Page 85 of Her Highland Prophecy
“Aye, ye’re right,a co-ogha,” Bhaltair said, standing up. “I have already sent people to ring the bell in all the nearby villages and the funeral is set to be in the morning, two days hence.”
“Thank ye, Bhaltair,” Gordain said, and his cousin closed the door behind him, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Eleanor found him still sitting there hours later and coaxed him out of the room to have some dinner. He didn’t feel like eating anything, but he walked with her to the dining hall anyway.
She chattered at him about Mairi’s latest accomplishments and the plans they were making with her husband for their farm. He was grateful for her filling the silence. Where he could not find words, she seemed to use them as a shield against her grief.
“Ye didnae tell us,a brathair,” she said during a lull between topics. “Where is Diana? Did she nae come back with ye?”
“She’s not coming back,” he said, hating the finality in his voice. Eleanor’s face turned sympathetic. She squeezed his arm gently in comfort but didn’t say anything, and together the brother and sister turned the last corner and entered the large hall.
31
Diana felt bereft the moment that Gordain left the bed that morning to return to the Castle. She languished under the cover for long minutes, unwilling to step out into the cool morning air and face the day ahead. Her body was delightfully sore from their activities from both the night before and the morning.
Somehow she felt different now that Gordain wasn’t with her. For the first time since the bandits attacked her on the road outside of Ballachulish she felt utterly alone. It was disconcerting how quickly she had become accustomed to his presence, and that of his family.
She missed the chatter the twins brought whenever they were around, Mabel especially. She was the one who reminded her most of Grace with her rambunctious personality and outgoing manner. But she also missed Joan who offered her quiet companionship and Eleanor who had become her own big sister, one that guided her and kept both her and Gordain in line.
Gordain. She missed his presence with the acute feeling of a knife piercing her chest. Everywhere she turned to look in the room he was there. That spot on the floor was where his plaid had fallen, there a smudge on the window ledge where his boot had stepped as he walked in, the light bruises that covered her from collarbone to hip where his lips had laid claim to her body…
She shivered at the memory and then pushed it away. Bereft of his presence and his touch, it was almost painful to remember how he had claimed her the night before, marking her as his for anyone who cared to look at the roadmap he had created on her body.
She finally decided to get out of bed. She winced at the ache in her hips as she took a step, but it went away quickly as she walked around to find her things and prepare herself. She hid the shift they had ruined to make bandages in the bottom of her bags and then opened the window with a blush to air out the room before leaving for the fair.
She left everything behind as she left the inn, except for the clothes she was wearing and the medallion in her pocket. She would either find a way to the future or return to the room that night to try again the next day.
The fair looked exactly the same as it had the previous day, except that everyone was busy in the morning light unlike the evening,. Farmers haggled over the price of livestock, hay, food items…the animals were loud and the entire thing smelled like, well, like a farm.
She had to find the gypsy who had fled from her. She was certain that she had some information that Diana needed. Otherwise, why would she have run?
But how could she have known that I was from the future?
Unless there really was some sort of magic involved that she knew nothing about. She wouldn’t know until she found the woman and spoke to her.
“Excuse me,” she asked the wife of one of the farmers. “I am looking for an old woman. A gypsy with grey hair. Not very tall. She was wearing dark blue yesterday. Have you seen her?”
The woman shook her head. “Nae, Lass, I havenae seen her. Why are ye nae asking the gypsies?” She pointed to a group of gypsies a little further down the road.
“I will, thank you,” Diana responded though she had no intention of doing that quite yet. She had been leery about asking one of the gypsies directly, afraid that one of them might alert the woman that Diana was looking for her, and then she would never find her.
So she asked the blacksmith and then a man selling salt and spices, a woman wrangling a couple of small children, a man with an eyepatch, always getting a negative response. With a feeling of trepidation, Diana finally approached one of the gypsies she had seen.
Unlike most of the others who seemed to favor the darker hair tones and olive skin, the woman had bright red hair.
“Aye, I ken her. What do ye want with her?”
Diana tried not to show her excitement that the woman was speaking to her, though she thought she largely failed if the gypsy’s expression was anything to go by.
“I was given something that I think she might have some information about. I only want to talk to her, I promise,” Diana said.
The gypsy stared at her for a moment as if she was measuring her up. Diana straightened her shoulders, standing tall in response to the look. A moment later, the woman nodded and turned to one of her friends.
“Oi, Malcolm,” she called. “Have ye seen Aina today?”
“By her tent!” one of the men responded.
“She should be by her tent then. Two rows over in that direction, and then the third or fourth on the left.” She pointed out the way Diana should go.
