Time of a Highlander (Arch Through Time, #12)

by Baker, Katy

  Blair grinned and gave her an elaborate bow. “If my lady would care to mount?”

  He held the stirrup for her as she set her foot into it and swung into the saddle. A moment later Blair vaulted up behind her, settled into his seat, and reached around her to grab the reins. His chest brushed against her back and, was she imagining it, or were his arms a little tighter than was strictly necessary? She didn’t mind one bit, of course.

  Blair clucked to the horse and they set off, angling away from the castle to the north, following the map. They moved carefully as it was still dark and the air had a crisp bite to it that sent Georgie’s breath steaming out in front of her. Still, she wasn’t cold. Blair’s nearness sent a heat through her veins, leaving no room for any chill.

  They rode in silence, not wanting to alert Blair’s scouts that would be keeping an eye on the approaches to the fortress, and Georgie was content to watch the landscape gradually lighten. The sun began to poke its head over the horizon, a bright golden disk that promised another fine day ahead. Around them the air was filled with a cacophony of bird song.

  “What do you think we’ll find?” she asked softly.

  She felt him shrug. “Who knows? But I’ve learned that with the Fae, it’s always wise to expect the unexpected.”

  Just as Blair had promised, Trouble behaved himself. He plodded along as docilely as a cart horse, with none of the bucking and rearing she’d first encountered and the ride was strangely pleasant, despite the risk they were taking.

  Georgie found her thoughts turning to the events of yesterday. Her father had always said she had a gift with stone and she had always been able to work it with ease, to coax shapes and patterns from the stone that others couldn’t, but what she’d done yesterday? That had been on a whole new level.

  Ye are a Builder, Blair had said. She still didn’t wholly understand what that meant. She was just Georgie, a stonemason. None of that had changed. And yet...Irene MacAskill had sent her back here for a reason. Could Blair be right?

  She sucked in a breath. Maybe today they would find some answers.

  They rode cautiously for a couple of hours. Blair was careful to keep to secluded paths, avoiding open country where they might be spotted. The area was sparsely populated, wild and untamed, consisting of towering hills covered in heather and valleys filled with shallow rivers.

  They saw not another soul.

  Blair pulled Trouble to a halt, took out the map and peered at it for a long time, folding it over to give that 3D effect. Then he looked around at the landscape as if trying to match it up. It was nearing midmorning, and the sun was blazing down from a cloudless sky, making Georgie sweat.

  “If I’m reading this right,” Blair said, “then the thing we’re looking for should be just ahead.”

  He guided Trouble into a copse and then jumped from the saddle, holding up his hand to help Georgie dismount.

  As she swung down, he grabbed her around the waist and set her gently on her feet but he didn’t let her go. She found herself looking up at him, her hands resting on his shoulders. His eyes, she noticed, seemed to change color depending on his mood. Right now they were as bright and clear a blue as the sky above them.

  Blair cleared his throat, released her, and stepped back. “We’ll leave Trouble here,” he said gruffly. “And go the rest of the way on foot. Be careful. We dinna know what we might find.”

  He tied Trouble to a tree, gave him a nose-bag to keep him happy, then they set out, moving carefully through the trees and up a slight incline. Blair held the map close and kept looking at it then checking their surroundings carefully. Suddenly he held out a hand for her to stop.

  “Just over this rise.”

  She nodded and followed his example as he went to his hands and knees and crawled through the brush. Dry pine needles covered the ground and once again Georgie wished she’d changed into her overalls. Crawling in a dress was not much fun.

  They reached the edge of the rise and found themselves looking down into a depression between two steep-sided valleys. It took Georgie a moment to figure out what she was looking at. If she’d expected to find another arch, she was disappointed.

  The vegetation filling the depression was small, scrubby, as though it had once been cut down and had yet to grow back properly. A thick covering of grass and moss lay across jagged, broken ground. Strange shapes lay piled in odd positions, some taller than she was, some just as big as her hand.

  “What is this place?” she murmured.

  Blair turned to her. “It’s a quarry.”

  THIS WAS NOT WHAT BLAIR had expected. Following the excitement of discovering how to read the map, he’d assumed it would lead them to another arch or something equally impressive, but this disused, abandoned quarry was most definitely neither of those things. There must be more to it. Why would a Fae map guide them to an old quarry?

  But he couldn’t seem to gather his scattered thoughts. Having Georgie so close, her hand resting on his arm, was not helping matters. He just didn’t seem able to think straight when she was around. All through the ride here he’d had to keep forcing himself to concentrate on their mission, force himself to not get distracted by her.

  This had been a bad idea. He should have come here alone. Instead, he’d allowed Georgie to convince him to let her come. But what could he do? She would not have agreed to stay behind no matter what he said—the lass was as stubborn as Brody when she set her mind to it.

  Who are ye trying to fool? he asked himself. Ye brought her along because ye wanted to be alone with her. Because ye canna stand being away from her.

  “A quarry?” Georgie said dubiously, studying the pockmarked landscape before them. “It doesn’t look like any quarry I’ve ever seen.”

  He snorted. “How many Fae quarries have ye seen?”

  He froze as the words left his lips. Of course.

  He climbed to his feet, pushed his way through the screen of bushes, and walked down the slope into the quarry. He approached one of the nearest moss-covered humps, drew his dagger, and used the blade to scrape off the moss and vegetation covering it.

  Georgie came to stand beside him, a bemused look on her face.

  “Look familiar?” he asked her.

  Beneath the moss lay a block of milky white stone. It gleamed where the sunlight caught it.

  “It’s the same stone the arch is made from,” she said, reaching out and running her hands over its surface. “That’s it! That’s why it’s marked on the map! This must be where the Fae got their stone from!”

  Blair nodded. He looked around, suddenly wary. If this held the raw material to build the arches through time...

  As if reading his thoughts, Georgie said, “My God, Blair. If Beaumont should find this place—”

  “He willnae. He doesnae have the map,” Blair said decisively. He scraped the moss back over the gleaming stone then dumped some dead leaves on top for good measure, returning the rock to nothing more than an insignificant mound in the grass. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Georgie nodded. “Agreed. This place gives me the creeps.”

  But as they turned to retrace their steps, a sudden sound made Blair freeze. Clink. Clink. Clink.

  Georgie’s eyes went wide. “What is that?”

  Clink. Clink. Clink.

  It was coming from further up the quarry. And then other sounds followed it: the low hum of conversation, the neighing of a horse, the creak of wheels.

  The hairs rose on the back of Blair’s neck. Oh no.

  Indicating for Georgie to stay close, he began moving carefully towards the sounds. The quarry was overgrown, with piles of rubble and vegetation providing adequate hiding places, so they flitted from cover to cover, staying out of sight as they neared the source of the sounds.

  Blair caught movement up ahead. He and Georgie took cover behind a large holly bush. He parted the foliage and peered through. The far end of the site was no longer overgrown. The vegetation had been chopped
back and now the quarry teemed with activity. Blair counted at least twenty men working the stone with picks, breaking the large blocks into smaller, moveable chunks that were being loaded into carts and towed away.

  The men wore the colors of Charles Beaumont.

  His stomach knotted. “Damn it,” he breathed. “That’s why Beaumont went quiet. He’s been looking for this place. And he’s found it.”

  Georgie stared at the digging works in silence. She’d gone pale. “Adaira,” she said. “Adaira must have discovered where it is. She had all sorts of archeologists and geophysics experts working for her. Maybe she found its location in the twenty-first century and told Beaumont.”

  Blair nodded. “I canna even begin to understand what this might mean—”

  “Hoi! Who’s there? There’s somebody hiding in the bushes!”

  Blair looked up to see Beaumont guardsmen running towards them, drawing weapons.

  With a hiss of frustration, he scrambled to his feet and pulled Georgie up after him. Curse it all! There was nothing else for it. He grabbed Georgie’s hand and ran.

  GEORGIE CLUNG ON GRIMLY as Trouble’s gait jounced her around in the saddle as they galloped away from the quarry. She had to stop herself looking back over her shoulder to see if Beaumont’s men were following.

  Behind her, Blair was a silent, brooding presence. He whipped Trouble to greater speed, and they sped along the bottom of the valley, climbed out of it and then down another, splashed through streams and wove through dense woodland. They were not, Georgie noticed, heading back the way they’d come, and she assumed this was because Blair didn’t want to risk leading Beaumont’s men to the fortress.

  Only when they’d been riding wildly for at least half an hour, did he pull Trouble to a halt. The stallion stood with his ears pressed back, breathing heavily and with flecks of foam on his coat.

  Blair raised himself in the stirrups and looked back the way they’d come. After a moment, he seemed satisfied and resumed his seat. Clucking gently to Trouble they began moving again, at a walk this time.

  “You think they’ll try to track us?” Georgie asked.

  “I dinna think so,” he replied. “They didnae see us properly so hopefully they’ll think we’re just a couple of locals who’d stumbled on them. If our luck holds—”

  He fell silent, jerking Trouble to an abrupt stop.

  They’d exited the woodland and ahead of them stretched a piece of flat, open ground that led towards heather-covered uplands. Blair sat frozen, staring. He’d gone pale and a little vein throbbed in his neck. As if picking up on his master’s sudden tension, Trouble began stamping and snorting.

  Puzzled by his reaction, Georgie studied the landscape. There was no sign of any danger. The area ahead looked trampled, and it was covered by heaps of stones stretching as far as the eye could see.

  “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “I...I didnae realize this is where we were heading.”

  Georgie frowned, squinting at the piles of stones. Each of them was topped by a small wooden cross with a piece of plaid in colors she’d didn’t recognize tied to it.

  Then it hit her.

  They were graves.

  “Blair, what is—”

  She didn’t get to finish the question. Blair wheeled Trouble around, set his heels to the horse’s flanks, and sent him galloping west, away from the graveyard with a speed and recklessness that bordered on panic. Mud flew from beneath the horse’s hooves and more than once the beast almost slipped.

  “Stop!” Georgie shouted as they jumped a fallen tree, clattered down on the other side, and carried on running. “You’re going to kill us!”

  But Blair didn’t slow. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw an expression on his face that almost stopped her heart. Despair.

  “Blair!” she yelled at him. “Stop! Do you want Trouble to break a leg?”

  Her words finally seemed to penetrate. He blinked and pulled on the reins, slowing the panicked horse to a canter and then a walk. Finally, they stopped altogether.

  They’d reached a small, shallow valley almost entirely filled by an oval shaped lake. On the side closest to them the lake emptied into a gushing waterfall.

  Blair jumped from the saddle and marched down to the lake shore where he stood rigidly with his back to her, staring out over the water. Georgie dismounted, patted Trouble on the shoulder, and tied him to a tree branch. Cautiously, she approached Blair.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer. She placed a hand gently on his back and he tensed, like a spooked animal.

  “Blair,” she said again. “Tell me what’s wrong. I’ve never seen you act like this. What was that place?”

  He remained silent for such a long time that she thought he wouldn’t answer but he finally turned to face her. His expression was haunted.

  “A place I hoped never to see again. The place of my greatest shame.”

  “I...I don’t understand. It was a graveyard. What could you possibly have had to do with that?”

  “Everything. Because I created it.” His gaze settled on her. “It’s not a graveyard. It’s a battle site.” His words were slow and stilted, as though they were dragged unwillingly from his lips.

  “A battle you were part of?”

  “Not just part of. One that I orchestrated.”

  The spark had gone out of his eyes, replaced instead by something like self-loathing. The sight of it twisted her up inside.

  “Didnae I once tell ye that trust was earned?” he said. “Yet I’ve done naught to deserve yer trust. I’ve kept things from ye, Georgie. Bad things. Mayhap it’s time ye knew the truth.”

  Georgie said nothing, sensing that he needed time to gather his thoughts.

  Blair scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Ah, damn it! Where to even begin? All right. Ye once asked me why I wouldnae lead the remnants of Clan MacGregor, why I wouldnae accept the allegiance of those who wanted to follow me. Now ye have yer answer. The graves ye saw are the result of the last time I tried.”

  “They’re MacGregor graves?”

  “Aye and some of Beaumont’s men as well but not nearly so many. Ye see? I am not the leader everyone thinks I am.”

  “Blair,” she said softly. “You are every bit the leader everyone thinks you are. Your men love you. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. If something bad happened to the MacGregors how can that be your fault?”

  He shook his head. “Ye dinna understand. This is something that’s been going on a long time. It’s...complicated. I’m a MacAuley but I have a debt to the MacGregors, one that I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to repay. Ye remember I told ye that I killed Benneit MacGregor, the last laird? After that I had an obligation to them. So, with my father and uncle’s permission, I came up here with a small force to help keep MacGregor lands safe from rival clans whilst the next laird was found.

  During that time I got to know James MacGregor, Benneit’s second cousin, who had the strongest claim to the lairdship. He didnae want it at all, which is what made him the perfect man for the job. He was a good man and became one of my closest friends. He led me to Dun Hadraig and trusted me with the secret that Clan MacGregor guarded—the Great Arch that lay beneath the fortress. In return for this trust, I vowed to return Clan MacGregor to stability.

  But things didnae work out that way. Rival clans were not the danger after all—a power-hungry border baron was. When Charles Beaumont came north, we weren’t ready for him. He drove us from Dun Halas, forced us to take refuge in Dun Hadraig. But I wasnae daunted. I was Blair MacAuley! The military genius! The inspirational leader! Nobody could stand against me! I convinced James and his men to meet Beaumont’s forces in battle. I was so sure we would win. I was so confident that my strategy would prevail. But it didnae. Beaumont’s forces annihilated us. James was killed and all that is left of Clan MacGregor’s strength lies buried under those cairns.”

  He fell silent. His nostrils were flare
d, his eyes were wide and Georgie could see the memories of that day playing across his gaze. Her heart broke for him. This was the burden he’d been carrying. This was the reason he was so determined to stop Beaumont.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “One thing I’ve learned since I came to this time is that everyone has to make their own choices. Those men chose to follow you.”

  “Aye,” he said bitterly. “And look where it got them.”

  “You need to trust yourself,” Georgie said. “Trust yourself like I trust you.”

  He looked at her sharply. “You trust me?”

  Georgie went very still. He was so close. Before she realized what she was doing, she found herself reaching out and gently laying her hand above his heart.

  “Yes. With my life.”

  Blair let out a soft exhalation. Something flickered in his eyes. He placed his hand over hers, pressing it hard against his chest, then reached up, cupped the side of her face.

  Then he kissed her.

  Time stopped. For one endless moment Georgie hung suspended as his lips pressed against hers.

  Her arms went around his neck, yanking him close, and she was suddenly kissing him, kissing him back, passion and desire and need breaking all restraint.

  Blair’s tongue forced her lips apart and darted into her mouth. His arms circled her, crushing her against his taut chest. A low moan escaped him, almost like a growl.

  It had been building for weeks. For weeks she’d been trying to keep a lid on her growing desire for this man, to keep it caged behind bars of reason and logic. Now those bars snapped. She didn’t care that it made no sense. She didn’t care that it was impossible. She didn’t care that they were from different worlds.

  She wanted him. Wanted him so badly she couldn’t think of anything else.

  But suddenly a flock of grouse burst into the air and Trouble stamped his hooves in alarm.

  Blair jumped back, spun away from her, instantly alert.

  Georgie held her breath. The glade had gone as quiet as a grave. Even the birds had fallen still. Blair narrowed his eyes, scanning the treeline.