It must’ve come with the house.
The candles in the wall sconces and chandelier above were all unlit but sunlight filled the room from the bank of floor to ceiling windows dominating the far wall. Drawn by the light and sun she’d been missing for so long, Al wandered that way. Finding a door in the glass, she passed through it only to have her breath taken away.
Beyond the elegant terrace was the most magnificent garden. Not a garden in the manner she’d ever seen. No veggies for sure and in truth, not an overabundance of flowers either. It was a classical English garden with pathways cut across from all sides and corners of the huge walled-in area. They crossed here and there to create the impression of starbursts and pinwheels. All of it converged in the center where a marvelous fountain spouted merrily.
As if that were not splendid enough, the triangles formed by the pathways and the pristine hedgerows lining each side were filled with more hedges cut into elegant twists and twirls that boggled Al’s mind. Sculpted trees rose here and there like classical statuary. And beyond it all, as far as she could see, a wide swatch of trimmed lawn stretched into the distance, separating the woodlands on either side. A body of water filled the picture to the horizon.
She turned back toward the door, her eye drawn up, and then farther upward until she staggered back against the balustrade. Speechless.
It was a castle!
Her dark, dank dungeon had its very own castle. That would mean… No. It wasn’t possible. She returned to the library shaking her head. No, there was no chance her abductor and jailer belonged to a place so elegant and refined.
He was a brute. A bully. A sava—
Al stumbled to a halt as she spotted the man leaning on a desk on the far side of the room near the door. She recognized the massive form but could not reconcile what she saw now with what she knew to be true. He was clean-shaven, every plane of his gorgeous face bared to an even more stunning effect. Gone was the filthy shirt. The ragged and bloodied kilt. In its place was an elegant, thigh-length jacket of gray that hugged his broad shoulders, with dozens of silver buttons lining the front edges. Beneath it, he wore a long vest of silvery gray that appeared to be silk and a knotted linen neckcloth. Matching knee breeches, white stockings that hugged his calves, and shoes with silver buckles. He should have looked ridiculous, but he did not.
But for his wild mop of wavy black hair, he looked almost like a gentleman… and a rather dashing one at that.
An involuntary sigh of pure appreciation escaped her.
He seemed as surprised by her appearance as she was by his, which made no sense. She looked exactly as she had when he’d abandoned her to the dungeons, minus her lab coat. But she was suddenly very aware of her dirty silk blouse hanging untucked over her black skirt. Her bare legs and feet tingled under his raking glance and she couldn’t help fidgeting, shifting to one foot, chafing one calf with the arch of her other.
His surprise fell away into an expression of shock and disgust. She couldn’t blame him there. She was a bit more crusty and far more noxiously fragrant than she’d been before. Then anger descended over his handsome face. It was familiar enough. She’d been privy to that expression before. His eyes narrowed and Al shivered in dread for what was to come next. More chains? Knives? Something worse? Why bring her up here at all and risk ruining the lovely rug on the floor if he could have tortured her with what was available in her cell?
Perhaps he didn’t like the stink down there any more than she did.
Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode to the door, anger evident in his every step. Throwing it open, he bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Maeve! Tae me now!”
The woman who had escorted her through the castle appeared in haste. So quickly, Al thought she might have anticipated being recalled to the room. A tiny smile lifted the corner of her mouth. She seemed as pleased by his reaction as she’d been upon finding Al in the dungeon, not even flinching when Keir laid into her with a rough stream of what Al could only assume was Gaelic, since the woman had questioned her in it before.
Maeve stood her ground against the verbal onslaught, not at all cowed by the harsh words. But, she shifted uneasily as he carried on.
For all he was obviously berating the woman pretty harshly, the guttural turns and burrs of the foreign language had a beauty to it that Al found mesmerizing. Punctuated with a slash of a hand or a roll of his shoulders, she admired the graceful movements though she had to wonder what he was saying.
Then he stopped and turned to Al, holding her gaze until she first squirmed then caved to scratching at the filth that tormented her flesh.
“I owe ye an apology.”
Itches forgotten, Al stared at him incredulously. After the tirade he’d heaped upon the woman, the kind tone was the last thing she’d expected. An apology?
“What?”
“’Tis nae excuse, I was exhausted by battle and grief for my cousin when ye… er, when we met so abruptly.” He pushed away from the desk and bowed. Bowed. “My terrible shock prompted unconscionable rudeness.”
“Rudeness?” Al parroted, unable to come to grips with the pure courtesy spewing from a mouth that before had only been prone to incivility. Who was this guy?
“Let’s call it barbarity, shall we?” He winked playfully but Al wasn’t about to let a bit a charm wash away days worth of misery.
“You left me in a dungeon.”
“’Twisnae my intention to leave ye there.” He gestured to the woman, but Al shook her head. Her irritation and voice building in force.
“Don’t blame her, you’re the one who put me down there to begin with.”
“Aye.” He nodded, looking a bit taken aback by her heated outburst. “Oot of anger. Mayhap tae frighten ye a wee bit. But I’m nae monster, lass. I meant tae free ye from those bonds straight away but for a miscommunication in my absence. Please accept my apologies and allow us tae begin again.”
“Begin again? I had a bucket!”
“Ye’ve found yer tongue most handily, I see. Much tae my disadvantage now.” Though he gave her but a nod, she could have sworn he seemed… pleased by her reprimand. “However, I’d like ye tae ken, ‘twisnae my intention a’tall. Please allow me to extend the hospitality I had originally intended.”
His gaze slid to the woman and Al’s followed. Gone was the malicious pleasure that had washed her expression before. She was so taut with anger now, she practically vibrated with it.
“Hospitality?” she spat… actually spat on the thick carpeting, the ugly gesture a contradiction to her regal façade. “Lecture me all ye like, Keir MacCoinnich, but she be getting what she deserves and there’ll be more of it if I hae my way.”
“Maeve…”
“Nay!” Maeve shouted furiously, spittle flying from her lips. “She killed my brother! She deserves more than a slap on the wrist for it. Mayhap I cannae do it myself, but when Robert returns—”
“Yer husband willnae lay a hand on her.” Keir’s voice was deadly calm but Al was rattled by the woman’s threats.
“Please, I didn’t kill your bro—”
The woman pinned her with a look of such venom that Al wondered how such hatred had been contained before.
“Lying witch! All the men are passing stories of Hugh’s disappearance. Ye were the only one there. Tell me that isnae the truth of it.”
Since it was, technically, Al couldn’t exactly argue the point but before she could offer a defense or even the truth of it all, Maeve rained downed a long string of Gaelic on her before she spun away. She ran from the room, slamming the door behind her with a bang.
Silence echoed through the library as both Al and Keir stared at the door before turning to look at each other.
“Did she just curse me?” she asked, finding her voice at last.
Keir shrugged. “Dinnae take it personally. Such things rarely come tae fruition.”
A squeak of disbelief climbed up her throat and the tiniest smile lit Keir’s eyes. “Come, al
low me tae right my wrongs and allow ye a chance to change oot of that curious yet distasteful garb.”
“A bath?” she straightened with pleasure at the thought.
“Aye, a bath, but then…,” the condition rang ominously before he continued, “I’ll be expecting ye tae right yer wrongs as well.”
He didn’t have to explain himself. He’d be wanting an explanation of where his cousin had gone and how he’d gotten there.
Al only hoped the bath might last forever.
Chapter 8
Keir rotated his glass faster, watching the amber liquid climb the sides of the tumbler before he slowed the action and the swirling Scotch settled back into the bottom. Lifting it to his lips, he took a long sip, eyeing the mantel clock over the rim.
Where was she? Surely a bath couldn’t last so long. Her water had to have run to cold by now. She had been rather grotesquely grimy though. He shrugged, silently agreeing with that inward assessment. Her blonde hair—at least he recalled it as blonde from their initial meeting—dingy and half-fallen from its trappings, had been matted and tangled when she’d walked past him into the library earlier. The sight of such a mangled mess had stayed his tongue until she wandered far beyond, absorbing the splendor of the room with open awe.
Obviously she wasn’t accustomed to the sort of opulence his French grandmother had favored when overseeing the redecoration of Dingwall Castle upon her marriage to the old Earl of Cairn. He might not favor it himself, but Keir was more than familiar with such settings. It made him wonder from whence his prisoner came that she would look upon it all with such wonder. She denied being English but she was no Scot with that accent and dress. No woman of his acquaintance, even in the more risqué courts of Europe, wore skirts above her knees.
She was as much a peculiarity to his eyes as his home was to hers. Staring at her would not provide an answer to his questions.
He needed answers. After a long, tiring journey where none had been found, for his own sanity, he needed some from her.
Or would the answers she’d provide only cause him to sink into madness? He could still hardly account for what he’d seen out there on the moors. These past days, he’d begun to wonder if it had all been a hallucination of sorts. A bit of madness springing from the grief of watching his beloved cousin perish.
That might explain it all.
Though it couldn’t explain her.
An odd wee lass with fetching gray eyes and an air of mystery about her. The stuttering miss from his dungeons taken over by a veritable termagant vocal in her opinions. Surely she would find the words now to put him out of his misery.
Her.
Ha, he didn’t even know her name.
* * *
Her trip through time had become even more surreal since she’d stepped into the library earlier and had her entire perception of this place and her captor turned inside out.
Trying to mesh this new reality with the old had thrown her for a loop. That imbalance had followed her through being scrubbed, dried, and dressed in multiples layers of ivory and blue linen with varying degrees of discomfort… both on a personal and physical level.
Now, Al followed the pointed fingers of the occasional servants she came across as they directed her wordlessly through the castle, still trying to reconcile those two divergent realities. Which of them was real?
The nightmare?
The fairytale?
The savage?
The gentleman?
It was all incredibly bizarre. She was trying to make herself understood to the people in this castle. Some of them, it seemed, spoke no English. According to the young woman who had persistently attended to her while she was bathing despite Al’s repeated assurance that she could do it herself, many of the Highlanders spoke nothing but Gaelic.
Others might have been simply refusing to speak with her. The foreigner. The interloper. The killer.
As outlandish to them as all of this was to her.
Rumors must have circulated through the castle over the four days of her incarceration, though, given the dark looks she received. She’d been astounded when she’d heard the time frame. Four. Not ten, not twelve. Just four.
A lifetime. But not.
It made her want to hate the man responsible but after such an eloquent apology in that soft, purring brogue, she’d had a hard time holding on to her resentment.
She’d reserve that for Maeve now. From a distance. Instinct told her to steer clear of the irate woman.
Keir seemed to have relinquished some of his anger toward her as well, though his frustration was still evident. He would want answers now. She only hoped she was brave enough to give him the truth, damn the consequences.
Clearly he loved his cousin. He deserved to know.
Hopefully when he was done with his interrogation she’d be able to deliver one of her own. The wheres and whens of her accidental passage through time were a mystery she’d like solved.
Scientist problems. Al repressed a giggle at the thought. How often had anyone ever been faced with such a setback?
She was still smiling when another servant, a rickety old man in a faded kilt and brilliant blue jacket, pointed expressionlessly at a pair of double doors. She entered to find Keir rising from a chair set at the head of a ridiculously long table.
He was dressed even more flamboyantly than before. This time in a green silk jacket with golden frogging along the edges and wide, turned-up cuffs with lace spilling out over his darkly tanned hands. His mop of black hair was tamed into a ponytail at his nape, sending the sculpted perfection of his facial features into sharp relief.
He should have struck her as preposterously effeminate with all the braid and dripping lace, but again, he did not.
The magnificence of his person sent her heartbeat racing. Any lingering anger she’d been nursing fell victim to a sudden rush of shyness.
“What do ye find so amusing?” he asked, tugging at his cuffs and fluffing the lace of his jabot… playfully? He was becoming more human and less monster by the second. “The barbarian is gone, I assure ye. Tonight we shall dine… and converse like two civilized people. I hae dressed for my part. I see that ye were well garbed fer yers.”
Al brushed shaky hands down the fabric reining in her midsection and refrained from indulging in the deep inhale she longed for to calm her nerves. An attempt to do so when she’d first seen herself in a mirror had nearly rocketed her breasts right out of the too-tight bodice. She’d didn’t want that to happen again.
Still with his eyes wandering downward as they had days ago, alight with appreciation, the inhale was involuntary. His eyes widened… and warmed. A little tingle ran down her spine that was as inappropriate now as it had been four days ago.
Keir cleared his throat and bowed, much as he had earlier in the library. This time he held out his hand expectantly, and having no other option beyond awkwardly retreating, Al placed her hand hesitantly in his.
He kissed it. Actually kissed it. And Al nearly fainted as his lips brushed over her knuckles. Her knees trembling when he raised his eyes and winked at her.
“My compliments, lass. I’m fairly speechless in awe at the bonny picture ye present.”
Damn, he was good. So far he was beating a lifetime of detailed fantasies, hands down.
“Tell me, does such an angelic vision hae a name?”
A name? Oh.
“Al,” she stuttered out.
“Al?” he repeated using her same, flat American accent on the short word. He straightened, his brow furrowing as if the name were completely nonsensical. Or repugnant. “Al?”
With a grimace, Al tugged her hand away and entwined her fingers self-consciously at her waist. She nodded jerkily. “Yeah. Or a lot of my friends call me Big Al.” His brows shot upward and she rushed to explain. “It’s ironic, you see? Since I’m so not… in size… but…”
“Al.” He repeated her name, testing it on his tongue with far more flavor than the diminutive deserv
ed. It sounded better with a thick Scottish brogue to bring it to life. He must have agreed because after a brief pause, he nodded, looking her up and down. “It suits ye, I suppose, for all it is a masculine moniker. Concise and forthright as ye appeared in yer other garb.”
The scrutiny in his eyes changed, becoming more speculative, and Al knew he was going to be changing the subject with that segue.
“It’s short for Allorah,” she rushed to extend her reprieve. “That’s my name. Allorah Danaan Maines. It’s ridiculously whimsical, I know. My mom was like that.”
“Nae a’tall like ye, I gather?” he said. “Are ye nae given tae whimsy, Allorah? Ne’er?”
Al couldn’t help but warm under the knowingness in his eyes. As if he knew every stray thought running through her fanciful mind. If he only knew how prone to fancy she really was, he might be the one blushing.
She’d had a long four days in that cell with not much else to occupy her.
Still, she couldn’t have him thinking he was all that. In her admittedly limited experience, men, no matter where or when, couldn’t be allowed that much of an upper hand.
“And your name? Keir MacCoinnich, if I heard right.”
He frowned at her standoffish tone and stepped away, politely holding a chair out for her near his at the end of the table. “Aye, ye heard it right.”
“And just who are you, Keir MacCoinnich?” she asked, taking the glass of wine one of the servants put before her and sipping deeply. For strength of nerve.
Her bold inquiry must have struck one of his nerves because his brows snapped together as he resumed his seat. Tenting his fingers, he leaned forward and spoke. The low timber of his voice holding a note of that old menace she remembered so well from the dungeon.
“Enough. Questions ye may hae but I’ll be getting the answers tae mine long before ye’ll be getting yers. Or shall we put aside this fine civility and return tae the dungeon?”
Fear renewed, her hand shook as she set her wine glass down on the table.
Love in the Time of a Highland Laird (A Laird for All Time Book 3) Page 4