Braonan cleared his throat, getting to his feet. “Are ye hurt, Lass?”
She blinked, turning her gaze upward to meet his, obviously confused. “I…no, I—”
She spoke strangely. Her accent had lilts of Scots within it, but her words were spoken with the prim exactness of the English. Neither seemed to fit her well, unless perhaps she was from the borders. There was also the possibility that she was foreign; people from other countries who were fluent often spoke with unusual accents.
“Why are ye here?”
“I—”
A little irritably now, suspicions rising, he repeated himself. “Why are ye here, Lass?”
Something crossed her expression. She got to her feet and folded her arms. “It’s none of your business why I’m here, as far as I can see,” she replied. “Why are all ofyouhere, dressed like that, with all those horses?”
“Yeare commenting on howwe’redressed?” Lachlan commented disbelievingly, laughing again. He stopped when Braonan shot him a look. Braonan didn’t find any of this funny.
“I think ye’ll find itisme business,” he told her sharply. “Ye’re onmeCastle grounds, an’ trespassing inourclan.”
The woman blinked rapidly then, unbelievably, she started to giggle. “Oh,yourCastle, is it?” She shook her head. “What, do you think yourself some sort of Laird? People don’t own Castles, not anymore. And I’m pretty sure that we don’t have ‘clans’ anymore, not the way you mean.”
Mystified by her response, Braonan looked behind him at his men. They all looked as confused as he felt, and Lachlan just shrugged.
He turned back to her. “Are ye quite sure ye dinnae hit yer head?”
She seemed irritated. “Did you hityourhead?”
Braonan was beginning to get angry too. He rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, and he noticed her eyes flicker to it. Good. He had wanted her to notice. “Enough of this.”
“Is that asword?! Seriously?!”
He ignored her. “I want to ken who ye are and what ye want. Ye’ll tell me yer name, Lass. Now.”
The woman folded her arms, looking indignant. “Camellia,” she said finally.
It sounded odd to his ear. “Amelia?”
“Camellia,” she corrected, obviously even more annoyed now. Perhaps it was a mistake she’d heard more than once.
“That isnae a name I’ve ever heard of.”
“I’m named for a flower.”
He shook his head. “It isnae any flower I’ve ever heard of, either. What are you, French?” But that wasn’t right, he knew it as soon as he asked. The French had a particular way of speaking and, strange as this lass was, it wasn’t that.
“I’m not French.”
“English, then. From the borders.”
Camellia looked truly offended now. “What? No! I’m notEnglish. I’m fromEdinburgh.”
Now Braonan was even more confused. “Even the Lowlanders daenae sound like ye. What game are ye playin’ here? Ye arenae one of the ladies of the king, are ye? The Merry Monarch hasnae made a habit of sending his women this far north, but who kens what happens in the heads of kings.”
Her confusion seemed only to grow. “The Merry—you mean Charles the Second?”
Braonan tilted his head. “Who else would I mean? We’ve only got one king these days, ever since old Liz gave James the throne of England, more or less anyway. Ye must ken that, at least.”
Camellia stumbled, her hand going out to steady herself against a stone wall. “What…what year is it?”
Now Braonan wasreallyconcerned that the lass had hit her head when she fell. “It’s the year of our Lord, 1673,” he replied.