Highlander Unraveled (Highland Bound Book 6) (2 page)

Somehow, I managed to tug the other leg out, hanging on for dear life with quivering arms. I lowered myself, clutching to the windowsill with fingers that were slowly slipping. Face to face with white clapboard, mold growing along its edges. Only about a five foot drop now. Not too far.

One. Two. Three
.

I closed my eyes. Braced myself. And let go.

My toes hit quickly, a painful jarring up my legs.

I ignored the fact that I was dressed in the clothes of the sixteenth century and barefoot.

“Mrs. Gordon…” I whirled to see Mrs. Lamb poking her head out of the back door. “Here. Take it, please.”

She held out a beige, leather pocketbook. Without thinking, I grabbed the purse and gave Mrs. Lamb a tight hug.

“Go,” she urged.

I heard a commotion, something slamming above, fanning down from the opened window I’d jumped out.

“Go, now!” Mrs. Lamb pushed me and I ran through her yard, tripping on an uprooted tree root, catching myself at the last second.

“Emma!” Steven’s bellow cut through the air, louder than a canon. “Get back here, you bitch!”

But I didn’t stop running. Didn’t turn around to look at him. Didn’t want to see the angry, twisting snarl on his face. Afraid that if I did, I’d trip and fall and he’d catch up to me.

I shoved open the gate at the back of Mrs. Lamb’s yard, rushing through several yards before making it to a street. I ran all the way down the road, around the corner, my feet slapping painfully against the sidewalk, bits of acorn and other debris digging into the soles of my feet.

“Mrs. Gordon!” An older woman pushed open the door of her tiny yellow house and waved at me. “Mrs. Lamb called. Come in!”

I didn’t even ask. I bolted inside, let her shut the door behind me and set the lock in place.

I leaned against the wall beside the door, panting, my head hitting and rocking a picture that hung there.

“Thank you,” I murmured, pressing my hand to my heart.

The woman nodded, her lips pursed. “Never ye mind that, dear. We need to get ye cleaned up.”

“I’m—”

“Emma.” She gripped my hand in hers, patted it. “I know, dearie. I’m Mrs. MacDonald. We’ve all been hearing about ye. Come now. I’ve a daughter about your size. We’ll get ye changed and then I’ll drive ye wherever ye need.”

I let myself breathe a small, hopeful, sigh of relief. “Edinburgh. I need to get to Edinburgh.”

“I’ll take ye there.”

“But it’s so far from here.” At least a four-hour drive. “Maybe just the train station.”

“Nonsense. No distance is too far.” She sounded like she wanted to add more, perhaps that she’d drive to Hell if needed to get me away from Steven.

We’ve all been hearing about ye.

Thank God for Mrs. Lamb. She was like my fairy grandmother in this world. I hadn’t the inclination to be annoyed that she’d been talking about me, for I was only grateful that she had, or else I’d not be here, dry and almost safe.

Mrs. MacDonald ushered me up a narrow staircase, the fact that her name was the same as Logan’s greatest enemy not lost on me.

She led me into a small bedroom, wallpapered in thistles, and looking as though it had been last decorated in 1968. A yellowed, crocheted blanket covered a twin bed pushed up against the wall. A tall, antique dresser stood stoically beside the window, with a basin and pitcher on top.

She flung open a closet, and the clothes inside also looked like they were from 1968. The woman looked to be in her seventies, making her daughter maybe in her forties or fifties at most.

“Claudia likes vintage, as ye can tell,” Mrs. MacDonald frowned, riffling through the clothes. “’Haps this will do.”

She tugged out a plain black, knee-length, cotton wrap dress. A thick black belt to tie in the middle. Two black, leather flats.

I worked to shuck myself from the wet linen and wool, the fabric sticking to my skin. But finally, I stood naked, arms crossed over my full breasts, dripping and achy.

Mrs. MacDonald looked me over, appraising me with a sorrowful eye.

“A bath first?”

“Is there time?” I glanced toward the window where the blinds were drawn.

“He’s not going to look for ye so close. And even if he comes knocking, I don’t have to answer.”

I nodded, a small weight lifting, and feeling grateful to have people on my side.

“Come along then.” She handed me a bathrobe, which I slipped on, the feel of the scratchy old terrycloth a reminder of the one my mother used to wear before she died.

“When did ye have your bairn?” she asked.

I swallowed hard, again touching the softness of my belly. “Saor was born six weeks ago.”

“Saor. I like that name. Seems fitting, given your situation.” She cocked her head, like she was going to say more but instead, said, “We’ll get ye back to Saor.”

I nodded, even though I was pretty certain Mrs. MacDonald had no idea how to get me back to my child. Or that I’d even time traveled in the first place.

Chapter Two

Logan

July, 1544

I woke with a start, the bed beside me cold. Saor wailed in his cradle, the same one I’d howled in as a bairn. Carved oak, a tale of our history etched in the posts, much the same as the four-poster I shared with my wife.

“Emma?” I sat up in the bed, swinging off the covers, standing nude.

I turned in a circle, stretching and frowning. Our chamber was empty save for Saor and I. His tiny fists of fury punched at the sky as he yowled at the injustice of having been left alone.

“Where is your mama?” I crooned to the tiny lad, lifting him from his cradle and sticking my finger in his gummy mouth to suck on until she came back. “Must have gone to the privy.”

Of course, there had to be a logical reason behind Emma leaving our chamber, and the privy it must have been. My mind wanted to travel toward another explanation, however, as it often did if I couldn’t find her right away. One we’d both feared would come. If she’d been brought to me from another time, when would she be taken away?

I refused to think of that. But it was odd that she was missing, given she normally used the chamber pot in the middle of the night. But, mayhap, her stomach was feeling unwell and she needed privacy.

I paced the room with the bairn sucking at my finger until that no longer satisfied and his wails once more climbed up to echo in the rafters.

Many minutes had passed and with each ensuing second, I became more and more worried about what could have happened to my wife.

Granted our child was only six weeks old, but in the past several weeks, she’d not once left in the middle of the night.  Nor had she done so the entirety of the time she carried the child within her womb.

Unable to wait another moment, I placed the bairn back in his cradle, his cries growing louder as I tugged on breeches, not bothering to tie them closed. I scooped Saor back up, wrapping him in a soft plaid blanket and opened the door, carrying him out to the corridor. The bairn quieted, his tiny eyes roving over the change in place. All was quiet; the moon still high in the sky and darkness blanketed the Highlands.

“Emma?” I called, walking down the length of the long corridor toward the end, my feet silent on the stone floor. The doorway to the privy chamber was slightly ajar, no light from a candle seeping through the opening.

The closer I got, the quieter the night seemed to become. The stiller the air, as though we were the only two beings in the world.

“Emma?” I called again, and still she did not answer.

I pushed open the door, finding the privy empty, the stench of waste made worse by the heat of the summer.

Saor whimpered, shoving his fists against his tiny lips.

I frowned, asking the bairn, again, “Where is your mama?”

In answer, Saor howled, his little body growing tense with his anger, his back arching.

“My laird?”

A sleepy looking nursemaid opened the door to the chamber she’d been housed in across the hall from Emma’s and mine, in case she was ever needed, though Emma had yet to call on the lass.

“Can ye take the bairn? Have ye seen Lady Emma?”

The woman rubbed at her eyes and shook her head. “I’ll take him, and nay, my laird, I haven’t.”

I handed the bairn over to the tired lass; ignoring the appreciative glance she gave my bare chest. It never ceased to fail, a fact I used to be proud of but now found exceedingly irritating.

“Keep him until morn.” If—
nay, when
—I found Emma, I was going to lay her out across the bed and make sweet, raw, love to her.

Mayhap Emma had gone to the kitchens, hungry. She’d barely eaten any of her supper; too tired was she with caring for the bairn all by herself. I helped where I could, but I’d yet to grow breasts. That thought made me chuckle. I normally insisted she remain in our chamber to rest throughout the day, but I was certain she snuck around the castle while I was out with the men. Emma loved to be involved with the day-to-day things, and I admired her for it. But often, she let herself suffer rather than take the rest she deserved.

With long, hurried strides, I made my way back down the corridor toward the stairs, taking them three at a time until I reached the bottom. The guards there leapt to alertness.

“All is well, my laird,” one of them grumbled, wiping at his sleepy eyes.

“What of my wife? Have ye seen Lady Emma?”

“Not since yestermorn, my laird,” the second guard said, much more alert than the first.

Yestermorn. So, she’d not come down the stairs. I regarded the men, puzzled. “’Haps ye fell asleep and missed her.”

“Nay, my laird,” the alert guard responded. “I’ve been awake the whole time.”

“As have I, my laird.” The second guard looked slightly worried that I wouldn’t believe him. “She’s not come this way. Shall we help ye to find her?”

I frowned. She could have gone down the servant’s stair, but why would she do an odd thing like that?

“Nay. Man your posts and if ye do see her, please ask her to wait for me in our chamber, and one of ye come to find me.”

The guards nodded their agreement.

I made my way toward the kitchens, finding it empty save for the sleeping form of a couple kitchen boys by the hearth. In an hour or so, Cook would wake and begin the days’ baking, and the lads would rise to help her.

I cleared my throat, approaching the lads who leapt to their feet, swiping hands over their grimy faces, rubbing crust from their eyes.

“Have ye seen Lady Emma?” I asked them, though I doubted either of them would have woken had she come inside, since they’d not even stirred when I entered the kitchens.

“Nay, my laird,” they both said in unison.

“Ballocks!” Where the hell was she? I scraped a hand through my hair, that one fear, that she’d disappeared niggling at the base of my skull, a fingernail scratching at an open wound.

Rory had disappeared from the Highlands for five long years. Shona had gone back to the present to find Moira. They’d all returned. But that didn’t mean that Emma would, and even if she did, it might be years. I shook my head.
Nay, nay, nay.
She was here. I just hadn’t found her yet.

I circled back to the servants’ stair, checking with the guard posted there who also hadn’t seen her, either. If none of the guards posted at the stairs had seen her come down, then ’haps she’d gone up?

She liked to take walks on the battlements often, breathing in the fresh air, taking a few private moments to think.

I took the stairs three at a time, once more, all the way to the top, but the door to the battlements was bolted. Was it possible she’d gone out and someone bolted it behind her?

Doubtful, but possible.

I unlocked the door and pushed it open, feeling the coolness of the summer night wash over my skin. This side of the castle was empty of guards at this time of night. Several others were stationed at key points, but since Emma liked it up here, and I sometimes joined her for privacy, this particular turret was often unmanned.

And it was empty now.

“Emma?” I called anyway, hoping she’d poke her head from some crevice I couldn’t see her behind.

Guards on the other walls turned toward me, and I raised my arm in greeting. I’d have to question each one of them. Someone must have seen something.

I made my way around the unoccupied turret. Panic, which had started the moment I found her side of the bed empty, curled deep in my gut, shredding me from the inside out.

She was gone.

People often disappeared in the Highlands, but there was only one reason for a person to vanish into thin air and I didn’t want to think about what that meant.

Fate
could not
have recalled her.

I refused to believe it. Refused to allow such a horrifying notion to even take root—but it already had. For, when I’d found out about Emma, wasn’t this the one thing I’d feared the most?

I approached each guard on the battlements, every guard at the front gates, the postern gate, and the water gate… None had seen her. Murmurings of the castle walls being breached by the enemy sent up a panic. And it wasn’t like I could quell that panic or naysay their assumptions. They didn’t know about time travel, or about Emma’s past. To them, their mistress had been taken, secreted away from the castle by some nefarious criminal.

“What’s going on?” Ewan approached from the castle, looking harried. The sun was starting to rise, but the shadows on his features were all concern.

I gritted my teeth and then finally put my voice to work, hearing the way I sounded choked when I spoke. “I canna find Emma.”

Ewan’s face paled, visible in the dim dawn light. The way his eyes shuttered, I knew he had the same fear as I. Emma was his sister. If she could disappear, it meant he could—or his wife. Hell. Ewan wasn’t even from this time. He’d traveled years ago and never returned—save for a twenty-four hour period.

“When was the last time ye saw her?” Ewan asked.

“When she was feeding Saor in our chamber, afore bed.” The two of them had been so beautiful. Her fiery red curls, their sons matching locks. She’d cradled him to her breast, smiling down at the bairn as though he were an angel beckoning her. They were both my angels.

Ewan frowned. “Do ye think…?”

He trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking. The same thing as I. Neither one of us wanted to say it out loud for fear it would be true. Giving voice to thoughts often made them more powerful.

I shook my head. “Nay, it canna be.” I ground my teeth so hard I feared they’d turn to dust, pain pounded through my skull. “Fate canna do this to me.”

I felt as though someone had shoved a jagged-edged dirk into my chest and was sawing back and forth very slowly at my heart.

“Fate can do whatever she wishes,” Ewan muttered. He raked a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. He and Emma had been separated when they were both children, a plane crash that she’d thought had claimed her brother’s life, but in fact sent him here to me as a lad. They’d only just found out about each other.

Fate can do whatever she wishes.
Damn Fate to hell!

That was not what I wanted to hear, that all power and control over the situation had been stripped from me. I liked being in control, needed it, and craved it.

“I will scour the earth for her before I believe that she’s been taken,” I said.

Ewan let out a long, downtrodden sigh. “Do ye remember doing the same thing when I went missing a few months ago?”

I gave a brief, curt nod, pulling my lips back from my teeth and hissing. Nay, nay, nay. She
needed
to be here.
I need her. I love her
.

Ewan regarded me with steady, serious eyes. “It didna help.”

“Ye’re not helping,” I growled.

Ewan nodded. “’Haps not. I will go and check with the guards.”

“I’ve already done it.”

“I’ll check with those who are asleep then.”

I could tell he was only going through the motions. Ewan had already determined that Emma had time traveled.

“Aye. Wake them all. We will check the surroundings of the castle in case one of my enemies has somehow managed to breach the walls.”

Ewan pressed his lips together, obviously wanting to say more, but he didn’t. He jogged off to do my bidding, and though we had somewhat of a plan in place, I didn’t feel better, not even a twinge. I felt worse. For, I was beginning to believe that she was truly gone.

How could I get her back?

Mayhap Shona, the Lady of the Wood as she’d been dubbed years before, would know what to do. Married to Ewan, she lived here at the castle now, the castle healer, and she was due to have her own bairn in a month’s time.

If she didn’t know how, mayhap Emma had told her something, anything, that might help me to find her. Emma had been the one who often listened the most to local folklore or the minstrel’s tales as they were sung, asking questions and investigating. It had been her idea to make love by the sacred stone in order to conceive our child. The magic of the stone had worked.