Page 67 of Beyond Dreams

Chapter Nineteen

Graeme thought it oddthat though he’d known Lucas Thain for nigh on twenty years, he will have seen more of the man in the last few months than he had in the last decade of years. They’d met in the spring at Roslin, for a battle with the English which would not soon be forgotten, the Thains and the MacQuillans having convened under Comyn and Fraser’s banner, fending off an advance by Longshank’s favorite earl, Lord Pembroke. An unholy night, that one, but one by which plenty of wine might be swigged and fires might dwindle at the retelling, long into their dotage. Then last week at Duncan’s command, Graeme had visited Lucas Thain at Newburn, seeking word on the whereabouts of Wallace and what directives might have come from Robert Bruce or were expected.

And now, for the second time in a week Graeme was headed to Newburn and Lucas Thain, despite Duncan’s order that his wife, who was not Ceri MacHeth and thus not any true wife, should be returned from whence she came, to Hewgill House.

Duncan might well ask for his head on a pike when Graeme eventually told him what he’d done instead, where he’d actually taken Holly, but that was a concern to be saved for another day.

They’d not been gone but a few minutes from Thallane when Holly had begged of him to take her to the sheriff, to a dungeon, to England itself, anywhere but to Hewgill House.

“They are not my family, Graeme,” she’d said. “I can’t imagine what they will do to me for having failed in my role, but I don’t think murder is out of the realm of possibilities. Can you take me to Sidheag? She’s the old woman who was—”

“Aye, I recall,” he said shortly.

“Do you know where she lives?”

“Did she nae dwell at Hewgill House?”

“I don’t think so. She mentioned something about having a house near a loch.”

“Fairly vague, lass. I canna help you there, lass.”

“But Graeme, please, I can’t go back to the MacHeths.”

Actually, Graeme rather agreed with her. Murder indeed might be on the menu, but only after they’d used her well. She might be witless, might well have bats swirling around inside her turret, but he didn’t suppose she needed being killed.

“Aye, I ken a safer place,” he’d said, which she did not question, but which seemed to offer her a degree of relief.

They’d spoken little since. Having been advised that she did not ride, he’d ordered that she be taken up with Roari. When he’d changed their destination, he’d ridden on ahead to lead the small party of half a dozen further inland. He didn’t want to otherwise be cajoled into championing her cause, whatever it might be.

Duncan’s distaste for Holly aside, Graeme didn’t believe her capable of true menace or malice. She was desperate, mayhap as batty as Duncan believed and as her own fanciful tales hinted at, but she wasn’t a danger to anyone.

Beyond that, though—and the reason for his easy capitulation, and his decision of Newburn as their new destination—he simply could not get out of his mind what had tickled at his brain since last week, how much Lucas Thain’s new bride had reminded him of Holly. Not that Cora Thain and Holly bore any resemblance to each other, for they were vastly different in appearance, Cora being petite with wide green eyes behind the curious affectation of two glass spheres while Holly was taller, lithe, the owner of a pair of soulful brown eyes. At first, he couldn’t put his finger on what had provoked him to compare the two women. In fact, it hadn’t occurred to him until he’d returned to Thallane that it was not only Cora and Holly’s strange English and similar accents that needled him as oddly peculiar, but that their manner of speaking was so strikingly alike. Their inflection and tone, the way they accented certain syllables, the very volume and relative speed of their speech—’twas almost uncanny how alike the two women sounded.

Perhaps he’d have thought nothing of it. If this calamity had not shaken Duncan and the very peace between clans, if they’d simply carried on at Thallane, never knowing that Holly was not Ceri, he might never had given the likeness another thought. Mayhap if Holly’s first words to him this morn upon sampling his aloof mien in dawn’s gray light—oh, gosh, you hate me, too—hadn’t recalled a weirdly similar statement from Cora Thain a week ago, spoken to her husband—oh, gosh, you’re angry with me—Graeme might not have known such a niggling sense that the two women should meet—if they had not already.

Nae, he no more believed any fanciful nonsense as what Holly had proposed to Duncan, that she’d traveled through time to be here, than he imagined that the fey creatures were real. But he did wonder, first, if there might besomeconnection to Cora Thain, whether it be familial or merely some regional affiliation, which might have explained their remarkably similar dialect. Secondly, he’d deemed that Holly might fare better at Newburn, under Cora Thain’s compassionate wing, than she would almost anywhere else that he could envision at the moment.

Holly wasn’t insensible, not so far as Graeme could see. She was, however, tormented, Graeme believed, whether by her failure as the character the MacHeths had forced her to play or because of the loss of Duncan’s affection—nae the loss, but the complete and utter annihilation of any tender regard. So tormented, aye, but he wasn’t so sure she was teeming with madness, despite her outlandish yarn.

He’d glanced back a few times as they journeyed through marshy glens, along the banks of streams, and across rough trails hewn into mountainsides. The lass was listless, barely blinking, stared straight ahead but saw nothing, Graeme supposed. They’d departed Thallane shortly after dawn, those moments inside the bailey while the horses and soldiers had gathered being the only time she’d exhibited any emotion. Her brown eyes had returned again and again to the door of the keep with wild-eye expectation, hoping Duncan would show himself, would have changed his mind. ’Twas the only time she’d cried, as far as Graeme knew, at their leavetaking, and even that had been a silent keening, her head dropped to her chest. Roari had sent many an awkward glance toward Graeme as she’d quietly carried on for the first half hour.

---