A Highlander of Her Own

by Melissa Mayhue

  Rosalyn arched an eyebrow, looking up at Ellie from the seat she’d taken by the fire. “Aye, well…you’ll be waiting a goodly while for those things to dry. You were soaked to the skin last eve.” She patted the seat next to hers. “For now, let’s relax here by the fire with our tea and have ourselves a visit, shall we?”

  Ellie arranged herself in the large chair, curling her feet up underneath her. She waited until her companion had taken a sip before speaking. Though begging was not something that had ever come easily to her, desperation was a great motivator.

  “Please. Just tell me where I am and how I got here.”

  Rosalyn placed her hand on Ellie’s arm, the small, sad smile she wore as frightening to Ellie as the words that accompanied it.

  “We’ve been all through this. Yer at Dun Ard, in the year of our Lord 1304. I ken this to be a shock to you, but it’s how the Fae work. They’ve a reason for sending you here. We’ve only to discover what yer to do and we’ll assist you in yer task in order to get you home to yer family again.”

  Enough!

  Ellie jerked her arm from the woman’s gentle touch, her tea sloshing as she jumped to her feet and backed away. “Are you completely nuts? Or do you think I am? I have no idea who you are, or why you’re doing this to me, but I am not for one minute buying this load of bullshit about Faeries and freakin’ time travel. There is no such thing!”

  Rosalyn stared at her unblinking, finally setting her cup on the small table by her side before folding her hands in her lap. “How can you no believe in the Fae when clearly you descend from them?”

  “I what?” Ellie took another step back, feeling as if Rosalyn’s quiet words had been a physical assault.

  “You bear their mark. You are a Daughter of the Fae. Their blood courses through yer body the same as it does mine.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ellie glanced around the room, her eyes lingering on the door. Would it be locked? If she ran for it right now, could she get there and out before this Amazon could catch her?

  When she looked at Rosalyn again, the woman was standing, her back toward Ellie, pointing over her shoulder.

  “Loosen my laces and I’ll show you.”

  “Loosen your laces?” Ellie barely recognized the squeak of her own voice as she inched toward the door.

  The look Rosalyn bestowed upon her was irritated, to say the least.

  “This is my favorite shift, lass, and I’ve no intention to ruin it just to prove my point. Now loosen the laces at my neck as I asked and be quick about it.”

  The command sounded so like something Ellie’s grandmother might have said that she responded without thinking, doing exactly as she was told. With shaking fingers she untied the laces and stepped away, waiting for whatever came next.

  The woman wiggled her arm, dropping her gown and shift off one shoulder, baring a portion of her back.

  What Ellie saw took her breath away.

  “Oh my God. How…?” She couldn’t finish.

  There on Rosalyn’s back was an identical match to the mysterious mark that had appeared on Ellie’s breast.

  “Aye. I suspect you ken what it is I’m talking about now, do you no?”

  Rosalyn shrugged the dress back up into place and motioned to her laces. Ellie retied them, ending with a neat bow, though her actions were purely mechanical.

  How could they have known about the mark? She’d shown it to no one other than the doctor.

  Ellie sank to her seat, her hand hovering over the mark on her chest, which, oddly, tingled now. When she looked up, Rosalyn was seated as well, calmly sipping from her cup.

  “Do you believe me now, lass?”

  “I…I don’t know what to believe.”

  The coincidence of the marks was too strange to have been contrived, and yet how could she accept a story like this? If she could only manage to get outside, to look for some familiar landmark, to find some way to escape back to her own life.

  “It’s not that I’m doubting your word, it’s just…would you allow me to go outside, to look around and see for myself?” Ellie held her breath waiting for the answer.

  “Of course you doubt my word. I dinna expect I’d do any less in yer place.” Rosalyn smiled, patted her hand and rose from her chair. “I’ll arrange for you to ride out to the village. Will that do?”

  Ellie nodded weakly as the woman walked to the door. This was it. She was going to get her chance. Once outside, she’d find the perfect spot and make a break for it. Then she’d find her way into town and get help.

  Rosalyn stopped in the doorway. “Though the rains have stopped, there’s still quite a chill. Perhaps you’ll want to wear the footing I brought you earlier? I’d no recommend yer riding about the countryside in this weather in yer bare feet.” She walked out, but then popped her head back in. “I’d no even thought to ask. Do you ride, lass? Are you comfortable with horses?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Ellie sat very still after the door closed, knowing she must be near hysteria.

  For who but a hysterical woman would even consider asking the horses for help?

  Six

  Oh no—not the dog killer!

  Standing on the bottom step of the great staircase leading down to the courtyard, Ellie watched with a sinking heart as the big man strode purposefully toward her, leading two horses in his wake. In the light of day he appeared even larger and more imposing than he had last night. With his plaid wrapped around his body and the hilt of his sword peeking up over his shoulder, he looked like some determined warrior straight off a Hollywood movie set, intent on destruction.

  Hold on, maybe that was a slight overreaction.

  In fairness, he hadn’t killed the dog; he’d only threatened to kill the animal. At least, she didn’t think he had. He’d promised he wouldn’t.

  She studied him as he approached.

  His hair, waves of deep burnished copper, was neatly pulled back and tied at his neck, though a couple of unruly curls had escaped their binding.

  Her breath caught in her throat as he drew near and met her gaze. The liquid brown of his eyes immobilized her, holding her captive as if something in them beckoned to her, causing her to miss whatever it was he’d just said.

  “Wha…what? What did you say?” She gave herself a mental shake. This was not like her.

  Concern and doubt shone on his face. “I asked naught but if you were ready to go, Elliedenton. Are you sure yer up to traveling? That yer recovered enough to sit yer mount? If you canna even hold a simple conversation…” He left the thought hanging as he reached for her arm.

  His words, softened by the deep, melodic burr of his brogue, caught at her, blanketed her senses, disoriented her.

  No, this was not at all like her.

  “Of course I am,” she huffed, jerking away before he touched her. If the man could fluster her with a look and render her speechless with nothing more than the sound of his voice, she didn’t want to find out what his touch might do.

  He ducked his head and backed away a step, but not before she saw the smile that lit his eyes.

  How dare he laugh at her? Wasn’t it bad enough they were holding her prisoner here?

  Okay. Stop. She was letting herself get carried away again.

  After all, he was preparing to take her into town. Still, she saw no reason for his amusement. At least, no reason that wouldn’t be completely humiliating.

  “And my name isn’t all one word like that. It’s Ellie. Short for Eleanora. It was my mama’s name. Eleanora Ann. Denton. Just like you’re…”

  What the heck was his name anyway? She couldn’t remember. And why she had rattled through that ridiculous explanation of her whole name and where it came from like some nervous teenager meeting the school’s star football player was beyond her.

  She huffed out an irritated breath. It was so hard to be haughty when she didn’t have all her facts. And when she couldn’t control her own words. Or her rapidly b
eating heart.

  He straightened, the smile still there, and tilted his head in a little bow. “Caden. It’s no short for anything. MacAlister. Son of Duncan. Next laird of the MacKiernan.” He stopped, a small frown wrinkling his brow as he abruptly turned to adjust the straps on his horse. “Yer ready, then?”

  Ellie gritted her teeth. He was making fun of her! Stepping down off the last stair, she moved toward him, crossing both arms under her breasts.

  “I told you I was ready. And where’s that poor dog? Did you go ahead and murder him even though you promised me you wouldn’t?”

  Caden’s smile had disappeared when he faced her this time. “There are many a thing I’m no in this life, but one thing I am is a man of my word. I’ve no broken any promises to you or to anyone else.”

  Though her goal hadn’t been to anger him, Ellie’s embarrassment spurred her to continue when she would have stopped.

  “Oh really? If that’s true, then just where is he?” She stumbled back a step at his glare.

  “You doubt me? The damned beast is…”

  Caden’s words were cut short as he grabbed Ellie and swung her up off the ground, enclosing her in his arms and whirling about, just before a great shove knocked them forward.

  “EllieEllieEllie!”

  The excited voice echoing in her mind immediately alerted her to the source of the great shove.

  The object of her concern had arrived. And only Caden’s inserting himself between her and the great dog had kept her from being the main recipient of all that happiness and affection.

  The four-legged beast was fine, but the look on the face of the two-legged beast told another story altogether.

  An apology might be in order.

  Quickly.

  If Caden hadn’t given his word to his mother, he would be on the far side of the MacKiernan lands by now. Alone.

  Instead here he was, plodding along on horseback at the side of a daft Fae and a slobbering murderous beast.

  “I don’t understand. None of this is right,” Ellie murmured for perhaps the hundredth time. As she had each time before, she brought her horse to a stop, scanning the countryside around her.

  When his mother had come to him asking that he escort their unusual guest down to see the village, he could think of nothing but how the woman had felt in his arms last night.

  No! his self-protective mind had roared. Keep yer distance from the lass. But his internal warning had been swept away by the traitorously meek “As you wish,” he had uttered out loud.

  He’d no more than begun to speak to her when he’d proven he should have listened to that inner voice, babbling about himself as if trying to impress her. It had taken all his will to simply stop his flow of words.

  Since that initial embarrassment, he’d kept himself in check. Watching. Waiting to see what she would do. It didn’t take long for him to reassess his plans.

  Ellie’s openmouthed reaction as they’d ridden out the gates of Dun Ard had given him cause to reconsider their destination before they’d hardly begun.

  Instead of the village, he’d turned them toward Sithean Fardach. Though his family home had fallen into disrepair over the years, that in itself would ensure the place deserted, and he wouldn’t have to deal with explaining this woman and her strange behavior to anyone.

  He glanced back at her now, still motionless in the center of the trail, the great deerhound on guard at her side.

  At this rate it would take all day for their short trip.

  Still, he held his tongue.

  When he’d seen her waiting on the steps this morning, she’d fair taken his breath away. Oh, there’d been no mistaking her womanly form when he’d gotten a good look at her last night. Or when he’d held her in his arms. But today, dressed as a proper lady, she was extraordinary. Her long dark curls, pulled back and tied low at her neck, only served to emphasize the green of her eyes.

  She’d been flustered and then angry, each emotion racing across her face in quick succession, coloring her cheeks and lighting her eyes. Clearly she had no gift for artifice, no ability to conceal her feelings, for which he was grateful. That would be a rare find in a woman if it were genuine.

  And now?

  Now she looked bewildered. Frightened. Vulnerable.

  She could be pretending. Trying to lure him in for some purpose all her own. Certainly his past experience with women had taught him to be wary of their plotting ways. Yet this Ellie didn’t seem to be acting for his benefit. In fact, for most of the ride she’d hardly seemed aware of him at all.

  It was for that reason more than any other he held his irritation in check and quietly asked the same question he’d been asking for the last couple of hours. “Do you want to go back now or do we continue on?”

  She shook her head as if waking from a dream and lightly tapped her heels to her mount’s sides, signaling him to forward movement.

  “Let’s go on, please,” she responded quietly, as she had each time he’d asked the question.

  He stole a quick glance her direction as she pulled even with him, catching her chewing on her bottom lip as she studied her surroundings. Not that he could blame her for her confusion. His mother had told him last night this woman had been sent by the Fae.

  From the future.

  Caden didn’t for a minute doubt what Rosalyn claimed. He was all too familiar with his family’s heritage, his own mother’s gifts. And though it had been nine years, he remembered clearly watching the Fae magic take his cousin Mairi and her betrothed back to their own time.

  The magic of the Fae was very real to Caden, as was his understanding that the Fae did nothing without motive. And certainly nothing without a price. The last time the Fae had touched their lives, the price had been dear, changing his whole world. He’d nearly lost his youngest brother and his sister in the incident. He had lost the woman he’d thought would be his wife and, along with her, the future he’d envisioned for himself.

  If this woman had been sent here by the Fae, there was, as his mother had said, a reason for it. A reason he intended to discover before his family again had to pay such a price.

  Onward they continued, riding side by side until at last they reached the top of the hill and entered the open gates of Sithean Fardach.

  A wave of sadness washed over Caden as it always did when he entered the deserted, decaying courtyard. The smaller sheds where he had played as a child had fallen into disrepair, some of them no more than mounds of rubble.

  “What is this place?”

  Ellie’s question drew him from his melancholy thoughts.

  “Sithean Fardach. I was born here.” Had his father lived, this, not Dun Ard, would have been his home. “Though this is the MacKiernan ancestral home, the last laird built Dun Ard and moved the family seat there. My mother is a MacKiernan by birth. When she married, she stayed here with her husband and raised her family until my father’s death when we were but children. After that, the current laird of the MacKiernan, my cousin Blane, insisted we join him at Dun Ard so that he could see to our welfare and safety. That’s been our home ever since.”

  Ellie slid down off her horse and approached the great stairs, pausing to run her hand over the wood of the railing before turning back to him.

  “It’s real, isn’t it?” she asked in a shaky voice. “I don’t know how, but all of this is real.”

  Caden dismounted and moved forward, keeping his focus on the woman in front of him. She sank to the stairs, sitting down like someone who’d had the air knocked from her.

  Instinctively he reached out for her, his hand lighting on her shoulder before he’d even had time to consider the movement.

  “I’m sorry. I ken this must be difficult for you.”

  “Difficult?” She lifted her head, her eyes the damp sparkling green of fields in summer. “You can’t imagine. It’s sheer madness. I don’t have a clue as to where I am or how I got here. And I’m left with no alternative but to accept the idiotic ramblings
of some insane woman.”

  Caden tried unsuccessfully to stop the smile her rant inspired, knowing she didn’t find any of this amusing.

  “I can only assume the insane woman you speak of is the lady Rosalyn, and that being the case, those idiotic ramblings must be what she’s told you of the Fae.”

  A look of exasperation crossed Ellie’s lovely face. “Exactly. The lady Rosalyn. She has this bizarre theory that I’m descended from Faeries, for God’s sake. She apparently thinks that she is, too.” Ellie shook her head incredulously, looking down at her feet. “That woman is a full-on nutcase.”

  “That woman is my mother.” Caden paused, enjoying the effect his words had.

  Ellie met his eyes slowly, the red of her embarrassment creeping up to color her face. “Your mother?”

  “Aye. My mother. And if she says yer a Daughter of the Fae, then without a doubt, you are.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ellie rose to her feet, ducking her shoulder to slip out from under his hand as she turned. “I didn’t mean to be insulting about your mama.” With that quick apology, she lifted her skirts and ran up the stairs.

  “No insult taken,” he called after her. Now that was more the behavior he expected from a woman. Run away rather than face up to what she’d said or done.

  Ellie had made her way to the top landing before he thought of his last visit to the keep. “Mind yer step up there, lass. The wood in this staircase has weathered over many a generation of my family. It’s no so sturdy these days. Best you come back down where it’s safe.”

  He started up after her, scanning the steps for which ones carried the splintered cracks he had noticed the last time he’d been here.

  She pushed open the great door but didn’t enter. Instead she backed up to lean against the rail of the landing, tilting her head as if listening to something. Suddenly she whirled and yelled, “Don’t come any closer!”

  It wasn’t her words that held him in place so much as the look of sheer panic on her face as the railing under her hands gave way.