Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  He arched one dark brow. "Och, have out with it, lass. Ask me to marry you. I'll say nay, then you can hie yourself back whence you came."

  "I am not trying to get you to postpone it so you'll marry me. I'm telling you because they're going to die if you don't do something. In my time, you told me Dageus was killed in a clan battle between the Montgomery and the Campbell when returning from the Elliott's. You also told me that you'd been betrothed, but that she died. I think she must have been killed coming back here with Dageus. According to you, he tried to help the Montgomery because they were outnumbered. If he interferes with that battle, they will both die. And you'd believe me then, wouldn't you? If I foretold those deaths? Don't make it cost that much. I saw you grieve—" She broke off, unable to continue.

  Too many mixed emotions were crashing over her: disbelief that he wouldn't believe her, pain that he was engaged, exhaustion from the stress of the entire ordeal.

  She cast him a last pleading glance, then darted into her bedchamber before she turned into the emotional equivalent of Jell-O.

  After she'd slipped inside and closed the door, Drustan gazed blankly at it. Her plea for his brother had sounded so sincere that he'd gotten chills and suffered an eerie sense of disagreeable familiarity.

  Her story couldn't be true, he assured himself. Many of the old tales hinted that the stones were used as gates to other places—legends never forgotten, passed down through the centuries. She'd like as not heard the gossip and, in her madness, made up a story that held a purely coincidental bit of truth. Had she faked the blood of her virginity? Mayhap she was pregnant and in desperate need of a husband…

  Aye, he could travel through the stones, that much of it was true. But everything else she claimed reeked of wrongness. If he'd ever gotten trapped in the future he would never have behaved in such ways. He would never have sent a wee lass back through the stones. He couldn't begin to imagine the situation in which he might take a lass's maidenhead—he'd vowed never to lie with a virgin unless'twas in the marriage bed. And he would never have instructed her to tell his past self such a story and expected himself to believe it.

  Och, thinking all this future self, past self was enough to give a man a pounding head, he thought, massaging his temples.

  Nay, were he to get into such a situation, he would have simply come back himself and set things aright. Drustan MacKeltar was infinitely more capable than she'd made him out to be.

  There was no point in getting unduly upset about her. His primary problem would be keeping his hands to himself, because addled or no, he desired her fiercely.

  Still, he mused, mayhap he should send a full complement of guard with Dageus on the morrow. Mayhap the country wasn't as peaceful as it appeared from high atop the MacKeltar's mountain.

  Shaking his head, he strode to the boudoir door and slid the bolt from his side, locking her in. Then he grabbed the key from a compartment in the headboard of his bed, left his chamber, and locked her in from the corridor as well. Nothing would jeopardize his wedding. Certainly not some wee lass scampering about unattended, spouting nonsense that he'd taken her virginity. She would go nowhere on the estate unaccompanied by either him or his father.

  Dageus, on the other hand, he didn't plan to allow within a stone's toss of her.

  He turned on his heel and stalked down the corridor.

  * * * * *

  Gwen curled up on the bed and cried. Sobbed, really, with hot tears and little choking noises that gave her a swollen nose and a serious sinus headache.

  It was no wonder she hadn't cried since she was nine. It hurt to cry. She hadn't even cried when her father had threatened that if she didn't return to Triton Corp. and finish her research, he would never speak to her again. Maybe a few of those tears leaked out now as well.

  Confronting Drustan had been more awful than she'd imagined. He was betrothed. And by saving Dageus, she was saving Drustan's future wife. Her overactive brain busily conjured torturous images of Drustan in bed with Anya Elliott. No matter that she didn't even know what Anya Elliott looked like. It was clear from the way things were going that Anya would be Gwen's antithesis—tall and slim and leggy. And Drustan would touch and kiss tall leggy Mrs. MacKeltar the way he'd touched and kissed Gwen in the stones.

  Gwen squeezed her eyes shut and groaned, but the horrid images were more vivid on the insides of her eyelids. Her eyes snapped open again. Focus, she told herself. There is nothing to be gained by torturing yourself, you have a bigger problem on your hands.

  He hadn't believed her. Not a word she'd said.

  How could that be? She'd done what he'd wanted her to do, told him what had happened. She'd believed telling him the whole story would make him see the logic inherent, but she was beginning to realize that sixteenth-century Drustan was not the same man that twenty-first-century Drustan had thought he was. Would the backpack have made that much of a difference? she wondered.

  Yes. She could have shown him the cell phone, with its complex electronic workings. She could have shown him the magazine with the modern articles and date, her odd clothing, the waterproof fabric of her pack. She'd had rubber and plastic items in there; materials that even a medieval whatever-he-was—genius?—wouldn't have been able to dismiss without further consideration.

  But the last time she'd seen the damn pack, it was spiraling off into the quantum foam.

  Where do you suppose it ended up? the scientist queried, with childlike wonder.

  "Oh, hush, it's not here, and that's all that really signifies," Gwen muttered aloud. She was not in the mood to think about quantum theory at the moment. She had problems, all kinds of problems.

  The odds of her identifying the enemy without his help weren't promising. The estate was vast, and Silvan had told her that, including the guards, there were seven hundred fifty men, women, and children within the walls, and another thousand crofters scattered about. Not to mention the nearby village… It could be anyone: a distant clan, an angry woman, a conquering neighbor. She had at most a month, and as recalcitrant as he was—not even willing to admit he could travel through the stones—she certainly couldn't expect him to be forthcoming with other information.

  Woodenly, she undressed and crawled beneath the covers. Tomorrow was another day. Eventually she'd get through to him somehow, and if she couldn't, she'd just have to save the MacKeltar clan all by herself.

  And then what will you do? her heart demanded. Catch the bouquet at his freaking wedding? Hire on as their nanny?

  Grrr…

  * * * * *

  "Well?" Silvan demanded, strolling into the Greathall. "Does she still claim you took her maidenhead?"

  Drustan leaned back in his chair. He quaffed the remains of his whisky and rolled the glass between his palms. He'd been gazing into the fire, thinking of his future wife, trying to keep his mind off the temptress in the chamber that adjoined his. As the spirits had slid into his belly, his worries had eased a bit and he'd begun to see dark humor in the situation. "Oh, aye. She even has a reason why I remain blissfully unaware of my breach of honor. 'Twould seem I tupped her in my future."

  Silvan blinked. "Come again?"

  "I tupped her five hundred years from now," Drustan said. "And then I sent her back to save me." He couldn't hold it in any longer. He tossed his head back and laughed.

  Silvan eyed him strangely. "How does she claim you came to be in the future?"

  "I was enchanted," Drustan said, shoulders shaking with mirth. It really was quite amusing, now that he reflected upon it. Since he wasn't currently looking at her, he wasn't worried that he might lose control of his lust and could see the humor more easily.

  Silvan stroked his chin, his gaze intent. "So she claims she woke you and you sent her back?"

  "Aye. To save me from being enchanted in the first place. She also mumbled some nonsense about you and Dageus being in danger."

  Silvan dosed his eyes and rubbed his index finger in the crease between his brows, a thing he did
often when thinking deeply. "Drustan, you must keep an open mind. " 'Tis not entirely impossible on the face of it," he said slowly.

  Drustan sobered swiftly. "Nay—on the face of it, it's not," he agreed. " 'Tis once you get into the details that you realize she's a wee bampot with little grasp on sanity."

  "I admit it's far-fetched, but—"

  "Da, I'm not going to repeat all the nonsense she spouted, but I assure you, the lass's story is so full of holes that were it a ship,'twould be kissing the sandy bed of the ocean."

  Silvan frowned consideringly. "I scarce see how it could hurt to take precautions. Mayhap you should pass some time with her. See what else you might learn about her."

  "Aye," Drustan agreed. "I thought to take her to Balanoch on the morrow, see if anyone recognizes her and can tell us where to find her kin."

  Silvan nodded. "I will bide a wee with her myself, study her for signs of madness." He cast Drustan a stern look. "I saw the way you looked at her and know that, despite your misgivings, you desire her. If she's daft as you say, I won't abide her being taken advantage of. You must keep her out of your bed. You have your future wife to think of."

  "I know," Drustan snapped, all trace of amusement vanishing.

  "We need to rebuild the line, Drustan."

  "I know," he snapped again.

  "Just so you know where your duties lie," Silvan said mildly. "Not betwixt an addlepate's thighs."

  "I know," Drustan growled.

  "On the other hand, if she weren't daft—" Silvan began, but stopped and sighed when Drustan stomped from the room.

  Silvan sat in pensive silence after his son had gone. Her story was nigh impossible to believe. How was one to countenance someone knocking upon one's door, claiming to have spent time with one in one's future?

  The mind summarily rejected it—it was too chafing a concept for even a Druid to wrap his mind about. Still, Silvan had swiftly run through a few complex calculations, and the possibility existed. It was a minuscule possibility, but a good Druid knew it was dangerous to ignore any possibility.

  If her story were true, his son had cared for the lass so much that he'd taken her maidenhead. If her story were true, she knew Drustan had powers beyond most mortal men and had cared for him enough to both give him her virginity and come back to save him.

  He wondered how much Gwen Cassidy truly knew about Drustan. He would speak with Nell and have her casually mention a few things, observe the lass's reaction. Nell was a fine judge of character. He would spend time with her himself as well, not to question her—for words were without merit, lies easy to fabricate—but to study the workings of her mind as he would study an apprentice. Between the two of them, they would discern the truth. Drustan was clearly not demonstrating a levelheaded response toward the lass.

  His eldest son could be so stubborn sometimes. After three failed betrothals, he was so blinded by doubts about himself, so hell-bent on wedding, that he was unwilling to entertain anything that might seem to threaten his upcoming nuptials. He was going to marry, and tarry not in the process.

  Although Silvan knew they needed to rebuild the Keltar line, he suspected marriage between Drustan and the Elliott lass would entail a lifetime of deception that would inevitably result in misery for both of them.

  A wee bampot, was she, this Gwen Cassidy? Silvan wasn't so certain about that.

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  Besseta Alexander fumbled above the mantel for her yew sticks, dread coiling like a venomous snake in the pit of her stomach. A deeply superstitious woman, her charms were as necessary to her as the air she breathed. Of late she'd taken to scrying daily, frantic to discover what threat was moving ever nearer her son.

  When she and Nevin had first moved to Castle Keltar, she'd been thrilled to return to the Highlands. No flat-lander was she; she'd ached for many years to return to the misty caps, shimmery lochs, and heathery moors of her youth. The Highlands were closer to the heavens, even the moon and stars seemed within reach atop the mountains.

  Nevin's post was a prime one, priest to an ancient and wealthy clan. Here he could live out his life in security and contentment, with no risk of the kind of battles in which she'd lost her other sons, for the MacKeltar housed the second-finest garrison in all of Alba, second only to the King.

  Aye, for the first fortnight she'd been elated. But then, shortly after their arrival, she'd cast her yew sticks and seen a dark cloud on her horizon rolling inexorably nearer. Try as she might, she'd been unable to coax her sticks or her runes or her tea leaves to tell her more.

  Just a darkness. A darkness that threatened her only remaining son.

  And then, the last time she'd read them, the darkness had extended to one of Silvan's sons, but she'd been unable to determine which one.

  Sometimes she felt that great sucking darkness was reaching for her, trying to drag her into it. She would sit for hours, clutching her ancient runes, tracing their shapes, rocking back and forth until the panic eased. Vague fear had been her lifelong companion, even as a small lass. She dare not lose Nevin, lest those shadows gain substance and tear at her with wicked claws.

  Sighing, she smoothed her hair with trembling fingers, then cast the sticks upon the table. Had she cast them with Nevin in the hut, she would have gotten yet another tedious lecture about God and His mysterious ways.

  Thank you very much, lad, but I trust my sticks, not your invisible God who refuses to answer me when I ask Him why He gets four of my sons and I get only one.

  Studying the design, the coil in her belly tightened. Her sticks had fallen in the identical pattern they'd formed last week. Danger—but she had no way of knowing from what quarter. How was she to prevent it if she knew not whence it came? She dare not fail with her fifth and final son. Alone, that hungry blackness would get her, carry her off into what must surely be the oblivion of hell.

  "Tell me more," she beseeched. "I can't do anything until I know which lad presents the danger to my son."

  Despairing, she gathered them, then suddenly changed her mind and did something a good fortuneteller rarely risked lest evil forces, ever attuned to fear and despair, cunningly ply a false design upon the limbs. She cast them again, a second time, in quick succession to the first.

  Fortunately, the fates were inclined to be gentle and generous, for when the sticks clattered upon the table, she was granted a vision—a thing that had happened only once before in her life. Etched in her mind's eye, she clearly saw the eldest MacKeltar lad—Drustan—scowling, she heard the sound of a woman weeping, and she saw her son, blood dripping from his lips. Somewhere in the vision she sensed a fourth person but couldn't bring that person's face into focus.

  After a moment, she decided the fourth person must not be relevant to Nevin's danger since she couldn't see him or her. Mayhap an innocent onlooker.

  The woman weeping must be the woman her sticks had told her would kill her son—the lady that Drustan MacKeltar would wed. She squeezed her eyes shut but could glimpse only a wee form and golden hair, not a woman she'd e'er seen before.

  The vision faded, leaving her shaking and drained.

  She had to somehow put a stop to things before Drustan MacKeltar wed.

  She knew he was betrothed—all of Alba knew he was betrothed for the fourth time—but Nevin was infuriatingly closemouthed about the occupants of Castle Keltar. She had no idea when the wedding was to be, or even when the bride would be arriving.

  Of late, the more she pried for news from her son, the more recalcitrant he became. He was hiding things from her, and that frightened her. When they'd first arrived, he'd spoken freely about the castle and its occupants; now it was rare for him to mention anything about his days at the castle but for tedious details concerning his work on the chapels.

  The Alexander's hut nestled in a valley on the outskirts of Balanoch, nearly twenty furlongs from the castle proper. Nevin, overseeing the renovation of two chapels on the estate, walked each day, but such a tir
ing journey was beyond her aching joints and swollen limbs. Walking to Balanoch, a furlong to the south, was possible, and on good days she could manage five or more, but twenty and back again were impossible.

  If she couldn't wheedle the information from her son, mayhap, if the weather held, she could walk to the village.

  Nevin was all she had left, and no one—not the MacKeltar, not the church, nay, not even God—was taking her last son away.

  * * * * *

  "Here, horse, horse, horse," Gwen cooed.

  The creature in question peeled back its lips, showing frightfully large teeth, and she hastily retracted her hand. Ears flattened, tail swishing, it regarded her bale-fully.

  Ten minutes ago the groom had brought two horses out of the stable and tied them loosely to a post near the door. Drustan had led the largest one off without a backward glance, leaving her alone with the other. It had taken every bit of her nerve to trudge up to it, and there she stood near the door of the stables, trying to woo the infernal thing.

  Mortified, she glanced over her shoulder, but Drustan was several yards away, conversing with the stable master. At least he wasn't watching her make a fool of herself. She was city born and raised, by God. How was she supposed to know what to do with a thousand pounds of muscle, hair, and teeth?

  She tried again, this time with no tempting appendage proffered, merely a sweet murmur, but the obstinate creature nonchalantly lifted its tail and a warm stream hissed on the ground.

  Hastily snatching her slippered foot from the line of fire, she arched a brow, nostrils flaring. So much for thinking this day was going to be better than last night.

  It had begun with promise. A half dozen maids had toted up a steaming bath and she'd gratefully soaked her still-tender-from-lovemaking body. Then Nell had brought breakfast and coffee to her chamber. Fueled by caffeine-induced optimism after gulping the dark, delicious brew, she'd dressed and strolled off to find Drustan, to continue her efforts to convince him of the danger he was in. But the moment she'd walked into the Greathall, Drustan had informed her they were going to the village. On horses.