by Allie Mackay
He cursed beneath his breath and shifted on the chair.
Unfortunately, his best efforts at ignoring the noise only caused the din to increase. Even yanking the spare plaid over his head proved futile. The wind’s howling rose to a teeth-grinding pitch, and the banging shutters became so loud he considered ripping them from their hinges the instant he felt awake enough to see to the task.
Awake enough?
He blinked, the thought jarring him so thoroughly that he sat bolt upright.
He had fallen asleep.
And though a fuzzy-headed glance at the bed showed that his lady yet slumbered deeply, the new day broke in a wild cacophony around him.
“By the saints,” he grumbled, rubbing his hands over his face. Chaos rang in his ears, loud and penetrating. Poor Ferlie’s howls, which he’d mistaken for the wind, and the sharp rapping at his door that wasn’t rattled shutters at all.
“Sir!” came the voice of one of his squires, followed by another burst of knocking.
Ferlie gave a piercing bark and charged the door.
Aidan swore and leapt from his chair. Still half-asleep, he grabbed for his clothes and his sword, then bounded across the room, the name Conan Dearg pounding through his mind in rhythm to his squire’s door hammering.
This was the morn they rode to Ardcraig.
The day he was sure they would finally capture his dastardly cousin.
Aidan scowled, his pleasure in the deed dampened by the thought of such a cur beneath the same roof as Kira—even with the craven secure in Castle Wrath’s dungeon. Pushing the notion from his mind, he reached for the drawbar, only to stub his toe on his strongbox.
“God’s mercy!” he scolded, absolutely refusing to acknowledge the pain shooting up his leg.
Furious, he unbolted the door. Flinging it wide, he realized too late that he’d latched his sword belt around his naked hips.
His plaid lay bunched around his feet, where he must’ve dropped it when he opened the door.
Not that his slack-jawed squire paid his appearance any heed.
Far from it. The youth’s stare shot past him, homing in on a naked form far more pleasing than his own. And thanks to the carelessness of sleep, a ripe, well-made nakedness that left little to the lad’s red-faced imagination.
Or Aidan’s.
His gaze, too, flew straight to Kira’s bared and creamy breasts, the lush triangle of flaming curls plainly visible between her slightly parted thighs.
“You’ve seen nothing.” He whipped back around, fixing the squire with his sternest laird’s look. “No’ if you wish to properly enjoy such sweetness yourself when you’re old enough.”
Not giving the lad a chance to see it was an empty threat, for he’d ne’er harm a youth—certainly not for ogling a fetching, bare-bottomed female—Aidan stepped into the doorway, making sure his shoulders blocked the view.
“Tell Tavish to see our men mounted at once,” he ordered, trying to maintain as much dignity as he could, garbed as he was in naught but his great sword. “I’ll join them anon.”
As soon as his big toe quit throbbing and he was more suitably dressed. He also had to see to a few other urgent matters. Things that bit deeply into his conscience but that he deemed necessary.
Indeed, vital.
Things that would ensure that his tamhasg would find it difficult to leave him.
Chapter 6
Kira awoke to absolute stillness.
She also had a raging headache, a twitching nose, and, she’d bet on it, horribly swollen eyes.
Frog eyes. Red, bulging, and achy.
O-o-oh, yes, even without the luxury of a peek in her bathroom mirror, she knew she must look like death warmed over served on icy-cold toast.
She felt that bad.
Not an unusual occurrence in recent times, considering her perturbation with the media hounds who’d persisted in dogging her every step since she’d owned up to the discovery of the Viking longship and its New England moorings. Truth was, every new morning had seen her reaching for the aspirin and glass of water she kept handy on her night table. Just as sleepless nights spent tossing and turning resulted in aching, puffy eyes.
Annoyances she’d grown accustomed to.
But the thick and furry covers tickling her nose were beyond the norm, as was the undeniable scent of dog. No, dawg. Much more than a mere hint of dander on the cold, peat-tinged air, the smell was overpowering and definitely there.
A big, smelly dog odor as real as the massive, richly carved medieval bed in which she found herself.
Even if the beast himself wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He’d been there. That stood without question. Just as the bed was certainly real, its heavily embroidered curtaining parted just enough to give her a view of tall arch-topped windows and the burgeoning morn. A new day that was not breaking over the crowded parking lot of Aldan, Pennsylvania’s low-budget Castle Apartments.
Nor the small and cozy car park of the tiny Skye inn she hadn’t even spent a night in.
Indeed, she couldn’t be in a more different place if she’d stowed away on a rocket to Mars.
Kira’s heart began to pound and her mouth went dry. Her headache worsened, and although she would have preferred not to admit it, she feared her time of the month was about to play havoc with her as well. Rarely had she felt so miserable. If she didn’t soon feel better, she’d suspect she was allergic to time travel.
Or medieval Scotland.
Much as the notion displeased her.
There could be no doubt that she’d landed there. Even if she weren’t peering through the bed curtains at the proof, the lack of noise was a giveaway. There was a stiff wind. It blew and moaned, and from somewhere above her came the snapping of what might have been a banner flying from the parapets. She also heard the muffled barking of dogs and the repetitive wash of the waves on the rocks below.
What she didn’t hear was the twenty-first century.
The maddening blare of leaf blowers and you-ride-’em-cowboy lawn mowers or deaf old Mr. Wilson’s television droning through her apartment’s bedroom wall. No rattling of garbage trucks or distant sirens. Not even the low hum of her computer or the weird pops and shudders her ancient refrigerator was always making.
She heard…simply nothing.
She listened hard, the silence almost hurting her ears. Half certain that her admittedly wild imagination was conjuring the stillness, she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, but the quiet remained. As did the whole medieval-y room, the doggy smell, and the great, dark bulk of Wrath Isle so visible through the tall, arched windows.
Her stomach gave a funny little dip. Last she’d looked, Aldan, Pennsylvania, couldn’t claim such a view.
Nor could Castle Wrath—leastways not in the ruinous state she knew it.
Her heart still thumping, she held the furry covers to her breasts as she peered through the gap in the bed curtains. In addition to the window alcoves and view, she was greeted by whitewashed walls and the erotically decadent tapestries that had so startled her the night before.
Her first true indication that she stood in the medieval bedchamber she recognized from her dreams.
Now, some hours later, she swallowed hard. The room’s not-so-savory-looking floor rushes and the torchlights in their heavy iron wall brackets took away any last doubt that she was still in Aidan’s world.
Trapped there and…naked.
Unless time traveling had not just given her a shattering headache but affected her memory as well. She dug her fingers into the pillow, considering the possibility. To be sure, she remembered undressing beneath the covers, but a quick scan of the floor refused to reveal where she’d dropped her clothes.
Or, better said, where she’d flung them.
In particular, her panties and her bra.
Neither bit of crucially important underwear was anywhere to be seen. And for the life of her, unless she was horribly mistaken, the rest of her clothes had gone missing as we
ll. Everything was gone. Including her beloved hill-walking boots, and even her bargain-basement Swiss watch.
Nothing remained to remind her of her own left-behind world.
Even more alarming, Aidan had vanished, too.
Heaven help her if she’d only imagined him.
Conjured his hot-eyed stares and his heart-stopping kisses, the old-fashioned, take-charge sense of chivalry she found so utterly endearing.
Woo her, indeed.
He’d made only one mistake. Hiding her clothes wasn’t the way to her heart. Nor was leaving her behind in a strange, doggy-smelling bedchamber, even if she did know the room from their dreams. Too many big, hairy people here seemed to want a piece of her, and not the way she knew their laird did.
She bit her lip, her pulse beating rapidly. It was one thing to be stuck in medieval Skye with Aidan at her side during the day and guarding her come nightfall, and something else entirely to be stranded here alone.
Nearly as distressing, she was hungrier than she could recall being in her entire life and—gasp! horrors!—she felt an urgent need to visit what she knew medieval people called the jakes. If the fates were kind, she would find one of the minuscule water closets tucked away in a discreet corner of Aidan’s oh-so-lairdly bedchamber.
If not, she’d simply have to find something to wrap around her nakedness and go looking for one. But first she took a deep breath and peered around the room one more time, just to make sure the dawg wasn’t lurking in some dark and musty corner, waiting for her.
Not that she didn’t like dogs.
She loved them.
But the ones she’d seen barking at her in the bailey weren’t the garden-variety, toddle-down-the-sidewalk-looking-happy kind of dogs she was so crazy about. The shaggy, fang-toothed beasts that had gathered beneath the gatehouse arch had looked anything but friendly.
Shuddering at the memory, she slipped from the bed, certain she didn’t want anything to do with such monsters. She could still feel their agitated stares.
Or someone’s.
A disturbing sensation that came at her from two places—the other side of the closed oak-paneled door and, oddly, from outside the tall arched windows.
The back of her neck prickled, and she grabbed a pillow, holding it in front of her just in case the room was outfitted with one of those peekaboo squint holes she knew could be found in medieval castles. Half afraid that might be the case, she crept around the corner of the huge curtained bed, relief washing over her when she spied the mound of clothes piled on top of Aidan’s massive iron-banded strongbox.
Not her clothes, unfortunately, but clearly meant for her.
If she could figure out how to wear them.
Not sure that was possible, she picked up what could only be an arisaid. “A yarusatch,” she breathed, pronouncing it as she knew was correct for the female version of the ancient belted plaid.
But whether she could say the thing’s name properly or not, it still looked like an overlong bedsheet, finely made of a white-based plaid shot through with thin stripes of black, blue, and red. There wasn’t any way she could manage to drape it on without ending up looking like a ghost.
Despite the heavily carved silver brooch someone had thoughtfully tucked into its folds.
“No-o-o, I think I’ll pass.” She shook her head, then carefully refolded the cloth and placed it on the bed. Celtic shoulder brooch and all. Exiting the room dressed like Casper-in-drag would only have Aidan’s scowling-faced clansmen growling at her again.
Sure of it, she examined the other garments, pleased to see that they appeared easier to slip into. A basic-looking woolen gown in a rich shade of dark blue and an emerald green overdress that could only be made of silk. It spilled across her fingers, cool and luxuriant to the touch. The third gown, clearly a lightweight cotton undershift, proved equally delicate.
Regrettably, it also appeared to be the only underwear in the pile.
She frowned. Hoping it wasn’t so, she searched through the garments again, only to have her dread confirmed. Underwear as she knew and appreciated it apparently didn’t exist in Aidan’s world, even if he could afford fine silks and silver brooches.
At least there were shoes.
She stared at them, not surprised that she’d overlooked them, for in the shadow cast by the bed, the deerhide cuarans were difficult to see against the floor rushes. Little more than longish, oval-shaped slippers laced all around with a thin leather cord, they would have reminded her of moccasins if they hadn’t looked so ridiculously big.
Big or not, she had to go, so she pulled on the silk undergown and the remaining clothes as quickly as she could, pointedly ignoring the arisaid and its brooch. She also tried not to notice how awkward the soft-soled, giant cuarans felt on her feet.
She wasn’t even going to think about her lack of underwear.
Instead, she steeled herself and took a few trial steps in the clumsy shoes. Nothing like her comfortable hill-walking boots, they flipped and flopped with every step, making it next to impossible to walk, as did the long, loose skirts swishing around her legs. Frowning again, she hitched them above her knees so she could march to the door and sail through it on her quest to find a latrine.
She had a pretty good idea where one might be located, but when she yanked open the door, sweeping through it proved impossible.
A tartan-hung boy stood there, a huge platter of food clutched in his hands. He gasped, his face beetred and his eyes darting any which way but in her direction.
“Oops!” Kira dropped her skirts at once, the near collision only causing the boy to flush all the deeper. Delicious smells wafted up from his food tray, making her mouth water, but other urges took precedence.
Even over politeness.
“Sorry.” She forced a smile as she tried to squeeze past him. “If that’s breakfast, I thank you. Just put it anywhere and I’ll dig into it when I get back.”
“There’ll be no need to be a-getting back as you willna be going anywhere.” A burly, great-bearded Highlander stepped from the shadows, the steel glinting all over him underscoring the authority of his deep, don’t-argue-with-me voice. “The laird gave orders you are no’ to leave his chamber.”
A second man snorted. Every bit as well built and ferocious-looking as the other, he snatched the food tray from the boy’s hands and narrowed his eyes at her, suspicion rolling off him. “If you even eat the like, you can break your fast alone. We’ll keep watch that no one disturbs you.”
Kira bristled. “You are disturbing me,” she shot back, planting her hands on her hips. “I have to go to the ladies’ room. The loo, if that makes more sense to you!”
Apparently it didn’t—the two men merely stared at her, blank-faced and clearly not willing to budge.
Realizing retreat wasn’t an option, she held her ground. “Your laird wouldn’t wish me to be so…discomforted,” she said, trying for a more medieval tone. “He’d—”
“Lord Aidan isn’t here.” The man with the food tray stepped closer, seeming to swell in size as he loomed over her. “He’s charged us to see to your comfort, and we have—by bringing you sustenance.”
“We can take it away as easily,” the other informed her. “If the offerings don’t please you.”
Kira pressed her lips together, trying hard not to shift from foot to foot. “It isn’t that,” she began, wondering if she could make a run for it. “I have to—”
“I think she has to use the jakes,” the boy chimed in, his embarrassed gaze flicking from one angry-looking Highlander to the other. “The laird said she might have to—”
“The laird isn’t himself of late.” The first man grabbed her arm and dragged her back inside the room. “If she has suchlike needs, the pot beneath the bed will suffice.”
“Not with you looking!” Kira jerked free of the man’s grasp and glared at him. “With no one looking,” she added, rubbing her arm as the dawg shuffled into the chamber and plopped down beside the fire,
his milky gaze watching her every move.
“No one,” she insisted, folding her arms.
The second man plunked down her breakfast tray on a table near the window embrasure. “Watch your tongue, lassie. The laird loses interest in wenches sooner than an autumn wind blows leaves from the trees.”
Kira sniffed. Not about to show any weakness, she put back her shoulders and strode over to the hearth, where she ruffed the dawg’s head, taking courage from her firm belief that such an ancient creature, however fearsome-looking, was well past the days of biting.
Proving her right, the beast licked her hand.
Kira smiled, as did the red-faced youth still hovering on the threshold.
The two burly Highlanders frowned at her. “We’ll be outside yon door,” the first one said, jerking his head in that direction. “You won’t be winning o’er the rest o’ us as easily as old Ferlie.”
As if on cue, the dog bared his teeth and growled at the man, his protectiveness earning a scowl. “The laird ought be returned by nightfall,” the second man announced, already moving toward the door. “See you dinna cause us any trouble, lest you wish to meet his dark side.”
And then the two men were gone, closing the door behind them and leaving her with a full-laden breakfast tray, a moony-eyed geriatric dog, and a pee-pot she couldn’t wait to get her hands on.
Fortunately, once she knew where the thing was, it didn’t prove difficult to find. Or use. Not that she could imagine ever growing overly fond of such quaintness. All things considered, there were worse annoyances in her own world.
Leaf blowers came to mind.
Or the persistent shrill of the telephone whenever she sat down to concentrate on one of her stories for Destiny Magazine. O-o-oh, yes, by comparison, a chamber pot was definitely the lesser evil.
Even the dawg, a creature that looked like a cross between an Irish wolfhound and a donkey, no longer seemed quite so daunting. She’d reserve judgment on his buddies down in the bailey.
“You’re not quite a Jack Russell, but I like you,” she said, watching him watch her.
Still feeling someone else’s eyes on her, she shivered as she washed her hands with cold water from a ewer and basin. She hadn’t noticed such amenities earlier, but enough gray morning light was now seeping in through the windows for her to quickly spot what she’d missed. Not just the ewer and basin, but also a small earthen jar of lavender-scented soap and even a comb. A short, folded length of linen she assumed was a medieval drying cloth.
