Page 34 of The Scot Who Loved Me (A Scots Through Time #3)

“The bleeding’s stopped,” Harper told the wounded man. “You know, this reminds me of how pressure forms gemstones deep in the earth. Time and compression create something strong and beautiful from chaos. Your body’s doing the same thing now, building strength from this moment. Try to rest.”

She rose, turning to reach for clean bandages, when she saw him. She went still, her eyes widening with a mixture of hope and wariness that made his heart constrict.

“William,” she breathed, barely audible above the sounds of suffering.

“I need to speak with ye. Alone.”

She glanced at the wounded man, then at the other healers bustling around the crowded space. “I can’t just leave. There are so many injured?—”

“Please.” The word caught in his throat, unfamiliar and raw.

Something on his face must have conveyed his urgency, for she nodded slowly. “Give me a moment.”

She spoke briefly to an older woman, Fiona, who had been cooking for their camp these past weeks, who took her place beside the wounded man with a curt nod. Then Harper followed him out of the tent, into the harsh sunlight of mid-morning.

They walked in silence away from the hospital area, past groups of celebrating Highlanders and shell-shocked prisoners, until they reached a small copse of trees that offered privacy from curious eyes.

The ground here remained untouched by the battle, the grass unmarred by blood.

A gentle breeze carried the scent of autumn, fallen leaves and damp earth, momentarily displacing the stench of death that hung over the battlefield.

Somewhere nearby, a thrush continued its song, oblivious to human concerns.

His boots crushed a patch of wild thyme, releasing its fragrance as he turned to face Harper in the dappled shade.

“You’re not injured?” she asked, searching for wounds.

“Nay. Not in body.”

He looked past her toward the battlefield, where the dead still lay uncovered. His voice dropped, rough with something darker than exhaustion. “Mercer’s dead.”

Harper went still. She knew the name, had memorized the scars it carried. The ones on his face, and the ones buried deeper.

William’s thumb brushed absently along the old scar, a habit she’d noticed when his thoughts turned grim. “Someone shot him before I could. The bastard died quick. Clean.” His jaw tightened. “Not what he deserved.”

The wind carried the stench of blood and gunpowder between them. Harper reached for his hand, but he turned away before she could touch him, shoulders rigid.

Silence stretched, taut as a bowstring.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was raw. “Ye spoke truth. About the battle. Every detail, just as ye said it would be.”

Her shoulders slumped, not in defeat, but with the terrible weight of being right. “Yes.”

“How?” The question encompassed everything. Her knowledge, her presence here, the impossible reality she represented.

“I told you. Where I come from, this battle is history. Something I studied in books. Something that happened centuries ago.”

Turning away, he paced a few steps, unable to contain the restless energy coursing through him. “Time travel. Like in the old tales.”

The words felt strange on his tongue, yet not entirely foreign.

Had not his grandmother spoken of the Teine Sith , the fairy folk who could slip between moments like mist through trees?

Of travelers who ventured into fairy mounds and emerged decades later, unchanged while their loved ones had aged?

The old beliefs he’d dismissed as childhood fancies now seemed to hold kernels of truth he could no longer deny.

“It sounds insane, I know.” Harper wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly smaller. “I still don’t understand how it happened. There was an old woman, a storm, the cairn at Prince Charlie’s Bay... something about that place opened a door between my time and yours.”

“And in your time...” He hesitated, the question almost too enormous to voice. “What becomes of us? Of Scotland? Of the cause?”

Pain flashed across her face, a grief so deep it seemed to age her.

“The Jacobite rebellion fails. Catastrophically. At a place called Culloden. In April next year, the Highlanders face an English army and are slaughtered. Those who survive face brutal reprisals. The clan system is dismantled. Highland dress is banned. Your language, your way of life, the English try to erase it all.”

Each word struck him like a physical blow. Not just defeat, but annihilation. The destruction of everything he held dear.

“Ye canna know that for certain,” he argued, though her conviction undermined his protest. “The future isna fixed. Today’s victory proves our strength?—”

“It’s a trap,” she interrupted, stepping toward him, her eyes pleading.

“This victory, the ones that follow, gives false hope. The Jacobites push south into England, but turn back at Derby when promised French support doesn’t materialize.

By spring, the cause is desperate, the men hungry and exhausted.

At Culloden, they face artillery on open ground. It’s a massacre.”

The ground seemed to shift beneath him, his entire world tilting on its axis.

“Why?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why tell me this now? Why not before, when we might have changed course?”

Harper laughed without humor. “Would you have believed me? Without seeing the battle unfold exactly as I described it?” She shook her head.

“You called me mad last night, and I had only told you about Prestonpans. How could I tell you about Culloden, about the destruction of your entire way of life?”

She was right. Even now, with the evidence of her foreknowledge fresh before him, he still struggled to fully accept the truth of her origins.

“So we are doomed,” he said flatly. “All of us. Our cause. Our clans. Everything we fight for.”

“History says so.” Harper’s voice softened, and she reached for him, her fingers ghosting over his arm. “But maybe history can be changed. Maybe knowing what’s coming gives us a chance to avoid it.”

Looking down at her hand on his sleeve, at the contrast between her pale skin and the dark fabric of his jacket, he felt humbled and terrified in equal measure. So small, that hand, yet it had reached across centuries to find him.

“And if we change it? What happens to your history? To the world ye came from?”

Harper’s eyes clouded with uncertainty. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. The old woman I encountered, she seemed to suggest that some points in time are fixed while others can be altered. I don’t know which this is.”

“Last night,” he began, struggling to find words, “I was cruel to ye. I thought ye were trying to undermine my resolve before battle, or that ye had lost your wits.” Shame colored his voice. “I should have trusted ye, even if I couldna understand.”

“How could you?” Her smile was sad but genuine. “What I was saying sounded impossible. I wouldn’t have believed it either.”

Reaching for her, his hand cupped her cheek with a gentleness that belied the calluses earned from years of swordplay. “I believe ye now. And I’m sorry for doubting ye, for walking away when ye needed me most.”

Her eyes shimmered. “I was so afraid I’d lost you.”

“Never,” he vowed fiercely. “Whatever strange fate brought ye to me across time itself, I willna let ye go so easily.”

The sunlight dappled her face as he bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers in a kiss that transcended centuries as leaves fell from the trees around them.

Her lips were soft beneath his, yielding yet demanding. Her hands gripped his shoulders as if afraid he might disappear. The taste of her, the scent of herbs and clean sweat and the scent of blood and death, filled his senses until the world narrowed to this moment, this woman.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing heavily, he rested his forehead against hers. “I love ye,” he murmured. “Whatever comes, whatever fate awaits us, that willna change.”

“I love you too,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “That’s why I had to tell you the truth, even if it meant losing you. I couldn’t bear to watch you march toward destruction without warning you.”

Straightening, his hands still framing her face, he felt the enormity of what lay before them.

The choices, the consequences, the weight of history itself.

Yet alongside that burden came fierce determination.

If his lass had somehow defied time to reach him, perhaps together they could defy the fate she had described.

“What happens now?” The question encompassed far more than the immediate future.

Her eyes met his, steady despite the tears that threatened. “I don’t know. History says the Jacobite army will celebrate this victory, then continue onward. By November, you’ll cross into England.”

“And if we don’t? If we choose another path?”

“Then we’re writing a new history. One I can’t predict.”

A shout from the direction of the camp drew their attention. The sounds of the celebration grew louder. Pipes playing triumphant tunes, men singing, the clatter of captured weapons being collected.

“The prince will be gathering his officers,” he said reluctantly. “I should attend.”

Harper nodded. “Go. We can talk more later.”

Torn between duty and desire, he hesitated. “Will ye wait for me? At our tent?”

“Yes.” The simple word carried the weight of a vow.

Bending to kiss her once more, swift but fervent, he turned toward the camp and his responsibilities.

But with each step, his thoughts churned with new possibilities.

If she spoke the truth, and his heart told him she did, then they faced a choice unlike any other in history.

Follow the path that led to Culloden and destruction, or forge a new one, uncertain but holding the promise of survival.

And what of his men? He must do whatever he could to shield them.