Highlander Cursed: A Scottish Time Travel Romance

by Preston, Rebecca

  “Well, you’re not going to get much done lying in bed, are you,” she told herself crossly. And yet, she lingered. It was just so hard to get up — the embarrassment of her interaction with Gavin was still so fresh in her memory.

  In the end, it was Morag that got her going. It was the memory of the dream — the desperate, searing need to right what was wrong, the fierce and crushing guilt that the woman had felt in her last few minutes, the incredible strength of her attempt to right the wrong she had done, to reverse the curse before her life faded from her body. People may have thought she was a vengeful, evil witch — but Delilah couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t her fault. Yes, she’d placed a terrible curse on the MacClarans — but it hadn’t been a curse for the sake of cursing. She’d been trying to get them to see sense, to allow her to marry Gavin as they both so desperately wanted. And she’d have been an asset to the Clan, too — her healing powers alone would probably have saved dozens of lives from infected wounds alone. There was so much good to be achieved by forcing the MacClarans to allow her to marry her love. Was it any wonder that she’d gone to desperate measures to get what she wanted — that she’d used the power she had (and how much power did any woman have in medieval Scotland?) in a desperate bid to manipulate things to her advantage?

  And more to the point — it wasn’t as though she’d asked to be murdered. The curse had been laid, true — but surely she’d have lifted it if she hadn’t been stabbed to death by Gavin’s cousin, the man he’d blinded in such a rage. There was a lot of blame here, true — but the more Delilah thought about it, the more she was willing to assign the lion’s share of the blame to the man who’d killed a woman in cold blood. And in a way, hadn’t Morag been the first victim of the curse?

  Delilah sat up in bed, resolute. It was time to stop moping — she’d wasted enough of the morning feeling sorry for herself. There were more important things to deal with than complicated feelings about a man who loved a woman who looked a lot like her. Like reversing a curse. She had more information now — it was time to go and find Marianne and talk through the issue. Marianne was a witch whose powers had to do with insight. Who couldn’t use more insight? Besides, Delilah was growing quite fond of Marianne.

  It would be nice to spend some time around women. They were so much less aggravating than men were — so much more in touch with their own feelings, she thought resentfully, trying to banish Gavin from her mind for the time being. At least she knew that, having worked the night shift, he’d be fast asleep by now. No risk of running into him over breakfast, or probably even over lunch. Still, best not to risk it. She’d take lunch up in her room, perhaps — spend some time reading back over all her notes on witches and curses and seeing if there was any kind of action she could take straight away. Marianne would be able to help too, she was sure.

  By the time she got down to the main hall, breakfast was more or less over. There was still some buttered bread left, though, and she helped herself to a few slices — she wasn’t particularly hungry, but her sore body told her that a bit of food was better than none at all. She grabbed a couple of pieces of fruit, too, tucking them into the pockets of her trousers for later. She’d taken to wearing trousers under the big, billowing skirts that the women had cautioned her to wear to avoid drawing too much attention to herself — it was just so much more convenient to have a range of pockets for her various items. And it kept the cold at bay a little better than a skirt did, too.

  There was no sign of Marianne in the dining hall. She wandered around a little bit, searching for the woman, then ambled out into the courtyard, craning her neck up at the wall. It was busier than usual around the grounds, she noticed, and the stables were full. Belatedly, she remembered Laird Donal’s ban on travel outside the castle. Of course. Everyone was stuck at home and feeling restless. She saw a handful of men playing some kind of ballgame over by the south wall, and grinned to herself at the shouts and whoops of excitement erupting from the little group. A small crowd had already gathered to watch. It seemed some things never changed — the scene could have been lifted straight from the streets of San Francisco, with a couple of minor alterations made.

  Where could Marianne be? She headed for the stables on a hunch — and sure enough, there was Marianne, crooning over a huge black horse with grey whiskers on his muzzle. She was brushing the horse, and as Delilah watched, she saw her sneak a lump of sugar out of her pocket and feed it to the horse.

  “Spoiled,” Delilah commented.

  Marianne grinned sheepishly as she turned to greet her friend.

  “He’s my favourite, what can I say? And we’re not allowed to go riding, so… bit of a spa day.” She gestured with the brush to a shelf in the horse’s stall, and Delilah grinned at the arsenal of tools that were laid out there.

  “He’ll be ready for a photoshoot in no time.”

  “Hey, someone was looking for you,” Marianne said, leaning on the door of the stall. The horse huffed, shoving his soft snout into the back of her neck as though complaining about the cessation of his daily brush. She scratched absent-mindedly at his neck as she talked, working her fingers into the base of his mane with practiced expertise, and the horse whuffled happily, stretching his neck out to allow her to get her fingers deep into his mane. “A messenger, I think. They brought a letter, I said I’d take it for you.”

  “A messenger? I don’t know anyone outside the castle,” Delilah said blankly. Fear struck her like lightning. “Could it be the witch hunters? Sending me threats, or something?” Or worse — a trap, a messenger who—

  “I don’t know. The messenger had an English accent, it must be from Weatherby’s place.” Marianne dug into her pockets and extracted a slightly rumpled envelope with a wax seal on the back — Delilah took it gingerly. “It’s not going to explode. We’re a few hundred years too early for that.”

  “Yeah, alright.” Delilah opened the letter, her eyes flicking automatically to the last line to see who could possibly be writing to her — then her eyes widened in pleased recognition. “Oh! Of course — it’s from Baldric.”

  “Weatherby’s man? Why’s he writing to you?”

  “We met in the village a few days ago,” Delilah said, her eyes flicking back up to the first line of the letter to read it more thoroughly. “We had lunch. What?”

  “Like a date?” Marianne teased her, waggling her eyebrows. “Whatever will Gavin say?” But her smile faded at the look on Delilah’s face. “Oof. I know that look. Forget I asked. You okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” Delilah said, not especially keen to go into the gory details at the moment. The letter was a welcome distraction. “I’ll tell you about it later. The short version is that men are stupid.”

  “That’s the long version too, as far as I’m concerned,” Marianne said gently, grinning at her. The horse had shoved his snout over her shoulder and she was stroking his nose as she craned her neck to look at the letter. “What’s Baldric got to say? Is he asking you to run away with him?”

  “It’s about the witch-hunters,” Delilah said absently, frowning as she read. “He says they’re asking about the women who’ve returned from the dead. Audrina, Cora, Karin, Fiona, you… and me, apparently. How would they know?”

  “Word has a way of getting around,” Marianne said grimly. “You’ve been to the tavern once or twice, right? There’s no loyalty there. For a couple of coins, any of the regulars would sell you out straight away. And it’s such a tiny place… it’s so easy to overhear conversations. Even if you go there trying not to hear anything, you’ll know everyone’s business within seconds. I went down there for lunch with Eamon once and wound up knowing the entire sexual history of a woman who had just moved into town… it was ridiculous, truly. But yeah. Don’t trust anything you say within those walls to stay secret.”

  A cold chill settled in Delilah’s chest. “I went down a couple of times. Even talked to some locals. They seemed fine, though — they even said they wouldn’t tell anyo
ne about me.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be them,” Marianne said, looking sympathetic. “The bar staff, anyone who’d overheard any part of your conversation… there’s ears everywhere here, unfortunately.”

  That was reassuring at least, in a strange way — it was such a horrible situation that Delilah was grateful that her friends down at the tavern hadn’t necessarily sold her out to witch hunters. Still, she felt downright stupid for talking as loudly as she had. What had she thought was going to happen — everyone was just going to be polite and pretend not to listen? They’d told her to be careful, warned her over and over again in so many ways… and she’d done something so stupid.

  Marianne sighed. “Does he say anything else?”

  “Yeah, there’s descriptions of the witch hunters here,” she said, trying to focus. There would be plenty of time for self-recrimination later. For now, all she had to do was get through this letter and figure out what she was going to do about it. Thank God she had Marianne here to help — she had no idea what she’d do without her. Without all of the women, really, all their support. God, how had Audrina managed without a support network?

  “Useful. Might want to share that around. Talk to Eamon, maybe? He can pass the description on to the guards so they know who they’re looking for. Figure out if anyone’s sneaking around trying to keep tabs on us.”

  “It’s a good thing Donal’s told us not to leave the castle,” Delilah frowned, scanning the letter. “These guys sound like bad news. There’s some kind of — priest, I guess, leading them?”

  “A priest? What’s his name?” Marianne was suddenly tense — but she relaxed when Delilah continued, reading from the letter.

  “Brother Willows, apparently. Big, round guy, deceptively friendly. Carries a big staff.”

  “God, I thought the man me and Eamon hunted down was back from the dead again.” Marianne had told Delilah a little about the man in question — she shuddered at the idea that that horrible person could be returning.

  But what if this Brother Willows was worse? From what Marianne had said about her own captor, he’d been old and frail, easy to physically overpower. From the description in the letter, Brother Willows was a huge man, heavy and powerful. The kind of man who could do a lot of damage. She could fight, sure, but could she overpower someone that big? Especially if he was working with others…

  “And there are three men under him — Madoc, Octavian, and … someone who never lifts up the visor of his helmet, apparently. Baldric hasn’t gotten his name yet. He said he doesn’t speak around other people, but he overheard him on a staircase one day and he’s got a local accent.”

  “That’s — strange. Why wouldn’t he want to be recognized?” Marianne was frowning, still rubbing the horse’s head.

  Delilah couldn’t help but feel jealous of how happy the big animal looked. No worries about witch hunters, or torture, or curses, or witches… just a comfy stall, a pail of oats every day, and a little bit of walking now and again to break the monotony. She wished she could trade places with him, then felt silly — even as the desire lingered…

  “Maybe he’s ashamed of the work he’s doing,” Delilah said thoughtfully, flipping the letter over to check she hadn’t missed anything. Baldric sounded concerned for the safety of her and the other women. She remembered Karin mentioning the man — they’d gotten to know each other a little during the plague that had almost devastated the village, Karin had said. Baldric had been instrumental in ensuring that that hadn’t happened, and in defusing the conflict between Weatherby and the headstrong young Laird Donal.

  It seemed to have been a process that had brought the two houses closer together. And a good thing, too — it meant that they were on good enough terms that Weatherby had warned them about the witch-hunters in time to stop anything catastrophic happened. Delilah shuddered to think of what could have befallen any of the time-lost women if they’d gone for a ride down to the village without knowing what lurked in wait for them. Captured or killed, with nobody knowing where they’d gone, or even that something had happened, for hours or even days…

  “Can you pass the descriptions on to Eamon? Four men, one big and round, one short and wiry, one tall and scrawny, and one with a helmet he never takes off. Get him to pass it on to the guards so they know who we’re looking for. I’ll go talk to the Laird about what Baldric’s said here.”

  “The Laird’s away, I’m afraid,” Marianne said, frowning. “Eamon said he rode off early this morning — some meeting with the Clan to the south, apparently unavoidable.”

  “Well, he’s not in danger from witch-hunters, is he,” Delilah sighed. She would have liked the fiery young Laird’s insight on the witch-hunter matter, but it seemed that wasn’t going to happen for her. Fine. There were plenty of other people to talk to. “I’ll talk to Fiona.”

  “She went with him.”

  That caught Delilah’s attention — she looked up, startled, immediately fearing the worst. ”I thought we were confined to the castle. Fiona’s like us — back from the future, strange accent, isn’t he worried she’s going to get caught?”

  “Sure, but would you want to tell Fiona where she can and can’t go?”

  Delilah couldn’t help but laugh, the worry easing up a little as she remembered how fierce Fiona was. “Fair enough. She’s with the Laird, anyway — it’d be pretty bold to try to take her away from him on a trip. Besides, if they’re heading out of the county, they might be safer where they’re going. If the witch hunters even find out they’re going… it’s not like they’ve got the place wire-tapped or anything.”

  “I’d tell Gavin about it, honestly,” Marianne said, and then raised her hands at the scowl that flashed across Delilah’s face. “I know he’s not your favourite person at the moment for whatever reason — reasons I am quite extremely interested in, by the way, whenever you’re ready for a chat — but he’s personally invested in this. He’d want to know.”

  “You’re right,” Delilah sighed. He would be upset if she had information she chose not to share with him — especially if he had to hear it third-hand from Eamon as one of the guards. Whatever their problems, she owed it to him to keep him in the loop when it came to this problem. “He’s been around for a while — maybe he’s run into one of these witch-hunters before, or something.”

  “Keep the faith, babe,” Marianne said, giving her an encouraging pat on the arm with the hand she wasn’t stroking the horse with — he whuffled in apparent agreement, not a care in the world.

  God, Delilah wished she could be horse. Just for a week or two. Like a little vacation from being human and having to think thoughts and feel feelings and deal with Gavin bloody MacClaran.

  “Men, as you so eloquently put it, are very stupid, but they figure it out eventually.”

  “I hope so,” Delilah muttered. Then she said her goodbyes to Marianne — and to her lucky horse — and began the trek back to the castle — back to Gavin’s door, for what promised to be a deeply awkward conversation.

  Chapter 19

  She fidgeted with the letter as she walked, feeling irritable. An hour or two ago she’d been quite resolved never to talk to Gavin again in her life, so humiliated had she felt by their strange little interaction that morning. But now she needed to talk to him again — needed his help, in fact, with dealing with the witch hunters. She tried to talk herself out of it without much luck — the fact was, she wanted his insight on the matter. He’d been in love with a witch for years. Surely he’d know a little about witch hunters, how they operated, how best to avoid them. Delilah may have wanted to avoid him for the rest of her natural life, but she also wanted to avoid being captured and tortured by evil men, and the latter was a bit more important than the former.

  Just a bit.

  She hesitated when she reached his door, though. It was still mid-morning — he’d probably be still asleep after his late shift, and she’d done her fair share of disturbing his sleep as it was. Maybe she shou
ld wait until after lunch — at least that way she wouldn’t have to be on the back foot, apologizing for waking him. And maybe he’d be easier to talk to if he was properly rested. From what she’d ascertained, the guards usually ate a late meal sometime between lunch and dinner — at least, the ones who were on night shift tended to. Surely he’d join them then — and she could, in turn, join him. Just casually run into him in the dining hall. Oh hi, she’d say, very glad to catch you well rested and well fed — oh and by the way, do any of these descriptions sound familiar to you? Oh, what’s that? This letter? Oh yes, just a letter from a friend of mine. I have a number of friends and admirers in Scotland already, despite only having been here for a little while…

  She lost herself to rather pleasant daydreams about Gavin being jealous of her friendships, then came out of them with a sour taste in her mouth. She was annoyed with him, yes, for making her feel the way she felt — but she knew that deep down, the real problem was her. He hadn’t exactly deceived her about what was going on with him — in fact, if anything he’d been very clear. He’d actively tried to drive her away for a good part of their friendship, and he’d been honest about Morag, and how emotionally damaged he still was as a result of her death.

  Her anger was at herself for getting hung up on him despite all the warning signs. So making him jealous of her purely platonic relationship with Baldric, while it had a certain shallow appeal, would be very unkind of her. She resolved not to be so petty once she ran into him. She could do better than that — she could be better than that. She owed it to herself. She owed it to Gavin, too. And for that matter, Baldric. He’d been nothing but kind and friendly to her, even going out of his way to help her out. He deserved better than to be used as some kind of pawn in whatever stupid game she was playing with Gavin.