Just in Time for a Highlander

by Gwyn Cready

  “But once he’s found the plan to attack…on you…?”

  “I will face what needs to be faced. Duncan, you say you’re from the future. It would give me peace to know…that is, if you dinna feel uncomfortable telling me…that Scotland survives this clash with England.”

  Her cheeks were as pink and full of hope as the twinflowers at Candle Pool. He wished that Bridgewater would burst in here and drag him to a gallows. Anything rather than telling her what would happen.

  “Abby, I don’t think…” He blathered something about the risk of knowing one’s future before one’s time, terrified of what the truth would do to her. But she knew.

  Her eyes filled and a single tear ran down her cheek and landed on her gown. “Is it awful?”

  He owed her the truth. Even if it could not help her change it.

  “Yes. The clans are routed. Those who do not bow to England are murdered. Everything we love here is taken from us. The Scotland we know ceases to exist. It takes no more than thirty years once it starts. And almost three hundred years later, it has not been undone. We are English, Abby.”

  She pulled her hands away from him, covered her eyes, and began to weep.

  “Oh, my darling, my chieftess,” he said, sweeping her into his arms, “I am so sorry.” He felt the deep pain of their loss, and the shame of his twenty-first-century resignation to it.

  Bridgewater swept back the tent flap, and Duncan clutched her tighter. He would die before he’d let anyone hurt her. Wordlessly, the colonel made his way to his chair.

  “Chieftess, I see you have made your peace with the man.” Bridgewater pulled his own pressed silk square from a pocket and handed it to her.

  “Aye,” she said, wiping her nose.

  He sank into his chair, a different, uglier calculation weighing on him. Duncan scanned the room for something he could grab.

  “It brings me less pleasure than you’d imagine to tell you your fate is in my hands. ’Tis my right to have you shot as a spy, you see, and ’twould do a great service to the people of England who’ve suffered the attacks and raids of your clan. Queen Anne would thank me for it.”

  The man lies with exquisite ease, Duncan thought.

  “And yet,” Bridgewater added, “I find I would prefer to offer you another choice.”

  Abby sat straighter, a Scottish queen unmoved by fear or threats. “What?”

  “You are capable of being a voice of reason. I know your chiefs meet each fall. I want you to begin to spread the word of the benefits of cooperation. There is money to be made in a partnership with England. If we quell the violence in the borderlands, there is a great deal of money to be made, and the chiefs who ally themselves with us are the only ones who will benefit.”

  “I have always been a proponent of peace, sir.”

  “I have no interest in peace, Chieftess. I am interested in a swift resolution by Scotland to accept the Act of Union. I want your vote.”

  Her slim fingers worked the fabric of her skirt. Duncan could see the existential struggle in her eyes. What had he done by telling her the truth?

  “Oh, Abby, don’t listen to him—”

  “I’ll thank you for your silence, Mr. MacHarg,” Bridgewater said. “With all due respect, this is an area in which you can have no understanding. Chieftess?”

  “With all due respect,” Duncan said, “go to hell. Abby, the things I told you? What if I’m part of the reason it happens? What if people like me tell people like you what we know and that dissuades people like you from doing what you know you should? Look at me, Abby. Nothing is ever certain. You know it and I know that. Let’s change what we can, even if it’s only a little.”

  He could see the struggle in her eyes as she weighed certain safety with the chance to protect the way of life her people loved.

  “Chieftess,” Bridgewater said, “I don’t know what nonsense your acquaintance is spouting. But you are responsible for the lives of hundreds of men and women. You can protect them with a single handshake. Why would you not do it?”

  She stood. Her hands were shaking. “I thank you for your offer, Colonel, but I should rather lick the boots of every man in the English army than vote for the act.”

  Bridgewater clapped his hands and laughed a single laugh. “That is exactly what I expected you to say. Still, ’twas worth a try. Then I believe our time here is at an end. Chieftess, I shall just need you to describe the nature of your meeting today on English soil and the happy resolution with Mr. MacHarg. Rose will set you up with paper and a pen. Then you’ll be free to go.”

  “Why would that be necessary?” Duncan asked.

  “Because Colonel Bridgewater wishes to hold a threat of exposure over my head, is that not true?”

  “I’m afraid so. Ugly business, I know. One never knows when one will need to diminish the reputation of an enemy among her peers or even destroy an advantageous alliance with a family sept. My apologies. By the way, I shall have to insist you include an account of the trip to York. I hope you understand.”

  Duncan began to rise, fists ready.

  “Sit down,” Abby said, tight-lipped. “We will accede to the colonel’s request at once and consider ourselves lucky to have been offered such a choice.”

  “Mr. MacHarg, your chieftess is most wise.” Bridgewater gave them an even smile and rose. “If that’s all…”

  Abby said, “May I have my things?”

  “What…? Oh, the cloak and plaid? I had forgotten. Aye, of course.”

  Less certain, she added, “And my bow?”

  He chuckled. “Yes, Chieftess, you may have your bow. You’ll forgive me I hope if I keep the arrows. My men will not bother you as you make your way home, and I have heard the badger hunting has been very poor this season.”

  Forty-four

  They were a mile into Kerr land before Abby felt completely safe again. She stopped in the shade of a beech near a crumbling stone wall at the bottom of a hill, desperately glad the deed was done.

  Duncan, who had been quieter than she’d expected, leaned against the trunk. He’d changed so much since she’d met him. Had it only been three days?

  “You look like a Kerr,” she said.

  He gave her a wan smile. “Thank you.”

  “Well, except for the plaid. Does Rosston know ye stole it?”

  “I didna steal it from him. And I didna really steal it. Just borrowed.”

  She threw the cloak and plaid she’d been carrying on the ground, happy to free her aching, damp arms. “If I never see those things again, ’twill be too soon.”

  She had checked for the plans with theatrical surreptitiousness while still in sight of the army. “They will expect us to check,” she’d told him, fiddling with the wool while they walked.

  The silk had been where she’d put it, causing Duncan a moment of anxiety, until she reminded him Bridgewater would want them to think they’d gotten away without it being found.

  “But how will we know he’s read it?” Duncan had asked.

  “Because I put three strands of hair in the silk before I placed it in the hem.”

  “And are they there?”

  “I dinna know. I didna dare have him or one of his men catch me pawing through the fabric. It would have planted a seed in his mind we would not be able to dislodge.”

  And now, under the beech’s shade, Duncan bubbled with nervousness. “Will you not look now?”

  She turned in a circle scanning the hills and fields. She was as familiar with these hills as she was the castle bailey, and if someone watched them, she would feel it. Satisfied they were alone, she adjusted the bow across her chest, sat down by the cloak, and carefully withdrew the nearly unnoticeable lump from its hiding place.

  With a deep breath, she unfolded the silk. Had it only been three hours ago she’d written the words on it?

>   No hairs! Not a single one!

  “They’re gone!” she cried and jumped up. “He’s read the note and thinks we plan to attack! We did it!”

  She threw her arms around Duncan and he clasped her tight. The clasp transformed all too easily into a kiss and then the start of something more.

  “Too soon,” he said huskily.

  “Is it?” she said, giddy. “Dinna forget I am your chieftess. If I command you to possess me, you must. Dinna tell me you would prefer a bed. I have the grass stains on my arse to prove you’re a liar. And tomorrow we shall prepare for Sir Alan’s arrival, and you will convince him of the great opportunity he has to invest in our canal.”

  But her effervescence was not contagious. Duncan hardly met her eyes.

  “What it is?” she said.

  “Rosston told me you negotiated the terms of a marriage to him.”

  “Duncan—”

  “Abby, you dinna owe me anything. And I don’t care whether you’re married or nae, or if ye take me to your bed or nae. I will stay at your side, as your strong arm, for as long as you’ll have me there. And I willna make ye uncomfortable for it. If I am of use to you, that will be enough.”

  “You are willing to serve while I’m married to another? To wait for the infrequent note: ‘Come to me, Duncan. My husband is away.’ To take your ease while his bairn wriggles inside me, a big as a pumpkin?”

  Duncan didn’t blink. “I am.”

  “Why am I the only one of the three of us who isn’t willing to do that? I didna negotiate the terms of our marriage, Duncan. He did—and I will thank him in person next time I see him for describing it that way to you,” she added darkly. “I told him I couldna marry him, that while I am fond of him, I do not love him. And do you know what he proposed then? Did he tell you that as well?”

  “He tried. I told him I didn’t want to hear. I decided that if I trust you, I must trust you in all things. And I walked away.”

  He cupped her hand between the two of his, just as he had done in Bridgewater’s tent, only this time his touch was as gentle and warm as the other had been angry. He smelled of salt and wind and a touch of Bridgewater’s sweet cologne.

  “No more words, Abby. You carry the weight of a clan on your shoulders—and now you are tasked with changing history. I will abide by your decision.”

  She laughed. The sense that she had someone she could depend on completely was inebriating. For the first time since she was a girl, she didn’t feel alone. “Thank you.”

  “However, if you care to give me leave, I’d be happy to kick Rosston’s arse for being fast and loose with the truth.”

  “Oh, good. More fistfights. That will help us overcome England. Perhaps you two should just lift your plaids and we could get out the ruler instead?”

  Duncan tapped his chin. “Might save some time.”

  “Gah!” She rolled her eyes. “What is it with men? You behave as if this inconsequential palmful of flesh—”

  “Inconsequential!” He spun her around and pinned her, giggling, to the tree.

  “—no bigger than a very average turnip—”

  “When they’re soft! But hard—”

  “Oh, aye, hard they are invested with the pomp and splendor of a common least weasel. And yet somehow we are to believe they are the divine lightning rod of God’s glory here on Earth.”

  She laughed so hard at the look of shock on his face, she could hardly breathe.

  He lifted her to the tip of her toes and gazed down his aquiline nose. “You will take that back, Chieftess.”

  “Never.”

  “You will take that back and you will raise a hallelujah chorus before I am through with you tonight.”

  He kissed her hard enough to make her long for nightfall.

  “And for the record,” he said, his breath tickling her ear, “I would win.”

  Forty-five

  The small number of clansmen who knew what had transpired—and what had been avoided—were in a celebratory mood, and Abby had ordered a lavish supper of roast beef, smoked ham, asparagus, and toasted pears in her private dining room. Duncan, who had damned it all and claimed the seat next to Abby, was enjoying some very fine whiskey and watching her eyes sparkle as she repeated the story of her wayward farm wife, well, at least a heavily edited one.

  One of Rosston’s men passed along Rosston’s greetings, saying he was awake and resting comfortably in his room. Jock reported that his crew had put the finishing touches on the crumbling chapel on the Esk that would convert it, at least for the time being, into a rustic Kerr fishing lodge. Sir Alan would while away a day or two knee-deep in Duncan’s not inconsiderate charm and some of the best fishing waters in all of Britain.

  All was well.

  At evening’s end, Abby excused herself to drop in on Rosston and thank him for his help—though Duncan rather hoped there would be some arse kicking as well. And she had instructed Duncan to take the secret passage to her room once the halls emptied, which was why he was currently taking the steps on the main staircase two at a time, whistling.

  “You seem rather happy,” said Nab, whom he found bent over a pair of dice on his bed when he entered his room.

  “I am.”

  “What was the private supper for?”

  “What’s the word on the street about it?”

  “Huh?”

  “What do the men think it was for?”

  “Well, they know Rosston was stabbed. He says it was a soldier. But some of the men think it was you.”

  Duncan rather liked that. “If that were true, I doubt Lady Kerr would have been quite as willing to include me in the supper invitation.”

  “Unless it was a battle for her hand. Like Penelope and her suitors.”

  Duncan lifted a brow, not just at the reference, which surprised him in an unschooled boy in the eighteenth century, but the implications. All of Penelope’s 108 suitors had been murdered by her returning husband. “I certainly hope you’re assuming I’m the Odysseus in this contest.”

  “I might be, but the men are staking you at seven to one against.”

  “What?!”

  Nab grinned. “I’d be betting myself, but you still havena paid me.”

  Duncan tousled the boy’s hair. “I’ll be paying you, ye wee thieving fox. Give me another week. Speaking of fox, what sort of information has Rosston been pumping you for on me?”

  “The usual. Where you’re from, for one thing.” Nab crossed his arms around his knees. “I’d like to know that myself.”

  Duncan took a seat near the boy. “It’s not far. My grand-da lived a couple of miles from here.”

  Nab looked away. “I know you’re not from around here. Not really. It’s all right if you don’t want to tell me.”

  Duncan was speechless. His reticence had hurt more than just Abby. “It isn’t that I don’t want to tell you, Nab. It’s just that there are things that even one’s business partner…”

  Nab scooped up his dice and hopped off the bed.

  “Stop,” said Duncan. “I’m from Scotland. I grew up in Edinburgh. I’m just not from…now.”

  Nab turned, eyes narrowed.

  “I’m from a time ahead of this one,” Duncan said. “I was called here by…well, that part’s still a little unclear, but I suppose the answer is a combination of me, Lady Kerr, and Undine.”

  He was glad he’d thrown in Undine. It wasn’t till he’d mentioned her name that Nab relaxed his scowl slightly. The boy’s face was a mixture of desire to believe the fabulous tale and fear Duncan was mocking him.

  “Prove it,” Nab said tentatively.

  “Oh, I see. First, you want the truth, then you dinna believe it. What do ye want to know?”

  “When does that fat old queen die?”

  “Tut, tut. Disrespectful, even in a Scot
sman. And the answer is 1714.” Duncan sifted through the faint remnants of his secondary school history lessons. “More or less. Followed by a long line of King Georges—Georges of every shape and size.” He sized up Nab with a gimlet eye. “I should think you’d live to see the third one, who, by the way gives Anne a run for her money in the rotundity department. But he’s actually best known for a war he wages on America.”

  “America?” Nab hooted. “Ruffian upstarts. They wouldna stand a chance.”

  Duncan chuckled. “Aye, well, it wouldn’t matter if I told you they lost or won. You have no way of proving me wrong.”

  A look of concern came over the boy’s face. “Oh God, you’re not an American, are you? That’s not why your accent’s so odd?”

  “Are you impugning my Scottishness, ye cad? I am not an American by birth, nae. A bit by sensibility, though, I fear. They have a hell of a fine idea about liberty. Keep your ears open when you’re a grown-up. As a Scotsman, I think ye’ll like what you hear. Now swear to me. Ye canna tell the men what I told you. Ye canna tell your friends. Ye canna tell your ma. Ye canna tell anyone.”

  “I never tell my ma anything.” He held up his hand. “I swear.”

  “And with that”—Duncan glanced at the clock—“I believe I shall take my leave.”

  Nab rolled his eyes. “Another secret mission?”

  “In a particularly rewarding engagement.”

  Forty-six

  Duncan emerged from the wardrobe, closed the doors, and did a little tap dance.

  A cascade of giggles brought him up cold. He turned around.

  Three young women in robes and diaphanous chemises stood before Abby’s fire. One was Nora, the maid who’d overheard him offering Abby his companionship his first night at Kerr Castle. The other two he did not recognize.

  “Lady Kerr asked us to ensure you were comfortably settled,” said one of the unknown ones, a blond with fine, wide cheekbones.

  “Did she?” He took a step backward and tripped over Abby’s bow, catching himself with the bedpost only by luck. A tidal wave of heat crashed over his cheeks. “I am actually as uncomfortable as a man could be,” he said, prompting another dizzying peal of laughter from the two he didn’t recognize.