She headed inside, making her way into the great hall. Pulling back the curtain she stepped through, the smell not seeming as strong as before. Was she just getting used to it?
Everything here was more intense, the smells, the sights, the sounds, all so much stronger than she was used to.
Everyone seemed to know each other too which was hard to accept at first but then the population of the country was what? A couple of million? Certainly fewer than in a single city in her time.
At the far end of the great hall was an open door. She passed through that and up a short flight of stairs. Turning a corner she walked straight into the solar before she even knew she’d reached it.
She stopped dead at the sight before her. Andrew was running wet hands through his hair, his eyes closed. From where she was he seemed to be nothing but shoulders and chest. His hose was sitting just above his hips, giving her a hint of what lay hidden inside, the water soaking through the fabric made it cling to every part of him. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t look away. All she could do was stare at the bulge.
“Beth,” he growled, wiping his eyes with a cloth. “Come in and sit down lassie. We need to talk.”
“Do we?” she replied.
“Please,” he added, pointing to the chair by the fireside. He took a cloth and wiped his face.
Forcing her feet to move, Beth made it over to the chair, willing her eyes to only look at his face, nowhere else.
He crossed in front of her to poke at the fire, bringing it back to life. From where she was sitting his bulge was right in front of her face.
She closed her eyes and kept them shut until he moved away, her body heating up uncontrollably. She told herself it was the fire that was causing it but as he looked at her, the churning feeling deep inside her spoke the truth.
“I hear you’ve been making a few changes to my castle?”
“Stopping it from falling down. Your masons have done poor work.” That wasn’t how this was supposed to be begin. What was to gain from criticizing him?
“Want to tell me why I shouldn’t have you chained up for bewitching my people into tearing down their own walls?”
“Feel free but I think they might have something to say to you about it.”
“Like what?”
“Like that I’m strengthening your walls so they don’t collapse. Or they might mention that the portcullis will stand up to a siege where it wouldn’t before. Or maybe they’ll tell you that you need a master mason who knows his stuff. No one will tell me who’s been in charge of the building work so far. Will you? Whoever it is, their incompetence has left lasting damage and I want a word with them.”
“Aye, maybe I’ll tell you who’s in charge.”
“So who was the idiot you hired?”
“Me.”
She felt a sudden lurch in her stomach. “You? You’ve been in charge of the building work? But you’re the laird?”
“Aye. Are you saying I’ve not been doing a bonny job?”
“You’ve been doing an appalling job. On your watch the laborers haven’t bothered mixing the lime mortar right. Your battlements have crumbled and you’ll be lucky if they survived the winter. The roof of your chapel is about to collapse and as for your keep? If I were you I’d be pulling the whole thing down and starting again.”
“My father designed this keep,” he said, his voice quieter than before. “I only want to finish what he began.”
“Then you need someone to supervise the building work. That’s what a master mason does.”
“I know what a master mason does. How do you?”
“Rory was telling me all about it.”
“So tell me.”
She told him everything she’d told Rory. She told him how they could use the stone dug out of the earthworks as rubble infill. She told him if he got this right, the laborers he was paying to do little could get the work done in months and get started earlier on Pluscarden abbey which she’d read in the guidebook he wouldn’t found until 1195.
She told him how with the makeshift repairs his battlements would still dominate the landscape until spring when they could be rebuilt properly. She told him how to create a camber on the roads leading up to the castle to help with drainage. She told him how his enemies could easily undermine the place in any siege unless he got everything fixed quickly. There had not been the time to wait for his approval. It had to start at once.
Through it all he sat and listened quietly, not saying a word.
She only stopped talking when she realized someone was standing in the doorway. She looked up at the same time Andrew did to see Derek moving from the shadows into the room.
“How long have you been skulking?” Andrew asked.
“Not long,” he replied. “I didnae want to interrupt the lassie. Sounds like there’s some work to be done.”
“What do you want, Derek?”
“You sent for me.”
“What? Oh, aye, I did. Gather the men in the great hall. I need to talk to them.”
“All the men?”
“Actually, on second thoughts leave those who are working for Beth.”
“Working for her?” Derek’s eyebrows raised momentarily before lowering again.
“Aye. Now on you go. I’ll be down presently.” He waited a moment before turning his attention back to Beth. “I hate how he walks around without making a sound. It’s unnerving. Now, lassie, I wonder whether you’d consider being master mason of the castle until this work is done? I’d want you to rebuild my old hall too, if we can spare the wood for it.”
Beth couldn’t help it. She burst into tears. She tried to stop them but she was unable to do anything but let it happen.
Andrew was across the room in a moment, his arm on her shoulder. “What’s the matter, wee lassie? What ails you?”
“It’s nothing,” she replied, feeling the heat of his hand through her dress, wanting it to go and stay in equal measure.
She couldn’t tell him the truth. What good would it do? How could she tell him about her love of masonry and architecture? How it was the only thing she’d ever wanted to do? How her father had tried to tell her it was a man’s job and she needed to set her sights on something more realistic? How she had to take a job to support her mother instead of going to college at the same time as everyone else from her school? How she’d finally started studying and still worried no one would give her a job? How many people out there thought it was just a man’s job?
Yet here, in the era most people would consider far more sexist than her own, she was being offered the highest possible position a laird could offer apart from steward. She would be in charge of the entire rebuilding of the castle, maybe the old hall too. “Was the old hall all wood?” she asked, wondering about something as she sniffed loudly.
“Aye. Why’d you ask?”
“In my time it was stone vaulted.”
“Never been vaulted in stone. Perhaps it could be if you took on the job?”
She almost cried again but managed to stop herself. She noticed his hand was still on her shoulder and he was leaning closer to her. She looked deep into those eyes which reflected the fire beside her. “I thought you’d be angry with me for starting work already. Then you act like this. I don’t understand you at all.”
“Maybe you could get to understand me better.” He was leaning closer still. Another inch and his lips would touch hers. She yearned for him to do it, from deep inside all she wanted was to feel his lips on hers. He was going to do it. He was moving closer. She held her breath, leaning forward in her chair.
“The men are ready, my laird,” a voice said loudly from the doorway.
At once the expression on Andrew’s face changed. He stood up and was once again the brutish angry giant she’d first seen. “Good,” he said, nodding to Derek who was looking from her to the laird and back again.
He left without saying another word, leaving Beth to sit in the solar and stare at his
bed. She looked at it without moving for a very long time, lost in thought.
Chapter Nine
Beth looked out from the top of the scaffolding at the wall beyond, waiting for the wind to die down. It had been the first time she’d climbed so high and she was already regretting it. All that was keeping her from plummeting thirty feet to the ground was twine and rough wood planks that swayed alarmingly in the breeze.
Rory had promised her it was perfectly safe, inviting her to join him at the top to look over the work that had been done so far.
“What do you think?” she asked, turning to face him. “Does it meet your approval?”
“Aye,” he replied, running his hand along the stone. “The laird will be pleased.”
“Where is he anyway? I haven’t seen him for a fortnight.” As she said it, Beth felt a pang of guilt. That was more than two weeks since she’d seen her mother. It was almost as long since she’d thought about her. She’d been so caught up in all the building work that she’d had no spare time to think about anything else. Autumn was rapidly heading toward winter. Another week or two of work was the most they could do. Then the mortar would need to be covered up or the frost would damage it before it could set properly. Allow that to happen and the place would be crumbling all too soon and she couldn’t see that happen.
She had come to the conclusion that maybe she’d been brought back in time to oversee this project. It would be a heck of a thing to put on her resume when it came to applying for jobs in the future.
“Have you got any experience of building work?”
“Oh yes, I helped redesign and fortify a Scottish castle.”
“Great, and when was that?”
“Eight hundred years ago.”
She smiled at the thought but her smile faded when a gust of wind made the scaffolding under her creak alarmingly.
She turned to look at Rory who seemed completely undisturbed. “Would you mind if we continued this conversation down in the courtyard?”
“Of course. After you.”
She descended slowly, clambering down the layers of scaffolding, praying as she did every time that she wouldn’t slip and lose grip. By the time she was standing on firm ground her arms ached from the effort of gripping so tightly. Rory caught up with her a minute later, craning his neck for a last look upward. “You’re the master mason we’ve needed,” he said, confirming her theory.
She was back to get the castle sorted and then she could go home. She had tried to overcome the guilt about her mother by rationalizing about time travel. If she went back through the doorway that had brought her back, logic dictated she would return to the exact moment she left. A bit like Return to Oz or The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, she’d be back in the present at the same time she left and no one would even know she’d been gone.
“They’re trying the vaulting you suggested,” Rory said, bringing her attention back to him. “At the old hall, I mean.”
She smiled. It gave her a headache to think about it too much. In the present day the old hall had stone vaulting and she had been impressed by it. Then she found out the hall had burned because it was made of wood and her advice to vault it in stone was being followed. It would fireproof the building and strengthen it so it would last for centuries, long enough for her to marvel at her own work in the future without even realizing she was responsible.
“It would be a lot simpler to supervise if I was allowed to go there myself,” she replied. “Make sure it’s going the way it should.”
“They are following your instructions. Springers, voussoirs, keystone. Falsework to hold it in place. There is no need for you to attend.”
“Still, it would be nice.” She looked at him and his eyes darted away. “Why does he insist on me staying here?”
Rory managed to glance at her before looking away again. “We should check on the falsework in the chapel.”
She didn’t press the subject. She had told Andrew the truth. She needed to go through the doorway in the old hall to get back to her own time. He had not responded but the same day the order went out that she was not to leave the grounds of the castle. He’d said it was to keep her safe while they tried to establish who had ordered the burning of Pluscarden but she suspected there was more to it than that. He didn’t want her to go. She wanted it to be because of the kiss they’d so nearly shared but he’d been gone ever since then so she’d had no chance to talk about it with him. In the time he’d been gone she became less and less sure about how he felt. Was he just keeping her there for her skills as master mason? Was she imagining that he had feelings for her?
“Come on then,” she said, heading across the courtyard. “Let’s go take a look.”
As they walked she glanced over at the portcullis. It was opening. Someone on horseback rode through a second later. She couldn’t help smiling at the sight. He was back.
*
Andrew took one look at her standing in the middle of the courtyard and his heart soared. He had missed her terribly while he’d been away. Patrolling along the border with his men, he’d been looking for any signs of Norman forces. He’d found a few campfires but nothing more.
On the way back he’d stopped at Pluscarden to check on the progress. The ruins from the fire had been cleared away and the masons and laborers had worked fast. Dressed stone from the dismantled battlement walls of the castle had been brought by cart and were already forming the outline the building would take. The vault that would cover the cellarium had begun and he marveled at the speed of the work. “The difference a master mason can make,” Gillis said, bringing his horse alongside.
“I can hardly believe it.”
“Where is she? Is she not supervising?”
“I left her at the castle. She is safer there if the miscreants should return.”
That was true but it wasn’t the whole truth. He thought about her continual assertion that she had traveled through time to help him. There were elements of her that didn’t add up. The clothing she had worn when they first met, the fact she knew so much about modern masonry techniques, even suggesting dog tooth stone carvings for extra strength in window and door lintels. It was her idea to cover the cart wheels with metal so they lasted longer. Was that enough to believe she was from eight hundred years in the future? Of course not.
He had come to two conclusions. One, she had traveled abroad. Rory had mentioned the term dog tooth when talking about some of his brothers who had traveled on the last crusade. She had clearly picked up her ideas from her travels. Two, she was quite mad. That was the only realistic explanation for her belief that passing through the one remaining doorway from the old hall would send her back to the future.
That was the main reason he had insisted she remain at the castle. To bring her to the hall would likely increase her madness. Would her mind snap entirely when she walked through it and nothing happened? He could not bear the thought. Better she remained safe in the castle, safe from men with burning torches and safe from the demons that lurked in her mind, trying to take over her soul.
“Should we get home?” Gillis asked, his horse flicking its mane under him.
“Aye,” he said, turning from the hall and leading his men onto the track that led back to the castle. “What do you think of her?” he asked Gillis as they made their way steadily south. They had fallen behind the other highlanders who were talking amongst themselves.
“Beth?” Gillis asked.
“Aye.”
“I think if she told you the truth, then God sent her to you for a reason.”
Andrew nodded in response. “I want you to keep what I said between us.”
“You still think she’s mad?”
“I dinnae ken.”
“What about her prophecy?”
“About Melrose Abbey? I have heard nothing.”
“You could ask MacLeish if he’s founded an abbey. That would not give too much away.”
“And if he becomes suspicious how I would know
an abbey has been founded on his land? What do I say? A wee lassie from the future told me Melrose Abbey was founded in 1290 on your land? I would be a laughing stock.”
“Then you’ll never know if she’s telling the truth.”
“Och, she can’t be. It’s not possible.”
He wasn’t as certain as his words sounded. Part of the reason he didn’t want to check her story was he feared it might be true. If that was the case there was a chance she would go back to her time and he’d never see her again. He’d yearned for her the entire time they’d been patrolling and he couldn’t imagine a time when he might never see her again.
When they reached the castle, he was glad to find her there. A fear had grown in him during the ride that she had escaped and he was relieved to see her looking up at him as he rode in. She looked exhausted. “You have been working too hard,” he said as he stopped his horse next to her. “You should rest.”
“There’s too much to do before the frosts start. I haven’t got time to rest.”
“Rory,” he called to the steward next to her. “Can you spare her for a couple of hours?”
“I reckon we can survive.”
“Then climb up here, lassie.”
“Up there? Why?”
“I want to reward you for your hard work.” He held out a hand and after a second of thought she took it.
With a yank of his arm, he lifted her through the air, guiding her to land on the horse in front of him. “It felt very different last time I was on here,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder.
He had a sudden urge to kiss her. Instead, he kicked the sides of his horse and turned her back toward the portcullis which remained open.
As he rode through, he noted the stone walls that guarded it. “The gates can’t be pushed open with stone behind it,” she said, seeing where he was looking. “And to burn the props they’d need to demolish that wall first and that would take some time.”
“While we drop burning oil through the murder holes,” he replied, nodding his approval.
“Where are we going anyway?” she asked as they began to move away from the castle.
Held by the Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 6
