Choosing the Highlander (27 page)

Ewan MacPherson was the largest man Connie had ever met. Looming over her, and standing more than a head taller than Wilhelm, he had to be six-foot-eight at least. Taken off guard by his size, she fell back on habit when Wilhelm introduced them at the tower’s portcullis and offered him her hand as if to shake.

Ewan stared at it then looked to Wilhelm in confusion. Heavy browed and bearded, the man had a forbidding appearance, but when his eyes widened and his cheeks reddened, he took on the mien of a bashful boy.

Wilhelm saved her from further awkwardness by reaching over her arm to take her hand in his. Entwining their fingers, he lowered their hands.

“What say you, man?” he said to Ewan. “Feel like performing a wedding tonight?”

If Ewan had been blushing before, his cheeks were practically glowing now. “Ye want me to marry you? Now?”

Ewan led them into a parlor with weapons on the walls and a handful of wooden chairs around a cold hearth. The phrase, “Needs a woman’s touch,” came to mind.

After the men lit a fire, Wilhelm told Ewan about the rescue at Ruthven’s and about their stay at the monastery.

“We’re traveling to Inverness to find a magistrate who might rule on the charges. If matters go against me and Terran, I would ken Constance is well positioned to be taken in by the Murray and protected from Ruthven’s nonsense.”

Ewan took everything in with a passive expression. Occasionally, he glanced her way. Wilhelm never mentioned where she’d come from or why she’d been slated for execution, and their host didn’t ask for details.

Pushing out his lower lip, he shrugged and said, “Arright. I’ll do the contract for you.”

Lighting the way with a lantern, Ewan showed them up several flights of stairs. The tower reminded her of a row house, but standing by itself, with no other castle-row-houses on either side. It soared an impressive six stories but had a footprint no larger than a few hundred square feet.

“The light at the top is tended by Ewan,” Wilhelm explained. “He keeps it burning low from dusk ’til dawn. When he needs to relay a message from another tower, he burns it high and cranks a shield to and fro to create a code. Anything of note, lately?” He directed the question toward Ewan.

“The usual. Grants are skirmishing. Tryin’ to bring in the MacPees. Da’ says to signal them to take a long leap off a short pier.”

“MacPees is Ewan’s way of referring to his own clan,” Wilhelm said. “His father is laird and not one to go lightly into battle.”

“’Specially at the call of Reggie Grant. The man takes offense at the least provocation.” Ewan shook his head. “Here we are.” He heaved open the door of a room off the fourth-floor landing. “No’ much, but there’s a bed. Linens are clean.”

Peeking around Ewan, she noted the room contained exactly one piece of furniture, a four-poster bed neatly made with blankets the sandy color of undyed linen. A shuttered window on one wall and an empty fireplace on another provided the only other points of visual interest. The rough plank floor had not a speck of dust, and the fireplace had been swept spotlessly clean of ashes.

“At university, Ewan was always the tidiest of us lads. Weren’t you, man?” Wilhelm elbowed Ewan.

“Not so much tidy as the rest of you were all slovenly.”

Connie caught Wilhelm’s eye. “You? A slob? I never would have guessed.” She remembered to use the British accent she’d adopted.

Wilhelm acknowledged the change in her voice with a wink before lifting his chin in a show of affront. “Away from home, I didna have a chambermatron to keep my rooms orderly.”

Ewan snorted. “I’ll dig up an ewer for you. Got a leg of lamb stewing in the kitchen. Should feed us all. Fancy a meal first, or do ye want to get right to it?”

“We’ll join you for supper first,” Wilhelm said. “But we’ll provide our own food. We won’t presume upon your hospitality.”

“Nonsense. I might not be a monk, but I remember how to treat a guest.”

He left them, presumably to get supper ready, and she and Wilhelm worked together to tend the horses and bring their bags up to their room. Wilhelm told her about their host and his two brothers, all of which Wilhelm had known at university. His running monologue helped keep her mind off her niggling worries.

Inverness loomed in the near future. Neither of them could predict what would happen. They could only do their best to clear Wilhelm’s name and restore him to his rightful place as heir to his father’s barony and lairdship. But even once they dealt with the problem of Ruthven, there was still the prospect of her living out the rest of her life in the fifteenth century. In the last few days, her life had drastically changed. She’d chosen to accept that change, embrace it even, but that didn’t remove the pain and fear.

“Ewan was closest to me in age,” Wilhelm said as she measured out their dinner parritch plus an extra helping to share with their host.

She let his words soothe her, and found additional comfort in the routine of preparing their camp together, this time in a warm, dry room instead of out in the wintery wilderness.

“Since we both shared an aptitude for studying the Scriptures, we got on well. Now he tends the tower for his clan. I hear he serves as enforcer for his father as well, but I suspect he’d rather not. Given his way, Ewan prefers peace to warfare.”

Connie decided she liked the peace-loving, youngest MacPherson brother. Sitting down with him to a meal at the butcher block in the kitchen reinforced her approval. While they ate, he and Wilhelm reminisced with all the enthusiasm expected of schoolmates who had shared trials and triumphs. Though Wilhelm did most of the talking, Ewan had a knack for conveying a lot of information with an economy of words.

He insisted on sharing his leg of lamb with them. In exchange, they shared their parritch and gave Ewan the last of their spiced wine as thanks for his hospitality. Wilhelm must have wanted her to get to know Ewan a little on her own, because he suggested she help their host clean up in the kitchen while he tended some chores.

The kitchen took up the back half of the tower’s first floor and smelled of stewed meat, flour, and beer. While Ewan washed the stewing pot and swept out the fire pit, she wiped down surfaces and cleaned utensils. Though this kitchen had none of the modern conveniences she was used to, she felt oddly at home in it.

By observing Ewan, who struck her as a more than competent housekeeper, she learned how to take care of a late-medieval kitchen. He oiled the butcher block to keep it from cracking, wiped moisture from the inside of the walls to prevent mold, and closed the flu to keep the outside air from finding its way in.

“So, Ewan,” she said to break the silence. “I hear you’re a clergyman. Do you preach sermons for your clan?”

“No,” he answered.

“Do you hear confessions?”

“No.”

“Then what do you do as a clergyman?”

“Bury the dead.” He jabbed his thumb toward the tower’s back door. “Kirk’s down the hill a ways. No one ever comes ’cept for salt n’ earth ceremonies. Da’s got a priest at the keep who does all that other whatnot.”

By Ewan standards, that was practically a dissertation.

“Do you get lonely out here?” She’d gathered over dinner that this signal tower was half-a-day’s ride from the nearest village on MacPherson land.

“No.”

She twitched her lips in amusement, wondering what Wilhelm was up to sticking her with Ewan for the last hour. Wiping her hands on a rag, she said, “Well, I think I’ll go find my groom. Are we going to the kirk for the nuptials?”

Ewan’s eyes went wide. “Er, wait. I—er—have somat to show you.”

She smelled a rat. Wilhelm must have asked Ewan to keep her occupied.

Willing to play along, she followed him to the parlor, where she was pleasantly surprised to find a roaring fire in the hearth that hadn’t been in use when they’d arrived. Someone had hung a large pot from hooks over the fire. Maybe Wilhelm had put the spiced wine on to warm, though the pot seemed too big for the liter or so of drink they’d had left.

“Wait here,” Ewan told her.

She heard his heavy footfalls on the stairs as he climbed to a higher floor. He returned a few minutes later with several wooden objects cupped in his massive hands.

“Sit,” he said, indicating the hearth with a jerk of his chin.

Shrugging, she sat with her back to the fire.

Ewan joined her and placed one of the small objects on her palm. It was a miniature wolf about the size of a chess piece.

Whoever had done the carving had paid incredible attention to detail. One front leg was shown lifted in mid step. The tail cocked to one side while the figure’s head curved to the other. How the artist had managed to convey a sense of playfulness in the wolf’s eyes, she couldn’t guess. She could imagine a real wolf looking just like this as it weaved through the trees with its pack mates.

With a shudder, she remembered the wolf attack from the day before.

“Very realistic,” she said, handing it back. “Did you do this?”

Ewan nodded, blushing. He handed her another.

“Showing off his carvings, aye?”

Wilhelm came into the room. He’d removed his pourpoint and had his shirtsleeves rolled up. He wore a pair of breeches instead of his kilt, which he’d changed out of when they’d arrived since it had been soaking wet. A sheen of sweat on his face told her he had, in fact, been up to something as she’d suspected.

“She tell you we were set on by wolves on our second day?”

“That why you have a wrap?”

Wilhelm glanced at his arm as if he’d forgotten about the injury. “
Och,
merely a scratch.” Taking the chair nearest the fire, he said, “Ewan used to do figures at school, too, but they werena so fine as this.” He took the piece Connie handed him. “You could sell these, man. They’re lovely.”

“I was thinking about it. I hate parting with them though.” Holding out his cupped hands, he let them admire the rest.

Connie examined each figure, passing them to Wilhelm one at a time. They were all wolves carved in positions of action. Play poses, running, leaping over a log, digging, curling up in a den, a group of pups playing. “Truly beautiful,” Connie said. “Why wolves?”

“I like wolves,” he said. “Guess you’re ready, then?” he asked Wilhelm.

“As long as my bride hasn’t changed her mind.” He extended his hand to Connie.

This was it. Once she signed papers to marry Wilhelm, she would be permanently closing the door on the possibility of returning home.

Allowing herself one last mental check, she imagined running into Leslie’s arms, reuniting with her sister. It would be such a relief to hold her twin again, to stroke her hair and reassure her she was all right. But the imaginary reunion had the feel of a visit, not a homecoming.

Yes. She’d made the right choice. Even when she gave her emotions free reign to imagine being with Leslie again, it was with the understanding she would return to Wilhelm. She would always long to return to Wilhelm.

She took his hand and let him draw her into his embrace. “I’m ready.”

Peace filled her heart as Ewan led the way up the stairs to a room with a desk near the top of the tower. He sat and began writing on a piece of off-white paper flecked with grains of brown. He used a feather quill that had seen better days.

Would she write letters using a quill? Would she become a secretary for Wilhelm, taking notes for him, addressing letters, reminding him of appointments? Would he ask her opinion on policies? Once he became laird, would she be expected to take up first-lady duties? Who would teach her these things?

She bit her lip as nerves made her stomach churn.

Wilhelm touched her lower back. “Lass?”

She looked up to find him bending his head to her in that way that made her feel incredibly feminine and special. A glance at Ewan’s showed him hunched over his quill and paper, deep in concentration. She whispered to Wilhelm an admission she had never made to another person: “I don’t want to be a failure.”

His eyes went liquid with gentleness. “We will both fail on occasion.” The scratching of Ewan’s quill went on without pause as Wilhelm whispered to her. “But we shall do our best to help each other succeed. Always, lass.”

“Yes.” The churning gave way to a blooming warmth in her chest.

If there had ever been a man she wanted to help succeed, it was this man. And to know he wanted her to succeed as well struck her as something women in this time wouldn’t necessarily expect. Somehow, this warrior from the past made her feel more appreciated than most of the men she’d worked alongside in 1981 Chicago.

In his normal speaking voice, Wilhelm said, “This is where Ewan documents the messages he’s sent and works out any code before stoking the signal fire. He’s penning our contract now. It’ll be a simple one since you have no one present to negotiate the contract or bestow a dowry. Much like the contract Anselm drew up for Terran and Aifric.”

She blinked in surprise. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. You’re getting a bum deal, aren’t you? I have nothing of value to give you. You could get so much more if you married a fellow noble.”

It hadn’t occurred to her until then that his family might not be pleased to welcome her into their midst. How would she feel if Leslie came home suddenly married to a husband who had nothing to his name? She’d be furious with the man for taking advantage of her sister.

Connie was likely to be viewed as a gold digger.

“
Whist.
You’ve given me somat of unspeakable value. Your trust. Your heart. Your body.” His words were fierce yet private in their softness. “I’ve been presented noble lasses, and have found each one lacking.”

Jealousy gnawed at her at the thought of his being presented with other marriage candidates. But he’d been a virgin. She let that fact soothe her.

“Never doubt that I choose you,” he said. “No matter what, I choose you.”

Her chest constricted with a surge of love that overshadowed all her niggling insecurities.

“’Tis much better to be chosen than to do the choosing.”
 

Aifric’s words reverberated in her memory. The girl was young, but she possessed the wisdom of someone who had been through hard times and understood that the good times should never be taken for granted.