Highlander Protected: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 3)

by Rebecca Preston

  “Are we free? Free of the English? Free to rule ourselves?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, wishing like hell she’d paid more attention to the news. It occurred to her to lie – to paint him an idyllic picture of a future of freedom and peace. But she couldn’t do that. Couldn’t put that kind of idea into his head, even if he’d have no way of knowing he’d been lied to. “Scotland’s part of the United Kingdom, with Wales and England and – some of Ireland. When I left, they…” She racked her brain. “They had a vote. A vote to secede, I think? A vote to be independent from the rest of the UK, to be their own country.”

  “A vote,” Eamon said flatly. “Not a war?”

  “A vote.” She paused. “Just over half the country voted against independence, from what I remember. That was a few years ago. I wish I knew more,” she murmured, feeling dismayed. “But I hardly read the news in my own country, let alone other people’s.”

  “What’s it like there, then?”

  She smiled, a little unsure of herself. “You believe me? Don’t get me wrong, I’m – really glad you do. But – really? Some strange woman comes barging into your life claiming to be from the future and that’s – that’s it? You just believe me?”

  “Ye’re not lyin’ to me, Marianne,” he said simply. “I know liars, and ye’re not one. Ye could’ve told me anythin’ about my country’s future – told me it was all alright in the end, that we won, that we beat the English and conquered the world. But ye didnae. Ye told me that in six hundred years, we’re all still such argumentative sods we can’t even agree on bein’ our own country.” He smiled at her in the firelight. “That’s the truth if ever I’ve heard it. Now tell me about America.”

  They talked long into the night – him asking fascinated question after question, her going into detail about things she’d taken for granted – cars, buildings, space travel, the Internet. He was interested in all of it – in warfare, especially, but also in domestic improvements, the idea of a machine that kept your drinks cold he seemed to find particularly hilarious, but he didn’t blink when she explained what a hair dryer was.

  “Useful, gettin’ your hair dry quick,” was all he said.

  And before she knew it, the fire was nothing but embers, and her head was extraordinarily heavy…the work of a moment, to lean it against the broad shoulder beside her…and, midsentence, she fell into an all-encompassing sleep.

  Chapter 20

  When she woke, she was curled on her side by the newly-rekindled fire, wrapped almost completely in the enormous cloak Eamon had shared with her. She sat up, a little disoriented – he was sitting a few feet away by the fire, prodding it to life to cook their breakfast.

  “Did I oversleep?”

  “It’s jest past dawn. So, absolutely.”

  It took her a moment to realize that that was a joke – the sly grin on his face gave it away, though, and she scoffed, getting to her feet and stretching her arms above her head. She hadn’t forgotten falling asleep on his shoulder, and she didn’t miss the way his eyes subtly traced the lines of her figure as she stretched. Useful information, that, filed safely away for later reflection.

  Stop it, Marianne, you incorrigible menace.

  They ate quickly before working together to re-saddle the horses, getting them prepared for the day. Today she’d be riding the chestnut, Eamon told her, and she blinked, looking a little mournfully at the bay with whom she already felt something of a bond.

  “But he loves me. Look at the way he’s completely ignoring me. That’s love,” she protested, stroking the placid horse’s neck.

  “We’ve got to spread the weight between them evenly. I’ve got a foot and a hundred pounds on ye at least,” Eamon retorted.

  “Fight you for him,” she challenged, striking a pose, and he laughed, a surprising sound in the cold morning air.

  “Tell ye what. When we stop for lunch, ye can show me what ye’ve got, and we’ll talk about changing back. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she agreed, giving the bay one more stroke before crossing to the chestnut. The horse eyeballed her a little suspiciously. “Oh, he’s offended I didn’t want to ride him.”

  “They donnae speak English, Marianne.”

  “But they understand it,” she countered, hearing Cora’s voice in her mind saying the exact same thing.

  They set out when the sun had just cleared the horizon – not that you could tell, but for its vague bright shape behind the banks of grey, drizzling clouds. Marianne pulled her cloak over her head. The rain was light, but persistent. It didn’t seem to bother her companion, though. Eamon had more questions about the world she’d come from – she spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to do justice to a description of World War Two based largely on war movies, before frowning. “I’m not sure it’s wise to tell you all this.”

  “Why not? I’m not exactly going to be able to put any of this to use. Unless ye happen to have studied who won the local races in school, in which case ye and I have some bets to place.”

  “Besides, I’m tired of talking. I want to hear about your life.”

  “Ye’ve been in a metal tube that flies through the fuckin’ sky, and ye want to hear about my little life?” he asked, then covered his mouth as he realized he’d sworn.

  She laughed. “Yes! Your life’s as strange to me as mine is to you.”

  “Doubt that,” Eamon muttered. “What’s to tell? I was born right there in Castle MacClaran, second of six brothers. My father was the Laird at the time – Mary’s his younger sister. Colin’s mother,” he clarified for Marianne, who was trying to figure out the family tree, and how exactly Eamon was connected to Ian and Colin. “I never wanted to be a Laird like my father, but I learned to fight and I was good at it. Wanted to keep people safe. I was always a head taller than everyone else,” he chuckled, “that helped. They used to say I must be part bear.” He sighed. “Lot of fighting, back in those days – fighting with the English, fighting with other Lairds over territory, ye name it. I got through by sheer luck. Nobody welcomed peace more than I did. I fought side by side with Colin – never knew a man more suited to rule. Backed him for Laird, when the time came. I was the old Laird’s last remaining son, my word meant something. Funny how things change.”

  There was a bitter twist to his face that Marianne was coming to recognize – and to dislike. But she didn’t want to interrupt him when he was finally sharing the details of his life with her. There was something about travelling like this – the slow, rollicking gait of the horses, the quiet of the surroundings, the incredible peace and beauty of the moors spread out before them like a bedsheet. It almost hypnotized you into speaking.

  And speak Eamon did, in great long meandering stories that jumped between years. She learned a lot more about Ian— she was approving of her cousin’s husband more and more— and about Colin – and about war, and death, and loss. But Eamon was dauntless in the face of it all – from his stories, he was always a bright spark, always the man making a joke to brighten the men’s spirits, always the jester with a practical joke or some contraband whiskey to share. Being a guard – the camaraderie he shared with his brothers-in-arms, the knowledge that he was serving and protecting his family and his Clan – it seemed to be everything to him.

  “So why did you let it all go?” she asked finally, and he turned to her.

  “Aye, I suppose ye’re wondering about that.” He hesitated. “Ye’ve trusted me. I hope I can trust ye. Not another soul may ever know this, ye understand? Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Swear by Elena. Swear by your great-great-grandmother.”

  “I think we’d need a few more great’s than that, but alright. Alright. I swear.” Was he actually going to resolve this mystery for her, right here, right now? She leaned forward, almost itching with curiosity.

  “At the time of the brawl,” he said, with a great weight in his voice, “I was with Ian’s lover.”

  Marianne stared at
him. “Cora?”

  “No, no, this was before she came to us,” he said irritably, waving her away. “Years back. He was seein’ a girl from a nearby village, pretty serious, too… anyway. We, er. I’m not proud,” he added defensively. “But we were – well, it was only jest the once. All her idea, mind you. Said she’d had her eye on me for weeks, couldn’t resist me, and so forth… the men and I’d had a few drinks, I didnae even realize who she was before it was too late...”

  Marianne would have started laughing, if it wasn’t for how deeply mortified Eamon looked about the whole thing. Could this honestly be it?

  “Eamon, you could clear your name in a heartbeat if you just—”

  “Never! Never, never, never. I owe Ian my life, you hear me? It’d destroy him, knowing why she left him.”

  “She left him for you?”

  “No,” Eamon admitted, “she left him because she got a better offer in another town, but he wouldn’t see it like that. I’m delighted he’s got Cora, now, but you have to understand – it’d destroy him, to know what I did.”

  “You’d rather him think of you as a murderer than a betrayer? You’d rather be exiled from your home for the rest of your life than just come clean to your cousin?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Marianne was quiet for a long time, warring with herself. On the one hand, there was something admirable about this man’s determination to martyr himself in his cousin’s defense. On the other hand– well, what a tremendously stupid thing to martyr yourself over. Men were absolutely ridiculous.

  “There. Now ye know my secret. And ye’re the only one, so don’t go waggin’ yer tongue, ye hear?” he added threateningly.

  “Your secret will die with me,” she said, raising her hands in surrender. “Even if I think it’s stupid,” she couldn’t help but add.

  He snorted. “Aye, well, I’ve been guilty o’ that in my time. Are ye hungry? Reckon it’s about lunch time. And I seem to remember someone promisin’ me a fight.”

  Chapter 21

  There was a flat area cleared out of the heather where they stopped for lunch. Eamon swung down from his horse and whistled as he began to unstrap his sword from the baggage. She reached for where she’d secured hers with a lot less confidence. Was this actually happening? This enormous man was going to spar with her? She thought they’d just been flirting – uh, talking. Getting to know each other. Joking around.

  You were flirting, Marianne, you absolute menace to society, and now you’re going to get your ass handed to you in a field in the middle of nowhere and it serves you right. Like it was her fault that Scottish men didn’t know flirting when they encountered it.

  He removed the heavy cloak he was wearing and she watched with a quiet appreciation as he stretched his neck, his broad shoulders and his muscular back, outlined by the white linen shirt he was wearing. As worried as she was that she was about to be beheaded by a Scotsman, it was at least quite a good view. She unclasped her own cloak and left it with the horses – Eamon had taken their bits out and left them to crop the long grass that grew on the side of the cleared area in the heather.

  “Well?”

  There he stood, all twenty-eight feet or thereabouts of him, sword at the ready and looking like a literal giant. Feeling like David without his slingshot, she attempted a posture that conveyed confidence and strolled out to meet him, her own sword in her hand and mind ticking frantically over the advice Ian had given her for fighting opponents taller than her. Of course, they’d been preparing with Teodoro in mind, not Eamon fucking MacClaran, but it was the best thing she had.

  “Well,” she countered, not especially brilliantly. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  They touched swords and he nodded to her, a touch of formality that didn’t make her feel any less nervous. It wasn’t that she believed he was actually going to hurt her, of course – what a ridiculous length to go to just to kill her, after all, when if that had been his intention he could’ve finished the job a week ago when she’d got lost on the moors like an idiot. But gods, she didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of him and that was the plain and simple truth. She wanted him to be impressed by her, to think she was clever and strong and interesting, the dazzling woman from another time who’d flown through the air in a metal tube, she was saving the stories about underground subway trains, not sure whether they’d be more or less impressive. The minute he knocked her on her ass in the dust here, she’d just be that woman who couldn’t hold a sword to save her life.

  Well, she’d at least go down swinging.

  He lunged at her now, suddenly, but the feint was familiar – the first one Ian had shown them. Must be a classic, or something. She sidestepped, sliding her blade down his to force it into the dust, then swung it toward his torso – he spun, straightened, knocked it upwards with a powerful blow that would have sent her stumbling and her sword flying into the heather if Ian hadn’t been so fucking obsessed with getting their grips right. She half-absorbed, half-released the impact, saw an opening and feinted toward his exposed underarm – with a grunt, he countered, stepped back with his blade extended and a look of grudging acceptance in his eyes.

  Alright, so she’d proved that she wasn’t a moron – but anyone could do that. Eight-year-old kids scrapping in the street probably pulled off fancier moves than that. They were circling each other – she glanced down at his feet and figured that he was about to lunge for her right, a subtle shifting of weight to the back foot and a deliberate stillness everywhere else. That made it easy to dodge, and this time she made contact in the parry, the edge of her scabbard hitting the flesh of his arm with an audible sound.

  “Point.” She grinned, dancing from foot to foot, and spun away quickly when he lunged for her again. Big opponents tired easy, Ian had told her – keep them moving. Tire them out, then move in close, where their huge reach was more of a hindrance than a strength. She kept watching him, his feet, his hands, the angle of his hips and shoulders – the places that would tell her what his next move would be. His tells grew less and less obvious as they sparred – and she realized with exasperation how much he was holding back on her, how many deliberate mistakes he was making to test her.

  “Ye’re not bad,” he concluded after a quarter of an hour or so, breathing hard.

  She walked to fetch a water skin for them both, feeling oddly irritated by praise that twenty minutes ago would have made her swoon. She felt like a trained dog being put through its paces, or a child that had been taught to sing a song for audiences. None of that had been real.

  “So when are we going to spar?” she challenged him after he’d drunk his fill of the water, and he blinked, regarding her for a long moment. “When are you going to actually try?”

  “Ye’re observant,” he said, clearly intending it as a compliment, but there was a wariness in his expression that made her grind her teeth. “I’ve been doing this my whole life, Marianne —”

  “The swords are sheathed, you’re not going to chop my arm off. Fight me. How am I going to deal with someone who’s actually trying to kill me, if I only ever spar against people who are checking how much I know? Cora was more of a challenge than you,” she added, feeling a bit like a traitor for pulling the tired old misogynistic ‘you fight like a girl’ goad on him.

  To his credit, it didn’t work – he just looked thoughtful, then sighed. “I did want to see what ye knew,” he admitted. “Now I know, we can spar properly. But just one round today, ye hear? No sense both of us getting too sore to hold a sword when the real fighting arrives.”

  Pleased by this, she stepped back, lifted her sword, and focused. But he was fiddling with something on the scabbard of his sword and he held his hand up to her to wait.

  “Come on then,” she goaded, “we haven’t got all —”

  And he was on her, all six and a half feet of him like a wall of muscle rushing to meet her. Everything happened at once — a vice grip on her wrist that made her drop her sword, the thunde
rous impact of the side of his body somehow swinging her whole lower body out from under her, and in the same fraction of a breath she was flat on her back in the dirt with the point of his sword, still sheathed, at her throat.

  She stared up at him. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “Like I said,” he told her, an unreadable expression on his face. “Ye’re not bad.”

  He reached down and she extended her hand – he lifted her back onto her feet as though she weighed as much as a toddler, then turned his back, striding away toward the horses, two of them were still grazing, but she was heartened to notice the bay was watching the proceedings with something like interest. Looking out for her. She collected her sword and followed Eamon.

  “What was that? Judo or something? Do you have judo in medieval Scotland? Can you teach me?”

  “No, lass.” He turned on her and for just a second, the combination of the look on his face and the immediate memory of him standing over her with a sword in his hand showed her what this man would look like on a battlefield. And just for a second, he wasn’t Eamon, and she shrank away from him. They rode in silence for a while. He broke it first, sounding gruff.

  “Ye do fight well. Especially for a beginner. Ye’ll hold yer own against some, maybe even win if ye’re lucky. But it’s not worth the risk, ye hear? Too many men like me out there.”

  “I don’t intend to pick any fights.” She paused. “But I do want to learn that hip-check thing.”

  “We’ll be there in a day.”

  “After, I mean.”

  He looked at her quickly, and a number of puzzle pieces all fell into place.

  “Do you think we won’t see each other after we catch this priest?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he said gruffly.

  “I know liars and you’re not a liar,” she intoned, in a passable imitation of his accent that made him chuckle. “You’re a crap liar, anyway. Eamon, our association does not end with the life of Father Teodoro, you hear me?” She grinned. “After all, I’ve a few debts to repay, don’t I?”