Page 45 of Desiring the Highland Laird
“You willna be bothering the lass this night. Give her some peace for a wee bit,” his da said. He dropped his feet to the floor and rose. “Ye best start believin’ in the prophecy. ’Tis coming true.”
He sauntered away, leaving him alone in the great hall.
It occurred to him the lass may not want him anywhere near her. Could he blame her? If what his da said was true—that she believed in the prophecy and she was from the future—then he was nothing more than a bampot for taking her to Angus Sinclairwith the intent of leaving her there. In his defense, though, he was convinced they were her clan.
Now he was not so certain.
Another sign was the fact the stone did not transport her back to her time when she tried to use it on the road back to Dundale.
Everything he thought was true wasn’t. Everything he assumed about the girl was wrong.
He reached into his sporran and pulled out the small piece of stone, examining it closely. The arched lines were faint, but still there. He recalled the way she had shown her palm to him while standing in the Sinclair’s great hall. The lines were still there. He ran his thumb over the lines, recalling the fury, the indignation, in her beautiful face. A bampot, indeed.
His fingers closed around the stone as he held it, the jagged edges piercing his palm. When he opened his hand and glanced down, he saw the imprint from that but not from the symbol.
She had said the stone hummed and the lines glowed, hadn’t she?
That meant that whatever the stone was doing was activated at the time and that’s how the symbol burned into her skin.
The impulsive side of him wanted to go to the guest bedchamber and bang on the door, demanding to see her hand. But what good would that do? It would make her even more irate with him than she already was.
Callum stuck the stone back into his sporran. All that was left to do was return to his own bedchamber to try to sleep. He headed there, shoving thoughts of her out of his head. In the morn, he would decide what to do about her.
The trouble was, he was uncertain there was anythingtodo about her.
*
Evie awoke toa cold room, the faint morning light pressing against her closed eyes. She forgot where she was and it took a moment to reorient herself to her surroundings. Ah, yes. She was in what Hamish called the guest bedchambers. She was still in Dundale Castle. She was still in the fourteenth century. None of that had changed while she slept.
Was she going to feel out of sorts every morning she woke? Or would she eventually get used to the idea of being in the past?
Sometime during the night, the fire had gone out, but she was still snuggly and warm in the bed. She burrowed down under the covers for a few more minutes of drowsy warmth. She lifted her hand and studied the lines in her palm. The faint image of the stone was still there, though somewhat faded. She wondered if it would ever go away.
Thinking of the stone made her think about the prophecy and the tapestries hanging on the wall beside the bed. Did she believe what Hamish told her? She was uncertain. All she was truly certain about was he believed every word of it. She saw the truth of it burning deep in his eyes.
She pushed away the blankets and slid to the side of the bed and stood. Pausing there, she pulled one of the heavier blankets off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. When she looked at the tapestries again that morning, she gasped.
The one of her falling through the sky showed she was closer to the ground than she was when she looked at it the night before. Next to that was the one that showed her sister’s face and someone else. Another figure behind her was merely a silhouette she could not fully see yet.
The morning light glinting through the windows illuminated the room, making the threads shimmer in the light of day. So, she hadn’t imagined that the previous night when Hamish was showing her the wall hangings.
The other curious thing she noticed were more hangings that were devoid of a design. They were nothing more than plain woven wall coverings that might be seen in any number of places. But something told her there was more to them than what she saw. There was something mystical about them.
Mystical.
“Mystic Treasures.”
The words burst out of her as her gaze moved back to the first hanging of the woman with the silvery hair billowing in the wind, the light moving around her in a way that indicated there was an object in her hand that glowed.
Evie reached out and ran the tips of her fingers over the threads and watched them glisten.
“I bet your name is Moira,” she said, tracing the line of the woman’s hair. “And I bet you are the one who gave me that jagged piece of stone.”
Hamish mentioned the women were the Triple Goddess. That they were the ones who were the protectors of the keystone.
As she stared at the design, something in the bottom righthand corner caught her eye. It was the tip of a sword emerging, ever so slowly as if in slow motion. She didn’t know how long she stood there staring at it without blinking, but her eyes had gone dry. Finally, she shook herself from the hypnotic, trancelike state. When she shook her head to clear it and looked back at the hanging, she saw something that wasn’t there before.
Shadowy figures.
