Just in Time for a Highlander (8 page)

“You’ll need to walk faster if you intend to keep up.”

Abby strode through the thick yellow gorse as if it were fog. Duncan’s bare knees seemed to be scraped by thorns at every turn. “I am doing the best I can. I’m not as familiar with the path as you are.”

She turned sharply enough to rattle the arrows in her quiver. “Your best may be good enough in Edinburgh, where buckled slippers and fancy assembly-room swords stand in for experience, but it willna be good enough here, ye ken? Here, ye need rough boots and rougher arms—or you may find yourself dead.”

Duncan had watched Abby slip her shapely calves into a pair of well-worn knee boots after Undine had left the clearing. The rowels were tarnished, the shafts were dusty, and when she pulled them on, clods of dried mud tumbled from the soles to the ground. Nonetheless, the dead self-assurance with which she tugged on the thick leather, on top of the unanswered erection, had just about driven him mad with desire.

“Dead from thorns?” he inquired. “I believe even I might survive that. Ow! Dammit!”

She shook her head and resumed walking. “I suppose I shall have to provide you with a pair of boots too.”

“I’m sorry I no longer have access to my own wardrobe.” In which, he declined to add, she would find no boots.

“Ye seemed to have no trouble availing yourself of the wardrobe in your room last night. You may as well have taken Bran’s boots too.”

She turned away abruptly, and Duncan could tell she regretted mentioning her brother.

“I considered it,” he said softly, “but I could tell I’d upset you last night. It’s enough to mourn a dead brother. You shouldna have to watch an interloper stumble about in his boots.”

She said nothing, just continued walking.

“I didna have a brother, nor a sister,” he went on. “It was just me, my mum, and my grand-da. I canna imagine what it would have been like to lose a sibling.”

She veered right to avoid a fallen tree. He gave up trying to have a conversation and concentrated on just keeping his footing. The path, such as it was, had grown steeper and the rocks strewn across it larger.

“What about your da?”

Duncan looked up. It was the first thing she’d said in many minutes.

“I didn’t have one.”

She gave him a sidelong glance and climbed onto a wide boulder.

“Well, I mean, I did. But he left when I was a bairn. He skipped out on a list of debts as long as my arm too. He was not a popular man in our neighborhood. I don’t think there were many who missed him.”

She hesitated before hopping to the ground. “You?”

Duncan shrugged. “Maybe. A bit. But it was more the idea than the man.”

She pointed to a break in the ridge ahead of them. Duncan returned his attention to his feet.

“Bran was the most popular man in the clan,” she said.

Duncan cringed. The death of a popular heir must have made her transition to chief even harder. “We never know how the losses we’ve survived will end up guiding us. My da’s debts were the reason I went into finance. I used to think—” He stopped. How much did he want her to know of his life in the twenty-first century?

“What?”

He shook his head. “Not important. But he’s the reason.”

Her eyes, which had momentarily brightened, returned to their guarded blue-purple. Duncan felt as if a bank of clouds had passed between him and the sun.

As they reached the top of the hill and began down the other side, he considered the situation from her perspective. Though he’d told her he was from Edinburgh, she had to know he wasn’t from the Edinburgh of 1705 or 1706. If he were, he’d have simply said “Later, lass” after the end of the skirmish and hopped the first coach back to the city. And yet, she didn’t seem fazed by him either. Annoyed, yes. Deeply annoyed. But she didn’t display either the repulsion or fascination he’d expect from a person who’d just met someone from another century. His best guess was that she thought Undine’s magic had transported him either from a place in the present time that was hard to get back to, say the East Indies, or from the borderlands in a year near but not identical to her own. It was probably better for both of them if she continued to believe that.

The slope began to angle downward again, and they followed the curve of the hill.

“Here we are,” she said. “Langholm Abbey. Well, all that remains.”

Before them, at the foot of the hill, perched on the near side of a dramatic bend in the river, stood an ancient stone-built chapel, whose narrow, vaulted window slits pointed unashamedly at its roofless top. No doors hung in the wide doorway, and the blankets of pink flowers that grew in heaps along the hillside. He tried to think if he remembered such a site near his grand-da’s home, but neither the river bend nor the ruins seemed familiar.

“A bit down on her luck, is she not?”

“I dinna ken why people assume things like abbeys and ships and carriages are shes.”

“Because they possess a certain transcendent beauty?” he offered.

“Because they can be commanded by men, more like.” She trotted toward the structure.

“I canna argue with you on ships,” he said, following quickly. “But abbeys? They are not exactly commandable.”

“Perhaps you should make an inquiry of Edward VIII, who commanded this one be turned to rubble.”

“Why are we here?” he said when they’d reached the front.

“This is your hunting lodge, my friend. Certainly, the only thing on a river I can muster for you. The fortune of the Kerrs is tied entirely to Castle Kerr. We do not maintain a host of lodges throughout the borderlands.”

“I think Sir Alan may notice the lack of ceiling in his room. Perhaps, though, if we arrived after dark? And provided him a canopied bedstand?”

She gave him a dry look. “My men will be able to manage a new floor and reed roof by the end of the week. ’Twill be up to you, however, to convince our guest of the charms of rusticity.”

As
if
eighteenth-century Scotland weren’t rustic enough.
“And what do you want me to tell him of the canal?”

“MacHarg, I appreciate the opportunity you have arranged with Sir Alan. Truly I do. However, I dinna plan to rely on the persuasive abilities of a man I hardly know, who stumbled into the borderlands with neither wits nor weapon at hand, and who may be as happy to see my clan fail as succeed. I will sit down with him myself, after you have delighted him with the pleasures of fishing the Esk.”

He was the opening act, not the headliner. An irrational disappointment overcame him. He was good at negotiation—very good. Bridges, roads, canals—they all needed financing. He could do so much more for her if she would just let him.

The sound of thumping hooves rose beyond the ridge. Abby stiffened. “Hide yourself.”

“I’m your strong arm, remember?”

“A strong arm obeys. Hide.”

The edge in her voice told him more than the words. He opened his mouth to argue—

“
MacHarg.
”

With a sigh, he relented. He topped the chapel steps in two strides and tucked himself behind the largest intact wall.

“Abby, if it’s dangerous, shouldn’t you—”

“I didn’t say it was dangerous.
Be
quiet
.”

He could see her but not the path. If the person on the horse threatened her, Duncan didn’t care what his “orders” were. His sword might be wooden, but it still packed a wallop. And his fists worked just fine.

The hoofbeats grew louder and louder till they stopped just outside the chapel. Abby maintained her hold on the bow but didn’t raise it. Duncan tightened his grip on his hilt.

“’Tis an odd place to find the head of Clan Kerr,” a male voice said.

“I find a long walk clears the head.”

“I’ll never understand the risks ye take,” said the voice, considerably softer and, as such, at once familiar. “I should hate for something to happen to ye.”

Duncan gritted his teeth. He’d been exiled to the ruins not to keep from unnerving a potential threat. He’d been exiled to the ruins to keep from unnerving Rosston. Bloody hell.

“Nothing will happen to me in these hills, Rossie. I’ve been walking them since I was a lass. Besides, I have my bow.”

“And a pistol, I see. Good for you. Would you like a companion for the rest of your journey?”

Oh, great.

“I would,” she said. “But I can tell from your packs you’re on your way somewhere. I have no wish to detain you. I know you have business you need to address.”

“I wish it were otherwise. My men are here, at your command. I shall return tonight or tomorrow morn at the latest. Perhaps then we can sit down as we have talked about and decide what is best for us…and for the clans.”

Duncan waited for the ax to fall.
She
would decide, not him.
Tell
him, Abby, tell him.

“Aye,” she said, weariness in her voice. “Perhaps it is time at that. By tomorrow, I shall know my mind.”

Duncan nearly lost his footing. Abby gave him a tiny sideways glare.

“Tomorrow, then,” Rosston said.

“Wait,” she said and moved out of Duncan’s sight. Closer to Rosston.
Next
to
him, no doubt.
Duncan tortured himself for an instant, imagining the scene.

“Will ye give me a proper good-bye?” Rosston asked.

His voice had grown husky. Duncan wished to be any other place on earth.

A muffled “
mm
” from Rosston that would be branded in Duncan’s memory forever, then, from Abby: “Godspeed.”

“Go back to the castle,” Rosston said. “For me.” A plea, not a command. Perhaps he was trainable, after all.

The horse trotted off. Abby appeared again in Duncan’s view, offering him a nodded “all clear.”

He bounded out, stung by the double lashes of incompetence and jealousy.

“I don’t want to hide again,” he said, not caring if he sounded like a sullen child. “I want my pistol back.”

Abby readjusted the strap of her quiver, tactfully choosing not to point out the situation that just passed was not one that had required a weapon. “Is that really what ye want?”

“
Yes
. I don’t want to be hearing hooves and wondering whether I’ll be massacred in the next minute. I need to be able to protect myself.”
And
you
hung in the air, though he knew her amusement would kill him if he said it.

To her credit, Abby didn’t even smile. “I know what it is to long for the power to protect oneself, MacHarg. And I will give ye your pistol. But if you are to be my strong arm, you will need more than that.” She handed him her bow, and reached for the buckle on her belt.

“I don’t think I would make much of an archer,” he said uncomfortably.

“Good. Since I don’t have a year to teach you the skills.” She tossed the belt and quiver on the ground and retrieved the bow. “Did I not hear ye say ye knew how to wield a sword?”

“Yes.” Duncan had aced two years of fencing classes and considered himself if not quite an expert then certainly the most skilled of his reenactor friends. He had a beautiful lunge.

“Show me.”

He squirmed a bit. It was one thing to back his instructor into a corner in the heat of an encounter. Doing his moves with a wooden sword while Abby appraised him felt very different. With some trepidation, he withdrew his blade and angled himself into the
en
garde
position.

“This would be better if I had someone to fight,” he said.

“Perhaps we can arrange that. But for now, please, just begin.”

Soles flat and body carefully balanced between his feet, Duncan advanced and retreated. The wooden sword was, of course, weighted differently from the fencing saber he used in class, but the principles were the same: Loose but controlled grip, point angled slightly downward. Non-sword hand in the air for increased agility. Eyes focused in the middle distance but alert to tiny movements at the edge of one’s vision that betray an opponent’s next move.

He advanced, retreated, and jump lunged, followed quickly by an advance, retreat, and flèche. With each movement, the familiar sense of mastery increased. He thought of her father refusing to teach her to use a sword and wondered if he might be the man to open this world to her.

He extended his attack over a wider area, thrusting his sword left and right with a graceful ease. With a beautiful crossover, he turned his line of attack ninety degrees and prepared for a beautiful—

Thump!

The sword flew from his hand and hit the chapel steps.

Like an eighteenth-century Babe Ruth, Abby recovered from her swing and ran a finger along the length of her bow, searching for damage. “I think,” she said flatly, “you may need a bit of polishing.”

“You wouldna have done that had my blade been steel.”

“No. You’re right. In that case, I would have put an arrow through your heart when you turned your back. You need to learn to fight. ’Tis nothing to be ashamed of, MacHarg. No man is born with the knowledge of it. How do you think the lads learn?”

He had a sudden vision of himself standing a head above a class of preteen boys. After coming into possession of a small upright piano courtesy of a moving neighbor, Duncan’s mother had forced him to take lessons at age fifteen. He remembered the abject shame of performing in a recital alongside schoolkids who had learned much faster and played much better than he did. He had no wish to repeat the experience.

He shook his head. “No.”

“I know just the teacher.”

The nightmare re-formed in his head, and instead of being outgunned by a bunch of kids, Duncan stood before Rosston as he explained the proper grip in the sort of tone one reserves for half-wits and five-year-olds.

“
No
. I have all the skills I need.”

She stared, eyes blazing. “Then our effort is at an end, MacHarg. I need a
strong
arm, not a dead one. My steward will provide you with your wages, and I will tell Sir Alan a family matter in the north required your attention.”

The prospect of being cast off in the borderlands brought him back to the reality of his situation abruptly. He couldn’t survive, and, worse, he would lose his one chance to show Abby how much he could help her.