“I am certain.”
“But how can you possibly ken such a thing.”
“I just…” She stopped, on the verge of telling him the truth. She couldn’t do it. He would never understand, more likely he would have her burned as a witch. “I just really believe it.”
He looked at her strangely, as if he was about to say something.
She changed the subject. “Do you not want to spend a night in your own bed?”
“Protecting his people is what a laird should do.”
“Are you not neglecting them in being here with me?”
“While you are under my roof you are a MacGregor, as worthy of my protection as any other MacGregor, even if you are a Frazer.”
“And I’ve not yet fetched a golden apple from the Frazer orchard.”
He went over to his usual place by the door, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Good night, Heather,” he said quietly.
She went to bed hardly able to bear the guilt of concealing the truth from him, telling herself it was for the best. The truth would either scare or confuse him and she wanted to do neither of those things.
She woke up on Sunday morning and before she’d even opened her eyes she knew at once something was different. He was not sitting at the foot of the door. He was gone.
No doubt he’d had enough of mollycoddling her every night. She had asked him to stay to protect her from the clan but as the days passed they showed no signs of suspecting her anymore.
She no longer feared the clan. She feared spending a night without him in her room. Just him being there made her feel safe. It was a feeling deep inside her that she had never known before. She needed him in a way she couldn’t describe to anyone.
She told herself she should get used to waking up alone. He wasn’t going to be there to protect her when she went home.
Home. A wave of guilt washed over her.
It was hard to reconcile how she felt. It was as if the modern world had become nothing more than a shadow since she’d come back in time, helped by the fact she could tell herself it didn’t even exist yet.
That was an excuse and she knew it. She sat up in bed and made a vow. She must resist her feelings toward the laird, no matter how strongly she felt them. She must think of the knife, of how best to steal it and then just return home.
What happened in the siege had nothing to do with her. She had a job to do and that was it. Sure, it had been complicated by Gavin but she wasn’t a lust filled teenager.
She could handle having a crush on someone and get over it. That was all it was. A heartbreakingly painful and obsessive crush with someone she yearned to kiss again. Nothing else. Just a crush.
The door opened and Gavin appeared, carrying in hot wine and a loaf of bread on a tray. Beside it was a couple of apples. “Not golden Frazer ones but they’ll do,” he said, passing her the tray. “You have slept long. It is almost time for mass. Eat quickly.”
Heather bit into one of the apples, surprised by just how sweet it tasted.
“Good?” Gavin asked, taking one for himself.
“So good,” she replied, wiping juice from her chin. “What time is it?”
“Time to go. Come on.”
She followed him downstairs, finishing the apple as she went. He took the core from her when they reached the churchyard, flinging it over the battlements toward the besieging army. “They’ll wonder what that means all day long,” he said, smiling as he opened the door to the chapel.
The interior was crammed with people. “Who’s that?” Heather asked, pointing to a man hanging from the rafters at the front of the chapel.
“Charles. Dinnae worry. You’ll get used to him.”
Charles hooked his legs under the rafters and swung his arms up, spinning through the air and coming to land behind the altar to a round of applause. “God is watching,” Charles said, holding his arms up for silence. “I thought I’d do something to impress him.”
A ripple of laughter spread around the room although Heather also heard some of the older clan members muttering darkly.
