Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
Adeline tried to keep her shaky legs steady as she made her way across the slippery flagstones.
It’s all going to be fine . It’s all going to be fine. I'll talk to them, they’ll see that I’m no threat, and this will just be a bad dream, forgotten by tomorrow.
She imagined herself returning to Logan’s bedchamber victorious, having extinguished the issue with her power of persuasion. He’d be livid with her, sure, but she’d soon calm him down. Maybe they could pick up where they’d left off before they’d fallen asleep, putting them both back in a good mood.
“It’s the witch!” someone screeched from beyond the gates.
Faces leered through the iron bars of a portcullis. It seemed sturdy, but she didn’t know how much she trusted 18 th -century metal.
She’d never had so many fingers pointed at her at once, nor had she ever been the target of so many vicious glares. The villagers’ expressions almost didn’t seem real, burning with the kind of hatred people reserved for murderers and worse. But she was just a 21 st -century doctor doing her best to get along in a world that was alien to her.
She hadn’t killed anyone, she hadn’t hurt anyone. She’d tried to do the opposite.
“I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself,” she began, hoping they couldn’t hear the tremble in her voice.
She needn’t have worried, she doubted they could hear anything she said over the top of their screaming and yelling. The bombardment of pure, hateful noise thundered through the gates, throbbing in her ears. They despised her. She felt it, deep in her bones, like a disease spreading quickly.
“Excuse me!” she shouted louder, putting up her hands. “Excuse me! If you’d give me a second of your time, I can put your minds at ease! Excuse me! I need you to listen to me!”
“Cover yer ears!” someone yelled. “If ye hear the sound of her voice, she’ll bewitch ye!”
A few of the villagers did just that while continuing to scream obscenities at her, detailing exactly what they’d do with her when they caught her. She’d never felt sorry for a roast turkey before, but with visions flashing in her head of burning to a crisp at the stake, she vowed never to eat a bite of Christmas turkey again.
If she could get out of this alive, that was.
“Will you just listen!” she boomed, in the loudest voice her lungs could muster. It echoed through the courtyard, pinging off the walls as if there was a crowd of Adelines. “Whatever you think I am, I’m not!”
The villagers stopped their baying, staring at her. She wasn’t sure if that was worse than the screaming.
“I’m not a witch!” she shouted. “I know you’ll all think, ‘Oh, well, that’s what a witch would say,’ but you’d be burning an innocent woman. You don’t even know me. You don’t know my story. You don’t know what I’ve been through or why I’m here, and instead of charging in, all guns blazing, you should at least pause to ask!”
The front line of villagers blinked in confusion.
“I’m just a woman,” Adeline went on. “A healer, to be exact. Someone who can bring good things to this island, not bad. I haven’t cursed anyone. I wouldn’t know how, unless you mean swearing at them, but I’d bet you’re all guilty of saying some rude things in the heat of the moment. People in glass houses and all that.”
“Glass houses?” someone muttered from the crowd. “Why would ye have a glass house?”
Adeline groaned inwardly. “Look, if you won’t believe me , then have a few people ride to the east and ask the villagers there what they think of me. I came here to help with the curse, but I wasn’t the one who cast it.” She smoothed her clammy hands down the front of her dress to dry them. “I’ve already helped people there. Your Laird’s brother is one of them. He’s inside right now, and if you’ll all just wait a few days instead of demanding my blood this instant, I’m sure he’ll tell you himself.”
That you’re all correct and I am a witch .
Oliver hadn’t exactly seemed thrilled by her when he’d spoken about her before.
“She’s tryin’ to hoodwink ye!” a gruff voice barked from somewhere further back. “Daenae listen to her! I’ve got family in the east—she hasnae done anythin’ to help ‘em!”
Adeline tried to find the source of the accusation, but the crowd was too dense, the light of the torches too bright.
“I have helped them! Go and ask them yourself. I’m serious. Why don’t you all just go home, send a couple of people to investigate, and when they tell you what I’ve done in the east, we can all pretend this didn’t happen. I won’t hold a grudge.”
“She cursed the north, she cursed the east, and she’ll come for the west and the south soon enough!” the same voice boomed, angry and masculine. “If she’s helped the east, it’s only to avoid suspicion! She would be the only one who can undo the curse she cast on ‘em!”
Change the freaking record!
The man’s warning rippled through the mob, whipping them up into a frenzy all over again. Fingers resumed their pointing, scowls flashed, expressions hardened, makeshift weapons waved wildly, and Adeline realized that Logan had been right. She wasn’t in her world, and these people couldn’t be reasoned with. They were at fever pitch, and she lacked the persuasive medicine to cool them off again.
They surged forward. Hands wrapped around the iron bars, rattling the portcullis. Arms reached through, swiping aimlessly, trying to grab at her, though she had a few steps of safe space between her and the bars.
“Please, listen to me!” she urged, the opal egg burning a hole in her apron pocket. She didn’t want to have to use it to save herself.
Leaving on bad terms, putting this mess squarely in Logan’s hands, was the very last thing she wanted now.
I need my five days.
She clasped her hands together like a prayer.
“Please! You’ve got it all wrong! I know you’re fired up, but you’ve got it all wrong!” she shouted, losing her mind a bit.
For years after the loss of her parents, she’d been a people-pleaser. Having so many people hating her at once, refusing to listen to her side of the story, was more than her frazzled brain could bear.
She didn’t realize she was moving closer to the iron bars. But in her need to be heard, her feet edged her forward with each plea she made, closing her safety gap. It was like some other force was nudging her onward, pulling her within reach of the swiping hands.
As fingernails scratched the front of her dress, a light went off in her head. She blinked down at the wet flagstones, then up at the mob right in front of her. She hadn’t meant to get so close. The fingernails hadn’t managed to grasp any fabric, but she could feel the graze of them on her stomach—it chilled her to the bone.
They really did want her dead.
All of a sudden, arms grabbed her around the waist and hauled her backward. Not a moment too soon either. One of the villagers had half-squeezed himself between two of the bars, and if she’d stayed standing where she was, he would’ve been able to snatch her and pull her toward the bars.
A blur went by her as she struggled to stay upright, the arms gone from around her waist.
Logan…
Logan jogged up to the portcullis and, in one swift move, drove his foot hard against the side of the man trying to squeeze through. The villager flew backward, knocking down anyone who was standing too close like bowling pins.
It caused a ripple effect, the mob unsteady, everyone jostling and shuffling back to give those who’d fallen some room. A few didn’t seem to care that there were people on the ground, surging forward to clamor for Adeline’s execution.
“Burn the witch!” they howled over and over, an eerie chant.
“She’s bewitched our Laird!” another voice, gruff and masculine like the one before, cried out in a haunting lament. “She’s cursed him to do her biddin’! See how he came to her rescue and kicked one of our own! She’s addled his mind with her witchery!”
Adeline trembled, watching the events unravel. “No,” she whimpered softly, “you’ve got it all wrong. So wrong.”
“What did I tell ye?” Logan growled, stalking back toward her.
He swept her up into his arms, a grim expression straining the muscles in his handsome face. He wouldn’t even look at her as he carried her from the courtyard back into the relative safety of the keep, kicking the heavy wooden door shut behind him. It wasn’t nearly enough to keep out the sound of his people, ten times as incensed, demanding her immediate execution.
“Do ye think I told ye to stay in me chambers to amuse meself?” he muttered, finally meeting her tearful gaze. “I ken ye’re an intelligent lass, Adeline—probably a hundred times more intelligent than I’ll ever be—but that was the single most stupid thing I’ve seen ye do since ye came here. Why could ye nae just trust me? I could’ve told ‘em I’d already sent ye away, I could’ve told ‘em plenty of white lies to satisfy ‘em, but now that they’ve seen ye, they’re never goin’ to relent.”
Adeline swallowed past the lump in her throat, struggling to blink back the tears welling up in her eyes. She knew she’d been idiotic. So stupid, to think that she knew better than someone who lived here and understood the nature of mobs like that. It wasn’t just foolish, it was peak arrogance on her part.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could say.
“Sayin’ ye’re sorry cannae do anythin’ now,” he replied tersely. “Ye heard ‘em yerself—they think I’ve been bewitched, and now nothin’ I say is goin’ to persuade ‘em otherwise. All ye had to do was stay in that room, Adeline! It wasnae like I asked ye to weave me a tapestry or carve me a sculpture. Ye just had to sit by the fire and wait.”
Adeline gulped. “I know. I know, and I’m sorry. I… just thought I could help you out. I was wrong. I… I’m sorry.”
His expression softened as he began to carry her up the stairs to her chambers. “I wish I could stay angry at ye, but it’s nae yer fault—nae really. Ye have a heart of gold, and ye see the best in everyone.” His voice hitched. “I kenned it when me brother spoke to ye so coldly, and ye still tried to defend him. I kenned it when ye dinnae ask for anythin’ in return from the eastern villages. But the trouble is, here in this world, soft hearts get trodden on.”
“That’s a great pity,” she murmured, settling her head on his shoulder. “Every world, yours and mine, would be a better place if more people had gentler hearts.”
Logan sighed. “I cannae argue with that.”
“But… what are you going to do?” She shuddered every time she thought of the mob outside.
He shook his head. “I daenae ken, but between me, ye, me maither, me sister, and Theo, we’ll think of somethin’.” He paused. “Daenae worry about it right now.”
“How can I n—”
His mouth caught hers, a kiss so fierce that she was glad she was in his arms, or she’d have been knocked off her feet by the force of it.
Within half a second, the mob disappeared from her mind, replaced with the warm glow of kissing him again. They were both alive, they were both okay, and this was the blissful reminder.
Her hand slipped into his soft hair, tugging gently, pulling him closer. All the while, he kept carrying her up the winding staircase, so familiar with his home that he didn’t need to look where he was going.
“Do ye ken how fast I had to run down these steps to get to ye?” he murmured, pulling back for a moment.
She shook her head. “If you had banisters, you could’ve slid all the way down.”
“I thought… I was about to lose ye, lass.” His voice was throaty, laced with a pain that furrowed his brow. “I saw ye walkin’ across the courtyard, and me heart nearly left me body. It was Theo who noticed ye. I daenae have enough coin in me coffers to thank him for that, ‘cause if I’d been a few seconds slower, they would’ve…”
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, unable to finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. Adeline had already imagined the myriad tortures and slow deaths they could’ve inflicted on her if they’d gotten their hands on her out there.
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly, stroking her fingertips across his stubbled jaw.
He mustered a sad smile. “We’re nae gettin’ our five days, are we?”
“I think it’s still too soon to tell,” she replied, her heart already breaking.
There were serious consequences to breaking the boundaries they’d set, for the sake of self-preservation. By damning the rules that night, exploring one another completely, they’d made it impossible to pretend that they were just a brief fling or a vacation romance.
Her heart and mind and soul ached for him as much as her body, and she suspected it had already started calling to him the moment she’d run her hands over his chest in the dungeons on that first night and declared him the man of her dreams.
Her choice of words hadn’t been an accident. Logan was the man of her dreams. The problem was, she had to wake up, whether she liked it or not.
The mob was her alarm clock, and if they couldn’t be snoozed, she’d have no option but to rise and shine… without him. Back where she came from, three hundred years apart.