Highlander's Desire: A Scottish Historical Time Travel Romance (Called by a Highlander Book 5)

by Mariah Stone

  “To marry you,” she said, and something clicked together within his soul and became whole.

  She stepped closer to him and whispered so that only he could hear, “Because it’s not Euphemia who’s the mother of Paul Mackenzie.” She laid her hand on her belly, and the ground shifted under his feet. “It’s me.”

  His eyes widened like an owl’s as he stared at her hand. “Are ye carrying my child, lass?” he said.

  “I am.” She gave the sweetest smile in the world, and he was ready to scoop her up and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. She’d come to marry him.

  “My God…” he whispered.

  But he couldn’t touch her yet. He had to deal with Euphemia first, or her wounded ego would unleash all the hounds of hell.

  “Wait here, lass,” he said and turned to Euphemia, who stood by Father Nicholas with a stony expression.

  “Lady Euphemia—” he started.

  “Angus, what in God’s bones are ye doing?” Laomann growled, stepping closer. “Dinna ye dare break this off. Ye have a duty to this family—”

  But Angus had had enough. Ignoring the astonished faces of his guests, he turned to Laomann.

  “Dinna ye dare say anything about my duty, brother. I’ve protected ye and this clan my whole life. I will continue to do that until my last breath, but I also deserve to find my own happiness with the woman I truly love. The woman who crossed distances ye canna even imagine for me. The woman who is destined for me.”

  His eyes locked with Rogene’s and hers glistened with tears of happiness as the broadest smile brightened her face.

  Laomann’s face twitched as he scowled at Rogene.

  Angus turned to Euphemia, but before he could say how sorry he was, she interrupted him.

  “Please, spare me the humiliation, Lord Angus,” she said, her back as straight as a pole.

  Her fists were clenched as though she were holding invisible knives. “Ye tricked me, again. Yer whore came back, and ye love her so much that ye will betray yer word to me. Twice. Am I right?”

  He inhaled the air sharply. “I am sorry. I never meant to hurt ye, Lady Euphemia… Ye have my highest resp—”

  She didn’t even stop to listen to him. She walked off, hitting his shoulder with hers. She stopped before Rogene and said something to her with a face full of venom. Rogene paled and watched her as she made her way through the crowd.

  “Ye will regret this,” William said to Angus and followed his sister, together with the other Ross clansmen.

  Her words rang in his head… If ye ever betray me again, I will destroy everyone and everything that’s dear to ye…

  He felt cold sweat trickle down his spine as he walked towards Rogene. He took her away from the curious glances of the guests and brought her to Father Nicholas.

  “Father Nicholas,” he said. “Ye asked me if I was marrying Euphemia willingly. I was, but I also wasna. I was marrying her out of duty.” He looked at Rogene. “But I do want to marry this woman because I desire that more than anything in the world. Would ye marry us?”

  Father Nicholas looked at her. “I can. But the registry of the wedding would need to be changed.”

  Rogene’s eyes widened. “You’ve written the registry already?”

  “Aye. Nae me, that is. One of the friar boys. I like when things are done and ready.”

  A slow smile spread on her lips. “So that’s how the marriage registry stayed there,” she muttered. “I could keep the name Euphemia in the book,” she whispered to him, “and for the child’s birth registry so that official history wouldn’t be altered.” She turned to the priest. “Um… I’d like to help you with that.”

  He cocked one eyebrow. “Ye, child?”

  “Yes. I’m sure you have enough on your plate.”

  He nodded. “Aye, child. Well, I do need to strain my eyes and see much less these days. I thank ye.”

  He looked at the guests and sighed. “I suppose, Lord Angus, ye want to set up a different wedding?”

  “Nae,” Angus said. “The guests are here. The bride is here. We have the feast ready.” He took Rogene’s hands in his, and that jolt of electricity darted through her again. “If the bride would have me…”

  Her smile spreading on her face, she swallowed a knot, her throat tight from emotion. “Of course I would.”

  Angus lit up like a Christmas tree.

  Father Nicholas shook his head and chuckled. “’Tis most unprecedented—”

  “Hold on a minute!” David cried. He’d already put the backpack down on the ground and strode towards Rogene, looking more like a protective warrior than the boy he’d been just a few months earlier. “Can I talk to you in private?” he said as he came to stand next to her.

  Angus cocked his head in careful apprehension. “Who’s that, Rogene?”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s my brother, David.”

  “Ah…” Angus’s eyes burned with curiosity. He clapped David’s shoulder in a universal sign of manly approval. “Welcome, lad…”

  But David blocked Angus’s arm and shoved him back. “Don’t you touch me or her.”

  “David!” Rogene gasped.

  “You kidnapped my sister, hurt her. Held her here in this weird role-playing game thing. Keep your hands off her, or you’ll answer to me.”

  Rogene blinked. David was tall but lean, not yet a mountain of a man like Angus, though he might be once he’d filled out more. And yet, he glared at Angus, his neck cords standing out, his lips tight in a snarl, ready to protect her with his life. She loved her brother so much at that moment.

  “Calm down, lad. I love yer sister and want to marry her.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see about that. Rogene, come with me.”

  David took her by the elbow and dragged her behind the corner of the church.

  “Rory, what the actual fuck?” he growled.

  “Language!”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Time travel…marrying a guy who hurt you…this medieval reality… I don’t know what is really going on or where we are, but I won’t let that guy hurt you again.”

  She hugged him tight, then pulled away and looked up into his worried face. “Look, say time travel was possible…by some miracle, by an advanced alien technology or whatever…by things we can’t explain,” she said. “Can you imagine for a moment that this is real and we are back in the fourteenth century?”

  He rubbed his forehead but kept silent.

  “If this was real, what would you do?” she asked.

  “Go back to the twenty-first century, of course! I got the scholarship to Northwestern.”

  She nodded. “That’s what I want for you, too. These times are too dangerous, and I’d want you safe.”

  “But I don’t believe this…”

  “You do, a little bit. Don’t you?”

  He sighed. “I do think that there are things we can’t always explain. After all, at one point people thought the earth was flat, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. I think, around this time, actually.”

  He looked around. “But…are you seriously going to marry that dude? Wasn’t he about to marry someone else?”

  “Only because he thought she was going to have his son. But she’s not. I am.”

  “I don’t like it. I don’t like him. This is crazy.”

  She hugged him again. “I know. I’m weirdly glad you’re here with me. Now, whether you like Angus or not, you’ll have to get along with him because I am going to marry him.” She locked eyes with him. “All right?”

  He shook his head. “I still don’t accept your explanation. And if he does anything to hurt you, I swear I’ll take him down.”

  “Sure. Now, let’s go and get me married.”

  They came back to the entrance of the church and David stood protectively by Rogene’s side.

  “Do I have yer blessing, lad?” Angus said with a soft chuckle.

  “No,” David said.

  “He’s fine,” Roge
ne said and took Angus’s big, callused hands in hers. “Father Nicholas, please… I’m ready.”

  “Come here, lad,” Raghnall said. “It looks like we’re going to be brothers.”

  He gestured for David to come closer. Puzzled, David went to stand next to him. Catrìona leaned over to him and said something quietly, and David nodded with a smile.

  Father Nicholas raised his thin eyebrows and smiled kindly, the skin around his eyes wrinkling.

  “Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here to marry Lord Angus Mackenzie and Lady Rogene Douglas. Are the parties present here on their own accord and nae forced into this marriage?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Rogene said.

  “Aye,” Angus echoed.

  Her head spun. She felt light-headed and so deliriously happy she thought her heart would burst. Her brother was with her, and she was marrying the man of her dreams.

  “Do ye, Angus Mackenzie, take Rogene Douglas as yer wedded wife?”

  “Aye,” Angus said solemnly, like a vow.

  Rogene’s heart gave a lurch.

  “And do ye, Rogene, take Angus to be yer wedded husband?”

  She paused, her hands shaking. She realized that this was the moment when she’d forever be bound to the man she loved. The moment that would make them one. The moment when they would become a team, and when neither of them would be bound by duty but rather blessed by desire…by love.

  She looked at David, as though asking for his blessing one last time. He caught her eyes and gave her a nod and a smile. She knew that even though he was worried about her, he wanted her to be happy. And he saw that she was.

  She turned to Angus, feeling like she were floating.

  “I do,” she said.

  “Then I pronounce ye husband and wife. Ye may kiss the bride, Lord Angus.”

  And as cheers and hoots sounded around them, Angus took her into his arms and kissed her. She was back in the safe confinement of his lips, inhaling his masculine scent. He picked her up, cradling her like a real groom carried his bride.

  He stopped the kiss and leaned back a little, staring at her with eyes wet and sparkling like the night sky.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I love ye, lass,” he whispered against her lips.

  “I love you, too, Angus. Even though I never knew it, you and this baby are everything I ever wanted.”

  “Ye came back to me. I never thought ye would. But now, ye’re giving me a bairn, and ye became my wife… Ye and the bairn are everything I’ve ever desired.”

  Epilogue

  Eilean Donan

  Two weeks later…

  Angus’s large, warm palm rubbed Rogene’s back, soothing her. She was leaning over an empty bucket, her breakfast of porridge threatening to spill out.

  “Get pregnant, they said,” she muttered. “It will be great, they said.”

  “They said what, love?” Angus asked.

  “Nothing. Just wondering why any woman would choose to get pregnant.” Her stomach was aching with a need to vomit, but she couldn’t. It wouldn’t come. That was how she’d lived for the past two weeks. She supposed it was a good sign that the baby was fine and growing and just taking what it needed from her.

  What he needed from her.

  Rogene sat back down in the large chair by the fireplace in the lord’s hall and wiped her misty forehead. Angus, who took a seat in another big chair by her side took her hand and pressed it against his lips, his short beard sending tingles all over her body. His dark-gray eyes sparkled as they met hers, his mouth curving in a chuckle.

  They’d been so blindly happy for the past two weeks. Earth disappeared under her feet when Angus was near her. There was a slight tug at her heart every time he entered the room even when she didn’t hear or see him.

  Her husband… The love of her life… The father of her child…

  She could trust him with her life. The thought was so simple and so natural, she couldn’t believe there was ever a time she couldn’t get herself to trust people.

  They’d stayed in Eilean Donan for a while after the wedding, to prepare and pack for the journey to Ault a’chruinn. Then this terrible nausea had hit Rogene, and she’d begged Angus to stay until it would pass. Spending several hours in a boat, adding seasickness to morning sickness, sounded to her like a death wish.

  Besides, there was still the question of David…

  The lord’s hall was lit in golden sunlight from two slit windows, dust floating in the sunrays. Catrìona glanced at Rogene with sympathy, the stone weights on her loom clanking as she moved the handle up to form a row in the fabric.

  “Doesna ginger help, Rogene?” she asked.

  “Nothing helps,” Rogene replied. “Only your brother’s presence.”

  “In that case, I wilna take a single step away from ye. Dinna fash, wife.”

  Rogene beamed, already feeling like her nausea was subsiding. Maybe there was truth to the whole endorphins making pain go away thing. Or maybe her love for Angus could heal anything.

  “You better not,” she said, intertwining her hand with his.

  David groaned softly at their almost constant display of affection, glancing up from carving the handle of a dagger. He sat in a chair by the table, his elbows on his knees. In the two weeks since he’d arrived, he hadn’t shaved because the medieval razor—which looked like a mix between a miniature scythe and a tiny ax—“gave him the creeps.” The short beard added ten years. Physical labor, which included working at the smithy, helping with the horses, and even starting sword training, had grown his muscles. That, too, aged him.

  “What?” Rogene said.

  “Could you guys be less happy, please? Just consider those of us mere mortals who have not found love across the ages and are not even necessarily eager to be here in the first place.”

  Rogene sighed. David missed home and was understandably worried about his future. They’d tried to send him forward in time almost every day.

  Nothing worked.

  And the more time that passed, the grouchier he became. The only times he seemed to be truly enjoying himself were during physical activities and when he was being useful—that was why he was always trying to find something to do, she suspected.

  What he loved most was horse riding. It was like driving a car, he’d told Rogene, only better. Like partnering up with a living being. His eyes sparkled whenever he was near a horse, and horses seemed to like him, too. Angus had told her that he was planning to give him a horse of his own soon, to lift his spirits.

  They haven’t told anyone about time travel, keeping the pretense of being distant cousins of James Douglas; although, deep down, Rogene knew her new family thought she and David were odd at times. No doubt, they suspected there was something else going on with them, but no one questioned them.

  Yet.

  “Catrìona wants to be here,” Rogene said, “don’t you, hon?”

  Catrìona raised her eyebrows and gave a polite smile. “Lord David is right, sister,” she said. “I am ready to head to the monastery. I am only waiting for the end of summer to honor my word to Laomann.”

  Rogene sighed. In the past month, Catrìona had become even stricter with her prayers. She’d given all her good clothes to the poor in the village and wore her mother’s old dresses with fading colors and patches all over them. She was fasting, and her cheeks had become hollow and circles darkened under her eyes. Her translucent skin looked paler every day. The dresses hung on her as if she were a scarecrow. It pained Rogene to look at her, but she knew the young woman was punishing herself for killing and was even more determined now to dedicate her life to serving God.

  Rogene sighed. “We didn’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable.”

  “I know,” David said, his eyes softening. “Sorry, Rory. I’m really happy for the two of you. It’s just…it also reminds me, not everyone is so lucky. And of how much I’ll miss you if I ever do get home.”

  Angus nodded and opened his mout
h to say something when an excited “Ma-ma-ma!” announced his nephew’s arrival. Angus’s face spread in a wide grin. Laomann came into the hall with Ualan in his arms, Mairead walking after them. The boy was tugging at Laomann’s beard, and Laomann was trying his best to show excitement and not yelp with pain.

  Angus leaned closer to Rogene. “I must say, now that I have ye and our son on the way, I sympathize with some of the hard choices that Laomann had to make to protect them as husband, father, and laird.” He met Rogene’s eyes and she sank into the dark depths of him, her heart singing. “I would do anything to protect ye and our future babe. Plead, humiliate myself, or beg if my sword and my words didna help. We still have Euphemia to think of. And I ken we must be ready for whatever she throws at us.”

  Rogene squeezed his large palm and smiled at him, calling for courage to rise within her as the fist of anxiety squeezed her stomach.

  “I know you’ll protect us.”

  The family sat together around the fireplace, talking, laughing, playing with the baby. Rogene met David’s eyes as their clan chatted around them. He smiled at her in encouragement. Even though there was sadness in his eyes, there was something else she felt, too.

  The warmth of belonging to a family that she hadn’t felt since their parents died. In all the years with their aunt and uncle, she’d never had that. And now, she knew she and David were accepted without a question, without a doubt, perceived as equal members of clan Mackenzie—perhaps not by everyone, but by the core family.

  Was this it? The family she and David had always longed for? It certainly was for Rogene. She wasn’t so sure it was for her brother.

  The only one who was missing was Raghnall, who, after talking to Laomann after the wedding, had disappeared. Rogene wasn’t sure what they’d talked about, and Angus said it wasn’t his secret to tell.

  After a while, the servants brought lunch, which consisted of a vegetable stew with barley and bannocks. Rogene ate a little, but stopped as soon as her nausea returned.

  Later that night, Rogene lay—sated, warm, and heavy—in Angus’s secure arms in their bed. Lazily, she traced a soft line down his hard chest, smoothing her fingertip over his soft, dark hair. She gently kissed his skin and laid her head on his rib cage, listening to the beat of his heart. It sounded like music to her.