A Kind of Magic (6 page)

“I wish someone would explain it all to me,” she said, unable to not voice her frustration no matter how much she didn’t want to be noticed.

Rowan leaned forward and poured a cup full from the pitcher Rosemary had set before him a few moments before. He passed it to his bride. “This might help.”

She sniffed the contents of the cup, gave him one of her skeptical looks then downed the drink in one long gulp. Her eyes widened with pleasure. “Not bad.”

“Rosemary brews the best mead in all Sutherland,” he told her. “Or so she’s happy to tell everyone.”

Maddie set the cup down before her and decided to try a conversation with Rowan Murray rather than to continue telling him she didn’t want to marry him. “I shouldn’t be in Sutherland,” she explained. “We were heading for Glasgow, that’s way south of here.”

“So it is. We went to a fair in the village of Glasgow once. I thought little of the place.”

She watched his reactions carefully as she went on. “I work on one of the North Sea oil rigs but I was spending my vacation visiting friends on the Isle of Lewis. I’m a systems engineer. And Her Majesty’s government isn’t going to take kindly to your abducting an American citizen, you know.”

The one thing he knew for certain was that Maddie had a lovely voice. It was deep and melodious. It made him wonder what the sound of her singing a babe to sleep would be like. He wondered what it would sound like late at night when she held him close and murmured love words into his ear. He thought that he must be careful not to become entranced by her voice, but as for what she’d just said, none of it made a bit of sense.

“I know where the North Sea lies,” he told her, “and the Isle of Lewis, but no queen rules Scotland, nor ever has.”

“What about Mary Stuart?” When he just stared at her in confusion, Maddie added,

“You know, the one who got her head chopped off by the English?”

“I’ve heard the Sassenach below the border are barbarians but they’ve killed no queen of ours. The last I heard old William the Lion still sat his throne in the south.”

And as long as the old king stayed where he belonged well below the Great Glen that 33

Susan Sizemore

was fine with Rowan. His loyalty was more or less with the MacDonald who styled himself lord of the Isles.

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ve studied Scottish history,” she said when she looked at him again. “William the Lion ruled from the late 1100s to the early 1200s. Died in 1214, I think.”

“Will he?” The date of a king’s passing was a useful thing to know. Perhaps she would save his people with foreknowledge and that was why she had been sent to him.

“Have you the Sight then? Rosemary will be pleased. She’s always saying we need someone with a stronger sense of foreknowledge in the family.” Rowan wasn’t particularly pleased though. He was sick of all the dealings his clan had with magic.

Maddie considered the way Rowan answered her comments and questions. The way he phrased things disturbed her and made her suspicious. “This is sometime
before
1214?” she asked carefully.

“Aye.”

“But—that can’t be.”

Her face was turned toward him, her expression lost. He couldn’t stop himself from cupping her soft cheek in his hand. “Nothing makes sense,” he told her as reassuringly as he could. “Not to me, not to you. We have our fate to face together and that’s all there is to it. Don’t fret. If the fair folk took you from your own time, there’s nothing that can be done about it.”

Her skin was ash white and cold against his palm. “Took me—from my own—

time?”

Each word came out softer until she only mouthed the last one. Her eyes grew large and dark then slowly closed. Even before she had completely fainted, Rowan snatched her up in his arms. He held her close, cradled like a sick child against his chest, glared around him at the questions and looks from his clans folk and carried her off to his bedchamber.

* * * * *

“I’ll do no such thing.”

“I said to get you gone and I meant it.”

“This is my room! That’s my bed! She’s my wife!”

“You have made two out of three correct assertions, which for a man is not bad at all. Go.”

“This is not your wedding night.”

“You stay out of this Micaela.”

“The lass is right. And your Maddie is ill.”

“She’s not ill, Rosemary. She just fainted. I can deal with her.”

“I know how you plan to deal with her and I’ll not have it.”

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A Kind of Magic

“
You’ll
not—!”

“Not until you’re properly wed.”

Maddie heard the conversation, though it had a distant, unreal quality to it. It was like hearing a television playing in another room.
Some historical program was on, wasn’t
it? One with weird fantasy elements and a hunky hero?

While Maddie listened, the man growled then muttered some unintelligible words.

A door slammed. The two women giggled. When a cool hand touched Maddie’s forehead, she opened her eyes and screamed.

She was out of bed and across the room a moment later. When she hit the wall and turned around, she found both women facing her with startled looks on their faces.

“I think she’s a bit upset,” the young one—Micaela—said to the older one.

“And so she should be,” Rosemary answered. Maddie watched warily as Rosemary held a hand out toward her. “Come along, lass,” she coaxed. “Let’s get you to bed. A good night’s sleep will do us all good.”

“Sleep?” The very concept seemed alien. Memories of her last conversation with Rowan came back to her. “I’m already inside a nightmare.” She glared at the women who were dressed in medieval garments in a room lit by candlelight. They looked perfectly natural. She was the one out of place. “Do you know what year this is? Do you know what’s happened to me?”

As impossible as Rowan’s explanation had been, she believed him. Somehow she had traveled through some sort of time-space anomaly-thing-warp something all the way back to ancient Scotland. Something had to be done about it, but for the life of her she didn’t know what.

Rosemary took a step toward her. “I know you need to rest.”

The women meant well, Maddie knew that. She’d probably scared them when she’d jumped out of bed like that. Maddie didn’t mean to scare anybody. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t Rosemary and Micaela’s fault. She wasn’t so sure about Rowan.

Though he’d acted as surprised to see her as she had him when they met on the road, his behavior since had been completely suspect. He might not be responsible for her time traveling but he certainly meant to take advantage of it. And why did he look like Toby? How did his physical appearance factor into this? It couldn’t be just a coincidence, could it? Was he somehow responsible?

She had no intention of letting him take advantage of the situation no matter what his involvement. Rowan Murray was far too sure of himself, far too domineering, too full of masculine arrogance for her liking. He seemed to think she’d do whatever he wanted just because he ordered it.

“The world does not revolve around Rowan Murray,” she told his female relatives.

Micaela gave her a soft smile. “It will for the woman who loves him.”

Rosemary chuckled. “Micaela thinks love is everything.”

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“Boy, has she got a lot to learn,” Maddie answered. Micaela bit her lower lip pensively and Maddie smiled weakly, apologizing for her comment. “Actually, my mom always says that love’s the answer to everything. Sometimes I think she’s right, but mostly I just—”

“Run like the devil’s on your tail at the thought of a man in your life,” Rosemary finished for her. “But you’re tired of running.”

Maddie blinked. “How’d you know that?”

“She read it in the entrails of a chicken,” Micaela answered.

“No, Micaela, it came to me out of the herb smoke when I chanted for marriage omens,” Rosemary corrected. “The chicken guts were useless, though the rest of it served well enough in the soup pot.”

Micaela nodded. “That’s right. Rosemary’s getting quite good with love magic.”

Rosemary waved away the praise. “I’ll never be any White Lady, that’s for certain.”

Maddie glanced nervously between the pair. “Uh-huh.”

“Enough of our babbling,” Rosemary said. “It’s late. We all need to get some rest.”

Rosemary might not be too in touch with reality but she was right. Maddie was exhausted. She vaguely remembered being in the hall before she woke up in bed. She must have fainted and a flash of indignation shot through her at the realization that she’d let shock overcome her consciousness. Now that she was awake, she found she liked the idea of going back to sleep. Maddie let the woman take her hand. Let her lead her back to the box bed and tuck a warm woolen blanket around her.

Maddie waited until the women had gone before she considered getting undressed.

She hated sleeping in her clothes but she didn’t see any other choice. The top of the sweatshirt seemed too tight around her throat when she was lying down. She reached up her hand to pull it down and discovered it wasn’t the sweatshirt but the necklace that was bunched up around her neck. She sat up and felt for the clasp, only to have her fingers burned the moment she tried to unfasten it.

“Ouch!” She rubbed her fingertips together and blew on them. She could feel the chain against her throat, warm and slightly pulsing. The feeling was not unpleasant but it certainly wasn’t normal. It was almost like an electric current ran through the metal.

Maddie cautiously touched the clasp again. The only way she could describe the sensation when she did was that she
felt
a warning. It wasn’t something she could see or hear but a very physical, tactile impression. The impression told her that she better not try to remove the necklace if she knew what was good for her. Just as everything else today, it was totally weird.

“This is impossible,” she complained. “This is an inanimate metal object.” Perhaps there was some molecular change in the metal that occurred during the time warp. Or she was imagining things. She didn’t know the cause. She just knew that the necklace wasn’t coming off.

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A Kind of Magic

Maddie decided to try not to think about wearing a willful piece of jewelry. It was too much to try to comprehend in her exhausted state. So she lay back down and tried to get some sleep. Oddly enough, it wasn’t hard for her to drift off at all. Something familiar tickled at her subconscious, making her feel warm and comfortable and safe. A faint scent lingered on the pillow and in the blanket. Just before she fell asleep, she recognized that she was in Rowan Murray’s bed and the familiar scent belonged to no one but him.

Hunky hero he may be
, she thought just before sleep completely overcame her.
But he
still isn’t Toby.

37

Susan Sizemore

“We’ve been through this before.”

“Aye. But this time I’ll have my way.”

This time he’d managed to get her all the way into the little church.

She’d felt grubby when the women had woken her sometime before the break of dawn. Her loathing of her filthy state played right into their hands. They coaxed her into a wooden tub of steaming water and then into fresh clothes loaned to her from Micaela. They’d fed her fresh-baked bread and the best oatmeal she’d ever tasted. When Rosemary asked her to attend morning services with her, Maddie was lulled into a false sense of camaraderie. She saw no harm in joining the woman in saying her prayers.

She’d forgotten about Rowan’s wedding plans.

Until he grabbed her by the arm as she came in the door and marched her to the altar. All the Murrays were in the chapel waiting for her of course. It was an ambush, a trap, and she walked right into it. The priest was in front of her, the Murray clan was behind her and the adamant laird himself was at her side.

“You have to marry me,” he said, as if reading her mind. “There’s no way out.”

She wished he hadn’t put it that way. She considered kicking him in the balls again.

However, she wasn’t a violent person under normal circumstances. Being told by Rowan Murray that he intended to marry her had become a normal if redundant part of her life. So violence was out. Reason didn’t work. Stubbornness wasn’t any good—he was the most stubborn man she’d ever encountered. Maddie was willing to bet that the man would stand in front of the altar with her for as long as it took to get her to agree.

Now, she was pretty stubborn herself, but she could tell from the firm set of his jaw and hard glint in his eyes that this man had her beat cold for sheer tenacity.

How ironic that she was being granted her wish to have a man in her life under completely unacceptable circumstances. Fate and some sort of suspension of the laws of science had conspired against her.

Still, she wasn’t ready to give up yet. “I’m not marrying you. I don’t even know you.”

“I saved your life,” he reminded her. “You owe me for that.”

She winced from a twinge of guilt. “You’re not playing fair.”

“I canna afford to.”

She didn’t owe him marriage just because he’d saved her life. She also knew that no argument from her was going to do any good. She looked at the priest. He looked like a sympathetic man. Actually, he looked like a black bear in a cassock. He was short, wide 38

A Kind of Magic

and very, very hairy. She wondered if there were birds nesting in his thick, tangled beard. “Will you talk to him?”

“Will you be wanting a short service or a long one?” the priest asked Rowan. “Will you say your vows before Mass or after?”

“That’s not what I meant!”

Rowan put his arm around Maddie’s waist and led her away from the altar after she shouted at Father Andrew. They didn’t go far, just into a shadowed corner presently unoccupied by any other Murray. He heard the murmuring behind him and felt all the gazes on his back, but he kept his attention on Maddie. He kept his arm around her as well, though she tried to draw away. This had to be settled and quickly.