Cameron MacLeod leaned against the stone wall of the corridor outside Maria’s door for a moment. He had never seen a woman so beautiful before. He was enraptured by her, just the sheer mystery intrigued him.
The accent she spoke in was foreign to him, and he liked it. Every word she said has his blood racing through his body. She used words he had never heard before and came with objects he had never seen. Was she witch? If she were, it intrigued him. While others were afraid of witches, he had always fancied making love to one. Being the Laird of Dunscaith, he had always gotten what he wanted, all the maids and ladies who wanted to warm his bed. But a witch? Well that would be something new.
He grinned and walked off to attend to his duties for the day, and there were plenty to be had.
Chapter 5
The sunlight was pouring into the room from the small window. The ocean breeze was stronger than it had been moments before, and the air smelled strongly of seaweed and fish. Maria now stood in that window using this salty to breeze to cool her heated skin. She closed her eyes and allowed the sun’s rays to hit her face and wash away the inappropriate thoughts that she had been thinking about the man that had just been in her room.
She didn’t know what to think of the stranger, whether he was telling the truth or not, but she did know that he turned her on. His mere presence made the entire room smell like his masculine scent. His tall and broad physique was unlike any man she had ever seen, and it brought a stirring out in her.
“Get a hold of yourself,” she whispered. She opened her eyes and looked at the gathering clouds. Just a few moments before the sky had been a clear blue, but now large towering clouds were starting to come in on the wind, creating a beautiful mix of blue and gray in the sky – just like the color of the man’s eyes, she thought.
“Cameron MacLeod, such a strange name,” she whispered. Then she let out a frustrating groan. Why was she still thinking of that man? She should be trying to get out of the place!
The smell from the food on the tray made Maria’s stomach growl. She hadn’t had anything since the light picnic before they started the ghost hunt at sunset. Since she was stuck in the room, she might as well eat.
She turned from the window and walked to the table and was impressed by the historical accuracy even in the food they brought up. There was no plastic ware, no paper plates, or paper towels. Instead there was a ceramic bowl with some sort of hearty stew in it with meat and vegetables that was steaming off a delicious scent. A tin mug looked to be filled with some sort of ale. She picked it up and smelled it.
“That is very strong,” she winced.
There was a ceramic jug with a ceramic tumbler type of cup on top of it. She hoped it was water. Maria picked up the cup and set it down and then poured the jug, it was water, thankfully.
She drank it. “Wow. That is very crisp and clean. How did they get such good tasting water with these old pipes?” she said.
Maria pulled the chair out and sat down to eat. She dipped a piece of bread into the stew to taste it. “Oh my God. That’s good.” Picking up the wooden spoon, she shoved a spoonful into her mouth.
“Mmm. Wow, that is good. That’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever had.” Then she ate more and more, until she was scraping the bowl clean. She took a drink of the strong ale and winced as she swallowed. It was very strong, but after the first drink she continued to drink more. A nice buzz would be good to deal with having to sit there for hours. She didn't know when this would all be over so she might as well enjoy it.
She stood up from the table and paced back and forth in the room, to digest and to think.
“Come on, Maria. You're a detective, you can figure this out. There is no way that you actually traveled back in time. That’s what they want you to think. They are probably recording you right now as you talk to yourself like a fool,” she said.
Maria picked up her cell phone and held it up in the air, trying to get a signal to appear. “This is so strange. There are no bars at all moving up and down as though trying to find a signal. There’s just nothing at all.”
Then she leaned out the window slightly, holding the phone out careful not to drop it. Still no signal. She typed out a text message to the tour guide and pressed send. It bounced back not delivered. “Crap.”
“Okay you're not going to work. I get it. I might as well turn you off now to save the battery because I might need you later,” Maria said as she turned off the phone and pushed it into her pocket.
Then she picked up the dress from the bed. She looked at it closely, thinking that it was pretty. But she wasn't going to use it for anything other than warmth if needed. The stitching was done with a very thick thread, that she thought was very odd. On the back there was no zipper, just laces all the way up the back. She held it up against her body and it went all the way to the floor and seemed to be quite a low cut neckline.
“No wonder he wants me to put this on. No thank you, sir, even if you are the hottest man I have ever seen.”
She threw the dress back on the bed and sat down. Then she paced back and forth again. Completely restless.
“Maria, you can figure this out.” She frowned and looked around the room. “What I need are clues, something that I missed. I just need to retrace my steps.”
In that moment a light bulb went off in her head. “The camera footage. Of course!”
Maria picked up the camera and began to rewind through the footage. Then she played it starting with talking to her friends trying to persuade them to go down the stairs with her. She watched the footage intently.
“There it is. There is the door with the iron bar,” she said. Then she watched as she pulled the bar off. “Wait? What was that?”
She rewound the footage again to the bar on the door. Because she had night vision on the GoPro camera, she could see a puff of energy seem to come off the bar when she removed it. She replayed it again and then a second time. She had not seen it with her own naked eyes, but the camera had caught it.
“What is that? That is unbelievable,” she said.
Then she allowed it to continue to play. She watched the footage of her pushing open the door. Maria looked at the footage while she was crawling through the door opening. She saw something very strange. The air seemed to move when she walked through the door, as though she was walking through very clear water.
“What? What the hell?” Once again she rewound the footage and played it again to watch that same scenario. The air moved again, and fear gripped her heart.
Deep down, Maria knew that the rippling water effect was something magical, but she wasn't ready to admit it to herself just yet. All sorts of logical detective reasons were coming to her mind. Maybe the night vision had just caught a change in temperature? Or maybe it was because the torch light inside that room made the lens zoom in and out. Her mind reached for as many logical reasons as possible, anything but time travel.
She watched the footage as the night vision was turned off and the torch light in the room provided the details. Maria watched as it captured the video of her walking down the hall, finding the stairs, and ending up in the dungeon. She watched herself talk to the guard where she finally turned the camera off, because she thought that she had been saved.
“This can't be right. This can't be right,” Maria said to herself rewinding the footage all the way to talking to her friends again. It gave her a sense of calm to hear their voices.
She watched the footage all the way through again and saw the exact same thing once more. The puff of energy from the iron bar, and then the water like ripple as she crawled through the door.
“It's not a dream. It's all real. I can't believe this. I freaking traveled through time? No. I have to get out of this. This can't be happening to me. I want to be back in my life. I’ve worked so hard to get the life that I have in New York. I can’t get stuck here. This is not happening to me, it just isn't,” she said as tears began to flow down her cheeks.
Maria
ran to the door and pulled it open. For a moment she was surprised that it wasn’t locked but didn't stay to figure out why. Apparently the attractive Scottish man either forgot or trusted her. But she didn't care about that in the moment. There was nothing she wanted more than to go back through that door and back to her own time.
She retraced her steps, remembering exactly how the guard had carried her down the hall twisting and turning through the corridors until she found the stairs down to the dungeon. She stopped and quietly tiptoed through, until she found the other staircase. Then she was running again all the way down until she reached the bottom of the steps and then ran down the corridor back to the room. Maria was relieved to see the doorway. “Oh thank God.”
It was closed. She pulled on it, remembering that she had trouble trying to open it before. Then she pushed and kicked on it, trying to push it the other way. It wouldn't budge. She wondered if the iron bar was back on the other side. So she braced her feet against the stone, and then pulled on the door toward her.
“Please! Open! You have to open! I need to get out of here!” she shouted. “I need to get back to the future! Help! Can you hear me! Jennifer! Anyone! I’m here! It’s Maria! Help me!”
“What are ye doing down here?” a deep voice said.
Maria turned to see the same guard that had found her before.
“Please, just help me. You’re strong. Just pull open this door and I will show you that it leads to the future. I am from the future. I need to get back!” she cried.
“The future? That door leads to the catacombs and it is sealed shut.”
“Yes. The catacombs that is the way that I came. Just open it. Please, you will see. I need to get back to my own time. In the future.”
“I told the Laird ye were not safe in this castle. Ye should be outcast, but he insisted on keeping ye here. Ye are dangerous.”
“I am not dangerous. I just want to go home to the future. Why can’t you see that?”
Chapter 6
Too much had happened to Maria in a short time. She could not believe that she was in a different time period, but that was the only thing that made sense. Why else would this continue to be going on? If it was some sort of re-enactment joke it would not have gone on for this long. She could see no sign of the bus or any of the people she came with outside the window from the room. Now, after running back down to the catacombs and trying again to open the door, she had given up on trying to go through that path. She needed to find out what was going on in another way. If she could just walk the castle grounds, then she could be sure.
The guard had dragged her back to her room. She was feeling so exhausted by the ordeal that this time she did not fight it. Having to understand that she traveled back in time would need a little getting used to and she thought that she might as well do it in the privacy of a room.
“Now stay here, witch. I do not know how ye got out of this locked room, but it is obviously yer powers of witchcraft. The Laird must be warned of this,” the guard said in a menacing tone that brought a chill down her spine.
He slammed the heavy wooden door. The sound echoed throughout the room and was followed by the sound of a key turning in the latch. Heavy hammering footsteps let her know the guard had walked away.
Maria looked around the room through watery eyes, as though truly looking at it for the first time. “I am in the past, aren’t I?” she whispered.
Sounds of activity flowed through the window. She walked to it and looked out. The thatched roof huts were overflowing with workers coming in and out. Servants carrying buckets, bushels of vegetables, and dirty laundry walked back and forth across the courtyard.
At the end of the courtyard stood a gate with heavy wooden doors. Because of the high walls she couldn’t see immediately beyond it. So her vision was limited to the courtyard and the sky.
“The sky!” she said suddenly realizing that the sky would be modern. “If I’m not in the past then I should see an airplane somewhere, at some point.”
Maria dragged the chair from the table and sat it at the window. Her eyes scanned the sky for anything modern. Planes, drones, even a group of balloons would suffice. Then she would truly know that this was all just an elaborate mistake.
Now that she had a task, she felt calmer. It was her detective way of thinking and it gave her mind something to focus on, instead of panic. With the back of her sleeve she wiped the tears from her face and composed herself.
The thick accents of people talking below drifted up to her. While she watched the sky, she tried to listen in closer. Words started to become sharper. There was no mention of anything modern. People were not discussing the latest television shows, social media, or political strife. She overheard conversations about plowing a drenched swampy field. Another group talked about harvesting wool from the sheep in time for them to grow another coat for the animals to keep warm in the winter. But not one conversation contained modern words like phone, car, store and so forth. This only added to her panic.
“What is that…?” she said quietly as two robust voices caught her attention. But it wasn’t coming from down below. The voices were coming down the corridor outside her room. She ran to the door with the ceramic tumbler cup and pressed her ear against it on the door to amplify the sound.
“Bran, you are my Tanist and cousin and for that I value your input on matters, but not on this occasion. She is a wee bit of a lass, and not harmful at all. She has just lost her way and I will decide if the Leslie Clan has sent her.”
Maria recognized the voice as Cameron’s. She thought it was strange that he was defending her after he himself called her a spy.
“If not the Leslie Clan then the MacDonald’s have sent her! I am telling ye, cousin, that something is not right about this. How does a wee lass get all the way into the bowels of the castle into the dungeon without getting noticed? She had helped. There are spies among us,” the other man that Cameron called Bran, said.
Maria did notice the think accent that this man named Bran, also had. She knew it was another clue toward her being in the past. The modern Scots did have an accent of course, but this accent was so much thicker and different.
“I do not know how, Bran, but I plan to find out. That is why I need her here to question. If I send her away as you wish, then I will not have my answers to those questions. Perhaps she is from the future and the myths of the Scathach are true. If that is true than I want to help her,” Cameron said.
“Ye have lost your wits, cousin. If she is indeed a witch, then no good will come of it.”
“Bran, I am the Laird of the land of Dunscaith. I will make the decisions and you will obey them. Now off with you while I deal with this, I have no more time for you.”
Maria was startled by this last statement and quickly scurried across the room and sat down on the bed with tumbler in hand. She could hear footsteps in the corridor as Bran walked away and Cameron came to the door.
In her mind, Maria filed through what had been said by the two men. Cameron was the Laird. That meant that he was in charge… he was practically the king of this land. Her brown eyes grew wide as she thought about this. She had been speaking with the Laird of the castle and didn’t know it. That was why he gave her such odd looks! That was why he demanded answers from her in the most dominant way!
Maria felt like a fool, especially because he was quite attractive.
But why would someone of such importance come to her and not his advisors or Generals?
Was she in danger? She heard the man call her a witch and that wasn’t a good thing. If it were true and she was in fact in another time, then she could be in a lot of danger. Witches were considered new age where she was from, but in this time, they were either burned at the stake or lynched.
The key rattled in the latch, and she grew very nervous. The king… or Laird was about to walk in. She hoped that he was telling the truth and didn’t think of her as a witch. But more importantly, she braced herself for seeing the a
ttractive man again that she now knew was the Laird. I wish I had a toothbrush and toothpaste, she thought.
Chapter 7
Cameron stood in the corridor outside the door of the woman who he had locked in the tower of his castle. He didn't think of her as his prisoner, but she wasn’t free to roam the castle. So she was in fact his captured woman.
He wondered who the lass was and what she was hiding. But more importantly he wanted to know how he would get it all out of her. He placed the key in the lock, ready to see what the woman had to say.
Maria braced herself as she sat on the bed, waiting for the man to walk in. The door opened. The gorgeous tall man with the broad physique entered. He seemed to fill the room completely. Now that Maria knew he was the Laird, she looked at him with completely new eyes. There was a sense of dominance and majesty to him. As though she could see the ruler that he was just by looking at him.
His thick muscular forearms, let her know that he had wielded his sword since a very young age. The scar on his left arm let her know that he had seen battle. Yet his blue-gray eyes held a sense of sadness in them, and she wondered just what kind of pressure he was under being someone that ruled a land yet was in constant fear of being assassinated by those who wanted to take the castle from him. His blond hair, which moved down to his jawline, swayed with each step. Maria suddenly found her mouth very dry.
Cameron looked at the woman who had become very intriguing to him. He could not figure her out, but something deep inside of him told him that she was not an assassin. But thinking in that way could be dangerous for him. His cousin Bran was not wrong about him. Cameron had a history of being a bit impulsive and too romantic for his own good. These same traits, which endeared him to his people after having to deal with his cold, unintelligent, sneaky uncle for twelve years, unfortunately made him easy for women to manipulate if he fell for them hard enough. His friends were aware of this and tried to keep him out of trouble. This woman with her beautiful dark hair, pale skin and brown eyes had the ability to do this to him and he knew it on the first look. But it wasn’t just her beauty that made him gravitate toward her, it was also her mystery. Who was she? Where did she come from? Why was she dressed in a way he had never seen before?
Love A Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (A Highlander Across Time Book 1) Page 4