A Time & Place for Every Laird

by Angeline Fortin

  “What’s a cyber-life?”

  “What? Did you just crawl out from under a rock, man?” Danny asked. “My point is, you look at her like these guys look at Princess Leia in a gold bikini, so I’m warning you, don’t screw with her or I’ll have to kill you.”

  It was Hugh’s turn to raise a brow of disbelief as he examined the man from head to toe. There was no chance that he could come to harm at the hand of such a scrawny man, and Hugh leveled the young man with a baleful glare that told him so. But since he had no intention of “screwing” with Claire—whatever that was—Hugh merely nodded. “Verra well.”

  “Well, all right then,” Danny drawled amicably and nodded with a smirk as he took another bite of the pizza. If he ate like that all the time, Hugh couldn’t imagine how Danny remained so thin.

  “Danny,” Sorcha called out, her voice filled with something akin to awe. That tone was enough to have both men turning to find her sitting back in the chair with wide eyes glued to the monitor, which now displayed some sort of schematic. “Come here. You have to watch this.”

  Hugh followed on Danny’s heels as they returned to her side. As they neared, she clicked a button and a colorful image filled one of the screens. “Cool,” Danny said. “Simulations.”

  Of what, Hugh wondered? To him it looked like a tornado he had once seen, a funnel of sorts, but where the one he had witnessed rotated, this one seemed to continually grow while the open end collapsed on itself.

  Naturally, he had no idea what the image truly represented, but since Danny merely blinked at the screen, a piece of pizza hovering at his lips, Hugh felt that the astonishment wasn’t only his own. “What is that? Is that what I think it is?”

  “I think it is,” Sorcha replied. “Incredible.”

  “Oh, the guys are going to love this,” Danny said, dropping back into his chair and spinning around gleefully. Love what? Hugh frowned at them both, waiting for information, but Sorcha was too busy scolding her brother in a low hiss to notice.

  “Danny, you can’t tell anyone about this!”

  “Why not? It’s classic sci-fi!” her brother protested. “You know what it reminds me of? That old TV show, Sliders.”

  By Sorcha’s reluctant nod, Hugh could see that she agreed with him, but she remained stern in her whispered warning. “Not a word, Danny! I don’t want to see this all over the Internet tomorrow. Swear it!”

  Danny sat back mulishly. “You are where excitement goes to die, Sis.”

  It was a response that only earned him a blacker scowl. “Swear it!”

  With one finger, Danny drew an X over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die … for as long as is deemed absolutely necessary by whatever secret you are keeping from me.”

  As this didn’t seem like much of a promise to Hugh, he was surprised when Sorcha sat back with a humph of satisfaction.

  “Fine,” she conceded. “Will you print it for me and save a copy?”

  Her brother waved his hand beneath his nose. “I smell the mouth-watering aroma of blackmail in the air.”

  That had Sorcha smiling. “No, but it’s not a bad idea. Make a few.”

  “As long as I get to keep one for my own personal amusement,” he negotiated.

  “Sure, whatever. As a matter of fact, make as many as you like.”

  Chapter 21

  As Danny went to work, Sorcha turned to smile up at Hugh with the devil dancing in her eyes. Rising, she grasped his arm, leading him back toward the windows and out of earshot of her brother. “What do you think?”

  “That I hae nae yet a clue to yer discovery,” Hugh admitted reluctantly. “Ye seem pleased, however.”

  “I am,” she said, her eyes still sparkling in a way that made Hugh want to join in her excitement. “Well, not so much about what I found out—I’ll tell you about that later—but Danny just gave me a great idea.”

  Hugh sifted through their conversation once again. He hadn’t heard much that might inspire an idea of any sort other than … “Blackmail?”

  “Yes!” Sorcha squeezed his arm enthusiastically, bouncing on her toes. “This might be just what we need to keep you safe from Jameson. Don’t you see? They covered up the breakout, right? They don’t want exposure. Not only would the public be outraged by the billions of dollars in wasteful spending with the economy as bad as it is, but the backlash from our allies and enemies around the world for keeping the nature of the project itself under wraps would be crippling.”

  Hugh looked doubtfully at the screen. “Is it truly something of such a controversial nature that they would worry so?”

  “I think so,” she answered slowly. “And we can use it as a bargaining chip in your favor, to keep you safe.”

  “Tae keep ye safe,” he amended, knowing that beyond his own personal safety, he needed to know that Sorcha would emerge from all of this unscathed. The billions—Hugh could hardly fathom the amount—wasted in this “project” and the risk of exposure and retaliation, with him standing at the center as not only proof of whatever it was they were doing but also a symbol of their failure, made the entire situation far more precarious than he had originally imagined.

  The logical move of any government would certainly be to immediately subdue or kill him and anyone who knew the truth about him outright. That was how it had been in his time and Hugh doubted that much had changed in that area at least throughout the past 250 years. He explained his suspicions to Sorcha in no uncertain terms.

  “Then we’ll just have to make sure that the risk to them is greater than the reward in doing so,” Sorcha said boldly.

  Her brother called for her then, and Sorcha left Hugh at the windows to mull over her words.

  He did not share her confidence that blackmail would assure their safety. The courts of Europe were filled with intrigue. Blackmail was a common tool to gain compliance and power. But Hugh knew that, when backed into a corner, people were often far from predictable. There were those who would take a chance at exposure to exact deadly retribution.

  To face an entire government head-on was a hazard to be wary of, but Hugh vowed that he would bring them to their very knees to insure Sorcha’s safety. Exposure would be the least of their worries if she were harmed in any way.

  “Minions are printing for you,” Danny told Claire when she rejoined him. “Don’t worry, they won’t look. And here are your copies.” He held out a pair of utilitarian thumb drives in one hand but lifted the other with a little object swaying hypnotically from one finger. “It’s a USB hidden in a keychain of a little Tokidoki Thor. Isn’t it cute?” he asked as he sent it swaying again.

  “It’s adorable,” Claire said, taking them from him.

  “I know Thor is your favorite superhero,” Danny went on, then shot a glance across the room at Hugh. “Your boyfriend has that whole Thor thing going on, doesn’t he? Except for the dark hair, of course. Kind of Old World Shakespeare meets Rob Roy.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” she insisted, ignoring the heat creeping up her cheeks.

  “Of course not,” he readily agreed. “That would be insane, wouldn’t it?”

  Claire leveled her brother with a glare that told him she knew he was trying to provoke her. Normally such a jab about what Danny had once referred to as her “nunhood” would have angered her but now looking at Hugh standing proudly in the light cast through the windows, Claire acknowledged that there were worse things she could be likened to than Hugh’s girlfriend.

  She considered him silently for a moment, wondering where this latest discovery would take them, before turning thoughtfully back to her brother.

  “Danny? How hard would it be to forge a passport?”

  Danny barely raised a brow at the unusual question. “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

  “No, it’s not for me. It’s for Hugh.” Danny raised both brows at that, and Claire rushed to improvise. “He’s being watched by the NSA…”

  “What for?” he interrupted.

  “What
do they watch you for?” Claire shot back, not wanting to spill the entire truth just yet.

  “Many things, but I doubt it’s the same stuff they’d be watching him for,” Danny admitted without shame. “Is he a terrorist?”

  “No. Does he look like one?”

  “No, but neither did Gertrude Moynihan and look how that turned out.”

  Claire didn’t know what to say to that, as she had no idea who Gertrude Moynihan was. “He’s not a terrorist, just sort of … undocumented … but I’d like to help him get out of the country as soon as possible,” she said, then added, “Before he’s unjustly detained, you see. Do you know anyone who could do that?”

  “A forged passport alone wouldn’t get you onto a bus these days,” he said as if Claire were an idiot. “I mean, you can get some good paperwork done, but if you’re not in the system you’re screwed.”

  “Then can you put him in the system?” she asked patiently. “If he’s in there, maybe he can just go to the embassy, swear he’s been robbed, get a new passport, and that’s that.”

  “Nearest British consulate is in San Francisco.”

  As with any conversation with her brother, there was a moment that astonished. “I’m not even going to ask how you know that off the top of your head.”

  “I always said you were the smartest of us all,” he said sagely. “Are you smart enough to understand the inherent danger in what you’re thinking?”

  Claire nodded and Danny sighed. “Well, then, to answer your question, I could put him in the system but it wouldn’t do any good.”

  “Please enlighten me.”

  “Well, first of all, if it’s the NSA following him, they can follow him anywhere. A little international border won’t stop them.”

  “They couldn’t find him if they didn’t know who he was,” Claire pointed out.

  “Which leads to point number two. Say you do get him a passport with a faked identity, he might still not be able to get out of the country anyway,” Danny began, swinging his chair from side to side. “If the Feds are after him and have any idea where he might be going or even leaving from, they’ll just watch customs and do a background check on anyone who goes through and catch him on the other side.”

  She frowned. She hadn’t thought of that. “Shit.”

  “Shit is right,” Danny agreed with a nod. “What he needs to do is get over there with one identity and have another new identity waiting for him so that he can start all over again. Then poof, he’s a ghost.”

  “Which he can’t do without a passport,” Claire reminded him.

  “Right,” he said. “Why not just make him an American? Start small. Birth certificate, driver’s license. Then slowly graduate up to a passport? He could stay right here, right under their noses.”

  Claire exhaled slowly at the thought. What would it be like to have Hugh stay? To help him along in small steps rather than cramming it all down his throat? To build on their friendship and maybe … one day … “I doubt he would have that much time.”

  Her brother raised a curious brow but thankfully refrained from further probing. “If you need to get him out that quick, then I can’t see how … But maybe …” Danny’s words trailed off until he was still as a statue, pizza inches from his mouth and eyes far away.

  “Maybe what?”

  He held up a finger, putting her on hold. She could see the wheels turning in his mind. “Uno momento, Sister.” He took a bite of the pizza, washing it down with a swig of Red Bull. “I’ve got an idea that might work.”

  “Might? What is it?”

  “Let me brainstorm on it awhile and I’ll get back to you.”

  Claire rolled her eyes with a sigh. She knew that Danny’s brainstorming could last anywhere from an hour to a month. “You can hack into a high-security server in minutes but this takes time?”

  “I might be a freakin’ genius, but defrauding the federal government does take time,” he informed her, grinning wickedly. “As I’m sure you already know.”

  Since Claire wasn’t about to go so far as to call it that, she only said, “Fine. Call me when you figure it out.” She wrote her new number on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

  “This just keeps getting better and better. Someday I’ll demand details.”

  “Someday I might just give them to you,” she teased. “In the meantime, I wouldn’t boot up my laptop unless you want some company of the type I know you don’t prefer.”

  “Better and better.” Tossing the pizza aside, he swiveled back to the computer and began typing madly. “Oh, wait!” He swung back again just as quickly. Danny pulled his phone from his pocket as he went to Hugh and physically pulled him to a blank interior wall of the loft. “Smile. No, don’t,” he corrected. “No one ever smiles on these things.” A light flashed as he took a picture and then waved an impatient hand. “Okay, now go.”

  Gathering up the printout, which had been contained in a large binder delivered by one of Danny’s “minions,” and the USBs, Claire gestured for Hugh to join her as she headed for the door. “Are we finished, then?” he asked, courteously taking the heavy binder from her hands as he blinked away the light flash.

  “Thank you. Yes, we’re done for now.”

  “Yer brother is most unique.”

  “My brother is an unemployed college dropout,” Claire told him as they left the loft and headed back down the long hall toward the elevators. “He’s also so damned smart he could probably head up his own think tank and invent world peace. I’ve always wondered what he does to make money. I mean, those servers didn’t buy themselves. I probably don’t want to know.” No, probably not, she thought. She might have been joking when she asked what the NSA monitored him for, but Danny’s response had been remarkably blasé.

  “Why does he call those other lads ‘minions’?”

  Claire grinned. “I think it makes him feel as if he’s some sort of mastermind … either that or he watches too many cartoons.”

  Hugh took her words in stride without asking for clarification. Whatever the world at large might think about her brother, Danny O’Bierne was definitely far more canny than his shabby appearance might lead a person to believe. He also cared deeply for his sister and was protective of her. That alone had earned Hugh’s approval. “I believe he might be ‘hacking’ into yer life. He knows what ye do.” And what you don’t, Hugh thought.

  Sorcha only laughed, swinging a small object around her finger. “I’ve suspected as much for a long time. I’m pretty sure he knows me right down to my Netflix history. Sometimes I’m tempted to go to lesbian chat rooms just to see if he’ll say anything.”

  Eight languages, Hugh thought with some exasperation. He spoke eight languages and still he could not glean the meaning of her words. Often when she was excited or angry, she seemed to forget that some of her words were beyond his ken. He closed his eyes against her garble now, sure that one day he would look back on it all and be able to appreciate what amused her so.

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  Hugh opened his eyes to find her waiting just inside that infernal box once again.

  Never mind that the very mechanics of the thing sounded as trustworthy as King George’s promises, the real difficulty would be in being enclosed within its confines with Sorcha for the duration of their return to the ground. Could he withstand the temptation when she seemed to be deliberately provoking him? Hugh shook his head. He was a man of flesh and blood, not a Grecian marble. Honor aside, there was only so much a man could be expected to bear.

  Looking around for an escape, Hugh spied a placard above a nearby door depicting an easily recognizable staircase. “I’d rather take the stairs. That …”

  “Elevator,” she supplied.

  “Aye,” he nodded, adding with complete honesty, “It isnae tae my liking.”

  Sorcha blinked not once but twice at him. “Oh, okay then. No big deal. We can walk.”

  “Ye needn’t join me if ye’d rather ride,” Hugh off
ered, though the courtesy only served to deepen her frown.

  “I can walk.”

  She led the way, bursting through the steel door and tripping lightly down the first series of steps. Hugh didn’t need to be awash in the heat of her wake to know that Sorcha was disappointed in him. The question was why?

  Hugh had asked, two nights past, to be released from his vow, and had broken it the previous morning, only to upset her. Clearly she was determined to deny the attraction that simmered between them, but ever since that argument, it seemed that Sorcha had gone out of her way to lure him to the brink of breaking his promise again after he had only just redoubled his conviction not to do so in order to spare her upset. Now, she teased with her proximity only to pull away. Incited desire only to deny.

  Never had Hugh met a more maddening woman. It was almost as if she didn’t have any idea of what she truly wanted.

  Chapter 22

  “Tell me, lass, what’s got yer feathers in a bunch now?” Hugh asked as they descended the final flight of stairs.

  “Are you hungry? I know I am, and if I am, I know you must be,” Sorcha responded pertly, ignoring the question as if it had never been spoken.

  She was good at evasion, even if she was not terribly subtle about it. Hugh had noticed before that if a conversation wasn’t to her liking or heading in her preferred direction, Sorcha simply plucked a new topic from the air and carried on as if nothing were amiss. She had done so that evening while standing at the sink, the previous morning when she had overridden his attempts to apologize, and again last night after their walk on the beach, drawing close to him only to pull quickly away with an announcement that she was off to bed.

  It was perhaps her most irritating quality.

  Hugh ground his teeth with frustration, resisting the urge to take her by the shoulders and shake an answer from her. It wasn’t in his nature to cater so to another’s whims. He was a duke, after all. He had been raised to command and lead with the expectation of being followed. He wasn’t one to bow down to another, and he had done so with Sorcha only out of appreciation for her aid and because he had yet to find his footing in this world, but at some point she would need to know that he wasn’t going to be ridden roughshod over forever.