Kiss of the Highlander

Page 83

“This is for Silvan,” he said, beckoning her over to see the tome, eager to display his craft.
“It’s lovely,” she exclaimed, lifting the embossed cover with the devout care of a bookworm. The pages looked ancient and were written in yet another unintelligible language, with all kinds of symbols that danced just beyond her comprehension. The edges had been painstakingly gold-leafed, with delicate Celtic knotwork. She peered at Tomas. “What is this…er, tome about?”
Tomas shrugged. “Verily, I have no idea. Silvan’s tomes are oft in unusual tongues.”
Just then, Drustan swept into the cottage on a gust of warm, heather-scented air and closed the door with a bang. “Have you finished with it?” he said abruptly, eager to get on to the next stop to see if he could locate someone who recognized her.
Tomas shook his head. “Nay. It will take a few days more. But here’s the other volume Silvan wanted. I dinna mind telling ye it took me nigh upon a year to get me hands on a legible copy.”
When he offered the slim volume to Drustan, Gwen reacted instinctively and plucked it from his hand. “Oh, God,” she breathed, staring at it.
She was holding a copy of Claudius Ptolemy’s geocentric view of the universe, which had proposed that the sun and planets orbited the earth and would not be decisively argued in published form until 1543, with Copernicus’s On the Revolution of Heavenly Orbs. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. It was all she could do not to pet the sixteenth-century copy.
“I’ll take that,” Drustan snapped, taking it from her hands.
She blinked at him, too astonished to protest. She’d had a sixteenth-century edition of Ptolemy’s work in her hands, touching her skin.
“I’ll stop by in a fortnight for the other tome,” Drustan told Tomas. “Come,” he said to Gwen.
Bidding Tomas farewell, Gwen pondered the significance of that volume. Drustan MacKeltar—sixteenth-century cosmologist? What a hoot, she thought. She’d tried so hard to turn her back on physics, but when her heart finally decided to get involved, it was with a man who studied planets and mathematics.
He was really going to have to start trusting her. They had so much to talk about, if he’d only trust her.
Gwen sighed as they entered the Greathall. She’d greeted the day with optimism, only to end it in defeat. She’d accomplished no more than she had last night, and she finally realized that although he was being courteous, he found her story amusing, nothing more. Three times he’d made reference to her “weakness of wit.” He thought she was crazy, she realized sadly. And she began to see that the more she spoke of the future, the crazier he would think her.
Tirelessly, he’d dragged her from merchant’s shop to stall, making certain everyone in the village saw her, toting her about until she was suffering medieval overload. Not once had he touched her again—in fact, he’d hardly even looked at her.
It had been an exhilarating and fascinating foray into the past, with scents and sights that had left her gaping on more than one occasion. But not once had he permitted her to steer the conversation to the issue that was most important: that he would be abducted and his clan destroyed in approximately a month.
Each time she brought it up, he’d shoved her into yet another booth or wandered off into the throng to greet someone.
On the ride back to the castle, he’d been so tense behind her that she’d finally leaned forward as far as she could and clutched the black’s mane. She’d given up and simply reveled in the beauty of the sunset as it had tinted the heathery fields a deep violet. She’d glimpsed a mischievous pine marten darting about the meadow, pausing to stand with its furry little paws upon a stump, nose questioning the breeze. A luminous snowy owl had hooted softly in the branches of the forest beyond. The steady hum of frogs and crickets had filled the air with song.
Full night had fallen by the time they entered the open gates of the castle.
Don’t you ever close the gates? she’d asked, frowning. The barbican, constructed of massive stones, sported a formidable portcullis that looked as if it hadn’t been lowered in a century. The gate itself was fashioned of wood three feet thick and shod with steel.
And standing wide open.
Not one guard sat the barbican.
He’d laughed, the epitome of arrogant male. Nay, he’d replied easily. Not only do the Keltar house the largest garrison beside the king’s, there’s been naught but peace in these mountains for years.
Well, perhaps you should, she’d said worriedly. Just anyone could wander in.