Even with blood dripping out of his nose, he was gorgeous, a golden version of his devilishly dark brother. His tawny bronze hair had sunkissed strands she would have paid a good deal of her fortune to have her hairstylist duplicate, and was wavier than Lachlan’s. His eyes, though glassy, were the same brilliant blue.
He leered at her, and gripped one of her hands before she could regain her balance within the confines of her dress. Both alarmed by his firm grasp on her wrist and dazzled by the dimples, she tried not to swoon. God, what kind of deal did their mother make with the devil to have two such beautiful sons?
Before she could wrench free from his hold, Lachlan bellowed at him to unhand her, taking a threatening step toward him.
He scooted away from Piper and smiled at his brother as he pushed himself unsteadily into a sitting position.
“Who’s this one, then?” he asked, wiping blood off his upper lip and grimacing in pain.
This one? Piper whirled around to catch Lachlan’s reaction to that. Was there another one? Lachlan’s eyes narrowed dangerously and Quinn scooted back even further, holding out his hands in surrender.
He stood up and bowed awkwardly at her, once again smiling one of the most charming smiles she’d ever seen. He was a few inches shorter than Lachlan, so still about a half a mile taller than Piper.
Not knowing what to do, she smiled tentatively at Quinn while moving to Lachlan’s side. She expected him to put his arm around her or take her hand, but he stood stonily staring at his brother. He spoke quickly in Gaelic and reached over to squeeze Quinn’s shoulder. It might have been a brotherly gesture of apology except that Quinn winced in pain.
“This is Lady Piper Sinclair, of Clan Glen,” Lachlan said through gritted teeth.
“Are ye one of the cousins?” Quinn asked. He swayed on his feet.
“Yes,” she said, knowing if she tried to elaborate she’d get something wrong and he wouldn’t be able to understand her accent anyway.
Listening to all these deeply Scottish accents coupled with the eighteenth century phraseology gave her a headache. Even when they spoke English, they may as well have been speaking Gaelic. She hoped she’d get used to it or she would get a reputation as a real dummy right quick.
“Is she the one yer tryin’ to marry me off to?” he asked Lachlan. He ducked the blow that Lachlan swung at him surprisingly deftly for being so drunk. “Ah, no, then. I shall meet the poor lass at the celebration soon enough, aye?”
He winked at Piper and she rushed to grab Lachlan’s arm in case he thought that was cause for another beating.
“I’m so tired,” she said, pushing him toward the stairs.
Her only consolation in this utterly failed first meeting of Lachlan’s only brother was that Quinn probably wouldn’t remember it in the morning.
“We leave at first light,” Lachlan growled.
Quinn nodded somberly and rejoined the men he’d been sitting with. Piper glanced over her shoulder at the foot of the stairwell and saw that a serving girl had brought him another pint. She hurriedly pulled Lachlan around the corner and out of sight in case he took offense to Quinn continuing to drink.
At the door of her room, he glanced both ways before giving her a kiss, then turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I have a room down the hall. I canna stay with ye,” he said. “Yer reputation would be compromised.”
She stared at him for several seconds, her jaw somewhere south of where it should have been. He reached out and tapped her chin and she clamped her mouth shut, completely lost for words.
She looked behind her at the bed, which now seemed unwelcoming, lumpy, horrible. She didn’t want to sleep in it all alone. Getting infested with bedbugs and jabbed with straw only made a cute anecdote if she shared the bed with the love of her life. No one wanted to get infested and jabbed alone.
He broke into a rakish grin. “The servants will bring me a bath, then after I dismiss them, I’ll come and help ye with yer laces.”
“Sneaky!” she said, delighted. “I need help with them for real, though.”
Ideally she would be seductively waiting for him in her knickers, but she honestly didn’t think she could get out of the dress by herself, short of using scissors.
“Let me take care of ye, my love,” he said, pulling her roughly to him and ravishing her with a very compromising kiss.
He left her in a daze, and when she closed the door behind her, she realized she still hadn’t gotten any food.
Chapter 18
The next morning Piper awoke to a scuffling near the fireplace. The only thing that kept her from leaping out of bed to fling a candlestick at the source of the noise was a bone deep stiffness from sleeping on the thin straw mattress, and the fact that it had to be close to freezing in the drafty room.
When she managed to sit up, she saw Melisande stoking the embers of the nearly dead fire, studiously avoiding all eye contact.
Piper’s cheeks flamed as she tried to pull the quilt up over Lachlan’s huge, naked form. He was sprawled out quite majestically, taking up three quarters of the bed, with a calm, satisfied smile on his sleeping face.
She tried to think of a story, wanted to make sure Melisande didn’t think she was a trollop, or that Lachlan wasn’t a gentleman. She had a vague memory from some novel she’d read years ago that widows had more freedom in this day and age.
She was about to blurt out that she was widowed, even going so far as making up a tragic accident, perhaps involving the Loch Ness monster. Or maybe just falling off a cliff. Goodness, could she make her imaginary dead husband less of an idiot? Surely they had wars going on like in any other time. She’d make him a war hero.
Before she could work up a fake sniffle and start her tale of love lost, Lachlan cleared his throat and calmly dismissed the servant girl. With a bob, she was out the door in a flash of apron.
Piper turned and looked at him. “Will I be shamed in the public square, now? she asked, not entirely joking.
Lachlan shook his head and chuckled. “It willna be the first she’s seen of indiscretion. I’ll admit, that is something I do like about yer time. It’s very free, no?”
“Yes, kind of. At least in our part of the world. People can still be pretty judgemental, but you can ignore it easily enough.”
“Evelyn willna be ostracized for having a child out of wedlock?”
Piper frowned. “They’ll end up married. They’re completely in love.”
She smiled at him when he kindly laid her clothes out in front of the fire to warm them. Snuggling back down under the covers she tried not to worry about what was waiting for them at the castle. Within a day she’d be meeting people who were her direct ancestors and seeing the castle in all its early glory.
“I will need to settle some things with my people first, but if ye’re willing, I should like to return to yer time?”
Lachlan finished draping his kilt around him and looked at her tentatively.
She sat up and smiled. “You would? Are you sure? I could live here, at least for a while.”
She dug deep and found the statement to be true. Even disregarding the fear that chewed her insides whenever she thought about having to do the spell again, she’d love to see his land and meet his half sister, get to know Quinn better. Thinking of Quinn brought the night before to the forefront of her mind.
“Who do you want to marry Quinn off to?” she asked. “One of the Glens?”
Lachlan rolled his shoulders as if to try and shake off a burden. “Aye. My brother is an idiot and a lost cause. Yer kin are shrewd. If he is matched with one, they willna let things fall to pieces when I am gone.” His face twisted into a mix of worry and disgust.
“We can stay as long as you need to get things in order,” she said, beginning to worry about her own affairs.
They had made it seem like they would fix the immediate problem and then return. The thought of Evie being torn apart with grief, thinki
ng she might be dead, was almost too much to bear. But, she didn’t want to be selfish and more than anything she wanted to be with Lachlan.
The thought of them going their separate ways, even if it was just supposed to be temporary, was untenable. Anything could happen. At any time their spells might not work, leaving him in the past and her in her own time, alone.
Her face must have shown her inner turmoil, because Lachlan sat on the edge of the bed and hugged her. “We must trust that everything will be what it is meant to be.”
“That’s very hard to do, because I want to make everything the way I want it to be.”
She pressed a kiss into the hollow of his throat and breathed in the smoky scent of the fire that clung to his kilt.
“When and if we return, we must see if I’m still in the crypt.”
He got up and tossed a bundle of warm clothes onto the bed, helping to sort them for her, and handing them in order of what went on first.
Her heart thudded and she froze with her chemise halfway over her head. Could he have changed history enough that he was no longer in her family crypt? If all remained the same, he was to die in the eighteenth century, and for whatever reason, end up in the Glen crypt, with quite a fancy, extremely lifelike marble bust standing sentinel in front of his tomb.
Almost tearing the thin chemise in her haste to get it on, she shuddered at his flippant attitude.
“I hate thinking about it,” she said. “I hope you’re not there anymore.”
“I canna understand how I ended up there in the first place. We are on good enough terms at the moment, but the Fergusons have never been great allies with the Glens.” He shrugged. “I am a hero to them now, but this time next year and we’ll no doubt be at each other’s throats again.”
With goosebumps crawling up and down her arms, she yanked the rest of her clothes on, barely able to stand still while Lachlan did up the fastenings.
Her stomach let loose with a resounding growl and she giggled, the tension of the moment broken.
“Ye have not eaten,” he said, clapping his palm to his forehead. “I’m so sorry, my love.”
He hurried her down to the common area, which only had a few lost looking stragglers. Quinn and his men were nowhere to be seen.
The clock on the wall said it was almost noon, but the sky outside was dark and low. She wondered what happened to leaving at first light and almost laughed when she realized if they waited for light in Scotland, no one would ever go anywhere.
Lachlan ordered her some food and realizing how late it was, angrily went in search of his brother.
No sooner had he left the dining room, Quinn poked his head around the kitchen doors and sidled up to her table, bowing slightly.
“May I sit, milady?” he asked.
His tone was respectful enough but his teasing grin warned her to be wary.
“Your brother’s gone looking for you,” she said primly, giving him a good once over. He seemed well enough recovered from the previous night’s binge, and his face didn’t seem too worse for wear after Lachlan’s knockout punch. “We were supposed to leave first thing this morning,” she said, frowning at him.
His grin grew even wider. “Aye, and I’ve been waiting for him to come down since then.” He raised an eyebrow. “He must have been greatly indisposed to be so late.”
Her face flamed and she didn’t say anything when he took the seat across from her, maintaining a good amount of distance. She thought that showed at least some wisdom on his part, because if Lachlan came back and saw him nose to nose with her, he’d probably get his nose broken.
“Is Lachlan still angry with me?” he asked. He leaned back further when the server brought her meal. “I should say, is he verra angry, because he is always at least a wee bit irritated at somethin’ or other I’ve done.”
She closed her eyes so she could eat a nasty looking sausage. It turned out to be delicious and she sighed with happiness. Softening toward Quinn, she offered him some of her bread and studied him.
He was probably twenty-one or twenty-two. There weren’t many expectations placed on someone so young in her own time, and he’d probably be looked at with affectionate indulgence for his indiscretions, whatever they might be.
Here and now, he was given no quarter, expected to be ready to lead whenever Lachlan was away, carrying the responsibility of guarding and managing his land and the people who worked it.
Now Lachlan was trying to marry him to someone he’d likely never met, and probably wouldn’t love. Her heartstrings were very definitely feeling a tug.
“I don’t think he’s very angry,” she said.
It had to have been hard growing up in Lachlan’s formidable shadow. She decided to try and mend the rift between the brothers. Maybe if Lachlan could show some trust and encouragement, Quinn would feel confident enough to lead the clan. She smiled reassuringly at Quinn and then he completely befuddled her by giving her a look of pity.
Lachlan stormed back into the room, giving lie to her assertion that he wasn’t very angry.
“What has he said to ye?” Lachlan demanded, pulling Quinn off his chair by the scruff of his neck.
Quinn dropped the bread Piper had given him and looked bored.
“He said he’s been waiting for us,” Piper said, giving him a meaningful look as she gobbled down the rest of her breakfast.
Now that everyone was ready and accounted for, they’d be saddling up and trying to get out on the road as fast as they could. Men and road trips didn’t seem to be too much different in either era.
Lachlan had the grace to blush, but covered it by dropping Quinn’s shirt and roughly shoving him.
“Get yer men, we leave at once. We shall be lucky to get to the castle by nightfall at this rate.”
“What’s the hurry, brother?” Quinn said mockingly. “They canna have the feast without ye. Why not extend yer honeymoon?” He winked at Piper and she stopped mid-chew.
She glanced at Lachlan but before she could work up too much confusion, had to jump up and grab Lachlan’s arm as he raised his fist, ostensibly to smash it into Quinn’s face again.
What was up with these two? She was an only child, but she still couldn’t imagine if she had a sibling that there would be so much violence between them. Probably just this barbaric time. Still, she couldn’t let it happen when she was around.
“Lachlan,” she said, grunting under the effort it took to keep his tightly coiled arm from springing. “Let’s just get on the road before it’s too dark to ride.”
The mention of the journey and their time constraints made him relax somewhat. He scowled at Quinn and turned on his heel. She hurriedly followed him, glancing back at Quinn to find him staring after them appraisingly.
As Lachlan helped her onto her horse, she wondered what Quinn had meant with the honeymoon comment. Had he been insulting her? Was that why Lachlan tried to hit him again? If it was an insult it had flown right over her head, but maybe it meant something pretty mean by eighteenth century standards.
She smiled at Lachlan as he adjusted her stirrup to a more appropriate length and a new line of thought caused a flutter of anticipation to pass through her. She knew that Lachlan didn’t get along with his brother, and seemed to feel mostly contempt for him, but they were still brothers. Still the closest family the other one had.
What if Lachlan had told Quinn he intended to marry her? She had to restrain herself from squealing. She and Evie could have a double wedding, something they talked about when they were teenagers. It would be a dream come true.
A year ago she would have shunned the thought of marriage loud and long, but watching Lachlan fix her saddle chased all her old opinions away.
“Will ye be all right?” he asked when he was done messing with every buckle on the horse’s apparatus.
Her glee was tamped down substantially by the long ride ahead of them. The roads were bad, and it was mostly uphill to Castle Glen. The longest ride she’d taken before was
a relaxing two hour meander along a well cleared forest path with Pietro stopping frequently to show her interesting foliage. And she’d needed at least that long of a soak in the tub that night to recover from it. She had serious qualms, but put on a brave face and shrugged.
“Yes, of course,” she said.
He patted her thigh and lifted himself onto his own horse in a smooth, liquid motion which made her heart speed up. She was so proud he was hers. She needed to show that she could make it in this time, even if they didn’t stay. She wanted him to feel the same pride in her.
The group was grumpy and quiet for the first two hours. She gave up trying to make small talk with either Quinn or Lachlan and plodded along in silence, taking in the lush woods on either side of the road.
It was all forest, as far as she could see, marked by a very occasional path that led to a small hut. She tried to decipher where everything should be from her own time, the grocery store, the movie theater, the various neighborhoods. It was all trees now. And what would take forty minutes in a car on the good modern roads, now took torturous hours on horseback.
The sky went from forbidding to straight up accursed after three hours and it was clear that she was holding them back. Quinn and Lachlan had erupted into several arguments, each one curtailed by one of Quinn’s men or herself. The tension was getting worse with every new cloud and crack of thunder.
Finally, she couldn’t keep it in any longer and a groan of pain escaped her lips. Lachlan’s head swiveled around as if he’d heard a gunshot and he got up next to her and took her reins.
“We are stopping,” he called to the others. “Go on ahead without us.”
They paused for a moment until he waved them on with a murderous look, daring them to argue. They broke out into gallops, disappearing around the next bend at a breakneck pace, making Piper feel even worse, seeing how much she’d really been slowing them down. The fastest they’d gone all day was a brisk and painful trot, and she knew it was because of her.
Reunited (Book 2 of Lost Highlander series) Page 15
