Page 41 of Edge of Yesterday

“James Ross’ daughter?” he asked.

Cailean nodded. “Are ye saying Patrick didn’t give her to his men to be abused?”

Lennox’s expression clouded. “Our leaders were no’ blameless.”

“Then he did?” Cailean persisted.

“He did.”

So not all of history had been twisted for this reenactment. Why?

“Do you believe she deserved that fate?” Julianna asked.

“No woman deserves abuse,” Cailean said.

Relief shown on her face and Cailean was surprised to find he was glad. He threw back the plaid blanket and swung his feet over the side of the bed. The thudding of his head had subsided enough to where he could function. He spotted the window near the foot of the bed. This, he thought, ought to be good. He rose and took three paces to the window, then stopped and pulled aside the animal skin curtain. A latticed fence made of willow sticks—he squinted, was that wattle and daub woven into the fence that surrounded the small private garden? Cailean resisted a strange urge to laugh. The fence was a damn medieval fence. His gaze caught on the stone well in the far left hand corner of the garden. The quintessential medieval home. He’d never seen anything quite like it.

He started to turn and froze at sight of the edge of a castle visible through the woods. Cailean turned and strode to the door. He emerged from the cottage with Lennox and Julianna close behind. He reached the corner of the cottage and stopped short at the fence. Even at a distance of two hundred feet through thin mist, he recognized the castle as Raghnall. Set on a natural rocky outcrop at the top of a ridge, the stronghold looked as though it had grown upward from the stone and commanded sweeping views of the surrounding woods and hills. The unusually high gatehouse was taller and narrower than most castle entries.

Equally startling, the drawbridge and portcullis stood intact and both looked fairly new, while the ditch beneath them appeared well-maintained. Not a water-filled moat, but deep and steep-sided enough to hamper an onslaught.

He swallowed hard. This wasn’t possible. He’d visited these ruins on his drive to Heatheredge. They were little more than a crumbling façade, the drawbridge nothing more than a distant memory. What little remained of the portcullis, as a blue historical sign proclaimed, now graced a museum in Inverness. The ditch hadn’t been visible at all, being entirely filled in by weed-grown rubble, broken rock, and nettles. He stared. What the devil was going on?

“What are ye doing?” Lennox demanded.

“Ye have run pale,” Julianna said. “What is amiss?”

Cailean couldn’t take his eyes off the massive building. “How did you do it?”

“Do what?” Lennox said.

The cottage, the fence, even the aggressive reenactment last night, as fantastical as they were, could be accounted for. But this… He’d glimpsed the castle last night, silhouetted against the moon, but upon waking, it had seemed like a dream. Cailean tracked his gaze up the right side to the five-story-high turret. He’d been in Heatheredge a week. How had he missed seeing that tower? Val must have taken him farther away than the surrounding area of Heatheredge that he’d investigated when he’d first arrived. But how far?

And how was it he didn’t know of the castle’s existence? It wasn’t possible to keep such a splendid replica from leaking into the news. A place like this would be swamped with tourists. Yet, there it stood—colorful pennants snapping in the wind above the battlements. And mail-shirted, helmed spearmen strolling the ramparts.

The bleat of sheep mingled with the unmistakable whinny of horses, the lowing of cows, and the loud, high-pitched chittering of hens. Smoke curled from the tower’s roof and, as he watched, someone reached through an open window arch and closed the shutters. He couldn’t be sure, but through the mist he’d almost swear he saw medieval run-rigs covering the hillside that dropped away from one side of the curtain wall. He’d never seen run-rigs, but if the narrow strips of side-by-side ploughed and cultivated farmland weren’t run-rigs, he was a virgin. But that slope should be choked by rock and heather.

He shook his head. “I dinnae believe this.”

Cailean started at the feel of cool fingers on his arm. Julianna stared up at him. “Come back inside. Please.”

He looked at Lennox, who studied him with a wary gaze.

Earlier, Cailean thought the acting too much. Now, Lennox’s reaction felt so genuine that Cailean thought Liam Neeson should take lessons from him. Cailean glanced at Julianna. She gazed at him with such sincere concern that he wondered about his sanity. They must have studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. How far would they take the game?

Too far.

But why—and how—had they managed to keep the castle restoration a secret?

Cailean pinned Lennox with a stare. “What is this, some sort of living history? Why isn’t this part of the games?”

Lennox frowned. “The games? If ye mean the chiefs’ trials of strength and such, they are no’ for some months yet.” Lennox sent a questioning look Julianna’s way, then added, “Did my sister no’ tell you? I know you asked her.” Cailean started past Lennox, but Lennox stepped in front of him. “Where are ye going?”

“To get a look at Raghnall.”

Julianna seized his arm. “Nae. No’ yet.”

“Why no’?”