A huge figure burst into the room behind her, shoving her aside and marching past to dump an enormous tray of meat on the nearest table. “Out the way,” the figure said, turning to glare at her on the way back. “I’ve enough to do without wee girls tripping me up.”
Rachel caught a glimpse of a blood red necklace before the figure vanished.
Two men were on her before she had time to react. One pressed the tip of his sword to her chest before pulling it away. “You are real,” he said. “I thought all this talk of Cam MacGregor marrying was but a fever dream. The man with no interest in women getting wed. Yet here you are. His betrothed, if you please.”
“Hamish MacKenzie,” Cam roared from the end of the room without getting up. “You would draw a sword on a MacGregor lass?”
“She’s no MacGregor,” Hamish replied, still looking at her, his sword hanging limply in the air. “I can tell that by looking at her.”
“She will be a MacGregor when we wed and you will remain civil if you wish to get back to Castle MacKenzie with your head still on its shoulders.
“You cannot threaten me,” Hamish snapped but his voice was already weakening. “We are bound by the oath of kinship between our clans.”
“Hamish,” another voice shouted in a voice that boomed around the walls. “Sit down.”
“Yes, father,” Hamish replied meekly, returning to his place at the table as the cook brought in trays of steaming vegetables with an army of helpers behind her.
Rachel looked for the voice that had shouted. It belonged to a man head and shoulders above those around him, and twice as wide as the nearest man. He examined Rachel with cold eyes before speaking again. “I would meet the woman Cam accepted in place of my daughter. You dinnae look like you’re from here, lass. What clan claims you as its own?”
“The MacGregors,” Cam said, marching across the room to take Rachel’s hand in his. “Come,” he said. “Sit with me.”
As they walked past a sea of gawping faces, he leaned close and whispered. “Ah told ye to stay upstairs.”
“Your man told me to come down.”
“My man? What man?”
She took her place next to him on the dais looking out at a sea of murderous faces. She kept smiling at them all while whispering, “The one who found me, the one you were arguing with.”
“Tor?” Cam sounded surprised. “I will deal with him later. Now you just play your part for now and we might might make it through this meal alive.”
Chapter Five
Cam ate little. He watched the room, judging the mood of the place. It was ugly before Rachel made her appearance and it had only become worse since she’d joined him at the top table.
He had hoped to keep old MacKenzie from finding out about Rachel. Hubert had not forgotten or forgiven Cam for turning down his offer of Gertrude in return for half the acres north of the Wild Wood. Cam told him in no uncertain terms that the time for talking of marriage would be in the future, once they had dealt with the threat coming from the north, the threat that at the time had been unidentified.
MacKenzie had been furious and only the growing threat to both of their clans had brought him to the table. He looked furious. Cam could understand that. Told that marriage was off the table and then finds out when he comes to parley that Cam is suddenly betrothed to this woman who’s appeared from nowhere.
Why did he say betrothed? Why didn’t he say something else? He shook his doubts away. It didn’t matter. She’d be gone by the end of the day one way or another. If she was telling the truth she’d vanish back to her own time and would no longer be his problem.
What was much more likely than that nonsense story was that he would give her the necklace and she would try to run. He’d catch her at once and then he had two choices. Trial as a witch or give in to the clan’s baser instincts and let them sacrifice her. Was she a virgin?
He looked at her as she ate, holding a chunk of meat in her dainty fingers. She had never borne children, he could tell that. Had she known a man in her time? It wasn’t like the old days when you could be sure all those unmarried in the clan were pure.
The modern era had brought many changes, one of which was an increasing preponderance for rumors to spread about women. He had heard several tales of girls either running away after suddenly becoming with child, or marrying when the bump was visible to all but the most blind.
He could do little about that, other than let God judge them when their time came. What he could do was find out about her. She had an honest face. A pretty one too the more he looked at her.
She ate softly, taking tiny bites and chewing for a long time, her skin pale as the whitewashed wall behind her. She looked like she hadn’t eaten a decent meal for a long time. Picking up a cup, she took a slow drink.
“Is she a virgin?” Hubert asked.
Ale sprayed out from the goblet across the table. “Excuse me?” she asked, turning to look at him, coughing loudly as she did so. “What did you say?”
“Are you a virgin?”
She looked shocked by the question. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, thank you very much.”
