Time and Space Between Us
Diana Knightley
Copyright © 2018 by Diana Knightley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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For Kevin, I will…
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Also by Diana Knightley
Disclaimer
Some thoughts and research…
Acknowledgments
About me, Diana Knightley
Also by H. D. Knightley (My YA pen name)
Chapter 1
I was still licking the hunks of chocolate lava cake off my fingers from our dessert when Magnus, sitting on one of the kitchen stools, took my hand and pulled me closer between his legs.
It was still a little awkward to kiss him. There weren’t a lot of places on his body that weren’t painfully injured. I couldn’t touch him without causing him to wince.
“Are you feeling better?” I pressed closer, keeping my hands on his thighs, off his back.
“Och aye.” He ran his hands up the back of my thighs to my panties. He pulled my hips closer.
“Would you like your massage?”
In answer he led me to our room, our bed.
I helped him peel his shirt off his back, not easy with so many bandages. Then I dropped his kilt to the ground and took a deep breath to steady myself.
I missed him. I wanted him. It had been way too long.
As he crawled to the middle of our bed, I pulled my shirt off, unfastened my bra, and slid it down my arms.
He dropped face down on the bed, but turned in time to see me shimmy my shorts and panties down. His eyes went wide.
A smile spread across his mouth. “You are disrobed mo reul-iuil, tis markedly different from yesterday’s massage.”
I poured a dollop of oil into the palm of my hand, grinned, and climbed astride his lower back. I massaged across the top of his wide shoulders. The whip marks there weren’t as deep. I pressed down the side of his arms. Up and down, pressing and pulling. Wherever I could touch where the skin wasn’t marred. He moaned happily as I burrowed my fingers into a tightly bound muscle and spasmed when I accidentally grazed an especially angry looking wound. “I’m sorry.”
“Nae matter, Kaitlyn. Tis painful, but I feel clear for the first time in days, turadh.”
I pressed my hands along his left tricep. “Remind me what that means?”
He groaned with pleasure. “Turadh, the clouds have broken.”
“Oh. God, I love it when you say things like that — in Gaelic, right?” I pressed my palms to his triceps and wiggled my hips on his back.
He growled and rose up, bucking.
I squealed as I slid off his slippery back to the bed.
“Tha thu breagha.” He pinned my wrists and climbed on my body. “Is ann leatsa abhios mo chridhe gubrath.”
“Oh my god, Magnus, that is fucking hot.”
“Mo reul-iuil…” He shoved hard and fast up into me, desperate and intense, holding my arms above my head, his mouth pressed to my neck. My moans started low but grew as he rocked and pushed against me. His body had been sitting idle and broken, but now strong and powerful. His forehead butted against my cheek; his breath filled my ear. “You art mo reul-iuil.”
“Oh — oh — oh my god,” I arched against him with a moan as waves rolled through me. He held on, riding, his voice a groan. It rumbled up from his chest as he finished and collapsed on my body.
We both lay still. Panting. Slowly catching our breaths. Kissing the spots of skin closest to our mouths. I wriggled my wrists free from his grip and clasped around his hands. I kissed and nibbled his neck.
Then he kissed me, slow. His tongue flicked around my teeth, teasing my lips.
We stared into each other’s eyes.
“I missed you so much.”
“Och aye.” He kissed my lips, the tip of my nose, my chin. “I can tell ye have been wanting me, ye are talking to God.” He chuckled, kissed my neck, and rolled off me to his side.
I curled up beside him. His strong hand on my hip.
I loved him more than I ever believed possible, but the last thing he said just before he fell asleep was, “I would bide here forever if I could.”
I knew in my heart that loving him wasn’t enough to convince him to stay.
Chapter 2
The next morning Magnus was sitting on a deck chair, leaned forward, elbow on his knees, making imaginary marks on the thin layer of sand between his feet. Quentin, now his number one security guard, was nodding, listening, occasionally asking a question.
Magnus was leaving.
I knew it because of what he said when I talked to him about the estate while he was still in the hospital: “Tis good Kaitlyn, how ye have caused it to grow, verra good.” His words were proud. As if he was a parent watching a child start out in a life they couldn’t really share in. He was watching me grow our estate, not for us, but for me, alone.
He told me again that he was leaving soon. I begged him to stay. We ended the conversation with an uncomfortable agreement — there was no way to agree, so we wouldn’t talk about it anymore.
So I had no idea what his plans were and that sucked.
But I couldn’t imagine how to start the conversation. And I was frankly scared to. As if asking would make it real. Ignoring it would keep it improbable. But I needed to know, needed to get it out into the open.
I had to talk to him.
To beg him to stay.
So I planned, plotted, and carefully deliberated, and decided to bring up it up in the office, in a dignified adult way.
But I forgot or disregarded all that planning and brought it up right after making love. In the middle of the night with silent tears rolling down my cheeks, already distraught. Childlike, wrapped in his arms, tears pooling on his chest. “Please don’t go.”
“What’s this then?”
I clutched his shoulders, being mindful of his wounds. They were jagged, red, a few still open and sore. He told me the whip marks didn’t hurt that much, that he could lay on his back, that I didn’t need to be gentle. But his back looked so angry, painful, and deeply, deeply wounded that I felt like it was a reminder why it was too dangerous for him to return to Scotland. He couldn’t see it. Maybe that was why he was so determined to go.
“You’re leaving and you don’t have to… you don’t.”
“Ah,
Kaitlyn, ye know… we have discussed this—"
“We haven’t, we haven’t discussed it. Not enough. I don’t know why. Not really. And you’re making the plans without me, and it’s just like with my—"
He shifted his head and his hand that had been stroking my shoulder paused.
“What are ye saying?”
I sobbed. “That just like everyone else, you’re leaving me and lying to me about it and — am I not worth staying for?”
Magnus huffed. He tensed, then rolled out from under me, and sat on the edge of the bed. His bandaged back turned to me. He sat there for a moment, facing the wall of windows. Very quietly.
Panic hit me in the gut. He had turned his back on me.
He said, “Tis nae fair.”
“What isn’t fair?” I reached for his hand.
He pulled it away and rubbed it across his thigh.
“You are saying this tae me? Comparing me tae your other men, Kaitlyn? I am your husband. I will nae stand for this.”
I was too shocked to know what to say. In my imagination this went so much better.
“I know, I just—"
“You are my wife. When I tell ye I must away, you should say goodbye without a fuss. And I’ll have nae more of speakin’ of other men in my bed.”
“I’m sorry I brought up my past. I only wanted you to know one of the reasons why this was too hard for me. I’m sorry.”
His jaw clenched. “In the future, here, know ye one thought, your husband, Magnus Archibald Caehlin Campbell has been true tae ye.”
I curled up around my knees wishing I could sink away. My voice was so small it shocked me when I spoke. “It doesn’t feel like truth, it feels like a lie of omission. Just because you don’t lie out loud doesn’t make it not a lie. There’s a truth you’re refusing to say.” I looked up at his back.
His face turned to mine. His eyes glaring dark. “You call me a liar?”
“You aren’t telling me the truth. From here, in the pit of my stomach, and here in my heart, it feels very much the same.”
He turned to the windows again. I squirmed up to the pillow, taking a view of the side of his face. His jaw clenched and unclenched. I had hoped that starting this conversation might be an immediate relief, but no, I felt really terrible and desperate. He was headed out the door and my hand was on his back shoving him through.
“You are a woman, ye will try tae convince me tae stay. You canna understand why I must fight. You see my wounds and want tae heal me, and ye want me tae hide here. Just as Lady Mairead—"
“If we’re not to talk of men in your bed, I would appreciate not comparing me to your mother in mine.”
Magnus let out an appreciative chuckle. Then shook his head.
I continued, “I do want to convince you to stay. Explain to me why I can’t. I’m listening. If you’ll listen to me.”
His head hung. “I daena want tae leave ye. I canna talk of it without changin’ my mind, and I must nae change my mind. You want me tae listen tae ye, you plan tae beg me tae stay, but ye do, every moment.” He reached behind to take my hand, wrapping it in his. “Your smile begs me. Your body, your laugh, ye dinna need words, Kaitlyn. I am nae strong enough tae hear them.”
“Then stay.”
“I canna.”
“Then tell me why.”
And so he did. Sitting on the edge of the bed, lit by moonlight shimmering on his darkness. He exposed his shadows. He told me about his home, or lack of a home, in Scotland, the cusp of the eighteenth century. He had spent his youth at Balloch Castle, but when he was nine years old he had been sent to London to live with an uncle. He had been to court. Had lived and played with royals. But he had always been one of “the Highlanders,” not fully trusted, not really fitting in.
Then his Uncle Baldie sent for him because Lady Mairead was missing, abducted. Suddenly, after growing up in a life of wealth and civilities, Magnus was thrust into danger and intrigues. “I lived at Balloch again. I trained to fight alongside my brother, with my cousins, but winna fully trusted for many reasons: My father was a foreigner. I grew up in London. I was Protestant. And maybe worse — the son of Lady Mairead. Twas a blight on my reputation.”
“That must have been really hard.”
“I dinna think on it much, there were feuds to fight.” He gave me a small half-grin.
I squinted my eyes. “You like fighting?”
His eyes twinkled. “Tis hard to like something that may end me, but I am verra good at it. And is braw tae fight alongside my brother. There are troubles brewin’ though. My clan is split in their minds and hearts. The next fight will be cousin against cousin. Up tae now I have been in the middle. They believe I am on both sides and nocht at all. Tis difficult tae prove my allegiance and is harder still tae prove my independence. But I must always be provin’ m’self tae stay alive.”
“Your own cousins are a danger to you?”
“Och aye, I have a great many cousins. Some are like brothers. Some are dangerous. A few are villainous.”
“I have three cousins, they live in Alabama. I don’t see them much.”
“TIs good if they are villainous,” he joked.
His face grew serious again. “I was sent to search for her in France, until finally Lady Mairead was found, in a castle in Scotland, married to Lord Delapointe. She sent for me. She made me take a binding oath tae follow her commands. Then she asked me tae recover one of these vessels from its hiding place and bring it tae her.
“I did as she asked, but when I returned with it, Lord Delapointe met me at the gates and fought me for it. Twas my first indication that the vessel was very valuable.”
“That’s awful.”
“It was, in the ensuin’ battle I killed John Baldrick, the brother of Delapointe.”
“His brother?” My eyes were wide. “Have you killed many people?”
“Enough that we shoudna speak of it.” He looked down at his hands. “Lady Mairead met me on the field of battle tae take the vessel. As her hand clasped around it she spoke a numerical incantation. I was fearful and begged her nae tae perform spells, but she continued, and I was dragged here tae Fernandina Beach, the year 2017.”
“You must have been terrified. That night you met James, you didn’t know where you were or anything about the world you were in…”
“Twas terrible. But then I met ye, and you introduced me tae coffee, and after that twas all okay.” He chuckled. “The truth is I am used tae being in places that are nae mine. I haena had a home in many years. I daena fit any—“
I pulled his hand to my heart. “This is your home Magnus. You belong here. You are my husband. This is true. I know it.” I smiled. “I know it here.” I drew his hand down between my legs. “And here.”
He groaned happily. “I would live there if I could.” He drew his hand away and turned back to the windows.
“Thank you for telling me. But it all sounds so complicated and dangerous; I still don’t know why you have to go back.”
“That is why I am nae talkin’ tae ye about it.”
“So what do you want me to say?”
“Kaitlyn, I want ye tae say, ‘Aye master, I will do as ye wish,’ and be done with it.”
I flicked the sheets, pissed. “You’re kidding me right? I have never in my life said anything like that to any man, and I’m not going to start now.” I lay fuming. “I mean you’ve met me right? I’m Kaitlyn Sheffield, and I don’t just take orders—”
“Your name is Kaitlyn Campbell, and ye will take orders from me—"
“No I won’t.”
“Let me finish. I would say — you will take orders from me as my wife, but as your husband I winna give them. Nae like that.” He scrubbed his palms down his face. “I knew what kind of woman ye are when I married ye. I knew Kaitlyn Campbell dinna take orders. Lady Mairead warned me. She said ye winna be a woman under my control, and I said that was good. I like ye with the fire in your throat and passion in your heart, but you ask
ed what I want ye tae say and I answered — I want ye tae submit tae me. I know ye won’t, so instead tis better nae tae talk of it.”
“I want you to be able to talk to me about anything.”
“I canna trust that ye will listen and nae beg me tae stay.”
I huffed, threw the covers off my legs, swung my feet to the opposite side of the bed, and stood. “So you don’t trust me and I don’t trust you. That’s a fine piece of horseshit of a marriage.” I stomped into our bathroom and wanted to slam the door, but guess what, frosted, sliding glass. So I crossed my arms and pouted like a big baby for a few moments and then stomped back into the room.
He hadn’t moved. He was still sitting, staring at his hands between his knees. The skin on his back cut and injured, his head hanging down.
And I softened.
Oh. “What do you need me to do?”
“I need tae talk tae ye about it. I need your help with something — tae be able tae trust ye tae help me go.”
“Oh god Magnus, I’m so sorry.” I dropped to my knees in front of him and clutched his hands. “You can trust me. I’ll just — I can just listen. I will. Tell me.” I laid my forehead on his hands and tried, really hard, to listen through my breaking heart.
“Delapointe wants all the vessels. If he finds them all it will make him verra powerful. There are three; he knows I have one. Lady Mairead still has one. The other is in his hands. Ye have seen the cuts on Lady Mairead’s cheeks. He will torture her if he is given the chance.
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