Oliver shot Jamie a dark look. “I will if I manage a scrap of floor in front of the fire, actually, but I may have to do more negotiating to make that happen.”
“Would you?”
He looked back at her and smiled again. “I would.”
She knew his sleeping habits were as erratic as hers, so she wasn’t surprised by where he was willing to lay his head—or not, for that matter. She would have thanked him for being willing to take up a scrap of floor for her, but she realized the rest of the family had finished their suppers and were simply staring at her as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. She wasvery grateful when Elizabeth invited her upstairs to find clean clothing.
She was desperate to ask the lady of the hall several questions about her own adventures in Scotland, but perhaps later when she thought she had the words equal to those questions.
At the moment, the second thing she wanted most was to simply find somewhere private to sit for a moment and weep in gratitude that she was alive.
And then she would work on the first, which was finding Oliver and seeing if he wouldn’t hold her until she thought she could take a decent breath again.
She suspected that might take quite a while.
It was well past nightfall when she made her way silently down the passageway and paused at the top of the steps. She remembered as vividly as if she were reliving the moment how she’d encountered someone at that same spot several days earlier. She wasn’t sure how long it had been, to be honest. It felt like years.
She wondered if it might have been the echo of Oliver walking in that same spot only centuries in the Future.
The thought was thoroughly ridiculous, but she supposed she was living out things that someone else would have considered just as daft. Perhaps she wasn’t the one to judge.
She could judge her current straits, though, and at least the recent pair of their hours had been passed happily enough. She’d been offered a chance to brave a bath in a tub that wasn’t made of wood and provided endless amounts of hot water from a spout, a marvel she thought she might want to become very familiar with. Having a brief but heartfelt talk with Elizabeth about the challenges of arriving in a different time and adjusting to unexpected things had been comforting. Being given a chamber where she’d been able to stand in the midst of it andbawl her poor eyes out for a quarter hour had perhaps been the most useful thing of all.
Time traveling, as Jamie had remarked as he’d passed her in the passageway but a moment ago, was not for the faint of heart.
Which was all the more reason to descend to the great hall and ground herself in the current year, which was what she had replied to her laird lest he think she was off to raid his larder. If she happened to keep her eyes open for a certain lad of her acquaintance who might be amenable to sitting up all night whilst she endured whatever trembles she hadn’t managed to weep out, well, who was to know?
She walked down the stairs, running her fingers along the stone of the stairwell wall and wondering just how many generations of MacLeods had done the same thing. Too many to count, perhaps.
She stepped out into the hall and saw Oliver sitting on the floor and leaning back against the wall near the hearth. He immediately pushed himself to his feet, then swayed.
“You should sit,” she said, running quickly over to him and catching him by the arms. “When did you sleep last?”
“I’m not sure. Let me go find chairs and we’ll do the maths.”
“How closely together can we sit?”
He closed his eyes briefly, then held his arms open. She walked into his embrace as though she’d been doing it her whole life.
“Are you cold?” she asked in surprise.
“Trying not to weep, rather.”
She pulled back and looked at him to find his eyes were very red. She smiled in sympathy.
“I shed my share upstairs.”
“It’s been a long day,” he admitted.
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
He studied her for a moment or two, then reached up and smoothed the hair back from her face. “I wonder,” he saidcarefully, “if it might be better to simply take a few days and see what you remember naturally?”
“Have I forgotten things?” she asked, feeling slightly alarmed. “Haveyouforgotten things?”
He smiled slightly. “I’ll have to give it some thought. I did spend a pair of hours writing things down before I came to fetch you, though, which might help.”
“Hours?” she said with a snort. “I stood over that damned Victorian scribbler for two entire… months…”
