Exiles in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (28 page)

“
I’m not so conceited as to
think you were put here to save me,” Callum said.

“
I’m not sorry for this
week. I’m glad I could help.” And now Cassie did touch Callum,
nudging his side with her elbow. “What do you think? Do you rail
against fate and wonder
why me?”

“
I have at times, that’s
for sure,” Callum said. “I don’t have any answers for you. Mostly,
I’m just trying to survive and make a difference for the people
here as much as I tried to serve my country at home. It’s the only
thing I know to do.”

Cassie tsked under her breath. “Serve
your country.” Callum almost didn’t catch the words, she said them
so quietly. She looked down at the ground and stabbed the toe of
her boot into the dirt at her feet but didn’t elaborate.

So Callum didn’t either. In the army,
he did what he was told and told others what to do, believing all
the while that he was making the world a better, safer place. He
had never said it out loud, but he’d thought of himself as a
knight, even if he might have laughed at such a romantic notion if
someone had challenged him on it. At the same time, he knew that he
could never live up to that code. After a single week in
Afghanistan, even the greenest recruit knew how flawed the mission
was, and that Britain had gotten itself involved in a war it
couldn’t win. But still, Callum tried. The best men
tried.

Ironically, it was once he got back
home that his world fell apart. He found the civilian world messy
and complicated. Morality was all shades of grey. Honor was a
quaint concept. Backstabbing and gossip, social niceties and norms
were just as real and almost as deadly to the soul as IEDs had been
in the war.

Callum didn’t think Cassie would mock
him if he told her any of this, but she didn’t understand it
either. He wanted to be of service, and whether he did that here or
at home didn’t matter to him so much anymore.

The next morning, having slept for
nearly twelve hours uninterrupted by dreams, Callum stepped out of
the door of Marty’s hut. He’d shared the floor with Samuel and been
happy to do it. Cassie had found a pallet in the healer’s hut.
Although Callum couldn’t see the sky because of the mist that
hovered above the ground, it had the look of burning off sooner
rather than later and might give them a clear day for the ride to
Doune Castle.

Because they were short on horses,
Callum arranged for Cassie to ride behind him. It allowed her not
only to wrap her arms around his waist, but for them to talk
privately.

“
It has been years since
I’ve been this far east,” she said. “The lowlands are less safe for
me.”

“
And why is that?” Callum
said.

Cassie tried to peer around Callum’s
shoulder to look into his face. He turned his head to look at
her.

“
Are you one of those
people whose brains don’t work until they’ve had a cup of coffee?”
Cassie said. “You’re not thinking. Have you looked at me
recently?”

“
I can’t actually look at
you very well when you’re behind me.” Callum knew his voice sounded
complacent, but he didn’t care. “I know well what you look like.
What’s the problem with your appearance?”

Cassie let out a sharp burst of
laughter. “I’m dressed as a man and I wear a bow. They don’t like
that where we’re going.”

“
That’s just too bad,”
Callum said.

“
Easy for you to say,”
Cassie said. “You’re the emissary from the King of England. I’m a
nobody.”

Callum opened his mouth to argue with
her, closed it, and then decided he had nothing to lose in asking
about something that had been troubling him for a while. “Why does
this bother you so much? Did something happen to you that makes you
not want to leave the Highlands?”

Cassie clenched his cloak and put her
forehead into his spine. “You’ve been in the Middle Ages for six
months, Callum. How can you not know what might have happened to
me?”

“
That’s it.” Callum reined
in and pulled to the side of the road. They’d been riding towards
the rear of the company, and it was a matter of thirty seconds to
let the last few men pass them. Several looked at him with raised
eyebrows, but he lifted a hand to indicate that all was well and
said, “We’ll catch up.”

“
What are you doing?”
Cassie said.

“
Off, Cassie.”

That ‘v’ of concern had formed between
her brows again, but she slid off the horse and then Callum
dismounted too. Cassie gazed at him with a perturbed expression.
Even though he knew that she had started to avoid contact with him
again, after a brief interval where she actually initiated it,
Callum caught her hand in his and slid his fingers through hers. He
tugged her close. “You were hurt?”

“
Callum—” Cassie tried to
pull away, but he caught her around the waist with his other
hand.

“
Tell me.”

Cassie dipped her head, staring at the
brooch on Callum’s cloak. “No. Not like that. That’s not
it.”

“
Then what is
it?”

Deep breath. “I ran into several men
who mistook me for someone I wasn’t.”

Anger boiled inside Callum and he
deliberately eased the tightness of his hold on her, though he
didn’t move away even an inch. “And?”

“
And I got away but not
before two of them had arrows in them,” Cassie said. “I heard later
that the men in question were nobles. Young, rich, and powerful
nobles.”

“
Son of a b—” Callum bit
off the word and ground his teeth. Rich and powerful young men were
the same the world over—and apparently, in alternate universes and
times, too. “Are you afraid you’ll run into them and they’ll
remember you?”

Cassie actually laughed. “If you were
shot by a girl carrying a bow, wouldn’t you remember
her?”

“
Did any die?” Callum said.
“Do you know their names?”

“
One of them was a
Douglass, I think, and a Cunningham from Dumfries,” Cassie said.
“And no—I told you the truth when I said that I’d never killed
anyone, not that I know of anyway.”

“
Well that’s both a
surprise and a relief,” Callum said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t fear
for you, a woman alone, but …”

“
I’ve been afraid a lot,”
Cassie said, “but less so in recent years. I’ve found my
place.”

“
And now I’m taking you out
of it,” Callum said. “I’m sorry you got dragged into
this.”

“
You didn’t drag me. Don’t
take that on yourself. I could go home right now.” She was still
staring at his brooch. “I’m choosing not to.”

Callum swallowed hard. She
was very close and he really wanted to kiss her. He’d wanted to for
days, but he couldn’t imagine worse timing than this. Still, he
looked down at her—and found that she was already looking up at
him. She put her hands on his chest. He had a second to
think
what is she doing?
before she rocked him back on his heels by pushing
up on her toes and pressing her lips to his.

Callum held still, afraid that by
doing anything other than accepting the kiss she offered he would
ruin everything. But then she put her arms around his neck and he
was able to pull her tight against him.

“
So … are you coming or
not?”

James Stewart’s drawl came from behind
Callum. Cassie and Callum broke the kiss, but Callum didn’t let her
go and they stood with their foreheads just touching. “Yes,” Callum
said.

“
Glad to hear it,” said
James.

Hiding a smile, Cassie bit her lip and
peered over Callum’s shoulder. At that point, Callum had to give in
and look also. James sat on his horse, resting his forearm on his
saddle horn and laughing.

“
I called a rest a half
mile up the road,” said James. “I mean for the company to continue
as soon as I return.”

“
We were just talking,”
Callum said.

“
Talking,”
said James. “I’ll remember that one.”

Cassie kept her face averted, but her
shoulders shook as she fought laughter. And then Callum laughed
too.

Cassie had
kissed
him!

Chapter
Sixteen

Cassie

I
t
had been at least a year since Cassie had been inside any castle
but Mugdock, and to call both Doune and Mugdock castles was to
wildly underestimate Doune and exaggerate Mugdock. Mugdock was a
fort, of the same stature and utility as a fort out on the plains
when the American west was ‘wild’ (though not, of course, to the
Indians who were there first). Twice as large, built in stone to
withstand a long siege, Doune was a different matter
entirely.

If Cassie had been riding her own
horse, she might not have gone inside at all. But short of sliding
off the back and fleeing—from Callum, society, everything—she had
no choice but to enter it.

She was still shaking
inside from when she’d kissed Callum. Although Cassie had been
raised in a world where holding hands and kissing were something
you did twenty seconds into a first date—sometimes before you’d
even figured out whether or not you really liked the guy—that world
was far away. To people here, Cassie might as well have a sign on
her forehead that said
Callum’s
. Compounding her confusion
was the fact that
she
had kissed
him
, not the other way around, and effectively taken their
relationship to another level. She didn’t know what she was going
to do with herself or Callum now.

“
That’s real power in the
medieval world,” Callum said as he and Cassie watched James drop to
the ground and become instantly besieged by advisers and
sycophants.

While Walter had ridden to rescue
James at the little village, he’d also sent messengers to Stirling
Castle and in the cardinal directions, rousing those loyal to the
Stewarts. The men he’d called had responded—more than responded—and
the bailey was filled with men and horses.

Callum held Cassie’s arm as she
dismounted, followed suit, and then tossed the horse’s reins to the
stable boy who ran to take them. Callum clasped Cassie’s hand in
his. “Don’t run away on me.”

“
How did you know I was
thinking about it?”

“
I can see it in your face.
You look wary again, more so than the whole time we’ve been
together.” He looked down at her. “Considering what we’ve been
through since we met, that’s saying something.”

“
They’re going to want me
to wear a dress,” Cassie said.

“
True.” Callum canted his
head as he looked at her. “Is it the dresses themselves that you
don’t like, or what they symbolize?”

Cassie ground her teeth. That was way
too perceptive for him to have said out loud.

“
Besides,” he said, “today
their expectations are their problem, not yours. If you don’t want
to wear a dress, we’ll find some other clothes for you. You can at
least be clean.”

“
I haven’t found medieval
people to be as tolerant as you have,” Cassie said.

“
I know,” Callum said. “But
my patron is the King of England and that means that I—and the
woman with me—can do pretty much whatever we damn well
please.”

A man hurried up to them and bowed.
“My name is Amaury, my lord. I’m the steward of Doune. May I guide
you to your quarters?”

“
That would be delightful,”
Callum said.

The steward’s eyes skated over Cassie
and he looked quickly away, though he managed a bow in her
direction. “Madam.”

Cassie tried to look as if this
treatment was normal and stopped herself from shrinking into
Callum’s side. Instead, she nodded back as magnanimously as she
could manage. What did she care what this man or anyone else
thought about her relationship with Callum?

The great hall and the lord’s private
apartments had pride of place on the north side of the castle.
Cassie and Callum were taken to a building on the western side that
consisted of several wooden structures built against the curtain
wall. Storage areas, an adjacent kitchen, and a bath room took up
the lower level. Above were guest apartments, one of which the
steward gave to Callum, and then he opened the door to an adjacent
room for Cassie. She peered inside. Eight pallets covered the
floor. This was where the women slept.

Cassie eyed Callum, who still stood in
the doorway of his room, watching her. He was the king’s emissary,
so of course he got his own room. The steward bowed, indicating
that he would return to escort them to the bathing room when it was
free, and in the meantime would send up food and new clothing. The
instant his back was turned, however, Callum stepped towards
Cassie, grabbed her elbow, and tugged her into his room.

“
What are you doing?” she
said.

“
I want to talk to you and
I certainly can’t hang out in your room while I’m doing it,” Callum
said.

“
This is very Indian of
you.” Cassie closed the door behind her.