A Slip In Time (44 page)

God, but he hoped the Scotsman was
dead. He didn’t want to attempt taking the stone from Mackinnon’s
neck while he lived.

Roger could feel the heat from the hall
where he now stood in the alcove. Once more, he must time his
movements perfectly as he passed through the stone wall. Roger
coughed on the increasing smoke as he watched the wide portal,
gauging its intervals of materialization. As he did, he glimpsed
the fiery hall within.

The fire must have broken out a while ago
for the flames climbed high to the rafters now and fed on their
timber and that of the roofing overhead. Lucklessly, the roof was
of wood, not of slate, as many Scots castles were. He assumed
thatching covered it without, which meant he would need to be all
the quicker before it collapsed.

Scanning the room, Roger
spied a man laying lifeless on the floor. Mackinnon.
Euphoria
burst through his veins,
his plan to be so easily realized.

Making his move, Roger entered the
hall without mishap. As flaming chunks of wood rained down from
overhead, he quickened his pace and made his way to the Scotsman’s
still form.

Unencumbering himself of his uncle,
Roger positioned him beside Mackinnon. He needed only the stone now
to plant on his uncle and assure his success. When he was done, he
would take Julia’s ring far from Dunraven so the door between times
would remain closed forever.

Stepping around the bodies, he
squatted down and located the chain and talisman around the
Scotsman’s neck. Finding it, he began to draw it off.

»«

Rae stirred, aware of a form bending over
him, thieving his healing stone.

The chain rasped the skin at the back
of his neck as the thief pulled at it clumsily and began to drag it
over his head. Rae forced an eye open and to his astonishment,
glimpsed James Edwin, where he lay unmoving beside him. But, as the
talisman and chain pulled free of him, James Edwin
disappeared.

Dhia,
was he dead?

Rae rolled an eye to the figure that now
straightened before him, the talisman dangling from his hand. Roger
Dunnington.

But how was it he could still see
Dunnington, Rae wondered — here, in the hall, without the aid of
his talisman?

Looking again to Roger Dunnington,
Rae’s thoughts cleared. Dunnington’s very possession of the stone
drew him to the past and made him visible to Rae, in Rae’s own
time. And for the brief moment Rae had seen James Edwin, the stone
had still been touching Rae’s person, allowing him to see into the
future, the moon still on its wane.

It could only happen, though, if Time
was in a state of flux. As it must be. Before losing contact with
his stone, Rae had caught sight of the hall, changing about them
dramatically, from a fiery inferno to the forsaken garden of
Julia’s day.

Rae looked again to Dunnington, who
now folded his hand around the talisman. At the gesture, a stone on
Dunnington’s small finger caught the light. With a start, Rae saw,
‘twas Julia’s ring.

Had Dunnington killed James Edwin and done
harm to Julia as well to gain the ring? Rae tasted an unholy fury
for a second time this day.

Fighting through the fog in his head,
he started to rise upward. At once, he felt something hard beneath
him, digging into his hip. Ignoring the source of his pain, he
climbed unsteadily to his feet and bellowed Dunnington’s
name.

Even in the hall’s fiery red glow,
Dunnington paled to white. Rae sprang for him, stumbling as he did
and catching Dunnington low about the thighs and knees, dragging
him down.

Frantically, Dunnington twisted and won
free. Scrambling back, he hard-booted Rae in the face.

Rae pitched back and for a moment could not
focus. Dunnington seized upon the opening to make his escape. Rae
rose to give chase, but just then a portion of the roof gave way
and a fiery timber fell from above, knocking Dunnington to the
floor and pinning him beneath.

Dunnington shrieked in agony as Rae
ran forward on unstable legs. Seizing upon a nearby bench, Rae
struck at the beam that trapped Dunnington and sent it rolling
across the floor.

Dunnington continued to scream, his
clothes ablaze. Swiftly, Rae cast about for a thick wool plaid.
Spying one pegged on the alcove wall, he rushed to snatch it down,
then returned and smothered the flames. The shrieking stopped and
Dunnington stilled. As Rae removed the charred fabric and looked on
the grisly sight, he saw ‘twas too late. Roger Dunnington was
dead.

Rae reached for his
talisman, still clutched in Dunnington’s hand. But as he did,
the
cailleach’s
words echoed in his ears. “Seek the stone’s protection.
‘Twill deliver ye from harm when naught else can.”

Aye, the stone. But ‘twas not his own
stone he need seek, but Julia’s.

Rae grimaced as he worked the ring
from Dunnington’s finger, one of the few portions of his body the
flames had not consumed. Slipping the ring onto his own finger,
the surroundings instantly began to flash around him, shifting
between past and present as they had the night of the Full
Moon.

Not far from where he stood, James
Edwin, too, reappeared. When Rae saw his chest heave for breath,
Rae himself vented an enormous sigh of relief. James Edwin
lived.

Rae hastened to his side. So, this was
the reason he needed to be here this night, he thought — to save
James Edwin. That, too, was part of his destiny.

As hot greedy flames dropped from the
roof overhead, and the heat intensified in the hall, Rae started to
lift James Edwin. But as he bent to do so, he spied Iain’s dirk
where it lay on the floor, and upon which he’d fallen earlier, the
handle biting into his hip. The distinctive grip, dotted with
silver tacks, and the distinguishing knurling pattern on the blade
attested to all ‘twas Iain’s.

Making a bold decision,
Rae seized his brother’s dirk and hurried with it to where
Dunnington lay dead. Plunging the blade into the body, he left this
message for Donald and his kinsmen, identifying Iain as his
would-be murderer. Justice
was doubly served this day,
for Roger Dunnington — having attempted to murder his uncle, and
having assaulted Julia by the burn — now lay dead as a result of
his own treachery.

Going to James Edwin once more and
finding him rousing, Rae helped him to his feet. Together, they
started toward the hall’s entrance to the outside, but as they
neared it, a section of the roof gave way, collapsing in front of
them and blocking their escape.

Rae drew James Edwin back, then,
heeling around, headed for the back of the hall and the stairwell
there. The fire forced them into the tower, but Rae took heart,
knowing the keep would survive the night. Now they must,
too.

With Julia’s ring upon his finger,
Time pulled him toward the future. Rae exercised added precaution
as he and James Edwin crossed the portal of the alcove and headed
up the stairs. Reaching his chamber, again they proceeded with care
as they stepped through the door and into his
bedchamber.

“Rae, you must rid
yourself of your talisman,” James Edwin urged,
then
coughed the
smoke from his
lungs.

“I dinna hae it.” Rae thought of the
stone clutched in Dunnington’ s charred fingers, anchoring him to
the past. “‘Tis lost back in time.”

Just then the door burst open and Julia
rushed in, followed by Angus and Tom.

Rae smiled and caught her
to him.
“Mo cáran,
I feared something happened tae ye. Dunnington had yer
ring.”

Her eyes rounded at that. “Roger? But
Lilith was the one who attacked me. She took the ring.”

“But how? Why?” James Edwin did not
comprehend the whole of it either.

“Yer nephew hired himself
some low sorts from the village, yer lordship.” Angus came forward
to explain. “‘Tis a bit of a long story,
but Tom
here
alerted me to their mischief when
they tried to carry off Miss Hargrove.”

“Roger must have drugged the other men
and me. Did he so detest me?”

“Nay, he so loved your wealth and
titles,” Angus said, shaking his head, though his voice was
solacing.

Rae suddenly felt the air press in. He
faltered a moment, under a wave of dizziness. “Julia, I
—”

She clung to him. “No! Time can’t take
you. The stone, Rae, you must touch it directly.”

Turning the ring around, he closed his palm
tight over it.

Julia and
Rae
held each other fast,
their lips meeting
in a final, impassioned kiss. Tears spilled down Julia’s face, and
Rae braced himself for her to vanish from his arms, and for him to
catapult back almost five hundred years to Dunraven’s
fire.

The weighted air dissolved around them
and Rae waited to feel the pull of time. But long after Time had
shifted, and the portal had closed, miraculously, Rae’s lips
continued to claim Julia’s.

The arched door evaporated along with the
iron-bound trunk, and the room filled with blues and creams and
pale moss greens. Most spectacular of all, the trappings of the
great Flemish bed ceased alternating in color, the scarlet melting
to a brilliant blue, giving hope and promise to all their
tomorrows.

Lord Muir closed the green leather
binder.

“And so, according to Niall, the Third
Laird of Dunraven died that fateful night, as did Iain and his
accomplices, during an attack on the Cameron stronghold. It appears
Ronald Cameron had anticipated the attack and had given his clan
warning, which is why they were more than prepared and took no
losses.”

“What became of Ronald Cameron?” Julia
asked, slipping forward on her chair as she swept her gaze from
Lord Muir to Rae and back. “Does anyone know?”

Lord Muir pulled thoughtfully on his
beard. “Ah yes, we found an oblique reference to Lochiel’s nephews,
living as outcasts in the Northwest Highlands. For reasons not
recorded, at about the time of Rae’s supposed ‘death,’ Lochiel
himself spurned his nephews, as did the clan. The three died a
couple of years later reiving Mackenzie cattle.”

Rae turned to Julia. “We hae scoured
the auld books and parchments tae see if anythin’ is changed in the
records, if we somehow altered history, after all, tha’ night. ‘Tis
largely the same, wi’ a few more explanations.”

Lord Muir took up the account. “Donald
averted a clan war, as Niall wrote before, but now there is an
addition. Though Niall doesn’t record Donald’s motives, he does
write that, after finding evidence that pointed to Rae’s murderer,
he decided to pursue a course of peace with the
Camerons.”

“He found Iain’s knife then,” Julia
stated the obvious.

“‘
Tis wha’ we are
thinkin’.” Rae encompassed Lord Muir with a nod, then sent her a
smile. “Donald went on tae rule as Dunraven’s Fourth Laird for many
years, he wrought great deeds and begat many bairns wi’ his Mairi.
It makes a
bràthair
proud.”

Rae looked away a moment, and Julia saw a
muscle flex in his jaw. There was something he was leaving left
unsaid.

“What is it, darling?”

He did not meet her eyes, but dropped his
gaze to the floor.

“Knowin’ Donald, our deaths — mine and
Iain’s — must hae been devastatin’ each in their own way. Niall’s
records still speak o’ the mystery tha’ persisted o’er the body
taken from the ashes, tha’ twas a man o’ smaller stature than m’
sel’. I only wish Donald could hae known I escaped and didna die.”
He reached over and caught her hands with his. “I wish he could hae
known I am a happy, married mon now, and soon tae be a
father.”

Julia warmed at his look
and smiled, knowing Rae had been more than thrilled when she could
confirm her pregnancy.
They married
formally
, three weeks past, in a small but
lovely ceremony which Lord Muir had arranged and which the
gentlemen of the Society and the servants attended. Rae had
teasingly, though lovingly, commented that since Dunraven — their
wedding gift from Lord Muir — had grown to such proportions, they
would need to fill the castle with many more
bairns
in the years to
come.

Lord Muir cleared his throat.
“Actually, speaking of Donald, I came upon something just last
night, while I was going through an early Mackinnon Bible. The
binding came apart, and I found this note, tucked between the two
layers of leather.”

Lord Muir produced what appeared to be a
folded letter, its paper yellowed with age.

“I don’t believe it was there before.
I’ve examined the Bible many times. As you can see, it is written
in Gaelic, which is where my capabilities end. But look at the
signature, I believe it might be Donald’s.”

Silent, Rae accepted the paper and
opened its brittle parchment. His eyes traveled down the page then
he lifted his gaze to Lord Muir, then Julia.

“Aye, ‘tis Donald’s. ‘Twas written
after my death, but he addresses the latter tae me.”

He gave his attention again to the letter.
Julia saw him take a long swallow as he read, his eyes becoming
suddenly glossed with unshed tears. When he looked up, his lips
formed a smile.