Morgaine’s eyes were round. “He killed him?”
“Aye, or at the least his man finished the deed once ’twas begun. To have done so in the holy sanctuary of a church was no small sin and I can only believe that the Robert the Bruce I know and serve would have had just cause. I heard tell that John had betrayed Robert’s plans to the English and done so far too soon for comfort, but ’tis not a topic upon which Robert the Bruce will tolerate discussion.”
Morgaine frowned at that and might have protested, but Alasdair continued determinedly with his tale. “’Twas certain the English would hunt any man who killed one of their own—let alone one conspiring to make himself king—and war was in the wind once more. Robert the Bruce hied himself to Scone, his supporters in his wake.”
Alasdair smiled, recalling that sunny summer’s day they had lolled on Moot Hill and heard the tale recounted. “Imagine the sight, if you dare. A fine spring day, a heatherclad hill and pennants snapping in the breeze, great stallions of war stamping on the perimeter.
“’Twas the 25th of March, some twenty years after the death of Alexander III, that Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scots in the Abbey of Scone. He was attended by three bishops and four earls, together the eight most powerful men in this bonnie land.”
Alasdair leaned toward the sorceress and lowered his voice. “’Tis said the MacDuff clan have the ancient right to set the crown upon the brow of the Kings of Alba—this blood courses through the veins of the Earl of Fife. That man was imprisoned in England but his sister, Isobel of Buchan, defied her husband’s allegiance to both Edward of England and John Comyn. She rode in haste and at considerable risk to herself to fulfill her family duty.”
“How exciting!” Morgaine’s eyes sparkled.
“Aye, there were those who said Isobel loved the Bruce more than her own spouse, and ’twas that alone that set her course.” He shrugged. “Whatever the truth, the lass was two days late for the coronation, by all accounts. All the same, Robert the Bruce had her place the golden circlet upon his brow once again. ’Twas Palm Sunday and Scotland again had her rightful king.”
The enchantress frowned. “But you said that Edward took the Stone of Destiny away.”
“Aye.” Alasdair smiled at the intent sorceress, liking that she listened well. He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “There are those who say he stole a fraud, and that the true stone was hidden away. Those who knew the truth unveiled the real stone for the crowning of the Bruce.”
Morgaine sighed. “That’s so romantic.”
Alasdair nodded grimly, not able to pinpoint precisely why it troubled him so to find the sorceress prey to the Bruce’s legendary allure. “Aye, Robert has always been one to turn a lassie’s eye, that much is for certain.”
“But wasn’t Edward still ready to make war?”
“Aye, that he did. You may well believe that once he heard the tale of the coronation, he bayed for blood. Robert the Bruce managed to flee and came himself to my island, seeking recruits to his cause.”
Alasdair cleared his throat as he pushed recollections from his mind. “At the time, it suited me well to join his ranks.”
“But…” Morgaine looked perplexed.
“But what?” Alasdair echoed irritably. There had been protests aplenty when he joined the Bruce, but Alasdair had no interest in hearing them again now. “Do you think it so unnatural for a man to wish to see his homeland freed of the iron fist of the English?”
Morgaine looked dumbfounded.
In truth, for a sorceress of rare power, she was markedly easy to surprise.
“But the war is over…”
“Over?” To think that she would tell him another falsehood after he shared this noble tale! “’Tis far from over and you know the truth as well as I!”
Alasdair bounced to his feet in outrage, tugging his tartan from beneath her with such force that she nearly rolled away. “I know well enough that you support their cause, but listen to me well, my lady. There can be no excuse for the rape and slaughter Edward and his kin have made of this fair land.”
Morgaine looked exasperated. “But they’re all dead!”
Alasdair straightened and impaled her with a glance. “Who would be dead, by your account?” he asked coldly.
“Robert the Bruce, for one.” She ran a hand over her brow. “I mean you talk as though you know him, but…”
“I do know Robert the Bruce!” Alasdair propped his hands on his hips. “I have served beneath his hand for seven years and have yet to regret one single day of that service.”
“But…”
“Morgan! There you are!” Justine crowed.
The sorceress looked as dismayed as Alasdair felt at the interruption of her advisors. Justine and Blake descended on them, their wide smiles remarkably at odds with Alasdair’s jaggly mood.
“Should we head out? Blake’s found the most wonderful little place where we can stay tonight.”
The pair acted as though there was naught amiss.
“Is it to Lewis you would take me?” Alasdair asked suspiciously.
Blake pushed the device up his nose. “Look, I’m sorry we misunderstood each other before. It’s going to take a couple of days to get there, you know, it’s pretty far.”
Alasdair knew well enough that the road was long from Faerie to the mortal world. But how much earthly time passed with each moment here?
Blake smiled. “Trust me, that’s where we’re going.”
Trust him.
Alasdair hated that he had little option other than to do exactly that if he meant to see his home again. Morgaine frowned now, as deep in thought as Alasdair had ever seen and clearly not following the conversation around her. The sorceress looked as though she intended to be of little use to him in this, although she could addle his wits in splendid fashion.
Was his fate no more than a game to her?
Alasdair wondered at his own sense that Justine fairly held her breath, awaiting his approval. “Please, Alasdair,” she cajoled with a smile that appeared genuine. “We’re on the way now, anyway.”
Alasdair had never been fond of moments when he had few options. He thought of his wedding day and his mood worsened considerably.
He sighed, then nodded grimly. “I will continue to journey with you.” When Blake and Justine smiled happily, Alasdair slanted a glance to Morgaine.
One last matter was there to resolve.
The advisors trotted back toward the Micra, evidently busily planning some scheme or other and he waited until they were out of earshot.
Then, Alasdair bent low to growl to Morgaine alone. “Understand that I travel with you because I have no other choice. But make no mistake, my lady, I will not readily countenance your lies about the man of honor I follow.”
“But…”
“But naught!” Alasdair interrupted her savagely before she could concoct some tale to beguile him. He glowered at her sternly. “So long as you insist the English have vanquished the Scots and that Robert the Bruce is dead, ’twill be me who is not speaking with you.”
With that, Alasdair followed Blake and Justine, leaving Morgaine to trail in his wake.
Alasdair said he knew Robert the Bruce.
Personally.
Was he nuts?
Or was he telling the truth? From their first meeting, Morgan had thought those blue eyes revealed his thoughts with unreal clarity. He believed without a shadow of a doubt everything he had just told her.
Morgan could see it in his eyes.
But did that mean she should believe it, too? Because if Alasdair was telling the truth and he wasn’t nuts, then he had to have come from the past.
Morgan watched him stride away and wondered.
What if Alasdair were lost from another time? His attitude about nearly everything could be explained if he had just arrived from the fourteenth century, but even Morgan’s imagination had a hard time accepting that.
Maybe he was an actor who really got into his roles. That was easier to accept, but left three really big loose ends dangling.
How could Alasdair have changed their guidebooks?
And, even tougher, how could he have changed Blake and Justine’s memories of Scottish history?
And why didn’t he show up in her photograph? Morgan chewed her lip and trailed behind the others.
Unless Alasdair’s coming forward in time had changed history.
It couldn’t be true. There had to be a logical explanation, but logic had never been Morgan’s strong suit. She was intuitive, and her intuition was screaming Yes! at the very idea of Alasdair traveling through time.
Morgan rubbed her temple as the trio marched away from her and tried not to flash back to math class and the torture of making geometric proofs. Not having had enough sleep didn’t make thinking this through any easier.
She meekly piled into her place in the Micra, vaguely aware of Justine describing some romantic hotel that a nice woman from Cincinnati had told them about.
Morgan twiddled the heather in her fingers, liking that Alasdair had given it to her and not liking that she liked that.
But if Alasdair was a fourteenth-century highlander, then he wasn’t a con man. In fact, if he had had the crystal from the regalia in his possession before he traveled through time, that could explain why it was missing and no one remembered it ever being there. Alasdair could have changed history.
Morgan really didn’t like how reassuring she found the logic of that. No one could zip across six or seven centuries.
Could they?
And if they did, would it turn Robert the Bruce from hero to scoundrel?
It was all just too confusing. Morgan leaned back in her corner of the back seat and pretended to doze, watching Alasdair through her lashes all the while.
Okay, first the con man scenario. For a smooth talker, Alasdair hadn’t seemed to be particularly goal-oriented or even very smooth. He had promised not to try and get the crystal from her, which was supposedly the only thing he wanted.
And he had saved her from those thugs.
And if Alasdair was after bigger spoils than the crown jewel of Scotland, well, wouldn’t he have at least asked what kind of asset base the three of them had?
Nope, the con man scenario had some definite weaknesses.
Blake pulled out onto the highway and silence descended in the car. The humming of the Micra was quite soothing, as were Justine’s murmured directions. Alasdair seemed to slowly relax beside Morgan and Morgan herself realized just how tired she really was.
Now, if Alasdair was an actor, she reasoned as that man stared out the window, he just could be really getting into playing his role. But the castle said they didn’t hire actors and he never missed a beat in not understanding modern stuff.
In fact, Alasdair seemed to find the contemporary world awfully confusing. She would expect a medieval guy to be just about as frustrated as Alasdair obviously was.
Morgan suddenly remembered how the highlander’s manner had changed in the tower when he heard her name. What had he called her?
Morgaine le Fee. And he still insisted on calling her Morgaine. Well, Morgan had read enough fairy tales to catch that reference.
Morgaine le Fee, the sister of King Arthur who went over to the Dark Side. Morgan chewed her lip. Was that who he thought she was? He did talk a lot about her kingdom and this foul world.
Did he think he was trapped in some domain of sorcery?
Morgan’s lips twitched unwillingly. She didn’t want to laugh at him but it was funny to think of herself as the powerful Evil Queen of all she surveyed.
“Luke,” a tiny voice in her mind breathed raspily, “Come over to the Dark Side.”
It would have been funnier if it didn’t make so much sense.
And it would make even more sense to a fourteenth-century man. How else could he explain the modern world? It was obviously a magical illusion that couldn’t be trusted.
The capricious realm of Faerie.
Morgan’s mind ran in circles, trying to find another explanation but without success. The only option that accommodated everything that had happened was that Alasdair really had come from the past.
After all, he thought Blake’s glasses were a torture device.
Morgan fidgeted but couldn’t get comfortable against the hard, vibrating wall of the car. She eyed Alasdair and noticed that his head had dipped forward.
Her heart contracted in sympathy. If she was right—and Morgan’s gut told her she was—he was probably one confused highlander. Alasdair probably hadn’t slept too well on that park bench either.
She couldn’t blame him for getting a bit testy about the whole thing. Of course, he didn’t think that was Scone—it would have changed an awful lot in almost seven hundred years. Why, Blake had said that the palace dated from the sixteenth century.
Morgan’s natural compassion came to the fore. Somehow she had to help Alasdair—the only question was how.
And that was a biggie. Morgan watched Alasdair doze and felt her own energy run low. All this thinking was making it easy to remember that she hadn’t slept much the night before either.
And Alasdair’s shoulder looked like a much better place to lean her head, especially since she now knew that he wasn’t some dastardly criminal.
His gran was right, she thought with a little smile, Alasdair was all bark and no bite. He made a lot of noise but right now looked as easy-going as a big warm pussycat. She couldn’t imagine a safer place to curl up and sleep than right beside him.
Of course, Alasdair might have other ideas.
Morgan straightened cautiously, but the highlander didn’t stir. She glanced forward, but Justine and Blake seemed oblivious to anything going on in the back seat.
Morgan sidled closer and leaned her arm tentatively against Alasdair’s muscled strength.
He didn’t even move.
In fact, he seemed to breathe more deeply.
Morgan took that as encouragement and carefully leaned her head against his shoulder. She closed her eyes, letting herself luxuriate in the masculine heat of his skin.
It had been so very long.
She stared at his hand through her lashes, liking how his strong fingers splayed across his knee. Morgan gave herself permission to imagine just a little bit.
What if she had been born in the fourteenth century? What if she had been, like Isobel of Buchan, a woman smitten with a brave and bold man? In her mind’s eye, the pennants snapped and the horses stomped around that heather-clad hill.
Fierce isosceles triangles bristled around the perimeter, threatening the idyllic setting with protractors and sharp compasses, each demanding that two of their angles be proven equal without delay. They came closer, their points menacing, and Morgan forgot everything she had ever pretended to know about mathematical proofs.
She was at their mercy!
A single lusty roar sent the triangles suddenly scattering to the four winds. Angels sang, Morgan heaved a sigh of relief, and the world was safe from geometry again.
The hero responsible, garbed in disreputable-looking plaid, stormed through the proud steeds. He dispatched a few errant slide rules with a sweep of his broadsword, then headed directly for Morgan with purpose in his step.
And when Morgan lifted the golden circlet of Scotland’s crown in her hands, it was Alasdair who dropped to one knee before her, flashing those magnificent legs as he did.
Then he tipped back his head and met Morgan’s gaze. She stared into the fathomless blue of his eyes and smiled ever so slowly.
And Alasdair smiled back, the twinkle in his eye sending a flush of anticipation dancing over her skin. Morgan felt herself bend toward him, cup his face in her hands, and lower her lips to his.
It was a good thing for Morgan’s resistance that she was too tired to tingle from head to toe. She managed to savor the dream moment for about that long, then her eyes drifted completely closed.
Alasdair was having a wonderful dream. ’Twas such a rare marvel that he had no desire to awaken.
Because indeed there could be naught finer than having a compliant Morgaine le Fee nestled in his arms.
His memory supplied the sweet rosy scent of her, his hands recalled the softness of her fair skin as well as if they yet held her close. Alasdair could even feel the tangle of her dark hair winding around his fingers.
And in his dream, her allure held no hidden serpent’s bite.
Through the filter of his lashes, Alasdair could see Morgaine lying within his embrace, her own eyes closed, her ebony lashes stark against her skin, her ruby lips parted in soft invitation. She was nearly in his lap, the sweet weight of her curves pressed so wondrously against him.
And Alasdair wanted her. The urge that had tormented him since first he spied the sorceress seemed to have trebled in his sleep. And here, he was safe to indulge his desire.
Unable to deny temptation, Alasdair leaned over the lady. She stirred and her witchy green eyes opened lazily.
The welcoming smile that curved her lips was lethal to any uncertainty lingering within Alasdair. Before he risked awakening, he bent and captured her lips with his.
And to his astonished delight, the sorceress rose to meet his embrace. Her hands slipped around his neck and she pulled him closer, as though she hungered for his touch as desperately as he desired hers.
Morgaine was sweeter than the first spring honey and made him more dizzy than the strongest mead. Alasdair gathered her close and slanted his lips possessively across hers, swallowing her low moan of delight. His hand slid over her delicacy and cupped her breast of its own accord.
When his thumb found her turgid nipple—a sure sign of her arousal—it near undid him. Alasdair caressed the taut bead, sliding his fingers over her, rolling the nipple betwixt thumb and finger.
Morgaine gasped and arched against his hand, her tongue tangling provocatively with his own. Her kiss turned demanding, as though she would devour him whole, and Alasdair was more than willing to return her ardor.
He feasted upon her, sampling her sweetness deeply, enflamed by the way she clutched his hair in her tiny hands. He gathered her up and her breasts pressed against his chest, the tautness of her nipples making his heart thunder in his ears. His exploring fingers found the ripe curve of her buttocks just as she moaned and rolled her tongue within his ear. The heat raged over his flesh and Alasdair made to roll her beneath him.
Only to bump shoulder, knee and head against some confines that seemed vaguely familiar.
Alasdair’s eyes flew open and his heart sank when he found himself battling the enclosures of the blue Micra.
Blake and Justine were gone, the sides of the vehicle somehow open to the crisp bite of the wind. The chariot sat on a point of land, a mirror of shimmering water stretched before them.
Yet on the far shore stood a stone keep, its walls crumbling but obviously of Alasdair’s own world. He could smell the faint tinge of salt in the wind and knew the sea could not be far away.
He truly was home in the land of mortals!
But there was one particular immortal yet sprawled in his lap.
A hard lump rose in Alasdair’s throat as he realized he had indeed kissed the sorceress with rare abandon. His dream had held some vestige of reality, indeed, but the lady’s pleasure could not be the truth of it. Alasdair barely dared to look down and see Morgaine’s wrath.
But look he did. And the flushed Morgaine he found looking shyly up at him did not look wrathful at all.
In fact, the delicate blush gracing her cheeks and the mischievous glint in her eyes moved the hard lump somewhat lower than his throat.
“Wow,” she breathed, then smiled enchantingly. “What a way to wake up.”
And awakened Alasdair undoubtedly was. He was home! Or close enough that he could return to Lewis alone. These hills could be nowhere other than his own beloved Scotland and he knew he could find someone to direct him on his way.
He had returned from the land of Faerie.
And the Lady Morgaine had made it so.
Alasdair’s delight was such that he wanted to sing aloud, bellow some long and boisterous tune that would set every toe to tapping.
But then, he thought of a much better way to celebrate. Alasdair bent and kissed the sorceress again with the thoroughness the situation deserved.
Morgan was drowning in sensation.
And the last thing she wanted was to be saved. Alasdair’s kiss was the best thing she had tasted in a long, long time. The strength of his hands moved over her in an endless caress, the gentle sweep of his touch almost reverential.
Morgan had never felt so treasured. And yet, the heat of his erection pressed against her hip, the size of it leaving no doubt of his desire.
He wanted her. Morgan could barely wrap her mind around the incredible concept, but she didn’t care.
She just didn’t want this moment to end.
And she didn’t want Alasdair to change his mind. A decade of denied desire came to her rescue and Morgan kissed the highlander as though she would never have another chance to kiss a man again.
Because she might not.
The reassurance of her technique thrust against her hip. Alasdair groaned and gathered her closer and Morgan rubbed her breasts against the broad strength of his chest. One hand cupped her nape, his other hand slipped beneath her sweater.
Morgan caught her breath when his hand closed with gentle possessiveness over her breast. The heat of his palm was bare against her skin and Morgan praised the day she had abandoned brassieres. She opened her eyes and stared into the endless blue of Alasdair’s gaze, their noses almost touching.
He slid his hand across her tight nipple and Morgan moaned softly. It was more than a little reassuring to hear him catch his breath, as well.
“What would you have of me?” he whispered huskily and Morgan knew they both knew the answer to that.
Before she could question her impulse, she moved to straddle him. He inhaled sharply when she sat down, and wriggled herself against his hardness. Her leggings and his kilt seemed to be no barrier at all, and Morgan rocked before she could stop herself.
“Morgaine!” Alasdair leaned forward, captured her lips with his and simultaneously drove himself against Morgan in one lightning-quick move.
Morgan barely realized that she was pinned against the back of Justine’s seat before the seat unexpectedly flopped toward the dashboard. It wasn’t a very timely reminder of how the front seats tipped to allow access to the back.
Morgan squeaked at the sudden release of the catch, Alasdair growled, then he was sprawled clumsily on top of her. They came to an inelegant halt when the seat back was almost completely horizontal.
It wasn’t exactly a picture-perfect love scene. Alasdair looked so astonished that Morgan almost laughed out loud. She caught a glimpse of one very tight and muscular buttock beyond a sea of plaid.
Then, she did laugh.
Alasdair looked at her as though she was crazy, his astonishment changing slowly to male outrage when Morgan couldn’t stop laughing.
“I see naught amusing about our embrace,” he began to huff, but Morgan pointed to his bare butt.
“It’s true,” she managed to choke out. “It’s really true.”
“You find my buttocks a source of amusement?” Alasdair demanded.
“Not at all,” Morgan said. “They’re magnificent.”
Alasdair inhaled sharply. “Then you mock my embrace!” He shoved open the car door, no doubt intending to sweep regally out of the Micra.
Instead, opening the door proved that they had been braced against it. They tumbled together to the asphalt outside and landed with an ingracious thump.
Morgan was delighted to note that, even though he was miffed, Alasdair ensured that he took the brunt of the fall. She heard a click as her favorite hair clip took a hit and a clattering as more than one piece of it fell to the ground.
It had only been a matter of time before she broke it. Morgan confronted the sad truth that she was such a klutz she couldn’t even make out in a car with the most handsome hunk she’d ever met.
Before she could think too much about that, Alasdair bounded to his feet. He snapped his kilt back into place with a self-righteous flick of his wrist and glared at her.
From her vantage point, sprawled on the parking lot, Morgan could see straight up those legs with their dusting of golden hair. She squinted, caught a glimpse of something swinging free, and giggled again.
It was true!
Alasdair harumphed, but Morgan held up one hand. She wiped away her tears while he glowered at her, clearly not inclined to share the joke.
“Scotsmen really don’t wear anything under their kilts, then,” she said when she caught her breath.
Alasdair raised a fair brow and crossed his arms over his chest, looking only a little less insulted. “And what would my lady suggest a man wear beneath his kilt?” he demanded coldly.
Morgan propped herself up on her elbows, her smile still tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Ever heard of Calvin Kleins? Harvey Woods? Maybe something nice from Mr. Brief?”
If Morgan thought Alasdair had taken umbrage before, that was nothing compared to his outrage now.
“I would suffer no man mucking about beneath my tartan, of that you can be certain!” he roared. “No matter in what esteem you might hold this Calvin and Harvey, neither is welcome beneath my plaid.”
He thought she thought he was gay?
Alasdair stormed a few paces away before pivoting to jab a finger through the air at Morgan. “Of all the lies that have been told about me, my lady, that is far and away the most loathsome.”
Despite herself, Morgan started to chuckle again. She had never before been so absolutely positive that a man was straight. As the laughter spilled from her lips, Alasdair’s ears turned bright red.
Then he stalked farther away.
And this time, he didn’t look inclined to stop.
That stopped Morgan’s laughter cold.
“No, wait, that’s not what I meant. I wasn’t laughing at you.” Morgan stumbled to her feet. “Alasdair, don’t be angry. I can explain…”
Suddenly Alasdair seemed to notice his surroundings for the first time. He halted and looked about himself with such dismay that Morgan took a look too.
The Micra was parked on a point facing a romantic little lake complete with a photogenic ruined castle. Behind the car sprawled a perfectly pedestrian asphalt parking lot, a little inn on the opposite side with cars clustered near it. Apparently, the inn had a pub, because a neon Guinness sign shone red in the window.
Morgan almost died when she saw the big tour bus parked less than twenty feet away from the car. Dozens of Japanese tourists studiously pretended not to have noticed her and Alasdair, snapping pictures in every other direction. Morgan looked back at the car and saw that the rear window was fogged.
She couldn’t help but blush.
Alasdair spun abruptly to confront her, looking as though he found their surroundings morally offensive. “This is not my home!” he roared, and everything feminine within Morgan delighted in his masculine indignation.
Whether Alasdair was a time traveler or a nutcase, at this moment Morgan didn’t care. She wanted to grab him by the hair and pounce on him until he begged for mercy.
And maybe even a little longer than that. Alasdair’s kiss had more than demonstrated how thorough he would be about any amorous adventure, and part of Morgan regretted that she had declined his invitation that very first day.
It really might have been an interlude unlike any other.
And she was sure he could teach her a few things she didn’t know about lovemaking. Her experience was pretty limited, after all. Morgan had already picked up some kissing pointers from this highlander.
Alasdair clenched his fists when she didn’t respond. Morgan heard a murmur from the Japanese tourists, then the clicking of cameras turned on her and Alasdair.
Which reminded her that Alasdair didn’t photograph well.
He had to be from the past.
And she had to help him.
“Unleash me from your spell, Morgaine le Fee,” Alasdair demanded with obvious impatience. “Release me and send me home to my son.”
His son?
Morgan blinked, but he glared at her. Had she heard right? “You have a son?”
Alasdair’s expression turned ominous. “Already I have told you that there’s naught amiss beneath my plaid.” He shook a finger at her. “But do not be thinking that I will stand by and let you seize him for your own. I will fight you for my son with every last fiber of my being, make no mistake about that.”
His fierce protectiveness of his child warmed Morgan to her toes. But all the same, this shouting had to stop. She held up her hands in a peaceful gesture and slowly walked toward him, trying to remember every hostage movie she’d ever seen.
“I don’t want your son,” she said in a low, even voice, making sure she maintained eye contact with Alasdair. “And I really do want to help you get home.”
Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders. His eyes were still narrowed slightly with suspicion. “Aye?”
“Aye,” Morgan agreed and smiled. She stopped before him and tilted her head up to hold his gaze. “I promise you that.”
Alasdair sniffed. “Is your word worth so little as your advisor’s pledge?”
“No. I keep my word.”
His lips thinned as though he believed her but wished he didn’t. Alasdair folded his arms across his chest and his expression turned stubborn. “Swear it to me, then.”
“I swear to you, Alasdair MacAulay, that I will do everything I can to send you home,” Morgan vowed softly. “Wherever—and whenever—that is.”
Alasdair eyed her carefully and Morgan felt some of his resistance dissolve. Then he arched a fair brow. “Whenever?”
Morgan frowned as she tried to think of how to begin, then she looped her arm through his. “It’s kind of a long story,” she confessed, urging him to walk toward the inn.
To her relief, he fell into step beside her.
“And I have an idea that you might want one of those wee drams to make it all go down a little easier.”
Despite everything Morgan had against alcohol, this was one time when she couldn’t have blamed anyone for having a drink to dull the shock.
In fact, if she was right and Alasdair had skipped through the better part of seven centuries in the blink of an eye—never mind leaving a child far behind—she wouldn’t blame him for getting stinking drunk.
Morgan’s heart contracted with a compassion of frightening intensity.
Surely she was only worried about a little boy, left alone?
Surely. There couldn’t be any other reason. Morgan knew that she didn’t need—or want—any man in her life, especially one who was more lost than she had ever managed to be.
Obviously, she just felt sorry for Alasdair’s son.
It couldn’t be any more than that.
Alasdair fingered the dram of whisky that had been placed before him and studied the sorceress. ’Twas unsettling how somber she had become. What was amiss?
He did not drink the spirits, fairly certain that if matters were as dire as her expression suggested, he might need it more once she had had her say.
Was she going to tell him that he could never go home? Alasdair’s gut went very cold at the very thought. Was it because of some deficiency in her power? Or the terms of the witch’s spell that had sent him here? Had he failed a test?
Or was she simply unwilling to release him?
Morgaine pushed her glass of water across the table, making circles with the wet mark it left on the wood. Playing she was, as though she knew not where to begin.
And it was driving him mad.
Alasdair captured her glass with one resolute gesture. When his fingers closed over hers, Morgaine met his gaze with obvious reluctance.
“Tell me,” he urged in a low voice. “Tell me the worst of it.”
The lady licked her lips and looked from one side to the other before she began. “It’s not good,” she admitted, such a vision of maidenly softness that Alasdair actually longed to reassure her.
Her fingers trembled slightly beneath his grip, and Alasdair gave them a squeeze before he could stop himself. “’Tis true that tidings are always worse before the telling. Giving voice to the worst lessens its bite.”
“You’re probably right. And there’s no point beating around the bush.” She smiled sadly, then squared her shoulders. “Alasdair, where do you think you are?”
Alasdair sensed a trick, but her expression was guileless. “In your domain.”
“Which is where?”
Would he earn some loathsome fate by giving voice to such names? Alasdair’s mouth went dry, but he forced out the words.
He would balk before naught. “In the land of Faerie.”
“And that would make me who?”
“The sorceress Morgaine le Fee.”
She shook her head slowly, and Alasdair feared he had erred in naming her occupation so boldly.
But before he could apologize, Morgaine took his hand in the two of hers and looked deeply into his eyes. Alasdair knew ’twould be fair dreadful whatever she meant to say. He braced himself against the worst calamity.
But he could never have prepared himself for what she did say.
“Alasdair, you’re wrong. I’m not Morgaine le Fee and this isn’t the land of Faerie.”
She was deadly serious. A cold tremor of fear rolled over Alasdair’s flesh.
What was this?
“You’ve traveled almost seven hundred years into the future, I don’t know how.” The sorceress gave his fingers a squeeze, her expression now turning apologetic. For a fleeting instant, Alasdair was almost fooled by the sincerity in her steady green gaze.
It he was not in Faerie, then where could he be?
“I can’t explain it, Alasdair, but the year is 1998, and I’m guessing that you think it’s a good bit earlier than that.” She stared deeply into his eyes as he slowly absorbed what she had said.
1998?
But that could not be. The sorceress held his gaze, as though she would will him to believe her.
’Twas impossible! Alasdair blinked. Indeed, ’twas such a daft load of bunk that his lips twitched. ’Twas a jest, no more than that. Or a test of his gullibility.
And one he had nearly failed.
Nearly fooled him, Morgaine had. Traveling through time—stuff and nonsense! ’Twas beyond belief. As though the world could have turned to such a hellhole, even in seven hundred years.
Alasdair grinned.
Morgaine did not smile. Instead, her expression became concerned. “You have to believe me,” she insisted. Aye, she was a clever one, to stick so firmly to her lie.
But the way he had fallen prey to her allusions of doom was so perfect that Alasdair chuckled. What a daftie he was.
Aye, he had fallen like a witless rock for her jest. He, Alasdair MacAulay, who was broadly considered to be a man of good sense, had nearly swallowed Morgaine’s feckless tale whole! How the lads would mock him for this.
Beneath the sorceress’s astonished gaze, Alasdair began to laugh and could not stop.