Speaking of… they were all sitting together when she stepped into the dining hall, and she could tell with one look at their faces that they knew exactly what had happened. Dolores’s fault, she could tell — and though Marianne tried to look innocent, it was her who caved first, breaking out into a peal of delighted laughter and thumping Delilah hard on the shoulder. The women dissolved into a sea of congratulations and lewd comments and Delilah couldn’t help but laugh, feeling oddly pleased by their happiness.
“I knew he’d come around, the great big idiot,” Marianne said finally, giving her a one-armed hug. “Slow but steady, that’s the way.”
“My William took his time, too,” Karin said. “He’d lost his first wife in childbirth, you see, so he was all wracked with guilt…”
“Speaking of childbirth,” Delilah said quickly, lowering her voice a little, “I know birth control hasn’t exactly been invented yet —”
“I have you covered,” Karin said quickly. “We thought of that early on. William’s an alchemist, you know? We came up with a very effective tincture. Works a little like the pill. I’ll bring you some.”
“Thanks,” Delilah said gratefully. “The last thing I need is a baby at the moment.”
“Plenty of time for that,” Cora said, grinning — then caught herself. “Provided you want children, of course.”
“I do, I think,” Delilah said. “I’ve been thinking about it more lately, I don’t know. I never really thought I was the type, but hearing about all of your kids… it sounds kind of wonderful.”
“And it gets rid of the time paradox issue,” Fiona said brightly. “Gotta have kids or you’ll never exist to come back in time to never have kids, right?”
“We don’t know that’s how it works,” Audrina said patiently. “Nobody should feel obliged to bear children just for self-preservation. You wait until you’re ready, love. But when you are, we happen to have the best midwife in Scotland ready and waiting for you.”
“I think I might be the best in the world, if I’m honest,” Cora said thoughtfully — then looked outraged as all the women rolled their eyes. “What! I was trained in the future! It’s an unfair advantage, I know, but it’s not like I’m wrong —”
Delilah laughed along with the women, tucking into her porridge with enthusiasm and feeling a great deal of warmth in her chest. But the light in her chest began to fade, replaced by a prickle of worry, when she looked up to see an unfamiliar man standing by their table with a letter in his hand.
“Are you Delilah?”
“I am,” she confirmed — then felt Marianne elbow her hard in the ribs and almost clapped her hand over her mouth. Not wise, to confirm her identity to a stranger, not wise at all — but the man just nodded and handed her the letter.
“From Lord Weatherby’s man Baldric. All the best.”
He strode out of the hall, and Delilah tried to settle her pulse. She’d recognized the armor and the coat of arms he’d been wearing — one of Weatherby’s men, that was all. An ally, or at the very least, not an enemy. She frowned down at the letter, going to open it — then she felt Marianne’s cautioning hand on her wrist.
“In times like these, it’s good to check seals,” she said softly. So Delilah examined the wax that held the letter shut — and sure enough, it felt a little different to the one she’d received the day before. Loose, almost, as though it had been very carefully opened and then closed again.
“What’s Baldric got to say?” Karin enquired, and Delilah remembered that the two knew each other quite well. She opened the letter, keeping careful note of the seal, and scanned its contents. The worry that had started gnawing at her stomach grew stronger.
“Kenneth’s been interrogated,” she said softly, glancing up at the women. “I assume you’ve all been filled in on the meeting yesterday?”
There was a chorus of assent. Word travelled quickly in the castle, it seemed — it helped, of course, that most of their husbands had been present for the meeting itself.
“Baldric says he’s worried about what Kenneth said about me. He said he told them a bunch of rumors about my reincarnation — that I was a witch in a past life, and I’ve been resurrected to wreak revenge. Evil, heretical, sent from Satan himself. All that stuff.”
Marianne rolled her eyes. “Basic witch stuff, yeah. God forbid women know things, right? They must be getting the information from the Devil!”
“Should I just — tell him what’s going on? The curse, and everything? If Baldric knows I’m trying to fix it, maybe he’ll be able to keep the witch hunters at bay until I’m done…”
“I’d be careful,” Audrina said gently, nodding to the letter. “It’s very likely that communications are being intercepted. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want the witch hunters to read.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll figure something out.”
After breakfast, she headed out to the courtyard, wanting a bit of fresh air. The yard was as packed as it had been the day before, with Donal not letting up on the instruction not to leave the castle walls, and she kept walking until she was around the back of the castle where it was quieter. Only a few servants here, tending the prodigious vegetable gardens that helped Dolores keep the castle fed and nourished. She found a little bench facing the gardens and sat on it to think, reading and re-reading Baldric’s letter.
He’d written it rather carefully, she noticed — though she knew he knew that she wasn’t all she seemed (familiar as he was with the strange MacClaran women), he had carefully avoided any insinuation that any of the witchcraft accusations were remotely accurate. Well, she’d be able to do the same — and more to the point, he’d hopefully know what she was doing.
She pulled out her little notebook, and drafted a reply two or three times, making careful use of the same kind of language Baldric had used in the hopes that he would know she was doing the same thing he had been. And at the same time, she hoped to send a message to Kenneth. He recognized her as looking just like Morag — she couldn’t do anything about that. But she could put the fear of God into him without incriminating herself any further. She explained that she had no memory of her life up until a few weeks ago — that she suspected some kind of head injury had destroyed her memory, but the MacClarans were kindly looking after her. She also described a series of scars on her abdomen that she knew would match up with the wounds Kenneth had delivered to Morag. There. Now let him worry about that. Reincarnation would definitely incriminate her as a witch — but if he assumed that she actually was Morag, who somehow survived her attack then lost her memory… well, he’d have a lot to think about, that was for sure. Nor could anyone blame or attack a woman with no memory of any witchcraft she may or may not have done.
Before she sent the letter, she put it in her pocket and headed for the castle wall. She wanted to check over the cover story with Gavin, and make sure he agreed it was a good idea — and that he would uphold it, if anyone questioned him. She found him standing just outside the castle gate, and he nodded thoughtfully as he read the letter, grinning.
“Brilliant. You’ll have Kenny quaking in his boots if he reads it. I’ll have it sent for you straight away.”
Feeling rather daring, she stood up on her tip-toes to peck him on the cheek — and heard a whoop of approval from the guards up on the wall. Blushing, she gave him a little wave and ducked back inside the walls, feeling like a teenager again — and to her surprise she found Marianne striding across the courtyard toward her, waving animatedly to get her attention.
“Delilah! We’ve got a theory about the curse!”
Chapter 24
Marianne and Delilah walked toward the castle, but to her surprise, the other woman didn’t lead her into the Hall. Instead, they walked down a passageway she hadn’t been down before, down to the end where a small and unremarkable door lead into what looked for all the world like a semi-modern doctor’s room. There was a raised counter with a pillow on it, presumably for examinations, a s
eries of little bottles that seemed to contain pills and medicines, and even a sink with a tap that Fiona was fiddling with, muttering something to herself about plumbing.
“This isn’t a very medieval nurse’s office,” Delilah said, staring around it. The other women were there, too, gathered in a little clump and looking very excited about something — Audrina stepped forward, gesturing around the room.
“This is a big part of why the people of the village and the castle don’t die of preventable maladies so much anymore.” She smiled. “Fiona helped with the building side of things, and Cora, Karin, and I figured out a lot of effective herbal equivalents to modern medicines.”
“It’s also a place that everyone in the castle is scared of, so they never come here,” Marianne said smugly.
“Scared? Why?”
“People are always scared of what they don’t understand,” Audrina said regretfully. “But for most of them, they’ve either had their own life or the life of a loved one saved here, so they tolerate it. But we definitely won’t be disturbed.”
“Good,” Delilah said, grateful to be able to speak freely, without fear of suspicious ears overhearing and blowing anything said about witchcraft out of proportion. Rumors could be killers. “Marianne was saying that you guys have an idea about the curse?” She pulled her little notebook out of her pocket, light a page, after the letter she’d written to Baldric — but still plenty of space left to take notes.
“Yes,” Marianne said, grinning broadly. “It was Fiona’s idea, actually.”
The woman waved her hand. “I just asked the right question at the right time, that’s all.”
“We were talking after you went off to write back to Baldric,” Cora explained. “Saying how happy we were that you and Gavin have found each other. And Fiona said —”
“I just asked if you all thought they’d get married straight away or not,” Fiona said defensively, raising her hands at the look on Delilah’s face.
“Marriage? Seriously? I thought he hated me until yesterday! I don’t know how fast you guys move in relationships, but —”
“We were talking about you, not to you,” Fiona pointed out, grinning a little sheepishly, “but you’re right, we shouldn’t rush you.”
“Well,” Marianne said, significantly. “Maybe we should. Because what I realized when Fiona said that — what was the wording of the curse, exactly?”
Delilah frowned, flicking back through her notebook for the page of notes she’d taken when she was talking to Mary about the curse and everything that had happened twenty years ago. “Until you let me marry my love,” she read out, annoyed by her messy handwriting — she should have known better than to drink wine while she was trying to do research — “no woman will marry into your Clan and live.”
“Exactly!”
Delilah was nonplussed. “Exactly? That’s how it’s gone, right? All the women who marry or even fall in love with a MacClaran man has some kind of horrible accident —”
“But the key to the curse breaking is right there. ‘Until you let me marry my love’.”
“But Morag’s been dead for twenty years,” Delilah said blankly. “She can’t marry Gavin now — that’s the whole point…”
“She’s dead. But you’re not,” Marianne was saying rapidly, her eyes glowing. “Don’t you see? You’re Morag’s direct descendant, her reincarnation, an exact copy of her. You’re so closely tied to her that she pulled you back through time to replace her here when she died — twenty years later, but still, here you are. So if you marry Gavin —”
“The curse might be broken,” Delilah finished the sentence, feeling overwhelmed. Marry Gavin? She’d only just gotten to a place where they liked each other — more than liked each other, she thought with a smile. Could they really rush into marriage so quickly? Lives were potentially on the line, here — would she forgive herself for waiting to marry him if it led to the death of another young woman, another twenty-first century woman being dragged into the past to take her place and go through all the hardship and turmoil that she had had to go through? That all the women in the room had had to go through? No.
She straightened her back, smiling around at the women who were all waiting for her response with bated breath. “Let’s plan a wedding.”
The women cheered, and Marianne pulled her into a bone-crushing hug.
“I mean, we’ll have to ask Gavin, too,” she laughed, trying to catch her breath as Fiona and Audrina danced a ridiculous jig around the examination table. “And probably the Laird for his blessing, I imagine?”
“He’ll give it to you in a heartbeat!” Fiona yelled, spinning Audrina around. “I’ll make him if I have to! But if it’ll break this curse and free the Clan of all these tragic deaths — of course he’s going to agree!”
“I ran into Donal on the way here, actually, and I took the liberty of arranging a meeting before lunch to report our findings,” Cora said smoothly. “I figured sooner was better than later.”
“Let’s go,” Delilah said decisively. She could feel her heart pounding with excitement — finally, after all her careful work and research, and of course the help of her friends, they’d discovered a way to break the curse that had caused so much pain. She could feel joy blossoming in her chest, and somehow she knew that Morag, somewhere, was thrilled with what she was doing — delighted that her great-great-great grandchild had returned to finish a task she was unable to finish, to right a great wrong that had been plaguing the family for generations.
And she was going to marry Gavin — that was a rather strange side effect of the whole process, but wasn’t it worth rushing into things a little bit if it would mean saving lives? It would afford her more protection, too. Being a MacClaran woman would mean the witch hunters would have to think twice before demanding to interrogate her. Delilah MacClaran… there was something very pleasant about that name. She looked forward to using it.
She laughed to herself, and Marianne gave her a quizzical look as they walked through the corridors toward the Great Hall to meet with Laird Donal.
“What’s funny?”
“I just — even when I was a little girl, I knew I wanted a medieval wedding dress,” she giggled. “I had no idea it was going to be this authentic.”
Audrina laughed behind her, a musical sound. “It was meant to be, wasn’t it?”
They stepped into the Hall to find Donal waiting for them at the high table, a look of curiosity on his handsome young face — and to Delilah’s surprise, Gavin was standing behind him, looking equally nonplussed about what was going on. Well, that made the announcement a little awkward — it was a kind of public proposal. But surely he’d be thrilled about the idea as she was. After all, neither of them could deny any longer the connection they had.
“I think you should do the talking,” Audrina said softly, nudging Delilah forward — and she stood before the Laird, feeling a little self-conscious but knowing how glad he would be to know that they’d found a solution for the curse.
“Laird Donal, thank you for meeting with us. You too, Gavin,” she added with a formal little nod to the man, who tilted his head, smiling back at her. “We have some very good news! As you know, I have some kind of connection to the woman who placed the curse on Clan MacClaran twenty years ago. The curse that ensures that every woman who marries into the Clan dies young, and tragically.”
Donal nodded, curiosity on his face. “And you have made some progress in this investigation, I take it?”
“Yes. We’ve figured out the wording of the curse — and of the blessing,” she added. “A blessing Morag placed with her dying breath. I believe she was trying to undo the curse as she died — that she never intended for it to be a lasting curse. It was a threat, made out of desperation to try to bully the Laird into letting her marry her lover.”
Gavin nodded — she could see the emotion on his face, but he swallowed hard, steeling himself.
“That’s why women have been so consistentl
y brought back through time to replace the women who die tragically — the blessing dictates that the women live, and return to their loves. That’s why I’m here — that’s why all of us are here,” she added, gesturing to the women behind her, who all murmured their agreement. “Because Morag brought them here. But they wouldn’t need to be here at all if Morag had been able to marry her beloved.”
“Too late for that now, I’m afraid,” Donal said softly, glancing apologetically at Gavin.
“Not necessarily.” Delilah took a deep breath. “I believe that, as the reincarnation of Morag, I have the ability to break the curse too. I believe that if Gavin and I are married, the curse will be broken as surely as it would have been were Gavin to have married Morag all those years ago.”
There was a ringing silence in the hall. Delilah hardly dared look at Gavin — her attention was fixed on Laird Donal, who was considering this information thoughtfully.
“That makes sense,” he said slowly. “We know that the women who travel back here have a strong connection to their ancestors, despite their very different upbringings… it could work. I presume you’ve discussed this with Gavin?”
“Uh, not yet,” Delilah said, a little awkwardly.
Donal blinked.
“Well. This isn’t exactly a conventional proposal, but… Gavin?”
Highlander Cursed: A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 21