Falling Through Time: Mists of Fate - Book Four

by Nancy Scanlon

  “That’s pretty smart.”

  “Having lived as long as I have, I had time to figure out ways to modernize for her that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.”

  The second floor had three rooms, all without doors. The far room had clothing and chests, the middle and first rooms each had a four-poster bed with bed hangings.

  “This is adorable,” Gwen declared.

  Reilly shrugged. “I suppose. You’ll be sleeping there, in Sorcha’s bed.” He pointed to the middle room. “She’s probably visiting a friend. Usually she’s home.”

  Pointing to the bed in front of them, she asked, “Is this one your mom’s bed?”

  “Aye. She goes to bed late and is up before dawn, to tend the animals. Though I do it when I’m here, she insists on standing out there, watching over me like I’m an errant lad of six summers.” He rolled his eyes, then muttered, “I vow, family will bring out the child in anyone.”

  “Too true,” she laughed. “Wait a second. Where will you sleep?”

  “Belowstairs, by the hearth.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, Ry, you take the bed. If you’re our last line of defense out here, I want you fully rested—”

  He snorted. “I’m your first, last, and only line of defense.”

  “Isn’t that a line in that Men in Black movie from the nineties?”

  He blithely ignored her. “In the far room, you’ll find nightclothes. Dress warmly for it does chill up here. In the morning, choose a dress from the chests on the left. Those are Sorcha’s, and though they’ll be too big, Mam will fix it for you before I’ve even finished collecting the eggs.”

  “That sounds…”

  “Provincial?”

  She frowned at him. “No, Reilly. It sounds lovely. Stop fretting. This is amazing. Thank you for bringing me. It’s more than I ever dreamed.”

  “Are you saying you dream of me, lass?” Though he was teasing, his eyes darkened and his nostrils flared as he inhaled.

  It was the same look she’d seen at the dress fitting. Gwen felt the flush start at the base of her spine and rapidly travel up her body. She was suddenly off-balance, the desperate wish of a thousand nights filling her senses. She worked to form words, but none would come out.

  “Breathe,” he commanded softly, and she forced the air from her lungs. He searched her eyes for a moment before slowly touching her face. “Things are changing, aye?”

  “Are they?” she whispered.

  He pulled his hand back and dropped it to his side. “It feels like it.”

  His expression didn’t change, sending a frisson of alarm—or thrill, she couldn’t tell which—racing through her veins.

  “Well, then,” he replied, his voice almost hoarse, “Sleep well, Gwendolyn. I do hope your dreams are as vivid as mine.”

  “Goodnight,” she whispered, confused and more than a little short of breath, as he quickly descended the stairs.

  She touched her cheek, his light touch burned into her skin, and wondered, not for the first time, what is was that someone like Reilly O’Malley dreamed about.

  • • •

  When he was certain Gwen was deeply asleep, Reilly sat down with his mother and told her everything, from the time Gwen announced her engagement, to the Fates, to their arrival.

  “Those Fates gave you but three weeks?” she exclaimed. She smoothed her features into one of supreme confidence. “Of course, if anyone can do it, ’tis you.”

  “I’m not to interfere with her free will.”

  Mary sat a bit straighter. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  He bounced his knee. “I can’t do or say anything that will affect her own decisions.”

  “I don’t understand…?”

  Reilly stood, unable to sit any longer. “I think that, were I to tell her that she is my soul mate, she’d claim me back simply to ensure my happiness. She has some understanding how it works.”

  “Ah.”

  “And, though she’s no longer betrothed, she stated that she would be doubtful of my true intentions. How am I to convince her that I’m the one she is destined for, without claiming her openly?”

  “Well, seeing as she’s yet unmoved by your sweet self, I’d say you need all the aid you can get with wooing her.”

  “Aid?” Reilly exclaimed, breaking his tension with a laugh. Oh, he had no doubts that his mother loved him, and that she was indeed full of pride when it came to talking about him, but she’d made certain over the years to keep his head from getting too big. She would take him down a peg—or three—whenever she felt he needed it.

  Which was almost every time he visited her.

  “Aye, aid. Don’t you laugh at me, lad. This, at least, is one area where I know more than you.”

  “You know much more than me, Mam.”

  She patted his cheek. “Of course I do. I was just trying to make you feel a bit better.”

  He threw his head back and laughed again. By the saints, ’twas good to be home.

  “So, her former betrothed told her he’d wait for her?” Mary repeated, bringing him back to their conversation. “And he spoke those precise words?”

  Reilly nodded his head curtly. “His exact words were, I’ll wait, Gwen and Maybe it’ll be enough, and you won’t allow the person who doesn’t love you keep you from the one that does.”

  Mary rolled her eyes and settled herself in her rocking chair, which Reilly had pulled closer to the light of the fire. “’Tis a man we speak of, aye? Not a green lad?”

  Reilly sat heavily in the stool by the hearth. “It doesn’t matter what I think about him, only what Gwen does.”

  “Your future wooing is overly complicated. Your da decided he wanted me as his wife, then he set out to prove he was the best one to care for me.”

  “How did he prove it?” Reilly asked curiously.

  Mary pulled a dress from her enormous sewing basket and settled it over her lap. “He told the laird, and the laird saw it done.”

  “Aw, Mam, things are different in the future. Women don’t need surnames for protection in Gwen’s time. Also, the people of Ireland and Gwen’s country frown upon arranged marriages.”

  “Pity. It’s much more effective.”

  “Agreed, but if it were as easy as that, someone would’ve claimed her long before I came along.”

  “Nothing to be gained by griping about it. What do you plan to do now?”

  Reilly grumbled, “By the saints, woman, you claim you know more than me in these matters. I was hoping you would have some ideas.”

  She gently rocked back and forth, carefully stitching. Reilly, for his part, stoked the fire, hoping something brilliant would come to one of them.

  Wooing Gwen wouldn’t be as easy as a bauble and a kiss, no matter how much he wished it to be.

  His mother lowered the dress. “What does the betrothal contract contain? What did she lose when it was broken?”

  He explained that engagements were based on the word of two people instead of the transfer of goods and belongings. When Mary had fully wrapped her head around that notion, her eyes were watery.

  “How far our fair isle has come in its view of women,” she murmured.

  “According to Gwen, it has huge amounts to go before she would agree with you.” Reilly sighed. “I’m at a full loss here.”

  “Surely you’ve some idea, aye? You know her quite well. Do you think she’s reconsidering her betrothal? I don’t think any man would want his betrothed to sleep under another man’s roof. Would you? Of course not,” she answered for him. She held up the forest green dress and inspected the seam, then tied off the final stitch.

  Reilly groaned. “I’ve never said—or thought—so many words about feelings and such nonsense in my life as I have these last pair of days. My head spins from the lack of sense pummeling it. Truly, Mam, I can’t make head nor tail of it.”

  “What a strange saying,” Mary scoffed. She pinned him with her deep brown eyes. “Are you still smit
ten with her?”

  “Still?” he grumbled.

  Mary rolled her eyes, then rocked, contemplative. Reilly remembered the day he finished that chair for her; she’d never seen a moving chair, and her excitement when she realized how soothing it was for her mind made him smile each time he thought of it.

  “Do something with your hands,” she instructed him suddenly, noting his bouncing knee. “Carve something. And don’t mince words with me, lad. You are smitten with her. But do you think you can love her? Forever?” she added pointedly.

  “I don’t think there was a time I didn’t love her, Mam.” He took out his smallest dirk and selected a nub of wood from the kindling pile. He began to gently shave the bark from it.

  Mary’s eyes softened. “Oh, Reilly. She’s the one, isn’t she? Your mate?”

  “If I were to admit such a thing aloud, I’d be tied to her forever, even if she didn’t love me back,” Reilly reminded her.

  “Do you want to be tied to her forever?”

  He chipped a little too hard at his almost-formed wooden figure. “Aye, I do indeed want to be tied to her forever. I claimed her, out loud, in front of two of the Fates.” He smiled a little at his mother’s gasp. “I never thought I would claim anyone.”

  “Well, you’ve never had reason to before,” Mary pointed out sagely. She leaned over and patted his arm reassuringly. “Now, you’ve got to build a relationship with her, which won’t be too difficult for you. The secret to any relationship is compromise, and we both know you’ve no troubles with that. Your Gwendolyn is a lovely lass, though a bit headstrong. Do you think you can rein her in a bit?”

  Reilly blinked and paused his hands. “Why would I ever want to rein her in?”

  Mary chuckled, delighted, and reached for her sewing basket. “That’s a good answer, lad, and she’ll appreciate you not wanting to change her to your liking instead of liking her for what she is.”

  “Aye. But it might not matter. I had her love for so long, but I couldn’t tell her about my life. My…gift, as you like to call it. And so, rightfully, she decided to be happy with her own life. She moved on, and that included—” he swallowed past the distasteful words “—someone else.”

  Mary tapped her cheek, lost in thought for a moment. “If a lass gives her love freely to her mate, does she ever really stop loving him?”

  “I’ve no answer to that.”

  Mary eyed him speculatively. “Ah, but that’s why you’ve come here. To find out.”

  “Perhaps.” He carefully continued his carving, the small shavings pile at his feet growing. “The Fates sent me here. I had no hand in it this time.”

  “What is the one thing Gwendolyn has with you?”

  He thought for a moment. “Trust.”

  She nodded slowly. “Aye, Reilly. Trust. She trusts you. Do you ken why?”

  He looked up wearily. “Mam, please don’t make me guess. I’ve used enough words with Gwendolyn over the past few days that I’m fair certain my tongue will fall out of my head soon.”

  “Exactly! She trusts you because she can talk to you! Have you told her how you feel? Give the words to her on a trencher and see how palatable they are to her?”

  He sighed heavily. “’Tis the trouble, right there. Gwen is clever. Very clever. If I were to suddenly claim that she should be with me now, she’ll believe I’m saying the words because of her betrothal, not because of her. She’d compare herself as a prize to be won in a jousting match.”

  “Well, isn’t she just that?”

  “Nay!” he exclaimed vehemently. At his mother’s smug look, he took a deep breath and tried to regain control of the conversation. “Nay, she is not. She is…” He struggled to find the words.

  “Something else is holding you back, lad.”

  Reilly sighed. “I made a mistake, Mam. A big one. She and I…well, our passions were…”

  Mary chuckled. “I see. Did you take her maidenhead?”

  He bit back a smile. If Gwen had any idea what they were speaking of, she would be mortified and horrified and generally ready to castrate him.

  “Nay. I stopped us before it became too late, but I did not handle it in a graceful way.”

  “Ah. So you shamed her.”

  “Nay, never! I told her that I had needs, and she wasn’t the woman to see to them.” He felt the rise of his own shame in his neck. “I didn’t want to use her link that, and I was angry. I was driven by battle-lust.”

  “I can only think that she heard shaming, as though she wasn’t good enough for you,” Mary said gently. “As a woman, ’tis a vulnerable position to place oneself in. And to be roundly rejected, with words such as those…it’s shame. Shame for not reading the situation clearly, or shame for doing something you’d never meant to do, or shame for simply not being enough. But ’tis shame, Reilly, and that lays on your shoulders.”

  “I never meant to hurt her,” he said hoarsely. “I wanted to protect her.”

  Mary stood and padded to him, then sat down near him on the bench. “These emotions, they’re big. Bigger than you, and you’ve no idea how to control them.” She softened her voice, watching him dig at the wood in his hand. “Perhaps you’ve yet to learn that you can’t control everything.”

  “Lately, I can’t control anything. But I can control this,” he muttered. He drew his hand over his face, wiping the beads of sweat that had inexplicably formed on his forehead. “I will control this. It’s naught but my next lesson.”

  “Aye, everything’s a lesson with you,” Mary replied, holding her hand out for his latest piece of art. “But perhaps this time, this is a lesson best learned from someone other than yourself.” She held it up to the lamplight, delighted with the small fairy he’d started. She handed it back to him and headed back to her rocking chair, where she picked up the tapestry she’d been working on. “Perhaps, this is one time you mustn’t rely on the Fates for aid.”

  “I haven’t had their aid for more years than I care to count,” Reilly said after a moment of companionable silence.

  “Haven’t you, though?” Mary mused. She carefully pulled a bright red thread through the thick fabric. “Answer me this, Reilly. How many swords should’ve cleaved you in two? How many times should a horse’s hooves pounded you into the ground? How many times were you sent somewhere, with naught but a vague message, and a helpful sort of person was placed in your path?”

  Reilly considered her words, but ultimately, he shook his head. “Mam, I haven’t died, but only because I’m still useful to the Fates. And I haven’t been trampled to within an inch of my life for probably the same reason. I’m worth more alive than dead. There are more Protectors to train, more lost travelers to direct.”

  Mary snorted delicately. “Oh, you poor man. Are you truly believing you understand the Fates’ plan for you?”

  “Stay strong, take care of lost wanderers, protect the O’Rourkes. There’s not much else for me.”

  Mary held her tapestry up to the firelight, then brought it back to her lap. “When Sir Colin decided he didn’t want to be a Protector anymore, those long years ago when he was but a young warrior, what did those Fates do?”

  “You know the story.”

  “Humor your dam,” she demanded.

  His stomach rumbling, Reilly walked to the side table and loaded a trencher with some food. Over his shoulder, he said succinctly, “He was given three tasks by each of the three Fates, and upon completion of each task, realized the deep and lasting impact in his sacred vow.”

  “Three again. They do love that number—three tasks, three Fates, three weeks.” She fixed a snag in her fabric, then continued. “And with the other Protectors you’ve trained. How do you know they’re ready for their own quests?”

  “They must complete three trials after they’ve been properly instructed in swordplay, knife fighting, history, and the how-to of time travel.”

  “And what were your three tasks?”

  “I had many more than three.”
<
br />   “Aye, I suppose you did. And at some point, when those Protectors found their mates, they were released from their Protector duties. Isn’t that what you told me?”

  Reilly glanced up and replied quietly, “You know what goes for them doesn’t necessarily go for me.”

  “Because you’re their laird?” she asked mildly, her eyes following the path of the needle. “I don’t want to know how many years you've been doing this. But as your mother, I see the weariness in your eyes. Your shoulders are strong. Your mind is brilliant. But your heart? It’s losing itself. You’re only human, lad. The Fates know this. You can’t be this forever. ’Tisn’t natural, and at some point, they’ll know your time with them must end.”

  While Reilly would have loved to believe her, the cold, hard facts said otherwise. He’d been wandering through hundreds of years, doing exactly as the Fates decreed. When did his determination to follow their exact orders begin to fade?

  He didn’t really have to ask himself the question. It was when he broke the first rule he ever learned about time travel—that he could only do so to protect the O’Rourke line (or visit his family, as was the contract his da made with the Fates). He saw, back when they were unfathomable distances apart, how miserable Emma and Aidan were, and he went directly against his orders to not return to medieval Ireland…the Fates were sure to punish him for that. He had known it was coming.

  It didn’t make it easier, though.

  Mary smoothed out her tapestry, pleased. “Aye. Look here at this. I’ve been working on it for months now.”

  He stood over Mary’s shoulder, ensuring he did not block the weak light. He admired the small, tight stitches and rich colors of thread. The main focus of the tapestry was a woman in a chair by a blazing hearth. She cradled a small child in her arms. Behind her, in an open doorway, stood a man with long hair, home from battle. His attention was focused on his wife and child, and his bloodied sword hung above the door. Woven into the blood on the sword were the Latin words, Pro domo focoque pugnamus.