Taken

by Angeline Fortin

  “I appreciate the offer but I’m not much of a drinker.” Scarlett eyed the canteen dubiously. It was kind of like the swearing. Never knowing who might be watching had made her rather straight-laced.

  “Try it,” he urged, holding it out again. “I promise ye, ‘twill carry yer woes away.”

  “That’s highly unlikely.” But Scarlett considered the bag once more. Being woe-free sounded pretty damn good right then. “Oh, what the hell. If it will numb the madness of be carried through ti… the wilderness, I’ll give it a try.” Taking the bag, she lifted it to her lips and took a good long drink. Dragging in a deep breath, Scarlett shuddered as the burn of alcohol hit her gut and radiated through her. “Wow. I mean, wow.” Through watery eyes, she saw Laird’s pale eyes twinkling with humor though his expression was as solemn as ever. He reached for the bag, but Scarlett turned her shoulder to him and lifted it to her lips once more before handing it back. “What a nightmare that stuff is.”

  “And yet, already yer far more amiable.”

  Scarlett bit back a snort. “Ha, if that’s how that stuff works, you should drink up.”

  The corner of Laird’s mouth kicked up in a boyish grin that softened the severe scowl that he had been wearing since she first met him. His white teeth stood in stark contrast to his tanned skin and that short, scruffy beard. If he had been attractive before, that touch of humor made him devastatingly gorgeous.

  Holy Handsomeness Batman! He was just plain hot.

  His gaze never left hers as he tipped up the bag. The muscles in his neck strained and shifted as he took a short swallow but Scarlett shook her head. “No, keep drinking. I think it’ll take way more than that to make you more ‘amiable’.”

  His eyes glittered with humor but he upended the bag again.

  8

  Back at camp, Laird left her by the campfire and disappeared into the woods. One of his men, turning meat on a spit over the flames, offered to fix her a plate but Scarlett wasn’t hungry. Even if she had been, the hard bread and inconsistently charred yet bloody meat the men were eating would have only turned her stomach.

  Instead she cradled the skin of whiskey close as if the warm bag and its contents offered all the comfort and security of her childhood Teddy bear.

  Scarlett snorted at the thought and took another long pull from the bag. How appalling. There was nothing quite as pathetic as wallowing in self-pity. She grinned crookedly. Ha! It was a good thing then that she was choosing to indulge in the pleasant buzz of alcohol instead. No doubt she would be horribly hung over the next day but even with as much of a ‘nightmare’ the whiskey was, her life was fast becoming a bigger one. She had no idea how she had gotten herself into this impossible situation and no better idea how to get herself back out of it.

  Inconceivably, she had traveled through time without even a blue police box or a golden Time-Turner to aid her, and to her way of thinking, she hadn’t even gone anywhere good. What was there for her in sixteenth century Scotland? Though her studies for her degree had encompassed the works of the time, Old and Middle English literature weren’t her favored cup of tea. Beowulf had never resonated with her, and while the romance of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the Pearl Poet’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight bore some pleasurable elements, both of those authors were long dead by this particular point in history.

  What was there now but a yawning gap in notable literature? Fifteen… Damn, she’d been so overcome by the first half of the year, she hadn’t heard the actual year. Either way, the better part of the sixteenth century focused largely on moral and religious works. Or the occasional play. Poets like Spenser and Sidney or playwrights like Marlowe and Shakespeare weren’t even a thought yet.

  So why here? Why now? Or did it have nothing to do with her personally at all? What if it were all nothing more than a fluke? An accident? A wrong place, wrong time catastrophe?

  Stuck in the rolling grass of the Cheviot Hills with a horde of Lowland reivers?

  Scarlett studied Laird’s men as they gathered around the fire. She had caught a few of their names along the way. Odd names like Padraig, Cormac, Eideard and Murdo. That last one had given her a momentary pause. She thought the coarsely accented word had been ‘murder’ before she’d realized it was a name, not an intent. Like their names, the men were, to the last, a rough lot. Rough in speech – what she understood of it any way – and even more so in manners.

  Rhys with his too-slick polish was the lone hint of sophistication. As for Laird or whatever his name was, beyond offering her a drink, he hadn’t yet displayed enough manners good or bad to form an opinion.

  In fact, she hadn’t been offered much at all, Scarlett realized as she took another sip of the whiskey.

  No, she sat on the bare ground without a blanket to protect her from the growing chill of the night. Where was the vaunted chivalry of the time? The gentlemen who catered to a lady’s needs and wishes? These men were largely ignoring her, joking rudely with one another. Bragging about the women they’d had. Still, guys just being guys.

  Some things never changed, Scarlett hiccupped before tilting up the bag once more. Nevertheless, there was something about all of this that was niggled on the horizon of her alcohol-hazed mind. Something familiar.

  Bothwell, Laird had said his cousin’s name was. Why did she know that name? Achenmeade, too. It was there, just out of her grasp.

  Scarlett shrugged and pushed the thought away as she took another swig of the whiskey. It would come to her eventually.

  She could only hope that a way out of this whole nightmare would also present itself.

  WWBD, Scarlett thought tipsily. What would Buffy do? Somehow she doubted that the vampire slayer would have been any more successful than she in finding a quick fix to her unusual situation.

  His captive sat on the ground, hunched over his skin of whiskey as if it were her lifeline, James noted as he returned to the campsite. A long conversation with Rhys had revealed even more peculiarities about her. She’d asked Rhys many a question, simple things that anyone should know. The date. What a laird was. She insisted that she’d never rode a horse. Even more strangely, she’d seem to care naught that Laird was a bastard born.

  She was an oddity to be sure. Still James felt a grudging respect for her. Other than her initial panic when they’d left Dunskirk, the lass hadn’t quailed at all against her circumstances. None of the weeping and wailing he might have expected from a lady. Indeed, she looked him in the eye and spoke her mind. And not always kindly.

  She was a fighter. In more ways than one. He couldn’t help but admire that. But for all her sharp words and waspish ways, there was sadness in her troubled eyes. Of course, she had been kidnapped and taken against her will but James couldn’t help but think that there was some greater worry on her mind.

  The firelight cast his shadow over her and she looked up, then proceeded to list to the side in reward for her efforts. A short giggle punctuated by a snort escaped her as she set herself to rights. James fought to bite back a reluctant smile.

  It seemed she had chosen to drown her anxieties in drink.

  “Yer utterly blootered, aren’t ye?” James dropped down on the grass beside her and took the whiskey bag from her. Weighing it in his palm, he lifted a questioning brow. ‘Struth, she had actually drunk very little.

  The lass straightened her posture and pronounced with something akin to pride, “Yes, I am.” She then relaxed against his side, her voice softening like butter as the slight accent that had accompanied her speech all day extended into a long drawl. “Ahh, y’all have no idea. I’m a sweet tea kinda girl, honey. I never drink. Never. ‘Specially not the hard stuff since I’m such a lightweight.”

  “A light weight?” Yet again she was talking nonsense and James didn’t think the spirits were entirely to blame. There was something strange about the lass beyond her choice of words and her accent, though he’d be hard-pressed put to put a finger on what troubled him so. “Yer making even less sense
now.”

  “Ha! Like you’re Mr. Intelligible. Mr. Comprehensiveable… Comprehens… Ah, bless your heart, I can’t understand half of what y’all are talking about half the time either.” Scarlett frowned at her own words as James did the same. “Half of half. Wow, I am really fucked up, aren’t I? I wish I were more sober so I could appreciate it. Haha!”

  She snorted when she laughed and this time James couldn’t withhold the rare smile that sprang to his lips at the sound. For all her cantankerous words and nonsense, there was something improbably likeable about the chit and he wondered if he should be more wary of her given his uncharacteristic inclination to soften toward a foe. They didn’t know who she was, who her people were. The lass had told Rhys that she was from Memphis. Not the ancient Egyptian city but the Memphis of Tennessee. Neither of them had heard tell of such a place.

  And too, she claimed to know the bloody Queen of England. For all he knew, she could well be a spy or nothing more than his enemy’s kin.

  At best she was nothing more than a sickly, frail lass lacking clothing or possession of her own, in need of protection.

  His protection.

  If from nothing greater than herself.

  Shaking off the charitable urge, James lifted the skin of whiskey away and set it to the side. “Lass…”

  Bluidy hell, he didn’t even know her name.

  His captive canted sideways once more, rolling her face into his shoulder as she chuckled drunkenly. Snorting once more, her laughter drifting away with a long sigh punctuated by a hiccup. “May the good Lord help me if the papa – hic – razzi could see me now.”

  “I hae nae idea what that is.”

  “I know, I know,” she muttered into his shirt, curling her fingers into the woolen plaid across his shoulder. “You don’t even know what a camera is or a pic-ture or a movie or a …”

  James looked down at her as she melted against him, uncertain what to do. On and on the ramblings continued until they halted in a soft snore and he jostled her back to consciousness by setting her to rights once again. “Come, lass, to bed wi’ ye.”

  “But I don’t wanna go to bed,” she murmured though she allowed his assistance in rising, stumbling and swaying once so was upright.

  “Och, lass, ye do.”

  Swinging her into his arms as his men began to bed down for the night around the fire, James carried her a short distance away. He set her on her feet at the perimeter of the fire’s glow, and throwing off his sword, began to unbuckle his belt.

  “Hey, whoa there,” she slurred, weakly pressing her open hand against his chest. “I hardly know you.”

  “What?”

  “I might be a little tipsy… okay, more than a little, but I’m not that drunk,” she said, her voice clearing with every word. “We’re not going to sleep together.”

  “For certs, we are.” James dropped his belt and began to quickly unwind his kilt as the lass swayed on her feet.

  A cold splash of water couldn’t have cleared Scarlett’s head more rapidly than the sight of Laird so casually undressing. Holy crap, he was serious! “No, we aren’t!”

  “Aye, we are!”

  Laird grabbed at her wrist as Scarlett tried to scramble away and pulled her back against his rock-hard body. Horror clouded her mind as she struggled against him but Laird was stronger and probably far more lucid than she. Within seconds she was on the ground, pinned beneath him as he straddled her. Her hands immobilized over her head by his vice-like grip. Chest heaving with panic, Scarlett stared up at him.

  Never had she imagined something like this would happen. How could she have forgotten that the medieval times, for all their vaunted chivalry, was also a period of the rape/pillage mentality when it came to war? She didn’t want to become anyone’s plunder! Not even a guy like Laird. “You won’t… get any ransom if I’m… I’m harmed. In any way,” she warned brokenly as she twisted futilely beneath him.

  Laird’s grip eased and his eyes widened as comprehension dawned. Then he laughed at her. “Ye think I’m going to ravish ye, lass?”

  Confused, Scarlett stilled as she stared up at him. “I… I… Well, not anymore.”

  Stilling chuckling, Laird released her hands and lifted himself up on to his knees, still straddling her and intimidating, too, even if he wasn’t weighing down on her. “Worry no’, lass. Nae man wants a bag of bones in his bed on a cold night. We like a woman with some meat on her. Perhaps when ye’ve recovered from yer illness though, I might reconsider.”

  Relief swept through her at his assurance followed by mortification as he winked at her. Overriding it all was indignation. The mighty Laird of Achenmeade might not be very likeable and it wasn’t as if Scarlett wasn’t glad for his apathy in this particular instance, but she wasn’t used to being thought undesirable either. Since The Puppet War series had concluded and the geeky teen she had been blossomed into the swan the public adored, she had made a near career, between her college classes, of modeling for the covers of fashion magazines. Elle, Vogue, Cosmo. One photographer had said she was built for the runway. Victoria’s Secret had even asked her to model for their annual fashion show.

  No one had ever called her a bag of bones before. It was more than a little insulting.

  “I’m not sick,” she ground out for the hundredth time that day. Scarlett bent her knees, planting her feet. Lifting her hips, she launched him – perhaps not over her head as she planned – but at least off to the side with a satisfying lurch.

  Anger flashed in his eyes as he righted himself, then humor. “Mayhap no’ any longer.” He patted her hip as if that might console her.

  Warily, Scarlett pushed herself to her knees as he stood and continued to pull off his kilt, which unbelted turned out to be nothing more than a long length of wool. A quick glance back at the fire showed his men all doing the same thing, wrapping themselves in their woolen plaids.

  Pulling her tote over her head, she set it aside on a patch of grass but Laird kicked it out of the way, spreading the wool on the ground.

  “Hey, watch it!” she cried, snatching up the bag and brushing it off. “You can’t just kick it around like that. It’s Stella McCartney!”

  “Ye named yer bluidy bag?”

  Scarlett just shook her head, cradling the leather purse like a baby. There was no way to explain designers and fashion to a sixteenth-century Scottish laird but she had fallen in love with the soft brown leather tote with its silver chain link trim the moment she had seen it. A treat to herself for giving up so much for her parents.

  Now it and its contents were all she had in the world.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Laird only grunted, clearly in agreement and finished spreading the plaid. He dropped down on it, clad only in his long linen shirt and long stockings, and stretched himself out flicking an impatient wrist at her. Hugging the bag tighter, Scarlett made a face, which garnered her nothing more than a roll of his eyes.

  That wrist flicked insistently once more.

  Shrugging out of Rhys’ bulky jacket and putting it aside with her purse, Scarlett gingerly eased down beside Laird since the evening was already turning chilly but left a foot or more between them. With an impatient sigh, he none-too-gently yanked her close and wrapped the plaid tightly about them, ignoring her protests. “We must both bear it, lass, unless ye wish no’ only to be bound once more but to find yer death in the cold this night.”

  Well, there was no chance of that.

  Still she wasn’t happy with either option.

  Lord, she could feel the heat of his bare thighs through her thin dress. There was little standing between them. Laird seemed to read her thoughts, whispering when she began to protest once more, “When we reach Crichton on the morrow, we will find you some more appropriate clothing.”

  As if the offer of clothing could make it all better.

  Spooned against his big body within the cocoon of his plaid, Scarlett lay stiffly for as long as she could. The proximity o
f his massive body was unnerving, but fatigue and the effects of the whiskey lulled her.

  After a historically crappy day, she felt oddly safe cradled against his solid warmth with the steady rhythm of his heart beating against her back. Logically she should have been terrified of what was happening but in that moment her worries faded and she slowly relaxed against him.

  It didn’t matter that she didn’t like him at all.

  She could resume hating him in the morning.

  9

  It wasn’t hard to identify the searing brand pressed against her bottom for what it was. Scarlett sighed and sleepily wiggled her bottom, and was rewarded by a hard, manly – and rather pleasurable – nudge. “Mmm.”

  Warm breaths tickled erotically at the back of her bare neck, sending a shiver down her spin. Scarlett stretched, arching away languorously and into the calloused palm curled about her bare breast. Snuggling back again, she covered the hand with her own and pressed it tightly against her.

  A low grumble vibrated through the hard chest pressed against her back, accompanied by a groggy murmur of desire. Soft lips nuzzled her nape, a beard-roughened chin chaffing against her tender flesh. The fingers covering her breast tightened, then kneaded. Another hand clasped her hip, pulling her back against the rampant erection straining against her. “Mmm, that’s nice,” she purred drowsily, reaching behind her to run her fingers up the well-muscled arm that held her.

  The hand withdrew but a moment later it was back, searing against the bared skin of her thigh. Pushing her dress higher until that rough palm cupped her ass and a sizzling length of male erection nudged against her, sliding with delicious friction against her bottom with only the thin barrier of her panties between them. Her flesh blazoned in the wake of his caress as the hand skimmed over her hip and belly, lured by the mounting heat between her thighs.