Lord of the Highlands (29 page)

Lily giggled, then asked, “East Coast or West?”

“Excuse me?” Felicity spun, staring at the woman. Will had alluded to other women traveling back in time. Could this be one of them? “What did you just say?”

“Will didn’t know about me, did he? No, he wouldn’t have,” Lily mused, answering her own question. “I think it’s been years since he and Ewen have seen each other. Well, if Will didn’t already know where I’m from, my husband’s probably telling him right now. Over a whisky, if I know my Ewen.”

“I’m sorry,” Felicity said tentatively, sitting down on the bed. She’d felt an instant connection with this woman, almost like she recognized Lily. But actually meeting another woman from her place, her time, would be too much to ask. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“No,
I’m
sorry.” Lily smiled. Supporting the small of her back, she eased herself onto the bed next to Felicity. “I’m getting way ahead of myself. Where exactly are you from?”

“I . . .” Felicity faltered, unsure of how to respond. “I’m from Glasgow.”

“If you’re from Glasgow, then my name’s Britney Spears.”

An incredulous laugh burst from Felicity. She
never
would’ve guessed it’d ever feel so fantastic to hear the name Britney Spears.

“You don’t think I could pass?” Lily picked up a swath of her hair, studying it. “I guess my hair is a little too curly. And I’d never be able to do the—what is it—a Louisiana accent? I’m a Cali girl after all.”

“Oh, California!” Felicity exclaimed, her eyes wide. “Really? Me too.”

“Yep,” Lily said, her voice growing wistful. “San Fran, baby. Late nineties. And what I wouldn’t do for an avocado right about now. You?”

“I can’t believe this is happening. I live . . . I
lived
there too. In the Mission.”

“Crazy . . .” Lily shook her head, marveling. “I always wondered when we’d meet someone else. There was another, Robert, Ewen’s foster brother.” Lily’s smile faded, and her voice grew subdued. “He died. Though lately we’ve been talking about the whole time travel thing. It seems like there must be some way to . . . Well, that’s a whole other story.” Lily brightened her features. “You still haven’t told me,
when
are you from?”

“A little later than you. But not by much.” Felicity’s initial surprise was waning, replaced by an absurd pang of jealousy.
She
wanted to be the only one whose love was so great and so perfect the universe sent her back in time for it. “Did you make a wish to get here?”

“Wish?” Lily tilted her head, confused. “No way. I . . . sort of . . . fell here. Through the labyrinth. Wait, did you come through the maze too?”

“Maze?”

“Long story.”

“Oh.”
A maze.
Felicity hadn’t needed a gimmick. She’d made a wish, and the universe had delivered Felicity directly to her One True Love. The thought perked her back up. “You could say I wished for him.”

“You wished to come here?” Lily laughed. “Then I guess you weren’t as freaked out as I was.”

“Not really, actually. Tell me,” Felicity said, pinning the laird’s wife with a serious look. “What did you do to get Ewen to let you stay?”

“What?”

“How’d you convince him? To let you stay in the past.”

“We reached a point where . . .” Lily blushed crimson. “Well, I don’t think he’d have let me leave if I tried.” She gave a little grinning shrug that was like a dagger in Felicity’s chest.

Ewen loved Lily. Wouldn’t let her go.

Sadness and desolation swamped her. Why wouldn’t Will want her to stay too?

“But . . .” Felicity hesitated. “It seems so dangerous here. Aren’t you scared? Like, aren’t you afraid to be pregnant in the past?”

She could tell she hit a nerve somewhere. She saw the flicker of it in Lily’s eye, and it made her feel a little guilty. But all the laird’s wife said was, “When you love someone, I guess it conquers all fear.”

Lily studied Felicity, as if seeing her anew. “Why?” she asked. “Are
you
scared to be here?”

Felicity was grateful they were interrupted by a knock on the door and a teenage boy bursting into the room. A handsome kid with the devil in his eye. The spitting image of Ewen.

“Da’s looking for you.” Though he was speaking to Lily, the boy’s gaze didn’t budge from Felicity.

“Is he now? It’s not simply that you wanted to meet our new guest?” Lily winked at him. He screwed up his face, looking as though he were trying to summon lasers from his eyes with which to melt her. She grew very formal, and said, “Felicity, this is our son John.”

“Pleased, mum.” He gave a curt bow, then turned back to Lily. “But Da
is
looking for you,” he said, before racing from the room, cheeks blazing red.

Lily giggled. “We don’t get much new blood around here. You’ve stirred up quite a lot of buzz. Though I’m sure Will tells you all the time how pretty you are.”

Felicity promptly ran through her memories, cataloguing what Will had told her when, and decided she might just have to cast bait for a
pretty
compliment. She could use one of those at the moment.

“Speaking of pretty,” Felicity said, “you look way too young to have a son John’s age.”

“I’m not his biological mom. Ewen was a widower when I met him.”

“Really?”
Odd.
Did that mean Ewen really was Lily’s One True Love, or really wasn’t? “You’ll have to tell me the whole story while we go find the guys.”

“The guys,” Lily muttered, taking her arm. “It’s
so
nice having someone to talk to like this.”

Felicity felt another stab of guilt over her competitive thoughts. Lily was a total sweetheart, and Ewen was clearly hot in a brooding sort of way.

But no man was as great as her Will. They were meant for each other. In her mind, no other relationship could compete with theirs.

Felicity frowned. She had only a matter of time now in which to convince
him
of that fact.

Chapter 29

Felicity walked down the empty corridor, headed back to her room. Lily had promised to arrange her a bath, and she was desperately looking forward to the prospect.

The other rooms were empty and the doors were all open, but for one, pulled to, and she heard the low rumble of Ewen’s voice from behind it. His tone was easy and relaxed, interspersed with a decidedly more feminine voice. The laird and his wife, talking in the library.

She was about to pass right by, when mention of her name stopped Felicity in her tracks.

“Felicity, yes,” Lily said in answer to an indistinct question. With a quick glance up and down the hallway, Felicity edged along the wall to listen. “I got the impression Rollo doesn’t want her to stay,” the laird’s wife added.

“Did the woman say as much?” The voice was clearly Ewen’s.

“No.” Lily’s voice was subdued, and Felicity leaned her ear closer to the cracked door. “But a woman can tell.”

“Oh can she?” Ewen chuckled. “Well, as it happens, I ken Rollo’s mind, and you speak truly.”

Felicity’s mouth went dry. The men had discussed her?

“You mean he’s
making
her leave?”

“Aye.”

“Aye?” Lily asked incredulously. “Come
on
, Ewen. You know I need more details than
aye
. Didn’t you see how googly-eyed Will is for her? He’s obviously totally in love with her.”

Felicity gave a little nod.
Yeah
, she thought.
Totally in love.

She heard another low chuckle. “I can’t speak to the man’s eyes, but aye, you have the right of it. Will is clearly besotted. But it doesn’t matter.”

A chill swept Felicity, turning her blood to ice.

“How can being in love not matter?” Lily sounded crestfallen.

“Rollo speaks of a debt he owes, and nothing comes between Will and his duty.”

“A debt . . . like he owes money?”

“Och, lass, no. He’s . . .” Ewen paused, considering his words. “The man is a staunch Royalist. Simply because the battles have subsided does not mean the Royalists aren’t fighting on, behind the scenes. Rollo owes his fellows a debt, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the man, it’s that he doesn’t go back on his word.”

“But . . . that’s horrible. You have to talk to him.”

“I have. And I plan on helping him.”

Anger tightened Felicity’s chest. The fates conspired against her, and now this man too? What had she ever done to Ewen?

“What?” Lily’s voice was a low hiss.

“Aye. I’ll show him the maze.”

“But . . . but that’s for Robert. We’re building it to try and save Robbie.”

“Why not for the woman too?”

“Ewen, have a heart,” she said in a lowered voice. Felicity heard rustling. It seemed Lily was about to bust out the feminine wiles on her husband. “Come on, honey, why can’t she just stay with us? She’ll be safe here.”

Go, Lily!
Her new best friend.

“It has naught to do with my heart, lass. Rollo’s brother is out for blood, and by now most of Perthshire will think her a witch. Soon, Rollo himself will be called to help men who rally in secret for the King. He finds himself in a dangerous business . . .” Ewen let the words—and their obvious implication—hang.

Dread stole the breath from her lungs. She had to leave to save her own life. Will’s honor made him stay, even though he’d likely be killed. The laird was saying as much.

“If she were to stay and something came to pass,” he went on, “Felicity would be left alone. And all the stone in Tor Castle wouldn’t be able to protect her.”

“But,” Lily protested, “you know how life is here. Once they part, they’ll probably never see each other again.”

“Aye. Mayhap.” There was another rustling, then Ewen’s voice again, soft and low. “Och, Lil’. Such emotion on your bonny face. I’ll never understand the quick tears of a woman.”

“I know.” Lily’s voice was a barely audible murmur now. “It’s the damned hormones.”

“I ken what’ll smooth the sadness from your brow.”

“You can’t mean . . .”

“Oh aye. I can mean. And I do. I’ve told you before,” he said. “A laird’s wife has duties.”

“But Ewen, I’m about to burst.” Lily’s giggle was an arrow straight to Felicity’s heart.

Felicity began to back away. Though she didn’t know Ewen, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to hear the masculine intent in his voice. She spun, taking the cold slate stones at a jog.

Ewen’s voice resounded at her back. “Aye,” he was telling his wife. “They say ’twill make the babe come faster.”

But those weren’t the words Felicity heard. It was Ewen’s pronouncement about Will, about his dedication to duty, which echoed in her mind.

Because Felicity had also learned well. William Rollo would never go back on his word. Will would stay where he was, forsaking all else, forfeiting his life to keep a promise to a friend.

Felicity slipped below the surface of the bathwater, letting the hollow nothingness of underwater fill her ears. But not even the sound of oblivion could erase the chatter in her head. She exhaled slowly, and tiny bubbles blipped to the surface.

The room was dark, candles and firelight chasing away only the most meager of shadows. She kept her eyes shut in the blackness, focusing her other senses outward. The water was soft on her mouth and soothing on eyes that still ached from recent tears.

Her hands traced along her bent knees, to her belly. She felt full there, and contemplated the firm swell between the jut of her hipbones.

Drifting up her chest, she let her fingers pause idly on her breasts, the flesh cool and lightly pebbled where they emerged from the water.

Felicity reached to her hair, floating in the tub like fronds of algae, silken and weightless. Her scalp was tight, aggressively cleaned from a brick of soap that had smelled faintly of pine.

Pushing her feet against the foot of the metal tub, she slid back up. Inhaled deeply. Her room smelled of lavender and mustiness, and her lungs clenched briefly in protest.

The maids had startled her when they’d knocked on her door, bearing the huge copper basin and buckets of hot water. She didn’t know why she should be surprised. Lily seemed on top of everything, and Felicity didn’t see why her bath would be the thing to fall by the wayside.

She was grateful for the tub, but though it soothed her body, it wasn’t doing much to lift her melancholy spirits.

She hadn’t been able to wrap her mind around it, but hearing someone else speak the words had brought the truth home. Will had work to do. Dangerous work involving kings and intrigues.

There was no place for her.

Not because Will didn’t want her, but because Will might not return alive.

She refused to think on it. Tried instead to be a purely sensory being, all thought pushed from her mind.

Slowly, she traced back down her chest, back over her abdomen, and tucked a finger between her legs.