by Allie Mackay
“I couldn’t sleep.” She glanced aside, something in her tone freezing his smile.
“What is it?” He sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her. “Dinna tell me you’re sorry we mated?”
“Oh, no, it isn’t that,” she said, her eyes troubled all the same.
He reached over and touched her face, then sifted his fingers through her hair. “I dinna like seeing you fashed, sweetness. Tell me what’s worrying you.”
She hesitated only a moment before she seized his hand, gripping it hard. “I remembered your men saying you’d gone warring. You didn’t mention it, so I worried.”
Aidan’s smile returned. “Ach,” he said, lifting her hand for a kiss, “I wasn’t warring, only chasing vermin.”
She blinked. “You mean rats?”
He laughed. “So you could say, aye. But he’s caught now and whiling in my dungeon, so you needn’t concern yourself o’er him.”
“Oh,” she said in a relieved voice, “you mean rats of the two-legged variety?”
“Indeed,” Aidan confirmed, kissing her fingertips. “My own cousin, Conan Dearg. A blight to our clan and the worst scourge to e’er walk the heather.”
She gasped.
Aidan’s smile faded.
“Conan Dearg?” She stared at him, wide-eyed. “Did I hear you correctly? He’s the man in your dungeon?”
“Unless the weasel’s transformed himself into another, aye, that’ll be him. Conan Dearg, my cousin. Only remaining son of my father’s baseborn half brother.” He looked at her, not liking the way her face was paling. “’Tis rumored he had done with his sire, then his own brothers, one by one, hoping to lay claim to Ardcraig Castle. With that ambition long accomplished, he’s set his sights higher in recent times, casting his eye on Wrath as well.”
“Dear God,” she whispered, even whiter than before. “I can’t believe I forgot him. I should have warned you straightaway. But everything happened so fast and I—”
“Whoa, lass.” Aidan pushed to his feet. “How can you know Conan Dearg?”
“I don’t know him,” she said, scrambling off the bed after him. “I know of him. From books.”
Aidan frowned, one of his best. “You’ve read of him in books? In this future time of yours?”
She nodded, looking miserable. “According to Scottish history, he’s the man who killed you.”
Aidan stared at her, feeling the floor give way and the room spin wildly.
This time not in bliss.
Chapter 10
Several hours later, Kira sat in a heavy oaken chair in Aidan’s privy solar, once again properly dressed in fitting, period-suitable clothing, up to and including a fresh and floppy pair of oversized cuarans and not a stitch of underwear. Most importantly, she was more convinced than ever that she now knew the reason she’d been sent back in time. She also had a pretty good idea of what she was supposed to do about it, even if a certain fierce and stubborn warrior chieftain felt otherwise.
She knew.
And all his pacing and bluster wouldn’t change a thing.
Pointedly ignoring the tempting platter of bannocks, butter, and honey winking at her from the table beside her chair, she folded her hands in her lap and waited calmly for the next barrage of questions.
When they didn’t come, she took a deep breath. “It must be as clear to you as it is to me.” She lifted her voice just in case Aidan couldn’t hear her where he stood across the solar, glaring out a window. The day had turned cold and dark, with a sleety wind blowing off the sea. Not that she’d let howling gales and glowers stop her from saying what needed to be said. “There can be no question,” she contended. “I was sent here to save you and—”
He huffed. “I dinna need a lass to save me.”
Kira pressed her lips together and stared at his back, willing him to be reasonable. “I believe the gatehouse arch will work in reverse. My purpose is to return us to my world.”
He spun around. “Us? Why would I be wanting that?” he demanded, his hands curling around his sword belt. “I like my world fine and dinna want to leave it. Nor, I thought, did you.” He narrowed his eyes at her, his look challenging. “Or did my ears fool me when you said you wished to stay?”
“That was before you reminded me about Conan Dearg.” Kira sighed. “Now things are different. Besides, I meant I wished to stay with you. It doesn’t matter to me in what time that is.”
“It matters to me.” He strode to the hearth and took an iron poker to jab at the glowing peats. “I canna just…disappear through some time portal, as you call it. I have duties here,” he said, straightening. “A chieftain’s life is no’ just filled with cattle raiding and leading men into battle. Teaching the young lads to swing a sword and stand unafraid no matter what comes at them. We must also speak true at all times, keep our promises, and honor the clan elders. We care for the weak and ill, and give shelter to our widows and orphans.”
Setting aside the poker, he clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing. “We hold councils and are allies, e’er ready to support our friends when they need us, just as we punish those men who behave badly.”
Kira frowned and reached down to stroke old Ferlie’s head. Newly washed and pleasant-smelling, thanks to her insistence, her used bathwater, and two somewhat reluctant water boys, the great beast lay curled on the floor rushes beside her chair, snoring contentedly. Unfortunately, sweet-smelling or no, his shaggy, medieval-looking bulk, as well as the smoking, hissing flames of a nearby wall torch, only underscored the harshness of Aidan’s world. As did the solar’s thick whitewashed walls and the eye-stinging peat-haze tingeing the air.
The discreet but there-all-the-same door to the one-holed chute garderobe tucked into a hidden corner of the room. A tiny, foul-reeking chamber that had never seen the likes of petal-soft toilet paper or spring-scented air freshener. Yet the soft golden glow from the many beeswax candles and the jeweled colors of the richly embroidered tapestries lent an irresistible air of the distant and faraway.
It truly was a world so like the romantic whimsy of her dreams, yet so different, too.
A world that belonged to Aidan, not her.
Just as her world was a place where Conan Dearg couldn’t reach him.
“Clan Donald’s name has e’er been a testament of greatness.” He glanced at her, his gaze heated. “I will no’ pass from history as the first to break such a noble line.”
“I know you have duties, and pride.” She looked up, not caring for the tight set of his jaw.
“They are more than duties and go deeper than pride.” He dropped to one knee before her, taking her hand with both of his. “I have responsibilities that my honor will not allow me to turn my back on.”
She blew out a breath. “Your responsibilities won’t matter a whit if you are dead.”
To her annoyance, he squeezed her fingers and flashed one of his smug, alpha-male smiles. “Then tell me again, Kee-rah, how the books say I died.”
“Exactly as I’ve already told you.” Kira shoved a lock of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Every book I have says you died at the hands of your cousin, Conan Dearg. One, a self-published book by a man called Wee Hughie MacSporran, goes into greater detail, claiming Conan Dearg locked you in your own dungeon, leaving you to starve on a diet of salt beef and fouled water.”
The alpha-male smile turned triumphant, spreading across his face. “Och, lass, dinna you see? You are fashing yourself for naught.” He sprang to his feet, pulling her up with him. “Your books erred, though the self-published one, whate’er that means, is closer to the truth than the others. Conan Dearg did not lock me in my dungeon. ’Tis the blackguard himself who whiles there, wasting away on salt beef and soured water. Wee Hughie MacSporran, whoe’er he claims to be, mistook us, switching my fate with my cousin’s.”
Kira smoothed back her hair again, fighting the desperation beginning to spin inside her.
Looking bolder and more confid
ent than ever, he folded his arms. “I am no’ concerned about this Hughie man.”
He made a dismissive gesture. “It matters not. His book is wrong.”
She hesitated. The image of Wee Hughie’s book flashed across her mind, his name and the words historian, storyteller, and keeper of tradition almost larger than the slim volume’s title. She suppressed a shudder, memories of the self-inflated tour-guide-cum-author’s preening on her long-ago coach tour flooding back to her.
Never would she forget his grand camera poses in front of the Robert Bruce statue at Bannockburn and how he’d gone on and on about being directly descended from the well-loved hero king, as well as every other great name in Scottish history.
Including Clan Donald!
She winced, hearing the swellhead’s boasts as clearly as if she’d last seen him yesterday.
Too bad for her, she also remembered Mara McDougall-Douglas’s husband, Alex, claiming that Rivers of Stone: A Highlander’s Ancestral Journey was a “fine book” and that Wee Hughie MacSporran was exceptionally well versed in Highland legends and lore.
A notion that made her stomach twist into a cold, tight knot.
Alex Douglas hadn’t struck her as a man who would give praise where it wasn’t due.
Wishing she felt otherwise, she turned to the table and poured herself a cup of the odd-tasting medieval wine, just another difference she hadn’t yet adjusted to. But wet was wet, and she needed to do something about her dry mouth before she could speak.
Draining the cup, she set it down with a clack, then turned back to face Aidan, not at all surprised to see him still wearing his smug look.
“I hate to say it,” she began, bracing herself, “but I think the book is right and you’re wrong.”
He lifted one brow. “And why would you be thinking that?”
“Because I’ve met the author.” She lifted her chin, ignoring how the cold knot inside her was drawing tighter, even starting to pulse. “He was a tour guide on my first trip to Scotland, the one I saw you on. He’s even related to you, if he wasn’t lying. Either way, I didn’t like him. He struck me as being quite full of himself, but he did seem to know a lot about Scottish history.”
Aidan humphed. “I’ll wager he was full of naught but too much Highland wind.”
“He was, as far as boasting about his illustrious ancestors,” she agreed. “A shame, because he was also filled with fascinating anecdotes about the places we visited. He’s the one who told us about Castle Wrath as our tour bus approached your cliff. If his tales hadn’t been so stirring, I might not have felt such an urge to trek out here and have a look. Had I not, we might never have met.”
She paused. “Even so, the real reason I believe his book is right is because someone I trust praised his knowledge. I stopped near Oban on my way here, at Ravenscraig Castle, and—”
“Ravenscraig?” He looked at her, his brows almost on the ceiling. “That place is a den of cross-grained MacDougall devils. They can’t be trusted farther than the length of a sword.”
“They were nice to me.” Kira bristled. No one bad-talked her friends, no matter how hunky or good in bed. Or even medieval. “Mara McDougall is American like me. She’s a friend of my family and just happened to marry a Highlander. His name is Alex, Sir Alex Douglas, and they own Ravenscraig in my time. He’s the one who gave me a copy of Wee Hughie’s book. It was in their gift shop.”
“Ah, well, that’s good to hear—a Douglas lairding it at Ravenscraig,” he announced, not looking a bit remorseful. “Theirs is a fine name, one of the strongest in the land. After MacDonald, of course.”
“You’d like Alex. He reminded me of you. He has this air about him, almost as if he could stride right into your time and be instantly at home.” She glanced aside, surprised by a sudden rush of emotion. Images of Ravenscraig’s One Cairn Village whirled across her mind, her throat thickening as she remembered the warm welcome she’d received there. “If you met Alex, you’d understand why I trust his word on Wee Hughie’s book.”
Aidan humphed again, his admiration for the great Clan Douglas clearly not going that far.
Kira sighed. “I wish I could have showed you the book, but I lost it when I time-traveled. It slipped from my fingers and fell into a crack in the top of the gatehouse arch.”
“I would hear of Ameri-cains and tour buses,” he declared as if she hadn’t spoken. He helped himself to a cup of wine, then eyed her over its rim as he sipped, clearly no longer interested in discussing Wee Hughie and his book. “Are these tour buses only used by Ameri-cains and are they anything like the flying machines you told me of earlier?”
She frowned.
This conversation wasn’t running in the right direction.
Wishing she’d never let him maneuver her from modern-day books on Clan Donald to airplanes, she put back her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Tour buses are like the flying machines, but on wheels and without wings. They’re smaller and never leave the ground. And, yes, lots of American tourists use them. In the Scotland of my time, they’re called coaches.”
Aidan nodded sagely.
“I thought as much,” he said, clearly attempting to appear knowledgeable.
“A-hem.” Tavish’s deep voice cut in, surprising them both. “Pardon the intrusion,” he said, stepping out of the shadows by the door, “but Cook is in a dither o’er the preparations for the feast to celebrate Conan Dearg’s capture. He wants your permission to dip into the better spices and—”
“If you didn’t mean to disturb, you could have knocked.” Aidan flashed a frown at the gaping door, then at his long-nosed friend. “Yon door was closed, if I recall. No’ that the like has e’er bothered you.”
The lout feigned a look of innocence. “Had I known you weren’t alone, I would have called out before I entered.”
“And had I not seen you standing in a niche in the stair tower, kissing one of the laundresses as my lady and I made our way down the steps, I might be inclined to believe you. As is”—Aidan looked down to flick at his plaid—“I caught your quick, sideways glance as we passed.”
Tavish gave a half shrug. “That was hours ago.”
Aidan glared at him, his frown deepening when Tavish lifted his hands in mock surrender, then crossed the room to kiss Kira’s hand with an unnecessary flourish.
An exaggerated flair that almost made Aidan forget how much he loved the man. Displeased all the same, he eyed him. “I think you have better to do than skulk about plastering your ears to doors and hiding in shadows.”
“Be that as it may,” Tavish said, straightening, “Cook is driving everyone in the kitchens half mad with his rantings. I thought you ought know.”
Not believing a word, Aidan slung an arm around his friend’s shoulders and led him toward the table. Pouring a brimming cup of wine, he thrust it into the other’s hands. “Cook has ne’er cared to consult me on kitchen matters so long as he’s wielded his stew ladle. We both know he’ll be fussing about something on the day we lower him into God’s good earth.”
“That may well be,” Tavish agreed.
Folding his arms, Aidan watched him take an all-too-leisurely sip of wine. “Out with it, my friend. How long were you standing there, straining your ears?”
“He only just walked in. I saw him out of the corner of my eye.” Kira defended him, lying just as surely as Tavish.
“See?” Tavish smiled and set down his wine cup. “You insulted me for naught.”
Aidan grunted. “’Tis impossible to insult you. Your hide is thicker than an ox’s. Further, even if Cook wished my consent to plunder our stores of spices, he would have sent a kitchen lad. So tell me why you’re here.”
Tavish’s jaunty smile vanished. “Would you believe to save your hide? Leastways, to inform you of certain stirrings in the hall.”
Aidan sighed, believing his friend indeed.
Not that he was wont to admit it.
Instead, he folded his arms and cocked a brow, waiting.
To his credit, Tavish didn’t squirm. He did cast an uncomfortable glance at Ferlie. “Your men are no’ pleased about having been ordered to bathe the castle dogs,” he said, a frown marring his handsome face. “I suspect they fear they’ll be next.”
“Oh, dear.” Kira spoke up. “That’s my fault—”
Aidan held up a hand to silence her. “Nay,” he said, snatching up a choice bannock and tossing it to Ferlie. “The time is long past that Wrath’s dogs stop fouling the air with their stink. My men, too, now that I think of it.”
“As you wish.” Tavish didn’t bat an eye. “Shall I see that they cease their bickering?”
In answer, Aidan took him by the elbow and ushered him toward the door. “Just tell them that any that are no’ bathed and clean-smelling within two days will find themselves scouring the cesspit and then scrubbing each other until their buttocks shine like a bairn’s. Now off with you, and dinna return unless we’re attacked.”
Tavish nodded, but jerked free just before Aidan could shove him out the door. Twisting round, he looked across the room to Kira. “The parchments and scribing goods you wished have been left in Aidan’s bedchamber,” he said, making her a slight bow. “If you need more, let me know.”
Then he was gone.
Disappearing into his infernal shadows before Aidan could have the pleasure of closing the door on him.
He shut it, regardless. Even sliding home the drawbar, though there really wasn’t any need. What he needed was to get to the bottom of the goings-on in his castle. Things he wouldn’t mind at all had a certain flame-haired, big-bosomed vixen taken the time to mention them to him.
“When did you ask Tavish for scribing goods?” he demanded, turning to fix her with his best I-am-laird-and-you’d-best-answer-me-now stare.
She jutted her chin, not looking a bit impressed. “This morning,” she admitted, her gaze bold. “But I didn’t ask Tavish directly. I asked the woman who brought me new clothes when you stepped out of the room to leave me to my ablutions.”
