by Lynn Kurland
She should have been able to. It would have been a simple thing to pull the man's head back and slit his throat. She'd slaughtered sheep. What difference was there with a man who had intended to kill her?
Yet she found that somehow, she could not.
"His life will be hell if we let him live," the man promised. "Trust me on that."
Iolanthe pulled the English-man's dagger free of his arm and hastily cut strips from her dress. She held her rescuer's sword while he bound the man hand and foot. He stuffed cloth in the man's mouth and bound it as well.
The English-man began to stir, then he apparently realized what had happened to him, for he began to thrash. It was futile. Iolanthe looked down at him, then spat on him.
"May you die without honor or courage," she said.
Her rescuer grunted. "Rather we should hope he lives a long life to relive his cowardice." He looked down at the man. "I hope you live decades and find yourself haunted by the souls of those who you've slain in this very chamber." Then he leaned over and clouted the man on the head again.
The English-man slumped into senselessness.
Her rescuer looked at her, then held out his hand for his sword. Iolanthe handed it back to him, but kept the dagger she'd taken from the man lying before them.
"I brought clothes," he said, untying a bundle from his waist. "You'll need to wear them. I don't think we'll have trouble from the guards, but better we be viewed as two English-men just in case."
He turned away from her. Iolanthe held the clothes he had thrust at her and looked at his back.
"Who are you?" she asked.
He was silent for a moment. "It is a very long tale," he said finally.
That was another puzzle. He spoke Gaelic, but less well than he would have had he grown to manhood in the Highlands. She frowned. "Are you friend or enemy?"
"Friend, surely."
She considered. "What secret do you think you kn—"
He looked over his shoulder at her. "Hurry. We can talk later."
"We'll speak now," she insisted.
He turned his back on her. "Later. When we're not standing in the midst of the enemy's keep."
She couldn't argue with that, so she set the dagger down on the floor next to her, then stripped and dressed. She braided her hair and tucked it down the back of her stolen tunic. She left her dress on the floor. She looked down at her former captor, then stole his belt, slipping her filched dagger into it.
"I will have my answers," she said to her rescuer, putting her hand on the hilt of her dagger meaningfully.
He turned around, then looked at her hand. He met her eyes gravely. "You will," he assured her.
And then he smiled at her.
His smile was her undoing. It was as if he'd just found his heart's desire. The tenderness, nay, the undisguised joy in it was surely the most beautiful sight she'd ever beheld.
The man was obviously daft.
He held out his hand. She looked down at the poorly healed blisters, then met his eyes with a frown.
"Are you a monk that you have such blisters from unaccustomed swordplay?"
"Hardly," he said with a short laugh. "But what I will be is a dead man if we don't leave soon." He continued to hold out his damaged hand. "Come with me."
When her other choice was remaining with a soon-to-awaken-and-be-furious English-man, the madman before her seemed a most appealing alternative. Of course, there was the fact that she'd waited the whole of her life for him to come and get her. She took a deep breath, then slowly put her hand in his.
And then she saw a single tear roll down his cheek.
"What ails you?" she asked, looking him over for wounds.
He only smiled and shook his head. "I'll tell you later. Let's go now."
She took a deep breath and followed him from the chamber. He let go of her hand, took up his sword, and led the way down the stairs. That she was actually going back down those steps as anything but a corpse was noteworthy. That she was doing so with the man from her most secret dreams was surely a miracle.
They walked out into the freedom of the evening. Iolanthe took a deep breath, grateful for being able to do so. She looked around her, wondering what new tests of their mettle they would face before they escaped the castle.
Then she froze.
The sight in the bailey was something she was quite certain she would never forget. The sun had set, but the twilight gave enough illumination that she saw things quite clearly.
Every man in the bailey stood backed against the walls as if held there by some unseen rope. Some were weeping. Others were begging for mercy. Still others were in the throes of being heartily sick. Iolanthe looked at her rescuer and found him smiling in satisfaction.
Ach, by the saints, what had she done? Had she just traded death for something far worse? She looked at the man who had rescued her and crossed herself against him.
"You're a demon," she breathed.
He looked at her in surprise. "What?"
"You're the devil!" she said, backing away in horror. "Only the devil could make such a work—"
He took her by the arm before she could run. She struggled furiously. In the end, he had to drop his sword to hold her. She kicked him full in his privates. As he was doubled over, gasping for air as all her brothers had done when treated thusly, she snatched his sword. She waited until he had straightened before she looked him full in the face and pronounced his doom.
"You'll die—"
"I'm not the devil!" he said with a mighty bout of coughing.
"A demon, then," she shouted. "You've enspelled the entire keep!"
"Ghosts," he wheezed. "Can't you see the ghosts?"
She looked about her, but all she saw were terrified men. Whatever unseen bogles held them there, she couldn't have said. But she was damned sure that despite whatever the man wanted to name them, they were demons like he was.
"I don't believe in ghosties," she announced.
And that, for some reason, made him stop still. He stood there, hunched over with his hands on his thighs, and stared at her in complete astonishment. Then he bowed his head and laughed.
"Fool," she said, taking a swing at him.
Demon, devil, or madman, he was still quick on his feet. He ducked, then came up under the blade and wrapped his hands around hers that still held the hilt.
"I'm no demon," he said, his eyes alight with a combination of good humor and seriousness. "If I were, why would I need a sword?"
"You don't wield it very well."
"I didn't have much time to learn."
"See?" she said pointedly. "Handling things you aren't accustomed to. Demon's work, I'd say."
"I'm just a man. I came to rescue you. What does that tell you?"
She had no good answer for that. What it told her was that he had risked his life for hers, and she should be grateful. She started to say as much, then something else occurred to her.
"Ha," she said, wagging her finger at him. "How would you know I was here? Unless you were a demon who knows things he shouldn't?"
"I came with Duncan—"
"Duncan?" she asked. She released his sword. "Where is he?" By the saints, this was welcome news indeed. She looked about her for her kinsman, but she couldn't see him.
Then she realized the man wasn't answering her. And she felt something descend, a quiet that could betide only one thing. She looked back at the man. "Duncan?"
He nodded slowly. "I'm sorry—"
"You killed him?" she said, feeling rage sweep over her.
"I didn't," he said quickly. "We came down from Scotland together. He died helping me finish off half a dozen Englishmen so I could come get you."
"Oh," she said quietly. "I see." She looked about the keep again, then closed her eyes and shivered. "I fear to trust you."
"Just because I see things you apparently don't doesn't mean you can't trust me."
She opened her eyes and looked at him. "You're fey."
; "I'm sure that won't be the last time you say that."
"Who are you?"
"Thomas McKinnon."
She stared at him for several moments, trying to judge what kind of man he was. He didn't look evil, when she actually looked at him calmly, and 'twas a certainty he had rescued her from a very bad end, Duncan had trusted him, else he wouldn't have come so far from the Highlands with him.
But why had this man come? How had he known to come?
How had she known to dream his beautiful face?
"Come with me," he said, holding out his hand again. "We need to steal a pair of horses and get out of here before any of these lads realize they're being pinned to the wall by spirits and not flesh-and-blood men."
"You're fey. Fey and daft."
"Maybe, but I'm saving your life. Isn't that enough?"
"Why? Why are you doing that?"
"Because it's a life worth saving. Now, just trust me, and come."
Well, despite the fairness of his visage and the fact that he'd rescued her from certain death, she wasn't going to trust him. But she would go with him. 'Twas far easier to escape a single man in the open than it was a keep full of soldiers, so she followed him.
So Duncan had supposedly come with him. Was that true, or had he overtaken Duncan trying to rescue her, wrung the circumstances of her departure from him, then come on his own to try to wrest the secret of her keep from her? How had he come to her home in the first place? He looked powerfully filthy, and she had her suspicions, by the layer of crust on the back of his hair, that he'd spent a goodly portion of his time in her father's pit.
She followed him.
But warily.
Chapter 32
Two days later, Thomas decided that he might have a tiny bit of a problem. It all stemmed from the fact that he had made the serious mistake of falling asleep sometime during the wee hours of the morning. It hadn't been for long, he was sure of that. But it had apparently been long enough for Iolanthe to have taken his sword and clobbered him on the temple with it. He remembered a blinding flash of light as his brain exploded, then a long, uninterrupted slide into unconsciousness.
Now it was dawn. He'd woken but a moment before and found himself trussed up, as his father would have said, snugger than a Christmas goose.
The cliché was annoying but unfortunately quite accurate. He had a sudden sympathy for any kind of bird destined for the supper table.
He tried to move, but it was futile. He spared a moment for admiration over the security of Iolanthe's knots, then turned his mind to his more immediate problem, namely pacifying the woman who was staring at him while flipping Duncan's knife up in the air, over and over again, and looking at him as if he really shouldn't have had such a thing in his possession.
He tried a smile, but he imagined it came out as more of a grimace than anything. His head was pounding like the drum section of a college halftime band, and his mouth tasted as if the aforementioned band had spent the night marching through it.
"Morning," he said hoarsely.
"Aye," she said shortly. " 'Tis. I suppose even a fiend such as yourself would recognize it as such."
This was just not going very well. He wished he'd done more research on the whole time-traveling business before he'd attempted it. Or maybe just more research on the mindset of the incomprehensible medieval maiden. He certainly should have called his sister for advice on how to quickly gain the trust of a woman who quite obviously didn't know him from Adam.
The upside of the whole thing was, however, that he was facing a very real, very corporeal Iolanthe MacLeod.
Too bad she was mad as hell.
"You know," he said conversationally, "we could have ruffians leaping out of the bushes at any moment to rob us, and here I am all tied up and unable to help."
She pursed her lips. "Your swordplay leaves a bit to be desired."
"It rescued you," he said, the blisters on his hands setting up a renewed clamoring at the slander. All right, so he wasn't Jamie MacLeod—or any of his kinsmen for that matter—but he'd done his best. He'd gained calluses in places he didn't know a man could, and blisters on top of those calluses.
She only snorted and looked away.
Well, this wasn't getting them anywhere fast. He cleared his throat.
"My lady," he began carefully, deciding that using her name was a bad idea. Perhaps he'd try later, when he'd managed to get her back to the twentieth century and she hadn't killed everything in sight.
And speaking of killing, he suspected that even if she did think him a demon, she was harboring a soft spot for him in her heart. Just the night before, after two days of riding like the jaws of Hell themselves were gaping after them, they'd paused to water their horses and drink. Thomas had been leaning over, washing his face, when he'd heard Iolanthe gasp, then felt her push him over. He'd sat up in the middle of the stream and wiped the water from his eyes, prepared to snap at her for being so careless.
Then he'd seen a man lying not five feet from him staring up into the evening sky, pupils fixed and dilated, with a knife hilt buried in his chest.
And Iolanthe standing over him, shaking.
But that had been yesterday. Apparently, she'd had second thoughts about his trustworthiness sometime during the previous night. Which was no doubt why he found himself in his current straits.
"My lady," he said again, "untie me and let us be on our way. Perhaps I am not the equal of your brothers in sword-play, nor any of your kin" —and wasn't that the truth, he thought with a rueful sigh— "but I can guard your back. And I can take you somewhere safe."
"Where?" she asked with a snort. "To your deserted hut where you will do with me what you will?"
"No. I would never do anything you hadn't agreed on."
Besides save your life and apparently wipe out all memories of me you ever had.
She sat down on a stump facing him and looked him over thoroughly. It was all he could do to take in the fact that she was actually there in the flesh. He had held her hand. It had been all he could do not to haul her in his arms and crush her against him.
Heaven only knows what kind of retribution that would have earned him.
"I don't believe in ghosties," she said finally.
"I know."
She studied him. "I think you're lying."
"Well, we could argue the point for quite a while," he said, "but the only way to prove it to you is for you to come with me."
"Where?"
"The future."
Her jaw slipped down. "The what?"
"The future," he said evenly, not taking his eyes from her. "You know, the place that gate in your forest can take a man—with enough luck and skill on his part."
He wondered, then, if he might have said too much. She had jumped to her feet, spluttering. She looked around, then grabbed his sword and turned to him, looking as if she meant business.
"Who told you?" she demanded. "Whom did you kill for that knowledge?"
Thomas tried to look as unmurderous as possible. "Your great-great-grandfather Jamie did, when I asked him. He's still very much alive several hundred years from now. I'll take you to him, if you'll let me."
Now she was looking at him as if he really had sprouted horns.
This was not good.
"Did you kill Duncan for the knowing?" she whispered.
"You know that Duncan didn't know about the gate," Thomas said, not making it a question. "I'm not lying. Jamie showed me how the gate worked. He trained me in sword-play. He and his kin taught me Gaelic."
"Why?" she asked suspiciously.
Tread carefully, McKinnon, Thomas thought to himself. "Because," he said, choosing his words with the same kind of care he would have used in choosing a foothold on a sheer rock face, "because I wanted to come rescue you."
The sword wavered, then dipped down. "You did?"
"Yes," he said gravely. "I did."
She sat down. "And what would there be in that future of yours for me?"
she asked.
"More than is in your past," he said, thinking of Jamie and Elizabeth and the family Iolanthe would have if she'd accept them.
Oh, and him, too.
But it was probably better not to spring that one on her quite yet.
Why didn't someone tell him that getting a woman to fall for you twice was more than twice as difficult?
"I think I should just leave you here to rot," she grumbled. "I vow I can scarce stomach your tale." She shot him a look. "And 'tis difficult for me to divine if you're telling the truth or not."
"Let's look at it this way," he said conversationally. "Let's say you walk away and leave me here. You're a woman dressed in a dead man's clothes, his English clothes, and you're obviously a Scot. How are you going to make it all the way back to the Highlands by yourself?"
"I could."
"And if someone overtook you, or a handful of someones, what do you think would happen?"
"I would fight. As would you. Think you that you would fare any better than I?" she demanded.
He would have shrugged, but she'd been too thorough in tying him up. "It's the awful truth, but I'm a man. I'd probably find my throat slit quite readily, but I doubt I'd be raped."
She glared at him but said nothing.
And that being a look he was intensely familiar with, he relaxed a bit.
"Do you want to go back to the Highlands?" he asked. "To your family? If that's what you want, I'll get you there, and we'll forget the future."
"My family, nay. The Highlands ..." She was silent for a moment. "Aye, I would miss them."
Well, this was getting them somewhere.
"The Highlands it is, then," he said. Then he paused. "Would you like to see for yourself?" he asked slowly. "If the secret of your keep is true or if it's merely a fable?"
She leaned the sword against her knee. "How would I learn the truth of it?"
"You could come with me. Come to the future with me. See what's left of your keep and who inhabits it. See if you like it. And if you don't, I swear I will bring you back here."
"And leave me to myself?" she asked grimly.
He paused for a moment or two. "This is the thing," he said finally. "As long as I have breath in my body, I will not let harm come to you."