She’d never been overseas before. Ben, a history major back in college before he’d picked up the comfortable job in sales that had sustained him since then, had been a few times — he’d told her all about his trips in the lead-up to this one. That was the benefit of dating someone a little older, she supposed — he’d celebrated his fortieth earlier that year. Maybe that was why he was so good at managing her mother, she thought as they boarded the plane. Lots of experience. He had a habit of dating younger women, something that had made her best friend scowl suspiciously when she’d mentioned it — his last girlfriend had been in her early twenties. But Brianna couldn’t bring herself to worry too much about it, and her therapist hadn’t seem concerned when she’d brought it up. Age gaps just weren’t that big a deal these days.
Strange, how the mind found things to worry about. She settled into her window seat as the plane taxied down the runway, a prickle of apprehension running through her. The day was drizzly and gray, and she could feel her anxiety spinning into gear, looking for reasons to stress. What if the trip was a bad idea? What if she and Ben got into a terrible fight while they were away and were stuck together until they got back? What if she hated Scotland? What if she caught some awful disease on the plane, what if the weather was bad and the flight got re-routed to somewhere awful, what if the weather was terrible and they crashed and drowned somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? What if this was the last time she’d ever see Chicago? She peered through the window as the plane lifted off, shaking a little with the force of the wind, and though Ben squeezed her hand reassuringly, she couldn’t shake the sense of dread that followed her up, up and into the big gray sky.
It was the longest flight she’d ever been on. The drone of the engines and the low murmur of the other passengers quickly became background noise, and Brianna found herself lulled by the sound, staring out into the gray beyond the windows as the time crept by. She slept a little, woken by the little meals the crew brought to them, slept again, half-watched a movie on the screen in the back of the seat in front of her… by the time the announcement came that they were beginning their descent, she’d completely lost track of what time it was, where she was and where she was going. Ben lowered his book, his dark eyes gleaming with enthusiasm as the plane began its descent.
The first difference she noticed, when they spilled off the plane with the rest of the passengers eager to stretch their legs, was the accents. It was an international airport, but it wasn’t long before she heard the tell-tale sound of Scottish accents — a family deep in conversation, who looked up at her curiously when they caught her staring. It was an absolutely gorgeous accent — one she’d rarely heard before, too. Ben grinned at her, pulling her along by the hand, clearly impatient to get their bags and get going. She followed along in his wake, smiling, feeling her apprehensions about the trip dissolving. This was great. She was on holiday with her boyfriend in a brand new part of the world. How could she have thought this was a bad idea?
They spent a couple of nights in Inverness to get their bearings and adjust to the time difference — though Brianna had so much experience with sleep disturbance that she barely noticed any jetlag. It was a beautiful city, but she was itching to get out into the countryside, to experience some moors and heather, and to look around some of the old-fashioned castles and manors that Ben had told her so much about. They climbed aboard a coach bright and early and set off into the countryside, the bus full of chattering tourists like them. The first stop was a place called Weatherby Manor.
“Weatherby doesn’t sound like a Scottish name,” Brianna pointed out, grinning to herself — she knew exactly how to bait Ben into a lecture. Sure enough, he was soon midway through a long lecture on the history of English colonial presence in Scotland — it seemed that the Weatherby family had built a manor out on the moors around the fifteenth century to keep an eye on the Scottish locals. Over the years it had been inhabited on and off, and eventually fallen into disrepair around the turn of the twentieth century, maintained as a place of historical interest. A few years ago, though, permission had been sought to turn it into a tourist attraction — half of the old manor had been updated and its various guest rooms turned into hotel rooms, with the other half turned into a museum for interested tourists to explore.
Ben was very excited to see how true the rooms had been kept to their medieval origins, interested in the restoration work that had been done — Brianna was just looking forward to wandering the moors. As the coach trundled out of the city, she pressed her face to the window, marveling at how beautiful the countryside was. She couldn’t wait to get out there, to take a long stroll in the peace and quiet.
They arrived at the manor after lunch, and she couldn’t help but smile at how… well, how touristy it was. There were dozens of other Americans around the place, posing for photos, laughing and talking loudly… not exactly her image of the ancient Scottish highlands. The manor was beautiful, though — and though she was no expert, she could hear by the sharp intake of breath from Ben that the restoration work was solid. The building was enormous — far bigger than even the most ostentatious McMansion she’d seen back in the States, built of gray stone with carefully cultivated ivy growing all over it. Ben told her that there had once been walls around it, keeping it protected from the locals, but they hadn’t been maintained along with the rest of the manor, and as such it stood alone, here at the top of a gentle rise that allowed it a view of the surrounding countryside. The stables had been preserved too, though they didn’t seem to be home to horses any longer — as she glanced over to the low buildings that stood separate from the main house (hard to think of it as a house, such a sprawling building it was) she saw laughing families emerging with bags bearing the name of the hotel.
“They turned the stables into a gift shop?” Ben said, looking a little disgruntled. “Anything to make money off the tourists, I guess.”
“Hey. We’re tourists too,” Brianna pointed out, a little annoyed by the tone of his voice. He just shrugged.
They headed through the main doors. The entrance hall was rather grand, its walls covered in photos of the manor’s restoration process, as well as several rather beautiful paintings of the manor in a more antiquated style — impressions of what it would have looked like hundreds of years ago, she assumed. There was a smiling woman behind a reception desk that had been installed in front of the great staircase that led up to the manor’s second floor, and Brianna lined up to check them in while Ben examined the paintings on the wall, making occasional disgruntled sounds as he found things that displeased him. Brianna did her best to ignore him, smiling and chatting with the receptionist as she checked them in.
A young man showed them up the ornate staircase and took them down a long corridor to their room. Brianna couldn’t help but be a little thrilled that they were staying in the actual manor itself — the young man explained that the rooms had been carefully restored to be as much like the original medieval rooms as possible, while maintaining the comforts of modernity. A little ensuite bathroom with running water had been installed, for example — something Brianna was privately grateful for, but seemed to annoy Ben.
“Typical,” he scoffed once they were alone in the room. “Destroying an ancient building like this with modern plumbing just so they can justify charging an exorbitant amount of money to tourists…”
“I mean, they said the building was pretty much a wreck when the new owners bought it,” Brianna pointed out, frowning. “These floors were mostly destroyed, the website said. If they had to rebuild them from scratch anyway, why not include some modern comforts?”
He just shrugged, and she could tell by the set of his jaw and the look in his eye that they weren’t going to be getting anywhere with this line of conversation. So she unpacked in silence, humming to herself, trying her best to maintain her good mood in the face of Ben’s sour comments about tourists. Did he not see the irony? They were tourists. They wouldn’t have even been
here in the first place if it wasn’t for the fact that someone had bought this old wreck of a building and rebuilt it… there were plenty of ruins around the country that hadn’t been touched at all. Maybe he’d cheer up a little if they went and visited one of those.
“Hey, do you want to go for a walk before it gets dark?” she suggested once she’d unpacked her clothes, glancing over at Ben, who was scrolling through his phone — he’d made a resentful comment earlier about the speed of the wifi here, which she’d ignored. It seemed that some modern conveniences were acceptable.
“Walk where?”
“Funny you should ask,” she said with a grin, reaching into her pocket and grabbing a brochure she’d picked up in the lobby. “I know how much you love castles — and this one’s in walking distance, apparently. What do you say?”
“The old MacClaran place? It’ll be dark by the time we get there,” he said brusquely, and she felt her heart sink. She’d really been hoping this would lift his spirits. “Besides, that place is a ruin. The only reason it even has a brochure of its own is a bunch of stupid rumors about witches living there in the fifteenth century.”
“Witches, huh?” She waggled her fingers in a last-ditch effort to get him interested. “Maybe there are still a few up there, just waiting for us to visit…”
“You do what you want,” he said brusquely, and she gritted her teeth. “I’m going to check out the bar. You know there’s a bar here, right?” he added, rolling his eyes. “Because nothing says medieval history like a bar…”
“I’m going to go for a walk anyway,” Brianna said, trying to keep her temper level as she felt anger and frustration bubbling up in her. Why did he always have to be such a sour jerk? His critical outlook on the world had been part of what had drawn her too him originally… but the relentless negativity began to wear thin after a while, she was learning. She’d assumed he was just sick of Chicago, of his life there — that the holiday would show her a different, less grumpy side of him. But the longer they were here, the more she realized that looking down on everything around him was just part of Ben’s DNA. It was exhausting. And if he wanted to just get drunk and spend their whole holiday in the hotel, then fine.
She grabbed her jacket and stalked out of the room, hiding her anger and frustration. She knew from long experience that getting annoyed with Ben would rarely make the situation better — they’d end up in some drawn-out passive-aggressive battle, and eventually she’d get impatient and bored and apologize just to put an end to it. But it was a nice afternoon, the air cold and brisk against her skin, and as she headed across the crowded courtyard in front of the manor, she paused to turn and look back at the place. It was beautiful, no matter what Ben said, and she was looking forward to the three nights they’d be spending here. He could be as sour as he wanted — she was interested in the history of the place, and she was going to find out as much as she could about it.
But for now, the moors were calling her. She headed out along the road that had brought them to the manor, then turned down a little walking trail, well-signposted and clearly well-walked. That was for the best, probably. She’d never had the best sense of direction — she knew her way around Chicago, of course, but when it came to nature and wilderness, she had an unerring habit of getting thoroughly lost. Buildings and roads were easy… trees and bushes, less so. So she followed the set path, quickly warming up as the path took her uphill. It was a pleasant walk, and she felt herself relaxing with the fresh air in her lungs and the happy warmth of exertion in her muscles.
The walk she’d chosen did a big loop around the manor, and though it didn’t feel like a long walk, she was surprised to look at her phone and find that a couple of hours had passed. The sun was low on the horizon and she knew it would be getting cold and dark soon. But still, she lingered for a little while, biting her lip as she attempted to figure out just what it was that was stopping her from heading back to their room in the manor. The truth was, the last couple of hours of her holiday had been happier than all of the ones preceding it… and the only explanation was that she wasn’t enjoying Ben’s company at all. Her heart sank when she realized how much longer they were going to be spending together.
Maybe she should make the best of it, she thought with a frown, heading back toward the manor as the long shadows crept across the ground. Put in more of an effort to be interested in Ben’s historical persnicketing. Really try to see things from his point of view. They always had the most fun together when they were making fun of things… watching bad movies, seeing terrible plays… but was that really healthy? she wondered. What would her therapist say about seeking out negativity as a way of making yourself feel better? Nothing good, she suspected.
To her surprise, when she got to the manor, a quick glance toward the restaurant showed that some kind of welcome party was in full swing. She poked her head through the door, surprised by how many people were at the bar, laughing and drinking — wasn’t it a bit early to be getting drunk? Well, she supposed they were on holiday. Was Ben here? She wouldn’t have put it past him to be having a drink or three… he’d been hitting it hard since they’d gotten to Scotland, claiming that he was on holiday and deserved to treat himself. But there was no sign of him at the bar. She had a drink anyway, and a bit of a chat with an older couple who were celebrating their anniversary with a trip around Scotland.
But when she’d finished her beer, a delicious dark ale that warmed her belly and made her feel drowsy and content, she said her goodbyes and headed back up the stairs. She was on holiday with her boyfriend, not by herself, and she felt a little guilty enjoying herself without him, especially spending time with the couple who were clearly still so much in love. Maybe one day she and Ben would come back here, she thought with an idle grin, celebrating some anniversary or another. They might even bring their children.
But when she opened the door to their room, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.
Chapter 3
The first thing she heard was a scream. She recoiled in shock, slamming the door shut as she yelped an automatic apology, utter confusion and panic claiming her mind for a moment. What had happened? Did she have the wrong room somehow? There was a naked woman lying on the bed in there — but the key in her hand was the key to her room, and when she checked the door it was the number of the room they’d been assigned. And what was more… she’d seen her suitcase, sitting by the bed where she’d left it when she’d unpacked her clothes. Still in shock, her old investigative instincts taking over, she unlocked the door again, pushing it carefully open. The woman she’d seen was now wrapped in the bedsheets, a look of shock on her face that must have matched the one on Brianna’s.
And there stood Ben, by the bed — he was shirtless and his jeans had been shoved roughly down around his knees, and she could tell by the way that he was swaying slightly where he stood that he’d been drinking. Her eyes flicked from her boyfriend to the very naked woman in the bed… girl, she corrected herself automatically, the woman looked like a teenager — and an icy, awful certainty began to dawn on her as she took a few steps into the room.
“What the hell,” she said, barely recognizing her own voice. “Ben, what the hell?”
“I can explain,” he said.
She almost laughed at what an absolute cliché that was. Was this the part where she stormed out, slamming the door in his face? No — she was fascinated by what was going on, in a remote, removed kind of way. She wanted to hear what kind of explanation he was going to come up with. But the girl spoke before he could, her blue eyes wide with horror.
“Oh my god.” Her voice made Brianna shut her eyes for a moment — she’d bet her life savings this girl was nineteen at the absolute oldest. “I’m so… I didn’t think he — he acted as if he was here alone, I didn’t realize he… I’m so drunk, this is so stupid. Oh my god. I’m so sorry, babe, I didn’t know he was married —”
“We’re not married,” she said bluntly. “We’re n
ot even dating anymore, actually.”
“Bri,” Ben said, extending his hands to her. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves —”
“Oh, no. It’s pretty clear you want to be single,” she said brightly. In a little while, she knew, what had happened here was going to make her sad. But right now, all she felt was anger. Cold, hard, icy anger… the kind of anger that would last just long enough to handle this situation before leaving her an exhausted wreck. This anger was an old friend, and she welcomed it in as her heart pounded dizzily with the shock of what was happening here. “Who am I to stand in your way?”
“Bri, we can talk about this —”
“Don’t call me Bri,” she snapped. “I hate that. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”
“I’m going to go,” the girl murmured, sliding out of the bed and quickly pulling on her panties and bra. “Again, babe, I’m so sorry. I had no idea he wasn’t here alone.”
“It’s not your fault, sweetheart,” Brianna said, leaving Ben to stammer as she turned her attention to the girl. “I know how he operates. I’ve heard the stories. He preys on young girls like you. I hope you learn something from this. Next time some old creep hits on you at a bar,” she said, keeping her voice bright and pleasant even as she aimed her words to hurt Ben as much as possible, “ask yourself why he’s not dating a woman his own age.”
“Again, I’m so, so sorry.” The girl pulled a dress over her head, scanned the room quickly for her shoes, and pulled them on.
She was sweet, Brianna thought dispassionately — sweet, pretty, naïve. She legitimately did hope she learned something from all this — she even gave the girl a smile as she stepped out of the way of the door.
The girl hesitated as she left. “You can do better than him,” she said firmly. “He’s a creep, and you’re awesome.”
“Thanks,” Brianna said, almost laughing at how ridiculous the situation was. Then the door was closed, and she was left alone with Ben. She gathered herself, preparing to utterly eviscerate him… the realized, with a jolt, that she didn’t want to. She didn’t care about the betrayal, about what he’d done, about any of it. She stared at him as he hastily pulled his pants back on, wrinkling her nose as she realized he was still half hard. Pathetic. How had she ever kidded herself she was attracted to him?
Highlander Returned: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 9) Page 2