Chapter 8
Hunter climbed up the steps and joined Nancy in the narrow space. She immediately twisted her body and pressed herself flat to the wall, a faint gasp escaping her lips.
The back of her neck must’ve touched the cold stone. Either that, or his closeness had caused it.
“What was that?” he growled, his hand coming up to block her from hurrying off up the stairs, while his other hand itched to settle on the dip of her waist.
Nancy’s throat bobbed, her head tilted back to meet his gaze. “That was me trying to make it through breakfast. I asked to have it in my room, but your aunt said that would seem suspicious.”
“Ye were supposed to keep the story simple,” he reminded her, his voice low with warning.
“Ye were supposed to act normal, but then ye stride out with a haughty look on yer face. Beathan doesnae ken what he’s done to offend ye, but ye’re a nursemaid, nae a lady. Ye cannae behave as if ye’re superior.”
Her eyes flashed with irritation. “He deserved it.”
“Ye willnae put me family in danger with yer antics, lass,” he continued, his gaze flitting to the column of her throat and the slope of her collarbone.
There were faint freckles there, too. “Nay one must suspect that ye’re nae who ye say ye are.
Nay one must think there’s anythin’ strange about ye, because there are people out there”—he pointed away—“that are lookin’ for any excuse to start a fresh fight. ”
There were people within his own clan who would relish the excuse to get rid of him and put their choice in charge. He was never supposed to be the Laird of Clan Lochlann; he had never wanted the position, but the council had made their decision after the previous Laird died.
Sometimes, he wondered if it was his punishment.
“Do you agree with him?” Nancy asked sharply.
“Eh?”
She sniffed. “Beathan. Do you agree with what he said?”
“What did he say?” Hunter truly couldn’t remember; he’d been a little distracted at the time.
“That all a woman is good for is… is making babies. Breeding. Suitable for nothing else, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth!
” she huffed, her face contorted with anger.
“I mean, I guessed you’d all be fairly oblivious brutes, but just because I’m not where I should be, that doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate it.
I will change things here, if it means not having to listen to that sort of… backward bullshit!”
He raised an eyebrow, drawn to the fire in her. Normally, he wouldn’t have allowed anyone to speak to him like that, with the occasional exception of his aunt, but there was something about Nancy’s defiance and steely courage that stirred him.
“Nay, I daenae agree,” he said, taking a half step closer, relishing the soft sound of her gasp as the distance between them shrank.
She cleared her throat and turned her head. “Well, thank God for that.”
“I think a lass is only good for the bedchamber, but I daenae think ye’d appreciate that either.” His lips curled into a smirk, meaning it as a jest… and to see just how hot that fire could burn in her when she reached the peak of her anger.
How much closer would she get? Would she grab him by the shirt? Tilt her head up so that the only thing he could do to quell her rage was kiss her? Would she dare to strike him? He didn’t know, but he was curious to find out.
Instead, she pressed herself harder against the wall and glowered at him as her breath sawed in and out, like she was building up to the height of her fury. Her cheeks were red with the heat of her ire, her eyes gleaming feverishly.
“Why am I not surprised?” she hissed, a cold smile twisting that pretty mouth of hers.
“God, I hate this place. The funny part is, there are hordes of women where I’m from who’d fantasize about this, traveling to this other world where the men have never heard of boundaries or consent, to be… ravished by you bastards!”
Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Ravished, eh?”
“I’m not one of them,” she spat. “God, why did I have to find that damn note? Why did I grab that damn tapestry? I should never have been in freaking North Carolina!”
Not a lot of what she said made much sense to him, his brain taking a few seconds to vaguely guess a translation, but ‘tapestry’ stood out. Was she admitting to being a thief? Who had she stolen from?
“What tapestry?” he asked.
She shook her head. “None of your business.” She turned to leave. “I should never have come down this morning. I should’ve stayed in my room. I get that things aren’t what I’m used to here, so I’m sorry for lashing out, but… I’m just going to stay out of the way.”
She made it one step before his hand shot out to stop her, catching her around the waist and pressing her up against the wall, no longer bothering to leave any polite gap between them.
Her breath caught in her throat, her bosom heaving in a frantic rhythm that drew his gaze briefly to the ripe, teasing swell of her breasts.
She’ll faint if she keeps breathin’ like that.
“What tapestry?” he repeated, his tone harder.
Nancy cleared her throat, her eyes flashing. “I was in my time, minding my own business, killing two birds with one stone, when I… touched a tapestry.”
She paused, a frown creasing her brow as if she’d just had a poignant thought. “I touched it… and then there was an earthquake.” Her voice was slow and distant, as if she were talking to herself. “I grabbed it, and it fell on me. Then, I woke up here. It was a… tapestry of you.”
“Of me?” His own frown deepened.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said quickly, dropping her chin to her chest. “I’d like to go to my room now.”
“Where was this tapestry, eh?” Hunter pressed. “Who did ye take it from?”
“I didn’t take it!” she snapped. “I grabbed it because I was scared, and when I woke up here, it wasn’t there anymore. But I… I think it’s how I got here, somehow. I think it… sent me here.”
“Well, perhaps we can find it and send ye back, so ye willnae be trapped here with us brutes,” he said dryly, though his mind churned with confusion.
How could a tapestry have sent her here? Had she been tasked with a mission to bring a tapestry to someone? Perhaps the tapestry had been aboard the ship he assumed she’d arrived on, and this ‘earthquake’ had been the thing to wreck the ship?
If the tapestry washed ashore, the wrecked ship would likely be nearby, giving at least a clue about where she’d come from. There might even be other survivors to take her back with them. Nothing else made sense to him.
But the way Nancy bit her lip and glanced away spoke of things unsaid. The tension in her neck added to his suspicion, as though the truth were trying to fight to the surface.
“Out with it,” he commanded.
“I can’t find it.”
“Why?”
She took a breath. “Because… if I’m right… If I’m right about why the tapestry wasn’t there when I woke up, then… it hasn’t happened yet. In this world, in this time, the tapestry doesn’t exist.”
A strange shiver ran through him, hard to explain.
It was akin to feeling something or seeing something as if one had lived it before, when that wasn’t possible.
It buzzed in the back of his mind like a hive of angry bees, the hairs on the nape of his neck standing up on end.
The spot where curses and spells could sneak in, according to his mother’s old warnings.
She might have known what to make of all of this, but she was dead and gone. No one had understood more about the unseen world of myths and spirits and magic than her.
“Witch,” he rasped, for it was the only explanation. “Ye’re a bloody witch.”
Nancy grabbed his arm as if to either balance herself or to half shake some sense into him. “A witch? Me?”
“How else would ye explain it? What else should I think, with the way ye act and the strange words that come out of yer mouth and the way ye look, eh?”
He pressed his palm to her chest to hold her against the wall and to feel the beat of her heart. He knew the rhythm of a liar. It was the only good thing his predecessor had taught him, though he wished he hadn’t learned it the way he had.
Soft, tempting flesh moved against his palm, her breath quickening.
“I told you,” she said thickly, defiantly, “what I wore when I arrived is normal where I come from.”
Her heart was beating hard, but not unsteady.
“And where is that again?” he bit out, her skin so hot against the roughness of his palm.
It had been a mistake, stoking himself up when he should’ve been cooling himself down. The urge to slide his hand under the neckline of her gown, to feel those ripe breasts, was a potent thing that ravaged his mind, until it was pretty much the only thing he could think about.
His head dipped until they were so close he could’ve claimed her mouth in an instant, his lips tingling with want as every shallow breath of hers caressed them.
He yearned to press himself against her, so she could feel what she was doing to him. He longed to just silence his questions and suspicions by catching her mouth with his, so it wouldn’t matter, even if just for a while.
“America,” Nancy replied breathlessly, her neck arching, almost pushing her bosom against his hand as if she, too, wanted to feel more. “About three hund—”
Footsteps echoing in the hallway forced him to pull back, though it was a singular kind of torment. A few more moments, and he was certain he could have discovered how she kissed, with the hope that it was as fiery as her temper. As passionate as her ire, put to better use.
Beathan came around the corner as Hunter descended a step, though Nancy remained where she’d been, pressed against the wall, her cheeks flushed, her lips still slightly parted as ragged breaths continued to move her chest in a frantic rhythm.
Nae a liar, but nae tellin’ the truth either.
Unless she had been about to, before those blasted footsteps cut her off.
“Miss Kane, there ye are.” Beathan bowed his head briefly. “Me maither thinks I ought to apologize to ye, and I’m inclined to agree. If ye’re to be here awhile, I daenae want there to be any difficulty between us.”
Nancy glanced at him, her hand pressed to her heart as if she thought she could slow it down with pressure alone. “It’s all right.”
“Nay, I daenae think it is,” Beathan insisted.
“I want ye to ken that I didnae mean to offend ye, Miss Kane. I went about it the wrong way, but all I meant was… I daenae think there’s anythin’ more noble than takin’ care of bairns, especially those that arenae yer own.
And I’m glad ye’re here to take care of wee Freya.
Me maither willnae have the time when me sister has her bairn, so it’s a relief that the wee one will have someone to tend to her. ”
Nancy’s brow glistened with sweat, and though Hunter should have been concentrating on cooling his desire, he felt a sudden urge to taste her gleaming skin.
With obvious difficulty, she tore her gaze from him and put on a tight smile.
“Thank you for the apology,” she said, her voice still husky.
“All’s well, don’t worry. Put that way, I can’t help but agree with you a little bit.
I know there are many children who’d agree with you.
That to be looked after by someone, anyone, is the greatest gift. ”
Beathan smiled brightly. “Exactly. That’s exactly what I meant. Nay child should be without someone to maither them.”
“No… no, they shouldn’t,” Nancy replied, her voice catching. “Sorry, I… uh… I think I need some fresh air. Could one of you point me to the garden or a door out of here?”
A soft, almost maniacal laugh burst out of Hunter. Whatever the truth was, witch or madwoman or spy or clairvoyant or otherwise, she certainly wasn’t ordinary. Luckily for her, or maybe unluckily, ‘ordinary’ bored him.
“That way, Miss Kane,” Beathan answered before Hunter could, annoying him somewhat, just as the earnest apology annoyed him. It had been too earnest, in his opinion.
“Thank you,” Nancy said, holding onto the wall as she made her descent, deliberately squeezing past Hunter as if to put as much distance between them as possible.
She hadn’t even made it out of sight when a maid came running, pink-faced and out of breath. It reminded Hunter of Nancy’s condition just a few moments ago. A dark smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“The bairn is awake,” the maid blurted out, clutching her sides.
Nancy shot Hunter a look and muttered a quiet, “Of course,” before storming past him in the opposite direction. Her need for fresh air would have to wait.