She managed to control herself by telling herself she was going home soon. She would be back in her own time and she would have to learn to live without the feel of him against her, without ever smelling him again, without hearing his voice, that gruff Scottish accent of his that made her quiver with desire every single time he spoke.
Just looking at him as he talked to the innkeeper was increasing her heart rate. She pressed her hands together, trying to regain control of herself. The love she felt towards him was threatening to overwhelm her. She had to keep a handle on it if she was to get home again.
She knew one thing for certain. It would not be the same Kerry Sutherland who went home. She had already changed. Not just joining him by the fireside but everything she’d been through. She had seen death. She had seen the wildness of a land before modern invention, before pollution, before traffic, before all the things that she thought were important but they weren’t, not really.
All that mattered was walking over to her and he looked angry.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, immediately fearing she was the cause of his ire.
“Our horse was taken last night.”
“Oh no.” Kerry tried not to smile. If they had to walk it would mean longer together.
“The innkeeper is giving us another to make up for the theft. They are getting it ready now. Have you done with your porridge?”
“I have though it seems a shame to leave the fireside.”
“We must be moving. The planets align soon.”
“What does that matter?”
“The woman we are going to see will be away for it. We must reach her before she leaves else who knows when she may return.”
Within minutes of leaving the inn it began to rain. The gray dawn never brightened. A gloom hung over them and Kerry’s dress was soon soaked through. Callum continued without complaint nor pause.
The journey took most of the day. They stopped for only short spells to rest the horse and by the time the sun set Kerry was aching in places she didn’t even know existed. She was barely able to walk when she finally climbed down for the last time, having to shuffle hunched over until her muscles began to relax.
They had passed through stunning countryside but Kerry had glanced at it only occasionally, for the most part keeping her head down, trying to avoid the worst of the rain.
It was an impossible task and she stood dripping wet as Callum tied up the horse to a tree trunk by the roadside. “Where are we?” she asked. “I see nothing but rain and mud.”
“This way,” he replied, walking between the trees and across a patch of long grass. “She lives down there.”
Kerry didn’t spot the cottage until they were almost on top of it. Hidden in a dip at the foot of a mountain, even the color of the walls matched the surrounding countryside, the roof made of turf with smoke rising lazily through it and drifting away into the air.
“Who lives here?” Kerry asked as they approached the cottage.
“I do,” a voice said, pulling open the door to reveal an elderly woman wrapped in a tartan blanket with a headscarf hiding most of her features. “Come in, Callum,” she said, beckoning them both over. “I see you’ve brought a wee friend with you.”
“This is Kerry Sutherland,” Callum said as they ducked under the doorway. “Kerry, this is Fenella. Kerry has a couple of questions for you.”
“It’s about the doorway, isn’t it, lass?”
Kerry blinked, her eyes adjusting to the gloom as she tried to make out the interior of the cottage. “How did you know that?”
“You are not the first to come to me. Many will come. Or have come from your perspective. Time is a strange thing, dinnae you think? North corner on the left. It’s like Podgorny, you think you have a handle on it and then it disappears out of the window and goes hunting mice for days. You’ll have no trouble, the MacIntyres are all at their castle. Apologies, I’m rambling. You wanted to ask me something, is that right? Yes I do, it’s to the north of here.”
“Sorry?”
“My fault. I get ahead of myself sometimes. Ask away.”
“This is going to sound strange but do you know of a door that can send people through time?”
“Yes I do, it’s to the north of here.”
“So we go north,” Callum said.
“Go to the old hall of the MacIntyres. The door to Andrew’s bedroom is the door you seek. Now Callum, go tend to my veggies. I need to speak to the lass.”
Callum got up and left without another word, pulling the door closed as he went. Kerry looked across at Fenella who motioned toward a couple of battered wooden chairs. “Take a seat.”
Kerry did as she was bid, feeling herself under intense scrutiny as Fenella pushed back her hood and examined her closely. “Something bad is coming for you.”
Kerry sat up straight, an image of Edward flashing before her eyes. “What? What is coming?”
“That I cannot see. I only know that if you go back to your own time it will not find you.”
“I am going back.” She sighed with relief. “So it’ll be fine.”
“I have not finished. I know you are from another time and you are not the first lass from centuries hence who has stolen a laird’s heart. Know this, Kerry. You will soon have to make a choice and the choice you make will impact more people than you know.”
“What choice? What are you talking about?”
“You must decide whether to stay here or return to your own time. Remain here and darkness surrounds you but also a bright light. Great things will happen to the clan as long as you make the right choice.”
“And what is the right choice?”
“I do not know. Only you know that.”
“But what choice do I have? I don’t belong here.”
“Dinnae be so sure. He’s the man you love, is he not? Now you should be making a move. The planets are aligning.”
She stood up and opened the door in time for Callum to walk through it. “We should be making a move. The planets are aligning,” Callum said. “No doubt you want to get going, Fenella.”
Kerry looked from him to Fenella. It was as if the old woman could see into the future. She had so many questions but no time to ask them. Fenella was already walking away up the mountain, leaving the two of them alone. “What did she tell you?” Callum asked as they made their way back to the roadside where their horse was waiting.
“That I have to make a choice.”
“Dinnae tell me. She makes us all make choices. I dinnae know why I bother going to her. Still, at least we know the doorway is real and even better, we know where it is.”
He helped her onto the horse before climbing on behind her. Slowly they continued their journey north.
“We will reach MacIntyre’s old hall by morning if we dinnae encounter any of them on the way.”
“Any of whom?”
“The MacIntyres. They aren’t fond of MacCleods.”
“Do any of the clans get on?”
“Only when fighting the English.”
They did not stop once through the night. Kerry managed to doze off on a couple of occasions but the movement of the horse brought her out of sleep all too soon and by the time the sun rose she was exhausted. “It’s there,” Callum said, pointing past her to the stone building in the distance.
“Where is everyone? The place looks deserted.”
“Remember what Fenella said? They’re all at the castle which is good news for us.”
Within a few minutes they were standing outside the hall. “This way,” Callum said, pulling open the door. “She said north corner on the left. I will bid you farewell here.”
“You’re not coming in with me?”
“The MacIntyres would start war if they found out I set foot in there.” Something flashed across his eyes but Kerry could not work out what it was.
“Oh. Then I guess this is goodbye.”
“Aye, lass. I thank you for your company and I wish you well
in your own time.” He looked like he was about to say something else but then he turned and walked away, leading the horse by the reins, not looking back.
Kerry had wanted to say so much more to him before she went but it was as if her lips had become glued shut. There was too much trying to get out and it meant nothing managed it other than a sad sigh as she turned and walked into the hall.
She could tell which doorway it was. There was the same strange energy in the air that she’d felt when she awoke on the earthworks by the castle. The door was open. All she had to do was step through and she would be back in her own time.
She thought about what Fenella had said. This was her choice to make. Stay and risk something bad but also something good. Or go back home and risk Edward. She stood looking at the door and as she did so Callum’s face appeared in her mind, the way he had treated her in comparison to Edward. She took a deep breath and then made her decision.
Chapter Ten
Outside a coach roared into life, driving out of the parking lot and away from the old hall. Inside peace descended. One man was left in the building. He stood in the bedroom where Andrew MacIntyre had been born. He didn’t care about the MacIntyres or Scotland. What he cared about was on the other side of the bedroom door. He looked at his watch. Any minute now.
On the other side of the door and eight hundred years before that day Kerry stood, brow furrowed as she made her decision.
The doorway waited as silent as the two people either side of it. Neither of them paid attention to the rough stones that served as both the archway between two rooms and two times. The stones hummed quietly with an energy that was barely perceptible unless you pressed your ear to them.
Taken from an ancient stone circle many centuries before, the individual pieces that made up the doorway had been hewn from a piece of solid rock in an age long forgotten. Back in those ancient days the stone circle had contained a magic all of its own. It had faded over time but a little still remained in the stones that made up the doorway into Andrew MacIntyre’s bedroom.
Not all the stone from the ancient circle ended up in the old hall of course. It had spread around the highlands. Some had made its way to MacCleod castle, used there by laborers with no idea of the power held within the rock. Two stones became part of the window frame in the east tower, the very window from which Kerry fell a week before she stood in MacIntyre hall. A week earlier and yet also hundreds of years in the future.
In the bedroom the man took a step forward, glancing down again at his watch. He had been told in no uncertain terms when she would arrive. She was late. He tutted quietly to himself. Was it possible that he had been lied to?
The two men had been convincing enough. Kerry would walk through that doorway at exactly five past nine. All he had to do was grab her when she did, take her home where she belonged. Back by his side. Sure, he would have to punish her for what she’d done but he wouldn’t be cruel, just firm. She would learn her lesson and then they would both put it behind them and get on with their lives.
He didn’t give much thought to the two men who had appeared on his doorstep with the offer he’d been unable to refuse.
They had worn identical black suits and when he answered the younger of the two smiled in such a cold manner he recoiled from him.
The older one spoke. “Edward Rawcliffe?”
“I haven’t seen her.” He had already prepared his defense. He might have watched her fall from the tower at MacCleod castle but no one else had witnessed it. After glancing out the window and seeing no sign of her body, he’d left immediately. He was home the same day, staying there ever since. “I’ve already had uniform here asking about her and I’m telling you what I told them, I haven’t seen her since we broke up.”
“We know,” the older man said, not smiling as he took a step forward. “We are not connected to the police. We work for…another party. May we come in for a moment?”
“No.”
They were already inside, sitting on the sofa in the lounge as if they owned the place. The older of the two continued. “My name is Mr. Kite and this is Mr. Wint. We have an offer to make you.”
“Get out of my house this minute or I call the police.”
“Go ahead. I’m sure they’d be delighted to know all about you watching your ex-partner fall from a castle window to her death.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You needn’t worry. We have no interest in informing the police in what should remain, for many reasons, an entirely private affair. Kerry did not die in the fall. Would you like to know where she is?”
“What? She’s not dead?”
“Alive and well.”
“So where is she?”
“Twelfth century Scotland.”
Edward barked out a laugh. “Of course she is. Darning kilts and eating haggis, I bet?”
The younger man spoke for the first time. “Kilts were not invented until the sixteenth century.”
The older man waved him into silence. “Now is not the time to give the man a history lesson.”
Edward tapped his foot impatiently. “Come on, this is a joke, isn’t it?”
“I assure you we are deadly serious, Mr. Rawcliffe. We would like to make you a most generous offer and we ask only one thing in return.”
“What? What kind of offer?”
They didn’t tell him straight away of course. Instead they went on for ages about determinism and causality and fixed times in space and all kinds of things he didn’t understand. He nodded along until they finally got to the point.
If he went back to Scotland and stood inside Andrew MacIntyre’s bedroom in MacIntyre Hall at five past nine the next morning he would see Kerry walk through the door. All he had to do then was take her home and keep her there. A happy ending for him and Kerry and he would never see Mr. Kite or Mr. Wint ever again.
He agreed of course. Something about the way they spoke over the course of the hour they were in the house convinced him they were telling the truth. It was only when he stood in MacIntyre Hall the next morning and his watch told him it was six minutes past nine that he began to wonder. Had he been duped?
According to them she had fallen out of the tower and slipped back in time to the twelfth century. It had seemed so convincing but the more he thought about it the more stupid it sounded. It was nonsense. She wasn’t coming through time back to the present.
She was dead and this was some kind of set up to try and get him to confess to killing her. It wouldn’t work. He hadn’t killed her. She had fallen out of the window because she was as clumsy as she’d always been. That was hardly his fault, was it?
“Screw this,” he said when his watch reached eight minutes past nine. He walked out the door into the corridor. He’d been conned. Very funny. He would get home and have some choice words to say to them two if they turned up at his house again.
He stopped dead when he saw someone in the distance. A woman was walking out the front door into the morning light. It was her, he was sure of it.
She wasn’t in the past but she was in the hall. What was more, she hadn’t spotted him yet.
He crept toward her as she headed outside. Reaching the doorway a few seconds after her, he watched as she crossed the grass.
Wait. Grass? Why was there grass outside? Had he got lost in there and come out by a different entrance?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that the woman he loved was running after a man in bizarre clothes, a man who was turning to face her with a smile on his face. Beside the man, a horse stood patient.
Edward wanted to kill the horse and the man. How dare he smile at her? Jealousy flared inside him.
“I’m staying,” Kerry said, her voice loud enough for him to hear from the doorway. “I want to stay, Callum. With you. If you’ll have me. I…I love you.”
The jealousy inside Edward began to boil over, turning into white hot rage. She loved that…that mud splattered bum over there?
“I love you too,” the man said, taking hold of her hands. How dare he touch her?
Edward didn’t hear anyone coming up behind him until he felt a tap on his shoulder. “A word,” a voice said in his ear. “Before you do anything rash.”
“Rash?” he said, spinning around to find himself facing the two men who’d sent him to Scotland in the first place. “You told me she would run back into my arms. Look at her.”
“You were supposed to wait in the bedroom for her,” Mr. Kite said. “It is not our fault if you cannot follow simple instructions.”
“Hey,” Edward snapped. “I did as you said. She didn’t come through. How is that my fault?”
“What?” Mr. Wint sounded shocked. “Are you sure?”
“I gave it until ten past and nothing. It was only when I left that I saw her.
The man turned pale, muttering to his colleague. “How was that possible?”
“She is far from her path,” Mr. Kite replied before realizing Edward was staring at him. “No matter. He can still get her.”
“No I can’t,” Edward said, looking outside again. “They just rode off on his horse together like it’s the end of a western.”
“Then you better be after her, hadn’t you?”
Edward shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere until you explain to me why this matters so much to you two.”
“It matters not one whit to either of us.”
“Then why are you shoving me after her? What’s in it for you?”
“You might as well tell him,” Mr. Kite said.
Mr. Wint sighed. “You saw the man she rode off with, correct?”
“The bum?”
“That bum was heir to the entire MacCleod clan and he just rode off with your partner to live happily ever after in his castle. Are you not concerned?”
“His castle? What is this, Game of Thrones?”
“No. This is twelfth century Scotland and you are wasting time. Go after them and get her back.”
Promised to the Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 7