Voyage of a Highlander (Arch Through Time #28)

Chapter 1

“What do you mean you can’t take it back?” Ruby Douglas demanded of the immaculately dressed shop assistant. “It hasn’t been worn and I have the receipt right here!”

Her voice was getting a little shrill, but she couldn’t seem to keep it steady, no matter how hard she tried. It didn’t help that the shop assistant was giving her a look full of sympathy. She didn’t need sympathy, damn it! She needed her money back!

“I’m sorry,” the middle-aged woman said in a calm, soothing voice. “I can see it hasn’t been worn and I know you have the receipt, but it’s got a wine stain on the bodice. There’s no way we would be able to sell it now.”

Ruby opened her mouth for an angry retort, then snapped it closed again.

She squinted at the white satin bodice of the dress.

There was the tiniest stain visible, if you knew where to look.

Oh. Right. She’d hoped nobody would notice that.

She’d spent an age trying to get the stain out after she’d thrown her wine all over it in a fit of temper.

At least it had been white wine and not red, but she hadn’t bargained on such an eagle-eyed assistant.

Her shoulders slumped, the fight leaking out of her like air from a popped balloon.

She could really do with the money she’d paid for the dress, but that wasn’t the main reason she’d brought it back to the shop.

She just wanted to be rid of it. She wanted to be rid of every last reminder of what it represented.

Perhaps she should have just taken a pair of scissors to the damned thing and been done with it.

“All right. Fine.” She pushed the dress across the counter. “Keep it.”

She turned away, blinking back the sudden tears that threatened to fall. She would not cry!

“Wait!” the woman called. “What are we supposed to do with it?”

Ruby paused at the door and glanced back. “I don’t know. Give it to charity. Burn it. Turn it into a cat’s bed for all I care.”

Then she pulled the door open and hurried out into the cool Edinburgh morning.

She halted outside the shop, leaning against the wall and taking deep, heaving breaths to try and still the turmoil that knotted her stomach.

Unbidden, her eyes swiveled up to the sign that hung above the shop door. Bridal Bliss.

It was funny, she thought, how things could change so completely in so short a time.

The last time she’d seen that sign she’d been happy.

Excited. Looking forward to a future that seemed full of endless possibilities.

Charlie, her cousin and best friend, had been with her, and they had spent a giddy morning trying on dresses and getting all giggly.

In her memory, it had been a fine, sunny day full of birdsong and sunshine, and laughter.

But had it really been like that? Or had there been warning signs even then? Warning signs that she’d happily ignored in her rosy world of denial?

Rather than bright and sunny like the day she’d spent here with Charlie, today was cold and gloomy, and Ruby was alone.

Charlie was gone, off to a new life with the man she loved.

Off to a new time, in fact—the seventeenth century to be exact—leaving Ruby here with a wine-stained wedding dress and an empty heart.

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, and she dashed them away angrily. Nope. Not doing it. She would not cry. Not over him. He didn’t deserve her tears. What he did deserve was a swift kick where it hurt and a slop bucket dumping over his head, but we don’t always get what we deserve, do we?

Pushing off from the wall, she straightened and took a deep breath. At least she’d taken a step forward in getting rid of her wedding dress. It might be a small thing, but it was a start.

But why did it have to feel so damned hard? Why did it have to feel like her insides had been put through a meat grinder? And why did she keep alternating between tears and fury in the blink of an eye?

She was Ruby Douglas, damn it! Practical, dependable, in control.

She’d had her life mapped out for as long as she could remember and had worked meticulously to achieve everything on her ten-point plan.

Nice apartment in central Edinburgh? Tick.

A well-paid job as a risk analyst for a large company?

Tick. She played tennis twice a week, went to the theater regularly, and made sure she ate plenty of fruit and vegetables. She’d done everything right.

So why had her life gone so wrong?

Ahead of her, Edinburgh stretched into the distance, its tall tenements and spiky roofline obscured by the morning mist that seemed to wrap around the city like gauze.

There was a chill in the air, heralding the winter to come, even though it was only September and the leaves were only just beginning to turn.

Reaching into her pocket, she ran her fingers over the item tucked inside. It was small and rectangular, not much bigger than a phone. It was the only thing she’d discovered that might give her what she needed most right now: a way to see Charlie.

They might be cousins, but they were more like sisters, and Ruby missed her like crazy.

She was happy that Charlie was happy of course, happy that she’d married the man of her dreams, but that didn’t mean her absence didn’t leave a hole in Ruby’s life a mile wide.

And why did she have to go and live in the past of all places?

Why did she have to get tangled up with fairies and magic and all the crazy stuff that nobody believed in anymore?

Heck, Ruby only half-believed it herself and she’d seen the evidence with her own eyes.

Tightening her grip around the object in her pocket, she strode away from the bridal shop and made her way through the streets of Edinburgh, weaving between the early morning shoppers and people on their way to work, until finally she reached the Princes Street Gardens.

Down here, amidst the greenery and singing birds, she could almost forget that she was in the middle of Scotland’s capital.

Down here, she hoped to find the peace and quiet required for what she intended to do.

She found a bench tucked away in a secluded corner, out of sight of the rest of the park, and sat down.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the object she’d stowed there.

It was a book. Tiny, written in a fading, hand-written script, the title on the cover read: Of the Fae and ways to summon them.

She still wasn’t entirely sure why she’d bought it from that second-hand bookstore. Mumbo-jumbo and new-age claptrap were so not her thing. She was a risk manager and liked everything tangible, measurable, predictable.

But her world view had been upended a few months ago when Charlie had turned up at her apartment with a crazy story of being sent into the past by some sort of fairy.

Whilst there she’d met a man called Niall Campbell, the love of her life.

And what’s more, she’d decided to go live in the past with him!

Ruby would have thought Charlie was drunk or had taken a whack on the head if Charlie hadn’t shown her proof: a shimmering gateway, through which Ruby had seen another place, another time.

After that, she’d been forced to revise her stance on the things she’d dismissed as mumbo-jumbo, as uncomfortable as that had been. So, when she’d spotted this little book in a shop in Edinburgh’s Old Town, she’d not been able to resist.

Now she opened it to the page she’d marked. The old paper crackled, and a faint smell drifted from the pages, something like old lavender or sage. She peered at the tiny letters at the top of the page.

A spell to summon the Fae and make them do your bidding.

She bit her lip. The rational part of her was horrified at herself.

What was she doing? Instead of indulging in these childish fancies she ought to be clearing out Daniel’s belongings or re-working her budget now she didn’t have his income coming in.

But she ignored the rational part of her.

She didn’t need it to tell her this was ridiculous. She knew it was ridiculous.

But she had to try something. She was teetering on the edge, trying desperately not to fall, and if Charlie could escape into the past, why not her?

So she stood up, holding the little book in one hand, and began enacting the ritual it described.

First, she walked around the bench, deosil, clockwise, chanting under her breath.

By moonlight pale and shadow deep,

Awake, O Fae, from secret sleep.

Through leaf and stone, by fire and sea,

Come forth, unseen, and answer me.

Having done this, she reversed direction and moved widdershins, anti-clockwise, muttering the second verse.

Grant the wish I whisper low,

By hidden paths where dreamers go.

Silver promise, shadow’s kiss,

Fae, bestow this heart’s true bliss.

She stopped and looked around. Nothing had changed.

Beyond the gardens, Edinburgh’s busy streets hummed with the sound of traffic.

Nearby, she heard people whistling their dogs as they walked in the park and several joggers in bright gear ran by on the other side of her hiding place.

Everything was just as it had always been.

She tossed the little book onto the bench and snorted a laugh, feeling faintly idiotic.

What had she expected? For the Fairy Godmother to appear, wave a magic wand and make all her problems disappear?

Absurd! She was only glad nobody had been around to see her.

If anyone had noticed her antics, they would probably have thought she was a raving lunatic.

She reached out to pick up the book but jumped as a voice suddenly said behind her, “What are ye doing, lass?”

She whirled. An old woman was standing by the bench, dressed in a long, shapeless coat and baggy tartan scarf. She was watching Ruby with a faint look of amusement on her wrinkled face.