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A blackhouse was a traditional type of cottage that often housed both families and animals, and Abby hoped he was right about the English having already searched all the houses in the area. “Good, that’s where we’ll go, then.”
She didn’t want to be anywhere near any of the man’s enemies or their allies. What happened to the Jacobites after Culloden was one of the cruelest times in history. They were routed from their lands, hunted, and murdered. Cumberland, the leader of the English army, wasn’t called The Butcher for nothing. If she was found with a Jacobite, she would also be killed.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm her body. She could freak out later when she was safely home. For now, she needed to get herself and her new companion to safety.
She glanced at him. Wariness mixed with curiosity filled his eyes, but something else sparked in the brown depths, sending a jolt of electricity through her chest.
The same thing had happened when their eyes met earlier and, surprised at her body’s reaction to just a look, she quickly gazed at the sky above.
Once away from his intent gaze, her breaths became normal as her own gaze found the moon and the dark clouds rolling over it. A second later, rain fell on her hood. Hard.
Sighing, she muttered, “Perfect.”
She was tall, but with the man more than a head taller, she was able to duck under his good arm and help him limp further away from the empty moor.
Her one plan was to get as much distance between them and the battlefield as possible. If they were stopped and questioned, and if the injured man’s reaction to her clothing was any indication, she would be in trouble. A lot of men of that time were barbarians and thought of women as their property. She didn’t know what they’d think if they saw her clothes. One thing she did know was that they wouldn’t listen to reason and they would think her mad if she told them the truth. They would probably just kill her.
The torrents of rain hindered her vision of a safe route.
Her nerves were strung so tightly that even the sound of their footsteps scared her, and although it was cold, she felt sweat drip down her back. Her eyes never stopped moving, peering in all directions, trying to discern any movement that might mean danger.
When had wolves become extinct in Scotland? She started and twisted her head to look behind for anything that moved. No. She tried to reassure herself. If that was the Battle of Culloden, then it must have been 1746, and she was sure wolves were gone by then, although, blast it, she remembered reading tales of them being around in the 1800s. She peered into the darkness. Great.
As quick as it had come, the deluge stopped. Moonlight slithered its way through the empty clouds, and Abby’s heart bounded up into her throat. The light would show their whereabouts to anyone close enough to see.
She tried not to think of Englishmen finding them while she hustled the man as fast as she could through a small stand of trees. He gripped his side but kept up with her, and once on the other side, she exhaled in relief at the clear meadow.
She twisted her head to peer up at him. “How far?” she whispered.
“Cl-a-ose,” he stammered.
Half-dazed with exhaustion and spent emotion, Abby let him guide them along their course.
And as they stepped on the green grasses, she gazed back. She still had to find the orb. She had to get home before anyone found her, before she was stuck in this hellhole.
Mashing her lips together, she hoped she could find her way back the next day. New fear swirled like a maelstrom in her chest. What if someone else discovered it first? What if it was buried in the mud and she lost it forever?
Stop it, Abby. No what-ifs. I will find it tomorrow, and it will take me right back home.
The man leaned on her more heavily and drew her back to the present . . . past . . . whatever. Logically, she knew she shouldn’t be interfering. She could be upsetting the delicate history of time, and what of the consequences that might happen in the future?
She grimaced. There was a name for it . . . ah, the butterfly effect. Yes, a small change can make much larger changes happen.
Her meddling could be worse than killing a bug. He was much larger than a bug, so her saving him could be even more catastrophic than standing on a bug in the past.
Should she have just left him to die there? She scrunched her nose. No. She couldn’t have done that, not once she knew he was alive. If she’d left him there, she would never have been able to forgive herself. She would have had nightmares of guilt forever.
He groaned.
Her shoulder ached, but she drove her back straighter, accepting more of his weight.
She listened to the quiet. No sounds of weapons, no thundering horses’ hooves. Certain they were safe at last, her heart quieted.
Grunting with the effort, she pushed up harder into his armpit.
Why couldn’t she have saved a smaller man? This one was gigantic. Even with his clothes between her palm and arm, she could feel the hardness of his muscles, the bunching and stretching of them as he lumbered beside her. Her thoughts became centered on the movement, the hardness, under her hand, and she fell into a rhythmical pace with the motion.
He let out a small groan, and her face filled with heat at her wayward thoughts. She’d never been so intrigued with a man’s form before, and especially someone she didn’t even know. Feeling foolish, she clutched a handful of material under his shoulder.
All thought of the man beside her evaporated moments later as pain coursed over her upper back. Grimacing, she worried they wouldn’t make it up the incline, worried that if they didn’t find respite soon, she would drop him.
Finally stepping on the crest, she spied a burnt-out building only steps away. Only half the gray stone facade was left standing, and almost the entire thatched roof was gone. Blackened stones were strewn over the ground, and the rest of the walls were crumbling slowly.
The smell of moist, scorched wood flooded her nostrils, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the stench they’d just left behind.
Thanks to the rain, the back section had been saved.
What was once an internal door had withstood the flames along its hem. Although it was blackened, the timber was still intact.
She sagged as she stepped to the door with a grunt. The man held on to a beam with the hand that wasn’t clutching his wounded side and withdrew his weight off her shoulder. She sighed in relief at the loss of her burden and opened the door.
The room had been the middle of the dwelling, and thankfully there was a hearth built near the back wall. The peat was still smoldering. She loved how the Scots kept these fires going all year round. Thank you, whoever you are, she silently said to the owners of the house.
Another door to the side and behind the hearth stood open to the outside cold. Abby rushed to shut off the entrance as the man limped to the bed. He carefully lowered his body to the mattress until he stretched out on his back.
“Thank ye, lass,” he said, and immediately closed his eyes.
Abby checked him. She didn’t know if he was asleep or unconscious. Rubbing the freezing skin on her arms, she was glad either way—at least he was alive. He needed drying and warming, but she had to look after herself first or they would both die there.
Using a steel poker she found resting on the wall, Abby moved the peat about and then blew on it until small flares spouted out of the smoldering earth. She quickly added more peat and smiled at the growing flames. Thank goodness.
Looking around the modest room, her excitement at getting the fire working evaporated. She didn’t think even a small family could live comfortably there, let alone with their animals. She shivered at the thought of living, no, existing like that.
The stone walls were crammed with a sort of earth mortar to keep the weather out and the heat in, but it was still cold. The floor was dirt, but it was so packed, at first she thought it was concrete. Abby wondered how anyone could live on dirt. Above her, the wood beams held part of a thatched roof that she hoped was dense enough to block the rain, but not so thick that the smoke from the fire stayed in. She could already see where the soot had blackened the walls and rafters.
She placed more peat blocks on the fire and rested back on her heels, taking in the delicious warmth.
After her goose pimples faded, she removed her cloak and was surprised but delighted to find her clothes were only damp. She spread the cloak out in front of the flames.
Pulling a rickety wooden chair away from the corner, she sat facing the bed. Just a minute’s rest and then . . . Uh-oh, she had to get him out of his wet clothing.
She studied his face. His eyebrows, as dark as his hair, weren’t as bushy as she would have expected, although his eyelashes were much longer and darker than she had ever seen on a man. The growing stubble didn’t hide his square jaw, strong but, at that moment, relaxed. His tanned and weathered skin told her he’d spent many hours outdoors. He must have led a physical life, because his entire body was taut and muscled. She knew he was big when she’d held him, but his shoulders nearly spanned the width of the bed.
The man groaned. Even with a pain-filled face, he was quite handsome. He probably had a family waiting for him somewhere, and she hoped she could make him well enough to go to them.
Standing up, she placed her hands on her hips, puffed out a breath, and went to work.
After pulling off his boots and thick socks, there was no choice but to rid him of all his clothes. They were soaked through, and mixing pneumonia with his injuries would just make her job all the harder.
Undoing the circular broach at his wounded shoulder, she pulled the long, wet plaid cloth from the front of his body, but it appeared to wind around his back. Something hard was amongst the folds. She carefully prodded and poked the cloth, revealing three knives. They were more like daggers than kitchen knives. She plucked them out and put them on the table.
Standing back, she glared at the deluge of material. How the blazes was she supposed to get him out of that? Maybe she could roll him off it.
She dragged the bed away from the wall so she could get around it, and then rolled him away. Holding him on his side, she pushed the material as far under him as she could. Once on the wall side of the bed, she nudged him to his other side and yanked the cloth out and off the bed.
Although she tried to be as gentle as possible, she knew from his moans every movement was hurting him. Performing the same ritual with his skirt, she finally rid him of his outer garments. His long linen shirt was next, and then he would be completely naked. She looked around for something she could cover him with, something she could drop there quickly.
Searching the room, she found a box under the bed. The leaves spread under and over the contents, Abby guessed, were to keep away bugs. At the sight of blankets, she called out in glee, “Thank the stars.”
His shirt was long, and her arm muscles had turned to jelly from the previous exertion. There was no way she could repeat the maneuver. She couldn’t pull the shirt up his heavy back, so she tore the material from the neck to the cuffs and then threw the blanket over him.
Now with less cloth to deal with, she forced her aching arms to drag and tug what cloth remained out from under his back. She grunted and swore until finally, with a little push against his shoulder, the last bit of linen broke free.
She felt bad for being thankful he was unconscious, but she was sure he would have been in excruciating pain with all the jostling and jerking otherwise.
After laying the plaid over the end of the bed to dry, she gazed at the ridiculous amount of material. From her recollection of history, the Jacobite army usually wore a long-belted plaid, but the tartan he bore wasn’t as long, and she guessed it was his clan’s colors, but she didn’t know which one.
Moving to see how serious his wounds were, she hesitated. She should get out of her damp clothes as well or she would come down with a fever.
Removing her coat, shirt, and pants, she laid them out to completely dry. She was glad her lacy camisole had already dried from the heat of the fire, but she couldn’t risk the man waking and seeing her in what to him would be scandalous and strange attire.
“There must be something in here,” she said as she rummaged through the box. More blankets and men’s clothes, trousers, tartans, and shirts, and then finally, a skirt and other women’s clothing.
Keeping an eye on the man in case he awoke, she quickly pulled out a brown skirt and what looked like a sleeveless vest. They smelled stuffy, so she hung them from the rafters to air out. She would wear her shirt under the vest when it dried. The material was likely different from anything found in that time, but the cut was similar to a man’s shirt.
She decided to sort through the rest of the stuff later; she had to tend to the man first. Eyeing him, she wondered what he was like. At least he wasn’t awake, but even if he was, she would have plenty of time to escape before he came fully mobile if he was dangerous.
Abby realized she’d better see to his wounds before they became infected. It would hurt—a lot. She silently pleaded to the heavens that he would stay unconscious. She spotted a bucket by the fire and groaned. Of course, there was no running water, but they had passed a stream close by. Great, there would be no bathroom, either, and having thought about water and streams, she needed to go badly.
By the time she had collected water from the river and poured it into a large cauldron over the fire to boil, she was hot and exhausted and ready for sleep.
How the people of that day dealt with what to her was the harshest of lives, she didn’t know. She gazed up at the charred ceiling. “I want to go home.”