by Allie Mackay
So beautifully medieval, her heart dipped the instant her fingers closed around them.
We are here to help you. The dark knight’s words came back to her and she suddenly knew.
As she should have known right away, and would have, had the day’s trials not taken such a toll.
She turned to Aidan, the rings clutched tight in her hand. “They were ghosts,” she said, the wonder of it sending warmth all through her.
“I know that.” He snatched the rings and frowned down at them, not about to admit he’d not known indeed.
He’d been about to draw the Invincible again and challenge the cheeky bastards.
As it was, he chose to bow to the greater wisdom of his lady regarding the spirits of her time. He also didn’t want to overlook the possibility that the Ancient Ones of his own time might still be looking after them.
If that were the case, the rings had a definite purpose and had best be worn.
Sure of it, he grabbed her hand and shoved the smaller-looking ring onto the fourth finger of her left hand, then worked the other onto the same finger of his own left hand.
And with no time to spare, it would seem, because no sooner were the rings in place than a wild-eyed older couple came tearing across the grass toward them, calling his lady’s name.
“Kira!” A tall, slender woman threw her arms around Kira, sobbing and laughing at the same time. “Dear God, girl, where have you been? We’ve been here for weeks, searching for you!”
The balding, potbellied man puffing after her wasn’t looking at Kira at all, but at him. “So you’re the man who’s married my little girl?” he demanded, eyeing him as if he were one of the birthing sisters’ newts. “Without so much as a by-your-leave!”
Quick on his heels, a running, panting couple about Aidan’s own age burst through a hedge of rhododendron, then drew to a skidding, slip-sliding halt.
Keeping a few paces behind the older couple, they winked and gesticulated, the man’s magnificent Highland regalia and the woman’s simple flame-haired beauty letting him know they were his hosts.
Mara McDougall of Pen-seal-where’er and her Douglas husband, Alex.
That they’d informed Kira’s parents that he and Kira had married was more than obvious. Not that he cared. Far from it, the notion pleased him.
He’d meant to wed her anyway, as soon as he’d managed to settle their future.
It scarce mattered if he claimed her as his wife already.
In his heart, she’d been his since time was.
Mayhap, he sometimes believed, many lifetimes before that as well.
They fit together that beautifully.
Secure in that knowledge, he put back his shoulders and smoothed his plaid, understanding now why the Ancient Ones had sent the ring-bearing bogles.
“Well?” Kira’s father glared at him, both his chins quivering. “What have you to say for yourself?”
“The only thing of import, sir.” Aidan cleared his throat, regretting the temporary deception. “I am the man who loves your daughter. And, aye, I’ve taken her to wife.”
“Taken her to wife?” The man’s face reddened. “That’s a queer way to put it.”
“He’s a reenactor, George.” Kira’s mother spoke up. “Don’t you see his costume? He’s speaking in period. Like the guides at Pennsbury Manor back home. Or Colonial Williamsburg.”
George Bedwell glared at his wife. “I’d have him speak to me as my daughter’s father, not some tourist!”
“Oh, George, calm down,” the woman returned. She threw Aidan an apologetic smile. “You know how long we’ve waited to see Kira settled. I’ll not have you scaring the boy off before the ink is dried on their marriage license.”
“I hope to God he has one.” George produced a small square of white linen and mopped his brow. “I’ll have answers if he doesn’t.”
“We are properly wed.” Aidan extended his hand, showing the man his ring.
George peered at it, looking only somewhat mollified.
Aidan nodded, then did his best to assume the most respectful mien he could manage.
The only consolation he was willing to give, considering his position.
“My sorrow, sir, that we were unable to inform you until now. It simply wasn’t possible.”
“Not possible?” George’s face went red again. “In this day of high-speed Internet and e-mail? Good old-fashioned telephones?”
Aidan sighed and pulled a hand down over his face. “Where my home is, we do not have such amenities.”
Kira pulled away from her mother to hasten over to him. “You don’t understand, Daddy,” she began, sliding an arm around Aidan. “Aidan is—”
“Aidan?” Her mother pressed a hand to her throat, her eyes rounding. “Dear God, it’s him!”
“What do you mean him?” Her husband shot another angry look at her. “Have you met this man already? Met him, and not told me?”
Blanche Bedwell shook her head. “No. I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard of him. For years. He—”
“Years?” Kira’s father’s gaze flew from her mother to her and then back to her mother again. “You’ve known of him that long and I wasn’t informed?”
His wife pursed her lips. “You weren’t informed because there was nothing to say. He was a dream. An obsession of Kira’s since her graduation trip to Scotland. He’s a legendary historical hero who lived over seven hundred years ago.”
Kira’s father laughed. “Are you telling me my daughter married a ghost?”
Blanche shrugged.
Alex Douglas chose that moment to stride forward, placing a hand on both their shoulders. “Aidan of Wrath is no ghost.” He spoke in a level tone. “Trust me, I can sense spirits within a hundred paces. Your new son-in-law is a good man.”
He paused, his gaze dropping to the Invincible’s hilt, lingering there, before he fixed Aidan with a deep, knowing stare.
“He simply hails from a distant time.”
“From seven centuries ago?” George frowned at him. “Look,” he added, glancing first at Kira, then the others, “our family has had its share of oddballs. Far-seers, ghost-seers, and other assorted fruit-loops. But I’ve yet to hear of anyone marrying someone seven hundred years dead.”
Mara McDougall Douglas coughed. Joining them, she put a hand on George Bedwell’s arm. “I know it sounds impossible,” she said, her voice so calm anything sounded possible, “but you have to remember this is Scotland. It’s an ancient land, full of magic. I’ve had to learn that myself. Strange things can happen here that you’d never hear of elsewhere.”
She exchanged a quick glance with her husband. “Strange and wonderful things.”
George grunted. “I don’t see anything wonderful about my daughter marrying a dead man.”
“Oh, Daddy. He’s not dead.” Kira reached for Aidan’s hand, grasping it hard. “You can’t imagine what he’s sacrificed for me.”
“Seven-hundred-year-old men have to be dead.” George insisted it, bent on being belligerent.
“Nay, that is not so. I can prove it to you…if you desire.” Aidan spoke with his laird’s voice. “But I warn you, it is not wise to tamper with such things. The consequences can be dire and wreak more harm than your simple doubts can stir in a lifetime.”
“And where—how—do you intend to live your lifetime?” Kira’s father eyed them. “Even Elliot King at the Tile Bonanza wouldn’t hire you on a résumé that says you’re a seven-hundred-year-old legendary historical hero.”
Aidan swallowed, unable to answer him.
Worse, he understood the man’s outrage.
Given the circumstances, he would have reacted in a similar fashion. Nay, he’d ne’er have tolerated such a discussion in the first place and would have silenced the upstart young man with a swift, swinging pass of the Invincible.
Kira, apparently, had other thoughts.
Shrugging off her backpack, she undid the zip-her and withdrew a bundle of rolled parchme
nts. No longer fresh and supple as he knew they’d been at Wrath, the scrolls now appeared ancient. Thin and brittle, they crackled in her hands, the frayed red ribbon tying them looking ready to crumble to dust.
“Here.” She thrust them into her father’s hands. “This is a record of my time in medieval Scotland. I wrote it for Dan Hillard and would appreciate it if you’d see he gets it. He can have the paper and ink carbon-dated. That’ll prove the year it was written, and you, Daddy, cannot deny that it’s in my handwriting.”
Her father grunted again.
Some of the angry red color left his face as he peered down at the parchments. “That still doesn’t tell me where you mean to live? And how?”
Kira glanced at Aidan. “We’ll stay here in Scotland,” she said, knowing that would please him. Turning back to her parents, she hugged them both. “You know it’s always been my dreamland. Now it is also the home of the man I love.”
She kissed them each on the cheek, willing them to understand. “Someday…maybe…we’ll return to Aidan’s time. If such a thing is even possible. But if we did, you will now have seen us together and will know how happy we are. If it came to that, I’d try to somehow let you know we made it back. That we were okay and thriving in Aidan’s world.”
“Humph.” Her father pressed his lips together and scowled, reminding her so much of Aidan that she would have laughed had the circumstances allowed.
“You are well and truly married?” He grabbed her hand, examining the ring Aidan had slipped onto her finger only an hour before.
“Yes,” she lied, knowing in her heart that they soon would be.
“And you love my daughter?” He shot another glance at Aidan. “Have the means to keep her fed and clothed? Happy?”
Aidan smiled, sensing the man’s softening. “She is my life, sir. I’d be honored to have your blessing…but I’m keeping her whether it pleases you or nay.”
“Then take good care of her, by God.” Her father marched over to him, thrusting out his hand.
“I will, sir,” Aidan said, meaning it. He surprised himself by ignoring the older man’s hand and, instead, grasping him by the shoulders for a quick, tight embrace. “Ne’er worry about her. I would kill the man who’d even glance sideways at her.”
There are some men who deserve killing, he thought he heard Alex Douglas speak low at his shoulder. But when he released Kira’s father and looked at Alex, his host stood across the little clearing again, one arm slung casually around his wife.
“We’ve readied the Heatherbrae for you,” he said.
Looking so like the men of Aidan’s own day that his heart squeezed.
“It’s the same cottage Kira had before.” Mara McDougall Douglas slipped away from her husband. Coming forward, she handed Aidan a key. “I think you’ll find it comfortable. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but has everything you need.”
Unfortunately, when he took himself there a short while later, hoping to give Kira some time alone with her family, he found himself unable to enjoy the luxuriously appointed cottage’s amenities.
The lights, as a cheery young man named Malcolm had called the bright-glaring contraptions, hurt his eyes. And the chattering little moving people in the so-called telly unsettled him so much he was sure his head would soon burst just trying to comprehend the thing.
Almost as bad, when he’d tried to use the shower he’d scalded his back. Then, a short while later, he’d raised a blister on his finger when he’d touched one of the lights, trying to see how the fool thing worked.
But none of those horrors came anywhere near to the nightmare spread across the bed in the Heatherbrae’s tidy bedchamber.
Going there now, he stared down at the books he’d examined earlier. Wee Hughie’s Rivers of Stone: A Highlander’s Ancestral Journey. Kira’s other little volume, The Hebridean Clans, and several others.
Eight altogether. Kira’s two, plus six he’d plucked from a shelf on the wall.
Each one said the same thing.
Conan Dearg drowned.
Not that he’d really care—were it not for the rest.
Sinking onto the edge of the bed, he picked up his kinsman’s little tome, once more opening it to the damning passage. Tracing the words with a blister-tipped finger, he swallowed against the thickness in his throat and wondered how the fates could be so cruel as to let him save Kira only to cause Tavish’s death.
Aidan closed his eyes and groaned. Never had he felt more helpless and miserable. Until Alex Douglas’s cryptic words came back to him.
There are some men who deserve killing.
His eyes snapped open. When the first thing that leapt into view was the Invincible, its bloodred pommel jewel glittering like a dragon’s eye, he knew what he had to do.
Leaping to his feet, he grabbed the sword, feeling better, stronger, the instant his fingers clenched around the leather-wrapped hilt.
Power—and rage—swept him, heating his blood until it was all he could do not to throw back his head and shout his clan’s battle cry.
Instead, the words he’d said to Tavish the morning of the feast echoed in his ears: Chances are we’ll be rejoining you in the hall—back before the sweet courses are served.
He closed his eyes again, his heart thundering. If they could manage that, all might not be lost.
It was a risk he had to take.
Chapter 15
“You want to go back?”
Kira slowly closed the door of the Heatherbrae behind her, then set down the glossy monthly, Scotland Today, that she’d brought back from the Ravenscraig library. She stared at Aidan, her initial euphoria on hearing him declare he wanted to return to his time giving way to queasiness and dry mouth now that she looked at him more closely.
He no longer looked like Aidan-out-of-water, but rather the fierce laird of Wrath she knew so well from his own time.
His jaw was set in a formidable line and his eyes blazed. Most telling of all, he’d strapped on the Invincible.
Crossing the cottage’s little sitting area, she slid her arms around him. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” She looked up at him, not surprised when he disentangled himself and started pacing. “Why do you want to go back now? I know things aren’t ideal, but we just got here.”
“It’s no’ that I want to go back, though the saints know I do.” He whirled to face her, his expression giving her chills. “We must. According to your history books, our leaving caused Tavish’s death.”
Kira’s eyes widened. “What? How can that be?”
He disappeared into the bedroom, returning a moment later with an armful of books. Dumping them onto a tartan-upholstered armchair, he snatched up one and began flipping through its pages.
“Here! The lines in the middle of the page.” He thrust the book at her, pointing to a brief paragraph on page 57. “Read it and you’ll understand.”
Kira looked down at the clear black print, her stomach dropping as she read the words. “Oh, God.” She tossed down the book and pressed a hand to her chest. “Conan Dearg slew Tavish while escaping Wrath’s dungeon? Then drowned? With that MacLeod woman?”
“So the books say.” Aidan folded his arms. “All of them. Even that fool, Wee Hughie’s. Some just say Conan Dearg killed the laird of Wrath, but the result is the same. After we left, Tavish took my place. Had we remained, he would still be alive.”
“And you’d be dead.” She didn’t like that possibility either.
Aidan snorted. “Nay. Conan Dearg would be dead, and by my sword. No’ from drowning.”
Kira dropped onto a chair. “I don’t get the drowning part. Or the connection with that awful woman.”
“That’s because you don’t know my cousin. Or Fenella MacLeod.” He gave her an alpha-male look, all medieval chieftain again. “I wouldn’t be one of the most respected warrior lairds in the Highlands if the answer weren’t clear to me.”
Kira looked at him. It wasn’t clear to her at all.
“’Tis s
imple, lass.” He picked up Mara McDougall Douglas’s welcome decanter of single malt and poured himself a hefty dram. Tossing it down in one quick swig, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Lady Fenella devours men faster than I just swallowed that whisky. Conan Dearg will have attracted her like a lodestone. Especially since she was grieved with me.”
“She didn’t like you?” Kira lifted a brow.
“She liked me too much. Some while before you came to Wrath, she visited, offering her men and her fleet of longships to help me to search for Conan Dearg.” He paused to toss back his hair, a look of distaste passing over his face. “Not surprisingly, she offered other services as well. When I declined, she left in a fury.”
“And you think she then hooked up with your cousin? To get back at you?”
He nodded. “I’d bet my sword that was the way of it. I should have thought of it before, but I was…distracted.”
Kira swallowed. She knew he meant her. “I still don’t understand the drowning part. Especially if the MacLeod woman is supposed to have drowned with him.”
“I can only guess, but I’d vow Lady Fenella helped him escape at some point during the feast and they tried to leave Wrath Bay in her galley.” Coming over to her, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Tavish and I suspected her of damaging her own craft as a ploy to pull up on my landing beach. If her flight with Conan Dearg caused as much confusion as I suspect it might have, and my men pursued them, in the rush to get away she may have set sail in her own galley rather than taking one of mine as I imagine she’d planned to do.”
“You think her boat sank?” Kira blinked up at him. “As they tried to sail away?”
“I was told when she arrived that there was quite a hole gouged in her galley’s hull. They wouldn’t have made it past Wrath Isle if they sought to flee in such a vessel.”
Kira shuddered. “If this is true, I’ll bet she was behind my poisoning.”
“I thought the same,” he agreed, shoving a hand through his hair. “Though if she’d been slipping into Wrath to visit Conan Dearg, or harm you, someone there must’ve been helping her.”
