Page 19 of Sinful Scot
He awoke again sometime later. How long had he been out? He didn’t know. The pain was still there. It was a pulsing, living thing. It was consuming him. He had a raging fever. He was sure of it. But he’d made it through the night. He knew that, at least, by the light streaming in from the door. He was belowground, but the stairs leading to the dungeon had a door that must have been left open.
He blinked several times to force his eyes to adjust to the relative darkness. Just the motion of blinking made his head hurt. And his nose. Oh yea. Oh hell, his nose was broken. He’d forgotten all about that. He was going to kill that bastard Bellecote. And his guards. Again, Rhys had that surreal feeling as if he were not in his body but floating above it, watching life play out.
He stared at the light, willing the world around him to become clearer and forcing himself to recall the sequence of events that had led him here. The texts from his brothers. His dad in the hospital. The coma. Going to his dad’s house. The study. The book. The cross. The chant. The recklessly said chant.
He paused a moment, thinking about that chant and his brothers. They’d all held the cross. They’d all said the chant. So where were his brothers? Same questions as before, but he still had no damn answers. Yet the questions kept coming. Were they home? They sure as hell weren’t here with him, so were they somewhere else in this century? Had they not travelled because of him? Because he’d neglected to tell them how to properly pronounce Gaelic? But if they were here, were they in trouble? Were they in a dungeon near death like he was?
No. Hell no.He could not die and fail his brothers, or his dad, or his mom. He’d already screwed things up royally. He should have believed his dad, trusted him. He should have helped him find their mom years ago. He should have done more research before saying that chant. He had been unprepared. Though how did someone prepare for something like this?
A bitter laugh escaped him. He was the king of preparedness back in his time.
He barked another laugh. His time…Jesus H. Christ.
He was aware he was spiraling out of control. His thoughts were erratic, crazy, desperate. He couldn’t stop it, but when it was over, this moment of weakness would be the only one he allowed. He swore it as he let the thoughts and disbelief flow freely. He jerked with the flood of emotions, and that’s when he realized he could move his legs. His arms. He wasn’t tied!
He stood slowly with a hiss and a hard clenching of his teeth against the pain, and he walked toward the light.Ha!If that wasn’t a metaphor for things to come, he didn’t know what was.
He examined the cell door. It was real, solid, thick wood. Not like the crap they used back home. There was a small rectangular hole cut into it with vertical black bars blocking the little window. For some inane reason it made him laugh, and he was quickly sorry for it. He doubled over with the pain and stayed that way. That flogging was brutal. He’d endured a lot of beatings from boxing opponents over the years, first in the ring when he was learning the sport, which his mom had insisted on when he was only ten, and then later when the forced sport had become a hobby and then a way to channel his anger. He’d taken to it well. In fact, it had saved him when she’d left them.
No, she disappeared. Was snatched through time?
He wasn’t sure how to think of it anymore. The waves of dizziness finally stopped, and he straightened up again and made his way to the rocky back wall, looking around as he went. The room was small, about the size of a modern jail cell, which he’d only seen on television. There was nothing in it, though. No cot. No toilet.
They don’t have toilets. Or sinks. Or… Or… Or…
He squeezed his eyes shut and slid down the wall, not caring that it scraped his bare skin as he lowered to the ground. Four walls. The door was locked. The window was too tiny to fit through. There would be no chance of escape until someone showed up, and then he’d get out even if it killed him. His nose started to throb in time with his head, reminding him he needed to straighten it before it started to set crooked—a nauseatingly painful task he’d done only once. After the second time he’d broken his nose in the ring, he’d asked the doctor to show him how to do it and he’d agreed.
Rhys reached up, felt where the broken bones were, and knowing where they should have been, he grasped his nose and, with a deep breath, yanked it into place. He grunted as his eyes watered with the dizzying pain, and he went from sitting with his back against the cold stone to lying on the dirt floor. He’d get up in a minute so he’d be prepared whenever they sent a guard for him. He was pretty sure Bellecote wasn’t finished with him. The man may be a rich baron, a powerful man in this time, but he was also a jealous man, and a jealous man was the same in the twenty-first century as in the thirteenth.
The asshole wanted to make Rhys suffer, and not because he had put his hands on his fiancée to save her from that snake. Bellecote wanted to make him suffer because of something she had done. What, Rhys didn’t quite know, but he suspected it had something to do with the fact that Bellecote disgusted her. She didn’t hide it well, which Rhys liked. She wore her emotions on her beautiful face the way the sky wore the sun on a bright day. Her feelings radiated from her, which was why he wasn’t angry with her for what she’d done. She had been trying to help him when she’d lied and said he had ties with the Devil. Every gut instinct he possessed told him it was true, and he liked to think he was a good judge of character—usually. He had to be to run the family business so successfully.
Admittedly, she could have chosen a better lie, but who was he to judge what she’d blurted off the cuff? He’d grabbed a cross and chanted a spell without any forethought to what might happen if his dad’s claims were actually true, so Rhys wasn’t about to cast a stone when he was trapped in a glass house.
Would he see her ever again? He guessed he probably wouldn’t. He’d somehow escape from here, and then he’d need to get away immediately, unseen and unnoticed if at all possible. He sincerely doubted Margaret would be loitering by the dungeon entrance in hopes of seeing him or with a clever plan to help him. She was obedient, albeit grudgingly. He’d seen it on her face in one of the many displays of her feelings, which played like a Fourth of July fireworks show with her full lips, pale skin, and her catlike eyes. And her nose. He smiled, and he winced at the pain. Margaret had a small, perfect nose. She was small and perfect. No, no woman was perfect, nor man for that matter, but she was as close to perfection physically as he had ever seen.
He’d say she was a little over five feet, which made her tall for her time but short for his. He was usually attracted to taller women, but for her, in this little fantasy he was indulging in, he’d make an exception. Nothing was ever going to come of it anyway. Something skittered by his head, but he was too tired to move or care. He closed his eyes, recalling what Margaret looked like. In the dark, he’d seen the shadow of her body, the teasing outline, but in the light of day it had been her face, her soulful eyes, and her wild hair that had captured his attention.
He’d seen women with auburn hair before, but hers was different. It was a bright auburn, and it gleamed with shadows of deep gold and rich red. But more than that, it hung in long, alluring curves over her graceful shoulders. His fingers twitched to feel it now, to smell it, to run his hands through it, and he groaned with the lust that gripped him. A million women surrounded him every day at home. Beautiful women. Intelligent women. Business-savvy women. And none had sparked his lust like this one did. He didn’t know why. He didn’t need to know to continue indulging in the memory of her.
He recalled her bow-shaped mouth, and its deep, natural, ruby-red color, which contrasted sharply with her porcelain skin. She’d used that mouth to reassure him with a smile, to cry out for him as if she knew him and cared about him, to press her lips together in an angry line on words he’d seen she’d wanted to say. What would her lips feel like on his? Soft? Demanding? Innocent? What did she taste like? Honey? Mint? He couldn’t recall offhand what herbs and drinks were common in this century except wine, and a slow smile stretched his lips, causing sharp pain to radiate up his nose. Margaret would taste like an expensive pinot noir. She’d be a complex flavor, sweet like summer cherries, strawberries, and raspberries intertwined with an earthy oak and spice. He wanted to taste her. It was a yearning in the pit of his stomach—and lower. It was probably for the best he’d never have the chance to act on it, given he was in a time that was not his own and a place he did not belong. Still, that did not prevent his feverish mind from imagining it.
He sighed. As lovely as her lips were, her eyes were even more compelling. He thought about the shape of the thick auburn eyebrows that framed them. Those blue eyes of hers had flashed with an inner fire, a blue fire. She had more spine than she knew.
Christ, he’d never thought about a woman so much in his life. It had to be the fever, or the traveling through time, or both. Or it was flat-out delirium. Yep, it was delirium, because when he considered the fact that she was supposed to marry that bastard Bellecote, who looked old enough to be her father, Rhys could think of nothing but saving her from a fate that he suspected she’d resigned herself to. That was the time she lived in. Women had not had much choice or many rights for hundreds of years to come.
You could change that for her.
Where the hell had that inner voice come from?
I cannot change that for her. She’s not my responsibility.
Great. Now he was talking to himself.
Why would she consent to marry Bellecote?
“You cannot change anything,” he muttered to himself, feeling the fever tugging him into sleep. As the heat seemed to grip him harder, he gave in, drifting back into the darkness with an image of her in his head.
Maggie had not wanted to come to the great hall for dinner. She had not wanted to see Baron Bellecote, to be forced to converse with him, but she’d come tonight for one purpose and only one purpose: she had to know for certain that the baron would keep his word not to kill McCaim.
