Page 11 of Here in Your Arms (Far From Home: A Scottish Time-Travel Romance #10)

The entire training field went silent.

Rose’s heart leapt into her throat before she even turned, recognizing that very angry voice.

Tiernan MacRae sat atop his destrier, towering even higher than usual from his vantage point on the horse. His blue eyes burned, a storm gathering in them as he took in the sight before him—her, standing in the middle of the field, a bow in her hands, Niall’s arms loosely around her as he guided her stance.

Tiernan’s jaw clenched as he slid easily from the saddle, his gaze locking onto the soldier with barely contained fury. “Step away from her.”

Niall immediately released her and took a step back, all the blood draining from his face.

“He’s teaching me to—” Rose tried to defend the young man.

Tiernan’s glare snapped to her, disbelief and something far darker flashing across his face. “Ye’ve nae place here.”

She frowned. “I only wanted to—”

He grabbed her by the arm—not cruelly, but with firm, undeniable force. “Enough,” he snapped, already dragging her away from the group of practicing archers. “Ye’ll nae make a spectacle of yerself.”

Rose dug her heels in, resisting. “I am not—let go of me!”

Tiernan didn’t even break stride, but walked her away from the silent, surely gape-jawed group of men.

“Tiernan—stop, damn it!” she seethed, twisting against his grip as he marched her up the rise, past the tree from which she’d watched the training moments ago, and down the other side of the hill.

His grip was unrelenting.

Rose’s responding frustration boiled over. “Stop manhandling me! You don’t get to decide what I do or don’t do! You don’t get to control me!”

Tiernan’s steps halted so abruptly, she nearly stumbled forward. His fingers tightened on her arm, but just for a breath, just for one lingering moment. When he turned to her, his expression was like ice—cold and cutting.

He exhaled, slow and sharp. “A woman’s place is nae on the training field.”

She bristled. “A woman’s place,” she bit out, furious now, “is wherever she damn well wants it to be.”

Tiernan’s gaze darkened, his lips pressing into a thin line.

Her scowl surely as dark as his now, she glared at him. “I’m not from this time,” she hissed. “We’ve evolved from all this—this bullshit, of men being lord and master. You may be just that over all of Druimlach and everyone here, but that doesn’t include me.” Again, she yanked at her hand, trying to free herself from his grip.

His blue eyes burned, his grip flexing around her wrist.

The tension crackled between them, suffocating, thick as smoke despite all the clean fresh air around them.

Rose’s pulse pounded.

He released her wrist—only to raise his hand higher, threading it roughly into her hair, pulling her forward as his mouth crashed down onto hers.

Rose gasped against his lips, startled by the violence of it—but too stunned, too breathless, too overcome to pull away. His kiss was rough, burning with the frustration that had been simmering between them from the start, unspoken and unspent until now. His lips moved against hers with bruising force, as though he could silence her rebellion with the press of his mouth, as though all his control had finally snapped.

He was too close, too warm, too solid. The heat of his body wrapped around her like a cloak, and for a breathless instant, she stopped fighting him. Her fingers clenched in the coarse wool of his tunic, clinging to him not out of desire—at least not at first—but from the sheer force of the moment, the helpless, dizzying rush of sensation.

She should have shoved him away. She should have screamed or slapped him—something!

Instead, she kissed him back.

His grip at her waist tightened, becoming possessive, she had enough wherewithal to think. The hand in her hair held her still, anchored her, like he was afraid she might disappear if he let go—or regain her sanity and resist after all. And in that strange, reckless instant, she didn’t feel afraid—not of him. She felt small in his arms, yes, dwarfed by his size and strength, but never more shielded. As though the storm in him had found its calm in her, if only for a fleeting moment. Even in the fierce press of his mouth, there was no cruelty, no threat. It was overwhelming, breath-stealing, dizzying in its intensity... and yet, inexplicably, she felt safe.

He made a low sound in the back of his throat—something between a growl and a groan—and kissed her harder, pulling her closer as though trying to erase all the space between them.

And then, just as suddenly as it began, it ended.

Tiernan wrenched himself away with a sharp exhale, leaving Rose swaying in place, chest heaving. His eyes blazed, wild and furious, like a man who'd lost control—and blamed her for it. His breathing was ragged. His jaw flexed.

Rose could only stare, stunned, shaken, her lips tingling, her thoughts a blur.

“I’m... I’m not Margaret,” she whispered, her voice terribly small and weak.

Tiernan’s jaw clenched tighter, his blue eyes turbulent with something dark and conflicted. “And dinna I bluidy well ken it.”

The words struck her like a blow. Rose blinked, searching his face, uncertain. “You... you didn’t mean to do that.”

Tiernan took a step back. His voice came out hoarse, roughened by something raw and dangerous. “Bluidy hell,” he growled before he turned and, without another word, walked away.

Rose remained as she was, frozen by the shock of it.

Tiernan MacRae had kissed her.

***

Tiernan rode hard, pushing his horse over the rolling terrain, past the familiar paths and into the open countryside where the land stretched vast and empty before him. He welcomed the bruising ride, the pounding rhythm of hooves against damp earth filling the silence that had followed him out of Druimlach, away from Rose. The crisp air burned in his lungs, sharp and biting, but it did nothing to steady the pulse still hammering in his veins.

He had kissed Rose. Kissed her, dammit!

Bluidy hell, had he meant to do that?

The question unsettled him more than he cared to admit, but mostly because the truth was difficult to ignore. He had not acted on impulse, not truly. It had been reckless, yes, but also deliberate. His body had moved before his mind could stop him, his fingers tangling in her hair, his mouth crushing against hers, taking what he should not have allowed himself to even want.

His grip tightened on the reins, and his horse tossed its head, sensing his unrest. Tiernan forced himself to exhale slowly, steadying his hold, slowing the destrier to a trot, but the frustration remained, gnawing at him like a wound left untended. He had kissed her with a hunger that had blindsided him, had let himself be consumed by the pull he hadn’t entirely been aware he’d been fighting.

And she had kissed him back. What in God’s name had she been thinking?

He had never kissed Margaret. Not once. The realization sat bitterly in him, adding to his turmoil. He had never even been tempted. Margaret had been his betrothed, a woman he had known since childhood, a woman whose presence in his life had always been inevitable. She bore no disfiguring scar, didn’t challenge him, was serene and biddable, carried herself with quiet dignity.

Ah, but she had never made his blood burn. She had never haunted his thoughts or drawn his gaze no matter how fiercely he tried to resist. Margaret had never made him hunger.

But Rose—

His jaw clenched once again. He had been fooling himself to think he was in control. From the moment she arrived at Druimlach, things had not been the same—he’d not been the same. He’d watched her from the first moment she had stepped into his hall, standing before himself and Margaret’s parents, nervous but not cowering, uncertain but not afraid. Her voice had been small then, barely above a whisper, her hands clenched tight at her sides, yet there had been some boldness in her, something that had refused to shrink beneath the weight of all the incredulous eyes.

He had seen it again when she had been cornered in the bailey, surrounded by men who did not trust her presence among them, who whispered of ghosts and curses and things that had no place in reason. She’d not faltered, hadn’t pleaded for him to intervene or defend her. Instead, she’d turned her fire on him, had provoked him, had demanded to know why he did not have better control over his men. No fear, only defiance.

And then, that moment in the woods. He’d barely recovered from being thrown, his body still aching, his pride bruised, and she had come upon him, concern etched into her features. But there had been more than concern—there had been determination, a refusal to be dismissed, a boldness that had made it clear she was not the kind of woman to turn away simply because he willed it.

When Brody MacIntyre had departed Druimlach, Tiernan could have sent her with him. He should have.

Dammit, he’d kissed her!

Rose Carlisle was a dangerous distraction, one he had no business craving, a distraction that neither made sense nor sat well with him. She’d arrived in his world unbidden—unwelcome!—with a story too impossible to be real, with fiery eyes that beseeched and challenged him.

Damn her for coming. Damn her for disturbing him so completely, for stirring something useless in him, some aching want he’d thought either long buried or believed himself incapable of feeling.

***

Rose found Leana in the solar, a chamber set high in the keep, warmed by the late-morning sun that poured through a narrow arched window. The space was modest in size, more intimate than the great hall but still large enough to serve as both a retreat and a place for quiet work. An expertly woven tapestry hung along one wall, its once-rich colors now softened with age, depicting a pastoral scene of shepherds guiding their flocks across rolling hills and women gathering sheaves of wheat beneath a golden sky. A carved wooden chest sat beneath the window, its lid partially open, revealing folded linens inside. A sturdy table occupied the center of the room, scattered with embroidery tools, a few scraps of parchment, and a candle nearly burned down to the nub. A cushioned chair—one of the few luxuries in the room—was drawn close to the hearth, though the fire had been reduced to embers, barely needed on such a mild day.

Rose hovered at the threshold, her breath still uneven, her thoughts far more so. Her lips still tingled—faintly, maddeningly—from Tiernan’s kiss. She had replayed it over and over in her mind as she’d climbed the stairs. The force and heat of it, the way her whole body had seemed to vanish into his arms, the world narrowing to only him—Christ, the very fact that he had kissed her!

And the most disorienting part of all, not the kiss itself, but how fiercely she’d wanted more.

She swallowed hard and shook the thought away.

Leana sat near the window, where the light was best, her hands unmoving over a length of embroidery stretched taut in a wooden frame. Though her needle was poised, she was not stitching, her gaze angled toward the window, lost in thought.

For a moment, Rose hesitated in the doorway, uncertain how to begin.

Gathering her resolve, she stepped forward. “Lady Leana?”

The woman turned, a smile coming instantly at the sight of Rose. “Aye, my love?”

Rose stepped fully into the chamber. “I am not Margaret. I am Rose,” she said, her voice even but firm. She’d made herself a promise that every time Leana called her Margaret, every time she addressed her with familiarity, she would remind her that she was not her daughter. She was not Margaret. She was Rose. And maybe one day, Leana would come to accept the truth, giving up the happy illusion.

Leana’s expression scarcely changed. “Of course,” she murmured, but there was no conviction in it, maybe only a quiet, unshaken certainty that the moment would pass, and that Rose would stop fighting the truth she believed in.

Rose exhaled through her nose but did not correct her again. Not yet. This would be a slow campaign, a steady chipping away at the illusion. Instead, she sat carefully on the wooden bench opposite her, smoothing her hands over the folds of her skirt.

“I was hoping you might help me,” she said slowly. “If you would.”

Leana tilted her head. “Help you?”

“Yes.” Rose forced herself to sound casual. “Emmy has taught me a great deal, but there is so much I still don’t understand about this... time. I don’t always know what’s expected of me or how to conduct myself properly in certain situations.” She hesitated, chewing the inside of her cheek for a moment. “I’m not even certain about how to dress properly. I would like to learn from you.”

Though a delighted expression flittered across Leana’s face, there was something else beneath it, a faint crease between her brows. “Learn?” she repeated, her voice soft with confusion. “But, my love, ye have always kent—”

“I am not Margaret,” Rose said again, her tone patient. “I am Rose. And I would like you to teach me.”

Leana studied her for a long moment, something shifting in her expression. But whatever trace of uncertainty had appeared vanished as quickly as it had come. She smiled mildly, as if indulging a child’s fantasy. “Aye, then,” she murmured, a small, pleased smile returning. “Aye, I will teach ye.”

Rose nodded, pleased for this small boon. If she could guide Leana toward seeing her as someone new, someone unfamiliar, perhaps eventually she would begin to accept that Rose was not Margaret at all. Maybe others would follow suit.

Leana set aside her embroidery and flattened her palms on her thighs. “We shall start with what is most important, then,” she said, her voice warm with sudden purpose. “A lady’s presence is her greatest strength. There is power in how she moves, in how she speaks, in how she is perceived.”

Rose nodded, listening intently, even as she knew this was more for Leana’s benefit than hers.

And yet....

She had come here with a purpose, had toyed with the idea before Tiernan had kissed her. But now, she had to wonder if the reasons behind her objective had changed. Had she truly asked Leana for this instruction for Leana’s sake... or for her own?

I am not Margaret.

Tiernan’s words echoed back to her. “ Aye, and dinna I bluidy well ken it.”

A declaration meant to sever any tie between her and Margaret. A warning, even. She wasn’t Margaret, wasn’t even close.

So why pursue something she’d only vaguely considered before he’d kissed her?

Part of her couldn’t help but wonder if she had a sudden need to fit into a mold of a woman now deceased simply to... what? Appease him? Entice him?

Good God, she thought, worrying her bottom lip as Leana went on, but did some part of her—some small, foolish, aching part— want to be... closer to whatever Margaret had been?

Damn, I’ve lost my mind now for sure.

***

Rose lay atop the bed, limbs sprawled across the furs, staring up at the heavy wooden beams of the ceiling. The midday stillness felt unnatural, suffocating, a forced idleness that set her teeth on edge. She’d left the door ajar on purpose, hoping a stray breeze might slip through the shuttered window and breathe some life into the stifling chamber. Outside the chamber, the keep hummed with life, including the distant clang of metal from the blacksmith with whom she still wanted to visit and pester with questions, maybe ask for a demonstration, and the muffled voices of people calling to one another in the yard. But here, in the dim hush of her chamber, she was expected to rest. Leana had insisted that a fine lady of good breeding would withdraw from the burdens of the household in the middle of the day, “preserving her delicate constitution with quiet and repose”, she’d said. Rose had bit her tongue against the urge to argue—or laugh outright—at such a silly idea, and now she prickled with impatience.

With a sigh, she pushed herself upright and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cool beneath her bare feet, the wooden boards pale and gray. She padded toward the window, debating whether to throw open the shutters just to feel a rush of fresh air, something to shake off the restless energy coiling inside her. But before she reached them, her foot caught on something, sending her stumbling forward.

She put her hands out, preventing herself from banging into the wall, her heart giving a startled lurch as she scowled down at the floor and then considered her stubbed toe. One of the planks’ edges was uneven with the rest, she noticed. She crouched, pressing her palm against it, trying to push it back into place, but it wouldn’t budge. Frowning, she pressed harder, shifting her weight onto it, yet still, it refused to lay flat. Hooking her nails beneath the loosened edge, she worked her fingers under the board and wiggled it side to side, feeling the resistance of something lodged beneath it.

It took only a moment to tug the board free. The plank came up with a soft groan of old wood, revealing a narrow gap beneath the floor. Rose’s brow lifted with anticipation as she peered down into the darkened hole. Something was there, carefully tucked away, hidden from view for who knew how long. She reached into the space, her fingertips brushing against worn leather, and pulled out a small, time-darkened book. Dust clung to its cover, the edges softened with age, but as she traced her fingers over its surface, she knew exactly what it was. A journal.

Her pulse pounded as she turned it over in her hands, barely breathing as she flipped open the cover. The old binding was cracked faintly in places, the pages stiff beneath her fingers. And there, in a startlingly familiar, small but heavy script, was a name.

Margaret de Moubray.

Now knowing Margaret’s surname allowed her to recognize the letters of it, as she’d not been able to do when she’d first opened this very diary in 1978. A shiver ran through her as she swallowed hard and turned the page, coming upon words she’d read once before, almost seven hundred years from now.

The walls of this place are high, and though the sisters call it sanctuary, I do not feel safe within them. The air is thick with candle wax and damp stone, and the silence is heavy, pressing down on me. They say I should be grateful, that many young women would envy the chance to dwell so near to God.

Rose tightened her grip on the small tomb, her heart hammering against her ribs as she intentionally flipped forward, toward the end. She knew these words! Had read them back at the university, had pored over them in stunned fascination, but then, the journal had belonged to a nameless woman lost to time, nothing more than ink on parchment. This was different. This was real, tangible, written by a woman who had stood in this very chamber, in this very time, who’d been waiting—dreading, Rose recalled—marrying Tiernan MacRae.

February, in the Year of Our Lord, 1304. I write now, as I have written before, but no words will ease the dread that sits like a stone in my chest. I do not know if I should put these thoughts to parchment, for I am to be wed, and I am meant to be joyful. My father says this is what I have waited for. I am to be Lady MacRae, wife to Tiernan, mistress of Druimlach. I am to be safe. I am to be secure. So why does my stomach churn when I think of it? He was my friend, once. A childhood companion for several summers. I knew his laughter, his kindness. I knew the boy he had been. But he is no longer that boy. He has become something else.

Rose frowned, hardly able to reconcile “his laughter, his kindness” with the Tiernan MacRae that she knew presently. And though seven hundred years did separate her from Margaret in some strange reality, in this ...current reality, only weeks or months stood between Rose and Margaret’s last written words. Her fingers trembled as she turned another page, her eyes devouring every word, translating the Latin at a feverish pace.

He frightens me. Not in the way of brute strength or anger, though he is stronger than any man I have ever known. It is something else. A distance. A darkness. He does not look at me with warmth, nor does he seek my company. I do not believe he resents me, nor do I think he means to be unkind... but he is cold. So very cold. And I do not know if I will be warm again.

Rose pressed her lips together, rereading the passage, searching for something else, something that made sense. She had assumed Margaret’s trepidation had been the natural nervousness of a woman about to marry a man as severe and intimidating as Tiernan MacRae. That was understandable. Hell, she understood it firsthand. But fear? That was something else entirely. Tiernan was sharp-edged, unrelenting, a man shaped by war and duty, but had Margaret truly feared him? Margaret had known him for decades. How could she fear someone she had grown up alongside? It didn’t make sense.

She turned another page, skimming through more entries, searching for answers.

I dream of the convent sometimes. I dream of its quiet halls, of the sisters and their voices in song. I should not wish for it, but I do. I miss the stillness. I miss knowing my place. I do not know if I am ready. But I know this—I must be strong. I must be the wife he expects, the lady of his keep, the mother of his sons. And I must not let him see how afraid I am.

Rose frowned, her fingers tightening around the book. She hadn’t remembered Margaret expressing such extreme dread, or what now struck Rose as a plaintive unease, and which was so at odds with the impression she’d formed of Margaret from those who mourned her.

She flipped forward, seeking something, anything, that might explain more. Had Margaret been too sheltered, too softened by her time in the convent that Tiernan MacRae really frightened her so much?

Rose’s anxiety heightened—did Tiernan know that the woman he was clearly, wildly in love with was afraid of him? Would it break his heart again, to learn as much?

As she sometimes read the last few pages of a particularly gripping book, Rose now flipped ahead to find the last entries, holding her breath as she read.

The time is near. How wretched a thing, that I do not fear death half so much as I fear the life that awaits me. Not life itself—but life here, as his wife.

Rose gasped without sound. Poor Margaret! She knew she was dying, that she would not recover from whatever medieval fever had taken hold of her. The handwriting had changed here, the once-steady script growing more uneven, pressed harder against the parchment, as if her hand had trembled.

And yet... how could Margaret have feared him so deeply, when Rose—only hours ago—had felt safer in his arms than anywhere since arriving here?

Rose touched her fingers to her lips, stunned by another thought. Had Tiernan kissed Margaret? Had he ever touched her with the same fierce, consuming passion he’d just shown Rose? Margaret had been quiet, devout, shaped by the stillness of a convent. Would such a kiss have terrified her? Had the strength in him—the sheer force of his presence—been too much for a woman who prized peace over passion, duty over desire?

Or... had it not been passion at all, but domination? Control?

Rose’s stomach twisted as she reconsidered the kiss Tiernan had given her. She’d told herself it was desire—unrestrained and overwhelming desire—born of simmering tension and his unaccountable anger at the moment. But now... now she wasn’t sure. Had he kissed her because he wanted to—or because he needed to silence her, to reassert control when she’d defied him, had stepped out of bounds at Druimlach?

She remembered the feel of his hands, strong and unrelenting. The grip in her hair, the heat of his mouth, the way he’d left her breathless and shaken, and she was forced to wonder if she’d mistaken dominance for desire.

Rose pressed her fingers more firmly against her lips, her breath catching. She hadn’t been afraid—at least, she didn’t think she had been. But that’s what made it so confusing now, in hindsight, the way he’d made her feel safe even as he’d taken control.

The line between passion and power blurred in her mind, and for the first time since she’d arrived, Rose wasn’t sure if she should fear Tiernan after all.

The door creaked suddenly behind her.

She gasped, slamming the journal shut and whipping around, her hands flying behind her back in a feeble attempt to hide it.

Tiernan stood in the doorway, silent, framed in the soft afternoon light that spilled across the threshold. He didn’t speak right away, and for a moment, neither did she.

His eyes flicked to her face, then to her arms and hidden hands, and though his expression remained guarded, something glinted beneath it—hesitation, maybe even unease. Not coldness. Not indifference.

Rose’s heart thudded.

“I dinna mean to startle ye,” he said, his voice low, rougher than usual.

“You didn’t,” she lied quickly, the words tumbling out as she pressed the book more tightly to her back. “I just... I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

His eyes returned to hers, and lingered. “What do ye hide?”

Her pulse jumped. “Nothing,” she said, too fast. “Well—just something I was writing. My own thoughts,” she lied. “A... a diary,” she confessed, bringing the small leather tome to her front. She thought again of Margaret’s words—her dread, her fear—and then looked at the man in front of her, not hard and cruel, but uncertain. Braced, maybe, for her anger. Or her scorn, maybe worried that he’d frightened her by so hungry a kiss. Rose grimaced internally, supposing he was seriously regretting his earlier actions.

How wretched a thing, that I do not fear death half so much as I fear the life that awaits me...as his wife.

He tilted his head slightly, possibly not believing her, though he didn’t press.

Rose wondered why in the hell she’d just lied to him, why her first instinct was to protect him from the truth, that his beloved betrothed had been afraid of him. Because, she realized, for reasons she didn’t fully understand, she didn’t want to see pain in his eyes.

“I wanted to be sure ye were... well,” he said after a pause. He cleared his throat and added, “After earlier.” Looking as if he’d just bitten into something sour, he continued, “I should nae have—”

“I’m fine,” she said firmly, awkwardly. “Really.” Christ, she didn’t want to hear him apologize! She didn’t want him to say it had been a mistake, or that it shouldn’t have happened, or that he regretted it.

That would be unbearable. Humiliating beyond imagining.

She hadn’t regretted it—despite every intuition, every sense of intelligence, every glaring warning that suggested she certainly should have.

Rose searched his face again, watching how stiffly he held himself, as though he didn’t quite know what to do with his arms or his hulking presence. Certainly, he was uncomfortable with his role now, the awkward, almost-apologist.

Tiernan gave a slight nod. “I’ll leave ye to yer... writing, then,” he said, stepping back from the door.

“Tiernan.”

He paused, looking back.

“Thank you,” Rose said evenly. “For checking.”

He dipped his head briefly and then was gone.

Rose slowly turned, clutching the diary to her chest, her thoughts spinning faster than ever, wondering why it had been so important to her to spare his feelings.

She rolled her eyes in self-disgust.

Please! I can’t have a crush on a medieval man who is in love with a dead woman!

Her shoulders slumped dramatically. She feared that she did, though.