Instead, Lord Oliver only put his hand on Tasgall’s shoulder in a friendly fashion.
“You slipped on the floor,” he said calmly. “I did as well. Let’s sit back down comfortably and enjoy our meal, shall we?”
He shrugged aside her brother’s blustering as if all the excuses were naught to fret over, then sat back down with him. She didn’t argue with her uncle when he put her bucket back in her hands, then pulled his chair back from the table so she could serve Lord Oliver from his other side. She did manage to get food into his bowl that time, though she supposed someone else would need to feed the rest of the men at the high table.
Lord Oliver looked up at her gravely. “Thank you.”
“Forgive me—”
“Nothing to forgive.”
She nodded, then managed to hand her burdens off to one of the serving lads so she could retreat to the kitchens and calm her racing heart. She had no idea why she was trembling so badly, though she knew it had nothing to do with her brother.
She lingered at the edge of the hall for the rest of supper, wondering about Lord Oliver.
After supper, she found herself too busy with the usual tasks of putting the house to bed to consider what she might ask him did she have him cornered without anyone from her family gaping at him as if they’d never seen such a fine specimen of manhood in their lives.
She understood that last thing, actually.
In time, the hall settled down for the night. Lord Oliver had been offered a spot close to the fire, which spoke well of his comportment that evening. Her kin wouldn’t have trusted him otherwise. There were a pair of cousins standing post by the front door, but that was nothing unusual, either.
She watched him sit down on a stool near her father, then listen politely to her uncle who sat down next to him and began filling his ears with the saints only knew what. Her uncle was obviously quite pleased with that, though Lord Oliver offered his own words now and again. Nobly, of course, and discreetly, but why would she have expected anything else?
She had one last look at him before she went to find her own spot in the kitchen. Perhaps there would be time in the morning to ask him her questions when he wasn’t surrounded by her kin and could answer freely. She could speak French well enough—and his English with enough courage—so perhaps between the two of them, they would manage a bit of speech.
She drew her shawl around her, sat down in the corner of the kitchen nearest the fire, and closed her eyes. She was left with more questions than answers, to be sure, but she knew one thing.
The book she’d been reading was exactly what she’d thought it was, namely a bard’s faithful recounting of his lord’s travels through the world. And she had just met the Duke himself.
And if that were the case, he was the one person who could tell her how his tale with the kitchen maid had finished.
She could scarce wait to find out.
Five
Oliver walked through the woodsnear Moraig’s house and hoped that if his unerring sense of direction were ever going to fail him, it wouldn’t be presently. That didn’t begin to address the fact that along with going in the right direction, he needed to get himself back to the right spot on the cosmic timeline because he didn’t particularly want to find himself living out his life in 16th-century Scotland.
Day Three and his holiday was threatening to go completely sideways.
He squinted at the compass on his watch, though the truth was that the terrain hadn’t changed all that much over the past four hundred years. He was probably fairly safe continuing to head to the gate he knew lay on the border between MacLeod and Cameron lands.
Knewwas a very hopeful sort of word, but he was a hopeful sort of lad when he wasn’t cynically assessing his surroundings for random thugs. He paused under the eaves of the forest and looked out over the landscape in front of him to retake his position and make certain he was still alone. It was barely dawn and he hadn’t lingered over breakfast. He’d paid his respects to Laird Ranald, nodded seriously over warnings about odd happenings in the forests near the keep from Ranald’s brother Lachlan, then promised the laird’s son Tasgall that since he’d brought greetings from those in royal power in Edinburgh, he would be returning there to carry MacLeod felicitations as well.
He was fairly certain he had a five quid note stuffed into his boot which was as close to royalty as he—or any of his dinnercompanions from the night before—was ever going to get, so perhaps that would excuse him for his creative bit of fiction.
He’d made a production of heading east that morning, only doubling back through the forest surrounding Moraig’s house when he was certain he’d lost the scouts following him. Perhaps he could have been less fastidious about that given that he had no desire to tempt fate again with another visit without a sword, a plan, and perhaps a good reason to be where he shouldn’t have been, but as he’d noted before, he liked to be thorough. That, and James MacLeod liked to keep things in the past tidy, a principle he agreed with when it came to slightly sketchy doings.
He rubbed his hands over his face and shook his head sharply. He wasn’t unaccustomed to all-nighters for various reasons, but he had to admit that engaging in one whilst lingering in a medieval keep inhabited by late 16th-century Highlanders was definitely not the norm. Coming to from an unwilling half hour of slumber to find himself still in the great hall with his English self unpierced by half a dozen Claymores and his plaid almost dry from where he’d had soup spilled on him the night before had been an additional relief.
At least he’d only seen the inside of the keep and not the inside of Jamie’s dungeon, which was a stroke of good fortune. He would relay that happy news to Jamie when next they met over a mug of ale and some meditation.
He rubbed his arms briskly, but that didn’t help him warm up any at all. The next time he traveled through time, he would be better kitted out. He was much more comfortable in a pair of jeans with sensible trainers on his feet than draped in a plaid with boots on his feet and his arse covered but bare to the wind. Perhaps there was good reason his ancestors had opted for the southern side of Hadrian’s Wall. Puritanical about their knicker choices, no doubt.
Or perhaps it had been the weather. He would have to research it, but he was fairly certain he’d just spent the night in the middle of a Little Ice Age. Four hundred Scottish words for snow? He understood why. The damned country likely had just as many words for rain.
He took one more look to make certain he was still on his own, then carried on out to the spot where he knew the gate lay, admiring the scenery just a bit as he went. Admittedly, there was plenty of spectacular scenery to be gawked at in Scotland—fabulous stretches of glorious beaches, majestic mountains, and the occasional restaurant where they knew how to cook up cattle that hadn’t been raided earlier in the week—but that didn’t mitigate the horrors of midges, soggy feet, and yet more midges.
The next time he went on holiday, it would be to some sunny Caribbean island where he was just certain there couldn’t possibly be any gates through t—
