Page 27 of Here in Your Arms
Actually, it was not so much a question as a demand for the truth.
Rose straightened her shoulders. “I told you—my name is Rose Carlisle.”
His jaw flexed. "And yet ye bear the face of a woman recently buried. Tell me, how does that come to be?"
Rose exhaled slowly, trying to control the frustration bubbling beneath her skin. “I don’tknow,” she admitted.
“Either ye lie or ye have...powers—ye are a witch. A sorceress?” He guessed.
Rose frowned now. “What? No, I’m not a witch.” She thrust her forefinger into her chest. “Ididn’t do this—move me through time.Ididn’t...” she paused, waving her hand, searching, “createme in the likeness of Margaret. I don’t even want to be here. I want to go home.” She watched his gaze narrow, making the ice-blue of his eyes more cutting. “Can I just tell you what happened to me?” She asked, again pointing to her chest. “What happened to bring me here—as much as I know, which isn’t... Can I just tell you and then maybe you’ll understand that I’m as confused as you are?”
Tiernan studied her for a long, suffocating moment before nodding.
But now with his permission—which implied his willingness to listen—Rose wasn’t quite sure how to begin. She actually had to explain two things, both of which were not going to be easy for this medieval man to believe: the future and time-travel.
His expectant stare, cool and seemingly unreceptive, didn’t make it any easier.
“Okay,” she said, lifting her hands as if to steady herself, her palms facing him. “Let’s start with the obvious. I’m not fromhere. And when I say here, I don’t just mean Druimlach. I mean Scotland. I mean this country, this century.”
She paused, watching for a reaction, but Tiernan simply tipped his head almost imperceptibly to the left, his gaze pinning her in place. That was not encouraging.
“I’m American,” she continued quickly, before he could interrupt. “The United States of America. It won’t exist for—God, I don’t even know how long—hundreds of years. That’s where I was born, that’s where I live. Or lived. It’s 1978 where I come from.”
His brow furrowed, just slightly.
Rose took that as a sign to barrel forward. “I was in Glasgow, at the university, working in the archives—studying history, your history, actually. That’s why I came to Scotland in the first place. I was just doing my job, minding my own business, going through some old documents, and then...” She hesitated, searching for words, struggling against the absurdity of it all. “Then something happened. I don’t know what. I was reading a journal, a woman’s journal, actually—oh, and her name, curiously was Margaret as well.”
His face darkened instantly.
Rose swallowed, pushing on. “And I don’t know how, or why, but suddenly everything around me changed. The lights sputtered, the pages shimmered, and then I—well, actually, I don’t know what happened. I think—or thought for a while—that I had blacked out. Only, I didn’t just lose consciousness, because when I came to, I wasn’t in the archive building anymore. I was outside. In the woods. In the middle of the night. Freezing.”
She took a steadying breath, watching as Tiernan’s jaw flexed. His expression was carved from stone, but his eyes were fierce, sharp, as if he was scrutinizing every word, every spark of emotion on her face.
A bit intimidated by his silence, by his devouring stare, Rose unconsciously lifted her finger and traced the familiar line of the scar on her cheek. “I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t even realize what had happened. I thought I’d passed out, maybe had some kind of episode, wandered off in a daze. It wasn’t until Emmy found me that I even knew—” She stopped herself, shaking her head. “Well, I didn’t know, I don’t know anything but what she told me must have happened. She said—as she mentioned earlier—that the same thing happened to her.” Lowering her hand, she fisted both her hands in the folds of her skirts. “It couldn’t have escaped your notice that Emmy and I sound a lot alike—the way we speak, I mean. We don’t sound like anyone here.”
His eyes narrowed again—it was very intimidating.
“And what did she tell ye?”
“That I had traveled through time.” Rose let out a breathless, humorless laugh. The unrelenting brutality of his stare was starting to wear on her. Her nerves were already shot, and the frostiness of his constant stare wasn’t helping. “I didn’t believe it either. It sounds insane! But then I started looking around—no cars, no roads, no electric lights. No modern anything.”
He stiffened, his fingers twitching at his sides.
Rose huffed. “And believe me, I’m only more confused now, after today, knowing that I look like some poor woman who just...died.” She winced, feeling awful for having mentioned that. She lifted her hand in appeal. “I’m very sorry, though, for your loss—obviously you loved her very much. And I’m very sorry for this intrusion, for doing this to you when your grief is obviously so fresh.” She shrugged weakly, feeling smaller and smaller with every moment.
For the first time, something flashed and shifted in his expression. But Rose could not say what it was.
“I didn’t want to come.” She didn’t want to blame Brody for their coming, but she thought it safe, reasonable even, to explain what he had said to her. “Mr. Mac—I mean Laird MacIntyre—said that it would be more...problematic if you maybe came to Dunmara sometime in the future and saw me, and then...well, I don’t know what now since you don’t believe I’m Margaret.” Quickly, she lifted both her hands, reminding him, “Not that I am Maragaret, or pretending to be.” Her shoulders sagged again. The whole thing was simply too impossible, either to explain or to understand. Rose rubbed the knuckle of her forefinger over her left eye. With a sigh, she reiterated, “I don’t know what happened or how it happened, sir. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it was something I did, or something that was done to me, or if it was just some cosmic accident. But I do know that I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. I was fine where I was.”
Tiernan’s gaze was still severe, but Rose could see something simmering beneath the surface. She thought—hoped, really—that his grip on implacable skepticism wasn’t quite as ironclad as it had been a few minutes ago.
Rose swallowed, her voice quieter now. “I just want to go home.”
Silence settled between them, heavy, tense.
“I dinna believe ye,” he said at length.
Later, she would think the low growl of his statement should have terrified her, but now, in the moment, she responded with what was instinctive and true. “I don’t blame you. Three days in, and I’m still struggling to believe it myself.” A bit annoyed now with...everything, Rose flapped her arms out, lifting them to chest height before dropping them back to her sides, all while saying, “Well, I’m not sure what more I can tell you, since that’s all I know anyway.” When he said nothing, she lost a little more of her patience—she was a victim here, too, as much as him, andwhat she now considered his purposeful intimidation of her was actually starting to piss her off more than it was frightening her.
