by Lynn Kurland
The latter was easier than the first. She remembered watching Geoffrey of Styrr walk down the steps from her father’s hall and come to an abrupt halt at the sight of a messenger. The look on Styrr’s face had been enough to convince her there was good reason to discover why he looked so horrified. The healer’s house hadn’t seemed a very private place to hold such a conference, though Master Ranulf’s protests had been silenced quite abruptly.
That had seemed odd at the time.
She had hovered outside the door and listened to a man she’d discovered was Ilbert of Meltham’s messenger. If that hadn’t been intriguing enough, the tales of Styrr’s wagering and imbibing and other sorts of debaucheries that she’d only half understood certainly had been.
Threats had flown from both sides, ending in a gurgling sound. It hadn’t been difficult to surmise that someone had met his end at Master Ranulf’s hearth. She had burst into the small hall, indignant, before she’d thought better of it.
Styrr had looked at her with murder in his eyes.
She had managed to keep him at bay with words alone for a bit, but she’d known it wouldn’t last. If Zachary hadn’t come when he had, she wasn’t sure what would have happened to her. She might have died.
She remembered Zachary making her sit, then feeling the horrifying sensation of not being able to breathe. She remembered hearing him shout at her.
And then her nightmares had begun.
She fought them at present for longer than she wanted to before she managed to push them back where she need not look at them. Then all she could do was lie there with her eyes closed and struggle to breathe. Not only was it difficult to do so, it hurt.
She remembered Styrr trying to force something into her mouth, something that smelled faintly of that scent he often carried with him. Poison, assuredly. She didn’t suppose she had drunk much, else she most certainly would have been dead. Perhaps she lay in the healer’s house, though she couldn’t imagine Master Ranulf having a bed as soft as the one she was lying on.
She frowned as other puzzles presented themselves. She could hear the fire occasionally cracking and popping in the hearth near where she lay. The air was full of the smell of herbs, as it was in Artane’s healer’s house, but she was convinced she had never felt it so warm there. But if she wasn’t inside Artane and she wasn’t in the healer’s house, where was she?
And why was there an arm over her waist and someone breathing against the back of her neck?
She opened her eyes and struggled to see what sort of chamber she found herself in. There were cloaks hanging on the wall by a door, the barest hint of morning light visible through a window in that door, shelves on the wall stacked with things that belonged in a kitchen. There was also a man she didn’t recognize sitting in a chair near the fire. His legs were stretched out in front of him, his feet crossed at the ankles, and his eyes were closed. She didn’t think he slept, though. Then again, she wasn’t seeing very clearly and the only real light in the chamber was given off by the fire, so she was likely judging amiss.
Perhaps the more important thing was to determine who it was who lay behind her with his arm around her waist and his fingers laced with hers.
Could it be Zachary?
She almost hoped not. If her father realized where they were, he would kill him. Actually, he would kill them both.
She tried to speak, but it came out as a croak. She heard the man near the fire stir. That man behind her sat up with a gasp, then groaned before he leaned over her.
“Mary?”
’Twas Zachary. She sighed slightly in relief only to have him move again and send her world spinning.
“Please,” she managed.
“Please what, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice catching.
“Please stop moving.”
He laughed, though it sounded quite a bit like a sob. He very gingerly crawled over her, then dropped to his knees next to her bed. He took her hands and bent his head over them. She wasn’t sure that those weren’t his tears falling on her skin. She had to close her eyes, not because she didn’t want to look at him, but because she couldn’t bear to watch the other man in the chamber move toward them.
She listened to the scrape of a stool, then heard someone settle down onto it. She felt a warm hand come to rest very gently against her forehead.
“No fever.”
Zachary made another unwholesome noise. “I think I might lose it very soon.”
Mary couldn’t bring herself to ask him what he stood to lose. He and his companion were speaking in Gaelic, and she was the first to admit that whilst hers was as good as it could have been for not having lived in Scotland, she was still missing the odd word here and there.
She listened to them speak in hushed tones, as if she had been very ill and they feared to disturb her. They considered briefly teas and sleep and whether or not the fire was hot enough or needed more wood. She remained still until she thought she could open her eyes with any success. She managed it, finally, and strove to see only one of Zachary.
“Did I sleep?” she managed.
He smiled. “Four days’ worth. Give or take a few hours.” He spoke in French. Somehow, it was very soothing to her ears. “How do you feel?”
“Terrible. You look terrible as well.”
“Thank you. I haven’t slept very well. Not until I was sure ...” He took a deep breath. “I just haven’t slept well recently.”
“Did you think I would die?”
He exchanged a look with the other man, then turned back to her and nodded.
She blinked. He looked as if he’d narrowly avoided something that would have grieved him past his ability to bear it. She wondered if that thing might have been her death.
She looked at the other man, who didn’t resemble Zachary in the slightest, though he was very handsome himself. He held her hand in his for a moment or two, frowned as if he considered something about what he found on her wrist, then he put her hand back in Zachary’s,
“You, my lady,” he said in eminently functional French, “are either very strong, very fortunate, or both.”
“I feel very fortunate,” she said, wishing she sounded a bit stronger. She looked up at him, then attempted to use her rather unpracticed Gaelic. “Who are you?”
“Patrick,” he said easily. “Zachary’s brother-in-law—” He looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t realize you could speak my tongue. Zachary said nothing of it.”
“I didn’t know she could,” Zachary said. He laughed a little uneasily. “I’m now wondering how many things I said that I’ll need to apologize for.”
Mary would have shaken her head, but she had a fairly good idea of where that would lead. “A good warrior never reveals all his strengths,” she managed.
“Nor all the tongues he knows, apparently,” Patrick said with a smile. He rose with a groan. “Zach, I think I need to sleep in a bed for a few hours. I’ll leave a note for Sunny to come when she wakes. Don’t let your lady rush off and poach any of Jamie’s horses quite yet.”
Mary would have smiled at that, but she was too tired. She listened to Zachary speak quietly to his brother-in-law as he walked with him across the floor, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. It was effort enough to simply close her eyes to keep the chamber from spinning. She heard Zachary close the door, then cross the chamber to sit down on the stool next to her bed. She would have thanked him for his care of her when she felt his hand cover hers, but in truth it was all she could do to simply draw air into her parched throat.
“What can I fetch you?” Zachary asked quietly in French. “Something to drink?”
She opened her eyes and focused on him with an effort. “Aye,” she croaked. “Thank you.”
“I’ll return.”
She watched him go, but he disappeared above her head so she settled for looking about what she assumed was less of a bedchamber and more of a small house. She considered again where she might be. Not Artane’s healer’s ho
use, nor any other chamber inside her father’s keep. She had never been inside Styrr Hall, but she couldn’t imagine that either Zachary or her father would have allowed her to be taken there, not after what Geoffrey had done to her. She wasn’t at Wyckham. She supposed Zachary might have attempted to carry her to Seakirk Abbey.
But if that were the case, why had his brother-in-law been there?
She would have considered that further, but Zachary had come to sit next to her bed again, a cup in his hand. The expression on his face was one of such relief, it almost brought tears to her eyes. He leaned forward and slipped his hand under her head.
“Let me help you.”
She drank, though it burned her throat like fire. She didn’t protest when Zachary laid her head gently against her pillow and set the cup on the floor. He looked at her, but his expression was less relieved than it was something else.
Hesitant.
She wondered if he was giving thought to the best way to tell her that now she was out of all danger of dying, he would be on his way. She wondered where she was. And she wondered why her father wasn’t standing over Zachary’s back with a dagger in his hand, waiting for the perfect moment to repay him for having shared a bed with his only daughter—never mind that she’d been senseless for the duration of that sharing. She opened her mouth to at least find the answer to the easier of those questions, only words came out she hadn’t intended.
“Are you leaving me?”
He looked startled. “Nay. Of course not.”
She had to blink back tears. Truly, she felt very ill. That was the only reason her form was betraying her so thoroughly. She squeezed his hand as best she could, then took the deepest breath she could manage.
“Where are we?”
He took her hand in both his own. “Mary, there are answers you need, ones you deserve, but I think you should wait a day or two before you have them. If I could offer an opinion.”
She might have protested had he not offered his opinion so gently or looked so earnest whilst doing it. She truly wasn’t one to shy away from difficult things, but she didn’t think she had the strength to face things she would rather have let lie. Perhaps he had it aright. She shifted slightly on the bed.
Then she realized that she wasn’t wearing any clothing.
Perhaps that wasn’t entirely true, but what she was wearing couldn’t possibly have counted for anything decent. She clutched the sheets to her chin with the hand Zachary wasn’t holding and looked at him in horror.
“How did I become so unclad?”
“My sister-in-law Sunshine did the honors,” he said quickly. “We thought you might be more comfortable that way. Well, that and she and Patrick were covering you in all sorts of poultices and things to draw out the poison and they couldn’t do that over your clothes.”
“Your sister-in-law,” she repeated.
“Aye.”
More of his kin she didn’t expect to find. She knew she wouldn’t rest until she had at least one answer.
“Where are we?” she asked again, when she thought she could manage the whole question on a single breath.
Zachary shifted. “Maryanne—”
“I must know.”
He took a deep breath, then sighed. “Scotland.”
She choked. It was terribly painful to cough, but cough she did until Zachary had pounded on her back a handful of times and she had regained control of herself. She accepted another sip of some species of healing tea, then lay back and struggled to breathe. “Scotland?”
“The Highlands.”
“How—”
“There is a very logical—” He paused and took another deep breath. “There is a logical enough explanation for why we’re both here, but it requires more explanation than I could give now or you could, I suspect, bear to listen to. I will tell you that you’re in a little house on MacLeod soil. It is a good place to heal, even if it did belong to the laird’s witch in years past.”
“I don’t believe in witches,” she said without hesitation.
“Neither do I,” he said with a grave smile, “but I believe in several other things. Your ability to heal from something that should have killed you is first on that list. The rest is something we should talk about tomorrow—”
A knock sounded on the door, interrupting him. He looked pathetically relieved as he rose.
“That’ll be my sister-in-law Sunshine. She’s come to tend you.”
Mary thought she just might be grateful for that as well. She had a few needs to take care of that she most certainly wasn’t going to ask Zachary to help her with.
She watched him hurry across the chamber and considered what he’d told her. Scotland. Difficult to believe, though she couldn’t deny what her eyes were seeing. She was in a place she’d never been before, a house that was small but filled to the brim with all manner of luxuries. If this was Zachary’s home, then perhaps her father and cousins had misjudged him. No simple lad, be he mason or smith, could have managed such a place.
More curious still was how he’d managed to bring her all the way to Scotland without her having known it, especially given that he’d said she’d slept for only a handful of days.
She wished she’d had Theo and Sam there at her elbow to be about their usual business of ferreting out all the details she required and reporting them to her with breathless excitement. And unless Zachary would send for either of the lads—or both—she would have to rely on herself. At least the twins would find those answers very interesting when next they met.
She could only hope that would be soon.
Chapter 21
Z achary walked across Moraig’s little greatroom and considered the narrowness of his escape. He was going to need to give Mary the entire truth, but he wanted to do so when the shock of it wouldn’t kill her. He might have a day’s reprieve, but he doubted he would have any longer than that. He dragged his hands through his grimy hair and went to open the door.
Three women stood there, dressed in medieval gowns and bearing baskets of herbs and green things. He leaned against the door frame and smiled in spite of himself.
“And just who are you three supposed to be?” he asked lazily. “Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather?”
“I’m pregnant, not fat, which you know,” Sunny said archly. “Now, get out of the way before I sit on you.”
Zachary stood to one side and allowed his sister and two sisters-in-law inside. Elizabeth and Madelyn made for the kitchen, taking Sunny’s burden with them. Sunny walked over to the bed. Zachary caught her by the elbow before she tried to sit on the stool and fetched a chair for her instead. He helped her down and had a smile as his reward.
“I’m about to pop.”
He smiled. “I’m going to keep my mouth shut about that.”
“Yeah, since you already called me a fat fairy, maybe you should.” She turned to Mary and reached out to smooth her hair back from her face. “You’re awake.”
“Thankfully.”
Sunny smiled happily and began to do her herbalist thing. Zachary took a brief moment to appreciate Sunny’s command of medieval Norman French, polished no doubt by her husband, who had learned it from a friar during his youth, then smiled at Mary before he left Sunny to her work. He walked over to the kitchen and leaned against the counter while his sister and Madelyn sorted out what they’d brought. Madelyn looked up at him.
“Surviving?”
He attempted a confident smile. “For the moment. I think the ride will soon be leaving the gate, though.”
“Well, don’t look at me for any help. Patrick was already wearing jeans when I met him.”
“Thanks for the thought anyway, Madelyn.”
She smiled and patted him on the back as she walked away. “You’ll manage,” she threw over her shoulder.
He could only hope. He went to stand next to his sister for moral support. She pulled things out of her basket for a minute or two, then looked up at him.
“Have you talke
d to Pat?” she asked quietly. “Or Cameron?”
“Vast amounts to both while Mary slept. They said that in the end time would do what was needful.”
“Jamie would agree.”
“Jamie is the last one to be offering advice,” Zachary said with a snort. “I was there, if you remember, when your husband was making his initial terrifying assault on modern life, so I know exactly what he would tell me. I was also there for the roller-coaster ride that was William de Piaget.” He shook his head slowly. “I wish I had a nickel for every time that guy tried to electrocute himself.”
“But you didn’t have quite as much invested in those transitions, did you?”
He rubbed his hands over his face. “Beth, stop peering into my head, would you? It’s really unsettling.”
She reached up and ruffled his hair. “You’re an open book, Zach. So, on the same subject, do you have a plan?”
And just how the hell was he supposed to answer that? He had taken a woman, without her permission, hundreds of years out of her time, all because he hadn’t wanted to see her lose her life. Her life was saved, but now she was without her parents, her brothers, and her cousins whom she adored. He’d plunked her down in a time where she couldn’t speak what most of the country spoke and where she wouldn’t recognize any of the clothes, most of the food, and all of the music.
Oh, and he wasn’t sure, once she got to thinking about it, that she would want to stay with him for any other reason than he was what was familiar and safe.
He looked at his sister. “My life is hell.”
“And hers?”
“Oh, I’m responsible for that hell, too.”
Elizabeth put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, then pulled away. “She’ll forgive you. I always forgave you for the crappy things you did to me.”
“I never did anything crappy to you.”
She shot him a look. “You and your bratty friends tied me to a clothes pole when I was eight and left me there to roast in the sun.”
“It was Seattle. We left you there to rot in the rain. And, if you’ll remember, you were more than willing to be the maiden in distress. Besides, I was only six. How secure could the knots have possibly been?”