Highlander Assassinated (Highlander In Time #16)

Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

T he next morning, when she headed out to meet Amelia in the courtyard, Lissa was still thinking about the woman she’d come to think of as her ‘past self’. Was there something in Niall’s theory that it was no coincidence that both Amelia and Lissa were skilled fighters? Had the trauma their past selves experienced somehow contributed to the fact that their replacements — their magical descendants, or whatever you wanted to call it — were imbued with the very skills that would have saved their lives?

She shared the theory with Amelia, who agreed almost immediately. It made sense, she supposed — the woman had had a lot more time to think about the subject of her predecessor than Lissa had. They continued on with their sparring session as always — but when they took a break to grab something to drink, Amelia shot her a sidelong glance, and she could tell she was debating bringing something up.

“What?”

“Just curious about how things are going with Niall. The two of you seem to be spending a fair bit of time together.”

“What, you mean my regular afternoons of getting my ass handed to me? Yeah, it’s very romantic.”

“You joke, but it’s pretty romantic.” Amelia lifted a challenging eyebrow, and Lissa was very grateful that she was already so red and sweaty from their sparring that there was no way Amelia would be able to tell if she blushed. “Not to mention the private dinners in your quarters… sorry, babe. Gossip’s a killer in this Keep. I should’ve warned you.”

“Ridiculous,” Lissa muttered. “Who even saw us?”

“Nobody,” Amelia said brightly. “But Marian cleans your quarters every other day, and she’s a nosy old woman who loves to count plates and come to scandalous conclusions.”

“But she seems so innocent!” Lissa couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, alright, I’ve been caught red-handed. I don’t know, it’s — it’s fine. It’s nice. It’s been very nice, hanging out with him.” What was the point of pretending she wasn’t attracted to him, at this point? “He’s good company, he’s gorgeous, he’s obsessed with me… all qualities I look for in a man. There are some elements I’m not wild about, however.”

Amelia’s broad smile faded a little and she tilted her head curiously. “Like what?”

“Like the fact that it’s his dead wife he’s in love with, not me?”

“Ah,” Amelia said wisely. “Yes. That — that’s a tricky one.”

“What’d you do about it? With Hamish? You must’ve gone through the same thing, right?”

“We did,” Amelia admitted. “It definitely bothered me, at least for a little while. But eventually I just… I just decided to go with it. Maybe it doesn’t matter, you know?”

Lissa frowned. This was considerably less reassuring than she’d been hoping. “It doesn’t matter that it’s a totally different woman he’s in love with?”

“Well, is she really a totally different woman?” Amelia shrugged. “You heard the way the women were talking the other night — especially the ones with more familiarity with the magical arts, if you know what I mean.” Amelia’s voice dropped.

Lissa glanced uncertainly over her shoulder, feeling a sudden thrill run down her spine. A few of the women at the dinner the other night had explained in low voices that they were practicing witches — that discovering their innate magic had been part of their journey here. The Lissa of a week ago would have scoffed at that confession — but enough had gone on since then that she’d responded with nothing but quiet awe. It would have been downright churlish of her to accept time travel but draw the line at witchcraft. Anyway, she’d always suspected that there was something secret and powerful about women, deep down. Still — she knew what Amelia was referring to. A conversation had come up toward the end of the evening about the relationship between the women and the lost wives of the MacClaran family — the women they all so resembled. Some of them had insisted that the resemblance wasn’t just skin deep — that they literally were the lost women reincarnate, just without their full memories.

“I don’t know if that makes any sense,” Lissa pointed out doubtfully. “I mean — I’ve got a whole life’s worth of memories, you know? I was a baby and a kid and a teenager in the twenty-first century, not the sixteenth.”

This didn’t seem to bother Amelia, who shrugged her shoulders and stretched her back until it clicked. “Well, time’s pretty flexible, right? Or maybe as Marianne and Fiona suggested, it’s a soul thing. Maybe your soul was born here, grew up, got cut down by the curse — then waited around until you were born a few hundred years later.”

“That’s a pretty complex theory,” Lissa pointed out. “Some would argue that a simpler explanation is better.”

“And I would challenge you to come up with a simpler explanation for the fact that of all the women who’ve come back in here, exactly one hundred percent of them have fallen happily in love with the very man who lost their doppelganger. You really think that could’ve happened if there was no connection between our souls at all? That that could’ve just been a coincidence?”

“I don’t know what I think,” she groaned, burying her head in her hands. “I think it’s all stupid and complicated and I hate it, and I wish these Englishmen would hurry up and invite us over so I can do something I’m actually good at for a change.”

“Hear, hear,” Amelia said cheerfully — but she paused to put a consoling hand on her shoulder. “Just take it slow with Niall. There’s no need to rush things. And once he gets to know you — American you, I mean — you might feel a bit better about how obsessed he is with you. Right?”

She had to admit, it was solid logic. And when she saw Niall that afternoon and her heart performed its usual stupid little backflip at the sight of his smiling face, the pang of guilt that followed was far less severe than usual. She had no idea what to think about her so-called past self — whether they were the same woman, the same soul, or completely unrelated strangers who happened to look absolutely identical. But she knew one thing — she couldn’t deny how intensely attracted she was to Niall. And she was more than willing to spend some time letting him get to know the real her, especially if that would make her feel a little less unethical about accepting the attention he clearly wanted to be lavishing on his lost wife.

Maybe it was that line of thinking that made her bold, later that evening after dinner. The two of them had been chatting idly for a while over their empty plates, Niall clearly dragging his feet on leaving, Lissa more than happy to enable this behavior. Why wouldn’t she want to spend another few minutes in his company? Why wouldn’t she want this strange, dreamlike week of her life to stretch on forever… training in medieval weaponry during the day, having cozy little dinners with a gorgeous Highlander by night. Or maybe it had something to do with the second glass of wine she’d opted for — she’d been in the habit lately of restraining herself to just one, remembering all too well what had happened the last time she’d overdone it. But what could the harm be, right? She’d already booked the fateful trip that had gotten her lost and stuck here… and anyway, depending on how you looked at it, that wasn’t even her fault either. Her fate had been sealed ever since she’d been born with the same face as a woman who’d died centuries before even her parents had been born…

But whatever the cause, when Niall finally got regretfully to his feet and bid her goodnight and she escorted him to the doorway, something made her sway a little further into his personal space than she otherwise might have. And as though it was the most natural thing in the world, Niall reached out with one warm, strong hand, tilted her face up to his, and sealed their lips in a kiss that felt as inevitable as the tide.