“I said,” Niall repeated in a deathly quiet voice she’d never heard from him before. “Who sent ye? Who are ye working for? To think I almost fell for it! To think I trusted ye!” There was anger in his voice now but hurt as well.
“What do you mean? I don’t work for anyone! Nobody sent me! I’m just trying to get home like I told you!”
His eyes narrowed, his gaze locking onto hers in a piercing stare. “And why should I believe ye?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” she retorted, pulse racing. “I haven’t done anything to make you doubt me!”
“Ye’ve infiltrated my life,” he accused, his voice filled with a cold fury that sent chills down her spine. “Ye’ve gained my confidence and now ye’ve violated my privacy. Ye’ve seen things ye had no right to see!”
“I didn’t infiltrate anything!” she exclaimed, rising from her seat. She felt cornered, her back against the wall. “I was just trying to survive after a mix-up at the door of a stupid party!”
He leaned in closer, his brow furrowed in suspicion. “And yet here ye are, decoding secret messages in my study.”
“I didn’t know they were secret,” she said defensively. “I thought they were just gibberish!”
Niall let out a humorless laugh. “Gibberish that ye conveniently knew how to decode? God help me, I’ve been so stupid!”
She sucked in a breath. “Niall, listen to me. I don’t know what’s going on here but this is all getting mixed up. I’m sorry I read your letters but I thought they might help me understand why you’re sending me away!”
“I was sending ye away for yer own safety!” Niall countered sharply. He straightened up and began to pace the room, his boots echoing loudly against the stone floor. “I’ve been trying to protect ye from all this! But ye... ye just had to dig deeper, didnae ye?”
“I didn’t ask for your protection,” she shot back, her fear replaced by a surge of anger. “I can take care of myself!”
“Aye,” he growled, spinning around to face her. “I’ve no doubt ye can. Ye are clearly one of the rebellion’s best trained spies if ye are able to slip through my defenses like this. Tell me, were ye here to gather information? Or just to slip a knife between my ribs while I slept?”
Charlie stared at him, horrified. “No! How can you think such a thing? I’m no damned spy! I know nothing about any rebellion. I’m not from this country, remember? Hell, I’m not even from this damned century!”
Charlie froze, her heart leaping into her mouth. Shit. Oh, shit. Why had she just said that? She hadn’t meant to, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
Niall stopped his pacing and stared at her. “What did ye just say?”
Charlie swallowed. She considered back-tracking, making up some kind of excuse, but from the way Niall was staring at her, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, she knew the time for lies was over. She was already deep in the mire.
Oh, hell. She forced herself to meet his gaze. “I said, I’m not from this time. That’s why I’ve been so evasive. I’m not a spy or a rebel or whatever else you seem to think I am. I’m a time traveler.”
There. She’d said it. She watched Niall warily, trying to gauge his reaction.
He stared at her, his face unreadable. The room was eerily silent save for the roaring of Charlie’s blood in her ears. It felt like an eternity passed before he finally opened his mouth to speak.
“A time traveler?” he repeated slowly, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Niall let out a small huff of air, as if he had been holding his breath. He ran a hand through his hair before pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as if trying to banish some terrible sight. When he dropped his hands and looked at her again, the anger was gone, replaced by something much softer yet equally intense.
“Ye really expect me to believe this?”
Charlie knew it sounded crazy. If she were in his shoes, she would probably respond the same way. “I know how it sounds,” she said. “But it’s the truth. I swear.”
He was silent, studying her with an appraising look that sent shivers down her spine. He seemed to be weighing her words, considering their validity against the backdrop of everything that had happened.
“And how is it ye’ve managed this miraculous feat of time travel?” he asked finally, his tone measured but skeptical.
“I...don’t know,” she whispered.
Suddenly, the enormity of her situation smacked into her with the force of a tidal wave. Since coming here, getting to know Niall, Flora, Joseph and the others, since setting up the pottery and starting to find her place, she’d managed to keep the terror at bay. She’d managed to convince herself that everything was going to be all right. But was it? Really?
Niall crossed his arms over his broad chest and said nothing. Waiting.
Charlie swallowed. “It was raining. I took refuge in an old bookshop. But somehow I ended up getting locked in when they closed up for the evening. Then I heard laughter, talking, music and thought there was a party going on next door.”
