Love Across Time by B. J. McMinn Read Free Book Online Page A

finished?”
    “Weel...uh, she fainted,” he stammered. The heat of embarrassment crawled up his neck.
    She straightened and shoved him aside. “What did ye do to the poor lass?”
    Why did she always think him at fault? Of course, Ursula had raised him since his parents had died when he’d turned six and she knew him well, including his temper. She was more mother than servant and had the ability to make him feel like a young bairn, not a knight of three and twenty and chieftain of his clan.
    The accusation made him feel ashamed of the way he’d spoken to Margaret. The lass had been very ill. But when she mentioned the other men’s names, when she claimed not to remember his, it had set his temper into a hot cauldron of fury.
    “What I did, doesnae matter. How do we wake her?”
    “Step back ye young fool,” she scolded.
    Ursula took a cloth from the bowl, rung it out, then gently patted Margaret’s cheeks and forehead. The tiny pink scar that peeked from beneath stray wisps of hair at her temple didn’t distract from her beauty.
    He reached up to trail his finger down the jagged ridge on his face. He’d received the wound his fifteenth summer in mock battle. Conner’s wooden lace had slipped past his face shield and had pierced his flesh. Ursula had been gone, tending to ailments in another town, and Eleanor had refused to treat the ugly gash. The skin had grown back in a malformed shape by the time Ursula had returned.
    Margaret had told him his disfigurement gave him character, which was one of the reasons he’d found her so appealing. Other women had taken one look at his face, and regardless of his vast holdings, they had searched for a comelier mate.
    Her exact words, spoken in her sweet voice, echoed in his mind: “Yer mark dinnae bother me. It gives ye character. Some men wear a tattoo to prove their manliness. Ye have this.” She had reached up, ran her finger down the length of his scar, as she had earlier, then kissed the puckered skin. He’d wanted to prolong the gentle touch on his face, but her younger brother had interrupted the moment.
    She’d made him feel as if she saw the man beneath the scar. Her act of kindness had tugged at a need he’d buried deep inside him. That part of him that had longed for someone to love him, to share his life. He had been wary at first, but her persistence that his scar mattered little had won his trust, and with his trust, went his heart. His blemished face still didn’t appear to affect her, but something had changed since her accident.
    “Ursula, have ye found anything peculiar about Margaret since she awoke?”
Hazel eyes peered over her gray, wool-covered shoulder, and a frown creased her brow. “Aye, the lass speaks like a Sassenach.”
    He grinned at the way she spit the name out like the worst epithet. “Aye.”
    “Weel, she dinnae speak like that afore. I barely kenned what she said,” Ursula groused as she continued to dip and ring the cloth then dab at Margaret’s forehead. “I still hear the sweet lilt in the lass’s voice, but the words come out all wrong. Perhaps the knock on her head scrambled her speech, and it’ll be awhile afore she talks right again.”
    “Aye.” He nodded.
    “Here.” She slapped the soggy rag into his palm and shuffled toward the door. “Rinse the cloth and keep it to her head. I’ll fetch a bowl of venison stew. The lass needs more than broth to rebuild her strength.”
    Water dripped from his hand as he watched Ursula amble toward the door. A pitiful moan brought his attention back to his wife. Sitting on the bed’s edge, he rung the cloth out and gently patted Margaret’s cheeks and neck.
    Lavender-blue eyes, the color of heather spread across the moors, opened.
    “Tha mi dulich,” he whispered, his tone rueful.
    “What.” Eyes scrunched as her pert nose curled upward. Had the lass forgotten how to speak and understand Gaelic?
    “I be sorry. I dinnae mean to lose me temper. Me anger flames hot when