Unraveling James

by L. L. Muir

  How many times had he thought of that grave? A dozen times a day, for two years?

  No matter how often he’d been tempted to come, he’d resisted, found something else to distract him. Todlaw was easily his greatest distraction, but now he asked himself if it had been conceived just to keep himself from coming to these trees, from remembering what he left behind?

  No. No, he insisted. Todlaw was the end game. Todlaw was the goal. He’d earned his way to the head of Duncan’s forces, taught them and trained them for the king’s sake, and earned a place to call his own, to find his wife, to raise his family. That had been the dream. An old bag of clothes meant nothing in comparison.

  He thought of the items he’d buried and realized that one or two of them might prove useful...

  Thanks to his own demands, the area had been stripped of stones, but he finally found a strong stick to spare his hands. Then, kneeling in the same place he’d knelt two years before, he started to dig.

  Half an hour later, his energy spent once again, he patted the last of the dirt back into place. The cairn looked no smaller; he hadn’t removed much.

  He’d come to a decision. After a short journey, he would return to Todlaw and face the woman who had come to turn his carefully crafted world upside down.

  A rider approached. One of his soldiers. James dusted off his hands and returned to his horse.

  “Laird James.”

  He nodded, “Raulf.”

  “Flanders sent me after ye, to say that the woman is safe in the pit, but he’s left his men—”

  “What?” Horrified, he sprung onto the horse’s back, then paused. He had no choice but to go back to the keep and undo what damage had been done by storming off. But it didn’t mean Raulf couldn’t make the other journey for him. He waved the man closer. “There is something I need you to do.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Phoebe woke with a sore back, but thankfully, her neck was fine.

  Tomorrow, I’m gonna hurt.

  “So… Phoebe.” She jumped to her feet when she heard a familiar voice above her. The pit wasn’t so dark anymore, and Turk and Niven were gone.

  Mister Scottish Universe looked down on her, standing between the light of two torches and frowning behind a full red beard. No ancestor could have known her name. No ancestor could have felt betrayed to have her walk into his little Game of Thrones fantasy.

  “Tell me, lass. Are ye ready to explain me the meaning behind MSU?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “Perhaps on yers?” He wiggled the ladder he held upright with one hand.

  “Not even for a piece of pizza.”

  “Auch, now. No need to be cruel.” He lifted the bottom of the pole off the floor and slid it down inside the hole. Then he held it while she very carefully climbed out, praying all the while for a boost to her sense of balance, just until she was out of that pit.

  He offered her his hand to help her step off the ladder. She wasn’t too proud to take it.

  “Perhaps ye can explain how an American expat can speak ancient Gaelic so well.”

  She glanced around to make sure they were alone, but the only things with them in the arched room were the two torches giving off an orange-red light and making the shadows jump. “Let’s just say that the sisters’ brother—”

  “Wickham?”

  “Yes. Wickham. He kind of…installed some software,” she pointed to her head, “an app that translates everything immediately, both incoming and outgoing. And to me, it all sounds exactly like English.” She ended with a shrug. It was the best she can do.

  He just stared at her for a minute, like he was trying to decide whether to believe her.

  “Look, buddy. There’s a more complicated version, but the end result is still the same.”

  He nodded…a lot.

  She realized he was still holding her hand and yanked it back. “Now, maybe you can explain why in the bloody hell you think you have the right to throw me in an effing pit!”

  He wasn’t the one that made her fall, obviously, but ultimately, it was his fault she had to pee on the floor, in the dark, scared to death that someone was going to flip on the lights and shout, “Surprise!”

  “Oh, lass,” he said quietly. “Ye won’t live long in this place if ye can’t learn to bite yer tongue. Ye’ve lost all rights to equality here. Ye’re a second-class citizen now, and always will be. And the sooner ye start accepting that truth, the sooner ye’ll be safe.” He cocked his head. “Are ye certain ye don’t wish to tell me about MSU? I think two years is quite long enough to be teased with it.”

  “Hah! Two years. It’s been…” She counted on her fingers. “Wow. It’s been only two days. Seems like longer.”

  “Two days? Ye’re mad. It was two years ago last month that Wickham Muir delivered me to the banks of Loch Tay. It has taken two long years to build all I have created here. Do ye think I could become the war chief of one of the oldest clans in Scotland in a pair of days?”

  She shook her head. “All I know is that I saw you two days ago, getting out of that dry-cleaner’s van. I have no idea why Wickham would have brought us to the same…” She bit her lips together and shook her head.

  “Tell me.”

  She shook her head again.

  “If ye keep something from me, how can I help ye?”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Ye won’t last a week.”

  “Yes, I will. Because I’m out of here as soon as…” She paced away from him just in case he could see the panic in her eyes. “I’m meeting up with someone and we’re going home.”

  “Meeting up with someone? The Muirs have a dating service, do they? Fertile ground for testing love potions?” He laughed, but stopped abruptly.

  She turned her head away and rejected the connections forming in her memories.

  A dating service. Love potions. Matchmakers with tea cups. All you have to do is pick one.

  “No,” he said, his voice echoing in the stone arched ceiling, like he was speaking to the Universe at large. “No!” He shook his head and started backing toward the doorway. “They were wrong!” He took a few long strides then stopped and turned back. For a few seconds, he searched her face. Then his expression turned to pity.

  Maybe he realized she’d been just as blindsided as he’d been. Or maybe he thought he was breaking her heart.

  “Don’t even,” she said. Whatever he was thinking, he was wrong.

  “We’ll fix it,” he said softly. “Somehow. We will figure this out, lass.”

  He pulled one of the torches out of its holder and gestured for her to go ahead. But his large hand reached out to press against her collar bones just as she reached him.

  “Just one more thing, Phoebe Mac Jones.”

  She took a step back, away from the heat of his hand, and a connection neither of them wanted. “What is it?”

  “I’ll be needin’ yer frighteningly…pink…chastity belt.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Hand it over,” the big Scot demanded a second time.

  Phoebe couldn’t believe he actually expected her to hand him her underwear. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Apparently, you flashed Stephan’s men and mine. And if someone gets a good look at them, you’ll be burned at the stake for certain. So...” He held out his large hand.

  “I will not be burned at the stake. You’re just saying that.”

  He lifted a single eyebrow. “Will ye obey me, woman, or must I remove them myself?”

  “Maybe I can just cover them up with some brown ones.”

  “Impossible. Not if ye wish to live long.” His nostrils flared and got that Laird of the Castle look in his eye. She recognized it now. “You chose to be here, you can bloody well wear what is expected, and you will not wear what is not expected, is that understood?”

  She was going for an I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar attitude, but he didn’t seem to notice. So she gave up. “Fine. Turn around.” She peeled th
e comforting elastic down her legs and folded them into a small square, then handed them over.

  She was completely mortified. She’d been wearing them for two days!

  “One more thing.”

  “What?”

  “I’m afraid ye’ll need to take a rather…public…bath.”

  “What?”

  “With only women about, aye? But they need to see that there was nothing shocking under your skirt and that the men were telling tales.”

  “Only women?”

  “Aye.”

  “Fine.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Not wishing to face the inquisitive looks of his men, James eschewed his usual walk along the wall and hiked to the top of the tower keep instead. He needed fresh air so he could think clearly, because what he’d been thinking in that damp dungeon had been nonsense. He hadn’t come all this way just to marry a loyalty-challenged American from his past. The perfect, kick-ass, change-the-world-with-me woman was still out there somewhere, maybe headed his way that very moment.

  Despite what a couple of interloping witches wanted, or their misguided customer, he was going to wait for his perfect mate no matter how long it took. He would know her when he saw her, and he couldn’t be expected to just substitute Miss Jones just because he was her best option!

  When he emerged onto the roof, he was disappointed to find Flanders there, instead of the guard. The man leaned out between two merlons overlooking the north road, and gave James a cursory glance.

  “I sent the watch down early,” he called. “His replacement will be here shortly.”

  James said nothing and moved to the east wall, wondering if there was enough room on those battlements for two somber men that night, for he was in no mood to talk. He needed to sort out his thoughts or he might go mad and jump to his death, and he didn’t want Flanders getting in the way of either, if it came down to it.

  He’d been unkind to the American—no, her name was Phoebe, he had to stop thinking of her as the American woman from his past. She wasn’t just a specter from another life—though it was true that after two years, he sometimes wondered if that life had been real at all—she was a real woman in his current world. Touchable flesh, spill-able blood, and tender feelings he needed to negotiate with much more care than he’d shown her thus far.

  Damn those Muirs. Why hadn’t they been honest upfront? Of course, he would have still come, but he was certain Phoebe would not if she’d known the dangerous place they would send her—probably in hopes that James would rescue her and they would live happily ever after.

  What headstrong modern woman would choose to become little better than a scullery maid, to be bartered between men who might prize their horses more dearly? What lies they must have told her!

  The meddlesome matchmakers! How dare they steal her life away? And what if Stephan had wanted to keep her for his own?

  Heaven help him! He had to keep her from Stephan!

  Flanders crossed the roof, headed straight for him, a tall pale form against the black of night. “Which one is she?”

  “Which one?”

  “Over the years, ye’ve mentioned two women. I assumed when she called ye by name, she was one of the two ye’ve spoken of before. Ye won’t deny it upset ye to see her, so, is she your Isobelle? Or Christina?”

  He hadn’t realized he’d mentioned either of the women, but two years was a long time, and Flanders had always possessed a good memory. Isobelle was a Scottish woman from the fifteenth century he’d hoped to impress but she was already in love with another when he found her.

  Christina had been the woman he’d found in order to get over the disappointment of Isobelle. They’d been together close to two years when she suddenly decided she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with him. He’d been pushing her to marry. She’d pushed back by moving out of the flat they shared and broken up with him with as much emotion as a mere roommate deserved.

  Isobelle was blameless, and ignorant of his hopes. Christina was simply unimpressed by them. She’d appreciated the smell of money, the taste of excitement she got from dating an ex-agent of the SIS. But she’d never appreciated him, never shared his concerns for the decline of society.

  “She is neither,” he said. “I knew Phoebe for a few days. We drank a cup of tea in the same…alehouse, once upon a time.”

  Flanders nodded. “Yes, that’s right. The American lass. I’d nearly forgotten. Ye never said where this America was.”

  “All that matters is we keep her away from Stephan. She won’t survive long if she is sent back to him.”

  “I planned to speak to you about that,” his friend said, not meeting his eye.

  James suddenly recalled that Flanders had spent the entire day on the road with the woman, escorting her through the pass. And his mind immediately conjured scenarios of what could have happened between the two of them. But he shook off his worry when he remembered that it was Flanders who put her in the pit.

  The man cleared his throat nervously. “If ye’ve no interest in wedding Phoebe Jones, then I want her for myself.”

  James laughed. “Ye can’t just have Phoebe. Phoebe won’t be had. She’s a woman that must be wooed and won.”

  “I’m certain I can seduce her. She’s a bit warm for me already.”

  James got slowly to his feet and stretched as an alternative to punching Flanders in the face. Then he asked casually, “What do ye mean?”

  “I mean to say that I’ve kissed her, and she did not resist. I doubt she’d resist for long if I insisted she marry me.” The Viking shrugged his shoulders and frowned. “Although, ye haven’t said whether ye’re interested in her, aye?”

  “That’s right. I haven’t.”

  He knocked his friend on the shoulder perhaps a mite harder than usual, then left him on the roof to consider what lines he might have crossed—and what danger he might be in.

  ~ ~ ~

  Once again, Phoebe woke up to an aching back, but she suspected this time it was more from sleeping on the floor than falling into the pit. Either way, she was glad she going to get a bath as soon as the kitchen fires were available for heating water.

  “Everyone works,” a girl barked at her when she walked into the large building off the back of the keep. She handed Phoebe a hot, wet rag and pointed to a table currently being cleaned by two tall deerhounds standing with their front paws on the surface. She gave them another minute to clean off the larger bits of fat probably left behind from a butcher, but then she was struck on the back with a spoon and barked at by another female.

  “Everyone works!”

  She took a good look at her assailant for revenge purposes, then bent over the table and started scrubbing. When one of the hounds growled at her, she growled back, and they both ran away.

  “Did ye think to feed her before ye put her to work?” Flanders laughed from the doorway, then folded his arms and wandered over to the dripping table.

  Phoebe glanced around and noticed there was no one nearby to answer him, then she resumed scrubbing. “They did not feed me, but I was late. As soon as we’ve cleaned up breakfast, I’m going to have a nice hot bath.”

  He lost his smile. “Ye know, that’s what James calls the morning meal. After all this time, he still calls it breakfast. I suppose ye come from the same area then?”

  “Uh, yeah. We do.”

  “Then, he’s from Wales?”

  She smelled a trap and shrugged. “Well, we’ve been to the same places. I’m not sure where he started.”

  Flanders nodded and wandered to the window, then turned back. “And ye say ye’ll be taking a hot bath?”

  “Yes. But no spectators, thanks.”

  He nodded. “James likes a hot bath as well.”

  An undercurrent to his words made her uncomfortable, and since she knew every woman in the room was listening, she wanted it to stop before he said something stupid that might get her in trouble.

  “No need to be jealous, Flanders darling.
I haven’t shared either with James.”

  He turned sharply and narrowed his eyes, then his face brightened when he finally understood what she was hinting at. When he glanced at the other women, he seemed to understand why she’d said what she did. A woman’s reputation was everything, no matter the century.

  He moved around the table and stepped close, then he made a big show of bending down to kiss her, but at the last second, he lifted his lips to her forehead. “Maybe ye’ll share one with me then?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “I’m starved.”

  He laughed all the way out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When James had promised only women would be in attendance at Phoebe’s public bathing, he’d been telling the truth. He might have said, however, that just about every woman at Todlaw would be on hand to watch.

  She wished she’d had more experience being nude in public, but the truth was, she had next to none. In gym class, showers had been optional. Modest girls like her had been really careful not to work up a sweat if they didn’t want to stink all day. And one year, she’d had gym last period, so she didn’t even have to change back into street clothes before going home to shower.

  She’d never been someone who could try on clothes in store aisles. She’d never even mooned anyone. And when she’d gone to Mardi Gras one year with some roommates, the only necklaces she got were ones that other people couldn’t catch because they were too drunk.

  It was standing room only in the Duncan kitchens while a large barrel, cut in half, was prepped for her bath. The spoon brandisher told her the water was warm. She lied. She assured her the water was deep enough to begin. Another lie. But it was too late to do anything about it.

  It was show time.

  Phoebe was careful to focus on no one at all while she took off her shoes, socks, and kirtle. The outfit as a whole was not optimum for Strip Poker. And as she lifted her gown over her head in the most embarrassing moment of her life, she silently thanked the Muir sisters for insisting she leave her bra behind.