A Time & Place for Every Laird

by Angeline Fortin

  “Nae, I cannae say that I hae ne’er done so,” he conceded. “Even as recently as the battle at Culloden it was so, as a soldier has few options when in the field. But I again remind ye that I hae also dined wi’ kings. The appropriate silver was always wielded wi’ each course.”

  “How many courses?” she asked curiously, catching a drop of butter off her chin with a fingertip before licking it away in a manner that once again sent Hugh’s thoughts skewing. She thought she was the only one affected by their flirtation? The lass could set his blood on fire with an innocent gesture!

  “What? Och, upwards of a dozen at times,” he answered, and Sorcha’s brows rose.

  “I can’t even imagine,” she said, dabbing at her mouth with a paper towel, much to Hugh’s regret. “What was it like? King Frederick’s palace?”

  So, they ate on while Hugh regaled her with stories of court, comparing the simplicity of traditional Scottish meals with the rich French cuisine that was all the rage on the Continent. From there he began recalling some more ridiculous moments, such as the pageants and plays that would be performed, often with a man or two heavily rouged and dressed as women, as well as some more cultural ones, such as the orchestras assembled to perform the King’s work.

  It was astonishing to Hugh to discover that his descriptions of the clothing worn at court were of equal amusement to her. Oh, she punctuated his accounts of the ladies’ garb, silks and satins crusted with gemstones and dripping with lace, with “oohs” and “ahs,” but describing a gentlemen in the same seemed to tickle her immensely. Though Hugh had powdered his hair as a concession to fashion on occasion, he found himself glad that he could honestly deny ever having worn a wig or jeweled heels.

  With such a reaction, Hugh felt he might have cried like a bairn in her arms and maintained more respect as a man in her eyes than the fashionable wearing of lace and satin allowed him. It was yet another aspect of this strange time to puzzle over.

  Eventually, Sorcha sat back in her chair, wiped her fingers, and removed her bib, leaving Hugh to conquer the remaining mountain of seafood alone. She nursed her second mug while Becky solicitously brought one porter after another for him. Just as Hugh would reach the bottom of one, another would appear at his elbow.

  When the last shell had been shucked and the last bit of fish consumed, Hugh sat back with a sigh of contentment and raised his mug to his lips once again. “Most satisfactory.”

  “Sorry I can’t feed you so well all the time.”

  “Ye hae done verra well, lass. Ye a far more skilled cook than I in any case.”

  “I think we both know how much of a compliment that truly is,” she said drily, and Hugh chuckled. “We already determined that as a duke you have no practical skill in the kitchen.”

  The sound of his laughter seemed to draw the waitress like a magnet, for within seconds Becky was there once more. She watched him from beneath her lashes as she cleared away the leftover bits and the bowl of shells. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked. “Another beer? Or dessert maybe?”

  Sorcha shook her head at the eager girl and asked with a raised brow, “Anything else, Hugh? Dessert?” The last was drawled out with a touch of humor.

  Hugh gave his denial to the waitress and asked for the check as he had seen Sorcha do before. As Becky walked away, Sorcha gave a little laugh as she finished her second beer. The alcohol had softened her through the course of the meal. He had not yet seen her so relaxed. “She would have served herself up for dessert if you had asked her to, Hugh.”

  Glancing after the retreating waitress, Hugh knew Sorcha’s teasing words were true enough. If he dared to say so aloud, she would no doubt laugh and call him conceited or some such but truth was truth. With his looks, position, and wealth, Hugh had never lacked for female company. Offers for affairs or single nights were common enough, and Becky was a bonny young lass. Doubtlessly, she would make a satisfying bedmate.

  But she wasn’t what Hugh wanted. She wasn’t who he wanted. He had seen enough women in this time—whether on the television or in passing—to know that there were many attractive ones. The abundance of cosmetics saw to that, but none could compare to Sorcha’s ravishing beauty, her auburn locks, beautiful eyes, and beguiling smiles, or to the spirit of her soul or the caring in her heart that had saved his life.

  Becky returned to the table, but Hugh couldn’t spare her even a look this time. His focus was on Sorcha as she counted out a large sum of money from their meager funds and tucked it into a black folder.

  Not only had the time come to start thinking of the uncertain future that loomed before him but the time had also come to consider his path to a more equitable relationship with Sorcha. To offer recompense for more than she provided him, whether it be given in humor or funds. It was time to discover a way to truly pay her back for all she had given.

  “Ready?”

  Hugh nodded and stood to pull her chair back. He followed her through the restaurant, watching her hair swing back and forth hypnotically as she walked.

  The sun was beginning to dip behind the mountains to the west, a sign that the day was nearly done and it was time to return to their island hideaway, but Hugh was hesitant to do so. Much had occurred between them in the hours since their departure that morning. They had moved from anger and wariness to friendship. They had gone from an arm’s length to the warmth of Sorcha’s body pressed against him as she held his arm. They had changed the rules for the behavior that guided them, allowing for flirtation, for touch, and his fingers already itched to do so.

  It wasn’t his habit to care so deeply for a woman, to like her so well. Hugh’s past relationships had been distant and oddly professional. He’d kept an occasional mistress but had found ample company among the ladies at court; each had sought to gain something, whether it be wealth or notoriety, from him. There had never been a more serious flirtation, nor had he seriously courted a woman with intent of marriage. In his time and in his position, marriage was a business, not a romance, and at some point in his life, Hugh would have approached it as such.

  Of course, that might have been why their mourning period was more unemotional and methodical as well. He knew men and women alike who might have declared love for their mistress or lover, but could think of none, including his uncle and aunt, who claimed it for their spouse.

  He had not ever before experienced, nor could he think of another who had admitted to experiencing, anything like this overwhelming desire he felt for Sorcha. It was provocative and frustrating, fraught with both freedom and possessiveness. His arms ached to enfold her and his body yearned to be encompassed by hers. Never in all his days had he simply wanted so profoundly what could not truly be his.

  How was he to go back to that quiet house with her, with nothing to think about but her? How he could bear wanting her so, flirting and teasing, knowing all the while that another man held her heart?

  Chapter 25

  Day Five

  “Wow. No wonder they want to keep this secret,” Sorcha said, setting aside the binder filled with the information Danny had printed for them the previous day as Hugh looked up from the stack of old newspapers he had been working his way through while she read through the technical report.

  She rubbed her eyes with a sigh before lifting her head to stare out the window, but Hugh wasn’t certain if she was truly seeing the misting rain and rolling waters at all. She looked dazed and introspective, but since Sorcha had spent the whole of the previous evening and most of the morning poring over the contents of the thick binder, Hugh couldn’t blame her.

  Nor did he rush to ask about what she had discovered. A part of him wanted to know, but as he had conceded the previous day, there was probably nothing in the report that would be able to change his circumstances. Perhaps the only good they might truly derive from it was the knowledge of what they were up against.

  So, instead of asking, Hugh went into the kitchen and poured her another cup of coffee, preparing it as he ha
d learned she preferred it, with little coffee and large amounts of sugar and flavored cream. Returning to the library, he pressed it into her hands and went to the fireplace, stoking the flames and adding more wood to fight the lingering morning chill. He loved the room with its huge stacked stone fireplace, clean white painted shelves, soft green walls, deep, comfortable furniture, and wealth of books.

  With Sorcha there with him.

  As she had said, it was easy to become spoiled.

  “Are you going to ask?”

  She was hugging her mug in both hands, peering at him curiously over the brim as Hugh returned to the sofa they had been sharing and sat next to her. Not too close; Hugh was finding that her permission to flirt had made her proximity an almost unbearable temptation. “I’m sure ye will tell me when yer prepared tae do so.”

  “But you don’t really want to know any more, do you?”

  She was coming to know him so well. “I believe I need tae know.”

  Sorcha nodded solemnly. “So do you want the gritty details or just the Cliffs Notes version?”

  “One day ye might hae tae tell me what these ‘Cliffs Notes’ are,” Hugh teased, reaching out to tweak her chin but pulling away before he made contact. A brief caress of that silky skin would not be enough now. “’Tis a rainy day with little else tae do, so tell me all if it pleases ye tae do so.”

  “What? Oh, right,” she said, casting him a sidelong glance, as if the request was at odds with her thoughts. “Let me start with the basics then. Do you know what a wormhole is, Hugh?”

  No, but Hugh didn’t ever want to admit such ignorance again. Instead, he only raised a brow. “Okay, how about a black hole?” she asked, then sighed. “Gravity?”

  Hugh scowled at that. “As ye said, I am nae simpleton, Sorcha.”

  “Okay, imagine a body in space with a gravitational pull stronger than light,” she said, prompting a vague recollection.

  “Aye, there was a man, an Englishman, I cannae recall his name but he was a rotund, dark-faced man … a member of the Royal Society, who experimented with gravity and magnetism. He theorized such a thing,” Hugh said, tapping a finger on his lips as he tried to remember the details of the brief discussion. “Something about a heavenly body so massive that light couldnae escape it. Is that what you are referring tae?”

  “Right. A black hole.”

  “He said ye cannae see it. ’Twas only a theory.”

  “That has become truth. The reason you can’t see it is because it won’t reflect light, but we know where they are because they pull on other objects around them.” She paused, then asked, “With me so far?”

  Hugh nodded, and she continued. “Jump through history to the theory that a black hole is a region of space/time. A combination of the two, okay? A wormhole—and I am going to be incredibly simplistic here so don’t beat me up over it after you read a textbook on the subject—would be like two black holes meeting in the middle, like a tunnel with each end in a different space/time, connecting two points even a million miles away from each other with a pathway between. They always use the example of a folded piece of paper where two ends that were far apart are suddenly right next to each other.” Sorcha drew two dots on the back of one of the pages in the binder, representing them as black holes and bending the page so that the dots met as a demonstration.

  Hugh nodded again. He could visualize that. “Carry on.”

  “These wormholes aren’t constant. Again, it’s all theory—I mean, we don’t know, because we haven’t been there to see it—but we think they form and collapse pretty quickly and they exist at a Planck-scale level. I mean, it’s far below subatomic levels …” She paused at his petulant scowl. “It’s really, really, really small. So small that it is pointless to try to physically measure them. Anyway, at that level it’s believed that space/time is unstable and chaotic. They call it quantum foam, and the wormholes form pretty easily in those conditions.

  “Most of the quantum wormholes in the foam lead only a few Planck-lengths away. About this far,” Sorcha said, pressing her thumb and forefinger together with no space between. “But sometimes they can span light-years or even across the universe. Well, one theory leads to another and someone gets the idea that you can cross through it. Then comes the idea of a transversible wormhole that says you should be able to go back and forth across it. But all in all it’s a naturally occurring event.”

  “In space,” he clarified.

  “Yes, in space. That’s what makes this whole thing so weird,” Sorcha told him, picking up the binder and idly flipping through the pages. “There’s this organization called INSCOM—it’s an acronym; the military is big on them. It stands for U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. Basically they are the covert sector of the Army tasked with counterintelligence, information warfare, and electronic warfare.”

  “They’re spies?”

  Claire waggled her hand back and forth. “It’s a gray area. It’s hard to be an Army wife without getting a feel for these kinds of things. I would say they are spies as much as they wage a little warfare electronically themselves. These days you can cripple a nation with just a few keystrokes.”

  Hugh only raised his brow. “Verra well. Carry on.”

  “Okay, so this whole thing started when INSCOM contracted DARPA—another acronym that stands for Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. DARPA is a military think tank paid by the government agencies to just spout out new ideas. Mark-Davis works with them a lot, kind of like two brains in the same head. Apparently there are places already that can create a wormhole, but DARPA has been trying to develop a way to take one of those short-lived wormholes, stabilize it, and expand it for macroscopic use … Making it big enough to actually see. They want to trap one end and stabilize it using negative energy. Theoretically, negative energy is the stuff that caused the initial inflation of the early universe.”

  “The early universe?”

  “Are you too early for the Big Bang Theory?” she asked, but read Hugh’s closed expression well enough to know there would be no answer forthcoming. She rubbed her eyes again, tiredly. “Oh, I so don’t want to argue creationism with you right now. Let’s just leave it at the idea that with this negative energy, you could open one end of a wormhole and expand it, okay? Are you with me so far?”

  Surprisingly enough, he was. Other than a few of her terms, Sorcha’s explanation had been simple enough so far. “So how are they employing this power?”

  “DARPA hooked up with Dr. Fielding to start developing new surveillance technology for INSCOM using wormholes. Basically, they started out wanting to be able to open a tiny wormhole into a room or area where bad guys are meeting or whatever. From their end, they could open a large enough one to send through a small camera or a microphone so they could see and listen to conversations even in bunkers far underground. It would be virtually undetectable.”

  “Would they truly attempt something so far-fetched?” Hugh asked after a moment’s thought. “It doesnae sound like ye believe it either.”

  “I wouldn’t normally but since INSCOM is part of the same organization that tried to develop parapsychologic methods in the seventies and eighties, I guess I can’t be too surprised. They were trying for this thing called remote viewing, where a psychic or seer could look into the minds of people across the world and see what they were planning.”

  Hugh snorted at that. “And ye think my time was filled with witchcraft and other such nonsense!”

  “I agree with you on that point.”

  “But if a wormhole is a natural phenomenon, how are they controlling it?”

  Sorcha shuffled through the pages once more, obviously not searching for an answer but occupying her hands. “An electrical charge—we’ve gone over electricity, right?—well, the charge steers the destination end of the wormhole, which stays on Earth rather than taking off across space because it is the nearest gravity well to the opening. I mean, it could go somewhere else but the tendency is for it t
o stay on Earth. But it requires vast amounts of power. We’re talking a whole grid devoted to keeping this thing running for just a few minutes, so they can’t keep it on all the time.”

  Hugh nodded as he processed the information she had provided. “So how did I get involved in all of this?”

  “Well, now that’s where Fielding really screwed up—or I guess found their moneymaker, depending on how you look at it. They found out through a little trial and a lot of error that if the power was shut off abruptly rather than slowly backing it down, the negative energy construct—the force that was holding the wormhole open—would just collapse. As the negative energy collapses, it momentarily enlarges the wormhole. Think of it as an implosion followed by a larger explosion. When this happened, the opening would enlarge and last for a second or two, leaving no trace once it was gone. Fielding stumbled onto a gold mine here, Hugh. That is why the NSA was called in on this whole thing. The government agencies are notorious about not wanting to share their toys, and INSCOM obviously doesn’t want this ability to become common knowledge among the other agencies or our allies. Can you imagine the power in being able to get somewhere, knowing that there was no way for anyone to track your movements?” she asked. “I mean, they can’t keep this thing open for long with their current energy source. It wouldn’t be long enough to send troops through, for example, but it would probably stay open long enough to kidnap or assassinate someone. Or at least long enough to toss a bomb through.”

  “Or to have an innocent passerby fall into it.”

  “Yeah, that too,” Sorcha said, her voice ripe with sympathy. Hugh pushed off the sofa and went to the window, staring just as blankly as she had before. She continued softly, and he knew that the worst was yet to come. “I think that the trouble my friend Darcy was referring to is that Dr. Fielding hasn’t been able to nail down the destination point at all, and if he can’t do that, then what’s the point, right?”