“I can tell you’re holding up two fingers, but they’re still a little fuzzy around the edges.” Jovianna adjusted the folded blanket serving as a pillow. “And my brain is pounding against my skull with every heartbeat.” She blinked hard, trying not to give in to tears. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
Amaranth scrubbed her face with both hands, then raked them back through her wet hair. “I have no idea, sweetie. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened.” She leaned forward, peered out of the shelter, then drew back inside. “I always believed the concept of time travel possible. Even fantasized about it while on digs. But I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever experience it.”
“Do you think if we traveled back upstream and found the spot where we both got ill, it would reverse and send us back home?” Jovianna shuddered at the thought. Depending on how much rainfall this time had experienced, attempting to go upstream could be deadly.
“I don’t know, sweetie.” Amaranth resettled into a cross-legged position and propped her elbows on her knees. She stared out of the shelter, her expression a pained scowl. “I guess we should be thankful we didn’t land in the middle of the Jacobite uprising.”
“We hit the Highland Clearances,” Jovianna said, trying to find a position where her head didn’t throb as badly. “That’s still not good.”
“I suppose so.” Amaranth turned and stared at her.
Jovianna recognized that look. It meant trouble. “What?”
“The way I see it, we have two choices.” Amaranth picked up a stick and started idly plucking away its leaves.
“And those choices are?” Jovianna asked.
“Convince the men to leave us here with a bit of food and try getting upstream as soon as you’re up to it, even though we don’t know if we can recreate the phenomenon. After all, how many times have we tramped through this gorge and never landed in another century?”
“Or?” Jovianna already knew the answer. She didn’t want to hear it, but there was no stopping her mother.
Amaranth shrugged. “Assimilate into this time and survive.”
“You realize we can’t teach here?” Jovianna said. “Women didn’t work at the university until 1908.”
“Teaching at the University of Glasgow isn’t the only profession in existence.”
“You’re too old to be a prostitute, and I’d rather not pursue that line of work, thank you.” Jovianna pushed up to a sitting position, mimicking her mother’s cross-legged pose. Palpating her facial bones for any breaks, she kept her eyes closed and struggled to maintain her balance. “How else would you suggest we earn a living?”
“Maids. Nannies. Pub wenches. Basket weaving.”
Jovianna opened her eyes and scowled at her mother. “Since when do you know how to weave a basket?”
“Have you forgotten the dig in Turkey? You were only seven at the time, but the woman you befriended at the market taught us both.”
With a roll of her eyes, Jovianna returned to massaging her temples and brow bone. Amaranth needed to be serious. “I can’t think straight right now. Not with this pain.”
“Mistress Jovianna.”
Jovianna popped to attention and immediately regretted it, squinting until the ache in her head settled back to a dull, nauseating roar. “Yes, Mr. Risk?”
“Tobias, remember?” He crouched in front of the shelter with a steaming cup in his hand and held it out to her. “Mrs. Gibb prepares this herbal mix for me, and I drink it when needed. Headaches sometimes trouble me. Willow bark, butterbur, and other ingredients she refuses to tell me about are in it, and it works a fair amount of the time.”
“I’m going to help gather more wood for the fire,” Amaranth said. She crawled out from under the lean-to before either Jovianna or Tobias could respond.
“Thank you.” Jovianna accepted the cup and hazarded a sip. The bitter concoction numbed her lips with a strange stinging. She swallowed hard to keep it down. “Powerful stuff there.”
A hint of a smile twitched at the corner of Tobias’s mouth. “Ah well, I dinna ken what all she puts in there. But it does help with the pain most times.”
“I didn’t even notice anyone boiling any water.” She waved him in and patted the pallet beside her. “Since Amaranth has decided to gather wood, you might as well sit in here out of the rain.”
He paused, staring at the spot as if debating whether or not it would be siding with the enemy.
“But if you don’t want to, I understand.” She took another sip and shuddered. “Bloody hell, this stuff is awful.”
“Perhaps I could sit for a bit.” He angled around and sat beside her. With his legs bent and arms wrapped around his knees, his height forced him to sit hunched over. “’Tis no wonder ye failed to notice us working at the fire. Yer nest here is like a wee burrow. We procured an enclosed carriage that wouldha kept ye drier, but ye needed to be close to a fire.”
“I do indeed. And when you say procured…?” She left the question open-ended.
“Highwaymen. Remember, mistress?”
“You didn’t kill them, did you?”
His jaw tightened as he stared straight ahead and squinted at the crackling fire that hissed as the raindrops hit the flames. “No, lass. I only kill when forced.” He turned and nodded at the cup in her hands. “Finish yer tonic. It canna help ye whilst sitting in that cup.”
For the first time, she noticed the angry red scrape across his cheek just below his right eye. “You’re hurt.”
“’Tis but a grazing. I rinsed it in the stream.”
“But the bacteria. It needs to be cleaned with an antiseptic.”
He frowned at her. “I dinna ken those words, but they sound like something a healer would say. Are ye one?”
She shook her head, then groaned and pressed the heel of her hand to her temple. “No. I am not a healer. I’ve got enough wits about me to take care of myself. That’s all.” As she took another sip of the bitter tea, she made a mental note to be more careful about her choice of words. She found that challenge daunting. “Would you and your men consider leaving us here with a day or two of food when you move on? Just enough so we can make it once I’m better.”
His hard, cutting stare filled her with a pang of unreasonable guilt for breathing some of his air. “The Highlands are no place for a woman alone, mistress. Have ye not learned that lesson yet? Especially when ye claim to be on the run from men who already killed yer cousin.”
“I know, but…”
“But what?” The rumble of his deep voice was a low warning growl.
“Amaranth and I don’t want to be any trouble to you.” She wasn’t sure what else to say, since it was obvious that Amaranth’s Plan A was now not an option. “I can’t help but think that the lot of you would be on your way home right now, if not for us.”
“We would. But plans change. We are used to that.”
He sounded angry, and she hated that. Whether it was because he had saved her life or changed his plans to help her, she wanted him to like her and not resent her. Which, in a way, was odd. Normally, she tried not to worry about what people thought about her. She’d learned long ago that did little good. As clumsy as she was most of the time, if she worried about looking like a fool, she’d end up never stepping out her front door.