by Mariah Stone
“What’s the meaning of this?” Angus boomed as he made his way through the crowd.
Fury and fear for Lady Rogene whirled in him, setting his blood on fire.
As he drew closer, Gill-Eathain lowered the whip. Euphemia stared at Angus with a victorious half smile. Rogene turned to him over her shoulder. She was pale, her bare back graceful as she breathed in and out heavily, her shoulder blades moving up and down quickly.
“Ah, my betrothed,” Euphemia said. “Thankfully, I saw this woman rummaging in yer bedchamber. She was reading this.”
Euphemia retrieved something from a pocket in her dress and showed it to him.
A roll of a parchment.
He felt his face fall. He stopped before Euphemia and locked eyes with Rogene. Betrayal slashed at him, wrenching his heart. Nae, he thought, that cannot be. Euphemia was just spinning lies. Surely it was only her means of getting back at Rogene for kissing him, and it was his fault.
But, on the other hand, this couldn’t be a coincidence after he’d told Rogene about the letter. By God’s blood, he really wanted to believe Rogene was innocent.
“What do ye say, Lady Rogene?” he asked. “Do ye deny it? Surely, this canna be true?”
She lifted her head and closed her eyes tight. When she opened them, he saw a hard decision there. “I looked in your room, and I was reading that document that’s in Lady Euphemia’s hand.”
The crowd gasped and murmured. “Thief,” some people said. “Spy…” A clod of dirt flew towards Rogene but passed by, then another.
Angus’s stomach dropped. No. No. Was she a traitor?
“But I did it for a different reason than you might think,” she said.
“What reason?” he asked.
“Lord Angus, I think she’s said enough,” Euphemia said. “Whatever reason she had, she was sneaking around yer room. She must be punished.”
To Angus’s horror, she took the whip from Gill-Eathain’s hand, lifted her arm, and made a swing. The whip flew through the air like a thin snake with a soft whoosh. Rogene paled, tensed, and closed her eyes.
As if the world had slowed, he watched the whip come closer. It was the painful type, one with a small wooden ball on the tip.
He dashed forward, shielding Lady Rogene with his body, and pain slashed across his hand and arm in a fiery, violent line of burning. He heard a thump and a click as the ball on the tip hit him right across the cheekbone. People around them gasped, and so did Euphemia. Warm liquid rolled down his face and the copper tang of blood reached his nostrils.
While Euphemia rushed to him, he turned to Rogene. With her hands still tied to the pole, she looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes wide, her mouth open. He quickly scanned her body—no signs or harm. Thank the Lord, she was whole.
Euphemia took him by the shoulder and turned him to herself. “Lord Angus!” She truly looked worried—her blue eyes wide in horror, her face pale. “Why are ye defending her?”
He looked her over and shook his head once, fury boiling within him anew. He grasped the letter that was still in her other hand.
“This is mine.” As she stared at him in astonishment, he tucked it into a belt pouch, took out the necklace, and shoved it into her hands. “’Tis for ye, dear betrothed. A wedding gift.”
Then he marched to the pole and undid the ties on Rogene’s hands. “Cover yerself,” he commanded.
“What are ye doing?” Euphemia cried, outraged.
As Rogene clasped her dress to her body, he shot a glare at Euphemia. “Ye were wrong to punish a guest of my clan with nae consent.”
“I asked Laomann,” she said, pointing at the laird.
Laomann opened and closed his mouth and shrugged his shoulders.
“Goddamn it to hell!” Angus roared. “She was in my room, and looked through my things, so ’tis up to me to decide what punishment she will or wilna have after I question her. I will deal with ye later, Lady Euphemia.” He grasped Rogene’s upper arm and marched with her to the tower.
“And I will deal with ye now.”
Chapter 15
Cold crept into Rogene’s bones as Angus shut the caged door of the dungeon behind her with a heavy clang. It was dark here despite three torches that cast eerie shadows on the rough walls. It smelled like mold and fungus and very old, wet rock. It turned out, the castle had a dungeon. It was the door right next to Angus’s distillery. There was only one cage, and Rogene was in it.
The room was about twenty square feet and had walls on three sides. The fourth side was a wooden grating with a door made of the same material. The torches illuminated the room dully. A bench was attached to one of the walls, and chains and shackles hung on the opposite one. It was quiet here, almost deafeningly so. Distantly, Rogene heard a soft scratching, and nausea rose to her throat at the thought of rats and mice somewhere nearby.
She stood in the middle of the room, shaking from cold and fear, staring at Angus, who stood on the other side of the grating. The dress was falling off her shoulders, and she kept pulling it up. It was unbearable to watch his somber glare as he studied her. Then his eyes fell to her chest.
“Are ye hurt?” he asked.
“Just a scratch,” she said. “Don’t worry. Lady Euphemia was very protective of your letter.”
His face fell. “Does she ken?”
“No. She never read it.”
He sighed and hit the grating with his palm. “How could ye betray me?”
Guilt the size of a boulder weighed on Rogene’s shoulders. “I didn’t mean any harm. I wanted to see the letter for myself.”
“Why?”
Oh fudge! What could she say that he’d believe? She hated lying, but she was sure if she told him the truth, he’d think she was crazy. And yet, she really wanted to tell him everything. He had stopped the whip by sacrificing himself, and now he had that awful wound on his cheek… The surrounding flesh was already swelling and bruising with yellow, red, and purple.
He’d taken a hit for her.
No one had ever done anything like that.
Could that mean that she could trust him? Give up control and rely on him?
“I really want to tell you the truth,” she said, “but I’m afraid you won’t believe me.”
She shivered. He sighed, undid his cloak, and held it out to her through the grating. As she took it, their fingers touched, sending an electric shock through her. She wanted to grasp his hand and just hold it, but he pulled away, and disappointment slashed her gut. She wrapped the cloak around herself. His scent enveloped her, as though he were hugging her, shielding her again…
“Tell me,” he said, “and let me decide on my own.”
This man… He was a shield, a protector, always ready to take the pain and take everything on himself. How much inner strength did he have? How much unbreakable spirit was in him? But even he had a vulnerability, and she hated to think that someone like Euphemia would find it and use it for her own advantage.
Hadn’t Rogene used Angus, too? He’d trusted her with the information about the letter, and she’d sneaked behind his back and gotten him and herself into trouble.
But the cloak he’d given her—the weight of it, the feel of it against her bare skin—made her feel as though he supported her yet again.
Feeling enveloped by him, she felt stronger. More in control. But telling him the truth, trusting him, would mean giving up that control. No. She couldn’t trust even him.
Could she? For God’s sake, how much lower could she fall than landing in a medieval dungeon? She should tell him the truth and just deal with whatever his reaction would be.
She took in a deep breath.
This could be the end of her. He might condemn her as a witch or let Euphemia whip her. Or even chase her away from the castle—which would be really bad because how the hell would she be able to go back to the twenty-first century?
But, who else could she trust here if not him? She would deal with it as it came.
; “I’m from the future,” she said.
He frowned and shook his head as though he’d heard her wrong. “What?”
“I’m from the twenty-first century, seven hundred years into the future.”
He blinked and kept frowning, studying her.
“There’s a rock that serves as a time-travel portal in the base of your castle. You were there when I arrived, next to that rock. A Highland faerie called Sìneag opened it for me and told me about you. That is how I fell through time.”
It was probably better not to mention that Sìneag had told her Angus was her soul mate. That information was useless, as nothing would be possible between them, anyway.
He narrowed his eyes at her and winced. “And do ye think I would believe ye?”
She sighed, took a step forward, and grasped the grating with both hands. She met his eyes and nodded. “I didn’t think you’d believe me, Angus. I mean, I wouldn’t have, in your place. But you do remember the rock that I’m talking about, right?”
“I do.”
“And you remember the strange way I was dressed? You thought I was a…” She felt heat creep to her cheeks as she remembered how she’d slapped him. “A whore.”
His short beard moved as his jaw muscles worked. “Aye.”
She went into her leather pouch, hoping that the phone battery still wasn’t dead. “And this.” She retrieved her phone, switched it on, and showed it to him. Still 2 percent battery. The colorful wallpaper on her home screen glowed, looking foreign and strange in the medieval setting around her. He stared at it with wide eyes and a deep frown, like she were holding a devil’s spawn in her hand, but he didn’t step back.
He squinted and looked closer, then shifted and studied it from different angles.
“What the devil?” he said.
“It’s a smartphone, you can call people with it and talk with them from long distances. Also, you can take photos.” She opened the photo gallery and showed him the picture of Bruce’s letter. She zoomed in, and Angus’s nostrils flared as he watched her. He clearly looked like he wanted to run away, but, as a battle-clad warrior, he stood and faced his fear.
“I took a picture of the letter because it doesn’t exist in the future. And it proves my hypothesis—I mean, my mother’s hypothesis—that Bruce was ready to give up when he was defeated in 1306. Only she couldn’t prove it. And without this, I can’t prove it, either.”
“Prove it? To whom?”
“To the world. I study history and analyze it, and well, I’m writing a book on Robert the Bruce and want to defend it to get a doctoral degree… It doesn’t matter. The point is, if I show this letter in 2021, I have a chance to have a good career in science. My brother, who is seventeen, can move in with me and I can support him. Right now, he lives with our aunt and uncle. They’re good people, but they don’t really want him there, as they have five kids of their own. So…this letter will help me prove my mom’s hypothesis. And that would be how I honor her legacy. You know?”
He didn’t. He stared at her as though he had a toothache.
“’Tis the biggest pile of horseshite I’ve ever heard,” he boomed.
Oh, dang. Of course he wouldn’t believe her. But she could still show him one more trick, which would, perhaps, tip the scale to her side. “Wait! Look!” she said and opened the camera app. In the darkness, she had to switch on the flash, and Angus roared and retrieved a dagger and pointed it at her. Her vision went blank, too, from the power of the flash.
“Ye blinded me, witch!” he growled.
But she managed to snap a picture of him and turned the phone around, showing him the screen. “Look!” she said. “It’s you, do you see?”
The photo was a little blurry from the movement he’d made, but it was still clearly him. His black hair shone with white from the flash, the blade of his dagger blinding. His face was a grimace of battle rage, his teeth bared and white against his black beard.
He was still pointing the dagger at her through the grating of the cage. He was panting and studying the photo with round eyes.
Then, suddenly, the screen went black. Without the artificial light, it was dark in the dungeon. Rogene saw stars from the flash.
“Darn,” she said, staring at the useless phone. “The battery died.”
He brought the dagger closer to her. “Who died?”
She chuckled. “Not who. What. The battery. The energy source that feeds the phone with the ability to show the pictures and to take them. That’s what we have in the future—electricity that makes it all possible.”
He shook his head. “I dinna ken what this is, Lady Rogene, and I dinna believe ye.”
He put the dagger back in place. “And if I dinna believe ye, ye’re in big trouble, because no one else will. I need to think what to do with ye, but ken this. Ye just lost the one person that was on yer side.”
He walked out of the dungeon, leaving her alone, shivering, and hurt. Because although she was terrified to think what Angus would do to her now, even worse was knowing she had lost his trust.
Because, somehow, the trust and appreciation of this kind, strong man had started to feel like a greater treasure than any lost letter or proof of her thesis could be.
Chapter 16
The next day…
“And what makes ye think ’tis a good idea that I come to yer wedding, brother?” Raghnall asked.
The bright sun was warm on Angus’s shoulders, the dirt dry under his feet as he walked through Dornie at his brother’s side. He wanted to check on Father Nicholas and see if he was doing any better. It was also an opportunity to see Raghnall and, perhaps, to stop thinking of the beautiful prisoner he’d put in the dungeon yesterday.
“Because ye’re my brother,” Angus said.
Raghnall scoffed. “But nae part of clan.”
“Ye are, as far as I’m concerned. When will ye go and talk to Laomann?”
Raghnall shrugged. “After yer wedding, I reckon.”
“Aye. ’Tis why ’tis a good idea that ye come to the wedding so that he can already see ye and mayhap start changing his mind. He can see ye changed. Ye’re nae the rascal ye used to be nae more.”
Raghnall gave out a loud burst of laughter, scaring a young woman who was churning butter while sitting on the bench outside her house.
“Forgive me, good woman!” he called to her, and she laughed.
He grinned. Why women loved him so, Angus would never understand. He looked like a scoundrel, with his long, ungroomed hair and his clothes that were always covered with dust and had patches on them. Aye, he was athletic, and he carried himself confidently. And he had that sense of humor that made everyone around him feel lighter—unlike Angus. And aye, he sang so well that even Robert the Bruce stopped to listen to him by a campfire.
Were those things that women valued? Not in a husband, surely. Thinking of being a husband reminded him of his current problem.
What in the world was he going to do with Rogene? Part of him wanted to believe her, no matter how ridiculous her story sounded. But he was a rational man, and he didn’t even believe that God could do miracles like time travel. He’d seen many strange things, aye. And he did remember that Owen Cambel’s betrothed—the dark-skinned warrior woman—had a similar accent to Rogene, now that he thought about it. She also had a similar manner of speech, and the way she carried herself… The words she used… But she was from the caliphate, supposedly—although she had appeared rather suddenly in Inverlochy Castle last year. Was there a similar rock with a carving there, too?
Nae. Nonsense.
But that object with lights Rogene had with her, the one that created images and that small flash of lightning…
Now that he couldn’t explain. He had no idea what could make such things happen other than magic. And if he’d accept that this object was magical, he might as well accept the possibility of falling through time.
He glanced at his brother, contemplating. Should he tell him, ask his opinion?
Raghnall marched by his side, staring around and looking like a wolf who was hunting for pleasure.
No. Something told Angus not to say anything. He wasn’t sure if he believed her or not, but chances were, Raghnall would consider her a madwoman, and Angus highly doubted that it would do anyone any good.
But he could ask him another thing.
“I do want ye to stay, even if Laomann would refuse you the land that belongs to ye. Ye can live with me. I ken ye want a home and ye’re tired of living on the road.”
Raghnall raised his brows at Angus. “With ye? And yer new bride? Isna it a wee bit strange?”
“It would have been if I was in love with her. I’m nae.”
Raghnall shrugged. “That isna unusual.”
“Nae. But I’m afraid she’s someone who’s capable of stabbing a man in the back or poisoning him for her own benefit. And she wants Kintail to belong to clan Ross again.”
“Och, brother, what are ye getting yerself into?”
Angus didn’t reply. Silence hung between them, and he knew that Raghnall was thinking of all the days and nights when Angus had taken Raghnall’s, Catrìona’s and Mother’s beatings on himself, even Laomann’s.
“Dinna ye want someone ye could love?” Raghnall asked.
Rogene’s face came to mind, her long, raven hair, that delicious, full lower lip, those beautiful long-lashed eyes that seemed to look right into his soul. Her body, slender and strong and delicious, against him. He’d never met a woman as smart as her and with such an unbreakable spirit, based on how she’d defended Sorcha against her own husband, even though every law said he could punish his wife as he liked.
“Even if there was someone,” he said hoarsely, “’tis out of the question. The deal is done. There’s more at stake than love.”
“Ye have someone, dinna ye?” Raghnall said. “Ye bastart! Who is she?”
“Dinna matter.”
“Och, come on, man, tell me!”
Angus groaned. “God’s blood, Raghnall…”
“Brother, dinna ye think ye’ve done enough duty for this clan? If ye love someone else and dinna want to marry the evil witch, mayhap there’s another way to keep Kintail safe. Ye dinna have to sacrifice yerself all the time.”