Page 47 of Draped in Plaid
As soon as Saor was in my arms, Logan was going to crush the time jumpers.
But what was happening now? Everything was a blur. One moment Rory was shouting from across the field at his wayward son and the old woman who’d duped so many of them. In the next, Moira had been kneeling on the ground, giving herself up to save us all. Then a split second later, Rory was beside her and she was walking away.
And now Mrs. MacDonald, a woman I had once leaned on for help, was down on the ground, bleeding and unconscious.
“Logan,” I whispered. “Everything has changed.” And it had. Rory must have gone back in time and said something or shown Ranulf something to make him change his mind. And now here we were with a Ranulf that was not the same.
And I’d had the nerve to shout at Steven, to speak to him in a manor in which I’d never used before—and he’d been shocked enough to be still for at least a few moments.
While Steven was distracted—perhaps figuring out what was dawning on us all, trying to configure the possibilities—Logan advanced.
With a nod at our nurse, she took tiny, imperceptible steps away, and then ran toward me, with Logan between her and Steven.
The man who’d managed to come through time somehow and convince me to marry him all those years ago, whirled around toward my true love. I couldn’t even say that Steven was or had been my husband, for he’d in no way filled the role that title demanded.
“Stop!” Steven bellowed at our nurse, but Logan was too quick.
The nurse faltered in her steps, but I called out to her, giving her someone else to focus on rather than the demented man who’d abducted her.
My true husband dropped his weapon to the ground and tackled Steven, knocking the wind from him as he took him down.
Straddling Steven, Logan pummeled him, fists cracking into his face. Steven squirmed beneath the assault, gaining a few licks of his own against Logan’s ribs.
The cracking and smacking sounds of their fists was tremendous. I wanted to close my ears to it. Pretend it wasn’t happening.
Saor reached for me, his giant blue eyes round with pleasure, his tiny fists clenching and unclenching and a gummy, drooling smile, just for me, wide on his mouth. My son was a blessed escape from the brutal fight happening before my eyes. I pulled my child against my breast, leaning down to breathe in his sweet baby scent.
“Thank you,” I murmured to the nurse. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”
“Always, my lady. I vowed to protect him and care for him the moment he was born.”
“All the same, you could have begged to be left behind.”
Nurse shook her head, and I took note of the dark circles beneath her eyes. The woman was exhausted. “Nay, my lady, I could not. I would not.”
“I am in your debt.”
The fighting continued before us. Logan and Steven. A fight that had been bound to happen for the past several years. Ever since Logan had accepted me into his life and learned the truth of my past.
A past that we apparently created on our travel to save Moira at Castle Rising.
How odd that things were intertwined. How odd the way life worked. One thing leading to the next. A series of events that created other events and circumstances that led to yet more.
“Where are we?” I murmured to the nurse.
“Castle Rising. 1544.”
I glanced behind me, wondering if we’d all traveled with Rory had changed Ranulf, but the castle was still there, crumbling.
“But its in ruins,” I said.
The nurse nodded. “Steven mentioned that it was, and that Ranulf and Mrs. MacDonald were to believe him that ye’d be here. The castle was just recently bequeathed to Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, by Henry the VIII, King of England.”
“We need to leave…” I shuddered. “Despite the enemies before us, Howard and Henry VIII are both brutal men.”
Nurse nodded, clutching her arms around herself. “Aye. Afore anyone realizes there are Scots on the land, ’twould be best, my lady.”
As I clutched my son to my breast, I watched Shona kneel beside her sister, pressing her hand over top of Moira’s, and whisper. She would attempt to convince Moira to leave Mrs. MacDonald where she lay, but she would fail. I could feel it in my bones. Moira, Shona, myself, we hated what this woman had done, but no one deserved to suffer. To die unnecessarily.
