The Highlander's Touch (10 page)

“And the wind could have snatched you off at any moment. While it may only be a dozen feet from window to window, it is a fifty-foot fall to the ground. Even my men wouldn’t do something so stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” she repeated evenly. “It was an intelligent exercise of my skills. Where I come from I’ve done it before, and besides, I had no way of knowing whether you planned to feed me today or talk to me or listen to the fact that I desperately need to get back home. And while we’re on the subject of idiocy—is lunging at each other with sharp swords any less stupid? I saw what you were doing down there.”

“We train,” he said, lowering his voice with obvious effort. “We prepare for war.” If the man clenched his teeth any harder, his jaw would lock, she decided.

“And war is a particularly intelligent venture, is it not? I’m merely battling for my rights and trying to return home. I have a life, you know. I have responsibilities at home.”

He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut and regarded her for a moment. “What exactly are those responsibilities?” he asked finally, very softly.

Very softly from this man made her nervous, as did his hands on her waist, as did his moving so near that his
breath fanned her face as she stared up at him. She felt suddenly cowed.
Damn
the man for having such an impact. She was not going to cry her heart out to this wall of warrior.

She took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down. “I know this is not the best situation for you but it’s not for me either. How would you feel if you were suddenly yanked from your time, thrown somewhere else, and held captive? Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to get your life back? To return to your homeland and win your battle for freedom?”

His jaw relaxed as he pondered her words. “You behave like a warrior,” he said grudgingly. “Aye, I would do everything in my power to return.”

“Then you can’t blame me for trying. Or for being here, or for complicating your life. I’m the one whose life has been messed up. At least you still understand where you are. You still have your friends and family. You still have security. All I know is that I must get back home.”

He was quiet for what seemed an interminable time, looking into her eyes. She could feel tension emanating from his body as he studied her, and she realized that this fourteenth-century warrior was struggling as hard as she was to figure out what to do next.

“You frightened me, lass. I thought you would fall. Doona climb my walls again, eh? I will find a way to give you some small freedom within the keep. I trust you were not trying to escape the keep itself; you are obviously intelligent enough to see you have no place to go. But doona climb my walls,” he repeated. Then he rubbed his jaw, looking suddenly weary. “I am unable to send you back home, lass, I told you the truth about that last night. There’s something else you should know as well. The conversation you overheard before you attacked me last night
was correct: I did swear an oath to kill whoever arrived with my flask.”

Lisa swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. He
had
come to kill her last night. Would he have slipped in stealthily and slit her throat if she hadn’t been awake and ambushed him first?

He looked directly into her eyes. “But I have made the decision to temporarily refrain from fulfilling my oath. That is not an easy thing for a warrior to do. We hold our vows sacred.”

“Oh, how gracious of you,” she said dryly. “So you don’t plan to kill me today, but you might just decide to tomorrow. Am I supposed to find that reassuring?”

“There are valid reasons why I swore my oath. And aye, you should be grateful that I am letting you live for the now.”

She would take what she could get. It wasn’t as if she had much to bargain with. “What possible threat could I be to you? Why would you swear an oath to kill a person you didn’t even know?” But even as she asked, she knew the answer to her question—whatever was in the flask was immensely valuable. Perhaps it was a tool to travel through time; that would certainly explain why people were casting curses upon it and willing to kill for it. Hadn’t he snatched it from her the moment she’d arrived?

“My reasons doona concern you.”

“I think they do concern me, when your reasons determine whether
I
live or die.” She knew that oaths were sacred to knights of yore. He had nothing to lose by killing her. She was a woman lost in time; no one would miss her. Keeping her alive created a liability for him, and what would prevent him from suddenly changing his mind and honoring his vow? She would not be able to stand living
day to day, always wondering if this would be the day he killed her. She needed to gain insight into how this warrior thought so that she could plan a defense. “Why did you decide to break your oath?”

“Temporarily,” he corrected stiffly. “I did not break the oath, I merely have not filled it. Yet.”

“Temporarily,” she conceded. A ruthless murderer would not have bothered to have this conversation with her, which meant he had reservations about killing her. Once she knew what they were, she would exploit them to her advantage. “So, why? Is it because I’m a woman?” If that was the case, she resolved, she would be as feminine as possible from this moment on. She would drip vulnerability, bat her eyelashes, and ooze helplessness while doing everything in her power to steal the flask back and regain the upper hand.

“That is what I thought at first, but nay, it is because I doona know if you are guilty of anything. I have no problem killing a traitor, but I have not yet taken an innocent life and I doona wish to start now. But, Lisa, should I discover you are guilty of
anything
, no matter how small the transgression …” He trailed off, but his point was perfectly clear.

Lisa closed her eyes. So, he intended to watch her, study her, before he decided whether he would kill her. But she didn’t have time to be studied and watched. Her mother needed her now. Time was of the essence, and if she didn’t find a way back soon, she might lose Catherine without getting to say good-bye, and there was much she needed to say to her mother still. She’d been so obsessed with earning enough money to make ends meet, and with maintaining a cheerful smile on her face to keep her mom’s spirits up, that somehow they had quit talking. Both mother and
daughter had retreated into cautious pleasantries because the reality was too painful. But Lisa had always thought there would be time, a few special hours, maybe a week, in which she stopped going to work, incurred more debt, and did what she most wanted—stayed at home with Catherine, holding her hand and talking until the very end.

She shook her head, bewildered and more than a little angry at what life had dealt her. How
dare
her life keep getting worse? She stiffened her spine and her eyes flew open. “I
must
get back home,” she insisted.

“It is impossible, lass. Returning you is not in my power.”

“Do you know anyone who can?” she pushed. “You must concede, it would be the best solution. All our problems would be solved if you simply sent me back.”

“Nay. I know no one who has such power.”

Did he hesitate briefly? Or did her desperate need to cling to hope conjure the illusion? “What about the flask?” she said quickly. “What if I touched—”

“Forget the flask,” he shouted, straightening to his full height and glaring down at her. “It belongs to me, and I have already told you that it cannot return you to your time. The flask is
my
property. You would do well to forsake all thought of it and never mention it to me again.”

“I refuse to believe there is no way for me to return.”

“But that is the first fact you must accept. Until you acknowledge that you cannot return home, you will have no hope of surviving here. One of the first lessons a warrior is taught is that denial of one’s circumstances only results in failure to recognize real danger. And I assure you, Lisa Stone, there is infinite danger in your present situation.”

“You don’t scare me,” she said defiantly.

He stepped so close that his body brushed against hers,
but she refused to back up an inch. For all she cared, he could stand on top of her, but she would not yield ground; she had a feeling that lost ground was not something a person ever got back from Circenn Brodie. She returned his glare.

“You should be afraid of me, lass. You are a fool if you are not afraid of me.”

“Then I’m a fool. If I went through time once, it can happen again.”

“Would that it could, for it would certainly make my life easier. Then I would not be caught in this dilemma. But I doona know how to make it happen. Believe that much, at least.”

Lisa found herself studying his face the way he’d searched her eyes moments ago, seeking some way to gauge if he was telling her the truth. But she was intelligent enough to recognize that she was in the defensive position—he being the massive and invincible offense. She would be wise not to push him too far.

“Temporary truce?” she offered at last, not meaning a word of it, resolved to find the flask at the earliest opportunity and fight him any way she could.

“You will abstain from climbing my walls?”

“You promise you won’t try to kill me without first telling me, so I can have a bit of time to accept it? A few days would do,” she countered, postponing the possibility of death any way she could.

“Will you pretend to be cousin to the Bruce, as I told my men?” he said gravely.

“Will you promise that if there is a way for me to get back home, you’ll let me go?
Alive,”
she added, stressing the word.

“Say ‘aye’ first, lass,” he demanded.

Lisa held her breath for a moment, looking at him. She had little choice but to pledge this bizarre truce to him. If she tried to back out now, she suspected they’d be fighting again in a matter of moments. “Aye,” she mimicked his accent.

He studied her, as if measuring the depth of her honesty and commitment to her words. “Then aye, lass. If a way can be found to return you, I will help you do it.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a strangely bitter smile. “It will get you the hell out of my life and my compromised integrity,” he added softly, more to himself than to her.

“Truce,” she accepted.
Integrity
, she jotted in her mental file of significant facts about Circenn Brodie. It was important to him. She experienced a flash of hope: The precise knightly characteristics that might drive him to fulfill his oath—which included integrity, honor, protection of those weaker than he, and respect and chivalry toward women—could also be prevailed upon to
prevent
him from doing it. Killing a helpless woman would surely not be easy for him. She knew that sealing an agreement was no small matter to a knight, so she extended her hand for the seal of a handshake, not realizing how thoroughly modern-day the gesture was.

He eyed it for a moment, took it, then pressed it to his lips and kissed it.

Lisa snatched back her hand with a scowl. Heat tingled where his lips had brushed her skin.

“You offered it,” he snapped.

“That wasn’t what I—oh, forget it,” Lisa floundered, then explained, “We don’t kiss hands in my time—”

“But we are not in your time. You are in my time now, lass. I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to remember that, at all times.” His voice was low, his words
clipped as if he were irritated by her response. “And so there are no further misunderstandings between us, I will explain: Should you offer me a part of your body, lass, I will kiss it. That is what men in my century do.” His smile was mocking, couching a none-too-subtle challenge.

Lisa folded her hands behind her back. “I understand,” she said, casting her gaze to the floor in a deceptively submissive manner.

He waited for a moment as if not quite trusting her acquiescence, but when she didn’t raise her eyes again, he turned toward the door. “Good. Now we need to find you decent clothing and teach you how to be a proper fourteenth-century lass. The better you blend in, the less risk you will face, and the less risky your presence will be for me.”

“I will not empty chamber pots,” she said firmly.

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

*   *   *

Circenn returned Lisa to his chambers, had hot water sent up for her to wash with, then went off in search of clothing for her. Chamber pots, indeed. Did she think they were so barbaric that they did not have garderobes? Chamber pots were used only for nocturnal emergencies, primarily by children and the infirm, and in his opinion there was no reason why anyone could not manage to make it down the hallway, unless they were possessed of extreme laziness and lack of discipline.

He snorted, focusing his mind on the task at hand. He couldn’t give her run of the keep until he’d managed to hide some of those curves and long legs beneath the ugliest gown he could find. His men needed no distractions. He gathered the maids and instructed them to procure a gown, all the while brooding over what to do with her.

When he’d questioned Lisa last night, he’d nearly begun to believe she was innocent. She had a disarming air about her, an attitude of sincerity. He’d relaxed a bit, even glimpsed a wry humor in their conversation. Then she’d admitted that she was from the future, and he’d realized that his curse had inadvertently carried her through time.

Although it had stunned him, it made sense: Her strange English, her odd clothing, her mention of countries of which he’d never heard, all were explained by her being from the future. He could certainly understand her people fleeing England, he thought wryly—who wouldn’t want to? It didn’t surprise him that in the future, England was still trying to control everyone.

He laughed softly, thinking that she didn’t know how lucky she was that she’d been brought to him and not some other medieval lord. Circenn accepted time travel, but he was an extreme exception. Any other laird would have burned her for a witch. But then again, he thought dryly, no other laird would have had the power to curse the damned flask to begin with.

It was due to Adam Black that he was familiar with the art of sifting time. Adam did it frequently, had often spoken of other centuries, and he’d brought Circenn odd “gifts” in some of his attempts to buy the laird’s loyalty and obedience. They were gifts Circenn had refused, but when Adam wouldn’t take them back, he had locked them securely in a private room off his chambers, not trusting their powers. He knew that Adam was trying to tempt him, hoping to make him become like Adam—a thing Circenn would destroy himself before permitting that to happen.