by Gwyn Cready
One punch should have been enough. Rosston wove, eyes rolling, like a baby taking his first steps. But Duncan’s ego was not so easily appeased. He lowered his center of gravity and unleashed a fist into Rosston’s gut. The man doubled over, hands on his knees, vomiting his dinner onto the floor.
Only Nab’s appearance kept Duncan from adding, “I just finished bedding your girlfriend, by the way. At her invitation. Who’s the man now?” But he might as well have, for when Rosston finally lifted his head, he had murder in his eyes.
Duncan needed no further invitation. With an iron shoulder, he knocked the man to the floor and crouched beside him, showering him with punches.
“Stop it!” The horrified cry barely broke through the din of his fury.
He had a distant sensation of someone tugging his collar, then a clear apprehension of it. Abby jerked him off his feet. Several clansmen had appeared since he’d last taken notice. Nab held Grendel by the scruff of his neck.
“Fool,” she said to Duncan.
“Take him to the barn,” she said to the footmen, “and bring Rosston to my room with hot water, towels, and a needle and thread.”
Twenty-eight
The clansmen, who had no special love for the stranger in their midst, dumped Duncan unceremoniously onto the barn’s dirt floor, which immediately enveloped him in a stinking cloud of dust.
“Fuck you,” Duncan called matter-of-factly to the retreating figures. He lifted himself to his elbows and picked detritus from his mouth.
“Och,” one clansman said. “Did you hear that? I think the poor fellow said he’s in need of a pillow.”
A shovelful of warm cow dung landed next to Duncan.
The men laughed.
Duncan let out several long oaths, the last consigning Abby to a particularly warm place in Hell for leaders who abuse their power. She’d been the commander of men so long the line between leadership and manipulation had begun to blur. From the moment he’d landed in this godforsaken time, his vanity had taken a bruising. But to find out his most useful characteristic as a strong arm was the dependability of his ineffectiveness had been devastating.
He dragged himself to a sitting position, and a rag plopped beside him. He turned to find Jock standing behind him.
“’Twas a novice’s error, laddie,” the man said, gesturing toward the main castle hall.
“Ha!” Duncan wiped his face. “I’m hardly a novice. Rosston’s lucky he can still walk.”
“I didn’t mean your fighting, ye clod-heid.”
An image of a barely dressed Abby tenderly daubing Rosston’s wounds sprung to life in his head. “Oh. Right.” Duncan sighed. “I suppose that willna go down in history as the smartest move I’ve ever made.”
Jock slipped a slim glass bottle from his coat. He uncorked it and handed it to Duncan. Duncan drank freely. Now there was a taste he could live with. He wiped his mouth and returned the bottle. “Thank you.”
“You’ve taken a fancy to the chieftess?” Jock took a long draft himself.
Duncan schooled his features. He had no wish to expose the tenuous connection he and Abby shared. Scrutiny would certainly destroy it, and, worse, it would put Abby in a deeply embarrassing position. But a bullheaded crush on her would be understandable in any man between fifteen and fifty, and it would certainly explain his scrum with Rosston.
“Mm,” Duncan said obscurely.
“You wouldna be the first man to have fallen in love with her,” Jock said, “though you may be the first to press his suit with such, er…”
“Stupidity?”
“Unqualified abandon. Though there is some advantage to defying expectations, ye ken.”
Duncan climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. “From the sound of it, I’m guessing you’d recommend I give up?”
Jock gave him a sad, avuncular smile. “I am an accountant, after all. Our hearts might wish one thing, but I am unable to ignore the balance sheet. And to be fair, if the lady marries, it will have to be for money. She runs a rather large concern, as you have undoubtedly noticed. My own thoughts…” He stopped, eyeing Duncan carefully. “Well, ’tis not for me to say.”
“No, please. Say it.”
Jock lowered his voice. “Between you and me, I have encouraged her not to accept Rosston.”
Duncan brightened. “You are a romantic.”
The man laughed. “I wish it were so, lad, but, nae, I have seen what uneasy marital partnerships can do to an organization. The increase in assets may not be worth the loss of goodwill among the stockholders.”
“You’re saying the clansmen don’t like Rosston?”
“Most do. But there are enough who don’t to make the decision a risky one.”
“Her father likes him. And, by the way, I was shocked to find out he’s still alive.”
“If you call that living,” Jock said. “Aye, the chieftess has her challenges.”
“She is quite good at managing them, though, isn’t she? I mean for such a young woman. She is quite determined to be everything a male chief would be. She even handles a sword like one.” He closed his eyes and remembered the lesson. He’d liked that almost as much as what had followed. A lesson where one learned better without one’s clothes? That’s the sort of studying he liked to do. Then it struck him and his eyes flew open. “Jock, who taught her to use a sword? Her mother?”
Jock laughed. “Hardly. I believe it was Rosston. They were thick as thieves when they were young.”
Duncan gritted his teeth. That was exactly the sort of thing he could imagine Rosston doing.
Jock must have seen his face, for he shook his head. “Laddie, you’re not much of a match for a wealthy clan chief. I advise ye to give it up.” He extended his hand and Duncan took it.
Jock was probably right, and while Duncan had no intention of following the advice, there was no harm in letting the steward think he had.
“Well, I suppose there are other women in this place, aye?” Duncan said with a sheepish grin. “There’s that maid of Abby’s, and the new nurse, Molly—do you know her? Those eyes are quite fetching.”
Jock hesitated. “The maid is Nora, but I’d stay away from the nurse. She is a favorite of Lachlan’s.”
There was something in the turn of the word that made Duncan look up. “You canna be suggesting…?”
Jock made an embarrassed shrug.
“The man’s half out of his senses,” Duncan said, appalled.
“But half in—and used to living like a lord.”
“Good God! Do you think he can…? I mean, he is quite old.”
“The vanity of youth.” Jock chuckled. “I had a great uncle who spent every birthday with one of the beauties at the whorehouse in Langholm. On his sixtieth birthday, he treated himself to all six at once.”
Duncan lifted the bottle, trying hard to unsee that picture. “All right, but what is her motivation?” He hoped it was money—a lot of it.
“I think I know—and if I’m right, I fear ’tis none too good for our chieftess.”
Other than accidentally walking in on such a scene, Duncan couldn’t imagine how a dalliance conducted by Abby’s father could affect Abby.
“Molly’s motivation is power—at least by association. Lachlan wants a son to lead his clan.”
Duncan’s jaw didn’t just drop. It nearly unhinged itself and took a turn about the barn. “But Abby’s already assumed the chiefship. She is chief.”
“At the birth of a younger brother, she would revert instantly to second in line.”
Duncan turned over the scenario in his head. “But she’d at least be regent to her wee brother, would she not? Until he could serve on his own?”
“I doubt it. Lachlan would convince them to appoint a man.”
Rosston. “But Lachlan wasn’t able to sway the clansmen when he
wanted Abby removed from consideration the first time. The clansmen like her, I think. It’s grudging, perhaps, but it’s there.”
“That was different,” Jock said. “Their only other choice was someone outside the family. A son fathered by Lachlan would be a different matter—very different.”
The tenure of a clan chief seemed more fraught with peril than that of a Wall Street CEO. “Of course, if the clan has no assets and, therefore, no future, all that strategic copulation would be for naught.”
Jock laughed. “I guess we’ll have to hope for both their sakes that copulation is its own reward.” He tucked the bottle back in his coat. “There are some blankets in the eaves if ye get cold tonight.”
Duncan said, “I don’t suppose I’ll be let back in the castle.”
“Not tonight. Perhaps with a night to sleep on it, Lady Kerr will soften.”
Despite his predicament, Duncan hoped nothing transpired in Lady Kerr’s bedroom that would leave her seeing the world in a different way come morning. He glanced at the towering eaves and decided his plaid would be blanket enough.
The steward made his way toward the barn door.
“Hang on,” Duncan said. “Have you seen Undine? I was hoping to talk to her.”
“Gone till the morrow,” Jock said, brows knitting. “’Tis no swipe at you, lad, when I say you may need to aim for a woman a bit less challenging—a tavern wench, a milkmaid. Nora is a good start. You never know, she may have been looking all her life for a devil-brindled lad with a head as hard as rock.”
Twenty-nine
Bathed in early morning sunshine, Duncan cut through the pool’s cool current like scissors through paper. There was nothing, he thought, like a hundred laps in bracing water to clear his head. Stroke, touch, turn. Abby be damned. Stroke, touch, turn. Rosston too.
On the last turn, he rolled onto his back and stared into the sky, letting his dying momentum carry him into the center of the water. His clothes, heaped on the far shore, might be a filthy mess, but at least the body put in them would be clean. He tried to clear his head of Abby, but every time he did, the ledge on which she’d stood, damp and golden limbed, would drift into view, making any sort of clearheadedness impossible.
Abby had a mess on her hands. Perhaps he was responsible for some of it. But she would survive. Even at her young age, she knew how to get what she wanted. Look at him. He’d been reduced to a bumbling knave in her carefully plotted drama, publicly rebuked and thrown off for a wealthier suitor, and yet, here he was, still determined to get her the money she needed. But that at least would give him the closure he needed to be done with this place and with her.
Damn you, Undine, ye great pale wraith. Get your cauldron-stirring arse back to Castle Kerr so I can—
“You’re looking for me?”
Duncan plunged his nakedness below the water so fast his feet tangled in the weeds and he snorted a sinus full of water trying to right himself.
Undine sat on a rocky outcropping, inclined on her elbows to enjoy the sun. Duncan had looked at that outcropping no more than thirty seconds earlier, at which time it had been completely devoid of human habitation, as had every inch of rock and ground in a fifty-yard radius.
“Are ye in need of a swimming lesson too?” she asked as he coughed. “Abby’s probably still abed, but there’s a lad in the stables who—”
“I dinna need a lesson. I’ve had all the damn lessons I want. I’m ready to go back.”
“Oh.” She sat up straighter and wrapped her arms around her knees. “You’ve put Lady Kerr in the way of what she needs?”
He wasn’t sure quite how to answer. As Undine seemed to know everything that transpired, he couldn’t tell if her words were a sly reference to his liaison with Abby, a crueler reference to delivering Rosston into Abby’s arms after the fight, or a perfectly straightforward question about whether he’d earned the right to be called Abby’s strong arm.
Gah! Why didn’t borderland women come with instruction books?
He treaded in place, hoping the combination of sunshine and moving current made the water less than entirely transparent. “I, well, I have certainly made some progress,” he said, hoping the answer would suffice no matter what the question had been.
“I see.”
“But I need to go back to my own time. As soon as I can. Today, if possible.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. MacHarg, that’s not how the spell works.”
“Look,” he said, growing irritated, “I’ll come back here. You have my word. Can’t you just free me from it for a day—like a parole or something?”
“The spell is not some sort of whim. It was duly cast, and it stands—until it is fulfilled.”
“But I need to help Abby, dammit.”
He wished he hadn’t raised his voice. He wished he hadn’t used Abby’s Christian name. Undine’s eyes penetrated him like tiny tunnel borers, and he suddenly felt as if he couldn’t lie even if he tried. “I am giving her ladyship the money she needs to avoid marrying Rosston. I have money,” he added pointedly. “In my own time.”
“Has Abby—and I see we can speak of her in familiar terms now, aye?—has she asked you for money?”
He shook his head. “Nae.”
“So this is a gift?”
“Yes.”
“And what makes you think she’d accept such a thing from you?”
Undine didn’t know? Perhaps there was a limit to her capabilities. To test that theory, he pushed every thought of his sojourn in Abby’s bed out of his head, concentrating instead on a red grouse that was hopping through the underbrush at the water’s edge. If Undine would read his mind, let her discover his great love of birds, nothing more.
“Mr. MacHarg, has she given you the slightest reason to believe she would take money from you?”
Red grouse. Nest: found on the ground. Eggs: yellow and mottled.
“Mr. MacHarg,” she repeated, with more than a hint of temper.
Mating habits: live in pairs. Food: heather sprouts. Fate: will be shot by the thousands in the future at the hands of Abby Kerr’s noble ilk.
“MacHarg!”
It worked! Ha! Triumphant, he did a full somersault in the water. When he emerged, he found himself under Undine’s fiery gaze, which severely tempered his glee. Don’t piss off the Wizard of Oz, lad. She’s the one who’ll be getting you home.
“Does it matter if she asked for it?” he said. “If she turns me down, she’ll turn me down. I want at least to give her a choice. I would think you’d want that for her too.”
Undine fell silent. He had finally hit on something that resonated with the woman. She began to pace.
“You dinna come from 1706?”
It was a question, not a statement, which surprised him. He’d assumed she knew exactly when and where his home was. “No.”
“I have to believe you come from the future. You’re too quick-witted for a man from the past. Am I correct?”
Quick-witted? Duncan had spent the last two days feeling about as quick-witted as a bucket of muck. And while he appreciated the compliment—one of the few he’d been paid since he’d arrived—he found himself hesitating to reveal anything specific about his origins. Age of Enlightenment or no, an end to the burning of witches didn’t come to the British Isles until the 1730s, and he remembered the alarm on Undine’s face when he called her one.
“You needn’t fear me, Mr. MacHarg. In fact, I’m about the only person here you need not fear.”
Duncan considered his options. He needed Undine’s help. He had better be willing to let her know he trusted her. “Aye, I’m from the future.”
This stunning, unfathomable admission she accepted as fact, her face barely changing. How many other men had said the same to her? he wondered. How many spells had she wrought like his?
“Across how many years
have you traveled?”
Here he drew the line. Truthful he would be. Specific, no. “Many.”
The implications of that statement washed over her, and her face fell.
“Well, then,” she said, “I’m very sorry to have to tell you your money willna work here.”
That he’d already considered. “I wouldna bring money. I’d bring gold.”
But instead of admiring his foresight, she shook her head sadly.
“Gold works everywhere,” he insisted. “It has since before Moses.”
“Ye canna bring gold through time. The spell won’t allow it.”
“That’s ridiculous. I—” He remembered his pen. He hadn’t dropped it. The gold appointments had been stripped as he passed through the centuries. He felt a growing pit in his stomach. “Silver, then.”
“No silver, no gold, no gems, no pearls. Nothing with concentrated value.” Her face softened in something as close to kindness as he’d seen since he met her. “I’m sorry, Duncan. I’ll do what I can to help you help Abby, but we canna do it with your money or gold.”
Duncan’s sense of purpose drained away like blood from a harpooned selkie. Money was the one thing he possessed that could truly help Abby. Aside from that, he was just a distraction—a harmful distraction, in truth. For the last few hours, the determination to be of value had given him his old assured self back. Without it, he felt himself drifting down and down—
An unexpected splash made him turn. Undine surfaced a dozen feet in front of him, naked. The mild fear he felt toward her soundly trumped any attraction, but his cock, as always, operated according to its own set of principles, and it shifted instantly to life. She was, despite everything, a beautiful woman. The contrasting tugs of attraction and repellence lent an odd, otherworldly sense to the moment.
No more than her eyes showed as she moved effortlessly through the water, reminding him of the crocodile in Peter Pan, though the sensuous curves of her hips and breasts were clearly visible below the surface.
“Do you not feel the power of this pool?” she said.
