by Bess McBride
I drank the cup at all once and lay back.
“Thank you. Is that a cloth that I can wipe my face with?”
“Aye,” he said, dipping the cloth into the bowl of water. He handed me the cloth, but when I reached for it, a spasm took my breath away, and I stilled, waiting for the pain to pass.
“Here, lass,” Torq said. He passed the cloth over my forehead and cheeks. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so nurtured...well, perhaps at the hair salon. The sensation of having my face washed was hypnotic. For a big man, Torq’s touch was gentle.
The wet feeling though reminded me of a particular need. I searched the room for some kind of pot.
“Who uses this room?” I said.
“I sleep here now. Since—” He paused, and his Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed hard. “I sleep here now.”
“Oh! Goodness! But where are you sleeping now? If I have your bed?”
“I do well enough on the floor, mistress. Dinna fash yerself.”
“Well, I do fash, but I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now. Isn’t there anywhere else you can sleep while I’m here?”
“It isna a problem.” He took my hands in his and wiped them with the wet cloth.
The sensual sensation made my needs even more urgent.
“Torq, is there a...a pot?”
Chapter Four
“Do ye need to relieve yerself, lass?”
“I do.”
“Aye, there is a pot under the bed, but I dinna ken how ye are to use it wi’out moving.”
“Me either, but use it I must.”
I tried to roll over on my side, but pain did not permit. Torq reached out to block me.
“Dinna move, lass. Lady Morrison disna think ye should move. Let me think on this matter.” He scanned the room.
“I’d have to get out of my jeans,” I mumbled. “It’s not like your kilt.”
His eyes crinkled, lightening his face. “Nay, I dinna ken so. I think I must fetch her ladyship and Mistress Glick. I canna help ye and preserve yer dignity.”
“Yes, I think that’s best. There’s not enough whisky for me to deal with you helping me go to the bathroom.”
Torq’s face bronzed, and he shook his head and rose.
“I will send the womenfolk to help ye.”
Torq left, and I did my best to distract myself over the next ten minutes or so until Ann, Mrs. Glick and Torq returned. He didn’t enter though, but shut the door behind the women.
“I’m not sure, but I think Torq was hinting that you have to use the bathroom,” Ann said.
“I do. I have to pee, but I’m not sure how. I need help getting up, and I didn’t want Torq there. He says there’s a chamber pot under the bed.”
“Yes,” Ann said with a half smile. “Plumbing just isn’t going to happen in my lifetime. I wished I’d studied engineering.” She threw Mistress Glick a glance. That worthy lady seemed inclined to ignore any words she didn’t understand.
“How is yer pain, lass?” she asked.
“Painful,” I said. “I’m not quite sure how to do this.”
Mrs. Glick clucked. “We shall have to help the lass stand and squat over the pot.”
“I don’t think she should stand, Mrs. Glick, not until we have a better sense of what is happening with her back.”
“Well, I suppose we could swaddle her and change the cloth as we do wi the bairns.”
“Oh, no! I’m not wearing diapers. Nope! No. I’ll get up.”
I tried to push myself up on my elbows again, but a shriek came out of nowhere.
“Sorry!” I gasped.
The door flew open, and Torq burst in.
“What is amiss? What are ye doing to the lass?”
Ann and Mistress Glick turned to the door.
“Gie away wi ye, Torq Morrison. We are doing naethin to her. She tried to rise and injured herself. Close the door behind ye, and no matter how much ye hear her scream, dinna open that door!”
Over Mistress Glick’s incensed head, I shot Torq a look of gratitude. He eyed me and gave me a quick nod before backing out of the room and closing the door behind him.
“What has possessed that lad?” Mistress Glick said. “The lass is no his property.”
“Well, he is taking care of her for the most part, and I’m not sure she’s all that unhappy about it. Are you, Cyn?” Ann’s lips curved as she looked down at me.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I said with a half smile. I didn’t want to say so in front of Mistress Glick, but I was sure Ann recognized the instant crush a twenty-first century woman might get on a rugged sixteenth-century Highlander.
“Okay, so what’s the plan?” I looked toward the door. “Are you sure he’s not going to bust in again if I screech? I’ll try not to, but...I can’t promise anything.”
“No, he won’t,” Ann said. “I think we should get you out of the jeans, the trews, and just leave you out of them so we don’t have to deal with putting them back on you. Then I think I’m going to lift your hips while Mrs. Glick slides the pot under you. It’s gonna hurt no matter what we do, and I know you don’t want to wear the diapers. But it’s up to you. Drag you to your feet and hold you up or lift your hips.”
“I await yer decision, lasses,” Mistress Glick said, turning to pour out a cup of whisky. “Drink this. No matter what we do, Ann is right—it is going to hurt.”
“It’s up to you, Cyn,” Ann said.
“Auch, such a name.” Mistress Glick clucked again.
I almost grinned. I tried lifting my right hip, but pain shot up my back.
“I don’t think either one of you is strong enough to lift me, either my hips or my whole body, but let’s try the hips thing first.”
Mrs. Glick bent down and produced the pot, a plain porcelain bowl with alarmingly deep sides.
“I have to lift my hips that high?” I squeaked.
“I’ll do the work,” Ann said. “But first we have to get your jeans off.” She unzipped them and slid the jeans and my panties off my hips and over my ankles with a minimum of moaning from me. Folding them, she set them on a chair and turned back to me
“Okay, don’t use your muscles. I’ll try to be careful. When I get her lifted, Mrs. Glick, slide the bowl beneath her hips.”
Ann slid her arms under the small of my back and my buttocks, then lifted. I couldn’t resist helping her, despite the dizzying pain. Upended, I felt a cold, hard object under me.
“Okay, hurry up!” Ann said.
Humiliatingly, I relieved myself.
“Good lass,” Mistress Glick said. “Lift her now a bit more, Ann, and I will retrieve the pot.” The older woman pulled the chamber pot, and Ann lowered me gently to the bed. Mistress Glick slid the pot underneath the bed.
The pain in my bladder had eased, but my back spasmed.
“Do you want me to put your underwear back on?” Ann asked, reaching for the blanket to cover my naked body.
I couldn’t face moving my hips again.
“No, I’ll be fine for a while,” I said.
“Okay. I think Mrs. Glick was going to have Andrew bring you some of her famous oatcakes. I’m going to go back and check on the children. Torq will be with you. You can have him stay outside if you want.”
“No, that’s fine if he comes in,” I said.
Ann nodded, and she and Mrs. Glick opened the door. Torq leaned against the wall, as if he had been listening. From the thickness of the stone and oak door, I doubted if he could have heard much anyway, short of my screams.
He entered the room and moved to sit on the chair beside the bed. He picked up my jeans and underwear, studied them for a moment and set them down on the floor. The jeans weren’t a problem, but my panties? My face flamed. Torq said nothing, and I wondered if he even realized what they were.
“Are ye in pain, lass?”
“A bit,” I said, vowing to stop dramatizing the pain. It hurt like the dickens but the scars across Torq’s hands an
d his forehead suggested he was familiar with pain. I couldn’t imagine him fussing so vocally. I appreciated his obvious sympathy.
“Do ye wish to drink some whisky for the pain?”
“No, I’d rather be alert. I hear I’m going to get some oatcakes!”
“Aye, Mistress Glick was baking some when I fetched her. She makes a braw oatcake.”
He fell silent, blinked and settled back in the wooden chair, crossing his arms to stare across the room.
“If you have something you need to do, Torq, you can go do it, or if you have a job you have to get back to, or...”
“I am doing what is needed, mistress.”
“Cyn,” I corrected.
“Auch, lass, I canna call ye such. Yer given name is Cyn-tya, nay? I could call ye Mistress Cyn-tya if ye give permission.”
His thick accent gave my name a charming new sound. I didn’t mind.
“Okay, how about just Cynthia then?”
“Cyn-tya,” he said with a nod of agreement.
I wanted to know more about him, to ask him about the woman he had loved, but I didn’t dare.
“Well,” I murmured. “Here we are.”
“Aye?”
“I’m just mumbling. Tell me about life here at Dun Eistean.”
“What do ye wish to know?”
“I don’t know. What do you do during the days? Do you farm, fish? Do you have family? How do you get paid?”
“I am in charge of the watch. The laird tells me what to do, and I do it. Generally that means seeing to the men to make sure that we have someone watching out over the island from the keep above. I dinna farm. There are others better suited to that than I. Occasionally I go out in the birlinns and fish, and we seek food elsewhere when we can safely leave the island to do so.”
“Safely do so? Where is the danger? Or who?”
“The Macleods and Macaulays. There is a great deal of bad blood between our clans.”
I nodded. I had read some of the clan’s history on the plane over to Scotland. The Morrison clan of Lewis, once the hereditary brieves—judges—of the Western Isles had fallen into disfavor with their fellow clan chieftains, the Macleods and the Macaulays. Resentful of the Morrison clan’s growing powers, things had grown only worse between the clans when one of the Morrisons stole the Macleod chieftain’s young wife away, happily for her, history said.
They had convinced the English king to order Letters of Fire and Sword, allowing them to attack the Morrisons and take their lands. Over the years, there had been further stealing of women and children, castles and lands, but I couldn’t remember all the details. One nagged at me though.
I had found an obscure reference to a Mary Morrison Macleod who had returned to her clan with her children after the death of her ne’er-do-well husband from the rival clan Macleod. The Macleod chieftain, her father-in-law, had kidnapped his Mary and his grandchildren and taken them back to a castle that he’d captured from the Morrisons. She had been rescued and returned to Dun Eistean. No further note had been taken of her.
I turned to look at Torq. Was it possible? Was that the Mary Torq had married? Had she died? What about her children?
I didn’t feel that I could ask those questions though.
“I know a bit about the bad blood,” I said, thinking of my broken relationship with my absentee father when he still lived. “There’s a castle, isn’t there? Ardmore?”
“Aye, Castle Ardmore, the heart of Clan Morrison of Lewis. It is in the hands of the Macleod at present, but we shall see it returned to us someday. We dinna have the men to take it back just yet though.”
“How will you get the men?”
Torq looked up at the window.
“I dinna ken,” he said in a low voice. “We have some laddies, but they are too young for battle. The Isle of Lewis is a wee bit of land, and most are subservient to Angus Macleod and Murdo Macaulay. I dinna ken how we are to find more men to help us take back our lands. And so here we remain for the time being.”
I heard the sadness in his voice as much as in his words.
“Do you have family here on the island, Torq?”
Despite my best intentions, I could not resist prying.
Torq shook his head. “Nay, all are dead.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry! In battle?”
“Nay, my maw and paw died of the grippe. One brother died of consumption, and my other brother died in a raid some years ago.”
“A raid?”
“Aye, when Angus stole Mary Macleod and his grandchildren.”
“I heard about that.”
“Ye did?” he turned to her. “Who told ye?”
“Someone,” I said. I followed Ann’s lead and avoided further discussion of time travel. Torq had already said he suspected I had traveled through time, but I didn’t want to emphasize the fact that some sort of supernatural power was at work. It was likely Torq didn’t want to face such a notion. I wasn’t sure that I did either.
He nodded. “Aye, it was no secret the Macleod wanted his dead son’s children. He still does. We must always watch out for them. He may yet come again for them, but no Mary.”
That was my opening. I wondered if I should take it. I had rapidly become obsessed with my tall redheaded keeper.
“Not Mary?” I repeated.
“Nay,” he said with a shake of his head. He jumped up, startling me, and crossed to the door to pull it open.
“Where is that laddie?” he asked, his voice gruff. “Ah! Here he comes now.”
The boy brought in a basket of food and set it down on the table.
“Andrew, help Mistress Dunnon eat. She canna sit up, canna stand. I have a task that needs doing.”
Andrew turned to him, startled. “Mistress Glick bade me hurry back to help wi chores.”
“Do as I say, lad. Stay here until I return!”
Torq didn’t look at me, and I felt suddenly bereft.
“I’m okay. I can feed myself.”
“The lad will see to ye, mistress, and that is final!” His voice, deeper now, held an angry note that I hadn’t heard before. He strode from the room without a backward glance, and I stared after him, crushed.
“Will ye have an oatcake, mistress?” Andrew asked tentatively.
All I really wanted was to be alone for a few minutes to deal with Torq’s curtness, but I smiled at Andrew. Like Torq, he had red hair, albeit a bit more lank and scraggly. Freckles dotted his pale face. Appearing to be about fifteen, he was tall and skinny.
“Thank you, Andrew.”
He handed me a warm cake that tasted of salt and oats. I nibbled at the edges, hoping I wasn’t going to choke on the food as it attempted to defy gravity and move down my esophagus horizontally.
“I have some broth that Mistress Glick made. Will ye have some?”
I looked at the thin boy, unwilling to have him lift and spoon feed me.
“I might have some later, Andrew. Could you leave it?”
“Aye, mistress. I will leave it on the table. Ye dinna wish me to leave, do ye, mistress? Torq said I was to stay. You heard him bark!”
“I did hear him, and I’m sorry about that. But yes, I think I’ll just sleep for now. Thank you for bringing the food to me.”
“Are ye certain, mistress?” Andrew asked, searching the room, as if for help. “I was told ye canna move. How will ye have yer soup?”
“Maybe Torq will come back later.”
“I dinna ken, mistress. He has many duties. He disna play the nursemaid verra often. Not since—”
“Since?”
“Auch, I spoke out of turn, mistress.”
“Did you mean his wife?”
Andrew nodded. His pale-blue eyes moistened.
“It was terrible to see him grieve over her illness. He stayed wi her day and night, never sleeping while she suffered. He ate little, his body turning to skin and bones as hers did. When she died, he came here to the keep and spoke to no one for weeks. He would take no food, not e
ven whisky to ease his suffering. He could no see the bairns, Archibald and Sarah, who had gone to live wi the laird and lady when Mary sickened. He did no see me, and I am his nephew!
“He saw to his duties, but no more than that. We nane of us thought Torq would ever recover from his grief, but as Mistress Glick says, time heals all wounds. He began to speak again, although never of Mistress Mary. Mistress Glick said he returned to his auld ways of speaking little, though he was never one for chatter. I paid no mind that Torq spoke little even afore Mary died, but I see that it was true. He has always kept to himself.”
As if Andrew realized he had let loose with a flood of information, he pressed his lips together, his freckles standing out against his red face.
“I said too much, mistress. Torq will be angry wi me if he hears I spoke out about his private matters.”
“I won’t tell him, Andrew. I promise.”
“Are ye certain I canna help ye eat?”
I swallowed hard against the dry oatcake and the rejection that Torq’s angry departure had elicited, but the anxious look on Andrew’s face made me relent.
“Okay, Andrew, if you could lift me just a little bit while I drink some of the broth. Then you can stay here as long as you need to.” I set my mostly uneaten oatcake down beside me.
“As long as ye need me, mistress,” he corrected.
Andrew and I had different ideas about that, and we would have to respectfully disagree on who needed whom. I suspected Andrew needed to appease Torq’s possible anger by ensuring that I ate.
Andrew smiled and awkwardly handed me the bowl while he tried to lift me. In waves of pain, I managed to drink a bit of it before begging him to lower me to the bed. He took the bowl from me and watched me wipe the sweat from my forehead.
“Did I hurt ye, mistress?”
“No, it’s not your fault.”
He nodded skeptically and set the bowl down on the table before taking up a position in the chair next to the bed. If nothing else, I had more visitors at my sixteenth-century bedside than I would have had in a hospital, so I guessed that was good news.
Andrew crossed his arms in an imitation of Torq and turned to stare at the window.
“So tell me about yourself, Andrew. Where are your parents? Family?”
“Passed away four years ago now from consumption.”