It was a little irritating to know that the other women all had something in common — they’d all gotten married shortly after they’d come to this place. And they’d all married the man who had had some kind of connection to their ancestor, or predecessor, or whatever it was that they called the women who looked just like them — the women who’d died tragically young, usually for unjust reasons (and what a strange pattern that was, too — Delilah would have assumed those sorts of stories were apocryphal if she hadn’t trusted the women telling her.) So what did that mean for her? She was going to wind up marrying Gavin? God, that idea chafed at her. It was the same kind of energy as when a friend tried to set her up with some guy — that uncomfortable feeling of expectation and pressure. Even if he’d been attractive to her… well, he was okay looking, she supposed, but knowing that everyone in the castle was probably expecting her to shack up with him made it so difficult to even consider without the discomfort getting in the way. Quantum theory, right? The act of observing something changed the nature of the thing being observed… and knowing that the other women were waiting on tenterhooks for her to fall in love with Gavin and get married… well, it made it all pretty bloody unlikely. Even if he hadn’t clearly been traumatized on some deep level by the very sight of her… was he even her type?
She frowned to herself a little as she stretched, cooling down from her drills. Her type. Did she even have a type? Delilah hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time on dating. As a teenager, she and her dad moved around so much that she rarely got a chance to spend much time with anyone for long enough to develop feelings. Sure, she’d admire hot guys from a distance, but she never really got around to interacting with them. She’d had a few casual things in college, too, but still there was a sense of distance between her and the guys she saw… after all, she was at college to work, not to live a love story. And college boys were such a dreadful lot, generally speaking. Immature, absolutely incapable of looking after themselves… why would she do that to herself when it was an option to just… not? And once she’d finished her undergrad there was postgrad work, then all the work she’d had to do to get a permanent-ish place at the college… there’d been no time to date, not really. Just short-term things, here and there. Most of her longer relationships (as in months, not weeks) were with guys who were only in town for a few months. The goodbyes were always bittersweet, but a part of her usually felt a strange sense of relief. Like she could finally get back to her real life — alone. Like she had always been meant to be. Was that comforting, or was that lonely? It was difficult to tell.
By the end of her stretches, she hadn’t figured much out. What she had realized, unfortunately, and to her great dismay, was that she had developed a powerful crush on Gavin.
God, what was that? Where had that come from? He’d been nothing but rude and insufferable, and she usually rolled her eyes and despaired when her friends fell for terrible assholes like that. Her best friend through her undergrad degree had a parade of terrible, disinterested, nasty men in and out of her dorm room for the entirety of their friendship. It was a miracle she’d gotten any work done at all, honestly. Delilah had always been as hostile toward them as she could, in the vain hope that they’d get their act together if they felt threatened, but it had never worked. God, she hadn’t caught up with Sarah for years. The last time she’d checked her Facebook it had said she was engaged, but there had been no other information. Had she finally found someone who loved her the way she deserved to be loved? Well, Delilah was never going to find out now, was she?
And here she was, years later, making the same stupid mistake — seeing some rugged, handsome jerk and getting all strange in the head about him. A little bit of sympathy for Sarah flared in her chest… then she crushed it. Sarah’s mistake hadn’t been feeling things about the idiot men… it had been acting on those feelings.
And it went without saying that Delilah wasn’t going to tell another living soul about these extremely stupid and distracting feelings about Gavin. It didn’t mean anything. That was certain. After all, she hardly knew him, and Delilah was a firm believer in real attraction coming from a personal connection, not just physical chemistry. Sure, he was big and buff, and those green eyes were absolutely to die for (and it wasn’t as if the accent hurt… God, it was a nice accent. She’d always had a weakness for a brogue — maybe it was her Scottish heritage talking.) But all that aside, the fact remained that of the details she actually knew about him as a person — who he was, what he was like, what he cared about — a lot of them were very troubling. Like the hostility he kept exhibiting toward her, and the paradoxical concern for her wellbeing that had had him following her around on her travels.
Never trust a man who follows you around without your knowledge, that was what she’d always thought to herself, tutting at silly romantic comedies with storylines that had far too much in common with stalking. Don’t get engaged, get a restraining order, she’d think as the music swelled and the couples tearfully declared their love for one another.
No. Gavin was no kind of romantic option for her — even if she’d been at all interested in that kind of thing right now. The other women had been here for years. They’d surely had time to adjust and acclimatize before they fell for their various husbands. Her stupid body and her stupid feelings could carry on all they wanted, but she was going to keep her head in the game where it belonged. There were a lot of mysteries to solve that had very little to do with Gavin bloody MacClaran.
That being said… it would be valuable to get him on side. He seemed to be one of the best people to ask about Morag, her lost so-called ancestor. They’d spent plenty of time together, he was as close to a local expert as she could get on her great-great-great-great grandmother. And how did that work, exactly? Had Morag had children before she died? Or was the idea that Delilah would have children, who would eventually be the ancestors of her own parents? Were they genetically identical, she and Morag — like twins, separated by a few hundred years and an ocean? What were the odds of that? God, magic wasn’t very scientific, was it? She found herself grinning alone in the clearing.
All this confusion aside, it felt good to be training again. The endorphins associated with exercise — there was nothing better. That was probably part of the stupid crush she was developing, she thought, rolling her eyes. Gavin had happened to turn up in the middle of her workout two days in a row. Stupid brain was associating him with the good feelings of exercise. With any luck, the feelings would be gone in a few days… or a week, or a month…
She knew from experience that it would help to avoid him. Well, that would be tricky if he was going to stalk her every time she left the castle grounds… hard to get away from a member of the guard, too. But at the very least, she could avoid his company when she was in the castle. Maybe she could find out what his guard roster was like and make sure she only went out to train when he couldn’t leave the castle walls. And in the meantime, as a method of distraction, she could start asking around about her ancestor. See if anyone else had more information than Gavin MacClaran, who seemed determined not to tell her a single damned thing of use about the woman, for all that he was perfectly willing to interrupt her training sessions…
Delilah gritted her teeth. Better not to think about him. Her brain seemed far too interested in spiraling into daydreams about him at the moment, and that was a bad road to go down if she was working toward getting rid of the crush…
Delilah walked back to the castle, lost in thought. The guards gave her a friendly little wave as they opened the gates for her — she could smell breakfast cooking from here, and felt a growl in her stomach as her body informed her that they’d done a great deal of work that morning and it was about time for a reward. Well, a big bowl of oatmeal would certainly help her start planning out her day. Settling in to a quiet end of one of the tables with a bowl of porridge (she supposed she’d better start calling it what the locals called it) Delilah considered her options as she blew on t
he piping hot cup of tea she’d grabbed along with her breakfast. It was going to be a research day, that much she’d decided on already. She’d need some paper, maybe a little book to write in… Fiona would know where to get hold of such a thing. And then she’d just need to start asking questions. The other women had told her plenty — it was local knowledge that she wanted, information from people who were born and raised around here. People who’d know about the stories of the “witches” of Castle MacClaran. It was an extension of the research she’d been doing back in the twenty-first century (she caught herself thinking of it as ‘the future’ and smiled.)
Fiona was more than happy to help her with writing supplies — she bustled off into the little room on the first floor that was a combination office, workspace and (from the look of the pile of furs and blankets in the corner) temporary bedroom.
“I work through the night sometimes, and Donal hates it when I wake him up,” Fiona explained with a grin. “Gets all grumpy and useless for the rest of the day, it’s pathetic.” There was a fond smile on her face and a lot of love in her voice despite her harsh words. There was something very charming about that, the love between two people who outwardly professed resentment for one another. She turned and pressed a small book into Delilah’s hands, bound in leather. “Here. It’s parchment, not paper, so be gentle, but it’ll serve your purpose. And a few pencils. Go forth and learn.”
Delilah had thanked her warmly before turning her attention to the world she had to study. And where better to start than the local tavern? It was a cool, grey, overcast day, but Delilah walked with such enthusiasm down the road to the village that she was quickly as warm as she needed to be. This time, she was equipped with enough coins to buy herself drinks — no repeating that embarrassing scene from earlier — and as far as she could tell, Gavin bloody MacClaran wasn’t following her down the road. She checked over her shoulder more than once, trying to surprise him if he was in fact trying to creep along behind her, then reprimanding herself firmly when she realized that the empty road sparked a little bit of disappointment in her. Don’t be stupid, Delilah, she scolded herself. Perhaps if she got into the habit of reprimanding herself whenever she thought about him she could start associating bad feelings with him and overcome the crush that way.
A friend of hers had quit smoking cigarettes by putting a rubber band around her wrist and flicking it hard every time she felt a craving for nicotine come up. Were there rubber bands in Scotland? She was quietly grateful that she’d had a couple of hair ties in her hair when she came back — they’d hopefully keep her going for a while.
There was the tavern, lurching up in the street before her sooner than she’d realized. She found herself looking forward to a drink — she was starting to get a taste for the local ale, Delilah realized with some amusement. It was still early in the day, but there were a handful of men in the bar already. Farmers, she suspected from their clothing and their sturdy, mud-stained boots. They were tucking into hearty meals along with their flagons of ale, and she sat at the bar near them, unsure of the etiquette. Would it be all right for a woman alone to address a group of men like that, or would they assume she was some kind of sex worker trying to get a job?
Her fears were unfounded. One of the men saw her hovering and grinned, gesturing her to move her barstool closer.
“C’mon, lassie, join us if you’d like some boring conversation.”
“Speak for yourself, Mac,” his friend objected, cuffing him roughly around the back of the head. “If I hear one more time about the huge fish you caught and ate before anyone could see how record-breaking it was…”
“I’m Mac, this is Davey,” the first man explained, smoothly cutting his friend off. “And let me guess — you’re new in town and stayin’ in the castle?”
“What gave me away?”
“That accent,” Davey said promptly. “All the MacClaran witches talk like that —”
“Davey,” Mac hissed, giving the man a thump on the shoulder. “Ye can’t just call a lady a witch in front of her face —”
“It’s a term of endearment, mind!” Davey said hastily, turning wide eyes to Delilah. “Truly! Lady Karin and Audrina have saved everyone in the village more than a dozen times. Have ye heard about the plague we had a little while back? I’ve heard of whole towns wiped out by diseases like that, but Karin and Audrina got us through. And Lady Cora delivered both my girls, hale and hearty as ye please — me an’ the missus owe her everything.”
“We’d never tell anyone anything,” Mac said seriously, looking at her over his ale. “The Inquisition have come and gone — nobody in the village would give you away, I swear it.”
“So people in the village truly believe we’re all witches?” Delilah was thrilled to have met these two — they were the perfect people to ask about the stories that she’d spent so much of her life studying. An actual, real-life interview… this was more than she could ever have dreamed of back home, and despite all the chaos and confusion of her trip back through time, she couldn’t help but feel a fierce, strong gratitude for everything that had happened burning in her chest like a flame.
“Some of them,” Davey said. “It’s a bit of an odd subject. A lot of people don’t like talkin’ about it.”
“We do,” Mac said, “but we’ve never been superstitious types. As far as we’re concerned, the MacClaran wit… ladies are just skilled and clever. Nothing magical about knowing your subject. I grow the best barley in Scotland, but that’s skill, not magic.”
Davey was nodding. “It’s a shame, isn’t it, that a woman who happens to be good at something is just straightaway accused of bein’ a witch? Like what, Lady Cora can’t just know the ways of childbirth without havin’ some supernatural entity involved? Shows how we think of women, doesn’t it?”
“Aye, true. But be careful who ye do talk to about it, that’s all,” Mac said. “There’s all kinds of rumors about — you know, a lot of ye strongly resemble women who died years back, all that kind of thing. Can’t explain it myself but for the fact that people resemble each other all the time without it bein’ a problem. I look just like my brother, everyone says so. But some people think it’s got to do with faeries… that the women we lost were stolen away and returned with new voices and eldritch knowledges of healing and magic and such.”
Delilah took her little notebook out and started writing furiously — the theory of being kidnapped by faeries was fascinating in conjunction with what she already knew about faerie folklore.
“Some people reckon it’s darker than that,” Davey interjected. “Some people reckon the women were all kidnapped by the English or the Inquisition or what have you, and they were tortured so much that they went mad, lost their memories and had ‘em replaced with a bunch of mad nonsense.”
“Some say it’s a curse that ends the lives of young MacClaran women then brings an impostor to take their place.”
“And some people reckon it’s all nonsense, and that the MacClarans just spread rumors of havin’ an army of witches up there so that their enemies’ll think twice about marching on the castle.”
Delilah grinned, still writing. She knew she’d certainly think twice about attacking a castle full of women like Marianne and Fiona, Cora and Audrina and Karin. What was her role going to be in the curious little coven?
Hopefully she’d find a way to live up to their legacy.
Chapter 11
Delilah stomped her way back up the hill after her lunch with Mac and Davey — it turned out the public house did rather a good farmer’s lunch, and she was more than satisfied with the hearty fare served by the disinterested barmaid (whom she was also beginning to get quite fond of.) The farmers had waved her off cheerily, and she was halfway up the hill and feeling fairly positive about how the day was going when an irritatingly familiar sight met her eyes. Gavin bloody MacClaran, yet again. This time on a big brown horse, riding down to meet her with a look of concern in those vibrant green eyes of his.
Don’t think about his beautiful eyes, you absolute fool, she warned herself. Too late. God, that just wasn’t fair, was it? Why was it always men who were blessed with gorgeous eyes? They didn’t appreciate them enough. The same with eyelashes. Delilah had always had to pile on the mascara to get a decent lash going, but her brother Sam had had effortlessly gorgeous lashes that put even her best makeup work to shame. They were related! How was that fair? Why had all the eyelash genes skipped her? But she had to focus on not getting distracted by Gavin’s good looks. And what was the best tactic for getting rid of positive feelings? Anger. So she pulled some out of her chest. There was plenty there to spare, it turned out.
“What the hell do you want?” she demanded irritably as he reined the horse around to walk besides her. It was a reasonably steep hill, and she was breathing hard as she climbed it, and she wasn’t really in the mood for more tomfoolery from Gavin MacClaran, if she was honest.
“You know you can take a horse if you’re planning to visit the village? Or can you not ride?”
“I can ride better than you can,” she snapped back, raising her voice so he’d hear her loud and clear over the gentle clopping of the horse’s hooves on the dirt road. “I’m just not lazy.”
He had the gall to laugh. “Fair enough. Just keepin’ an eye on you. Makin’ sure you’re safe.”
“I know you are! I wish you’d stop.”
Highlander Cursed: A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 10