by Bess McBride
I shouldn’t have been surprised at the earthy quality of the croft and the Spartan furnishings, but I was. I was an archaeologist, for goodness’ sake! Still, when one thought of a laird and a lady, one always thought of a castle or, at a minimum, wood floors.
Ann’s cheeks were rosy as she followed my eyes.
“It’s what we’ve got,” she said. “Can you sit up or...”
“I could try—” I started to say.
“It seems to pain her,” Torq interrupted. “She shouldna sit.”
“He’s probably right,” Ann said. “Gosh, Cyn, you might spend your entire visit here in sixteenth-century Scotland flat on your back!”
Behind her, John sat at a wooden table and smiled. Andrew seemed not to understand the humor.
I tried not to laugh. The pain only intensified.
“Okay, enough of this. Sit me up. If Torq won’t let me walk, at least let me sit!”
“Dinnna scream at me if ye hurt yerself,” Torq said gruffly. He set me gently down on a chair at the table, and my back spasmed at the motion. I gripped the table, sweat breaking out on my forehead, the room swimming in my face.
“Cyn?”
I heard Ann but couldn’t nod.
“Lass? Are ye in pain?” John asked.
I closed my eyes, breathing in and out.
“Just a sec,” I said, trying to focus on easing the pain.
“Auch, lass, why did ye insist?” Torq growled. He placed a hand flat on the small of my back, not pressing against it, but as if he tried to send a healing power. I thought it a bit unusual that he was making so free with my body, but I guessed he’d done so since he first picked me up off the floor in the keep. I thought it unusual, not unwanted.
“Don’t hurt her, Torq!” Ann exclaimed.
“I dinna ken he is hurting her, Ann,” John murmured.
I opened my eyes to see John watching me, watching Torq, with a twinkle in his blue eyes.
In fact, the warmth of Torq’s broad hand did ease the spasms. I didn’t know what that man did to me, but his touch always seemed to take my pain away.
“No, I guess not,” Ann said. She gave me an enigmatic grin and walked over to her cooking area in the middle of the room. Resembling a campfire more than a kitchen, a cheery fire burned, surrounded by a circle of rocks. Embedded in the rocks was a wooden fence-like barrier that acted as a screen. I suspected that was Ann’s contribution to protecting the children. An iron tripod perched in the middle, holding a pot of something that smelled delicious.
“Thank you, Torq,” I said, self-conscious.
“Has yer pain eased, or do ye need to move?”
“It has eased,” I said.
I looked up at Torq, who appeared surprised. He took a seat at the table.
“Are the babies sleeping, Ann?” I asked quietly so as not to wake them.
“No, they’re wide awake. They’re over with Mistress Glick right now along with our other kids.”
“Other kids?”
“Mary’s kids, Archibald and Sarah.” Ann looked over her shoulder toward Torq before turning back to the fire. I followed her eyes, noting that John and Andrew studiously studied the tabletop. Torq’s jaw tightened, and he averted his face from us, looking at one of the far walls.
“I hear Torq carried ye down to the sea, Mistress Dunnon. Did ye find it bonny?” John asked.
“Cyn, please. Or Cynthia. I did,” I said with a nod. “It was beautiful! And wild.” The best part, of course, was the bathing Scotsmen, but I saved the men from that comment.
“Aye, it is wild here on the Isle of Lewis. We have no protection from the sea along the coast. But I canna imagine wanting to live inland.”
“No, I see what you mean. Torq told me that it’s a little harder to live here at Dun Eistean than at your castle, Ardmore.”
“Oh, Cyn, let’s not talk about that now,” Ann said, hurrying over to the table with some wooden bowls and spoons. I glanced up in surprise, and she threw me a pointed look that I didn’t understand, maybe one of warning.
I looked back at John, whose face had darkened. Andrew looked sad, and Torq rubbed his chin.
“I’m sorry if that was insensitive,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“There is no need to apologize, Cynthia,” John said, giving himself a visible shake. “I ken ye are an archaeologist like my lady here, and there is naethin that Torq told ye which isna true. It is hard living here on Dun Eistean, but until we can take Ardmore back, here is where we stay.”
I wanted to ask more, but shut my mouth.
“Here we are!” Ann said, bringing a pot to the table. She ladled out a lovely thick stew while John rose to fetch a plate of oatcakes from a sideboard.
John spoke to Torq in Gaelic, and I looked at Ann, at that moment seating herself across the rectangular table. She lifted her shoulders in a rueful shrug.
“I’m not sure, but I think John is asking Torq if he is in pain. Great job with the stitches, by the way! Sewing was never my thing!”
“Aye, I was asking Torq about his health,” John said. “He will have a braw scar on his cheek!”
Torq’s eyes crinkled, and he took an oatcake and dug into his stew without a word.
I hoped I hadn’t betrayed his confidence in me. I knew from both Andrew and Ann that he was a man of few words, and I’d been inordinately pleased when he shared information with me. I didn’t want him to shut down.
Torq spoke to John in Gaelic. Their exchange continued for a few minutes. Both looked troubled.
“John? What are you two talking about?” Ann asked. “I heard you mention the Macaulays and the gate.”
“Auch, lass, I dinna wish to worry ye or our guest. Perhaps we should speak of this later?”
“Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t hide things from me,” I exclaimed. “If something is going on, I’d like to know about it.” I looked at Torq, my protector, who chewed on his lower lip and avoided my eyes.
“She’s here, John,” Ann said. “There’s no point in trying to hide things from her. What’s going on?”
“Robert heard a Macaulay man speaking to another last night. They kent that if they kidnapped the Macleod’s grandchildren, he might look upon them with favor, perhaps grant them a reward.”
Ann gasped. I didn’t know who Robert was, but I assumed he was a Morrison. My focus was more on what he had related than who he was.
“Not again! Is that why they came last night? Thank goodness the men ran them off from the crofts. When will this stop?”
“It willna stop until the auld man is dead,” Torq said in a hard voice.
I looked at him in shock. I knew he was a warrior, I knew he was tough, but I’d never really heard murder in his voice.
“Aye, that is the truth of it,” John said.
“Well, they failed, right?” I interjected.
“Aye, but Robert thinks he heard them say they would try again.”
“When?” Ann and I spoke at the same time.
“He didna hear any particulars. We must be ready today, tonight, tomorrow.”
“How many lads do ye have on the gate tonight?” Torq asked John.
“I have four in the tower. There are two at the boathouses. Will that be enough, do ye ken?”
“I ken four in the tower is enough, the lads at the boathouses plenty. I think the Macaulays will come overland again as they did last night, using hooks and ropes to span the divide.”
John smiled grimly.
“Oh, John, the kids!” Ann murmured. “Why does this always have to be about the children?”
“Ye ken I would give my life for Sarah and Archibald, Ann. Torq as well, for he is their stepfather. The Macaulays will no take them.”
“Promise me,” Ann pleaded.
“I promise ye,” John replied, covering her hand with his own.
“And I make that same vow,” Torq ground out, his eyes narrowed to angry slits. “No one will take the bairns from us.”
�
��I vow as well,” Andrew concurred.
Ann smiled at Andrew.
“Andrew is pretty fierce in a battle,” she said to me.
I stared at the faces around the table, overwhelmed with the serious urgency of their discussion. With the exception of Ann and myself, no one else seemed frightened so much as determined.
Ann’s next words startled me.
“I think you should go home now, Cyn.”
“No!” Torq barked.
Chapter Nine
All eyes turned on Torq, including mine.
“The lass is no fit to travel down to the beach. How do ye expect her to travel through time?” he said gruffly, running a hand over his clean-shaven chin. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Torq,” Ann said softly.
I stared at Torq, but he avoided my eyes.
“Cyn will go back to a hospital for treatment,” Ann said. “She doesn’t belong here.”
Ann’s words hurt. I supposed that I didn’t belong, but I would have expected to hear those comments from a sixteenth-century Scot, not a twenty-first century woman who had herself fallen in love.
Who had herself fallen in love.
I shook my head, dismissed notions of Freudian slips of speech and turned to Ann.
“Torq is right, Ann. I really don’t think I can travel back through time right now. The fall into the keep was terribly painful. What if I end up in a worse situation?”
“Like what?” Ann asked.
I glanced at Torq again, who stared at his bowl of stew without eating. I knew he listened closely though.
“I don’t know! I just don’t think I can face being roughed up right now. Didn’t we agree that it would be dangerous for me to try to travel back through time, at least until I could walk?”
“She may be right, Ann. The journey might be too much.” John spoke up.
Ann gave me a curious look.
“I know we agreed, but at this point, I think it might be too dangerous now for you to stay. I’m doing this for you, Cyn.”
I returned her look, hoping she understood what was in my eyes, in my heart, maybe better than I did.
“It’s too soon,” I murmured again.
Ann cast a sideways glance at Torq and then nodded.
“Okay, if you think it would be too painful...”
From the lift of Ann’s eyebrow and the sympathetic grimace she gave me, I knew she understood that my desire to stay had little to do with pain—at least not back pain.
“It is decided then. Ye shall remain wi us until ye are well enough to return to yer own time,” John affirmed.
Torq said nothing but resumed eating. I noticed that the creases between his eyebrows eased.
“Until then,” I said.
“I have finished and must tend to my duties,” John said. “Andrew, ye may accompany me while I check the wall.”
“I will come wi ye,” Torq said, rising. “Can Cyn-tya bide here awhile until I return, Ann?”
“Sure. I’ve got to find her something to wear anyway.”
The men and Andrew left the croft, and Ann sat back in her chair, crossed her arms and stared at me. I had known we were about to have a talk.
“Well, that was fast!” she murmured.
“What was fast?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“You’ve fallen for Torq!”
“Please,” I protested in a high-pitched voice. “In the space of a few days? How irrational is that?”
“Well, it happened to me, so not irrational at all. I don’t know if it’s the sea air or the sense of desperation that sometimes accompanies life here or just that they’re so darn handsome, but...it happens.”
“It’s more than just the rugged good looks,” I said, giving up all pretense. “It’s the way he takes care of me, the way I think nothing bad will ever happen to me when he’s around, the strength of character...not to mention physicality. He hauled me single handedly up that cliff, even after losing so much blood last night!”
“They’re a tough lot, that’s for sure. But, Cyn, Torq can’t protect you from everything, even if it feels like he can. Even if he wants to. He seems very attached to you, and that’s unusual for him. He’s pretty reserved, doesn’t really socialize much, especially since Mary died.”
“No, I know he can’t protect me from everything, Ann. He’s only human.”
“I would hate to see him get hurt again, Cyn. It’s not my place to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. Don’t break his heart. If you’re leaving when your back gets better, then don’t let him get any more attached to you than he is.”
“Ann, I’m no great shakes. I’ve only had a few boyfriends, and frankly, the last one just walked out on me because he thought our relationship was too tame, too underwhelming, I guess. He wanted more passion. I don’t mean in a physical sense, or maybe he did. I don’t know.” I rubbed my forehead. My back hurt.
“What I mean is...people don’t fall crazy in love with me. I don’t command great passion, abiding love, the ‘you’re the only one for me’ kind of love—the kind of love that you and John seem to share. So don’t worry. Torq isn’t going to fall crazy in love with me. I think he enjoys taking care of me, for some reason, like a strange little doll that he can tote around for a bit, but I’m just ordinary, and he’s not. I’m a curiosity, nothing more.”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of yourself, do you?” The sympathetic smile on Ann’s face belied the harshness of her comment.
“No, not really. My dad was an archaeologist, you know. I’ll just say that I took up archaeology hoping that his ghost somewhere would pay attention long enough to be proud of me. So far, no luck with that either.”
Ann rose, came around the table and bent to kiss my cheek.
“I’d hug you, but I think it would hurt. You said a lot in that sentence. I’m sorry, Cyn.”
She straightened and rubbed her hands on her skirt.
“Well, I’ll clean the table off later. Let’s get you dressed before Torq gets back.”
“So no chance I can wear the T-shirt?”
“No chance,” she said with a grin. “And you have to wear a bodice. I didn’t send one over this morning because I wasn’t sure, but I think it might even help support your back. I hope so!”
A half hour later, after some moaning and whimpering on my part while I stood bracing my hands on the table, Ann had me re-dressed in a white shift, beige bodice and skirt.
“I’m not sure where your shoes are, but here are a pair of slippers. If it were colder, you would need to wear stockings, but I think you can squeak by. Just don’t lift your skirts.” She helped me back to the chair and bent to cover my feet in the black slippers.
“I’d kill for a decent hiking boot, but here we are!” Ann said. “Let me do something with your hair just to keep it out of your face, if nothing else.”
She pulled my shoulder-length hair up into a chignon and tied a length of red yarn around it.
“There you go! You’re all sixteenth-century Scottish lass now!”
I put a hand to my back. “The bodice does actually seem to help, but I guess eating is out from now on.”
Ann chuckled. “You can loosen it.”
Torq tapped on the doorway and stepped inside.
“Mistress Glick said the bairns are sleeping, so ye were to take yer time. Archibald and Sarah play with the other bairns outside her croft. I set two lads to watch over them.”
“Oh! How nice of her. Well, I’ve got plenty of chores. Are you finished doing what you were doing?”
“Aye, we have checked the walls, scanned the mainland. All seems quiet.”
I grasped the table edge to pull myself to a standing position, and Torq moved to support me.
“I see Ann has turned ye into a proper Scottish lassie,” he murmured.
I looked up at his crinkled eyes.
Ann laughed.
“That’s just what Ann said!”
“Ye look bonny,” he sai
d gruffly.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t know if it was the after-meal blood sugar dip or time traveling “jet lag,” but exhaustion suddenly drained me of energy.
“I think I’d like to rest awhile.”
Before I knew it, Torq picked me up in his arms.
“I will take ye back to the keep then.”
“Bye, Ann,” I said. “See you soon.”
“I’ll see you later,” she said.
Torq carried me outside, and we passed through the crofts. As he had said, children played out front of a croft, and two teenage boys watched over them.
A blond boy and girl, spitting images of John, broke away and ran toward Torq. Torq paused as the young girl tugged on his sleeve.
“Torq, who have ye there?” the blue-eyed doll asked.
“Mistress Dunnon. This is Sarah Macleod.”
“Are ye visiting us, Mistress Dunnon?” the boy asked.
I presumed he was Archibald.
“I am,” I said with a broad smile, albeit slightly embarrassed that I was the one being carried and the children were on the ground.
“How long shall ye be wi us, mistress?” Sarah asked. “Torq, will she stay wi us at Uncle John’s cottage?”
“Nay, lassie. Mistress Dunnon is staying in the keep.”
“But I thought that’s where ye were staying now, Torq,” the astute Archibald said.
I was just on the point of telling Torq to put me down to save his strength, but he shook his head.
“That is enough questions now, bairns. Mistress Dunnon is unwell, and I must take her to rest. I will visit wi ye later.”
“So pleased to meet ye, Mistress Dunnon!” Sarah called out as Torq moved on through the village.
“You too!” I called out over his shoulder. I saw that the kids went back to playing.
“Why don’t they live with you, Torq? If you’re their stepfather?”
He tsked, almost as if at himself.
“I was no married to Mary verra long, only a few months. The bairns are more comfortable with their uncle John and Ann and the wee ones. I gave up my croft and moved into the keep.”
