Stranded By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 2

by Preston, Rebecca

  So she tucked herself up in bed, and quickly lost herself to a pleasant mid-morning nap.

  Chapter 17

  Her sleep wasn’t troubled, exactly, but it was restless. Something about sleeping during the day had never quite agreed with her. Her body tended to be up and running once she was awake, and though she could feel that the lingering effects of the illness had made a bit of extra sleep a valuable necessity, her mind was still restless. So it was that when there was a gentle knocking at her door around midday, she sat up readily, bleary-eyed but already mostly awake.

  She was expecting Anna, or Maeve — the two women had been her principle nursemaids during her long illness — so when the door swung open to reveal a slightly hesitant-looking Malcolm, her eyes widened. Immediately, her hands flew to her hair to check the level of bird-nest energy, and she groaned aloud to find a complex combination of knots.

  “I’m not decent,” she said, laughing, and Malcolm chuckled as he stepped into the room.

  “You’re a vision,” he said sincerely, sketching her a little bow. “Magnificent, truly.”

  “Being in bed for three days doesn’t exactly do wonders for a girl’s appearance,” she mumbled, combing through her hair with her fingertips. She’d always loved her hair, an inheritance from her naturally platinum-blonde mother — though her own hair had a more sunshiney, golden tone to it. The problem, of course, was that it was very fine, and tangled easily. She kept it shoulder-length or shorter as a general rule — longer hair could be a hazard when you were diving — but that gave it plenty of room to get furiously tangled at any opportunity.

  “You look fine, honestly. How are you feeling?”

  “Better today,” she explained, sitting up a little more and settling the blankets around her waist. At least she was fully dressed, having ventured out earlier that morning. The previous few days she’d spent in the shapeless linen nightgown… the least flattering garment she’d ever encountered in all her life, but it was soft and comfortable. Today, she was wearing a tunic that fit her athletic frame quite nicely. It felt important, somehow, that she look her best around Malcolm. Why is that? she wondered suddenly. She’d had no problem with looking like she was wearing a flour sack around Anna, or Maeve…

  “Good to hear. I’ve brought you some stew, anyway,” he said, and she realized that he’d brought a bowl with him, covered with a cloth. He set it down on her bedside table and she inhaled deeply, smiling in appreciation. “A hearty meal always makes me feel better when I’m under the weather.”

  “I doubt you’ve ever fallen ill in your life, a strapping man like you,” she said archly, raising an eyebrow, and he grinned, his eyes flicking downwards.

  Was that the hint of a blush on his features? Did Malcolm Grant not receive many compliments? Interesting. She’d assume a man like him would have no shortage of young woman pining after him.

  “Oh, I’ve had my moments,” he admitted. “Mam always scolds me for not taking it easy when I fall sick, though.”

  She laughed. “That does sound like Maeve. I went for a bit of a walk this morning as I was feeling better, and she was very strict about the whole affair.”

  “You must let yourself heal!” Malcolm intoned, lifting his voice slightly in an eerily accurate impersonation of his mother.

  Nancy clapped her hands over her mouth, giggling. “That’s spooky!”

  “It’s an impression I’ve been working on for some time,” he said grandly, taking the wooden chair from the table in the room and sitting by her bedside.

  “Time well spent. Has Maeve ever heard it?”

  “I don’t have a death wish, Nancy,” Malcolm objected, grinning. She quite liked the sound of her name in his lilting accent. “She’s a gracious woman but she’d tan my hide if she knew I was making fun of her.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me,” Nancy said. “As thanks for the stew.” Her stomach was grumbling — the smell of the meal had well and truly woken up her appetite, and she reached out to pick up the bowl and spoon Malcolm had brought with him. It was delicious — it had that ineffable quality that home-cooked meals tended to have, where it felt like it was healing her from within.

  “How was your walk?” Malcolm inquired politely as she ate. “Good to know you’re well enough to move about.”

  “I didn’t get too far,” she admitted regretfully around a mouthful of deliciously soft meat. “Only around this floor then back to bed. Still mending, I think. But I saw a few of the girls, caught up on the local gossip.”

  Malcolm raised an eyebrow. “Oh, aye?”

  “Aye,” she echoed, grinning. “Amelia and Emily, a couple of the girls who work in the kitchens, were telling me about what’s going on in the village.”

  “Oh,” Malcolm said, an odd expression on his face. “You and Amelia are friends, then?”

  “I suppose so. I mean, I don’t know her that well yet, but I like her. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing.” But there was a suspicious look on Malcolm’s face.

  Nancy leaned in closer, scrutinizing him.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. Just…” He hesitated, and he was definitely blushing. “Don’t let on, but she and I… have a little bit of history.”

  Nancy’s eyes widened. “What kind of history?” God, she’d suspected he’d had his fair share of interest from the fairer sex, but she hadn’t though that that extended to her new friends among the castle staff.

  “I suppose — a romantic history. Nothing serious,” he added hastily. “We just… spent a little time together. She broke it off when she started courting a chap from the village,” he added.

  Nancy giggled despite herself. “What a heartbreaker.”

  “It wasn’t anything serious,” he said again, emphatically. “I just… well, I didn’t want you to hear anything from anyone else. Seeing as you’re so immersed in the local gossip already,” he added, raising an eyebrow at her.

  “You make me sound like some kind of spymaster,” Nancy said, grinning. “Good for Amelia.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, courting a handsome, eligible man like you… she’s doing pretty well for herself, I’d say.”

  That was definitely a blush on Malcolm’s face. “Handsome, is it?”

  Now it was her turn to flush a little. “Well. I’m no expert, of course, on standards of attractiveness in seventeenth-century Scotland, but to the untrained eye you’re pretty okay-looking.”

  He was laughing now, and she joined him, glad for the tension to be broken. “Wow. You give quite a compliment, Nancy.”

  “I speak only truth,” she said, taking another spoonful of stew.

  “What were you saying about the village?” he asked. “You said the women were talking about something going on?”

  “Oh, just the food thefts.”

  He looked blank, and she realized that she knew something he didn’t about the castle and its surrounds. That felt good — like she was finally beginning to find a place here.

  “They were saying that a few people’s larders have been broken into, food taken, messes left. That kind of thing.”

  “Vermin, or something?”

  “That’s what I thought, but apparently the local cats haven’t been bringing home any more kills than usual. Amelia thought it might be local lads playing a joke or something. I thought it might be faeries,” Nancy added, half-joking, but Malcolm just looked thoughtful, as though she’d suggested something perfectly reasonable. She supposed she had. What a strange turn her little life had taken.

  “I’ll look into it,” he said. “Always worth finding out what’s going on when it comes to food supplies. Is it alright if I tell Donal?”

  Nancy shrugged. “I don’t think it was privileged information. What will Donal do about it?”

  “Send some men to investigate, probably. We check in fairly regularly with the village folk, for all that they don’t have much faith in what we do here these days.”

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nbsp; Nancy tilted her head, confused. “Why’s that?”

  “Mainly because Donal and the Laird before him did too good a job.” Malcolm chuckled. “There’s been so little contact with anything clearly Fae in origin that a lot of the villagers have come around to the opinion that the Fae — Seelie or Unseelie — are just an old wives’ tale. And as a result, they resent us for our presence here, and the support we need from them.” He sighed. “It’s a balancing act, maintaining their loyalties. That’s why we make sure we do as much as we can to help even with mundane problems like vermin. We have to earn our keep.”

  Nancy thought of the ember-eyed wolf that Maeve had talked about earlier — the creature twice the size of a regular wolf who’d nearly killed Anna and a group of the servants. “But you more than earn your keep.”

  “Tell the villagers that.” He grinned. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to your rest.”

  “Let me know what Donal says about the food thefts,” Nancy said, sitting up a little more as Malcolm got to his feet. “If there’s anything I can do to help…”

  “Getting well is your primary responsibility, Nancy Kane,” he said solemnly.

  She couldn’t help but giggle at how much like his mother he sounded. “Thanks for the company, Malcolm,” she said, smiling.

  “The pleasure was all mine.” He sketched a formal little bow to her, only half-joking, before he left.

  She found she couldn’t stop smiling, for some reason — her heart beating harder than it usually did. Why had he been so eager to make it clear that his dalliance with Amelia was over, and that it hadn’t been serious? she wondered. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn it had something to do with him wanting her to know he was available…

  Those thoughts were disrupted by another knock on her door. She sat up again, blushing a little as she chased those thoughts away — and in came Anna, moving deliberately quietly as if she was trying not to wake Nancy.

  “Oh! You’re up.”

  “I’m sort of up,” Nancy agreed, gesturing downwards. “I’ve been up. I’m up-ish.”

  “And someone’s brought you lunch, I see,” Anna said briskly, nodding to the empty stew bowl that was sitting on Nancy’s bedside table. “That’s good. Lots of food will speed the process. How are you doing?”

  “Better today, but not a hundred percent yet,” Nancy said. “Malcolm brought me some stew.”

  Anna raised an eyebrow as she took the seat Malcolm had so recently vacated. “Oh, he did, did he?”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “Well, I’m not surprised,” Anna said thoughtfully, her eyes gleaming. “He’s rather taken with you.”

  “What? No he’s not.” She could feel a blush rising in her cheeks, and a Cheshire cat grin spread across Anna’s face. “He’s just being friendly!”

  “Oh, sure,” Anna said innocently. She glanced sideways at Nancy. “Are you not interested?”

  Nancy took a breath, not sure how to answer that. “Um. Well. I’m not… not interested.”

  “Interesting.” The woman’s eyes were glowing like Maeve’s. “Very interesting.”

  “It’s just that I don’t have a particularly good track record with… anything romantic at all,” she admitted, twisting at the sheets of the bed. “And I wouldn’t want to make things awkward.”

  “I had a pretty bad track record myself,” Anna said, grinning. “Did I ever tell you about why the Fae brought me back here?”

  “To help with the witch-hunters, right?” Nancy had heard a few stories about the unpleasant band of mercenaries who’d tried to lead an assault on the castle. But Anna was shaking her head.

  “That’s why they brought me here. But they took me away from my home because my ex-boyfriend was coming to my house to kill me.”

  “Oh my God,” Nancy breathed, aghast. “That’s horrible.”

  “They take people who would’ve been dead in their own time, it seems,” Anna said, shrugging. “Doesn’t bother me. I’m here now, and I’ve got so much more to look forward to than I ever did back there.” Her hand ghosted across the gentle rise of her belly. “Anyway, the moral of the story is — you’re not the only one with a bad romantic history. Doesn’t mean there’s no hope for the future.”

  “I guess so,” Nancy said. “I don’t know much about him…”

  “Well, get to know him,” Anna suggested, smiling. “Seems like you’ve made a good start on that already, him bringing you lunch and everything. He’s a good man,” she said. “Donal wouldn’t make just anyone his second-in-command even if Malcolm is his brother of sorts. He’s thoughtful, careful… more so than Donal, most of the time,” she snorted. “Impulsive idiot I married. He’s incredible with a bow, too. Get him to show you his trick shots sometime.”

  “Wow,” Nancy said. “I can’t even throw a ball to another person without missing horribly.”

  “Spend more time with him, that’s what I think,” Anna said. “Once you’re all mended, that is. I’m sure Maeve’s given you plenty of threats about not pushing yourself to recover too quickly?”

  “Plenty.” Nancy grinned.

  “Good. Then I won’t hassle you any further.”

  They spent another half-hour or so chatting before Nancy started to get sleepy again. Anna excused herself, moving quietly out of the room, and Nancy found herself falling into a pleasant doze. She couldn’t get what Anna had said out of her mind. Malcolm was handsome, kind, funny, good to talk to… but was it really wise to let herself develop feelings for someone, especially when she was so new to all of this?

  Chapter 18

  She spent most of the afternoon asleep. It seemed to be just what she needed… some combination of the stew, the good company, and a nice long nap seemed to have chased a lot more of the illness away when she woke up, fuzzy but much clearer in the head than she had been for days. The sun was beginning to set, and there was a pleasant orange glow coming in through her narrow window — she peered out across the waters of the Loch, still cozy and warm wrapped in the bedclothes.

  What a beautiful sight it is, she thought to herself, a soft smile on her face. The dark waters, lightly touched by the sunlight that shone down over the lake and warmed the stone walls of the castle. She watched as the sun went down, scanning the surface of the dark water in search of the Loch Ness Monster she’d encountered so briefly. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about the creature since she’d arrived, actually… its deep, intelligent eyes, the flash of flippers and smooth skin she’d seen as it swam away from her in the water. Like a huge, strange guard dog... she couldn’t help but feel affectionately toward the creature. And perhaps it could help her with the quandary she found herself in.

  Because as much as Nancy was enjoying her stay in the castle, a part of her was missing her family furiously. Since her mother’s death, she’d been keenly aware that she was all her father had… and though they never talked about it, she knew she reminded him a lot of her mother. Was it more comfort or pain, she wondered, to look into his daughter’s eyes and see his lost wife reflected there? He’d been stoic throughout her mother’s short illness and death and held their little family together in the grief that followed. But Nancy wasn’t sure how well he would do if he lost her, too. Who did he have left to be strong for… except himself? And Nancy’s father had never been much for being strong for his own interests. He could support others, but as for himself… well, he needed those he supported around to support him right back.

  So she needed to get home, sooner rather than later. She wasn’t too worried about the time frame — after all, as the other residents of the castle had so aptly pointed out, her father hadn’t even been born yet. And if the Sidhe were capable of placing her at a specific time and place in history, surely, they could return her to her own time, a few days after her disappearance, or even less. Just to see her father… to tell him she was okay. Even if the Sidhe needed to return her afterwards to Scotland, she just needed her father to be well.

&n
bsp; But to get in touch with the Sidhe again… how would she go about doing that? After all, the burgh was at the bottom of the Loch — a hundred feet deep or so. She was grateful it was at least that shallow… she knew that the Loch itself at its deepest point was vastly deeper than that. But if the burgh had been there, she’d have been crushed as soon as the Sidhe sent her back out through whatever strange portal or gateway they’d used to transport her in the first place. Divers generally couldn’t get much deeper than a hundred feet, maybe more with specialized equipment… thank God the Sidhe had placed their burgh where they had. Of course, it still posed a problem — how was she supposed to get back to visit them if they were so far down?

  She supposed she still had her scuba gear… but she only had a little over half a tank of air. Theoretically, it would be enough to get down and back again… but it would be cutting it incredibly fine. She would also only have one trip. Once the tank was empty, she didn’t know how she’d ever refill it. She owned a compressor, of course — the cost made sense when you spent as much time diving as she did. But it was safe and sound back in the twenty-first century where it belonged… which meant that the tank she’d had on her was all she had left to work with.

  Maybe the Sidhe could do me a solid and bring my compressor through as well, she thought with a laugh. Maybe she could make some kind of deal with them? That was what faeries did, didn’t they — they exchanged favors for favors? Dangerous, though. Dangerous to make a deal with even a benevolent Fae, from what her mother had always taught her.

  No, she was going to have to work with what she had, at least for now. She couldn’t afford to get into any terrible debts with the Sidhe… not when she hardly knew anything about them. She didn’t even know why they’d brought her here, for a start. Anna had had a grand purpose in being brought here… and if the pattern held true, so would Nancy. It would be better to figure out what that purpose was, and fulfill it, before she went asking for favors from the Sidhe. At the very least, she could get them on her side by doing what they wanted her to do.