She waited in silence as he strode to the chest at the foot of his bed and pulled out first a shirt and then a plaid, which he deftly wound around himself.
“Better?”
Abby nodded, her eyes glassy when she looked up. “What’s happening here, Colin?”
“It’s as I told you. You’ve the blood of the Fae in you and the power of their Magic at yer disposal. You saved us from that filthy Nuadian by sending us here.”
Though he could have spent the rest of his day simply watching her, he had to get moving. If the Fae had sent them to the wrong location, there was no telling what date they’d chosen. He could only pray he wasn’t too late to save his friends.
For now, he needed to find his cousin Blane, the MacKiernan laird, and his brother Caden to tell them both what had happened. He also needed to find someone to help ease Abby into life here until they could figure out how to send her home.
His stomach knotted at the thought of her leaving but he pushed the foolish emotion from his mind and walked to the door. Of course she had to leave. She should never have been here to begin with.
“What do you think you’re doing now? You’re going to leave me here? Alone?”
She’d risen from the bed when he turned, the coverlet clutched to her breasts. The look of desperation on her lovely face drew him back to her side.
He enfolded her in his embrace and she leaned into him. “Don’t leave me here, Colin. I don’t think I can wrap my head around this. I’m scared.”
With a kiss to her forehead, he pushed her away. “I’ll only be downstairs, Abby. You’ve no a need to fash yerself. Yer safe here. Climb back into bed and I’ll send my mother with clothing for you.”
“You’ll send yourmother? Oh, Lord, Colin. Your mother’s going to come in here and find me bare-ass naked in your bed? That’s just perfect. Thank you so much for making things all better for me.”
A twinge of guilt held him in place. A guilt thatforced him to confront what they had done earlier, a task made all the more difficult by his own confusion.
“About what passed between us, Abby. I’m sorry for . . .” He paused, suddenly unsure of exactly what he wanted to say. It would be a lie to say he was sorry it had happened. He wasn’t. If anything, he was sorry they hadn’t finished what they’d started.
She saved him from having to finish. “Forget it. It was as much my fault as yours. I’m sorry it all went so badly and left you, you know, so uncomfortable and all.”
Yes, for that he could honestly say he was sorry as well.
Again he kissed her forehead and turned away, saying at last what was really in his thoughts. “Perhaps next time will go more smoothly, aye?”
Her strangled “Next time?” brought a smile to his lips as he closed the door behind him.
Twenty-one
Colin did not enjoy being made to feel as if he were but a bairn again, called up in front of his mother and the laird to answer for some new misdeed.
“So you drag the lass seven hundred years into her past and then you abandon her? You leave her sitting on yer bed all by herself. And naked at that, if I’m no mistaken, aye?” Caden shook his head and exchanged a look with their laird and cousin, Blane MacKiernan, as if he couldn’t believe his younger brother’s stupidity. “What were you thinking, Col? Have you no good sense about women at all?”
“It was she who did the dragging,” Colin muttered in his own defense.
In hindsight, perhaps he should have waited for a private moment with his mother to mention Abby’s need for clothing rather than to have asked withinCaden’s hearing. His prudish older brother would be hammering away at this one for quite some time, he had no doubt.
“And as to what I was thinking, my mind was set upon ending up at the camp in Methven in time to see to the safety of Dair and Simeon. I’d no intended to bring Abby here.”
“Then I suppose we should be thanking the Fates the lass dinna end up unclothed in the middle of our king’s army encampment.” The lady Rosalyn spoke wearing her best no-nonsense expression.
“I’d intended that the Magic send her to her own home, in her own time.”
His mother opened her mouth as if to speak, but held back, her mouth drawn into a tight, disapproving line. He suspected she had quite a bit more she wanted to say, but she yielded to Blane with a stiff nod of her head.
“Intent or no, Cousin, the lass is here, seven hundred years from where she belongs, and it falls to you to deal with what’s to become of her.” Blane peered over steepled fingers held against his face.
“I canna.” Colin shook his head emphatically as if by his action alone he could abdicate his responsibility. “I dinna have time for any female hysterics. Even if I leave at first light and ride my horse into the ground, I may still be too late to reach Methven before the battle that is to come. At best, I can only hope Dair and Simeon survive long enough for me to reach them.”
Not that he’d ever actually found Abby to be hysterical, not even when hiding in that cave.
