Highlander Assassinated (Highlander In Time #16)

Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

A t least they didn’t have to wait long for a response. A letter came back from Baldric the following afternoon, a little over a day after Niall had sent the hurried letter with Lissa’s instructions on anti-poisoning tactics. The events that Baldric described unfortunately painted an almost textbook picture of strychnine recovery. He’d thankfully received the letter just before Lord Weatherby’s lunch had been due to be sent to his room, and had been able to intercept the prepared meal as instructed, secretly replacing it with his own lunch, which he’d made himself. Sure enough, the characteristic paranoia and fidgeting that Lord Weatherby had been experiencing after meals failed to materialize that afternoon, and he was beginning to feel more himself by dinner. Sir Baldric, though, had insisted he stay in his quarters. When his dinner had been sent up, Baldric had replaced it again with a meal he knew was safe. According to the letter, he’d been suspicious of a faint bitter odor on the meal, though he couldn’t say for certain — something that made Lissa trust him more than if he’d simply stated that the meal smelled like it had been poisoned. Skepticism, more often than not, signaled that someone could be trusted.

“I see why you like this Sir Baldric guy,” she said, looking up from the letter at the other people seated around the table. They were back in Laird Donal’s meeting rooms, all five of them — Hamish, Niall, Amelia, Lissa, and Laird Donal himself, whose face had been steadily darkening ever since the four of them had come to see him urgently on the receipt of Sir Baldric’s letter.

“Can we be certain that it’s the guests who are poisoning Lord Weatherby?” Laird Donal wanted to know, leaning forward as he visibly worked to keep his fury under control. “Did Baldric catch anyone in the act?”

“He said he wasn’t able to supervise the preparation of the meals — he didn’t want to arouse any unnecessary suspicion in case the English were watching him,” Hamish supplied, having read the letter thoroughly ahead of their meeting with the Laird. “But he says they inquired after Lord Weatherby’s health this morning when Sir Baldric came down from his chambers, and when he said Weatherby was still very unwell, but keeping his spirits up, they looked surprised.”

“I’m guessing the doses he missed yesterday were calculated to be the killing blows,” Lissa said softly, feeling a strange sense of unreality as she spoke. When she’d raised the idea that Weatherby was being poisoned, it had all felt so — theoretical. Now the reality of the situation was sinking in. A man had nearly died.

“Lissa, it very much sounds like you’ve saved a man’s life, here,” Laird Donal said, his eyes resting thoughtfully on her. “You have the gratitude of the Keep — and, I don’t doubt, of Sir Baldric.”

“He says as much in the letter,” Niall agreed, flashing her a warm smile that made her heart flutter. Still, the atmosphere in the room was heavy. “Laird Donal… not to state the obvious, but this does change our situation somewhat.”

The Laird uttered a short bark of laughter before composing himself. “Well put,” he said drily. “Yes. I think we need to revisit our reluctance to make an uninvited visit to Lord Weatherby’s manor. Have the four of you made sufficient preparations? Would you be ready to ride out tomorrow?”

Lissa exchanged glances with Hamish, Niall, and Amelia — all of whom looked worried, but determined. They nodded in agreement, and the Laird dropped his fist onto the table, his eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance.

“Right,” he said after a pause. “A slight adjustment to the original plan, I think, in the light of this new information. I’ll ride down with you.” Niall and Hamish’s eyes both widened in surprise, and in that moment the resemblance between them was so strong that they could have been twins. “And we’ll be bringing a sizable contingent of guardsmen along, too — Miss Crossworth was right to recommend additional security,” he added, the hint of a smile lightening his expression as he glanced across the table at her. “We’ve had our difficulties with Lord Weatherby over the years, but he has for the most part been an ally and a friend. We have a duty to ensure he doesn’t meet an unfortunate fate at the hands of these guests of his — no matter what unpleasant things they might have to say in response.”

And with that, it seemed, the four of them were dismissed. Hamish and Amelia followed the Laird out of the room, already discussing how many guards would be required and the preparations that would need to be made. Lissa and Niall were left in the somber silence of the meeting rooms… and the slight awkwardness that had lay between them ever since they’d kissed two nights ago. She was acutely aware that they hadn’t discussed the matter. What was more, she was worried about the change in mood she’d observed in Niall. He seemed to have noticed her pulling away from him a little, her slight uneasiness around him after the kiss — and had responded, in turn, by withdrawing from her, too. She’d hoped that they’d be able to talk about it the previous evening, but he’d sent his apologies by way of Amelia, who’d had dinner with Lissa instead. It had been pleasant enough… but she didn’t like the feeling that Niall was avoiding her.

He cleared his throat now, rising to his feet, clearly eager to escape the awkwardness of the situation — and Lissa, seized by a boldness that didn’t often come to her in matters of the heart, rocketed to her feet, determined to stop him. He turned back at her sudden movement, and though she could feel her cheeks burning, she held his gaze.

“Can we talk, actually?”

She saw him hesitate, and knew he was as uncomfortable with this as she was. Somehow, that gave her courage to wait, unflinching, until he nodded his agreement.

This time, they took their dinner outside, to eat under the stars — or at least, the patches of stars that could be seen through the thick clouds scudding across the sky. Still, it was a relatively fine night by Scotland’s standards, and there was still enough light in the courtyard to see by. They sat together on the steps with a picnic spread out between them, and Lissa picked idly at a bread roll as she worked on mustering the courage to speak first.

“I’m sorry about the other night,” she said abruptly. It was the clumsiest opening to the conversation she could have possibly imagined, but she simply couldn’t come up with another way of broaching the subject — and the only alternative was this interminable, awful silence, which was no alternative at all.

“ You’re sorry?” He sounded faintly incredulous. “I’m the one who owes you an apology, Lissa. I’ve been — I feel I’ve been too forward with you, I?—”

“You haven’t,” she said quickly. “Niall, you absolutely haven’t. You’ve been perfectly considerate and respectful and kind, and I’ve been —” She broke off, not quite sure how to put it. She’d been flirting with him more or less shamelessly, that was the thing she felt guilty about. Something about knowing for certain that he was already besotted with her had made it so easy to flirt with him, to enjoy his company the way she had been… but it wasn’t fair on him, was it?

But Niall was shaking his head. “I pushed myself on you the other night,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have. Yesterday morning, in the courtyard, I saw you — I saw the way you pulled away from me.”

Lissa opened her mouth to respond, to apologize — but something about the expression on his face stopped her. Something about the strength of the grief in his eyes, about the way his voice was shaking — this went deeper than feeling like he’d stolen a kiss from her that night. Her heart sank. This had something to do with her past self, didn’t it? How could she ever have been foolish enough to hope that that, somehow, would manage not to be a problem?

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly, almost reaching across the space between them to take his hand. “What are you thinking about?”

“I couldn’t protect you,” he said, his gaze far away from her. “I swore to protect you — you were the one person in the world who I should have been able to keep safe, and I let you down. I know you don’t have her memories, Lissa, I know you’ve lived a whole different life since then… but I think some part of you remembers that I let you down.”

She stared at him for a long moment, utterly taken aback by this revelation. “Is this why you’ve been pulling away from me?” she said faintly.

He nodded, clearly unwilling to even meet her eyes.

“Niall — that’s — I don’t even know where to start, with that. It’s absolutely not your fault that she died. It was awful, and tragic, and unfair — and it wasn’t your fault. This curse, this magic — you really think that it was powerful enough to do all this, to bring me here, from where I came from… you really think that you alone should have been strong enough to take that on by yourself?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, clearly torn between the shame he’d been carrying and his reluctance to frame it in such an arrogant way — which was, of course, her intention. Lissa shook her head, her exasperation warring with her sympathy and genuine admiration for the depth of his love for his lost wife.

“That’s absolutely not why I pulled away,” she said softly, once the silence had stretched out long enough for her first point to have been made. “Niall, I very much like you. More than like you, I’m — that was the best kiss of my life. But I’m worried that I’m taking advantage of you.” She’d had to brace herself to say it aloud — having finally spoken the words, she felt a strange relief moving through her body, softening her shoulders. “Of your love for your wife, of your grief… I mean, we met a week ago, Niall. Whatever my connection is to her, I’m … I’m still a different person, at the end of the day.”

He looked at her for a long moment then, something intent and thoughtful about his gaze. She admired that about him, his willingness to sit like this in an uncomfortable silence, letting things settle, letting his mind work through the details. “Taking advantage,” he said finally, as if trying the phrase out for himself. “Interesting.” And then — miraculous as it was delightful — the faintest trace of a smile curled around his lips. “I think, Lissa, that I’d rather have you take advantage of me than not.”

Her exasperation must have shown on her face, because his smile only widened — and before she knew it, before she could give it any kind of sensible thought, she found that she’d leaned right across the space in between them and chased that smile from his lips with a kiss that he was more than willing to enthusiastically return.