Wild about the Witch (10 page)

Piper didn’t have the first clue what to do after she was rebuffed. Anything else she tried would make Catie feel worse, but standing there doing nothing tore into her heart. She could tell Lachlan had a tight, but tenuous control on his temper, his mouth firmly shut, a muscle in his jaw twitching. A heavy silence settled over them all.

“She’s welcome to stay with us,” Evie offered in a voice so small it barely made its way from the table where she sat frozen through the outbursts.

“Nonsense,” Lachlan snapped. “We willna put ye out. Catie can go to her room until she can ask Piper’s forgiveness and be reasonable.”

Piper gasped. She loved him completely, but couldn’t he see how much worse he was making things? Would he be this tyrannical with their own children, if they ever had any?

Catie’s mouth slowly dropped open and Evie rushed to assure him it wouldn’t be any trouble. Piper put her hand on his arm, urging him to let her stay, at least for a night, so they could take a breath. This seemed to outrage Catie more, that she should get what she wanted, and even worse, to be assisted by Piper in any way.

“No. I dinna need your permission,” she said. “Ye canna lie to me and then expect me to follow your orders.” She turned to Evie and smiled shakily. “I thank ye for the offer. I shall just take a moment to gather my things.” With a glare at Lachlan and a grimace of distaste in Piper’s direction, she slammed from the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Evie whispered.

Piper sat down on the bench and put her head on her arms, feeling as if she’d been caught in the middle of a tempest. Catie hated her and thought she was a witch. She didn’t know what to do with that. Lachlan squeezed her shoulder and sat beside her, placing a comforting kiss on her forehead.

“She’ll come around, love. She’s got a bit of a temper is all, and doesna mean what she said about ye.” He sighed. “She meant what she said about me, though. I didna handle it right at all, leaving the way I did.”

Piper wanted to remind him that he hadn’t had much choice at the time, with the Glens wanting him dead and Bella needing to marry Pietro as soon as possible, but she still reeled with her own sense of responsibility in it. She’d only wanted him back with her, and hoped she hadn’t had a hand in destroying his relationship with his family.

He reached over and patted Evie’s hand. “I hope ye know what ye’ve got yourself into,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be fine with me,” Evie said. “I haven’t betrayed her in any way.”

Piper reached over and half heartedly swatted her for that crack. Much too soon. Lachlan groaned and massaged his temples.

“Hey,” Evie said. “Did anyone bother to ask her
how
 she got here?”

“I’m sorry you’re going through this, Catie,” Evie said as they pulled up to her and Sam’s little stone cottage. “I admit I only ever saw it from the one side and was always so happy that Lachlan chose to stay. I never thought about who got left behind.”

Catie looked up from her phone and sniffed. “Nor did Lachlan, apparently.”

“Hmph, well, love makes people silly sometimes.”

“Silly is it? Leaving his clan and land and family?”

Evie sighed and unlocked the front door, letting Catie go ahead of her, dragging her bag along the wood floor. She paused to admire the gallery of Magnus that lined the entryway.

“Are you and your brother very close?” she asked.

Catie shrugged, looking bereft. “No, not really. But he took care of things. If anything went wrong, Lachlan fixed it straight away. Everyone was glad to follow Lachlan. Now Quinn’s in charge and no one is properly scared of him, they’re just scared he’ll gamble away the profits from the crops.”

Evie showed Catie into Magnus’ room. She’d have to find the folding cot and set it up and move the crib into her and Sam’s room for the duration.

Good lord, she’ hadn’t called Sam. She quickly rang him up and told him to get home, then turned and led Catie into the kitchen. The kid just followed as if she was in shock, and Evie didn’t want to offer false platitudes like most adults did when things were messed up beyond repair. She was determined to be better than that. She filled the new six slice toaster with bread and waved Catie to sit at the kitchen table.

“I’m sorry to be cramming my gullet while you’re so upset, but if I don’t keep some food on my stomach, it gets pretty ugly.”

Evie rubbed her belly and smiled. This second pregnancy had been an exciting surprise, and she hadn’t freaked out in the least. Motherhood suited her, and forced her to be calm, and Magnus was the absolute light of her life. Sam might have turned a little green around the gills for a second, because he worried about money.

His bookshop always seemed on the verge of collapse no matter how many new souvenirs and pastries he brought in to lure customers, but she often wondered how much of his moaning was unfounded. When Piper had been gone for eight months, she’d learned a lot about managing the estate, and as it turned out, was a natural at it. She offered to go over the books for him, since his regular accountant was ninety-two and she didn’t think the man had his heart in the game anymore. But Sam was loyal and Mr. McGivray had been their accountant since the shop belonged to his grandfather.

“Are ye expecting another?” Catie asked, just as the toast popped up, forcing Evie back to the present.

She loaded the toast with butter and jam, gave Catie two slices on a flowery china dessert plate and sat across from her.

“Yes. This one isn’t killing me as much as Mags tried to in the beginning. You’ll get to meet Mags as soon as Sam gets here. Poor man probably thinks the house is flooding the way I hollered for him to get home.”

“Sorry to put ye out,” Catie said, nibbling her toast half-heartedly.

“Eh, it’s not a bother. I’m desperate to hear how you got here.” Evie leaned in eagerly, hoping she wasn’t about to get another outburst.

Catie frowned and tilted her head to the side. “Lord Ashford brought me,” she said. “How did Lachlan do it?”

“He got sent here accidentally by an awful woman—”

“A witch?”

“Well, yes, I guess. I mean, the spell is witchcraft, I suppose, but I wouldn’t necessarily consider everyone who uses it a witch. Lachlan uses a spell, and you wouldn’t call him a witch, right? And what about your Lord Ashford?”

Catie put her toast down. “Lachlan uses a spell? How? Can he get us back home?”

Evie put down her toast as well. Catie seemed awfully interested in the use of spells, as if she didn’t know anything about them, which couldn’t be possible. “How did you get here?” Evie asked forcefully.

“There’s a house in London,” Catie said with a shrug. “We stood in the corner of a bedroom and then we were here.”

“Did you have to, um, cut your finger or say any words?” Evie leaned so far over the table, her hair dipped into the sticky jam on her toast. She swept it behind her shoulder, never taking her eyes off Catie.

“No,” she said impatiently, wanting her own questions answered. “Is that how Lachlan did it? Or that Piper woman did it for him?”

Evie flinched at the way she spat out Piper’s name, but let it slide for the moment. There would be plenty of time to make her see Piper wasn’t an evil brother-stealer. If there was another way to travel without spells or bloodletting, she wanted to know about it posthaste.

“Catie, this is important. Who is Lord Ashford?”

Catie let out the longest sigh Evie ever heard. “I dinna know. He wasna meant to help me. It was Miss Burnet who came from this time, and he was going to help her get back.”

“Miss Burnet?” Evie asked, more confused than ever. “Someone from this time was in the eighteenth century? How did she get there, do you know?”

“No. I only know because I, ah, stole her letter and tricked her into missing the proper time, then tricked Lord Ashford into thinking I was her.”

“Dear lord,” Evie said, looking down at her empty plate. It was still morning, and she was pregnant, but she could have used a drink nonetheless.

Sam flew into the house with Magnus swinging in his carseat. Everything was madness, trying to explain who Catie was and why she was there, which Evie still didn’t understand. Catie was enamored by little fat Mags and he was delighted to have someone new fawn over him. She offered to take care of him if they wanted to go out for dinner, and Evie almost got sidetracked by the tempting offer.

“Whoa, wait. Let’s get back on track here.” She pushed Sam into the seat next to her. “Sam, listen. She says she got here from a house in London.
London
.”

“I dinna understand why that’s so important,” Catie said, crossing her eyes at Magnus and making him giggle his delightful baby laugh.

“We thought it was tied to the land around the castle,” Sam said.

Evie jumped up and got a piece of paper and a pencil. “We need to make a list of everything we know so far,” she said, nerdily excited. She looked expectantly at Catie. “You said you didn’t have to do a spell of any kind.”

“Definitely not,” she said, affronted. “We just stood there. Oh, Lord Ashford was verra particular about the timing. It had to be just so. He almost didna get to stay and help me get to Scotland, because of his schedule.”

Evie looked up from her paper. “Describe Lord Ashford,” she demanded. She glanced wildly at Sam, who narrowed his eyes at her. “Did he have dark hair, around Sam’s height—”

“Aye, silver grey eyes, verra aristocratic.”

Evie bounced in her seat. “Kind of rude, always checking his pocket watch like the white rabbit?”

“Wasn’t written yet in her time,” Sam interjected at Catie’s befuddled look.

“Oh, well, he was an annoying character in a children’s book, who was always late.”

“I wouldna say rude, just a bit gruff,” Catie said. “But he looked at his watch quite a bit, aye. He had a wee book he referred to as well. I thought it had to be his schedule.”

Evie stood up and paced in a circle, she was so happy to have someone corroborate her story. “The mysterious man, Sam,” she said giddily. “It has to be him.” She turned to Catie. “We went to another time, after yours but before this one, and I met him! No one believed me, but he was there, and he just disappeared. I’m not crazy.” She sank back into the kitchen chair and tried to settle down. She hadn’t realized how worried she was that she really had imagined him.

“No one doubted you, Ev,” Sam said, patting her knee.

“Everyone doubted me,” she said, then shook her head. “Even though it stands to reason that we aren’t the only ones who can do it, I always thought it was just through spells.”

“Ye say when ye met Lord Ashford in this other time, he disappeared?” Catie asked. Magnus fussed and squirmed and she got up, pacing and patting his back. Evie and Sam exchanged appreciative looks at her expertise with infants. “Wherever ye were, there must have been a portal there.”

“A portal,” Evie breathed, feeling weak at the word and what it might mean. “You walk into it and go to another time?” She grabbed Sam’s hand and he looked concerned she might fall over. “I wonder if it’s still there, if I poked around the inn …”

“Don’t you dare,” Sam warned. “With your luck it would work and I’d never see you again.”

His tone was light, but the heavy hand on her wrist told her he was deadly serious. She shivered, wondering how many people might have slipped into these odd portals like the unlucky Miss Burnet.

“I think it’s trickier than just poking around,” Catie said. “He stayed with me to help me get a rail ticket, but said something about having to spend a fortnight in 1875 to do it.”

“Bloody hell,” Sam said. “Who is this bloke? A time traveling crime fighter?”

“More like time traveling bonehead,” Evie said, still bitter that the man hadn’t helped her rescue Piper. “He lost one woman in time, then brought the wrong one back when he didn’t even remember what she looked like.”

Catie giggled. “Well, we both have blonde hair,” she said.

Evie sighed and got back to the list. “So far there’s spells and portals. We used to think it was only the castle grounds, but it clearly works in London. Where were you again?”

“Belmary House. It’s a grand house that still stands, but it’s all closed up now.”

Evie got on her phone and looked up Belmary House with shaking hands. It took two tries to type it in correctly and several old news items popped up. “Oh my gosh, an actress went missing there a few months ago.” She looked at Catie, who stopped in her tracks.

“Elizabeth Burnet?” Catie asked, going pale.

“The very same.”

The doorbell rang and Catie jumped, quickly handing Magnus over to Evie. “Ah, that’ll be for me, sorry.”

“How does anyone know you’re here?” Evie asked incredulously.

Catie looked guilty and held up her phone. “I used the texting, if that’s all right with ye? Shane’s going to take me to lunch since he has the day off.”

Evie marveled at how easily she picked up the technology of the day.

“Shane Brodie?” Sam stood up and glared in the direction of the front door.

“It’s okay, he works at the estate,” Evie told him, suppressing a smile at his protective nature.