Tris scowled at her again. “As ye intimated last night.”
Or two weeks ago. She wasn’t about to get into that yet.
“Everything ye told me has been a lie.”
“Actually, there was a lot of truth in what I said.”
His body went rigid and disbelief was written in his high brows and loose jaw. She followed him as he circled the vehicle, glad there was some distraction for him to focus on and to help solidify the reality of time travel in his mind.
“My name, where I grew up and all the things I told you about my family are true.”
Dropping to his haunches, he studied the tires. He was ignoring her. Was he angry or trying to process what he heard and saw? The cold shoulder was beginning to worry her. It might all be too much for him. It had been a lot for her to process, as well, and she’d had Robert Zemeckis’s cinematic masterpiece to ease the way. Bill and Ted to prep her, even if the whole thing had ended up like a backwards Terminator with Wyndom as antagonist.
There was a very real possibility that Tris wouldn’t be able to accept all this, or her. She could lose him.
She was going to lose him anyway, Brontë reminded herself. Did it really matter how?
Tris moved around the rear of the car and she hugged her shoulders to ward off the chill. Or was it to contain the ache in her heart? He ran his fingers along the latch to the boot and the hatch lifted into the air.
He stepped back, wary of the yawning beast. Advanced science and technology would indistinguishable from magic to someone from the past. She pushed the button on the edge of it and it closed just as slowly until it locked with a soft snick.
“How did ye…?”
There was no conclusion to the question. Not because he couldn’t think of the words to express his curiosity, but because he didn’t want to talk to her. Turning his back, he walked a few paces down the street, staring into the distance. With nothing of the modern time within sight, she assumed he was trying to internally process what he’d witnessed.
She followed him. “Tris…”
He turned on his heel and strode past her back up the drive toward Glen Cairn, his expression hard. This time she let him go. Whether he needed to walk it off or work it out, he clearly didn’t want her to be a part of it. There was really nothing out here that could hurt him as long as he didn’t get hit by a car or went so far as to knock on the mansion’s front door. Hopefully, curiosity about his own family’s destiny hadn’t struck him yet.
She let him go and pulled out her phone. Texts from Violet and Aila. She answered them both while she waited, telling her grandmother that she’d be home soon and hoping it would be the truth. To her friend who’d been worried about her since her abrupt return two weeks ago, Brontë sent a thumbs up and ‘I’m good. Really.’
Hopefully that would be the truth as well.
It took twenty minutes by her clock for Tris to return. His face was still rigid, though perhaps not as tight as it had been.
“Ye aren’t Hazel’s cousin then.” No question there, only fact.
“No. She and Henry are my great-great-grandparents,” she told him. “And I never said cousin. I told you we were distantly related. The truth, as it were.”
He gave a terse nod and tapped his nose. “Ye get that from him.”
“You noticed a resemblance?” She hadn’t.
“I’d begun to wonder if Henry’s father somehow managed an affair wi’ yer mother.” He shrugged. “This makes far more sense.”
Did it really?
“So, you’re okay with all this?”
With me? As much as she wanted to add the caveat, she found she lacked the courage.
His shoulder lifted again. A noncommittal response at best.
“I’ll take you back then, if you’re ready.” He said nothing, gave no indication of preference. A grin jerked at the corner of her mouth, suspecting what he might be thinking. “Unless?”
Finally, he looked at her and she saw the flash of excitement in his eyes before he extinguished it. “Unless?”
“Unless you’d like to go for a ride?”
“I shouldn’t leave while Henry’s life remains in the balance.”
“I promised they would never know we’re gone, and I meant it. I can have you back at the exact same moment we left, or earlier, if you prefer.”
A ghost of a smile hovered on his lips and he walked toward the car. “I cannae wait to drive this.”
Brontë laughed aloud then. “Whoa, there! One step at a time!”
She showed him how the recessed handle worked, and they slid into the bucket seats. The interior was admittedly plush, with soft leather, sleek black dash and chrome details. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” she asked him. “There’s a lot out there that is going to shock you.”
When he nodded, she started the car. All the displays lit up, including the navigation screen on the dashboard between them.
“What is that?”
And so the questions began.
Chapter 34
Edinburgh
Present Day
“Granny, I’m home!”
Brontë had done something she called texting on a flat black object she described as her phone. Her telephone. In no way did it resemble the ornate gold and mahogany telephone at his home in Moray Place. Or the boxy wooden ones installed in most residences. There was no dial, no handset, yet she assured him the basic functionality remained the same. The capacity to call another person, however, was merely one of its multiple uses.
She’d been right in warning him that there would be much here to shock him. That single device and the motor car alone had required nearly an hour of explanation. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to share the truth with him. He was still working on overcoming his disbelief.
Despite the vehicle, he hadn’t acknowledged the veracity of what she’d told him at all until, on his walk up the drive to Glen Cairn, he’d seen an airplane in the sky. Higher than he’d imagined possible and misshapen from those he was familiar with. Brontë explained to him on the drive to the city that it was a passenger plane and the reason it was so low was because it was on its descent to land at the airport in Edinburgh. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to see it at all.
So many wonders. His head was spinning with all he’d learned today. The majority of change from his time to hers hadn’t been difficult to digest. Except for the changes in fashion and demeanor, people remained comparable in manner to those of his time. Edinburgh itself, while bursting with industry and expanding far beyond the confines of his time, retained the age-old atmosphere that had been its hallmark for centuries. The newer architecture they’d come across had shocked him in nothing more than its austerity.
It was what a century of innovation had wrought that left him stunned and stumbling in this new world. Technology such as he’d never imagined. Invention. Advancement. All in a mere hundred years! A sprint of progress that made the centuries before seem slothful. His imagination had gone wild with the information he could take back with him. The changes he could promote years earlier to make the world a better place.
He could do it all with Brontë by his side.
“Back here, dear!”
Tris straightened his cuffs wishing Brontë hadn’t made him shed his coat, vest and tie. While she’d changed into a scandalous pair of denim trousers similar to those a common laborer might wear and a lightweight jumper that were hardly appropriate attire for a lady, he felt downright uncivil meeting her grandmother in such a state.
“Stop fidgeting,” she whispered with a grin. She kicked off her sandals, she called them. Her bare toes curling in the rug. He refused to do the same. He was indecent enough as he was. “You look fine.”
She took his hand and tugged him down a short hall before he could protest. An elderly woman awaited them with a familiar smile on her face. “My God.”
Brontë flashed him an inquisitive frown. He shook his head. Later he would tell her about Hazel
’s mother, Prim.
“Tris, I’d like you to meet my grandmother, Violet Graham. Granny, this is Tris MacKintosh.”
She held out her hand, so he took it thinking to politely kiss it. Violet surprised him with a firm grip and a shake, much as he’d seen Brontë deliver to his parents. “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Graham.”
“Oh pish,” she protested with a broader grin. “I haven’t been a Mrs. in quite a number of years. Please, call me Violet.”
“Aye, ma’am,” he conceded, wondering if he’d ever be able to wrap his mind around the familiarity of these people. Brontë’s friend, Miss Marshall, had greeted him with an embrace far too intimate for a new acquaintance. Then again, she’d also flirted with and outrageous degree of physical contact, grilled him incessantly with inappropriately private questions and called him a hottie. Whatever that was.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I was when my granddaughter told me she was bringing someone home with her,” Violet told him. “She hasn’t brought a man around since she and —”
“That’s enough of that, Granny.”
Brontë took the older woman’s arm and steered her to a chair with a fierce whisper Tris couldn’t make out. Wondering what she’d been about to say, he made a mental note to ask Violet about it later.
“You ate, didn’t you?” She directed this at Violet. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it home in time for dinner.”
Because Tris had demanded an extensive tour of the city and had a question for each thing he saw. He hadn’t meant to keep her from her grandmother.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m glad you were out having a good time.” Violet dismissed the apology with a flick of her wrist. “I heated up some leftovers. I’m fine.”
“Good. Can I get anyone a drink?” Brontë asked. “Wine, Granny? Tris?”
“I’ll have some wine, if there’s any left after last night,” the old woman said with a hint of reproach in her tone that left Tris to wonder at her meaning. She turned to him. “I have a wonderful Dalmore Port Cask I’ve been looking for a reason to open.”
Appreciative for the mention of something familiar after a day filled with the foreign and exotic, Tris accepted with enthusiasm. Brontë disappeared into another room, leaving them alone. When Violet braced her arms on the chair to rise, he insisted she sit and tell him where it was. Brontë had mentioned something earlier about servants being a rarity in her world, it now struck him that they had no one to see to their needs. The descendants of an earl. How odd. Granted, while not overly large, their house was fine with excellent architectural detail and the neighborhood well-kept and affluent enough. Nevertheless, it seemed strange to find Henry’s kin living alone like this.
Another thing to ask about.
He went to a large cabinet situated along one wall of the room and withdrew the bottle she mentioned — there were others present — and one of the glasses on the shelf next to the collection.
“MacKintosh…MacKintosh,” she mused while he poured. “I have some distant cousins with that name. And Tris?” She repeated his name under her breath several times, tapping her lip. Brontë returned with two glasses of white wine and Violet turned to her. “Wasn’t there someone in the diary named Tris? It sounds awfully familiar.”
A small hitch in Brontë’s step was the only indication of her consternation. “Yes. Yes, there was.” She handed one of the glasses to her and took a seat on a nearby settee. Patting the spot next to her in invitation for Tris to join her there. How would she explain the commonality? “Tris MacKintosh was Henry’s dearest friend, don’t you remember?”
“That’s right.” The older woman’s eyes lit up and she looked at him again. “There was a friend of my grandmother’s mentioned in the diary often as well named Brontë. My daughter loved the uniqueness of it and named Brontë after her, did you know that? What a coincidence!”
“Isn’t it?” Brontë gnawed her lower lip in the way he’d come to recognize as a period of deep thought. Then she glanced at him with a devilish grin to grace her lips. “In fact, it’s not mere coincidence, Granny. This is actually Henry’s friend. I used my time machine to go to the past and met him there. I knew you’d love it if I brought him home to meet you.”
For a second, he thought perhaps Violet knew of the device — which was nothing at all like the machine devised by H.G. Wells for his novel, by the by. A conversation for another time, Brontë had told him — and took her granddaughter at her word regarding his identity.
Then Violet laughed, light and merry. “If I knew that was all it would take to find you a man, I would’ve found one for you years ago.”
“No, really,” Brontë persisted with a grin. “This is the same Tris MacKintosh.”
Violet waved her hand in open dismissal. “Whatever you say, dear.”
Brontë sipped her wine. “Fine then, when you find out it’s the truth, I’ll have to say I told you so.”
“I’ll eagerly await the day.”
Her grandmother’s pert response was all sarcasm and Brontë smiled up at him with a wee nod. She’d explained away his sudden appearance into their lives with the truth and left it to be taken as a jest of sorts. Kudos for a situation well played, however he hoped he hadn’t been duped so easily. He’d have to replay every conversation they’d had thus far.
“I am, in fact, a relation of your distant MacKintosh cousins,” he offered a truth of his own.
Violet leaned forward with open interest. “That’s lovely! I can’t wait to hear all about it. Unfortunately, it’s late for this old woman. I’ll have to be off to bed soon.”
A glance from the clock on the wall to Brontë’s face told him this wasn’t her usual time to retire.
“We can talk over breakfast,” the older woman added. “That is, if you’re spending the night.”
Brontë covered her face. “Nice, Granny. Very subtle.”
“I only meant —”
“I know what you meant.” Brontë lifted her head and arched a brow at her grandmother. “I think we all know what you meant.”
In all honesty, Tris wasn’t entirely certain. She must have been offering him a room for the evening. The other option was too scandalous to consider.
“I don’t know if Tris wants to stay,” Brontë berated the woman. “He may want to go home instead.”
Violet leveled him with an inquisitive look. “Do you want to go home?”
“I…er,” he sought an appropriate response. “I’ve nothing pressing, as long as I’ll be home when I need to be.” Brontë managed a nod. “Then I’m most appreciative of the invitation, if you’ve room to spare.”
A blank look descended over Violet’s face before she recovered herself. “I’m sure my granddaughter has —”
“Enough, Granny!” Brontë leapt to her feet, her face aflame. “Oh my God, could you possibly make this any worse? Why don’t you toddle off to bed now?” She snatched up Violet’s hand and dragged her toward a door opposite the one they’d come in. Her voice lowered to a hiss, but this time he caught the words. “I’m going to kill you!”
A disrespectful and vile threat, yet Violet threw back her silvery head and laughed aloud. She waved to him over her shoulder. “Goodnight, Mr. MacKintosh.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Graham.”
* * *
Tris was at the cabinet refilling his whisky when Brontë returned. She didn’t blame him. Her granny could be a lot to take on a normal day, but when she was trying to hook up her granddaughter after a year-long romantic drought, apparently, she tended to go overboard.
Way, way overboard.
“I’m so sorry for my grandmother’s behavior,” she said. “She thinks she’s being cute. Or funny. Or something.”
“Then she didn’t intend to imply that I should share your bed?” The words were crisp and proper. Poor guy, he probably didn’t know what had hit him. And that after a long day of being figuratively hit upside the head multiple times.
“No, she did.�
� His brows rose with her confession. The scandal of openly sleeping with someone under a family member’s roof outside the bounds of wedlock might be harder than anything he’d seen that day for him to accept. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “She can’t know that we’re not exactly in that place at the moment. All she sees is that I’ve brought home a guy for the first time in forever and she’s jumped to the wrong conclusion. I just wanted you to meet her once.”
So you’d understand. She sighed.
“You’ve engaged in an affair under her roof before?”
That was his take away? Someday she’d understand how his mind worked. “No. Never. Not that I…I mean, you know that I’ve…uh.” Brontë shrugged.
“Aye, I realize I’m not the first. Nevertheless, all things considered, I’d begun to think today that your time might be far more prudish than mine,” he told her. “However, such an invitation as your grandmother’s forced me to second guess the notion.”
He thought our time was prudish? What had she done to give him that impression? Obviously, people today were far less puritanical and more progressive than they were a hundred years ago.
Tris’s wry chuckle broke through her thoughts. “I see some things never change, despite such a passing of time. I never cared to consider that my ancestors were intimate prior to marriage either, yet my parents weren’t wed until I was several weeks old. A family secret as the parish register was good enough to alter the documents to make my birth legitimate. And that unseemly fervor Henry courted Hazel with? I can tell you she relented with a fair amount of fervor herself.”
“Wow, I so didn’t need to know that.”
Obviously Hazel had fudged a few things in her diary as well.
“Well, I can drive you home if you want,” she said. “Or to your townhouse, if you’d prefer.”
He cocked his head, his expression unreadable. “You don’t want me to stay here then?”
A Scot to Remember (Something About a Highlander Book 1) Page 30
