She felt the brush of his hair soft on her neck. With James so close, the musk that had hung on his sheets lingered now on the edge of her senses, and Magda felt the blood rush to her head, the faint dusting of freckles along her nose and on the apples of her cheeks flaming dark russet.
“Just look at you,mon peu de mystère, with a blush like a ripe plum.” He inhaled deeply and added in a husky voice, “I’ll wager you’re as juicy as you look.”
The feel of his hand stroking along her lower back brought Magda back to herself. Breaking their gaze, she hopped away from him with a startled gasp.
James’s laughter erupted through the room. Magda looked to Una for support, but the maid who’d earlier been so sweet-tempered with her assistance now glared at Magda as if considering the many ways she could murder her.
“Come, hen,” he announced merrily, donning a pair of broadly cuffed black gloves. “You’re off to the doctor.”
James filled the carriage’s silence with details about the town of Montrose. It lay on a spit of land surrounded by water on three sides: the North Sea, the River Esk, and the large tidal basin which Magda stared at now, glimmering steel gray and stretching into the distance, its glassy surface interrupted only by clumps of coarse bracken and the occasional hump of marshland peeking out from the water to announce low tide.
The brackish scent she’d detected in James’s room was particularly heady now. Fresh bursts of the brisk sea breeze whirled into the carriage’s open window, carrying that salty smell, rich and thick with life. Birds cawed overhead, and Magda watched as they lazily swooped and dove over the enormous tidal basin.
“You like it.”
“Hm?” Magda realized she’d been staring quietly, mesmerized by the desolate view of the marshland reaching out toward the sea in the far distance. The landscape soothed her. The absence of civilization made it seem possible that she was looking at any seascape, anywhere in the world. The sense of familiarity was an assurance that she would soon wake to find her world the same as when she left it. Her body was no longer capable of sustaining such heightened panic, and her senses had dulled into a blunt concern that would keep vigil until this dream passed.
“The salt marsh.” James’s eyes were kind as they studied her. “Your cheeks bear the kiss of the sea.” He touched his fingers to her chilled face. “Her breath is brisk, and it’s rare the lass who appreciates it.”
His attentions unsettled her. He was so . . .vivid. His actions so specific, so focused on her. Looking away quickly, Magda replied, “I . . . yes, it’s lovely.”
She felt his smile at her back, but doggedly stared out the window rather than once again face that frank gaze.
“You don’t seem to recognize where we are,” he said solemnly. “Is it that you’re newly arrived to Montrose town?”
She huddled closer to the window, pretending his question didn’t exist, willing the chill wind to stop the tears that threatened to fall.
“You can place your trust in me, hen.” Magda felt his hand warm on her wind-whipped shoulder. “You truly don’t know this place? Don’t know where you are?”
Magda merely sat in silence, willing her situation back to normal.It’s time. Wake up.
Speaking over the rattle and creak of the carriage, James graciously changed the subject, pointing out the town of Montrose growing visible in the far distance.
“Well, then, I shall tell you of it. You have before you my favorite burgh in all Scotland. And a fortuitous thing too.” James edged close to the window and scanned the horizon. A thick cloud of geese swept across the sky, while a lone carrion crow hopped and jerked its head, pecking for mussels hidden in the rocks along the shore. “For I am its marquis.”
Magda squinted beyond the stark panorama of brown and gray and into the distance. As the vista gradually resolved more clearly into Montrose town, her nerves nagged at her with greater intensity.I couldn’t really have gone back in time, could I?Panic barreled back to the surface, blotting out the tired desolation that had suffused her just a moment ago.
Of course not. Wake up now.
She could just make out the rangy line of mismatched buildings that sprang up between the bleak marsh on one side and the frigid water of the North Sea on the other. A seascape was in the realm of the familiar, but these scant buildings were not.
The past?Alarm hummed along her body like a plucked violin string, dizzying her.
She heard James continue, unaware of her swelling hysteria, “Montrose offers an abundance of gentlemen’s pursuits. Golf, fishing . . .” He looked at Magda and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear, his touch jarring her already piqued senses. “Aye, gentlemen’s pursuits abound,” he sighed, “yet mostly what I do is return the Lowland cattle our mischievous Highlanders insist on reiving.”
He mistook the bewilderment in her eyes for a question, and added, “You see, Graham family lands form a bit of a wedge between the Highlands and the Low. Highlanders yearn to put themselves in harm’s way, and when skirmishes are scarce, such thieving in the night is a bit of a sport for them. And can be a rite of passage, for the younger lads. Though I’d wager they prefer claymores to cattle, generally speaking.”
Dozens of cottages slowly came into view, low-slung and hugging the shore as if bracing against the wind off the sea. The number and variety of boats bobbing idly near the gray stone pier proclaimed Montrose a vibrant fishing community. Several roads spoked out from the harbor and connected further up in a winding, haphazard maze.
Just a very old town.
Two- and three-story buildings huddled over thoroughfares so thin they seemed perpetually cast in shadow, and yet Montrose didn’t appear forbidding. Rather, the preponderance of red-tiled roofs and buildings painted the color of yellowed linen made for a cheery backdrop, despite the close quarters.
Not the past. Just a dream. A vivid dream.
James had said his physician was off of High Street. As they traveled there, ambling down a path that grew more claustrophobic with every turn, Magda fought the sensation that, like Alice, she’d fallen down her own rabbit hole.
“Pray, what is this material?” James asked, leaning toward her intently. The warmth of his leg along hers jolted her attention to him like an electric shock.
