Love Across Time (29 page)

“Pack what ye’ll need for the journey, we leave within the hour,” Dugan ordered. “I’ll nae have ye under me laird’s roof one more night.”

Eleanor grabbed her skirt, stumbled to her feet, and ran from the room.

The sad eyes of his cousin watched his mother race up the stairs. “I ne’er wanted to be laird, Liam.”

“I ken.” He ached for the pain he knew Conner and Dugan felt over Eleanor’s betrayal.

“Thank ye.
Mar sin leat.
” Conner went to his father and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll take her father,” he offered.

Father and son stared into each other eyes.

“Ye be me only son, me only child. Once she gets ye in England she’ll nae want ye to leave.” Moisture glistened in his uncle’s eyes.

“Aye, but she be me mother and all alone.”

Conner wrapped his arms around his father and squeezed tight before he released him and turned to leave. He had one foot on the stairs when Liam stopped him.

“Conner.” Standing, he took a step toward his cousin, but paused. Conner wouldn’t tolerate sympathy, but he couldn’t allow his cousin to leave without assuring him that he didn’t hold him responsible for his mother’s actions, and that he would always be welcome here.

“Aye.” Facing forward, Conner’s shoulders stiffened. He appeared to brace himself for words of condemnation.

“This be yer home. Hurry back.” Simple words, yet he wanted to convey to Conner the love that had prompted him to speak.

Conner’s shoulders sagged. He nodded once and continued up the stairs.

A crash sounded behind him. Liam whirled. His uncle had slammed his fist against the wall.

“Sorry I be that I e’er brought that adder into yer household. Now I fear I’ve lost me son. For three and twenty years, jealousy has festered in her black heart. Once ye took yer rightful place as chieftain, I had hoped she’d accepted the fact that Conner would ne’er be leader of the clan. Ne’er would I have thought she would seek to end yer life and when that failed, pour her hatred of ye out on yer poor wee wife.”

“It nae be yer fault, Uncle, and I’ll nae hold ye or Conner responsible for Eleanor’s evil deeds.” He grasped his uncle’s shoulder. “’Ere ye satisfied with me decision? Ye be free to go with her if that be yer will.”

“Nae.” He shook his shaggy head. “For many a year she has railed at me to live in England, but me life be here, with me clan.” He rubbed his face with both hands as if to clear his thoughts. “I best go see that Eleanor leaves without creating more havoc than she has already.”

His uncle appeared to age before his eyes. With slumped shoulders and a hopeless expression, he shuffled from the room.

He sat down, opened his fist, and gazed at the brooch. The one item Margaret claimed she needed to return to the twenty-first century. Eyes closed, he leaned his head against the soft cushion. How could he give her hope then watch her suffer disappointment when it failed? Fingers curled tight as he opened his eyes to search the room for a place to hide the brooch. A place where Margret could never find it.

Elbows braced on his thighs, Liam massaged his temples and thought of how Eleanor had nearly killed Margaret so her son could be chieftain. Not because she believed he would rule better or judge with more wisdom, but because she craved a higher status among the people.

It amazed him how the selfishness of one person could affect the lives of so many others. His shoulders slumped. Wasn’t he just as guilty? His first thought had been to hide the brooch and never tell Margaret of its existence. How could he place his own driving need above Margaret’s peace of mind?

Could he truly delude himself into thinking he could hold her through deception? He opened his palm to stare at the brooch. One finger traced the lines of the intertwined strands of silver that created two hearts woven together for all time, just as he felt his and Margaret’s hearts were entwined.

The brooch burned, glowed, and became hot. A blister raised on the tip his finger. He shook his hand to relieve the pain. A chill of foreboding raced over him to curl into a tight knot in his gut. Did the brooch have mystical powers as Margaret claimed? Did she truly belong to the twenty-first century? A horrible grief twisted deep inside him.

All the evidence pointed to something he couldn’t understand, thought impossible, and refused to admit. Because if he did, he would lose Margaret, or as she told him when she’d first awakened, Maggie. His heart shriveled inside him. Was it wrong to hold onto her by hiding the brooch? To want something, in this case someone, that didn’t belong to him. His actions were as selfish as Eleanor’s was.

His honor demanded honesty.

Maggie said she came from another time, another country. It was time for him to accept something that was beyond his comprehension and release her. He’d seen the longing in her eyes when she thought no one noticed. As much as he loved her, she would never be content as his wife until she knew if the gown, ring, and brooch were able to transport her into the future.

The decision to let her go warred inside him. Honor overrode his heart. He closed his eyes against the jagged edges of pain shredding his soul. When he opened his eyes, Ursula stood before him.

“Me laird. Ye be alright?”

“Aye. It just be hard to face some facts that I’ve put off fer too long. Do ye ken where Margaret be.” His words were as dead as he felt inside. After Margaret left, all he’d have was a lifeless future.

“In her bedchamber.”

Hands on the chair arms, he dragged himself to his feet. Misery hung around his neck like a heavy weight. Of all the difficult decisions he’d made as laird, none had left him with this sense of utter helplessness.

“Liam.”

“Aye.”

Ursula never called him by name unless she spoke of personal matters. To her, he was laird, and she always treated him with the respect due the title.

“Margaret be a good lass. She’ll nae leave. She loves ye.”

He didn’t question how she knew what he was about to do. Ursula always knew the goings-on of the castle better than anyone did, yet how could she be certain Margaret would be here on the morrow. He wanted to ask but did want to anticipate hope where there was none.

“I’ll nae want to be disturbed.”

She nodded.

His feet felt weighted as he headed for the stairs.

Did Maggie love him? Margaret had. And her love had made him whole, stronger. But was he strong enough to let her go?

The long trek upstairs became more distant with each step. He dreaded the thought of life without her, but when she left, he’d have his memories: the sweet taste of her mouth, the softness of her warm body, the cries of her pleasure as he plunged into her. But they would only be memories, not the woman he loved, needed with his every breath.

He stood before the wooden door. Muted sounds of Margaret humming came from the other side. The solid oak would no longer be the only barrier keeping him from her. He was a Highland warrior who fought his enemy with shield and broadsword. Time and centuries were his rivals, and he didn’t know how to combat these adversaries and win.

Hands braced on either side of the portal, he fought the urge to cry and howl out his pain when all he wanted to do was vent the rage building inside him. He lowered his head and prayed for the strength to do what any man of honor would do. One deep breath and he nudged the door open.

Margaret stood before the armoire, a piece of froth in her hands. Briefly, she clutched it to her breasts then folded it neatly and laid it on the top shelf. It resembled the mended gown she had worn when she fell, or pushed, as he’d just discovered.

“Margaret.”

She whirled. One hand flew to her breast to lay palm down. “Oh, Liam you startled me.”

“Come sit,
gaol
.”

He held his hand out. Slender fingers clasped his, and he led her to a chair. The same chair where he’d first caressed her, suckled her breasts, felt her woman’s heat.

“What be wrong, Liam? Ye look so serious,” she asked as she sat down.

“Aye.” He swallowed to dislodge the lump that had formed in his throat.

Seated in the opposite chair, he gazed at her. She was so beautiful. She was his life. If the brooch held the power she claimed it did, this would be the last time he saw her. He wanted her image etched into his mind as deeply as Scotland was carved into his soul. Her deep blue gown caused her eyes to appear bluer than the sky that drape the Highlands in winter. Her hair flowed down her back as gently as the waves of Loch Tay’s surface on a summer day. Skin as soft as the petals of a newly bloomed spring rose begged for his touch.

How could he part with her?

How could he not?

Words lodged in his throat so he extended his hand and opened his fist. The brooch lay in the center of his palm. Sunlight shone on the shiny metal and created sparkling bits of light that warmed his flesh.

“Me brooch!” She blinked then focused her gaze on the brooch.

Instead of snatching up the piece of jewelry as he suspected she would, she studied it for a long time then raised her eyes to stare at him.

“Eleanor had it. She tore it from Margaret’s gown when she pushed her down the stairs.”

How odd to speak to her as someone other than his wife. He saw the confusion in her eyes, saw the moment she realized he accepted her as Maggie, not Margaret.

“Eleanor?” she asked in a thready whisper.

“Aye.”

Would the love they’d shared be enough for her to stay, or would she insist she return to her time, to her century. Tears glistened in her eyes, and he knew he’d hear the answer he dreaded before she spoke.

“I must go.” She sounded as if the words were torn from her soul. He could see the bitter battle she fought with herself in the tears that trickled down her pale cheeks.

“Aye, I ken
gaol
.” He reached out, and his thumb dried away the salty liquid.

She grasped his hand and laid her cheek in his palm. Her blue eyes, filled with pain, implored him to understand. The agony her decision caused her dragged him into the same maelstrom of pain.

“When I regain my memory and know about my life I promise to come back to you. I’ll have the gown, the ring, and the brooch.”

At first, his heart leaped with happiness, then plunged into reality.

“Dinnae make promises ye dinnae ken if ye can keep. What if ye canna return.”

“I would reach across time to be with you.”

Her warm hand cupped the scared side of his face. He turned his head and nuzzled her palm. His throat constricted with the turmoil inside him. He wanted to cry don’t leave me, but chieftains didn’t cry, nor did they beg. So he suffered the loss of his heart, his soul, the very breath that gave him life in silence.

“Take it.” He moved his hand closer.

The question was not whether she belonged here, but whether she wanted to stay. She didn’t.

He wanted her to love him as Margaret had: without reservation, and had hoped during their nights of loving he’d made her fall in love with him, again. He’d failed.

“I love ye Maggie. The thought of ye leaving is like a knife twisting in me gut. To me, ye and Margaret be one in the same. I nae ken how yer and Margaret’s lives got all tangled together but if this will take ye where ye long to be then ye must go.”

Cautiously, she picked up the brooch. “I
”

Desperate, he framed her face with his hands, covered her open mouth with his, and poured his soul into his kiss. He didn’t want to hear words of goodbye.

He released her mouth, jumped to his feet, and rushed out the door.

The heavy wood panel slammed shut. The barely controlled power that she’d sensed coiled in his body had shattered, and she hurt for the pain she’d caused him. She stared at the brooch pinched between her thumb and index finger. The ability to return to the twenty-first century lay within her grasp. Before, when she didn’t have the brooch, the decision to stay was easy. Now? Her eyes drifted toward the door where Liam had disappeared, then to the armoire where she’d tucked the gown safely away. She fought a sudden urge to weep.

This is what she’d longed for. Wasn’t it?

But to return to a place where she knew no one and no one knew her didn’t strike her as appealing as it once had. She rubbed her fingers across her forehead. Here she had parents, a sister, a brother. And Liam.

She gripped the brooch in her fist as his words echoed in the empty chamber of her heart. To Liam, she and Margaret were the same.

A light tap sounded on the door before her maid entered with the meal she’d ordered for a romantic evening with Liam. Only she’d had no time to prepare her setting for seduction before Liam had given her the brooch.

Torn with conflicting emotions, Maggie huddled in the chair, too consumed in misery to acknowledge Una. The maid took one look at Maggie and sat the tray on the table then went about her chores of lighting candles
the room had grown dark without her noticing
and turning back the bedcovers. Una exited as silently as she’d arrived.

Maggie opened her fist and traced the brooch’s intricate design with her finger. The precious metal glowed, warmed, grew hot. A blister rose on her finger. She stuck the abused digit in her mouth. A dim arc of fire flared between the brooch and ring. Her gaze once again drifted to the armoire where the gown waited. All she had to do was slip it on, attach the brooch and she’d be back in the twenty-first century.