Revenge (Book 3 of Lost Highlander series) (6 page)

“Wasn’t he a drunken brawler? Was she rebelling against her family?” Pietro couldn’t imagine that the daughter of a dignitary or member of the peerage would go for someone like that.

She turned and stared at him as if he was out of his mind. “Ye’ve seen Lachlan, and ye see Quinn, aye? Well, they got their looks from their Da.” She blushed. “And ye must remember, that he was still the laird of his clan.”

“Oh, that’s nice, Bella,” Pietro teased, his headache receded from the distraction of the story. He was more amused than irritated that she had all but admitted to finding the Ferguson men attractive. “Perhaps having to marry Lachlan wasn’t such a torture for ye after all.”

Her countenance instantly changed from relaxed camaraderie to intensely insulted and she opened her mouth to let him have it. He reached out and grabbed her hand before she could get started.

“I didn’t mean it,” he said, trying to get his fingers laced with hers, but she closed her fist and refused to look at him. “Come on, we were getting along.”

“Why did ye have to bring that up, then?” she wailed.

She cut a sideways glance at him and he could see she was pouting but maybe not as mad as he first feared. Her hand was a tight ball, but she hadn’t snatched it completely away.

“Let’s forget I did,” he pleaded. “It never happened.”

“Aye, it never did happen, just as I shall say nothing happened with ye when I’m returned to my father.”

These words fell like bricks and a stone cold fear rose in his chest. He had been sure she didn’t want to be returned to her father. Wasn’t that the reason they were running in the first place? He studied her face, her brow furrowed low over her deep brown eyes, her full lips pressed into a thin line. But, still her hand was in his.

“Ye don’t mean it,” he ventured. “And ye know ye would never tell such a lie to your father.”

She glared at him and her chin wobbled. “I dinna lie,” she said boldly. “Never.”

Now he was outraged that she would try to pretend everything that passed between them had never happened. They had shared some beautiful, passionate moments, and he would be damned if she just sat there on her horse, looking him in the eye and even daring to say they hadn’t. He gave her back her stormy glare with interest and she yanked her hand out of his grasp.

“I hope ye are pregnant,” Pietro sputtered to her back as she haughtily pulled up ahead of him.

Bella jerked around and for the first time looked ungraceful in her saddle. A strange look flickered across her face before she rearranged it back into the frown he was used to.

“That’s a wicked thing to hope for,” she said. She stared at him for a long moment, until he almost had to look away. God help him, but he really almost hoped she was. “Though, since I am wed to Lachlan, it would lawfully be his child, and be heir to all this. And it would put an end to the clans fighting. So, if I were, it would probably be for the best.”

Before he could think of a retort, Quinn put an end to their argument. “We are no’ on Ferguson land yet, so no’ yet out of danger,” he hollered from his place far ahead of them. “If ye’re well enough to spar with the wee harridan, perhaps we could pick up the pace a bit?”

***

The sun had risen halfway in the sky when they arrived at the farm. Quinn stopped at the top of a small rise and they caught up with him to look at the land. On higher rises, Pietro had caught glimpses of the sea in the far distance, but now there was no sign of it. Rolling, recently harvested fields spread out in every direction, surrounded by more hills and spotty woods. Crofter’s huts charmingly dotted the landscape and a larger house could be seen at the edge of the land, butting up almost against the forested hills.

It looked to Pietro like a slice of heaven. He glanced over at Bella who was also staring at the peaceful scene and then he turned to Quinn, who was rightfully looking down at all he surveyed with a deep sense of glowing pride.

“This is really lovely, mate,” Pietro said.

Quinn arranged his features to something more befitting his station as their leader and nodded abruptly, tearing his eyes from the farm.

“We’re still a bit away. Let’s keep moving,” he said, kicking his horse forward. With twin sighs, Pietro and Bella followed him.

They’d passed the first of the crofter’s cottages, Quinn merely waving and promising to return with news when he got his charges settled in, when a young girl came racing across the fields toward them.

Her dark blond hair flew behind her like a tangled banner and she had bits of dried grass stuck to her skirt along with a swipe of mud on her cheek. She laughed joyously when Quinn slid off the side of his horse before it had even completely stopped and took her in his arms and twirled her around.

“What have ye been doing, Catie lass?” he asked when he set her down and gave her a once over.

She looked down at her skirts and began brushing away the straw. “I saw ye approaching and fell down the hill in my haste to reach ye,” she said breathlessly.

“Well, are ye hurt?” Quinn asked with a frown of concern, wiping the smudge off her cheek.

She shook her head, her somewhat plain face taken over by a smile. “Just feel a bit foolish is all,” she said.

“Aye, then, ye’re used to that,” Quinn said in a gruff tone that couldn’t hide his obvious affection for the girl.

She stuck out her tongue at him and eyed Pietro and Bella, who’d stopped and waited to be introduced. “Is that yer wife?” she asked, nodding at Bella. “She looks miserable enough to be.”

Quinn barked a laugh and put his sister in a choke hold, leading her squirming and giggling over to his horse, where he then hoisted her onto the saddle. He got on behind her and tried to explain what was going on as they continued on to the farmhouse.

It was difficult to tell much without telling it all, so Catie was most likely as clueless as to who they were as before she’d even met them. Pietro tried to be harmless and disarming, and in his weakened, pained state, it wasn’t that difficult a task.

“So, ye are Lachlan’s bride?” Catie asked Bella when they were all off their horses, and a groom came to take them to the stable.

Bella’s lip twitched and she looked at Pietro and Quinn before answering. “Aye,” she said slowly.

Pietro wanted to try to shield her from the uncomfortable onslaught, but was sidetracked from any thought of helping her explain her marital state when a new round of pain started slicing across his temples, completely blinding him this time. He was so alarmed he stopped and groped at the air around him, terrified to be in total blackness.

Someone small got under his arm and his vision came back, like he was opening his eyes under water. He held onto Bella as she helped him to the door of the house. Catie swung it open and stepped aside to let them enter.

“What’s the matter with him?” she asked worriedly after he was collapsed on the settee in a cozy sitting room. The fire was blazing and Pietro had never been so grateful in his life.

“We dinna know,” Quinn said, directing a servant to bring food and drink.

“Who did that to his face?”

Quinn sighed and looked to Bella, then at his sister. “Lachlan,” he said shortly.

Even in Pietro’s current state, he could see that Catie was savvy for her sixteen years. She was adding up the problem of his bruised face, Bella’s presence coupled with Lachlan’s absence, and their being on the run together and coming up with an interesting sum. She went to a carved wooden chest and pulled out a blanket, draping it over him.

“Well, if he can be made better, we shall do it,” she said. “Oh, Quinn, Auntie Gwen is at market with the chickens. She’ll no’ be back until tomorrow at earliest. We could send someone after her, though, if ye like.”

“Ah, that’s no’ necessary,” he said, wiping his hands over his face. “But I’ll send a messenger back home with some news. Fetch me the fastest rider ye have.”

Pietro drifted off after that, coming around again when Bella prodded him to give him some soup. He didn’t think he could stomach the savory clear broth, but she was insistent. It seemed very important to her that he keep his strength up and she wrestled a pile of pillows behind his back so that he was sitting upright, then primly held out a spoonful for him to eat.

He couldn’t help it, but he laughed at her sitting there looking so dour with her upraised spoon. He didn’t understand her one little bit.

“I should think it would be in your best interest if I were to just quietly die,” he joked, opening his mouth for the soup.

She gasped and jammed the spoon in his mouth, nearly gagging him. “That’s a terrible, heathen thing to say. I’d no’ wish my worst enemy dead,” she said.

“Sorry,” he said, too tired to get into another argument. Also, the soup was tasty and he wanted her to keep feeding him. Just the first bite had restored him somewhat.

She fed him in silence until he’d eaten the entire bowl and washed it down with some ale and water. He would have rather had tea, but he didn’t want to put anyone out. He needed to remind himself how precarious his situation really was. He was a stranger in this time, with no family or friends. Quinn had been ordered by his brother to keep him alive because he thought Piper’s existence counted on it, but how much of that did Quinn really believe? How much of it did he really believe, for that matter? If it came right down to a clan war, wouldn’t Quinn just turn Bella back over to her father rather than risk countless lives of his loved ones?

His head had been feeling better until he started obsessing like that. He closed his eyes and sighed, and to his surprise, Bella began stroking his hair and quietly humming. The tune was sweet and mournful and for the first time in a long time, peace enveloped him as he drifted off to sleep.

Piper stared at the book with distaste. She longed to open it and at the same time wanted to chuck it into the fireplace and watch it shrivel to ash. The battered cloth cover seemed benign enough, and anyone who opened it would find a diary full of lists, poetry, recipes and daily musings. Anyone other than Piper.

She knew the second she touched it, she’d be overcome with sensations, knowledge, and even full blown hallucinations. Whatever tied her to this book and its magic, be it the land, the castle, her bloodline, she didn’t know, but she wanted to find out, because tie her it did. She knew she’d never be free until she fully understood it.

She sighed, wondering if that was even possible. How could anyone understand magic? It seemed like it just did what it wanted and laughed at you behind your back, even if you thought you had a handle on it.

Piper knew that she could walk out into the woods and perform the spell to go back in time, but she didn’t know what would happen because of it, who would suffer, who might accidentally get caught up.

Well, that wasn’t precisely true. She couldn’t do the spell, because for the second time, the bones hadn’t come along for the ride with them.

The spell needed eleven human finger bones. That was the first hint that it was pure evil and shouldn’t be messed with. The first time she’d done it, she’d found them in Daria’s tomb, and they hadn’t disappeared when she’d sent Lachlan back to the eighteenth century, so she’d packed them away in a wall safe, against her better judgment and everyone else’s advice.

The second time when both she and Lachlan went back to the eighteenth century, the bones were gone when they arrived. A new set had been left behind when Daria murdered Lachlan’s friend Agnes, but when Piper did the spell a third time to bring them home, once again the bones were gone when they arrived back in the twenty-first century.

She frowned in concentration. That was something. She quickly jotted down her theory that when one person stayed behind, the bones didn’t disappear. It was the only thing written on the page, and she’d hoped to have a lot more information. She had limited time to study while Evie took Lachlan into town to get her a birthday present. She thought it was a terrible waste of time, and she didn’t like being away from Lachlan, especially after what he’d found out.

They were still keeping what they knew a secret from Evie, neither one wanting to alarm her, especially since she’d been under so much stress the last eight months, with a new baby, the awful breakup with Sam, and running the estate.

It seemed that there was a whole string of mishaps ranging from small fires, one actually causing a fair amount of damage to an outbuilding on the far side of the lake, to broken bits of fence that didn’t seem the natural work of time, to one of the golf carts getting all scratched up. These might have been the handiwork of an everyday hoodlum, which was what the groundskeepers all seemed to think when they’d talked to Lachlan.

Piper supposed they could have been incidents of petty vandalism, but she couldn’t believe anyone from the village, or even the surrounding villages would do such things. Still, it was crazy to think every little bad thing that happened to her was the work of an evil ancestor, and she was ready to blow it off and relax, when Lachlan told her about the sheep.

Before they left on their mission to the eighteenth century, four of her dozen wonderful little fat sheep had been viciously killed. Gutted with a knife, and definitely the work of a human. When they learned that Daria was still alive, Piper immediately suspected her as being the killer, and had been horrified to think Daria was back in this time.