Love Beyond Compare (Book 5 of Morna’s Legacy Series) (17 page)

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Shortly after breakfast, Adwen disappeared. It seemed to be a habit of his—one that I put off to a life spent traveling rather than playing laird and host to his guests. His brother, Callum, had the same tendency. I’d seen little of him since our arrival. Not that anyone minded Adwen’s absence. After the events of the previous day, we were all filthy and tired. Once we’d scarfed down a hearty Adwen-cooked breakfast, we all quickly dispersed to get clean and rest while the snow melted.
 

I saw Cooper safely settled into his own bath—or at least, I made certain one was drawn for him. He refused to let me be in the room while he climbed inside. “Six year olds,” he said, “are plenty big to scrub their own toes and armpits.” I couldn’t blame him for wanting this privacy.
 

Chuckling as I left him, I stepped inside my own bedchamber to find a host of women busy changing the beddings, airing the room, and cleaning up the remnants of Isobel’s injury. Not wishing to bathe in front of them, I asked that they prepare me a tub on their way out. I would come back to bathe once they were finished. They agreed and, instead of bathing, I went in search of Adwen to fill the time.
 

 
The door to his bedchamber was closed. As I pressed my ear against the doorway, I heard nothing. He’d slept less than any of us, and I didn’t wish to disturb him if he’d tucked away to get a nice, long nap in. But just as I started to step away, my elbow bumped into the door, creating a knocking noise loud enough to rouse a response from him.
 

“Come in.”

I reached for the handle and pushed my way in. Immediately, I threw my palms up to cover my eyes at the sight of his hands and bare feet hanging out the sides and end of the tub.
 

“Is everybody in this castle bathing at the exact same time? Someone is busy heating an ass-load of water. Who just says ‘come in’ when they’re in the bathtub?”
 

“Jane.” He laughed loudly as water splashed onto the ground. He pulled his feet into the tub as I hesitantly removed my hands and stepped toward the side of the tub so I could see his face. “I’m sorry, lass. I thought ye were one of the castle lassies who prepared the bath.”

I kept my eyes away from what sat below the surface of the water, but I was helplessly unable to keep myself from looking at everything that lay outside it.
 

Every inch of him seemed to glisten with water droplets, making it clear that he’d submerged his entire body beneath the water’s surface more than once. His hair looked darker, his muscles even more defined than I’m sure they did when they were dry. I had to glance continually up at the wall behind him to keep from lingering on his bare chest. It didn’t do any good. He knew I stared.
 

“Would ye like to join me, Jane? ’Tis no a lot of room, but I think ye could sit atop me just fine.”

I laughed, the giggle coming out choked and breathy. It did nothing to help fortify the resolve of my answer. “Absolutely not. Are you mad? And do you usually just let the ‘castle lassies’ come in and out of your bedchamber while you’re bathing?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Aye, o’course I do.”

“Okay, whatever. Please, finish your bath. I’ll leave you be.”

I stepped toward the door, shielding the side of my face to prevent myself from taking a dangerous glance at what lay beneath the water. He jerked my hand away, grasping onto it as I walked by him, effectively sending my line of vision straight down into the water.
 

“Oh, holy crap, Adwen! What did you do that for?”

I looked up at him, but his face gave way to no sense of embarrassment. “Why are ye here, Jane?”

He still held onto my hand. I kept my eyes locked on his face as I answered.
 

“You just kept yourself pretty absent yesterday. I was just checking on you—making sure you were okay. That’s what friends do. They check on one another.”

“Ach, doona tell me ye want to be my friend one more time, Jane. No matter how many times ye say it, I willna believe ye. I doona understand ye, lass. One moment ye are warm and open and the next chilly and closed.”

I pulled my hand from his, stepping backward so he couldn’t grasp onto it again.
 

“I’m not chilly, just sensible. There’s no point to any of this.”

“No point, lass? There is no point in this fight ye put on yerself, for ’tis no a fight with me. Ye please me, Jane. And aye, I can be yer friend, but I also wish to be yer lover. I willna deny nor apologize for it.”

“That’s the thing, Adwen. I don’t want a ‘lover.’ There’s no reason, no point, in throwing myself into something so meaningless.”

“Ach, there is plenty of reason and meaning for it, lass. I could remind ye of it, if only ye’d let me.”
 

There was another knock on Adwen’s door, followed by his swift invitation to enter.
 

I shifted uncomfortably as Cooper appeared in the doorway, completely unsure of how to explain my presence in his room while he bathed. Luckily, Cooper gave me no chance to explain.
 

“Aunt Jane? What are you doing in here? Can’t you just give anybody some privacy? I mean, if I’m six and I can bathe by myself, I’m pretty sure Adwen can too. I’m sure it’s embarrassing for him, you standing in here watching him to make sure he cleans between his toes.”

I ignored most of what he’d said to ask him what he was doing here. He seemed to think it quite obvious.
 

“I came here to ask Adwen where you were. I never thought you’d be watching him bathe, though. You’re not his mom or his aunt, Aunt Jane. I think maybe you should just let him be.”

“Right. You’re right, of course.” I waved a hand in Adwen’s direction, a gesture meant to make him stop the little shake of his shoulders as he stifled his laughter. It only made them shake harder. “What did you need me for, Coop?”

“As you can see, I’m all clean and bathed. And now I need to talk to you right away. It’s very important.” He turned, calling after me as he walked out the door. “Come on, Aunt Jane. Right away.”

As soon as Cooper was out of earshot, Adwen burst into unbridled laughter, shaking until I shook my head, frustrated and annoyed as I turned to leave the room. Only then did he gather the strength to stop his laughter and speak.
 

“Ye heard the lad, Jane. Leave me be, lassie. I can clean my own toes and crevices.”

CHAPTER 22

When he left, Cooper made no mention of just where exactly I was supposed to meet him ‘right away,’ but it didn’t take long for me to find him. He sat up in the tower, easily the most beautiful and majestic spot in the whole castle. It was the same place Adwen and I were the moment we heard Cooper’s scream after Isobel’s fall, but I pushed thoughts of that terror away, allowing the beauty of the room to sweep over me as I went to sit next to him on a small stone bench beneath one of the room’s many windows.
 

“Do you feel okay, Aunt Jane?”

I nodded, reaching out to squeeze one of his little knees gently. “Yes, I feel fine—a little dirty. I’m ready for my bath, but fine. Why do you ask?”

“I meant does your back or bottom hurt where you’re sitting? I need you to be all okay and comfy in your seat so you’ll pay attention.”

Cooper was skilled at many things, the greatest being his ability to draw the curiosity right out of you until you were just about ready to lose your mind. I was nearly there.

“Yes. I am very comfy, and you have my utmost attention. Spill.”

“You know how Isobel said she had a dream last night?”

I nodded, watching his eyes carefully. He wasn’t a nervous child, but I could tell by the tiniest twitch of his eyes that he was nervous now. “Yes. What about it?”

“Well, I had a dream too, and it reminded me of something I meant to tell you before, but with what happened I just forgot. But I remember now.”

“Well, what was the dream, Coop?”

He always did this. He would start to tell you whatever he meant to, but then would force you to listen to him ramble for five minutes before anything he said made any real sense.
 

“The dream doesn’t matter. What matters is this—I think there is a way we can help Isobel.”

“Oh?” We’d all spent our fair share of time trying to think of ways we could help Isobel—it came as no surprise to me that Cooper had done the same. “Perhaps, there is a way we could get her some pain relief of some sort, but we can’t do anything for her until the snow melts. You know that, right?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Aunt Jane. Have you seen the ghosts?”

A chill shot through me, making every inch of me cold and shaky. Even in the twenty-first century, there’d been whisperings of the hauntings at Cagair Castle, but I was sure I’d never mentioned them to Cooper. The day Kathleen and I had started work on the place, the man who gave us the keys warned us of the spirits that supposedly roamed the castle’s stairways and corridors. It had frightened me so much at the time that I all but begged Kathleen to allow me to sell my half of the deed. She’d managed to talk me down, however, and after spending the first week in the castle without incident, I’d decided to dismiss the castle’s ghostly reputation as a baseless rumor. Still, even the mere mention of the supernatural made me uncomfortable.

I believed in ghosts. How could I not believe in almost anything after being born in a time centuries ahead of that in which I lived now? But even so, the supernatural terrified me. Ghosts, witches, time travel—all of it made me more uncomfortable than the thought of having my who-ha waxed in public. And although I’d never seen a ghost, I’d been in places on more than one occasion where I thought I felt one’s presence. I expected the only reason I’d never seen one was because they could somehow sense my terror and knew that if they stepped out of the shadows, I’d most likely pee my pants and then die.
 

“No, Coop. I definitely have not. What ghosts? Why? Have you seen any?”

He shook his head, disappointed. “No, I wish though, but I heard Adwen and Orick talking about them in front of me, but you see, they said something very strange.”

“What’s that?” I tried to keep the fear hidden from my voice.
 

“They were talking about the ghosts’ clothes, and it sounded like the stuff you used to wear. I don’t think they’re ghosts.”

That’s all I needed to hear to take a grateful breath as some of the tension left me. Not that it was good that anything uninvited or quite possibly un-alive was wondering around the castle, but as long as it wasn’t ghosts, I was fine.
 

“If they’re not ghosts, then what are they?”

“Real people, of course. Just from our time. I think maybe there’s a portal.”

Immediately, I knew what he would say—what Cooper would suggest. If there was such an inexplicably magical portal inside the castle, Cooper would want to go through it to find help. I couldn’t do the time travel thing again. The last time, I was pretty sure everyone around me had grown dangerously close to having me committed. It had frightened me so terribly, and made me that mad. The impossibility of it was something I still had a difficult time wrapping my head around. I thought it best not to encourage where I knew the conversation led.
 

“I don’t think there’s a portal, Cooper. If there was, someone would have found it by now.”

He stood, suddenly angry with me for being so dismissive. I knew it was the reaction he’d learned to expect from many people around him, but never from me.
 

“They wouldn’t have found it if it was hidden well. Haven’t you learned from Morna that that’s the way those witches do things?”

His persistence, mingled with my own fear, quickly escalated my own anger causing me to lose my temper.
 

“What is it with Morna? I really don’t understand why everyone likes her so much. She meddles, and controls, and sends people to times and places they have no business being. If we were meant to be in this time Cooper, we would have been born here. Even if there is some sort of bewitched portal in this castle, we are not going through it.”

His lower lip trembled, but I knew he wouldn’t allow himself to cry in front of me.

“Even…even if it would help Isobel?”

“Yes.” Everything within me knew the wrongness in my response. It was based on fear and concern over Cooper’s safety. Each travel took its toll, and Cooper had been back and forth many times for someone so young. I didn’t wish to be the one responsible for any harm to come to him. “Even for Isobel. She wouldn’t want us putting ourselves at such a risk for her.”

A single tear fell. He turned from me so I wouldn’t see it.
 

“You’re wrong, Aunt Jane. About everything. There’s no risk in good magic, and we are supposed to be here, in this time. What if the whole reason we are is to help Isobel?”
 

He ran out of the tower before I could say another word. As I watched him leave, I prayed with the sound of his every footstep that no such portal lay hidden within the castle. If there was, I knew Cooper would find it.