Anna’s eyes were on her, bright and sympathetic. “You’re getting pretty tired, hey?”
“Yeah, I don’t know why,” she said, fighting the urge to yawn again. “I slept all morning, didn’t I?”
“You’ll take a while to adjust, if you’re anything like us,” Nancy explained. “My first week here I think I slept ten hours a night and still felt sleepy. It’s either the adjustment to a new place, the impact of the journey through the Burgh — or maybe both, I don’t know.”
“At any rate, I better take you back to your room.” Anna laughed as Elena yawned again.
Grateful for the woman’s help — and a little embarrassed by how exhausted she was — Elena said a polite goodnight to Laird Donal, who waved her goodnight with a cheerful smile. He was surprisingly down-to-earth for the Laird of a castle, and she said as much to Anna as they made their way up the spiral staircase.
“Oh, he’s a lot better than he was,” Anna said cheerfully. “He’s calmed down a lot over the last few years — he doesn’t feel so much of a need to be a big tough guy anymore. Fatherhood’s changed him a lot for the better, too.”
Elena raised her eyebrows. “You have children?”
“Just one. For now,” she added, grinning. “A little girl. Gwyneth. She’s gorgeous. You’re welcome to meet her, when you’ve rested, of course.”
“Amazing,” Elena said softly. “You came all the way from America, in the twenty-first century, to here? And you just… stayed?”
“It’s where I’m meant to be,” Anna said simply. “We’ll talk more about it in the morning though, darling. Here’s your room.”
She fought off yet another yawn as she opened the door — sure enough, there was the little room she’d woken up in. Someone had come through and made the bed, and there was a fire cracking in the hearth, filling the space with warmth. It was incredibly cozy, and she felt like she’d be asleep before her head hit the pillow. Still… something troubled her a little as she drifted off to sleep.
Anna and Nancy had both settled down here and started new lives. It was nice — she could tell how happy they were. But what about their old homes, their old lives? What about America, the twenty-first century, their families and friends? Surely they’d have wanted to send a message to their families, at least, letting them know where they were?
Why hadn’t they mentioned anything about how to get back home?
Chapter 14
She woke feeling much more well-rested than she had the day before… though she had to admit, there was a little more praying that the whole previous day had been a bizarre dream than she was necessarily proud of. But no — she sat up, peered out the window, and had to admit once and for all that this was Scotland. That kind of view was too gorgeous for her to be dreaming. Maybe today she could get out of the castle, maybe ride a horse down to the village and have a look around? That idea was somewhat put off by remembering that she had no idea how to ride a horse. How complicated could it be, though? You just pointed it where you wanted it to go then kicked it into motion, right?
Probably best to stay with someone who knew what they were doing, she thought to herself with a rueful little smile as she got dressed. There were plenty of clothes in the chest, and most of them seemed about her size — she made a note to track down Maeve and thank her for her kindness in organizing this. As odd as the medieval garb felt to wear, it was a lot better than wearing her damp twenty-first century clothes again.
She headed down to breakfast, this time making note of where her room was in the context of the broader castle. Brendan’s tour had helped a lot — she felt much less lost as she walked, though the hallways still gave her pause. The hall was full of people again, and she could feel curious eyes on her as she moved through the crowds. Self-consciously, she searched for Anna or Nancy… but to her surprise, she came face-to-face with Brendan.
“Good morning!” she said brightly, a little taken aback by how happy she was to see him. He seemed surprised, too — he smiled down at her, and she looked closely at his face. “Have you been to bed yet?”
“No,” he admitted, grinning tiredly. “Had the all-night shift. So this is … dinner, technically.”
“When do you sleep?”
“When I can,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve gotten pretty good at burning the candle at both ends.”
She felt a pang of worry for him. She knew firsthand how quickly sleep deprivation could interfere with your faculties — too many overworked colleagues had kidded themselves they could throw all-nighters a couple of times a week and still function. “You should take better care of yourself,” she scolded. God, it was just like talking to her father.
“You’re probably right,” Brendan said simply, and she blinked in surprise. Well, it wasn’t that much like talking to her father. “Would you like to join me for breakfast?”
“Sure,” she said, ducking her head a little shyly. He’s just being nice, Elena, you idiot, she scolded herself. He knows you’re new to the castle and you don’t have any friends… he’s just taking a shift of looking after you, so Nancy and Anna don’t have to, that’s all. But still, it was nice to sit with him as they both ate their porridge.
“So how was your evening? Settling in okay?”
“Yeah, it was nice. I had dinner with Anna and Nancy — I met Laird Donal, too,” she added, thinking of the broad-shouldered blond man.
“Oh, aye? How’d you find him?” There was a curious restraint in Brendan’s expression, and she made careful note of it, intrigued.
“He seems like a good man.”
“Aye, he’s that.” Brendan grinned. “Any burning questions about the castle?”
“Oh, sort of,” she said, frowning. “When they pulled me out of the lake, there was a woman… I don’t remember much about her. Long, dark hair, a dress down to the ground, maybe my age, around my height as well, I think… anyone you know?”
He frowned. “She was there when you came out of the lake?”
“Yeah. I almost thought…” She hesitated, not trusting her own memory. “I thought she came through with me. It felt like someone pulled me to the surface, and then she was there when I climbed out onto the dock…. but that doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ll give it some thought,” Brendan said, clearly troubled by the question. “It’s possible she came with you, through the Burgh. A lot of strange things come through that portal.”
“But where did she go?” Elena wanted to know. “Why wouldn’t she have hung around to be brought into the castle for safety, if she was from the future like me? Why would she run away?”
“I’ll ask around,” Brendan said thoughtfully. “See if the description’s familiar to anyone.” He grinned, his eyes lighting up. “Trust you to find a mystery to investigate your first day here!”
She laughed. “Detectives don’t investigate mysteries, we investigate crimes.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, that woman didn’t do anything wrong by saving me from the lake, did she? That is, if she was real,” she added, rolling her eyes. “For all I know I could’ve hallucinated her. Memory’s not a very reliable piece of evidence.”
Brendan was full of curiosity about her job — he asked question after question about the kind of work she did, the cases she’d solved, the people she worked with. He was surprised, but not suspicious, to learn that her captain was a woman, too, and though Elena had been worried that he’d have trouble accepting that women were just as good at being police officers as men, he seemed to take it all in his stride, only commenting that he looked forward to having a few more women in his guard, if they were all as sharp as Elena. Maybe he’s just flirting again, she told herself irritably, trying to fight off the blush that rose to her cheeks. He didn’t really know anything about how good a detective she was… but still, it felt nice to have a man actually respect her career for once. Between her father, who thought he knew better than her, and her ex-boyfriend, who’d tried to
tell her to quit the job because it was too ‘masculine’, Brendan was doing a lot better at being a feminist than the twenty-first century men she’d met. Isn’t that funny?
And despite her suspicion that Brendan was only being polite, over the next few days he proved that he genuinely enjoyed her company. Though he worked strange hours on the walls, and she often didn’t see him for meals, at least once a day he’d move up beside her in the dining hall or in the courtyard outside, offering her company, chatting with her about how she was finding the castle. It was good to have someone to talk to about it — because as much as she prided herself on her toughness, there was a lot of adjustments to be made.
For a start, the lack of technology. She’d never considered herself much of a person of creature comforts, but four days into her stay she was ready to kill for a hot shower. She’d always taken it for granted, just standing in the hot water and letting it blast her clean… but now that her only option was a hot bath, she regretted not taking more advantage of what she had when she’d had it. Washing her hair in a bath was an enormous hassle, and the soap and shampoo they used in the castle was strange and different to what she’d used back home.
And god, she missed television, missed her phone, missed screens. It was a beautiful place, and she should have been fully engaged with all the wonderful things around her… but to her embarrassment, she found herself fiercely bored a lot of the time. There was just something about being able to pull a little rectangle out of your pocket and catch up on the news of the world… all the beautiful views in the world couldn’t scratch that itch for her, even though she visited the roof multiple times a day.
Maybe she was homesick, too. Maybe missing her phone was more about missing the ability to call her family at a moment’s notice. She was worried about her dad, how he was getting on without her, whether her brothers were doing a good enough job of keeping an eye on him. They were great at the grand gestures — things like finding him an apartment, buying him a car, bringing the grand-kids to visit once a month — but the little day-to-day details, sending a text to check in, catching up for coffee or lunch, bringing some groceries by to make sure he was eating healthy… all of that stuff fell overwhelmingly to Elena. It was fair enough — they were busy, they lived far away — but now that she was here, stuck in Scotland, she worried about him.
She consoled herself that, with the way time travel worked, it was possible he’d never realize she was gone. Maybe when she got back, she’d arrive a few minutes after she’d disappeared. She’d be a little older and full of some very strange memories, but nobody would have suffered as a result of her absence. Maybe she could pick right up where she’d left off with the case, too. That was itching at her, too — what had happened to those men? Who had subjected them to such a horrible death? She’d been so excited to get started on the investigation… now she had a completely different kind of case to solve. The case of how the hell anyone lived in medieval Scotland.
Still… overall, she was doing a lot better than she’d done that first day. At least she didn’t feel like she was always on the verge of a panic attack… and to her credit, she hadn’t found the need to rely on alcohol to soothe her nerves, either. Yes, it all got overwhelming sometimes (learning how laundry worked here, for example, had been a steep learning curve) but Elena was resilient enough that she was able to cope with it. For now, at least. Though if she hadn’t had the support of Anna and Nancy, who’d been through it all before, or of Brendan, who was a calming, soothing presence even in her storm of uncertainty, she didn’t know how well she’d be faring.
But she was still full of questions that she was almost afraid to ask — so she let them slide to the bottom of her list, falling under more practical considerations like how she’d get a new pair of boots once her current ones wore out, or how to ride a horse, or whether there was a medieval equivalent of Sudoku that she could pick up to satisfy her furious need for mental stimulation. And the big question — the question that weighed on her too heavily to even ask — was how she could get back home.
Somehow, she got the feeling that she wasn’t going to like the answer to that one.
Chapter 15
The morning that marked her first full week in the castle dawned bright and cold. Elena dressed quickly, having learned from experience that dawdling only let the cold sink into her bones and chase her through the hallways — the quicker you moved, the quicker you would be warm again. In her first few days in the castle, she’d made a point of tracking down a brush for her long mane of hair, and she gave it a few strokes with the brush now, banishing the tangles that the night had put into it and then putting it into a loose braid to keep it contained for the day. The mirror in her room wasn’t quite as regular as her mirror back home — it had a distinctly hand-made feeling to it, and a few imperfections and distortions in the surface that made it hard to get a precise sense of how she was looking — but she was getting used to it. It was a little refreshing, actually, not to worry about putting makeup on every single day. Her natural face was good enough. What other option was there, in these times? Strange, to feel liberated from gender norms by travelling backwards in time.
When she got to the dining hall, she realized with a smile that all of her friends were waiting for her. Anna and Nancy were seated at the table already, and Laird Donal was standing nearby, deep in conversation with his tanist Malcolm. She’d met the man only a few days ago — he’d been in the village, seeing to some matter or another. He was Nancy’s husband — only recently married, and still wildly in love with her, it was clear from every little interaction the two of them shared. He was also incredibly excited to be a father — they’d barely made it through a whole conversation without him bringing up his impending son or daughter every chance he got.
And there, also at the table, was Brendan — she felt her heart skip a beat at the sight of him then scolded herself for being so silly. He’d had the morning shift the day before — that meant today he had the morning clear. So of course he was sitting with them — why wouldn’t he? He was close friends with both Donal and Malcolm, though there was a little tension between him and the tanist that Elena was very interested in — but couldn’t quite work out. Some kind of old feud, perhaps? It felt a little like the guys in her precinct who got competitive with each other about arrest numbers — they were definitely on the same side, but there was a sense that they were both trying to be better than the other one. She’d figure it out eventually, she was sure.
“And how’s your first week in the castle been, Elena?” Brendan asked, leaning forward over his porridge as she sat down.
“Has it really only been a week? Feels like forever,” Anna said brightly. The dark-haired woman had been a little distracted over the last week — her daughter Gwyneth was teething, and that had taken a lot of her time. Unfortunately, in medieval Scotland there was no such thing as numbing balm for teething infants… they just had to get through it however they could. Donal had brightly suggested giving the little one a shot of whisky — Elena had laughed aloud at the murderous look on Anna’s face at the suggestion, and at the way Donal had recoiled at the sight of her face.
“How’s the little one going?” Elena asked sympathetically.
Anna looked exhausted — she’d been up late with Gwyneth, even though the castle had no shortage of servants who could’ve taken over the task for her. She insisted on doing the bulk of the mothering work herself.
“I think we’re out of the woods,” she said tiredly. “But I won’t lie and say I haven’t been considering Donal’s solution.”
“Never did me any harm,” the man said solemnly.
“In moderation, of course,” Maeve said sedately.
The silver-eyed woman had been joining them for breakfast, lately. Elena had appreciated getting to know the reserved older woman — she hadn’t realized that she was Laird Donal’s aunt and Malcolm’s mother. She’d all but raised both boys — it explained the brotherly affectio
n between the two. Cousins in name, but brothers in blood, that’s how they put it. It reminded her of her own brothers — and sent a pang of homesickness shooting through her heart. It had been so long since they’d all been together.
Would they ever be together again?
“You’d better get some rest, Anna dear,” Maeve said now, putting a gentle hand on the woman’s forearm. “From what I hear around the halls, there’s some rather nasty contagion going around.”
“Oh, my men haven’t shut up about that one,” Brendan said, frowning. “From what they said, though, it’s only men falling ill. Young men, too — sixteen to forty, they said. Very specific.”
Elena frowned. “Is it serious?” She didn’t know nearly enough about history — but she knew enough to be worried about plagues. Dying in her mid-twenties of the bubonic plague wasn’t something she was interested in at all, if she could avoid it.
“Aye, from what they say the victims waste right away. They go all pale, they lose their appetites, then most of their body weight, even if they’re forced to eat… for all the world like something’s sucking the life out of them.” Brendan cleared his throat, clearly a little discomfited by the eerie silence that had fallen at the table. “That’s what the men say, anyway, and you know what a pack of fools they can be. They were all convinced those goblin armies were back last week just because a stray dog went running past in the bushes during a patrol.”
“Still, best to be on the alert when it comes to diseases,” Maeve said softly, a look of concern in her bright silver eyes. “You said it only affects men? I wonder how that could be.”
Elena tried to cast her mind back to high school biology. “It’s been a while… I know some things affect men more than women. Certain diseases… colorblindness, for example. Something to do with how the chromosomes work?” She struggled to remember more. “It’s been a long time since high school.”
Swept By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 3 Page 9
