She went back to her room, settled down on her bed and spent an hour or two reading over her little notebook, trying to consolidate all of the information about the curse, about Morag, about the whole wretched situation. It might be a good idea to talk to the other time-lost women, it occurred to her — maybe their own specific stories of how and when they’d been brought back in time would be of value. Maybe she should even do that before she talked to Gavin. Did she really have to talk to Gavin? Really? Maybe she could just… not. Just avoid him for the rest of her life. Be independent. Figure it out by herself.
No — she knew she had to talk to him, no matter how uncomfortable it made her feel. And when she heard the familiar sound of boots tromping down the hallway, she knew it was time to go and find him. But first things first — she looked down at her little notebook with a frown. It was full of reflections about magic and witchcraft, curses and blessing and spells — and it incriminated not only her, but Marianne. This was a dangerous little notebook with witch-hunters about. Not that she expected them to get into the castle — but still, hadn’t the women told her not to trust anyone, even the staff of the castle? What if someone who was heading into her room to make her bed or set her nightly fire got curious about her little notebook, and read it? What if they were sympathetic to the witch-hunters — what if they’d been on the Laird’s side when he banished Morag from the castle and forbade the people to consort with witches? It would be very easy to take the little notebook, and deliver it to Brother Willows and his gang of witch hunters. Then she’d be in trouble.
Feeling unnecessarily paranoid, she searched the room for hiding places. There weren’t any particularly compelling ones — so, not trusting the room to keep her book secret, she tucked it into her clothing. That would have to do, for now. If they captured her, she’d have more things to worry about than them finding the notebook concealed about her person. At any rate, they wouldn’t be able to read most of it… it was in that cipher that only she could read. Was that more or less incriminating, she wondered? Would they be suspicious of her for knowing a language like that? Probably. Well, she’d just better not get caught, she thought brightly, putting her fear aside as hard as she could.
“Right, enough procrastinating,” she told herself now, pulling her boots back on — she’d kicked them off to avoid dirtying her bed as she lay in it. “Time to face the music.”
Sure enough, Gavin was sitting in the dining hall, eating some bread and meat along with half of the castle’s garrison. There were a few non-guard people in the hall — servants, perhaps, who also worked late at night and had to have a delayed breakfast as a result. Dolores ran a tight ship, Delilah reflected with a smile, peeking through the half-open kitchen doors to see the woman already presiding over a busy flock of servants beginning to prepare dinner for the castle. She liked Marianne’s adoptive mother a lot.
“Gavin?” she asked cautiously, sidling up to the table where he was seated, mercifully alone. She didn’t think she could cope with trying to talk to him in front of all his guard friends. Had he told them about her? Did men talk about their relationships? Did she even count as a relationship, or was she just — some strange woman who looked a lot like his old lover? She didn’t want to find out.
“Delilah. Good morning — I mean, good afternoon.” Good — he was as awkward as she felt. Other people being awkward had always given Delilah a burst of confidence, for some reason — as though their self-consciousness fueled her ability to be smooth and competent. She took a seat opposite him, and even summoned the power to casually take a piece of bread from his plate and chew on it, as though the whole terrible experience that morning had never even happened and they were just two friends sharing a bit of a meal.
“Sorry to have disturbed you this morning,” she said casually, trying to rewrite that particularly horrible bit of history between them. “I hope you slept well.”
“Aye, I did,” he said.
She could tell he was lying. He looked rough. Had he laid awake thinking about her? she wondered. Had he been pondering whether or not a relationship between them could work? Probably not, she told herself sharply, he was probably thinking about Morag and all the terrible memories she’d stirred up for him. Get a grip of yourself, Delilah.
“I got a letter this morning — about the witch hunters. Descriptions of them and everything. I thought you might want to know — maybe you’ve met some of them before?” She handed him the letter, and he read it quickly, frowning.
“No, I haven’t. I never did make much of a habit of consorting with witch hunters, you’ll understand.”
“I thought you might have been — you know, questioned, or something. After Morag.”
“Morag was killed by my cousin, not a gang of witch-hunters,” he said shortly.
So they were back to Grumpy Gavin. Well, fine by her. It made it a little easier not to pine after him, at least. Not easy, but … a little easier.
“Who’s Baldric? How does he know you?”
“I met him in the village when I was first staying here,” she said, raising an eyebrow — it seemed a strange thing to focus on. “I seem to remember you accusing me of —”
“Flirting with him, yes, I remember,” he said.
There was a definite tone there that made her feel triumphant, somehow. A tone almost like jealousy. Good — he should feel a tiny fragment of what she felt about Morag. It was completely unfair of her, she knew, but she needed it. Not that there was anything between her and Baldric at all. It had just been a friendly chat, nothing more, and the tone of the letter was informative, not flirtatious. Gavin must recognize that — which made his apparent jealousy all the more satisfying. But was he jealous of Delilah? Or was he jealous of Morag? She sighed.
“No need to be jealous,” she said now, wanting to put him at ease and hating herself for it. “It’s not exactly a love letter, in-depth descriptions of witch hunters…”
Whether he heard her or not was hard to say — his eyes suddenly widened as he read part of the letter, and he looked up at her with a look of shock in his green eyes. “This description — the man who never raises his visor.”
“The man with a local accent? What about it? Do you know who it could be?”
“I fear who it could be,” he said softly, clearly far away. “You know — you know about my cousin. The man who killed Morag. You saw him.”
“In the dream. Yes,” she said, not wanting to pull him out of the strange reverie he seemed to have entered.
“Kenneth, his name was. After I disfigured him, nobody thought he’d recover — but recover he did, and the Laird didn’t know what to do with him. The punishment for murder ought to have been death, that’s what I thought would happen — but he defended himself, argued that a witch who cursed the Clan deserved to be killed. It was an argument that had some merit, apparently,” Gavin spat, and the anger that twisted his face was truly ominous to behold. “So the Laird, unable to have him executed, banished him instead. He vowed to dedicate the rest of his life to killing more witches. Completely unrepentant for murdering the woman I loved in cold blood. I wanted to go after him,” Gavin said, grinding his teeth. “But the Laird forbade it. Said if I left the castle, if I followed Kenneth, I’d be banished as well. I still nearly did it. Packed my bags and everything.”
“What stopped you?”
“Morag. I knew it wouldn’t bring her back.”
They sat there in silence for a few moments. Delilah had no idea what to say. It was useful information, of course. A possible identity for the man behind the visor — knowledge was power, after all, and she was glad Gavin was still willing to talk to her despite their awkward interaction — he seemed to have followed her lead in pretending that it hadn’t even happened. Fine by her. But yet again, their conversation had revolved around Morag. Would she ever get out of her ancestor’s shadow? Would he ever look at her and see anything other than the woman he’d lost?
She sighed, then pulled o
ut her notebook and recorded everything he’d said, trying to sound as dispassionate as possible in her writing. Maybe if she could convince anyone reading the journal that she didn’t care for Gavin the way she did, she could convince herself as well.
Chapter 20
Shortly after their conversation — and Delilah stealing a few more pieces of meat from Gavin’s plate, more than deserved as reparations, she felt — Gavin had to traipse off to work. She didn’t envy him. He looked exhausted, and she hoped it would at least be a somewhat quiet shift for him. Maybe he could get a nap in. Given that he was starting in the late afternoon, she assumed he’d be finished around midnight — at least that left him time for a halfway reasonable rest. It must be hard, working such odd hours.
She felt at a bit of a loose end. The letter was interesting, but she’d learned all she could from it — and until the Laird and Fiona got back, she didn’t really have any more people to talk to. She saw Marianne and Eamon briefly in the courtyard when she wandered back outside, confirming details of the descriptions with the huge Captain of the Guard. He had nodded solemnly, saying he’d already planned a meeting with his men to pass on the descriptions, and she was glad to have given Gavin the heads-up. At least he wouldn’t feel like she was keeping him out of the loop. Not that she really owed him anything, of course, she thought with a flare of resentment — but still. Some harm had been avoided there.
At a loss for what to do, she walked into the stables and found a groom, who was a little surprised at her presence, but more than happy to let her help out with the work associated with keeping the dozen or so horses kept at the castle fed, watered and happy. It felt good to lose herself in physical exertion — shoveling was hard, grueling work, but there was something so satisfying in looking back along the row of clean stalls she’d helped make that way. And it killed time extremely well — before she knew it, the night was gathering in, the sun setting over the trees to the west. She hovered in the courtyard for a few minutes, watching the light drain from the sky… then when she saw the guards up on the wall lighting their torches, she knew it was time to go inside.
Working in the stables had certainly developed her appetite, and she found a seat with the other time-lost women, who seemed to have decided to sit together tonight. They ate heartily and talked about nothing particularly important. Delilah got the distinct impression that they were all on the same page regarding the witch hunters — they were trying to think about other things as much as possible. After all, it wasn’t as though they could do much about the men from where they were. And it would only drive them mad to discuss it over and over again. The subject seemed to be children, today — the women were all sharing hilarious anecdotes about their various little ones and the antics they got up to, and Delilah found herself laughing uproariously. It seemed medieval Scotland wasn’t a bad place to raise children, truth be told.
Did she want children? She’d always thought of it as something to be put off until later — once her career was established, once she knew what she was doing with her life, once she met a man she could stand for more than a few weeks. (That last one was pretty important — although she had given some thought to adopting as a single parent. More work, but at least it didn’t involve the magic trick of locating a decent, kind, loyal man who wanted children and liked her enough to have them with her.) But as she listened to the women talk with such love about their kids, she felt a surprising yearning deep in her chest for that experience — the feeling of bearing a child, loving it, raising it and caring for it and helping it be all it could be.
“Do you want kids, Delilah?” Audrina asked, as if she could read her thoughts.
Cora cut in before she could answer. “Hope so. Or we’ve got a time paradox on our hands.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well — we’re the descendants of the women we replaced, right?” Cora explained. “But the women we replaced didn’t have children in their own time. But there must have been children from whom we descended… which means our ancestors must have had children… which means we have to have children or we don’t get here.”
Delilah’s eyes felt like they were crossing. Karin was laughing.
“Cora, there’s a better way of putting that, I’m sure —”
“You know what I mean though, right? If you don’t have kids you won’t be here. Therefore you must have kids.”
“It means we’re genetically identical to our ancestors, too,” Karin was saying thoughtfully. “That’s what I find most interesting about it all. Naturally occurring clones.”
“Not naturally,” Marianne put in. “Supernaturally. Witchcraft, remember?” Delilah didn’t miss the way she lowered her voice on that word. The presence of the witch-hunters in the county was having an impact after all.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Karin said. “Whatever force Morag used to place the curse… not only did it bring us all back through time, it interfered in our actual genetic code. She wouldn’t have even known what a genome was, and yet…”
“Yeah, yeah, Morag was amazing,” Delilah said, rolling her eyes.
Marianne gave her a sympathetic look. She’d explained a little of what happened with Gavin to her earlier.
They all said goodnight after dinner, and Delilah traipsed up to her room again. Audrina had told her to take whatever empty room in the castle she fancied — the room she was using was small and cramped, designed to be a short-term guest room, not permanent quarters. But something kept stopping her. Maybe that is something I can do in the morning, she thought. Finally find herself a room of her own. Her body felt pleasantly warm and satiated after dinner, despite her mental unease, and it was easy enough to drift off to sleep, cozy and content in her blankets.
But that sense of comfort was short lived. When she got up for breakfast, there was a strange feeling in the castle — the servants seemed to be hurrying more than they usually did, and there were drawn expressions on the faces of the people she passed. She was halfway down the stairs when Dolores appeared at her side, grabbed her by the wrist and stared up into her face urgently.
“Dolores? Why aren’t you supervising everyone in the kitchen?”
“The hunters are here,” the woman hissed, her eyes wide with fear. “Best get back to your room, Delilah.”
She nodded, feeling fear clutch at her chest at the very mention of the men. She’d assumed they had more time — that they wouldn’t be so bold as to visit the castle so early in their stay. But sure enough, she saw the Laird striding into the hall, wearing more formal attire than usual. Thank God he’d returned in time to meet the witch hunters — or had they attempted to take advantage of his absence by visiting while he was gone? She wouldn’t put it past them. Fiona, notably, was not with the Laird. Had he managed to convince her to hide in their quarters? More likely he’d tricked her into going somewhere else for the time being, Delilah thought with some amusement. Fiona wasn’t likely to hide from witch hunters, no matter how good an idea it may seem.
Delilah trotted back to her room and shut the door behind her — and then, after a pause, wedged a chair under the handle. Just in case. Best to be safe. If she was tucked safely in her room, nobody could chance upon her, draw any conclusions from her appearance, her strange accent, or elements of her behavior that just didn’t fit in medieval Scotland. But it wasn’t long before she started to feel curious about what was going on downstairs. What were the witch hunters saying? Would Donal fill her and the other women in what was said, or would he keep it to himself? She felt her palms itching with the knowledge of information she could be getting, but had chosen instead to hide in her room.
They were meeting in the Great Hall, right? There were a number of doors to the kitchens that Delilah knew from experience allowed both a decent view of the hall — and for sound to travel through into the kitchens. Eavesdropping was almost a sport in the castle — that was how Dolores was so familiar with the local gossip, Delilah was sure of it. Surely she coul
d find her way into the kitchen without being seen. She knew a few tricks by now — after all, she’d studied this castle for most of her life.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Delilah snuck out of her door and down a corridor that wasn’t often frequented by the people of the castle. There was a half-abandoned staircase back here with a few wonky steps — she took them with care, not wanting to break an ankle on her way to eavesdrop on such an important meeting. Then she moved through the back corridors of the castle until she came upon an old door, half-obstructed, that led into the kitchen.
Nobody was there, which felt very strange — everyone except Delilah had taken Donal’s instructions to stay hidden seriously, she thought with a little pang of guilt. Well, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She crept over to the doors that led through to the hall. To her delight, one was already standing open — just a few inches, but it was just enough that she could get a good view of the high table and who stood before it.
Donal was standing dead center, looking every bit the brave young Laird in his fine clothes and good posture. Colin and Ian were there, too, forming a kind of council — and behind them, Delilah could see that Donal had elected to have a few members of the guard with him. Eamon was there, his huge frame surprisingly still, and next to him stood Gavin, almost as tall — but much less still.
She could see his nervousness from here, but there was something else to it as well, something like anger. Seeing the tense set of his jaw and the way his gaze seemed to be focused on something ahead of him, she followed the direction of his attention to see — to her surprise — a man wearing a full helm. It wasn’t customary to keep helmets on inside — not for polite visits, anyway.
Highlander Cursed: A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 18