Highlander in Her Dreams (14 page)

“No one,” she insisted, folding her arms.

The second man plunked down her breakfast tray on a table near the window embrasure. “Watch your tongue, lassie. The laird loses interest in wenches sooner than an autumn wind blows leaves from the trees.”

Kira sniffed. Not about to show any weakness, she put back her shoulders and strode over to the hearth, where she ruffed the dawg's head, taking courage from her firm belief that such an ancient creature, however fearsome-looking, was well past the days of biting.

Proving her right, the beast licked her hand.

Kira smiled, as did the red-faced youth still hovering on the threshold.

The two burly Highlanders frowned at her. “We'll be outside yon door,” the first one said, jerking his head in that direction. “You won't be winning o'er the rest o' us as easily as old Ferlie.”

As if on cue, the dog bared his teeth and growled at the man, his protectiveness earning a scowl. “The laird ought be returned by nightfall,” the second man announced, already moving toward the door. “See you dinna cause us any trouble, lest you wish to meet his dark side.”

And then the two men were gone, closing the door behind them and leaving her with a full-laden breakfast tray, a moony-eyed geriatric dog, and a pee-pot she couldn't wait to get her hands on.

Fortunately, once she knew where the thing was, it didn't prove difficult to find. Or use. Not that she could imagine ever growing overly fond of such quaintness. All things considered, there were worse annoyances in her own world.

Leaf blowers came to mind.

Or the persistent shrill of the telephone whenever she sat down to concentrate on one of her stories for
Destiny Magazine
. O-o-oh, yes, by comparison, a chamber pot was definitely the lesser evil.

Even the dawg, a creature that looked like a cross between an Irish wolfhound and a donkey, no longer seemed quite so daunting. She'd reserve judgment on his buddies down in the bailey.

“You're not quite a Jack Russell, but I like you,” she said, watching him watch her.

Still feeling someone else's eyes on her, she shivered as she washed her hands with cold water from a ewer and basin. She hadn't noticed such amenities earlier, but enough gray morning light was now seeping in through the windows for her to quickly spot what she'd missed. Not just the ewer and basin, but also a small earthen jar of lavender-scented soap and even a comb. A short, folded length of linen she assumed was a medieval drying cloth.

Whether it was or not, she made good use of it.

Just as she would do justice to her breakfast, even if she wasn't quite sure what everything was. Determining to find out, she sat at the table, pleased to recognize oatcakes and cheese, while a green-glazed pottery bowl appeared to be filled with mutton stew. Another dish of the same type held what she suspected might be spiced and pickled eels, a delicacy she doubted she'd try. A small crock of honey and a jug of heather-scented ale rounded out the offerings.

Not too shabby, and certainly more edible-looking than some of things her sister Lindsay tried to palm off on her at times, even though just looking at the eels made her feel like gagging.

Her new four-legged friend suffered no such aversion. His scraggly ears perking, and wearing the most hopeful look she'd ever seen on a dog's face, he pushed to his feet and crossed the room to circle the table, eyeing everything on her breakfast tray as a potential tidbit.

“Okay, Ferlie.” She handed him an oatcake. “You win this battle, but the war's not over.”

Pasting on a smile for his benefit, she helped herself to one as well, smearing her own with the soft cheese and honey. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts at trying to stay upbeat, waves of ill ease kept sluicing through her, and the odd prickling at the back of her neck increased tenfold just since she'd sat at the table.

Someone really was staring at her.

And she could no longer deny where the sensation was coming from. Not now, sitting so close to the source. Chills running up and down her spine, she stood, her gaze on the tall arched windows.

Whoever—or whatever—was staring at her was out there, beyond the opened shutters.

“Aieeeeeeeeeeeee!”
The piercing scream, a woman's, proved it.

Heart pounding, Kira ran into the window alcove, horror slamming into her when she leaned out the first arched opening to see a woman bobbing in the rough waters beneath Wrath Isle's deadly perpendicular cliffs.

“Dear God!” She clapped a hand to her throat, disbelief and shock stopping her breath.

The woman thrashed frantically and appeared to have a rope tied around her waist—a rope with dead seabirds dangling from its entire length!

Not trusting her eyes, she leaned farther out the window, but there was no mistake. Even through the scudding mists, she could see that the poor woman was encircled by dozens of seabirds-on-a-rope, their buoyant white bodies keeping her afloat as the swift current swept her out to sea.

“Eachann!”
the woman wailed, her voice full of despair. “I canna reach the rocks!”

“Get help! Anyone!
Please!
” a second voice cut through the morning, louder and deeper. A man's cry, his terror sounding even greater than the woman's.

“Hold, lass. I willna let you drown!” he yelled, and Kira saw him then, dashing back and forth along Wrath Isle's cliff-tops.

Waving his arms and staring her way, he clearly hoped someone at the castle would see or hear and send help. A boat and men to rescue the woman Kira knew instinctively was his wife.

No, she was the man's life.

His everything, and his anguish seared Kira to the bone.

Waving her own arms, she called to them. “Hang on! Help is on the way!” she shouted, even as she whirled and raced for the door.

She reached to yank it wide, but she needn't have bothered, for it flew open in her face. Her two guardsmen stood there, hands fisted on their hips and glaring at her.

“Have you lost your wits?” The bigger of the two stared at her as if she'd sprouted horns. “Making a din and ranting like a madwoman. The laird—”

“The laird will have your hide if you allow a poor woman to drown!” Kira gave him an adrenaline-powered shove and streaked down the corridor, shouting as she ran. “Help! Someone get a boat! There's a woman in the water!”

“Ho! Come back here, you!” The men bounded after her, their pounding footsteps spurring her on. Yanking up her skirts, she careened around a bend in the dimly lit passage, the flapping, oversized
cuarans
making her clumsy.

“Damn!” she swore when one of them went sailing off her foot. Snatching it, she raced on, but the guardsmen caught up with her, the bigger one grabbing her arm.

“Saints of mercy! That was ill done.” He glowered at her. “Think you we'd no' aid a drowning woman?”

“If she saw one.” The other man stood panting, fury all over him. “I dinna believe her.”

“Of course, I saw the woman,” Kira insisted, trying to jerk free. “She'll soon be dead if you don't stop arguing and go save her!”

The bigger man shot the other a glance. “I'll no' stand by and have a woman drown. I say we make haste to look for her.” Hefting Kira off her feet, he tossed her over his shoulder and hurried for the stair tower. “Someone in the hall can keep an eye on this one until we return.”

“She'll have slipped away by then,” the other scoffed, huffing after them. “No woman within these walls is fool enough to fall off the cliffs.”

“Bah!” the first man disagreed. “She could have slipped on the rocks down at the landing beach. Perhaps one of the laundresses or—”

“No.” Kira twisted in the man's arms. “She fell from the cliffs of Wrath Isle.”

The man carrying her stopped short. “That canna be,” he said, dropping her to her feet. “No one lives on Wrath Isle. 'Tis a scourged place.”

Kira lifted her chin. “I didn't see her fall from there, but I know she did. I saw her husband running along the cliff-top. She called him Eachann.”

The big man's eyes rounded. “
Eachann
, was it?”

Kira nodded.

The two men exchanged glances. “Would there have been anything else you noted about the woman?” the big one wanted to know. “Something…odd-looking?”

Kira swallowed. She didn't like the way they were watching her. “The woman had a rope tied to her,” she said anyway. “A rope with dead seabirds attached to it.”

“By the Rood!” The big man jumped back and crossed himself.

The other turned white as a ghost. “I told you there was something no' right about her!”

“No, please.” Kira looked from one to the other. “You must help the woman. She'll drown if you don't.”

“That's no' possible.” The big man shook his head. “Eachann MacQueen's wife already drowned. Her life-rope broke when he lowered her down the cliffs to gather seabirds. Happened nigh onto a hundred years ago. The bards still tell the tale.”

Kira's blood froze. She should've realized she was far-seeing the tragedy. But the woman's cries had sounded so real, and she'd tasted the man's terror, alive and coiling around her, squeezing the breath from her.

Somehow, having already gone so far back in the past, she hadn't expected to catch any glimpses of an even more distant time.

But apparently she'd guessed wrong, and although her two tormentors hadn't yet said the
w
-word, their opinion of her was plain to see.

“I am not a witch.” She put up her hands, palms outward. “Please don't be afraid. I can explain everything.”

The big man crossed himself again and took another step or two backward.

The other snorted. “Aye, and you will, but no' to the likes of us. 'Tis the laird who'll want to know how it is you saw something that happened before any of us were even born. Lest you're indeed a fairy or one of those other creatures we've been forbidden to call you.”

“I'm neither,” Kira protested, her eyes flying wide when the man yanked a dirk from beneath his belt and began prodding her down the corridor, away from Aidan's bedchamber.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, scooting along ahead of his jib-jabbing dirk all the same.

Bravado went only so far and hers stopped at a knife edge.

Apparently the two guardsmen's willingness to speak to her had also ceased. A glance over her shoulder showed them stony-faced and tight-lipped. Not that she needed any clues as to her destination. They were herding her into a narrow side corridor, a sloping, dank-smelling passage with a small, unpleasant-looking door at its end.

Kira's heart began to thunder and her mouth went dry.

She'd seen such passageways on her long-ago tour to Scotland and she knew exactly where they always led.

“O-o-oh, please!” Pride forgotten, she dug in her heels and braced her hands against the cold, slime-coated walls. A sharp prick of the dirk to her back got her moving again. “Please don't take me down there,” she pleaded. “I won't bother any of you, I promise. Just let me go back to your laird's room. Please. You won't even know I'm around.”

One of the men snorted.

The other opened the door and dragged her across its threshold. Mercifully darkness hid the things she knew she didn't want to see, but the
squish-squish
beneath her feet was bad enough. Especially since one of them was still bare. As for the scurrying sounds of what could only be rats, she'd just do her best to pretend she hadn't heard them. Or the
drip-drip
of what she was sure would be fouled and rancid water.

The smell was blinding.

She shuddered, thinking that now would be a very good time to be zapped out of medieval Scotland.

Instead, she found herself shoved into a pitch-black cell, the heavy-sounding door slamming shut behind her before she could even blink.

“Wait!” She spun around to pound on the door as one of the men slid home the drawbar. “Please listen to me!”

“Och, you'll be heard soon enough,” one of the men assured her. “As soon as the laird returns from warring.”

“Warring?”
The ground dipped beneath Kira's feet. Medieval warring could take ages. Heaven help her if he didn't return. “Where did he go? I thought you said he'd be back by evening.”

No answer came.

Panic gripping her, she strained to see through the small hole in the door, but it was impossible. The men were already gone, leaving her alone in Castle Wrath's dungeon.

So she did what Bedwells were famous for when faced with adversity.

She blew out a breath and began pacing, doing her best not to cry.