All for the Heiress (18 page)

“No, I’m all right,” Mellie said quickly, for some reason causing Piper’s smile to grow wider. “I’ll sleep in the chair, or on the floor. Even the floor is a sight nicer than what I’ve slept on the last couple days.”

“I’m glad I got to hear all about it, because I honestly don’t remember this from before.”

“Good. That means I got away with it,” Mellie said.

“Wicked brat,” Piper said without any rancor. She came back over and dropped a kiss on the top of Mellie’s head before leaving. “It’ll all be okay.”

She sounded like she knew more than she possibly could have, and Mellie’s heart sank to think she might be so transparent. She only wanted to bury her feelings and keep her unrequited love a deep, dark secret, until it one day hopefully faded. She looked at the blanket lump with the tuft of red hair sticking out and wanted to kick it. Or curl up next to it. She wrapped herself up and lay on the rug in front of the fire, listening to Shane’s deep, regular breathing until she fell asleep.

***

She woke when it was still dark, and dragged herself off the floor to check on Shane. He’d thrown his blankets off, so she checked his leg before covering him back up. He opened his eyes long enough to complain he was starving, which told her he was on the mend and filled her with joy. She greedily stared at him for a moment before heading downstairs to see if she could rustle up some oats or a piece of fruit. No matter that her traitorous feelings made her want to crawl away and hide, they’d started this together, and she was determined to see it to the end and keep her dignity around him.

It turned out the whole family and Oliver were already gathered around the dining table, eating a delicious breakfast.

“We’re so far north, it stays dark longer,” Quinn explained when she glanced out the window. “It’s really not so early as ye might think.”

“We’ll be leaving soon, so hurry and eat, and take the lad a meal as well. We can be back to Glen land tonight if we dinna tarry.”

Catie sniffled at Lachlan’s announcement, and begged to let them stay at least another day, even asking if it wasn’t dangerous to move Shane so soon after his head injury. Mellie noticed Oliver frown at Catie’s tearful concern, and Mellie wondered what they talked about while Catie sat with him the day before.

An unpleasant and unfamiliar feeling hit her. Jealousy. She’d sunk so low as to feel jealous. Love was the worst. As much as she longed to get home and put this nightmare behind her, she did think Catie had a point about moving Shane.

“Nonsense,” Lachlan said, before she could say so. “We’re taking the carriage, so he can loll about just as comfortably as here. They can get proper care in their own time if need be.”

“What can one more day hurt?” Catie demanded.

Her jealousy twisted her stomach into knots. Why did Catie want them to stay so badly? What was she after? Had Shane been so charming even in his injured state that her feelings had been rekindled with just one conversation? Mellie felt she would go crazy when she wondered if they’d done more than just talk.

Hurriedly putting whatever food she could reach onto a tray, she tossed out a general thanks for the meal and left before she did something foolish, like throw a sausage at Catie’s blonde head.

She took a wrong turn and met Shane coming in from the back door, a blanket around his shoulders and his cheeks red from the cold.

“What in the hell, idiot?” she asked, pulling him toward the stairs. “What were you doing outside?”

“I didna want to use a chamber pot,” he explained. “So foul.”

 She sighed, but agreed they were disgusting. She decided to hold it until she was back in the twenty-first century. “Come on, I have food for you.” She jerked him along as he tried to move toward the dining room.

“As long as I’m up, I should eat with everyone else,” he said.

Picturing him joking around with Catie drove her into a panic and she shook her head. “I need to check your stitches. And they’re almost done anyway, they’ve been up for ages.” She tried to think of more reasons, but thankfully he gave in and went back to his room.

Oliver hovered outside his door, looking concerned, but then smiled when he saw them. “Oh, there you are. I tried knocking, but got no reply.” He bowed and let Shane go into the room.

Shane had the sourest face she’d ever seen on him and he stood pugnaciously by the side of his bed, staring at Oliver with eyes like death rays. She knew he’d never lie back down as long as Oliver was around and she should have hurried him from the room, but instead, almost as if she was having an out of body experience, she linked her arm through his and smiled up at him. She batted her eyelashes for good measure, then glanced at Shane, whose jaw had dropped.

Oliver looked stunned and a little discomfited, but he didn’t untangle himself from her. “I came to pay my respects. I’ve heard a great deal about you from Catie.”

“Is that so?” Shane asked coldly, turning his glare on her. “We were quite close when she visited.”

She wanted to punch him, because she was certain he meant to hurt Oliver, so why had he aimed that jab at her?

“Well, thank you for taking such good care of her. I’m sure it was a terrible shock to be so suddenly in a different time, with no friends. I’m grateful to you for keeping her safe.” He bowed again, and patted her hand, gently stepping away from her and nodding to them both. It seemed his manners tipping point had been reached, and he left the room.

“He’s grateful to me?” Shane sputtered. “For keeping her safe as if she’s his possession or something?”

Mellie grabbed his arm and pushed him toward the bed. She wanted to berate him but saw how pale he’d grown. The effort of going outside, and then the rude standoff with Oliver had worn him out.

“Just eat your breakfast,” she said tiredly.

He tore into the meal, alternately sighing with pleasure at the taste and shooting her dirty looks, which she didn’t understand at all. She let him eat in peace before telling him Lachlan wanted to leave as soon as possible. She knew he’d be disappointed, but hadn’t expected his outrage.

“Why should we?” he asked, slamming his fork down with a clang. “We nearly got killed twice to get here, and haven’t even started the plan.”

“Oh my God, the plan. Are you telling me you still want to go through with it?” She wanted to run from the room rather than hear the answer.

“You dinna want to?” he asked. “What did Catie tell ye? Does she want to marry Oliver?”

She wanted to lie but the truth came out in a small, unhappy voice. “No,” she said.

“Then we should stay.”

“It might be dangerous if we stay,” she tried. “Piper seemed concerned about the future getting messed up, I mean seriously concerned. And she and Lachlan are really good at the spell, so they could get us back to the right time.”

He huffed. “I can get us back if we choose to go. Why should we be in such a hurry is my question. And if we choose not to return at all, do ye really think we could have such an impact on anything?”

In truth, Piper and Lachlan had seemed upset that she’d come to this time, but they refused to say a word about why. They’d always been overly cautious about that sort of thing, but she and Shane were so young, they’d never done anything important that would affect the world if they didn’t return. She wanted to get back to her regular life, but that was assuming Shane would throw in the towel and come with her.

Even if she couldn’t be with him, he’d still pop into the kitchen in the mornings and annoy her, they’d meet whenever the theater got a new film. She couldn’t decide what would be more painful, never seeing him again, or seeing him every day and having these brutal feelings toward him, never to be returned. There really was no contest. Never seeing him again would be worse.

“I guess I could stay and try to get Oliver to like me instead of Catie,” she said, having to look down to keep her anguish from showing. “I said I would, after all.”

He was silent so long she finally looked up to see he looked livid. “Ye dinna have to do that,” he snapped. “Just bugger that bit of the plan, all right?” He pushed away the breakfast tray and scowled at her. “If ye want to go home, go home.”

“I do want to go home, of course, but …” she stopped at Shane’s shrug.

He narrowed his eyes. “Go, then. But ye said yourself that Catie doesna want to marry Oliver, so why shouldna I stay?”

“You hate this time for one thing. How many more times do you have to get hurt? And Catie doesn’t want to get married, period, not just to Oliver.”

“Ye know I can change her mind.” His eyes hardened and she blushed, thinking of the kiss in the road, and fairly certain he could change Catie’s mind, damn him. “We had a long conversation yesterday, and I can tell she still likes me.”

After Catie’s arguing for them to stay longer, she was scared it was true. “Why are you being like this?” she pleaded. “Do you really want to stay here for Catie?”

“Why would ye think otherwise?”

“Why did you kiss me?” she countered, her pride sapping away, but wanting an answer, and dreading it almost as much.

He flinched. “Because I wanted to, because I always wondered what it would be like. Jesus, why do ye have to take everything so seriously?”

He couldn’t mean that, it was too cruel, but he was so angry at her maybe it was true. She didn’t get why he was so mad at her, but it made her want to lash out as well.

“I can’t believe I ever stood up for you, when people talked,” she said.

“Oh, please, Mellora. As if ye never said a word against me. Ye’re no better than any of them. Ye’re worse in fact, and ye know why.”

It was her turn to flinch, thinking of the times she should have walked away if she wasn’t going to defend him, but instead she’d gleefully taken part in the attacks. It was worse because they had been friends. She’d been so upset when he stopped hanging out with her because of his jealous girlfriend, she blocked out all the good times they’d shared as kids, erased him from her mind.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Wait, what? Why are ye apologizing instead of hitting me or something?”

She snickered at his shocked look and half-heartedly slapped his shoulder. “Because I don’t want to leave you thinking I’m like the villagers. I never wanted to be like them but I guess I was, and I want you to know I’m truly sorry. For forgetting about us, and for being a cow.”

He took her hand. “Ye’re forgiven. I never blamed ye, not really. Don’t leave, Mel.” Her hopes soared at his words and she swallowed hard, but after a long moment he coughed and said hurriedly, “Stay, and let’s do the plan, aye? We can be neighbors. Ye’ll get to live in London like ye always wanted, and except for the fact we willna have a telly, it’ll be like old times.”

Her hopes crashed back down and she pulled her hand out of his. Before she cried in front of him, she got up and went to the door. “I have to go back,” she said. “I want to go back. There’s nothing here for me.”

She didn’t look at him again as she calmly left the room. She ran into Lachlan coming up the stairs, and she swallowed her tears. She’d have a lifetime to cry when she got home.

“I’m ready to leave,” she said.

Shane leaned back in frustrated defeat, and pain shot through his head when it hit the headboard. It had to be his injury that made him act like such an idiot. No, it had been the overwhelming jealousy he felt when Mel put her arm around that English tosser. Then he’d been furious because that was what she’d always wanted, someone who wasn’t like him, someone posh and foreign. He barely remembered what he’d said he was so blind with fury over that.

But why? He shouldn’t have been as upset as he was. In fact, he should have been happy. Once she got over her snit and decided to stay, they’d both end up getting what they wanted. Right? It was difficult to recall what he wanted.

He gingerly touched the back of his head, feeling slightly sick at the feel of the raised stitches, and impressed that Mel had actually sewn up his scalp like it was a shirt hem or something. She really was amazing, when she wasn’t acting like a bratty girl. Seriously, why had she thrown herself at Oliver that way?

He really was addled from the blows to his head, because that had been his stupid idea as well, so there should be no reason for him to be angry. It had been the basis for her coming with him, and now he was seething because she had done it.

He couldn’t remember a time when Mellie hadn’t made him miserable in some way and yet he still kept following her around, even going so far as talking his brothers into taking jobs at the castle with him so he could see her every day, even if all he got was an eye roll from her. He’d thought he could make it up to her, all the years he’d ignored her because of Bridget, but Mel was tenacious. Frightening really, the way the lass could hold onto a grudge. She’d made it so he’d never existed as far as she was concerned.

He groaned and swung his legs over the side of the bed, to get dressed and mingle with his new family. There was no reason to be obsessing over Mellie’s tantrums when he should be thinking about disentangling Catie’s affections from Sir Oliver the Great, so that bloke could bugger off back to London. Try as he might, jerking the kilt that had been left for him around his hips, he couldn’t stop thinking about his heated conversation with Mel.