Page 14 of Here in Your Arms
“We should nae have left Skye so early in the season,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Should nae have compelled her north from the convent. The journey weakened her. But she wanted to be here. She wanted to wed ye.”
Tiernan’s jaw tightened slightly.
“She was anxious but excited, I ken,” Domnall continued, shifting his weight slightly. “Aye, she dinna say as much, but I could see it. And aye, she was nervous—mayhap ye’d seen that—but are nae all women at the idea of their marriage?” He shrugged subtly when Tiernan said nothing. “I ken she was keen to take her place here at yer side, as eager as ye for the wedding.”
Tiernan could not give the man what he wanted. What comfort was there in lies? So instead, he offered what he could. “She would have made a fine lady of Druimlach.”
Domnall let out a rough exhale, as if that had been the one truth he needed to hear. He turned his head, his sharp, assessing gaze sweeping over Tiernan.
“And ye, lad?” he asked after a long moment. “How are ye holding up?”
Tiernan did not answer right away. It was not a question he had been asked before—not by anyone.
He knew what he was meant to say. That he was struggling. That he was drowning in grief, that his world had been shattered by the loss of his betrothed. Instead of speaking, however, he only held Domnall’s gaze, letting the silence stretch between them, letting the older man interpret it as he wished.
Domnall nodded once, as if seeing something in Tiernan’s silence that made sense to him. “Aye. I kent as much.”
He made to turn away, but paused briefly, murmuring, “Grief doesnae always look the same in every man. But it comes for us all, one way or another.”
Tiernan sat still for a long moment, watching Domnall’s tedious climb up the stairs.
He did not correct Domnall’s assumption.
A father’s love for his daughter would be greater than any feeling he could have claimed to possess.
***
Rose woke with a start, the heavy weight of thick blankets and heavy furs pinning her in place, the air cool against her cheeks. For a moment, she stared at the wooden beams above her, listening to the rain outside. The bed beneath her was lumpy, unfamiliar.
She squeezed her eyes shut.Dunmara. Right.That’s where she was.
Slowly, the haze of sleep lifted, and the events of the last two days came rushing back. Wednesday night, she had walked into the Special Collections Office, sat down at her desk, and opened a centuries-old journal of a woman living in a convent, about to depart to join her husband-to-be, dreading her life. And now, somehow, impossibly, it was Saturday morning. And Rose was waking up in a medieval castle in thirteen hundred and four, dreadingherlife.
She pressed her palms to her face and exhaled.
Her thoughts felt sharper today, though no less tangled. Still, she battled to make sense of the impossible.
Emmy had been patient, kind, careful not to overwhelm her. But no amount of warmth could erase the fact that Rose was living and breathing in a world she did not belong to.
Two nights ago, Emmy had eventually ushered Rose out of the kitchen and led her through the dimly lit corridors, up a narrow stone staircase, and into this very chamber.
“This is where I stayed when I first came,” Emmy had told her, brushing aside the heavy wool curtain over the small window. “Actually, it wasn’t this nice—it was pretty... barren. Imade it my own after a while, after it dawned on me that I might be here forever.”
At the time, Rose had barely been able to focus on the words, too overwhelmed by everything—by what Emmy had so earnestly, so seriously explained had happened to her. The surroundings, the realization that Emmy, a woman from the future, was completely at ease in this setting. That alone had nearly broken Rose’s mind. But later, when she could think a little more clearly, it had given her hope. Emmy had adapted—more than adapted, really. She had thrived. Of course, being in love and apparently adored by Brody MacIntyre probably helped.
Still, the fact that Emmy acted so... normal had, more than anything, kept Rose from losing her mind entirely.
When Emmy had suggested she try to rest that first night, Rose had found herself suddenly needled by questions, so many questions, clawing for answers. She’d fired them rapidly at Emmy, barely giving the woman a chance to respond before launching another.
How is this even possible? How long have you been here? How do you survive in a world without modern medicine? Without technology? Without basic hygiene?
Emmy, proving that her patience was apparently endless, had answered each and every one as best she could.
That first conversation had evolved into something unexpected—an easy back-and-forth as they compared their vastly different lives in the modern world. Emmy had been born in 1993.
Nineteen ninety-three.
That alone seemed as preposterous as the fourteenth century itself. The idea made Rose’s head spin.
