“Why are you going to Ban Drochaid, and why do you insist on taking me with you?”
He weighed what he might safely tell her without driving her away. “I must get to the stones because that is where my castle is—”
“Is, or was? If you expect to convince me you are truly from the sixteenth century, you’re going to have to do a little better with your verb tenses.”
He glanced at her reprovingly. “Was, Gwen. I pray it stands still.” It must be so, for if they arrived at the stones and there was no sign of his castle, his situation would be dire indeed.
“So you’re hoping to visit your descendants? Assuming, of course, that I’m playing along with this absurd game,” she added.
Nay, not unless his father, at sixty-two, had somehow managed to breed another bairn after Drustan had been abducted, which was highly unlikely since Silvan had not tupped a woman since Drustan’s mother had died, as far as Drustan knew. What he was hoping for was some of the items in the castle. But he couldn’t tell her any of that. He couldn’t risk scaring her off when he needed her so desperately.
He needn’t have bothered searching for a suitably evasive reply, because when he hesitated too long for her liking, she simply forged ahead with another question. “Why do you need me?”
“I doona know your century, and the terrain between here and my home may have changed,” he offered the incomplete truth smoothly. “I need a guide who has knowledge of this century’s ways. I may need to pass through your villages, and there could be dangers I would not perceive until it was too late.” That sounded rather convincing, he thought.
She was regarding him with blatant skepticism.
“Gwen, I know you think that I’ve lost my memory, or am ill, and am having fevered imaginings, but consider this: What if you are wrong, and I am telling the truth? Have I harmed you? Other than making you come along with me, have I injured you in any way?”
“No,” she conceded grudgingly.
“Look at me, Gwen.” He cupped her face with his hands so she had to look directly into his eyes. The chain rattled between their wrists. “Do you truly believe I mean you ill will?”
She blew a strand of hair out of her face with a soft puff of breath. “I’m chained to you. That worries me.”
He took a calculated risk. With an impatient movement he released the links, counting on the mating heat between them to keep her from outright fleeing. “Fine. You are free. I misjudged you. I believed that you were a kind and compassionate woman, not a fainthearted lass who cannot abide anything that she does not immediately understand—”
“I am not fainthearted!”
“—and if a fact doesn’t adhere to your perception of how things should be, then it cannot be.” He gave a derisive snort. “What a narrow vision of the world you have.”
“Oh!” Gwen scowled, scooting away from him on the fallen tree trunk. She swung one leg across it, straddling the massive trunk, and sat facing him. “How dare you try to make me feel bad for not believing your story? And I assure you, I do not have a narrow view of the world. I’m probably one of the few people who doesn’t. You might be astounded by how broad and well-informed my vision of the world is.” She massaged the skin on her wrist, glaring at him.
“What a contradiction you are,” he said softly. “At moments I think I see courage in you, then at others I see naught but cowardice. Tell me, are you always at odds with yourself?”
A hand flew to her throat and her eyes widened. He’d struck something sensitive. Ruthlessly he pursued it: “Would it be so much to ask that you give a bit of your precious time to help someone in need—the way they wish to be helped, rather than the way you think they should be helped?”
“You’re making it sound like everything is my fault. You’re making it sound like I’m the one who’s crazy,” she protested.
“If what I say is true, and I vow it is, you do seem most unreasonable to me,” he said calmly. “Has it occurred to you that I find your world—without any knowledge of the ancients, with limbless, leafless trees and clothing with formal appellations—as unnatural as you find my story?”
Doubt. He could see it on her expressive face. Her stormy eyes widened further, and he glimpsed that mysterious flash of vulnerability beneath her tough exterior. He disliked provoking her, but she didn’t know what was at stake and he couldn’t possibly tell her. He didn’t have time to go out into her world and seek another person. Besides, he didn’t wish any other person. He wanted her. She’d discovered him, she’d awakened him, and his conviction that she was supposed to be involved in helping him correct things increased with each passing hour. There are no coincidences in this world, Drustan, his father had said. You must see with the eagle’s eye. You must detach, lift above a conundrum, and map the terrain of it. Everything happens for a reason, if you can but discern the pattern.