by Lynn Kurland
Ian's house was grand enough, she supposed, though certainly smaller than Jamie's keep. It seemed a cozy place, and she was happy to be going there. She walked around to the back door. It felt comfortable, as if she'd done it a number of times. Then she realized it was the Boar's Head Inn's kitchen door she was thinking of. As she'd only entered it a time or two after walking in the garden, she couldn't credit herself with that memory. Or could she?
After reading her own tale, she could credit herself with quite a few new things.
She opened the door to find two women sitting at the kitchen table with cups of something steaming in their hands. Iolanthe paused and smiled.
"Sorry to interrupt," she said in her best modern English. "Is Thomas here?"
"And why," one of the women asked, scraping her chair back as she stood, "would you want to know that?"
Iolanthe faltered for a moment. She'd never been faced with this kind of creature before. She was petite, fair-haired, and radiated a crispness that Iolanthe had to admire. Surely not even a single crease in her blouse dared disobey by flattening itself where it shouldn't. As she watched, the woman looked down at the black trousers she was wearing, espied a speck of lint, and screeched in horror as she hastily picked it off.
"This country is filthy!" the woman exclaimed. "Dirt everywhere!"
"Actually, it's not dirt, it's wool," Jane said, walking into the kitchen. "Very fine wool that I make into very expensive sweaters." She looked at Iolanthe and smiled. "Good morning, Io. It's good to see you. How are you?"
Iolanthe found herself surprisingly grateful for Ian's lady's friendly greeting. "I am well, Jane. And you?"
"Couldn't be better. Girls, did you introduce yourselves? No, well, this is Thomas's sister, Victoria. And this is Cartier—"
"That's Tiffany," the little screecher growled.
"Sorry, wrong jeweler," Jane said, looking anything but repentant. "This is Tiffany. Victoria's friend."
"Thomas's fiancée," Tiffany corrected, turning to look at Iolanthe. "And just who might you be?"
Iolanthe considered the women facing her and just what mischief or not they were about. First, there was Tiffany, who looked as if her fondest wish would have been to bury a dagger in Iolanthe's chest—assuming, of course, that she could have done so without mussing her clothes. Then there was Thomas's sister, Victoria, who was staring at her with such a piercing gaze that Iolanthe wondered just what she suspected.
And then there was, the saints bless her, Jane Fergusson MacLeod, who stood there and looked at Iolanthe with a serene smile that Iolanthe couldn't interpret any other way but as one of friendship and affection.
"I am," Iolanthe said finally, "Thomas's cousin."
"See?" Tiffany said, brushing off her chair and sitting back down. "Thomas's cousin, not his girlfriend. I told you Megan had it wrong. Evidently your means of getting information out of your little sister aren't as good as you claimed."
Iolanthe looked at Victoria sharply. "You harmed Megan?"
"Just a little sisterly tussle," Victoria said smoothly.
Iolanthe favored Victoria with the coldest look she could muster. "If you harmed her, you will regret it."
Victoria looked at her assessingly. Iolanthe stood firm under the scrutiny. Then Victoria looked at Tiffany, and there was ice in those blue eyes.
"I'm beginning to think, Tiffany, that perhaps you haven't been as genuine as you've led me to believe," she said slowly.
"I told you that Thomas loves me. He didn't want to leave the States to come over here. He just felt obligated to come over and look at Megan's stupid inn."
Iolanthe snorted in disgust.
Tiffany glared at her. "What would you know, Miss Hayseed?"
Iolanthe wasn't sure what she meant by the title, but she had no trouble understanding that it wasn't complimentary. Tiffany cast her a final look of disdain before she turned back to Victoria.
"Thomas loves me. He's just forgotten."
"Thomas has an excellent memory," Victoria countered. "I doubt he's forgotten much at all."
"I can think of something he hasn't forgotten," Jane put in.
Tiffany looked up at her expectantly. "What?"
"You boinking his buddy thirty seconds before Thomas had a meeting with him this past summer," Jane said with a sweet smile. "I know for a fact he hasn't forgotten that."
Iolanthe made herself a mental note to discover the definition of boinking at her earliest opportunity. By the way Tiffany's ears turned red, she suspected that the activity was one the woman shouldn't have engaged in.
"How did you know that?" Tiffany gasped. "It wasn't that way at all!"
Victoria stood up and slapped her hands on the table. "I've been bamboozled. I cannot believe you convinced me that Thomas had gone off the deep end. I think you'd better pack your bags."
"I will not!" Tiffany said, stamping her foot.
The sound was so strange, Iolanthe bent to peer under the table. Why, the wench had spikes pointing down from her heels. How did she walk about in those things?
"What are you looking at?" Tiffany snapped. "Haven't you ever seen a pair of stilettoes?" She raked Iolanthe with a contemptuous look. "I doubt it. Look at you in those unfashionable clothes."
"Thomas bought these for me," Iolanthe said stiffly. "And I find them much to my liking."
"Ah-ha!" Tiffany said, pouncing on that like a cat on a hapless mouse. "I knew it. Are you some country bumpkin he knocked up? You'll never have him, you know. I'll make sure of it."
Iolanthe acted before she thought. She pulled Duncan's knife from the back of her jeans. She flipped it and caught it several times in silence, then caught it a final time by the hilt and looked at Tiffany in feigned puzzlement.
"You'll stop me from what?" she asked. "I fear I didn't hear you."
Tiffany stood up so swiftly that her chair fell over backward and met the floor with a mighty crash. She backed away with a look of horror on her face.
"I'm being assaulted!" she screeched. "Call the police!"
"Shut up, Tiffany," Victoria said wearily. "Go pack your bags. I'll drive you down to the hotel. You can stay there until I can find someone to take you to the airport."
"She'll murder me!" Tiffany said, pointing a trembling finger at Iolanthe. "I need protection!"
"Your tongue ought to serve you well enough," Iolanthe said pleasantly. "Not even a banshee would dare accost you when you screech out your commands."
Tiffany began to stomp her feet in frustration. Iolanthe watched in fascination, marveling at the sound of Tiffany's shoes on the flagstones of Jane's kitchen. Then she watched as Tiffany threw up her hands and stormed from the kitchen.
Iolanthe looked at Jane. "Thomas is not here?"
"He went climbing," Jane said. "I think he needed the distraction."
Iolanthe nodded. "I understand. When did he leave?"
"Yesterday. He'll probably be back in a day or two."
"A bit of a climb sounds like a fine idea, actually." Iolanthe smiled at Victoria. "Good day to you, Victoria McKinnon."
Victoria watched her with her mouth slightly open. "You're Iolanthe."
"I am."
Victoria seemed to be incapable of intelligible speech. Iolanthe merely smiled at her, then looked at Jane.
"Will you let him know I came?"
"He'll be overjoyed."
"One could hope," Iolanthe said. She waved to Jane, looked a final time at Thomas's sister, then turned and left the kitchen. Perhaps Thomas had it aright, and getting out in the wilderness was the thing to clear one's head. She pulled the door shut behind her, tucked her knife back into the waistband of her jeans, then shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat.
She smiled to herself as she walked up the meadow. Poor Thomas, to have such a one as Tiffany hunting him. That he might want to be hunted by her wasn't a thought that bore entertaining. The woman was definitely not for Thomas. Iolanthe couldn't have stood more than a handful of moments in h
er presence. She sincerely doubted Thomas could have borne a lifetime with her.
Perhaps she would tease him about it when he came to find her. That she was certain he would was likely something that should have given her pause, but she didn't stop to consider it. He would come for her. Hadn't he said as much?
She wandered higher up behind the keep. She'd done so often in her youth and always found peace there. That she was doing so in jeans and boots was almost odd enough to make her uneasy.
How would she have known if she'd suddenly been slipped back to her time? It wasn't as if she could have merely looked about her and told the difference. Trees were trees, and these resembled to a great degree the same kind of trees she'd grown to womanhood with.
She found, quite suddenly, that the thought of what she would leave behind was enough to steal her breath from her. That she should have acquired so many things dear to her heart in such a short time was frightening. Jamie, Elizabeth, and their little boy Ian? All the rest of her kin and kith?
And Thomas?
She wrapped her arms around herself and stared into the sun hanging so low in the southern sky. Nay, she had come too far to lose what she'd found.
She heard a footstep behind her and stiffened in surprise. Had Thomas changed his mind and come home? The moment the thought crossed her mind, she found the idea of it irresistible. Maybe he'd had one of his fey fits come over him to tell him to end his climb. Maybe he'd known she would be here, and he had come to pledge his heart to her and ask for her hand.
But how quietly he had come! She would have to commend him on his tracking skills. Duncan would have been impressed.
She turned, a compliment at the ready.
Only it wasn't Thomas she was looking at.
Chapter 42
Thomas, turn around and go home.
"I know, I know!" Thomas exclaimed, stomping on the accelerator.
"You know what?" Ian said, gripping the armrests and cursing fluently.
"I'm hurrying!"
"I'm not asking ye to!" Ian exclaimed. "Thomas, ye'll kill us both!"
Thomas pulled his foot back off the gas and took a deep breath. "Sorry. I just keep hearing voices telling me to hurry." He slid a look at Ian. "And what is it with you MacLeods that you lapse into dialect when you're stressed?"
"Habit. Be grateful I haven't started swearing at you in Gaelic yet."
"You already have. Several times."
Ian cursed as Thomas screeched around a corner. "Can you blame me?" he gasped.
Thomas managed a smile, but it was a weak one. He concentrated on the road in front of him. It was just barely dawn, and he'd been driving like a maniac for a good two hours already.
Ian hadn't appreciated being woken in the middle of the night, but he hadn't complained overmuch. Thomas hadn't told him that he'd woken to the sound of a voice in his head repeating the same words over and over again. Thomas, go home. He'd just said they had to go back. Ian had studied him briefly in silence, then risen and helped Thomas break camp in record time.
"I think I would have enjoyed that climb," Ian said. "Maybe another time."
"We have to get back to your house."
"Trouble?"
"I can't imagine what else it would be."
"I have a mobile phone. Jane would have called me if aught had gone amiss."
"I don't think it's Jane." Thomas paused, then shook his head. "No, I know it's not Jane. I just know I have to get back."
"Hmmm," Ian said thoughtfully, then fell silent.
Thomas was content with lack of talk, though it gave him more opportunity for thought than he perhaps would have liked. So he focused all his energies on keeping his car on the road and not in a ditch or plowing into a field full of sheep.
Voices again. It just figured.
It took two more hours, two hours longer than he wanted, but finally they were pulling into Ian's driveway. Thomas leaped from the car, stumbling over Ian to get around to the back door. Ian opened the kitchen door, and Thomas pushed past him to come to an abrupt halt in the kitchen.
There was his sister, Victoria, sitting calmly at the table, sipping some sort of beverage from a cup.
"Vic," Thomas said weakly.
She only looked at him appraisingly.
"Who is this?" Ian asked in Gaelic.
"My sister."
"She's fetching enough."
"Maybe, but she's miserable to live with." He managed a smile at Ian. "I think I've found her perfect match. You remember Connor MacDougal?"
"The one with the powerfully foul temper?"
"That's him. I think I'll give her the castle and watch her make the rest of his unlife hell."
"Will you two please speak in English?" Victoria asked crisply. "Thomas, introduce us."
Thomas looked at his sister. "Ian MacLeod," he said, pointing to his host. "Our cousin. And he's married, Vikki."
She threw a dish towel at him with enough force to sting as it whipped him across the face.
"I was only being polite," she said frostily.
"I'm just sure you were," Thomas said. "What are you doing here?"
"Tiffany was devastated by your fly-by-night departure from the States. I brought her here so you could make it up to her. Believe me when I tell you it wasn't easy to track you down."
"Tiffany?" Thomas asked weakly.
"Your former fiancée, remember?"
Thomas let that pass. "Who told you where I was?"
"Megan."
"She wouldn't have given in willingly. What'd you use? Thumbscrews?"
"Chinese water torture," Victoria said.
And Thomas didn't for a moment doubt her. He wondered where his parents had been, or Gideon for that matter, but Victoria wasn't above subterfuge when it came to going after what she wanted. Torturing their baby sister was just par for the course.
But that didn't solve the greater dilemma, which was the fact that apparently his sister had brought to his very doorstep Tiffany Amber Davidson, who was currently peg-legging it into the kitchen on impossibly high heels.
"Thomas!" she exclaimed. The tears began to flow. "Oh, Thomas, I knew you'd come back for me!"
"Who's this?" Ian asked, reverting to the native tongue. "Frightening wench, that."
"My former fiancée," Thomas said with a sigh.
"You almost wed with this one?" Ian asked incredulously.
"Amazing, isn't it?"
"English!" Victoria bellowed in frustration.
"I've missed you, Thomas," Tiffany said, producing a few more tears for the occasion.
Thomas looked at his sister. "Did she join your theater company, Vic?"
"I mean it, Thomas," Tiffany said, wringing her hands. "I can't live without you! It's been killing me not knowing where you were."
"Lost me at the airport?" Thomas asked politely.
Tiffany gasped, her hand flying to her throat. "What are you talking about?" she asked.
"Yes, what are you talking about?" Victoria asked.
Thomas ignored his sister. "How's your dad's little remodel coming, Tiffany?"
"Terribly," Tiffany said, looking pitifully grateful for a change of topic. "There are all these horrible picketers harassing him all day."
"Awful," Thomas agreed. "I guess he really needs those offices, doesn't he? Now that he has a new company to find room for."
Tiffany blanched. "Now, Thomas, you know I didn't have anything to do with that."
"I never said you did, did I? How nice of you to suggest the possibility."
Victoria cleared her throat with an imperiousness that would have done credit to her namesake. "Will you two cease with this useless bickering? Tiffany, go pack your bags. Thomas doesn't want you, and I don't have time for any more of this stupidity. I've got a production to start rehearsing. I need to get back to the States."
Ian turned to Thomas. "She's a player?"
"Runs her own theater troupe," Thomas said. "Off-off-off-off-off Broadway. It's so far off,
there's no traffic stopping you from getting there. But," he added, staving off what he was sure would have been a colossal barb thrown from his sister, "it's actually really good theater." He smiled at his sister. "How'd you like a change of scenery? I've got a great backdrop for you."
Her ears perked up. He actually saw them do it. When it came to anything remotely connected with her passion, she was very willing to listen.
"A backdrop?"
"My castle. It's yours. I'd even fund your entire cast's trip over here for a month to do your play. By the way, what are you doing?"
"Hamlet" she said, sounding rather breathless.
"Perfect."
"But what about me?" Tiffany screeched. "What about me?"
Victoria gave Tiffany a look that should have put a heavy layer of frost on her. "Your luggage, Tiffany."
"I'm not going anywhere!"
Thomas looked at Tiffany. "Go back to New York, Tiffany."
"I will not!"
"I'm paying the protestors to picket your dad," he said curtly.
She gaped at him.
"It's payback for him taking over my company."
"You were ignoring me," she whined. "I had to get your attention somehow."
Thomas looked at his sister. "Get her back to the airport, please. I consider this entirely your fault."
"I agree," she said crisply. "I was taken in by her charming ways, but I've seen the light. I'll make sure she gets on a plane."
"You will not!" Tiffany protested.
"Don't mess with me, Tiffany," Victoria said, steel lacing her tone. "I know personally most of your favorite designers. I'll tell them you're recycling their clothes in consignment shops. Cheap consignment shops."
Tiffany made inarticulate sounds of horror. Thomas grunted, then left Tiffany in the capable hands of his sister, who really had missed her calling in life. She should have been running someone's army, not keeping two dozen jumpy actors in line. Well, if anyone could get Tiffany out of the country, it would be Victoria. Thomas didn't give her another thought.
He brushed past the women, then trotted up the stairs to the guest room. He grabbed his sword, then made his way back down the stairs and back through the kitchen before he realized what he held in his hand.