The Scottish Rose

by Jill Jones

  “How in the world did that happen?”

  Duncan shook his head. “I don’t know.” Then he turned on his heel and headed toward Stonehaven. “Come on. It’s getting late.”

  The dried sea salt in her socks rubbed against her skin, blistering her toes and ankles as she tried to keep up with him, but Taylor was determined not to complain as she followed Duncan over the rough terrain. She could tell he was upset about his boat, but she also knew he was a native and a rescuer and would soon present her at the doorstep to her hotel. However, after stumbling for the umpteenth time, she called out at last. “Isn’t there a road around here?” she asked, thinking it unnecessary to take such a difficult short cut. “And do we have to walk so fast?”

  The tall Scotsman didn’t answer. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. “I said, is there a road nearby we could take back to town?” she repeated in a louder voice.

  He stopped and turned to her, a strange look in his eyes. “Yes, there is a road.”

  “Then why don’t we…uh…take it?”

  Taylor wasn’t sure she caught his reply as Duncan resumed their brisk pace, but it sounded something like, “We would if I knew where it was.”

  Surely not. This man was from here. Part of the local rescue team. But he was used to rescues at sea. Maybe he didn’t know the land quite so well. Taylor stopped to catch her breath.

  “Are we lost, Mr. Fraser?” she called after him. She saw him slow his pace and straighten perceptibly before turning to face her again.

  “No, Miss Kincaid, we’re not lost.” He sounded annoyed. “We’re following the coastline. Stonehaven is just beyond that next hill. Now,” he added gruffly, “shall we stand here chatting all night or get on with it?”

  Taylor didn’t reply, afraid her temper would explode at his patronizing manner. However, he seemed determined to get back to the village, road or no road, and she wasn’t about to be left alone at night on this lonely Scottish shore. The sky had finally grown dark sometime past ten o’clock, and save for the golden aura to the east that presaged a full moon later, there was nothing to light their way except the small flashlight he kept trained to the ground a few feet ahead of them. At least, she thought, trying to find comfort in something, the fog had broken up.

  They crested the hill, and Duncan halted, scratching his head. “That’s odd,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Where are the lights? That’s Stonehaven, I’m certain of it. Do you suppose there’s been a power outage?”

  Taylor didn’t reply. But she did peer into the darkness, straining her eyes to see the tiny village barely discernible at the foot of the high hill where they stood. She looked up at Duncan and was alarmed by the queer expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  His voice was hollow in reply. “I don’t know,” he said one more time.

  Chapter Seven

  Holyrood Palace

  3 March 1563.

  The weather outside my window is as bleak as my life, and as cold. How I long for a brisk hunt in sunny France, as in the days of my youth! Alas, those days have passed, I fear never to return. My beloved uncles art dead—the Duke of Guise murdered by Huguenots, and Francis struck down by the will of God.

  In Scotland I fare little better. The poet Châtelard, whom I loved, but only for his beautiful song and verse, took into his head a madness, and betook himself into my bedchambers, not once, but twice, vowing his love for the Queen in a way most inappropriate! The first intrusion was discovered by my grooms of the the chamber, but the second assault was upon my own person. Whether he was mad or the agent of one who wished me dead, I knowest not. He was brought to trial, found guilty and executed in the market square at St. James. He was a favored poet, for he wrote in my beloved French style, and I shall miss him. It saddens me to know that one so young and beautiful and close in loyalty, or so we believed, would return to my court from France in the employ of traitors with murderous intent. Is there no one we can trust?

  My health and my spirit art worn by these things and the tiresome habits of our nobles. They bicker and fight amongst themselves until I think I might lose my wits. None trusts the other, and I trust none of them, save Moray, my brother. Elizabeth, although she writes with great sympathy, will not be my friend and we are still unreconciled with no hint of the establishment of the promised meeting. I have suffered from the cold of Scotland and the illnesses to which I have succumbed these past few months.

  It hast been two years since the death of my beloved husband Francis, and I have not until of late truly wished for another husband. Now I long for a strong, loyal consort to support and defend me and to carry part of the burden that I find increasingly unbearable. But who wouldst that husband be? Maitland and Moray ask me daily. The Archduke Charles of Austria, or my cousin Henry of Guise? Never Charles, poor Francis’ brother, for I find him vile and vicious, even at only twelve years! Don Carlos of Spain? Or the king of Denmark or Sweden? Or shouldst I marry a Protestant and bind together the religious wounds of our realm? A Catholic queen and a Protestant king? It is not the fate desired by His Holiness, and yet, it might be the wise resolution to my unending dilemma. Then might my subjects and their unhappy queen dwell together in a peaceful Scotland.

  Peace in this land is my most fervent wish, and yet, I seest now that the world is not that we do make of it, nor yet are they most happy that continue longest in it…

  The lawyer went to the window. The sun was just beginning to bleach the night sky with the pale light of dawn. He felt odd, ill at ease almost, at this intrusion into the intimate thoughts of this long-dead queen. He’d never thought much one way or another about Mary Queen of Scots. Never wondered, never cared whether she was guilty of the crimes for which she was executed. But here, on these pages, he began to understand and sympathize with the young queen’s woes. According to these pages, she had wanted nothing more than peace among her nobles and the freedom of her people to worship as they pleased. To these ends, she had pledged the Scottish Rose.

  The Scottish Rose. There it was again…

  Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Duncan Fraser knew every inch of this land. He knew there should be a road under his feet. He knew this was the promontory of his nightmares, where his wife’s car had plummeted down the cliff on an equally dark night four years before. And below, the village of Stonehaven should be twinkling with lights as his friends and neighbors went about the business of life—eating supper, drinking in the pubs, putting babes to bed, watching television—those ordinary activities of nighttime that required electric lights. Instead, if his eyes didn’t deceive him, he saw a few lights, but of a very different kind. They looked like torches.

  “Come on.” He grasped Taylor’s hand and led her down the steep slope. Maybe he was having a bad dream, he thought wildly as they scrambled over stone and thick patches of gorse. The events of the past few hours had a certain dream quality about them…his powerful and heavy crew boat becoming stranded on totally dry land, discovering a beautiful woman naked in bed, being unable to find a familiar roadway. And as they made their way down the hill, Duncan saw there was no paved footpath, no park bench, no trash barrel. It must be a dream.

  At the foot of the hill, he stopped for a reality check. He took in a deep breath and saw the mist on the air as he exhaled. He felt Taylor’s hand in his, her skin warm and soft. Just clearing the horizon, a brilliant full moon dispelled the darkness. These things were real. This was no dream.

  What wasn’t real was the village of Stonehaven. He led Taylor slowly down the darkened unpaved street, his frown deepening with each step. Some buildings he recognized, the very old ones, but the newer ones simply didn’t exist. Panic gnawed at the edge of his consciousness, and Duncan fought to control the apprehension that knotted his stomach. He heard a strange noise, a clattering sound, like horses’ hooves striking hard ground, and he pulled Taylor into the safety of the shadows of the doorway of an old stone building.r />
  It sounded like horses because it was horses. Three riders raced through the main street of town, shouting at the top of their lungs. “Halloo! Awaken, countrymen! Beware!” The riders began pounding on doors along the street, bringing angry responses from inside.

  “Why ye be callin’ so late?”

  “Th’ divil take ye. Sound asleep I was.”

  “Awake! Arise! The bloody English have taken the Earl Marischal prisoner! They’re marching now for Dunnottar Castle!”

  Duncan felt Taylor tug at his sleeve. “Is this some kind of movie they’re filming?” she asked, her voice hopeful.

  A movie. Could be. Mel Gibson had filmed scenes from Hamlet a few years back at nearby Dunnottar Castle. Advertising firms sometimes used the area as a backdrop for commercials. The riders were certainly in strange costumes and spoke with a heavy antiquated accent not heard in real life. It would explain why the lighting had been replaced by the torches he’d seen from the hilltop. But it didn’t explain where the houses of his neighbors had gone, or the roadway, or the park bench. A movie company, even one committed to utter authenticity, didn’t tear down dwellings and highways.

  The dream shifted and became a nightmare.

  “Could be,” he answered, “but I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t see a camera crew,” Taylor agreed, and Duncan felt her fingers tighten around his arm. “Duncan, what is going on?”

  “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.” But he’d be damned if he knew what it was. There was no apparent logic to what they were witnessing, and there was danger here, too. He could feel it, but he didn’t want to alarm Taylor. “Follow me to the Life-Boat station,” he said under his breath. “I’ll phone my friends at the police and find out what this is all about.” He put his finger to his lips. “Come on.”

  Keeping to the shadows, he led Taylor toward the harbor. Hopefully, McGehee and the others would be there, and there would be a rational explanation for everything that seemed at the moment altogether incomprehensible. But as he turned the corner of the narrow street that should have ended at the doorway of the RNLI shack, he saw clearly that it ended instead at the water’s edge. The building that housed his engineering office was gone as well.

  “What the bloody hell?”

  “What’s the matter?” Taylor asked tremulously from behind him.

  Couldn’t she see what was the matter? he thought irritably. Or was it just he who was hallucinating? He wheeled around and put his hands on her arms. “Does anything seem…extraordinary to you?”

  “Extraordinary? Oh, only that half the houses in town seem to have disappeared, and a bunch of hairy, filthy men have just ridden in to announce that the ‘bloody English’ are about to invade. Other than that, I’d say everything was pretty ordinary.”

  Her tone was light, but he felt her begin to shake, and he feared she would relapse into her earlier shock-induced hysteria. “Stop that,” he said gently.

  “Stop what?”

  “Shaking.”

  “Was I shaking? Oh, do forgive me,” she replied sarcastically, and Duncan knew her mockery was an attempt to hide her fear. “Listen, could you just call me a cab? I think I want to go back to New York.”

  Duncan didn’t blame Taylor for being scared, but he couldn’t appreciate her levity. His nerves were frayed, too, not just from the day’s events, but even more by the chimerical nature of what seemed to be happening around him. Nothing made sense. Normally, he was the world’s most rational human being. He was dependable, cautious, the rock to which others clung. Normally, he found logic behind the seemingly illogical and laughed in the face of fear.

  But nothing about this moment was normal.

  Nothing.

  Suddenly, impulsively, he pulled Taylor against him and pressed his lips to hers. He felt her stiffen in surprise and alarm, but then she yielded and melted against him like warm butter. Oh, God, what was he doing? He barely knew the woman. And yet, the feel of her body grounded him. Gave him an anchor in the storm of the surrealistic events that seemed to be engulfing them.

  This, if not normal, was at least real.

  “What are you doing?” Taylor regained her momentarily lapsed senses and pushed against the huge wall of Duncan’s chest, gasping to catch her breath. “What…what was that all about?” she sputtered, not wishing to acknowledge how his fierce kiss had stirred her.

  Duncan’s only reply was to stare at her for a long moment, and watching his face, Taylor saw an astounding progression of emotions lash fitfully across his rugged countenance. There was confusion, uncertainty. Distress. Then an inexplicable anguish, followed by a dark look that could only be described as rage.

  But not one sign of apology for his brash behavior. Instead, he took her arm and almost dragged her down a dark side street. Only when they were safely hidden in shadow did he speak.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said roughly, “and I don’t have a clue what the hell is going on. But we’d better stay inconspicuous until we find out.”

  Taylor wished he’d given her a more reassuring answer. He was, after all, supposed to be the rescuing hero. He was probably right about remaining inconspicuous, but looking at him still dressed in his yellow weatherproof gear, she thought it unlikely. “Then you’d better get out of that outfit you’re wearing,” she advised with a small grin. “You’re like a beacon.”

  Duncan scowled at her but did not reply. He did, however, remove the bright yellow jacket and pants which he rolled up and stashed behind a bush. Beneath the foul weather gear, he wore a heavy navy blue oiled wool sweater and dark pants that blended with the night around him.

  “Let’s go,” Duncan said, taking her hand once again and heading in the direction of the town center. Taylor did not protest, although she was perfectly capable of making her way through the darkness. But she had been through so much in the last forty-eight hours, she didn’t want to think. She just wanted this man to do his job and get her back to the warmth and safety of the inn and find that Barry and Rob were alive and well.

  Then…maybe…she would think about Duncan Fraser and the unsettling kiss he had just ventured upon her lips.

  The sound of more riders entering the village jolted her back into the alternate reality they seemed to be caught up in, however, and Duncan pulled her against the side of a building. With caution, they peered around the corner to see a growing crowd of townspeople gathering by torchlight to learn what further news the riders brought about the events that had taken place in the south.

  “General Lewis has left Stirling Castle,” one called out breathlessly, “marching for England!”

  A cheer went up, along with murmurs of it being about time for Cromwell to get a taste of Scottish vengeance. The speaker continued. “Nay, hold, countrymen! ‘Tis not all good tidings we bear. Perth has fallen to Cromwell! The city surrendered without a fight, but many of our fellow countrymen and women have taken flight.” With this, a communal moan ensued from the crowd.

  “Are the bloody English coming north?” someone shouted anxiously.

  The rider’s horse reared, as if the animal shared the common fear that rustled through the crowd. “Not Cromwell himself,” the rider answered, “but he has dispatched General Overton with orders to take Dunnottar Castle!“

  A cry of terror and despair rose from those huddled together in the night. An old man shouted indignantly, “‘Tis too much! We’ve only just recovered from Montrose’s wicked plunder of our village!”

  “I canna bear it! I lost my bairns in th’ fires when they burned the village,” cried a woman.

  “But what want they with Dunnottar Castle?” another woman’s voice questioned. “‘Tis only a lonely outpost.”

  At that, the voices stilled momentarily in brief consideration of the question. But no one seemed to have a ready answer. The English were a confusing lot.

  The horseman continued. “‘Tis forecast that Overton and his army will arrive before two weeks hath pa
ssed. Flee now, or seek safe harbor in th’ castle, if ye dare! Ogilvy will need all th’ help he can muster now that th’ Earl is imprisoned!” The riders spurred their horses, which reared in protest, then sped off into the darkness, headed north to warn the citizens of Aberdeen.

  Taylor felt Duncan’s hand leave hers, and he drew her back, pressing her shoulders against his chest, enfolding her securely in his strong arms. “I’m almost certain it’s not a film set,” he said grimly, his lips next to her ear.

  She felt her stomach turn over, and she twisted in his embrace to look up at him. “But…but what else could it be?”

  “I think it could be…another time…”

  “Another time? What do you mean, another time? I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” he replied. He frowned at her thoughtfully. “When you were thrown overboard, did you…uh…were you washed through the Ladysgate?”

  Taylor stared at him, then returned his frown mockingly. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. You’re not going to try to tell me we’ve somehow been taken back in time…” But she shut up when she saw that was exactly what he meant. “Surely you can’t believe that nonsense.”

  “Then you come up with a better explanation for this, lady,” he snarled. “Where did the Life-Boat station disappear to? Where did the road go? Where are all the houses in Stovehaven? The ones that have been built for two hundred years but somehow don’t seem to be here?”

  “Don’t get testy,” she snapped back, feeling the bile of panic rising in her throat. “I don’t have the answers. But I know it’s just not possible that we’ve been thrown into another time. It…it just isn’t possible,” she repeated, but her voice trailed off in misgiving. She turned to watch the chaotic scene in front of her. People were pouring into the street, crying and consoling one another all at once. She kept hearing the name Cromwell repeated in words of fear and hatred. Of course, Taylor had heard of Oliver Cromwell, but she had no idea of the role he had played in Scotland’s history. “If…and I’m not saying this is the case,” she began, “but if we somehow are having…let’s call it ‘matching dreams’ about being in the time of Cromwell, what time…uh…would that be?”