All The Time You Need

by Melissa Mayhue

  She’d been over every single detail of the prior day a million times in her head. So many times, in fact, she doubted she’d slept for more than half an hour all night long. And even if she went over it a million times more, she was certain it wouldn’t make any more sense to her than it did right now. Somehow she’d managed to bumble her way seven hundred years into the past.

  Either that or she was still lying there on the ground, deep in a coma of some sort, with her brain experiencing the most bizarre fantasy world anyone could ever imagine.

  “Faeries,” Lissa said, and all three men in the room turned as one to glare at her. “Well, it is them what’s responsible for her being here.”

  Annie shrugged, fear and frustration warring to take control. “Considering the totally bizarre path my life has detoured down over the past twenty-four hours, I’d say Lissa’s idea is as good an explanation as anything I can come up with.”

  If she could wake up in the thirteenth century, well then, why couldn’t Faeries be responsible? One was as likely as the other. As for the arrogant laird standing toe to toe with her, he could accept her truth or not. At this point, she was beyond caring. She glared up at him, silently daring him to question her again.

  “You canna think we’re fools enough to believe a fable such as yer trying to tell us. What kind of men would—”

  “We’ve all had quite enough of this for now, Alex,” Lissa interrupted, inserting herself between her brother and Annie. “Let us leave these stubborn men to their own conjectures,” she said, looping her arm through Annie’s. “We’re accomplishing naught here and I have need to show you around the castle before we go in to take our midday meal.”

  Annie allowed Lissa to pull her out of the small room and into the hallway, relieved that though Alex scowled as if he might refuse to allow her to leave, he said nothing. In the hallway she realized she was even more relieved to be done with the inquisition she’d just endured. For the first time in over an hour, it was as if the bands that had tightened her chest and restricted her breathing were loosened and she was free to be herself.

  Herself in the wrong century, but herself nevertheless.

  Her friend’s offer to explore the castle was certainly more appealing than continuing to answer the same question over and over again, as if in one of her answers she was suddenly going to say something new. Besides, if she was going to be stuck in this world, she might as well start to learn more about it. If she was lucky, maybe somewhere along the way she would find a clue as to why she was here and, more important, how she could get back to the time where she belonged.

  “It’s wash day,” Lissa informed her, shuddering in feigned horror as she said the words. “Yer being here is my permission for not helping with that particular chore today, so I am in yer debt. You have my undying thanks for that favor.”

  “Permission?” Annie envisioned the mounds of clean clothes shoved into the farthest recesses of her closet back home, all of them with their permanent wrinkles as a result of her pulling them from the dryer and leaving them wadded up in plastic laundry baskets to cool, one basket stacked on top of another. There were few tasks she liked less than folding clothes. “I take it you don’t care for wash day.”

  “I detest it,” Lissa confided in a low voice. “Make no mistake, my friend. I have no aversion to hard work. I’ll clean or help in the kitchens, or even work in the gardens for hours on end without complaint. But beating those damned wet blankets leaves me sore for days.”

  Annie nodded slowly, the reality of the world she’d come to sinking in. There would be no baskets of clothes pulled out of a warm dryer waiting to be folded. No washing machines or dryers either, for that matter. No easy-use appliances of any kind. Everything here would be a chore. Not in the sense of her having chores to do at home, but in the sense of an actual, honest-to-goodness chore. Cleaning would be a pain. And cooking? No microwaves, no refrigerators, no coffeepots. No coffee! On the heels of the horror that realization brought, curiosity blossomed.

  How did they manage to do all the things that she relied on modern technology to do for her?

  “Do you think it might be possible for me to see where you cook your meals? I’d really like to know how food is prepared here.”

  “You mean how food is prepared now, do you no’? How it’s prepared in our time.” Lissa’s smile bordered on a knowing smirk. “I listened to my grandda’s stories well, Annie Shaw. He always said that anyone the Fae sent into his arbor would come there from another time. He never doubted that, and neither do I.”

  It was small comfort to Annie that the one person here who believed her story about having walked into the arbor under her own power, in a completely different century, also believed in Faeries. But, considering the fact that she was stuck seven-hundred years out of her own time, who was she to question the existence of Faeries? Come to think on it, she’d take what little comfort she could get without reservation of any kind.

  “Yes,” she answered, forcing a smile to her lips in spite of her situation. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Lovely,” Lissa breathed, slipping her hand into Annie’s and pulling her forward. “To the kitchens it is. With mealtime approaching, it should be fair on busy in there, so you’ll have the opportunity to see how they do most things. And, to be honest, our visit will fit nicely with the one chore I canna shirk today. It’s my responsibility to take a tray up to my father’s chamber before we gather for our midday meal.”

  When they reached the back of the keep and passed through the big door into the kitchen, a wave of stifling heat buffeted Annie. The scene confronting them was much more than what she’d expected from Lissa’s description of fair on busy. Pandemonium was the first word that came to mind.

  A moment or two of watching and it became clear that a better description would be controlled pandemonium. Women and young girls dashed about from one side of the room to the other, avoiding one another only through the intricate steps acquired through years of practice. Huge pots bubbled as they hung over a fire in what had to be the largest fireplace Annie had ever seen. Easily she could have stood upright in it. A whole family could have stood upright in it, all at the same time, shoulder to shoulder, with room left over.

  “About time you got here,” a large, red-cheeked woman called out, obviously speaking to Lissa. “Yer da’s tray is on the table, ready and waiting.”

  “For all that piddling bit is worth,” another said, shaking her head.

  “Last time I spoke to the laird, Marjorie, you and I were but cooks,” the first said firmly. “When someone names you healer, then you can upset poor Lissa by speaking yer thoughts upon the auld laird’s menu. Until such time, keep yer teeth together and tend to yer pots, aye?”

  “Aye, Cook. You have the right of it. My apologies, Mistress Lissa. I’d no intent to offend.”

  “Doona fash yerself over it, Marjorie,” Lissa said, flashing one of her genuine smiles in the woman’s direction. “I canna say the feelings I hold on the matter differ greatly from yers. But Aiden scoured Inverness to find Master Montague, and Morgan paid the man highly to see to Da’s healing, so best we all do as he tells us.”

  Aiden? The name jumped out at Annie as if someone had slapped her. Could it be that she’d found her grandmother’s Aiden? If so, could he be the reason she was here? And maybe, if he was, he’d be able to help her find her way back home.

  “Who is Aiden?” she asked, unable to keep the question to herself any longer.

  It was ridiculous to think her grandmother’s mystery lover would be here in this far-flung world in which she’d found herself, but he was the only Aiden she’d encountered since Syrie had shared the name with her.

  “Aiden is my brother.” Lissa peeked under the cloth covering the food set aside for her father, and her face scrunched up in apparent disgust before she lifted the tray. “More specifically, he’s next to the youngest of my four brothers,” she added. “A burden for any lass, having four
brothers, all of them thinking they can tell me what to do and when to do it, though three of them are younger than me. Here, would you carry the pitcher of wine for me? I’ll confess that I’ve been known to spill a drop or two in trying to balance it all upon the tray as I take the stairs.”

  Annie accepted the pitcher, recoiling a bit when the fumes of the wine wafted up her nose. More of the vinegar-scented beverage they called wine. These people needed to learn the value of drinking just plain old water. On second thought, if she remembered her history correctly, water in this day and age was likely as bad in some places as Alex had indicated when she’d asked for it earlier. Considering that, she amended her judgment on what these people needed. They needed to learn the value of drinking plain old boiled water.

  “Alex, who you’ve already met, is the eldest,” Lissa continued as she wound her way up the narrow stone stairs. “Which is why leadership of the clan fell to him with our father’s decline. Morgan is next in line, followed by Aiden and then Cullen. It fell to Morgan to deal with Da’s illness until Alex returned home from Edinburgh. I ken that he did the best he could, what with worrying over the Gordons just waiting and watching for an opportunity to attack. But I can tell you for sure, I’ve no love for the man he chose to care for Da, nor for his methods, no matter how modern he claims they may be.”

  “And where do you fall in that lineup?”

  “Right at the beginning. Alex and I are twins. Can you no’ see the resemblance?” Lissa chuckled, balancing the tray as she turned a corner. “No need to question yer own eyes, my friend. I doubt there’s ever been two twins who are less alike than my brother and me. Right down this way.”

  Following along, Annie pressed her lips together, her mind filled with the things she’d just learned. Chief among them was that the inhabitants of this castle were fearful of imminent attack by the Gordon clan. How perfect would that be? The only thing she didn’t regret leaving behind in her own time was her upcoming marriage to a Gordon. And now, in this time, she could well find herself right in the middle of a war with people who were probably his ancestors.

  Her time to consider such things came to an abrupt end when Lissa pushed open the door to her father’s chamber. The coppery stench of old blood stung Annie’s nose and threatened to gag her before she’d managed more than a single footstep into the room. Inside, a man stood next to a large bed, obviously intent upon murdering the old man who lay there. With a knife in one hand, he pulled out the old man’s arm and sliced into him.

  As blood spurted from the wound, Annie didn’t stop to question what was going on, she simply reacted. No matter who this attacker was, she had no intention of allowing him to harm a helpless old man.

  She dashed across the room to slam into the attacker’s body, knocking him to the floor as the wine she carried sloshed over both of them.

  “Get help!” she called out to Lissa, placing herself between her opponent and the man in the bed. “Don’t you even think of coming any closer,” she warned. “I’ve taken self-defense classes and I can promise you, you’ll be sorry if you do.”

  Extended in front of her she held the only weapon at her disposal, a now half-empty pitcher of wine. It might not be lethal force, but it was heavy enough to at least slow down the lunatic lying on the floor in front of her. She wrapped both hands around the handle and bent her knees slightly, rocking from side to side. If she could manage to look like she knew how to defend herself and inflict damage on an opponent, it might not matter that she didn’t actually know how to do any of that. She only needed to fool him for a few minutes. Just until help arrived.

  “Who is this great cow?” the man on the floor demanded indignantly. “Why have you allowed her in here? How am I to work under conditions such as these?”

  To Annie’s surprise, Lissa rushed to the assistance of the man on the floor as, from the bed behind her, a throaty, wheezy sound floated to Annie’s ears. In her adrenaline-fueled panic, it took a moment to realize the patient was chuckling. She turned to check on the man in the bed, fitting her hand into his to tuck his arm back under the covers. His eyes fluttered open, deep brown pools, sunken in his face, overwhelmed by his pale skin.

  “Good,” he whispered, his hand weakly clutching around her fingers before his eyes closed and his hand went limp once again.

  “Get her out of here!” the attacker shouted, shaking a fist in her direction as Lissa inserted herself between them. “I canna work under threat of such violence, plagued by the attacks of a woman who’s clearly brainsick! I willna work under such conditions!”

  “Work?” Annie asked, hardly able to believe he’d had the audacity to make such a claim. “Torturing some poor old man? Slicing him open like a piece of meat in this filthy room? You call that work?”

  “Out!” the man screamed, and Lissa tugged on her arm, pulling her away from the bed and out the door, offering repeated apologies to the man until the door shut behind them.

  “It’s no’ what you think, Annie. That man is Master Montague,” Lissa whispered once she’d closed the door. “The man my brothers hired to see to our father’s healing. Pray he doesn’t take offense and leave. There are no others within many days’ ride.”

  “We can only hope for small miracles,” Annie muttered under her breath, glancing back at the closed door, the gory scene of what was likely happening in that room at this very minute playing through her imagination as she started down the stairs behind Lissa.

  Someone had to do something about that crazy butcher and what he was doing or that poor old man was doomed.

  Someone? What was she thinking? Apparently the only someone who saw an issue with what the so-called healer was doing was her.

  “So be it,” she said, determined to put a stop to the practice before it was too late.

  * * *

  “What say you? Does she speak the truth or no’?”

  Alex awaited a response from each of his friends, both of them men he trusted more than any he’d ever known. After all they’d been through together, he had no doubt they’d be honest in their opinions.

  “In spite of my reservations about the woman, she shows no signs of lying to us. Even Dog goes to her with nary a rise of his hackles.” Finn scratched the neck of the big animal sitting at his side. “But I canna discount the danger of being too gullible, too soon. I canna yet bring myself to accept the whole of her claim.”

  “And you?” Alex turned his attention to his other friend.

  “I agree with Finn. Mostly.” Jamesy grinned, dropping his gaze to his boots as if carefully choosing the words he would say next.

  “Out with it,” Alex demanded. “Whatever is on yer mind, it’s best we have it out in the open air rather than showing up to bite us in the arse later on.”

  Jamesy nodded, all humor gone when he looked up. “We should give some consideration to the claim that underlies her story. Everything about her is fair strange. Strange enough, I’d say, that there could be some truth in what she says about where she came from. Yer own sister claims she was sent here by the Fae.”

  Finn’s growl of disgust didn’t seem to faze Jamesy at all.

  “Say what you will, but we’ve all seen things that no man can explain or hope to understand without a nod to the otherworld. My own sister has wed a man who claims to be related to the auld gods. You saw for yerselves the odd things the wife of the MacGahan laird did. You heard for yerselves the stories as to where—and when—she came from. And you ken as well as I do what my sister’s husband told us about Syrie and the magic hanging over our own heads as a result of his argument with a woman who proclaimed herself to actually be a Faerie. No one at Castle MacGahan who knows the woman has a single doubt about her ties to the Fae.”

  “We agreed not to speak on this,” Finn reminded. “We agreed to regard it as no more than fancy run amok.”

  “Aye, we did at that,” Jamesy acknowledged. “But ignoring it does not make it go away any more than ignoring yer enemy makes him disap
pear. We ken all too well after what we experienced at Tordenet that many a beastie which goes bump in the night is no’ of our Mortal world, aye?”

  “We’ve had our say,” Finn said, swinging his head in Alex’s direction. “But yer the laird here. It’s yer say that counts. What say you, Alex?”

  What did he have to say?

  That he didn’t want the decision to be his. That he wanted his father, a man with decades of wisdom and experience, to be the one guiding their actions. That he couldn’t always think straight when Annie turned that dark-blue stare in his direction. Or when she was close to him as she had been when she’d shared his horse and the scent of fresh flowers floating off her hair had driven him almost as wild as had the feel of her back against his chest.

  He had plenty to say, but none of it was that which needed to be heard.

  Finn was right. As laird in his father’s stead, the decision was his and nothing that he wanted to say mattered. Only what he needed to say.

  “I can see no legitimate reason to doubt her word.” He sighed then, knowing that legitimate reasons were only a part of what a good laird considered. “But with the safety of my clan at stake, I’d have more proof to go on. I’m going to send out a rider to the Gordons, requesting they send a representative to speak with me on this matter. I’d have them tell me to my face what they plot behind my back.”