Love Beyond Dreams (A Scottish Time Travel Romance): Book 6 (Morna's Legacy Series) (18 page)

“Yes, but I still hate that I drove you all the way to the village when you didn’t need to go there. How did you get back to the castle?”

He did turn toward me then and stared at me plainly.
 

“I waited for ye to no be able to see me, and I walked back in the rain.”

I looked down at the ground in an amused apology.
 

“Yeah…I figured that. I really am sorry.”

Just then, Orick and Jane reappeared from the wide expanse of trees where they’d each gone in search of a private place to relieve themselves.
 

“Sorry for what?” Jane mounted her horse with ease, and I wondered how long it would take me to be able to do the same.
 

“For insisting that I drive him to the village.”

She laughed and looked back over her shoulder at me.
 

“It didn’t hurt him. It’s not that far of a walk. We all found it rather amusing.”

Adwen glared teasingly at his wife and mounted his horse.
 

“Aye, well it doesna surprise me that ye took pleasure from it. Ye have a strange sense of humor.”

Jane laughed, and reluctantly I allowed Orick to help me back atop Grock. He surprised me by giving me a quick, soft kiss on the cheek before pushing me upward.
 

“Thank you.”

“Yer welcome. Just a wee bit further, and we shall reach our resting place for the night. If ’twas only Adwen and I, we would sleep under the stars, but we ken ye and Jane wouldna enjoy it. ’Tis a small inn with only two rooms. Will ye pretend, just for a night, that ye are my wife? If ye doona wish it, I’ll make camp out here with the horses, and I willna mind doing so. I’d understand.”

I smiled and started nodding before he finished.
 

“That means that we get to share a room, yes?”

Orick stood next to Grock with one hand on the horse’s neck and the other on my thigh. He gave me a light squeeze as he answered.
 

“Aye.”
 

I smiled and leaned down to kiss him, fully aware that Adwen and Jane watched our every move. When I pulled away, I winked at him.
 

“Then, aye, husband. Lead us to the inn.”

CHAPTER 28

From the outside, the inn looked like it was barely large enough to hold a room for the owner, let alone an additional two for guests. The rooms had to be the size of closets and the beds not much larger than a crib. Still, no matter how small the rooms or the beds, I would find it preferable to sleeping outside, so I said nothing as we stopped in front of the place.
 

“Fionn is no back from his hunt. Ye must stay outside until he is.”

Adwen dismounted with an aggravated groan and went to go talk to the old woman who stood in the doorway. She greeted us with her arms crossed tightly against her chest, her blatant frown a stark difference from Isobel’s ecstatic welcome.
 

“Shona, ye ken well enough who I am. Ye ken Orick, as well. Do ye no trust that we willna steal from ye nor harm ye?

 
Shona took a step toward Adwen as he approached and shooed the group of us away.
 

“Aye, I ken ye Adwen MacChristy. Last time ye stayed here, ye had that one,” she pointed at Orick, “sneak in Willy’s daughter for an after dinner tup. The man still willna speak to me for allowing such things to happen in my home. If ye wish to stay here, the group of ye will wait in the stables for Fionn. The choice will be his.”

Adwen laughed and reached for his horse’s reins as he led us to the stables.
 

“Aye, fine, we shall wait, but ye know Fionn will grant us entry.”

The woman huffed and turned to go back inside.
 

Jane glared at Adwen the entire way back to the stables, waiting until we were completely inside to say a word.
 

“You really used to be a tool, didn’t you?”

Adwen laughed as he patted his horse affectionately. Orick spoke up in affirmation.
 

“I doona ken what ye mean by
tool
, but aye, he was a wretch.”

Jane whirled on him and quickly put Orick in his place as well.
 

“Like you’re that much better, seeing as you snuck them in and out of the place.”

Orick looked down at his feet as he dismounted, and I ran my hand through his hair playfully as he came to help me off of my horse. I could tell she’d been successful at embarrassing him.
 

Once I was off my horse, I reached to the small packsack where Isobel had placed our food and hurried to try to change the conversation.
 

“Anybody hungry? Why don’t we eat something while we wait for permission to go inside?”

I didn’t wait for anyone to answer as I plopped myself down and yanked out a piece of dried meat and dug in. Slowly, the rest of them joined me.
 

Orick leaned over as we ate.
 

“Thank ye for that. I feared Adwen was about to start sharing stories about me that I’d rather ye no hear just yet.”

I smiled and reached for the bread, speaking to him with my mouth full.
 

“We’re each entitled to our secrets, I suppose. We can share them in our own time.”

“Aye, we can.” Orick stood and extended a hand to help me do the same. “Fionn approaches.”

I couldn’t hear anything that would make him think that.

“How do you know?”

“I canna hear him yet if ’tis what ye wondered. I just saw him pass through the trees behind ye.”

“Oh.” I grasped at his hand and stood up.
 

Adwen quickly did the same. While Jane and I gathered up the food, the men went to go and greet him. Fionn seemed to know them right away and called out to them as soon as he was close enough to tell who they were.
 

“Adwen, Orick, has Shona no let ye in? I canna say it surprises me. She doesna care for the two of ye at all. She does no have a pleasant way about her to begin with, and mention of either of ye brings out the worst in her. Still, I’m happy to see ye both. Do tie up yer horses and follow me in.”

Fionn swung off the back of his horse with the energy of a man half his age before happily clasping both Adwen and Orick on the shoulder. Jane did the same to me in jest as we all walked toward Fionn’s home together.
 

“Are ye well, Fionn?” Orick asked as the three of them walked in step together.
 

“Aye, well enough, though I came across a troublesome sight far into the forest yesterday morn. I havena been able to keep my mind off it since.”

“What did ye see?” Orick pulled away from the odd little train as they neared the front of the house. They couldn’t all fit through the door standing next to one another.
 

“I offered help to a lass who needed it badly. She wouldna take it, and I ken she will die without it. More than that, she wouldna let me near her. She held a spear. I doona doubt she would have thrown it had I tried to get closer to her than I was.”

Orick’s steps stopped immediately at Fionn’s words, but he didn’t say a word as Adwen spoke.
 

“Was the lass alone? What happened to her?”

“I doona ken what happened to the lass. She wouldna say a word to me other than I best get going unless I wished to die with her. She was all alone and accustomed to being so. Her side was near split open, whether it be man or animal that caused her wound, I canna ken for sure.”

Jane and I stood back, both of us taking notice of the tension in Orick’s stance. He reached out to grasp Fionn’s shoulder.
 

“What did the lass look like? Describe her to me.”

Fionn turned, concern etched in his face at Orick’s panicked interest.
 

“She has skin darkened from the sun and hair even darker. I doona think she lives an easy life. She dinna trust me, no matter how I tried to help her.”

I knew who it was. Orick had mentioned her name often during the short time I’d known him.
 

“’Tis Marion. I must go to her.”

CHAPTER 29

Orick didn’t delay his goodbye; he kept it short and to the point before he took off in the middle of the darkness in search of Marion. Adwen tried to leave with him, but Orick wouldn’t allow it, stating as firmly as I’d ever see him do anything that Marion wouldn’t want anyone other than him to get near her.
 

He wished for the rest of us to continue our journey to Macaslan Castle. He would meet us there just as soon as he could. Without him there, my presence on the trip seemed more than a little out of place. Still, Jane and Adwen were nothing but kind and inclusive of me as we traveled the next day, making sure to keep their hands off one another, only having conversations that I could carry on with them.
 

I appreciated their effort to include me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Orick. In that brief moment before he left after Marion, I saw more concern, thought, and emotion from him than I’d felt in myself in the last decade. What did that say about me? A good many things, I imagined, the most obvious being that I was a terrible match for a man so selfless as Orick.
 

I knew the woman Fionn spoke of was most likely Marion the moment I saw Orick stop walking toward the house. Of course he would go to her. I wouldn’t expect anything less. It seemed rather obvious to me, and it didn’t bother me in the slightest.
 

She was injured and very possibly dying—even a man lacking the profound moral compass Orick lived by would have gone to try and help her. What amazed me was that even in that moment, where I was certain all I would have been able to think about was my concern over my friend, he kept thinking about everyone else.
 

He worried about leaving Adwen to deal with Laird Macaslan on his own, and he felt guilty about leaving me when he was the one who invited me along. I just about had to shake it into him that I understood.

“I’ll make it up to ye, Gillian. Ye canna know how much I hate to leave ye. I owe Marion a great debt, and I canna leave her out there if she’s hurt.”

He had nothing he needed to make up to me. Had it been my friend, I wouldn’t think twice, wouldn’t worry for a moment about anyone else that I left behind while leaving to help them—Orick cared about others almost too much.
 

He felt that he needed to be everything to everyone. The thing was, he had enough love and strength within him to be that. Most of the time, I felt like I didn’t even have enough of all that good stuff inside me to give it to myself, let alone someone else. He deserved someone with a heart like his.
 

“He will be okay, you know? I’m now convinced more than ever that Orick’s part cat. He has nine lives or something.”

I glanced over at Jane who was watching me closely.
 

“I know. I’m not worried about him. I was thinking about myself actually. Isn’t that terrible? I should be worried about him and instead I’m riding along thinking about how much better off he would be without me. I don’t think about others the same way he does. I don’t care about anything the way he cares about strangers he meets. He needs to be with someone like him.”

Jane twisted her face up in disapproval.
 

“Why would you think that? Can you imagine if he was with someone just like him? Someone who did worry and think about everyone else all the time? They would nauseate each other. It would just be too much of everything in one place. Opposites attract for a reason. You’re not supposed to be the same. Perhaps there are areas where he is weak and you are strong and vice versa. As long as you love each other, that’s what counts. Quit thinking about it so much. You’re trying to make it hard on yourself, trying to think of reasons to end it and move on so that you don’t get hurt.”
 

I knew that was part of it. I did it with every relationship I’d ever been in.
 

She reached between us and squeezed my knee as if she knew she was right.
 

 
“That won’t work with Orick. He doesn’t let people give up, so quit fighting with yourself and just enjoy the ride. Besides,” she paused and pointed off into the distance to the large expanse of stone we were riding towards, “you’d be better off preparing yourself for the unpleasant event that lies ahead. Laird Macaslan is a total ass, and Adwen’s changed his mind about the story. You’re no longer my maid, you’re my cousin—that way you’ll get to stay in a decent room and be allowed to eat dinner with us. Just remember that we’re not in the twenty-first century anymore. He has to think that you’re my cousin so don’t say anything no matter how ridiculous the man is. If we want to help Adwen get Lennox and Griffith released, we will have to play his game.”

CHAPTER 30

Marion traveled a distance far greater than Orick would have expected since last he’d seen her. It made him wonder more than once as he traveled through the night if the lass he sought was indeed Marion. But then he would think of Fionn’s description and the spear she’d wielded at him, and he knew it could be none other than her. He only hoped he wouldn’t be too late and that when he found her, she would allow him to help.