Page 13 of Wild Highland Rose
This, then, was Ewen Cameron.
Cameron stared at the face in the mirror, his mind recoiling at the enormity of what was happening. He was looking at himself, and yet it wasn't his reflection. Not his face, not his century. He was certain of the fact. His life, if he still had one, belonged with dream induced memories of rainy nights and a car with a leather interior, and the blonde.
But if all that was true, then there were some pretty overwhelming questions to be answered. Like how the hell he'd gotten here and how in the world was he going to get back? For that matter, what had happened to the real Ewen Cameron? Was he dead? Was he roaming around in someone else's body? Cameron's body?
The questions built up one after another until Cameron felt as if his head would explode. God, he wished his memory would return.
He blanched as another unwanted thought planted itself firmly in his brain. What if he never remembered? What if it was part of the nightmare? What if he was always caught in some sort of limbo between glimpses of who he really was and tales of who he was not?
No.
He simply could not, would not accept that. His memory would come back. Amnesia was seldom permanent. He latched onto that thought, forcing himself to ignore the accompanying thought that traumatic head injury didn't send its victim five hundred years into the past.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised that you'd spend the better part of the day admiring yourself. But I've work to do and no time for lollygagging about with you."
Marjory's voice drew him sharply back to the present—the past actually. He grimaced, and lowered the mirror, trying to hide the turmoil. Until he knew who he could trust, he wasn't about to share his thoughts. Especially with Marjory.
"I thought it might trigger memories," he shrugged. "But there's nothing." He handed her the shield, forcing himself to breathe normally, there was no sense in panicking. If he was going to make sense of this nightmare, he had to get out of this bed, and to do that he had to hold his cards close to the vest.
Marjory was staring at him through narrowed eyes, her expression somewhere between pity and contempt. "Grania says they'll come back."
They'd covered this territory before, but this time Cameron was determined to get more information. "Until then, I have some questions." He tried to make his tone pleasant. To keep at least a semblance of normalcy. "Please stay." He patted the bed next to him in what he hoped was an inviting manner. In truth, his head was pounding and what he wanted most was to be alone, but that wouldn't get him answers.
Marjory glared at him suspiciously and then, apparently making up her mind, ignored the spot he'd indicated, and sat instead in the chair vacated by Grania. He sighed. The woman had a will of her own.
"What do you wish to speak about?" She sat perfectly straight in the chair, poised on the edge, obviously ready to make a hasty retreat if necessary.
He wondered what Ewen had done to make her so wary of him. "Maybe we should start with why you hate me so much."
She flinched, obviously not expecting the question. "'Tis mutual."
It wasn't an answer, but it spoke volumes just the same. "Whatever I felt before I don't feel it now. You're a stranger to me. And I can't move forward with my life until I at least have a rudimentary understanding of who I was before I fell."
She looked as though she didn't believe him, which given the circumstances was perfectly reasonable, but he was oddly disappointed nevertheless.
"So if we hate each other, why the marriage?"
She eyed him distrustfully. "You're a Cameron and I'm a Macpherson. Our families are enemies and, in their infinite wisdom, they decided a marriage between our clans would lessen tensions."
"You, I mean,we," he amended, "were the sacrificial lambs, I take it?"
"Aye."
"Did it work?" The situation sounded like something out of a macabre fairy tale. "Did your marriage to Ewen ease the tension between your clans?"
"You speak as if you are not he." Her expression held both fear and puzzlement.
He cursed his choice of words, he'd have to be more careful. If these people perceived him as insane, his chances for escape were nil. "I'm sorry, it's just that hearing all this is like listening to a story. Someone else's life."
She sighed, her expression softening. "I can imagine the way of it."
"So did the marriage solve the problems between our clans?" He pulled the focus of the conversation back to the past—his past in some weirdly twisted way.
"Nay." she shook her head. "The sacrifice, as you call it, was for naught."
"I see." He paused, looking down at his hands, or more relevantly Ewen's hands.
She followed his gaze, staring for a moment and then looking away in seeming embarrassment. Without thinking, he reached out and touched her hand. Electricity flew between them almost as if there were actually a current of some sort.
