones.”
Witch? Stones? She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. This whole medieval fantasy bit was getting old. “You’re telling me this stone is the reason my house is no longer here?”
He shrugged. “Either that or you are a wee bit daft and what I should be doing is delivering you to the convent on the other side of the loch so the sisters there may care for you until your family arrives.”
If anyone was the crazy nut job, it was this guy. She loved history too, but he was taking it to a whole new level of obsession. And there was no way in hell she was going anywhere with these people. They could be part of some crazed cult. “I am not insane.”
David crossed his arms and perched one black-leather-clad foot upon a rock at the side of the pathway. “You do not strike me as daft, no. But I can conceive of no other explanation. Either you have been the victim of black magic or you are touched in the head.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but then her gaze was drawn back to his boots. Like the old woman’s earlier, they struck her as handmade. A simple leather sole covered the bottom and several laces wrapped around his ankle. They bore a striking resemblance to those in the historic costume books she would check out from the library when she was a kid.
This guy was hardcore. He probably had made the shoes himself in his spare time between his work as a computer programmer and traveling to reenactment gigs. She gave him credit for his unwavering dedication to his hobby.
But right now she needed help. Not a weekend of playing the part of a medieval maiden in distress with a bunch of crazy strangers until they deemed it was time to return to the real world. “Would you please drop the act for just one minute? I promise I won’t tell any of your reenactor friends you broke character. I need to talk to the twenty-first century David right now.”
He drew his brows together. “Twenty-first century?”
“Yeah, twenty-first century. Now do you have a phone or something I can borrow? Or even a car to take me back into Fannich?”
“What is this ‘phone’ or ‘car’ of which you speak?”
An urge to scream her rage into the forest rushed through her but then stopped short at the bewilderment in his eyes. She stared back at him, hunting for any sign of playacting.
“Will you come with me now, lass? You are soaking wet and likely to catch your death out here like this. Your secret will be safe with me. I swear it.”
“My secret?”
“That you are not of this world.”
A lump of apprehension lodged itself in her throat. “What makes you say that?”
The stone warmed in her hand as a cool breeze from the north penetrated the cover of the trees and swirled around her.
He smiled, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “I know of another like you.”
The chill from her wet clothing seeped into her bones and she shifted in growing discomfort, wriggling her tingling toes against the soggy soles of her shoes. She’d had enough of his game. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m sure the house is here somewhere.”
“As you wish, lass. My wife and I will pray for your safe return to your family.”
David turned his back on her, motioning for his man to follow, and they disappeared into the woods.
She glanced over her shoulder, hoping the cabin had poofed back into existence.
Nope.
She chewed on her bottom lip as she turned to inspect the rock again. Everything looked the same in the dimming light, however, right down to the orientation of its craggy face and the speckled black-and-white pattern.
She eased to the ground. None of this made any sense. She was not a bubblehead. She’d always had a great sense of direction and had studied countless maps of the places she was going to visit here in Scotland. Was she just jet-lagged? She had no clue since she’d never flown anywhere outside the States before.
She drew her knees up to her chest for warmth and her stomach rumbled. Tears stung her tired eyes as she pulled the woolen blanket around herself like a cocoon. An owl pierced the silence of the woods with a loud hoot and she jumped.
Shrinking back, she cursed herself for ever thinking what she wanted was an adventure. She should have listened to her sister, pushed aside her paralyzing shyness around men, and asked the cute cabbie to join her for a bite to eat in the village pub instead of wandering down to the loch when she was still so loopy from the flight and lack of sleep. At least she would have been under a roof right then instead of cold and hungry in the woods.
The crunch of sticks crackled across the clearing. Not daring to move, Leah bit her lower lip and peered around the perimeter of the woods. Her heart thudded in an erratic rhythm. Was it a wild animal? Or another human?
Oh, please, please, please have a cell phone…
Then the blond man who had accompanied David emerged from the thick foliage about twenty feet away. He nodded at her and crossed his arms as he leaned against a gnarled old oak at the edge of the clearing.
Her shoulders slumped. Well, at least she wasn’t alone. She smoothed her thumb over one of the amber stone’s facets. Should she say something? Maybe without David, the reenactor from hell, hanging about, this guy would be more willing to help her.
“Excuse me, but do you have a phone on you?” she shouted, her nerves rattling her voice. “I can reimburse you for any charges.”
He stared and then threw unintelligible words at her.
She forced a tight-lipped smile onto her face and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I got it,” she mumbled as she shifted her back against the rock. “You don’t understand me because you live in a fantasy novel every weekend and speak nothing but Elvish.”
Neither spoke again as the sun fell below the horizon, sending the clearing into darkness. Leah fought to keep her eyes open, but her heavy lids won out. Surely, she was safe enough with this guy watching her from some distance away. If he’d wanted to attack her, he would have done so already since they were alone. With just a little sleep, she could make her way to the main road and flag down help in the morning.
* * * * *
Arms slipped under her knees and around her back. She shivered, her eyelids fluttering open halfway. And then she was surrounded by warmth. She sighed and curled toward the warm body now holding her as it rose. Swayed back and forth, she was lulled again toward sleep.
Chapter Two
Highlands of Scotland, 1218
“Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq,” little six-year-old Glenna counted as she held up her chubby fingers one at a time.
Leah smiled and nodded. She held up her own thumb and raised her eyebrows, encouraging her to continue.
“Six, sept, huit…” The girl screwed up her face.
“Neuf,” Leah reminded her.
“Neuf, dix!” Glenna hopped on the bed like a bunny, her dark hair bouncing around her head.
Leah laughed. “Oui, trés bien.”
Glenna’s name was called from the doorway. Leah smiled in greeting as the children’s nurse, Ina, stepped into Leah’s chamber and spoke to the girl in Scottish Gaelic. Glenna hopped off the bed and threw herself into the woman’s arms, eliciting a girlish giggle from the matronly woman.
The woman smiled at Leah and inclined her head before guiding Glenna out into the hallway.
Glenna waved. “Au revoir, mademoiselle!”
Leah plopped her chin onto her upturned palms as she lay on her stomach across the mattress of her bed. Well, that is if one could call a rectangular object stuffed with straw a “mattress”.
Nearly two weeks had already passed since John, the blond man, had carried her to Graham Castle where David and his family had been staying. One mi
nute she was fighting sleep and the next she was awaking in the middle of a bed with David’s wife, Mary, by her side. The amber-colored pendant the old woman had placed in Leah’s hand, however, was gone.
She must have dropped it somewhere along the way. But she’d had little time to think much about it once David told her the current year was 1218.
1218.
How was such a thing even possible?
Within hours, Leah was whisked into a carriage along with David’s children and Ina as they set out for home. The long journey east seemed like nothing more than an eerily realistic dream at first. Rolling, ethereally green hills and craggy mountains surrounded them. Unable to speak Gaelic, which was the main language of everyone in the mormaer’s retinue, she could do little more than passively take in the surreal scenes of simply dressed peasants in the fields as they harvested or tended to herds of cattle. So many questions had whirled through her head.
Once David discovered Leah was almost fluent in French and could read and write in Latin, however, she had had little time to concentrate on learning their native tongue. If she was not interpreting documents or writing something in Latin for him, she was teaching his children French. At first, she was happy for the distraction—even if it did mean she was living a surreal medieval version of Mary Poppins.
But now the reality of her day-to-day life sat upon her like a lead weight. She awakened each day to the moos and baying of livestock, the laughter of children, and clashing of swords along with smells of roasting meat and infrequently washed bodies. Not to mention the chamber pot in the corner of the room in which she slept. The constant questions of how something like this could have happened, how she could have ended up eight hundred years in the past, and what her mother and sister would do when she didn’t come home plagued her. David knew more than he was letting on, especially after alluding to this other person “like her” when they first met, but he always turned down her requests for additional details. All he would say was she was the wife of some clan chieftain he knew. No matter how much she pleaded, he refused to take her back to Fannich to search for the pendant.
