by Allie Mackay
Hesitating, Aidan threw a last look at the gatehouse, pleased to see his younger men crowding around Kendrew, Conan Dearg’s man or no. He had no wish for the lad to witness his former liege laird being hustled away.
“Come you.” Tavish signaled, waiting for him. “I want surety. We’ve both seen the bastard wriggle himself out of the worst scrapes and come back to jeer at us.”
“He’ll no’ have the strength this time.” Aidan kept pace with him. “No’ living on salt beef and soured water.”
“’Tis you who’ll wither away on the like—and in your own foul pit.” Conan Dearg twisted round to sneer at him. Arrogant and contemptuous as always, he spat on the ground, showing no fear as Aidan’s men tightened their grip, bundling him through the low-ceilinged door that led to the steep stone steps winding down into the dungeon.
“The sun will ne’er rise on the day you get the better of me,” he boasted, squaring his shoulders to walk proud along the cold and dank passage.
“Some might say that day came this morn.” Aidan fell in step beside him. “Salt beef and soured water ne’er sustained any man for long and I’ve yet to meet one who can live on bluster alone.”
Conan Dearg snorted. “I am a hard man, Cousin. Rancid victuals and darkness will not break me. Soon I shall prove it to you.”
Aidan glanced over his shoulder, not surprised to see the dirk raised in Tavish’s hand.
“That isn’t the way,” he warned, hoping his way wasn’t a mistake. “Each hour he spends in his cell will repay one of the lives he’s taken. We both know how great the number is. A swift death is a mercy he won’t find here.”
“I dinna trust him.” Tavish frowned, but thrust his knife back beneath his sword belt all the same. “He’ll charm the water rats into bringing him cheese and wine.”
Despite himself, Aidan chuckled, his spirits lifting for the first time that day. His cousin was a charmer. And even with a blackened eye and swollen nose, his looks were still dazzling enough to blind any woman who caught a glimpse of him.
That his flashing smiles and swagger would be lost on all but scuttling vermin and whate’er nameless creatures slithered in the matted rushes scattered across the dungeon floor, was a meet end for a man of Conan Dearg’s vanity and stature.
Aidan opened his mouth to say as much, but shut it the instant they rounded a corner, entering the oldest and dankest part of the dungeon. A familiar smell hit him square in the face and he stopped short, blinking into the musty, dimly lit passage even as a pitiful, canine wail filled the darkness.
“Saints o’ mercy!” Aidan hurried forward, almost slamming into his guardsmen and Conan Dearg, who’d stopped a few paces ahead, their passage blocked by the howling beast’s great bulk. Aidan stared at his dog, his jaw slipping. “’Tis Ferlie!”
An absolute impossibility, for the dog feared the dark and especially avoided the dungeon.
Yet there he was, sitting on his shaggy haunches beside one of the blackened, iron-hinged doors, and clearly intent on staying there.
“Heigh-ho! So you’ve arranged a mourner for me.” Conan Dearg hooted with laughter. “A pity you couldn’t have chosen a less offensive creature.”
Ignoring him, Aidan snatched one of the rush lights out of its wall bracket and stepped forward, his surprise complete when the sputtering torch illuminated not just his afraid-of-the-dark dog, but two sets of masculine legs standing in the shadows behind the beast.
Legs, as a lifting of the rush light revealed, that belonged to none other than Geordie and Ross.
“What mummery is this?” Aidan thrust the torch at them, his blood icing. “You swore to guard my lady, vowing to see to her safety even if Saint Peter himself came calling for you.”
“Ah. See you, we…m’mmm…” Geordie, the larger of the two twisted his hands, looking uncomfortable. “Your lady, sir, is—”
“His lady?” Conan Dearg looked on with interest. “I’d heard he’d gone off women.”
“You’ll hold your tongue or lose it,” Tavish growled, his own face dark with anger as he rammed an elbow into Conan Dearg’s ribs, then pressed the tip of his dirk beneath the lout’s chin. “Be silent if you know what’s good for you.”
Scarce hearing them, Aidan felt his knees water, sure as the day that for whatever reason he’d found his two guardsmen and his dog in the deepest bowels of his dungeon, it had something to do with Kira.
Something he was not going to like.
“What has happened?” he demanded, laying on his sternest tone to mask the sick feeling spreading through his gut. “Where is she? And why aren’t you guarding her?”
The two men exchanged glances, their misery palpable.
“Um,” Geordie tried again, sweat beginning to bead on his brow.
Ross drew a deep breath. “We’re guarding you, sir. Not the lass. She doesn’t—”
“Guarding me?” Aidan’s eyes flew wide.
“Aye, sir.” The man bobbed his head. “She did something that proved our suspicions about her. We brought her down here for the good of the clan,” he added, speaking quickly now. “Her powers—”
“You brought her down here?” Aidan roared, blood thundering so loudly in his ears that he scarce heard himself shouting. “She’s here? In the dungeon?”
The two guardsmen nodded.
Or so Aidan thought, whirling away before he could be sure. He’d already wasted too much time, should have guessed the truth the instant he’d spotted Ferlie and seen the fear in his guards’ faces.
Fear for his dream woman squeezing his heart, he shoved past Tavish and leapt over Ferlie, fumbling at the heavy drawbar of the nearest cell door with fingers that had gone impossibly cold and clumsy.
“Kira!” He yanked at the drawbar. “Sweet lass, can you hear me?”
“The entire keep can hear you.” Tavish grabbed the thing and helped him slide it aside. “Go fetch your lady,” he said, shoving Aidan into the cell. “I’ll see to Conan Dearg and the others.”
But his lady wasn’t anywhere to be fetched.
The cell was empty.
Then, peering into the darkness, he saw her standing in a corner, her shoulders straight and her hands clasped tightly before her, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Kee-rah!”
Her eyes snapped open. “Aidan!” She ran at him, her arms outstretched. “Thank God! I didn’t think you’d ever get back!”
“I’m here now.” He crossed the cell in two quick strides, catching her when she launched herself at him. “Shush, lass. I have you.”
He pressed her head against his shoulder, absorbed her shiver, then kissed her hair, not caring that Tavish and the others gawked through the door.
Ferlie barked and pushed past them, hurling himself at their legs, his tail wagging.
“He followed when they brought me down here.” Kira reached down to pet the shaggy, tail-thumping beast. “He’s been outside the door the entire time.”
Aidan harrumphed. Only his pride and the knowledge that his cousin looked on kept him from acknowledging that his dog had guarded her better than his men.
There’d be time enough later to reward Ferlie and have words with Geordie and Ross.
Time, too, to discover the reason they’d put her into the dungeon. What terrible thing she’d done to give two burly Highlanders such a dreadful fright.
Heaven help them both if he didn’t like the answer.
Chapter 8
“I want to go home.”
Not sure if she’d spoken aloud or just thought the words, Kira took a deep, calming breath. She needed calm. The backs of her eyes stung, her misery reaching new heights as she stood near the hearth of Aidan’s bedchamber and watched a parade of young, flush-faced boys carry pails of steaming water into the room. Carefully avoiding looking at her, each one tipped his burden into a wooden bathing tub that looked exactly like a sawed-in-half wine barrel.
A linen-lined wine barrel, praise God for small mercies.
T
he last thing she needed was a medieval splinter in her behind.
Her ordeal in Castle Wrath’s dungeon had been torture enough. Almost as bad was having Aidan toss her over his shoulder and charge out of the cell, pounding up the stairs with her and then flying through his great hall, knocking over benches and sending people jumping out of their way, poor Ferlie loping after them and barking furiously at anyone who didn’t leap aside quickly enough.
She cringed just remembering. It’d been a humiliation she wasn’t sure she could swallow.
Not because he’d rescued her.
And not even because he’d gone so caveman wild.
Far from it—she’d rather liked that part. All wind-torn and travel-stained, with his sword clanking and eyes ablaze, he could have burst from the pages of a book about ancient clan warfare. But when he’d raced through the hall, cursing and shouting for a bath to be readied for her, his rubber-necked kinsmen had gaped at her, bug-eyed and slack-jawed, every last one of them looking on as if he’d run mad and she was a two-headed alien.
Maybe even a three-headed alien.
And now she was supposed to take a bath.
Kira frowned and folded her arms. She didn’t want a bath. She wanted to go home. Back to the twenty-first century where she belonged and where she could moon all over books about medieval Scotland and framed secondhand Edinburgh castle tea towels, living in a fantasy that suited her so-o-o much better than the real thing.
Across the room, the best real thing in this nightmare threw off his plaid and unlatched his sword belt, then sent the last of the pink-cheeked water boys on their way, closing and bolting the door behind them. Turning, he strode over to her, no longer looking so fiercely angry, but not smiling, either.
“This could be your home, Kee-rah,” he said, his words letting her know she had spoken aloud. “I know well that you love this place. That it means as much to you as to those of us who have called it our own since before time. When you walk here, you see more than rock and heather and mist. Your heart recognizes the true spirit of these hills.” He paused, studying her so intently that she caught her breath. “I know this from our shared dreams.”
Kira swallowed, not wanting to think about their dreams just now. Or her great passion for Scotland. Last she’d heard, being a card-carrying Scotophile didn’t include half the things she’d endured since landing here.
Looking down, she fussed at the folds of her skirts, still finding them as cumbersome and awkward as she had the moment she’d first slipped into them. Even worse, the bottom six inches or so were soiled with goop from the dungeon. As were her feet, since somewhere during the awful journey down there, she’d lost the blasted cuarans.
“Come, lass, you canna deny you belong here.” He sounded sure of it. “I’ve seen your eyes water just watching cloud shadows drift across the heather.”
Kira dug her toes into the floor rushes. “I did love it here,” she admitted, glancing up at him. “In my time and, yes, in our dreams. But the reality is wa-a-ay different and it scares me.”
“Ach, lass.” He smoothed the hair back from her face. “Surely you have seen that I willna let aught happen to you?”
She blinked, hating the way her throat was thickening. “Did you know,” she began, “that they brought me food when I was in the dungeon?”
When he only looked at her, his expression unreadable, she went on. “A bowl of slaked oats, I think you call it. Porridge. It didn’t look too bad, but I couldn’t eat, so I set it in a corner. Within minutes, three mice crawled up out of the floor rushes and ate it.” She paused to moisten her lips. “Or rather, they would have, if the biggest rat I’ve ever seen in my life hadn’t appeared to claim the porridge for himself.”
He took her hand, twining their fingers. “The like will ne’er happen again. I promise you.”
She bit her lip. “How can you? It’s impossible for you to be at my side every minute, and your men don’t like me. They’re afraid of me and think I’m a—”
“Then we shall change their minds.” He drew her close, tightening his arms around her. “You already have a strong champion in Tavish, and I’ve a promising young lad in mind to give duty as your personal guard.”
“If only it were that simple.”
“I will make it so.”
Kira tried to smile, but her smile muscles wouldn’t cooperate.
Instead, she sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. “You are a medieval warrior chieftain,” she began, trying to ignore how good his arms felt around her. “You live in a world of clan feuding, sword fights, and cattle raids, a time when a mere bad tooth or ingrown toenail could kill someone, not to mention battle wounds and childbirth. You have enough to deal with without worrying about—”
“Do you not trust me to care for you?” He pulled back to look at her, his dark eyes narrowing. “I’ve dealt with the things you name since I drew my first breath, as has any other Highland chieftain worthy of the style. What I need”—he paused, holding her gaze—“is for you to relax and then tell me what happened with Geordie and Ross. Only when I understand what frightened them enough to take you to the dungeon can I hope to dash the fear from their hearts. Your bath will—”
“I don’t want a bath.”
“It will soothe you,” he countered, the richness of his burr almost letting her believe him.
Smooth, husky, and deep, his voice slid through her, its soft Highland beauty seducing her, making her forget where and when she was, lulling her into doing whatever he asked.
Almost.
Biting her lip again, her gaze snapped to the wine barrel, its steaming water scented and waiting. Truth was, she did want a bath. Desperately. But taking one meant getting undressed, and she was suddenly more aware than ever that she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
She didn’t need her sixth sense to know that even if Aidan turned his back, he’d peek before she could clamber into his wooden bathing tub.
He had that look about him tonight.
The feral, hot-eyed-predator look that could mean only one thing, no matter how hard he was clearly trying to play the chivalry card.
As if to prove it, he put his hands on her shoulders, easing her down onto a stool next to the bathing tub before she could even splutter a protest. The determined gleam in his eyes holding her in place, he knelt before her, reaching for a basin and a still-filled pail of heated water.
“Give me your foot.” He glanced at her as he filled the basin. “It willna do for you to get into the bathing tub until your feet are clean.”
Kira tensed. “I can wash them myself. You needn’t help me.”
In answer, he cocked a brow and flipped her skirts up over her knees. Making it worse, he flashed her an arrogant smile, then clamped a strong hand around her left ankle, lifting her foot and placing it in the basin.
Frowning, she tried to jerk from his grasp, but he only slanted her a look of lairdly admonishment, his fingers tightening on her like an iron-cast ankle bracelet.
“You can see to yourself once we have you settled in your bath.”
She lifted her chin. “There will be no we about it. If I use the bathing tub, you can leave the room.”
“Och, you will bathe,” he said, dipping a soap-smeared cloth into the water and then plunging the thing between her toes, scrubbing vigorously. “I shall keep my back turned.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Then you shall have to learn. As I, too, am trying to do.” He looked up, fixing her with a long, level stare as he carefully washed the arch of her foot. “Do not think it is easy for me to accept a place called All-den, Pen-seal-where’er, tiny flying disks, and zip-hers.”
Kira almost smiled, remembering his expression when her button went sailing through the air. “Okay. You’ve made your point, but no peeking.”
“I do not need to peek,” he observed, soaping her other foot. “I already know every inch of you. Including a certain bit of sweetness I can see just now.”<
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Kira’s eyes flew wide. “What do you mean a bit of sweetness?”
He only smiled.
Her own face flaming, she looked down, embarrassment crashing through her when she saw that her gown had slid much higher up her thighs than she’d realized. Even worse, she’d been sitting with her knees open.
“O-o-oh!” She jumped off the stool. “I don’t want to talk about our dream-times and what you think you know about me.” Shaking out her skirts, she frowned. “You can’t compare something from a dream with the reality—”
“Nay, you cannot,” he agreed, standing. “The real you fires my blood a thousand times more than any dream vision.” He captured her chin and kissed her. Hard, rough, and fast. “Dinna you e’er forget that, even when we must speak of unpleasant things.”
Kira angled her head, regarding him in the flickering glow of the hearth fire. “I think I’ve had enough unpleasantness for one day.”
“Even so,” he said, his expression serious, “there are matters we must discuss.”
“Does it have to be now?”
He nodded, and then lowered his head to kiss her again, this time gently.
When he straightened, she pulled away, her heart thundering. There was something both unsettling and electrifyingly delicious about being kissed when she wasn’t wearing any panties, and now clearly wasn’t the time to go all hot and tingly. A sensation that vanished when he began pacing between the wine barrel and the window embrasure.
Without breaking stride, he slanted her a dark look, all fierce warrior chieftain. “Remove your soiled clothes now, before the water cools,” he said, seven hundred years of authority shimmering all over him. “While you bathe, I would hear about your morning. You must tell me what frightened my men.”
“What I must do is find a pair of glittery red shoes,” Kira snapped, her fingers busy at her gown’s lacings.
He stopped to look at her. “Glittery red shoes?”
“Never mind.”
“Ah, lass, but I do.” He stood watching her, another frown settling on his brow. “You must’ve said something the like to Geordie and Ross. Perhaps mentioned this future of yours, or the Na Tri Shean?”
