“Nope.” Abby stood, hugging each of her friends in turn. “I’m on the schedule to work at the museum this afternoon. I’ll just finish my beer and then grab a taxi home. No big deal. Really. I should be able to get a few hours of sleep before I have to get my day started. You guys have good flights out tomorrow. And call me when you get home.”
Another round of teary hugs accompanied by promises to stay in touch, and Abby sat back down, watching her friends disappear through the door toward the elevators. It had been so much fun to spend the day with them. If only she hadn’t ruined it by stupidly admitting her desire to find that one perfect man. She suspected she’d be dealing with the fallout from this evening for quite some time.
She downed the last of her beer and then fumbled in her purse for cash to leave as a tip. The waiter had more than earned it by putting up with them all evening.
Two steps away from the table she grabbed for the nearest chair back to steady herself. Those cute little drinks might taste like liquid candy but they sure packed a wicked punch.
She headed for the lobby and the front doors, grateful that though the room spun lazily around her, at least she didn’t feel like she was viewing the world through a glass of green liquid as she had earlier at the table.
Maybe if she was lucky, Lauren and Casey would be in as bad a shape as her. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t even remember her whole I-want-to-find-the-perfect-man debacle.
“Yeah, right,” she snorted to herself, causing the doorman to jump as if he hadn’t realized anyone approached.
She was so screwed. Those two women would never forget. And they’d never let her forget, either. Both Lauren and Casey would be scouring their lists of single men the second they got home, searching through every possible candidate. They’d be pushing every single man they could find her direction until she was old and gray. A future filled with scores of crappy dates and Not The Ones lay before her thanks to that one little slip.
Oh, yeah, there was no doubt that she was so going to regret tonight in the morning.
Two
PERTHSHIRE,SCOTLAND
MAY,1306
Aforeign anxiety rumbled around in Colin’s stomach as he sat astride his warhorse watching King Robert’s army calmly set about preparations for a night’s encampment. His mount tossed its head in response to the noise wafting up from the men scurrying around below.
“Easy,” he murmured, giving the animal a pat on the neck. He knew exactly how the horse felt. It was beyond him to understand why the Bruce had agreed to wait until tomorrow to take the castle at Perth. In addition to being one of Comyn’s kinsmen, Aymer de Valence was wholly devoted to Edward and not to be trusted. And camping their entire army here at Methven? In the open like this and only miles from Perth? The whole of it seemed a frustratingly foolish move to him.
Apparently his companions felt similarly vexed.
“I canna believe we’re no even to set guards for the night.” From his left, Simeon MacDowell’s mutter was the only sign that he felt as frustrated as Colin.
Alasdair Maxwell sat his mount on Colin’s right, unusually solemn. “I’m no at all easy in the chosen encampment. We’re too exposed down there. Our king is too trusting by far. Wallace would never have done such.”
“Wallace is gone. It’s Robert we follow now.” Colin agreed with his friend’s assessment of their situation, but he’d allow no criticism of their new king.
From their perch on the small rise it looked like the entire of Robert’s army was laid out across the rolling land, as if served up on a giant trencher, ready for the feasting. In contrast, the larger hills looming off to the west held a promise of safety. A promise of respite from the mass of men below.
“It’s because yer a Highlander, Dair,” Simeon offered softly, breaking into Colin’s thoughts. “This place is home to farmers. The land here rolls with her hills. In truth it’s no so flat though it may appear so to yer eyes. Yer spoiled by the hiding places offered up in the nooks and crannies of yer mountains.”
“Mayhaps,” Dair murmured. “Or mayhaps I just prefer the tactics of Wallace. He’d no have laid us all out in the fields below like easy targets at tournament. We’d have been scattered among the trees, at the very least.”
“His tactics dinna fare so well at Falkirk.” Simeon spoke without taking his eyes from the troops below. “Though in this particular instance, I find I must agree with you. I’ve no love for what we do here.”
“It’s of no matter now.” Colin dragged his eyes from the distant hills to once again survey the army below. “We’ve no course but to accept that Wallace is gone. Longshanks has seen to that. We’ve pledged ourselves to the Bruce. He’s our rightful king now and we’ll do what we can to aid him in his fight for Scotland’s freedom.”
“So we shall,” Dair agreed, tugging his reins to turn his horse from the view below. “But that disna change the fact that this place echoes in my bones with foreboding. I’ll no lay my head to rest down there with that lot. No in the open like that.”
“And where do you think yer going?” Sim questioned, all the while urging his own mount to follow Dair.
“Into the trees, just off this direction. It will no be so far as to be left behind on the morrow, but I’ll feel better with a bit of cover around me. I prefer my eyes, rather than my back, turned toward Perth.”
With one last look over the army encampment, Colin followed along behind his companions. Overly cautious perhaps, to his way of thinking, and yet Dair’s sense of caution had rarely steered them wrong. The man had an uncanny ability to sniff out danger.
Besides, placing some distance between himself and all those men down below was more than desirable. In the years since his foolish encounter with the Faerie Queen, he’d learned to erect the mental barriers that shielded his mind. Even so, this many souls simultaneously crying out for their mates relentlessly battered even his best defenses.
Not to mention that, like Sim, he happened to agree with Dair’s tactical assessment. There was something about this place that felt eerily wrong, like treading over sacred ground. Even now a tingle of apprehension rose up his backbone and prickled his neck, as if every hair on his body stood on end.
When they entered the forest, his horse suddenly halted, pricking up its ears and pawing the ground nervously. A wave of dizziness swept over Colin and, as if the sun had settled below the horizon, the light dimmed to a pale, indistinct green cast.