Beyond the Highland Myst(395)

Shrugging, he gave his pledge.

She nibbled her lip, hesitating a moment. "You're in danger, Drustan—"

"Aye, I am well aware of that, though I suspect we're not referring to the same thing," he muttered darkly.

"This is serious. Your life is in danger."

He grinned faintly, gaze skimming her from head to her toes. "Och, wee one, and next you'll tell me you plan to save me, eh? Mayhap fight off my attackers yourself? Bite them in the knee?"

"Oooh. That wasn't nice. And if you're too stupid to listen to me, I'll have to," she snapped.

"Consider me warned, lass," he placated her. "I've listened, now go on with you," he said abruptly, dismissing her. "Tell Silvan I heard you out, so he'll call off his little siege. I have things to do."

At the earliest opportunity he would have Nell secure her a position in the village, far from the castle. Nay, mayhap he'd have Dageus cart her off to Edinburgh and find her work there. One way or another, he had to get the bewitching lass out of his demesne before he did something foolish and irrevocable.

Like toss her into bed and tup her until neither one of them could move. Until his muscles ached from loving her. Would she score his shoulders with her nails? he wondered. Arch her neck and make sweet mewling noises? He stiffened instantly at the thought.

He turned his back on her, hoping it might lessen whatever spell she'd cast upon him.

"Don't you even want to know what kind of danger?" she asked incredulously.

He sighed and glanced over his shoulder, one sardonic brow arched. What would it take, he wondered irritably, to make the wee lass cower? A sword at her throat?

"You said you'd hear the whole story. Was that a lie? You who claim you don't lie?"

"Fine," he said impatiently, turning back around. "Tell me all of it and have it done with."

"Maybe you should sit down," she said uneasily.

"Nay. I will stand and you will speak." He folded his arms across his chest.

"You're not making this easy."

"I doona intend to. Speak or leave. Doona waste my time."

She took a deep breath. "Okay, but I'm warning you, it's going to sound pretty far-fetched at first."

He exhaled impatiently.

"I'm from your future—"

He stifled a groan. The lass was a bampot, addled, soft in the head. Wandering about naked outside, accusing men of tupping her, thinking she was from the future, indeed!

"—the twenty-first century, to be precise. I was hiking in the hills near Loch Ness when I fell into a cave and discovered you sleeping—"

He shook his head. "Cease this nonsense."

"You said you wouldn't interrupt." She jumped to her feet, much too close for his comfort. "It's hard enough for me to tell you this."

Drustan's eyes narrowed, and he backed up a step lest she touch him and he turn into a lustful beast again. She stood there, head tossed back. Her cheeks were flushed, her stormy eyes flashing, and she looked ready to pummel him, despite her diminutive size. She had courage, he'd give her that.

"Go on," he growled.

"I found you in the cave. You were sleeping, and funny symbols were painted on your chest. Somehow, my falling on you woke you. You were confused, you had no idea where you were, and you helped me get out of the cave. You told me the strangest story I'd ever heard. You claimed you were from the sixteenth century, that someone had abducted and enchanted you, and you slept for nearly five centuries. You said the last thing you recalled was that someone had sent you a message to go to some glen near a loch if you wished to know who'd killed your brother. You said you went, but someone had drugged you and you started getting very tired."

"Enchanted?" Drustan shook his head in amazement. The lass had an imagination that could compete with the finest bard. But she'd made her first mistake: He didn't have a dead brother. He had only Dageus, who was alive and hale.

She took a deep breath and continued, undaunted by his blatant skepticism. "I didn't believe you either,

Drustan, and for that I'm sorry. You told me that if I accompanied you to Ban Drochaid, you would prove to me that you were telling the truth. We went to the stones, and your castle"—she swept a hand around the room—"this castle was a ruin. You took me into the circle." She deliberately omitted the intense passion they shared therein, not wishing to alienate him further. With a wistful sigh, she continued. "And you sent me here, to your castle, in your century."

Drustan blew out an exasperated breath. Aye, she was truly a madwoman, and one who knew the old rumors well. He knew the villagers loved to repeat the old tale that their ancestors had seen two entire fleets of Templars enter the walls of Castle Keltar centuries ago, never to come out again. Apparently she'd heard that those "pagan Highlanders" could open doorways and had incorporated it into her madness.