Page 12 of Here in Your Arms (Far From Home: A Scottish Time-Travel Romance #10)

Rose stepped from her chamber, freshly dressed and feeling—for the first time in days—like something close to herself again. The gown was finer than anything she’d worn since arriving at Druimlach—soft blue velvet with delicate embroidery at the cuffs and neckline, its bodice expertly fitted. A maid she thought had previously served Emmy while she’d been here had appeared just before supper, speaking in hurried, broken English and gesturing toward a gown draped over her arm with a hopeful smile. Her English was limited and halting, but Rose had caught the words Mistress MacIntyre among them, followed by a shrug and a hopeful gesture.

Clean, well-fitting clothes were too rare a luxury to question. She’d been desperate to be rid of the gown she’d worn all week—one that reeked faintly of woodsmoke, kitchen grease, and a lingering dampness from her journey. This one... this one felt like it belonged to someone who still had a say in her own story. She could only assume Emmy had sent it—perhaps along with others—and Rose had silently thanked her for the kindness.

To Rose’s great delight, the maid hadn’t come with only a gown. With quick efficiency, she’d arranged for a wooden tub to be brought to the chamber, and Rose had bathed while steam rose in curls through the air and the fire crackled nearby. It had been three days since her last proper bath at Dunmara, and she’d nearly wept with relief as the hot water swirled around her. When she’d finally stepped from the tub, warm and pink-cheeked, the maid had combed her hair with surprising care while Rose sat near the hearth, brushing out the length again and again until it was nearly dry.

When she’d finished tying the laces at Rose’s back, the maid gestured again, this time pointing to her hair with a hopeful look, as if silently asking permission to continue.

Rose hesitated. “You want to... do my hair?”

The girl nodded, already reaching for the comb.

Rose usually left it down or managed a quick braid, but tonight she sat obediently while the maid worked to comb out and then arrange Rose’s long hair. Her fingers moved briskly—sometimes painfully—lifting and coiling, braiding small sections and pinning them intricately until Rose felt the weight of the style tugging at her scalp. Though she thought it too tight, it did feel elegant, almost regal.

“Bonny,” the girl said shyly in thickly accented English. “Like... other lady.”

Rose smiled her thanks, believing the young maid must be speaking of Emmy, and as soon as the maid dipped into a quick curtsy and fled the room, Rose dug her fingers beneath all the braids, scratching them a bit at her scalp to loosen the too-tight style. Almost instantly, it felt better, though there was no mirror to see if she’d ruined it at all. She patted her hands around the pinned style, deciding she felt nothing out of place.

She arrived at the great hall feeling composed, confident, and clean—strange what a new dress and hair style could do. The bustle of conversation met her at the threshold: the clatter of knives on trenchers, the low hum of voices echoing beneath the high, timbered roof. Her tennis shoes, ever hidden beneath the length of flowing skirts, whispered over the flagstone floor as she moved toward her usual seat.

But halfway there, the hum faltered and then seemed to quiet entirely by the time she reached her seat. Nervously, wondering if the fancier gown and updo were too much, too fancy for supper, Rose fixed her gaze on Leana, who’d overtaken the seat Emmy had previously occupied, grateful for once for the woman’s beaming smile.

Before she sat, Rose scanned the crowd self-consciously, the silence now jarring, having spread outward like a shockwave. Utensils lowered. Heads turned. Dozens of faces stared at her with wide eyes—some pale, some slack-jawed, some stiff with something closer to fear. The hall had gone deathly still.

Somewhere in the back, a servant dropped a pitcher. The crash echoed like thunder.

She glanced to her left, to where Tiernan was just now stepping up onto the dais. The expression he fixed on her was thunderous. His hands clenched at his sides, his blue eyes fixed on her like a blade. Not just stunned. Furious.

At her side, Lean tugged at her side, drawing Rose down to sit. Her eyes brimmed with joy.

Rose’s heart thudded in confusion. She opened her mouth to speak—to ask if she’d done something wrong—but Leana spoke first, answering the question Rose hadn’t yet voiced.

Leana’s voice rang clear across the hush, soft and reverent. “Ye look more yerself tonight, my love. In yer own gown. And with yer hair arranged as ye favor.”

A shiver coursed down Rose’s spine.

Yer own gown. Yer hair arranged as ye favor.

Realization bloomed cold in her chest.

She wasn’t wearing Emmy’s gown. She was wearing Margaret’s . And her hair—styled not simply, but intricately, carefully—had been arranged as Margaret had worn it.

A murmur stirred through the hall. An older woman crossed herself. Another whispered, “St. Andrew protect us.”

Tiernan stood in front of his chair, his knuckles white as he set his fists on the table. “Enough,” he snapped, his voice like a crack of thunder.

The crowd stilled, but the weight of their stares remained.

Rose sat rooted to the chair, her cheeks burning, her pulse roaring in her ears. She hadn’t meant for this—she hadn’t known.

“She is nae Margaret,” Tiernan stated, his voice low but commanding. “Ye can clearly see that. She dinna sound like her. She dinna walk like her. She has—” He hesitated, just for a fraction of a second, before continuing, flinging his hand in Rose’s direction. “She has the scar.”

His words landed like stones, a brutal and unwelcome reminder.

Rose flinched before she could stop herself, the familiar ache curling deep in her chest. Her gaze darted to him, not having the wherewithal to hide the unexpected hurt caused by his words.

But even that wasn’t enough to quell the unease of those gathered.

“The scar...” an old woman at the far end of the hall spoke up. “A wound sustained... moving between the realm of the dead and the living.”

The murmurs resumed, voices thick with apprehension.

Before Tiernan could issue another sharp command, a different voice rang out, deep and harsh.

“Aye. Enough!” came a voice that sent a ripple of tension through the room.

Rose turned sharply, her breath catching as she met the dark, suspicious gaze of Domnall de Moubray.

He had barely spoken to her since her arrival, barely looked at her at all, but now, his gaze was locked onto her, hard and unwavering, his face set in grim, rigid lines. His chair scraped against the floor as he rose, his movements deliberate, his fingers flexing at his sides as if restraining the urge to clench into fists. The hush that settled over the hall was suffocating, and when he spoke, his voice carried through the room with quiet, seething intensity.

“I have tolerated this,” he said, each word measured, as if he had been holding them back for too long. “I have held my tongue. But nae more.” His gaze bore into her, slow and assessing, and there was no grief in his eyes, no sorrow. There was only something colder, something far more cutting. “Ye should nae have come here.”

The words struck like a physical blow, the breath knocked from her lungs.

Domnall’s expression was thunderous, his features tight with barely restrained fury, his mouth a grim slash as he glared at her from across the table. The weight of his anger bore down on the room, thick and suffocating, his fingers flexing at his sides as if he were fighting the urge to strike something—or someone.

“Ye tear open wounds that should have closed,” he said, his voice low but laced with venom. “Ye poison this place with yer presence. Ye mock my daughter’s memory simply by standing where she should be.”

“Domnall, cease,” Tiernan warmed him.

Domnall’s stare never wavered, his dark eyes filled with a simmering, dangerous wrath. “Ye ken ye belong here? Ye ken this keep, these people, will ever accept ye?” His voice dipped lower, colder. “They whisper now, but in time, they will turn. I have seen what fear does to men. It festers. It spreads. And one day, it will spill over. If ye remain here, witch, it will nae be whispers ye hear in the night. It will be fire and stone.”

The hall erupted into hushed murmurs, voices laced with nervous, malevolent energy. People at the lower tables exchanged knowing looks, their expressions dark with understanding. The younger ones shifted in their seats, shoulders tense, eyes darting between Margaret’s father and Rose.

A wave of heat crawled up Rose’s spine, her pulse hammering so violently she could feel it in her throat.

He wasn’t just warning her. Domnall was condemning her.

And the people—these frightened, grieving people—were listening.

She had known she was unwelcome. She’d known they resented her presence, but she had believed, perhaps foolishly, that time would ease their suspicions, that reason would break through the cloud of grief and superstition that gripped them.

But now, she understood. They would never see her as Rose. They would never let her be anything other than what they had lost. Possibly, Tiernan would never see her as Rose, had only ever seen her as his beloved Margaret.

Christ! Even when he’d kissed her?

She felt the eyes of the hall still on her, felt Leana’s gaze burning with misplaced reverence, felt the weight of every unspoken accusation, every whispered prayer against whatever curse they believed she carried.

Rising abruptly, she pushed her chair back from the table. The movement startled Leana beside her, who reached out instinctively, her fingers trembling as she clutched at Rose’s sleeve.

“Margaret?”

“My name is Rose,” she muttered, her voice unsteady.

She barely heard Leana’s soft, pleading reply before she turned and strode from the hall, her breaths shallow. The corridors were dim and cool but did nothing to lessen the heat crawling up her neck and in her cheeks.

Reaching the solitude of her chamber, she slammed the door behind her and crossed the room in quick, restless strides, her hands shaking as she clenched and unclenched them.

She paced once across the room, then turned sharply back. Her hands flew to her hair.

She began yanking at the pins, one by one, fingers fumbling through the intricate braids and coils the maid had so carefully arranged. Each pin came free with a small, painful tug, some catching at her scalp. She tossed them to the floor without looking, barely aware of the soft clink as they scattered across the wood floor.

But there were too many—she couldn’t find them all. Somewhere behind her ear, one refused to budge, and she growled in frustration, clawing at the style until the twist collapsed unevenly. Her hair fell in tangled waves, half-loosened, strands catching on the remnants of the undone braid. The result was lopsided and wild—neither properly dressed nor fully undone.

Tears stung her eyes, hot and unwelcome, but she blinked them away. She wouldn’t cry. Not over this.

Damn them!

With shaking hands, she reached for the gown. She fumbled with the laces, but they were drawn too tightly at her back, just out of her reach. She gripped the fabric at the shoulder and yanked, hard, as if she could tear it from her body by sheer will alone. The velvet held firm. With a strangled sound—part sob, part scream—she fought with the gown until finally, breathless and red-faced, she tore it over her head and flung it onto the floor.

It landed in a heap, soft and quiet. For good measure, she kicked off her sneakers, not even flinching when the force of her second kick sent one crashing against the door.

Margaret’s gown.

Margaret’s hair.

Margaret’s goddamn ghost!

Rose stood in her shift, chest heaving, fists clenched at her sides, trembling in the center of the room.

She was a shadow. A replacement. A vessel for someone else's grief or the unworthy ghost of someone dear, and she was drowning in it.

She stared blindly for a moment before making a decision and spinning, searching the chamber. Though there was an ink well and quill atop a small writing desk, there was no parchment. Angrily, she squatted near the loose floorboard, where she’d found and had since returned Margaret’s journal, pulling the book from its resting place. She flipped through the pages until she reached the last entry of Margaret’s and without thinking, tore the next blank page from the book.

She laid it on the table and hastily dipped the quill into the ink. Unfamiliar with the writing apparatus, several globs of dark ink fell onto the blank parchment. Rose shook off a bit more and then turned the sheet upside down so that her wrist didn’t sit in ink.

She pressed the quill to the page, her hand unsteady.

Emmy. Brody. Please come get me.

The words sat stark against the parchment, brief and desperate.

I don’t want to be here anymore , she added, her hands and lips quivering. I hate Druimlach and everyone in it.

***

Tiernan remained at the head of the table long after Rose had fled, his expression carved from stone, his shoulders rigid beneath the weight of too many watchful eyes. He—and Domnall taking leave of hall shortly after Rose had—had put an end to the whispering, but the unease still lingered, thick and cloying, pressing in from all sides.

His patience was wearing thin.

He’d tried to shield her, to silence the insults and whispers, but felt he could have—possibly should have—done more. Although Rose didn’t need him to fight her battles. He’d never met a woman—his own mother included—who could hold her own as Rose often did.

But Christ, these people! What was wrong with them? Did they truly believe that Margaret had risen from the dead and walked among them bearing another name?

Fools.

And yet, it wasn’t their superstition that gnawed at him now. It was her expression before she’d fled.

The way she had looked at him, stricken, hurt. He had not meant to remind her of the scar. It had been the first thing that had marked her as not being Margaret in his mind, and yet, in the silence that had followed his words, he had known he had wounded her.

And then Domnall’s bluidy tirade....

Tiernan clenched his jaw, trying to concentrate on the meal before him.

He wouldn’t follow her.

She would be fine. She was not weak. He had seen the fire in her, the way she squared her shoulders, the way she often met his stare with defiance rather than fear.

And yet, as the minutes stretched on and he couldn’t name one thing he’d eaten, as the hall returned to tense conversation, he found himself rising.

He left without a word, though he knew the whispers would start anew the moment he was gone.

Let them.

He had no real plan for what he would say when he arrived, only the certainty that he could not let her sit alone, stewing in whatever thoughts had sent her fleeing from the hall. He clenched his teeth and rapped firmly on the closed door when he arrived.

“Go away!” Rose called from within.

Tiernan hesitated only a moment before pushing open the door, deciding to ignore her command.

She stood at the small wooden table beneath the window, her back to him, her head bowed over a piece of parchment. A fresh furrow creased his brow, his eyes sweeping over the chamber. The discarded léine lay crumpled on the floor near the bed, as though she’d torn it off in a fit of fury. A scattering of hairpins glinted faintly on the wooden floor, and her strange footwear sat on two opposite sides of the chamber.

Then his gaze returned to her—and stuck.

She was dressed in nothing but her shift. Thin linen clung to her figure in places, catching the light from the fire and rendering it nearly translucent. The delicate slope of her back, the soft curve of her waist, the bare flesh of her shoulders all pulled at his focus with magnetic force.

He looked away, or tried to, shifting his weight from one leg to another.

The floor creaked beneath his step, and she turned sharply, startled—her breath catching as she whirled around.

Her gaze collided with his, and her expression instantly became stark.

He registered everything at once: the rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin fabric, the wild disarray of her half-loosened hair, the flushed heat in her cheeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but dry. No tears, and yet something in her face spoke of unraveling.

Tiernan’s throat felt suddenly tight.

She was angry. She was humiliated. And she was beautiful. Fiercely, impossibly beautiful.

For a long moment, they only stared at one another.

Finally, he exhaled through his nose, breaking the silence first.

"Ye should pay nae mind to them," he said, his voice gruff. "Their fears breed foolishness. Superstition runs deeper than reason in places... on occasion."

Her lips pressed into a firm line.

"I don’t care what they think," she said, but the slight tremor in her voice betrayed her.

He lifted a brow. "Aye? Then why did ye run?"

Her fingers curled into her palms. "Because I’m tired. I’m tired of the stares, the whispers, the feeling that no matter what I do, they will never see me as anything but her.” She shook her head, jaw tightening. "I’m not Margaret,” she whispered, sounding more pitiful than she ever had. “I don’t belong here. There’s nothing to learn, nothing to discover. This is simply some nasty trick of fate and I...I don’t want any part of it.”

Tiernan’s gaze dropped briefly to the parchment on the table. He didn’t have to look too closely to imagine what it was, what the splotchy ink marks might say.

He regarded her carefully. "What do ye plan?"

"To return to Dunmara." She exhaled sharply, lifting her chin. “I will write to Brody and Emmy and ask them to come get me. I should never have come here. I should have left with them, when they did. I don’t know what I hoped to...” she paused, her features tightening. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be here. I can’t be here.”

He had known, from the start, that she was a disruption. That her presence had unsettled too many, himself included. And yet, the thought of her leaving sat uneasily in his chest. And that, somehow, surprised him.

Still, he nodded slowly, keeping his voice even. "Aye. That’s probably for the best."

Something dashed across her face at that.

Disappointment?

No. He must have imagined it. Mayhap she felt defeated, angry even, but he saw no evidence of disappointment.

“Nae need to summon MacIntyre. I will take ye myself in the morn.”

“Great. Perfect. Thank you.” She marched across the chamber, walking around him, possibly meaning to hold the door, inviting his departure, he presumed.

Instinctively, Tiernan reached out as she passed, his fingers catching her wrist, a reflex, an unconscious act meant to stop her from dismissing him—though why he should care, he didn’t know.

The heat of her skin beneath his touch sent a jolt up his arm. His grip wasn’t harsh, but firm. Without thinking, his thumb swept once over the rapid thrum of her pulse, and he felt it—her tension, her awareness.

Rose turned to ice.

He didn’t know why he’d touched her. Or why he suddenly couldn’t seem to let go.

And then she looked up at him—eyes wide, lips parted, breath shallow.

She was angry. Aye. But she was also trembling. Alive with fury, grief, confusion... and something else. Something perilously close to what burned in him.

In that moment, he wanted—madly, recklessly—to kiss her again.

He tugged at her wrist, just barely.

She didn’t budge.

She jerked her face up to him, as if she sensed the heat, or mayhap his vexing intention. But then, just as he dipped his head lower, her spine stiffened.

“No,” she said quietly, shaking her head, dropping her gaze to his chest. The word was soft, and yet as firm as his grip on her.

Tiernan paused. His hand fell away.

She stepped back and moved around him, brisk and composed now, and opened the door without meeting his eyes even as he pivoted, following her progress.

“I’ll be ready to leave in the morning,” she said evenly. “I’m sorry that I—for the trouble I’ve caused.”

He didn’t believe her. She didn’t mean it. He thought she might have wanted to say she was sorry—angry, even—for the trouble caused to her, simply because she happened to resemble his deceased betrothed.

His gaze drifted—despite himself—to the top of her head, to the tousled strands of dark hair that seemed to have been yanked from their pins... then lower, to the curve of her collarbone, the soft swell visible above the neckline of her shift.

Beautiful. Exasperating. Already halfway gone.

He gave a curt nod—cold, impersonal—and strode past her, through the door, without another word.