ROMANCE: Time of the Werebears (Scottish Historical Time Travel Shifter Romance) (Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance)

by Sky Winters

  Once she was finally back in the privacy of her room, she told the maid that she could go. She knew enough about Regency clothing that she knew she could get herself undressed without assistance. Reluctantly, the woman left her alone and she took a seat in front of the large vanity mirror. She was just about to start to pull the pins from her hair when she saw her window thrown open. With that Daniel swung himself inside and looked up at her with a grin.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, not at all shocked to see him in her room.

  “Coming to see you. Have you remembered who you are yet?” he asked conversationally as he took a seat on the bed behind her.

  “I do remember that crawling in to an unmarried woman's window is frowned upon,” she said with a smirk, earning her a deep chuckle from her companion.

  “Perhaps,” he admitted, “but it was the only way to speak to you alone.” He had no shame about coming in to her room and she was glad. She had wanted to talk to him all evening. If she was going to be stuck in the past, she might as well enjoy herself and talking to him was the most appeal thing she had done since being hurdled through time.

  “Why would you want to speak to me alone,” she asked, genuinely curious. She knew why she wanted to talk to him, but she did not know what he was so interested in speaking to her.

  “Because all we had at dinner was polite conversation. I wanted a little something more,” he said, clearly as displeased as she was with the distance put between them by the group.

  “What did you have in mind,” she said with a smirk.

  “I think there is something different about you. I am just not sure exactly what it is,” he said, looking as though he had spent the hours that they had spent apart trying to figure out just that.

  “Maybe you would be better off not knowing,” she said, suddenly realizing that nothing good could come from their friendship for him.

  “I do not think that is the case. I do not think that is true at all,” he answered, his eyes locked on hers as he spoke.

  “You certainly have no trouble getting in and out of that window,” she said, gesturing towards the open window and the curtains blowing in the breeze.

  “I have quite a bit of practice,” he answered mischievously.

  “Does that make you a rake?” she asked, feigning innocence.

  “Blunt, aren't you?” he asked with a smile that told her he appreciated that quality about her.

  “I do try to be,” she said, returning his smile.

  “Well, I will be equally blunt then. I have swung in to my fair share of windows, but none where I was not invited,” he said, his eyes on her face, waiting to study her response to his scandalous confession.

  “Until now,” she pointed out cheekily.

  “Do you want me to go?” he asked, looking a little hurt.

  “No,” she answered quickly, with no pretense of wishing he was anywhere but there talking with her.

  “Good,” he said with a nod.

  “Tell me about this party I seem to have stumbled in to,” she asked, wanting to get all of the information that she could to help prepare her for the hours or days that she had left with them.

  “This? This is my mother's attempt to force me to settle down with a proper young lady from the right kind of family,” he said with a darkness in his eyes that she had not seen before.

  “You look thrilled about it,” she teased, bringing a smile back to his face.

  “Let us just say that proper has never appealed much to me,” he said, giving her an odd look that she could not quite recognize.

  “Hence your skill at entering the windows of innocent young women,” she said to lighten the mood.

  “Exactly,” he said, laughing a bit too loud. She shushed him, afraid that someone would hear him. That only caused him to laugh louder and soon enough she joined in, unable to fight his infectious joy.

  “You do not have your eye on any of the ladies in attendance?” she asked, knowing of course that he did not. Had he a young lady of his own, he would not be in her room. He would not risk the scandal if marriage was his plan.

  “As a wife? No,” he said, though his eyes did not leave her face as he spoke.

  “Your poor mother will be very disappointed,” she answered genuinely. The woman had been so kind to her that she hated the thought of her being disappointed.

  “She usual is,” he said with a laugh. Just then, his eyes locked on her bare wrist. “What is that?” he asked as he closed the distance between then and took the wrist in his hand.

  “Nothing,” she said, fighting the impulse to yank her wrist back from his grasp. She wished with all her might that she had not shed her gloves the moment she entered the room.

  “What is this mark on your wrist?” he asked, running his index finger lightly over the tiny star tattoo on her wrist.

  “Oh, that,” she said as though she had forgotten about the thing entirely until he pointed it out to her. It was, in truth, a great point of comfort for her. She had gotten it in college as a symbol of her hope for the future. When she got nervous or lost her faith in herself, she often touched it and tried to remind herself of who she truly was and who she wanted to be.

  “Yes. It is a tattoo, like a pirate or a sailor,” he said, looking wonderfully amused and confused by it.

  “Not just pirates and sailors have tattoos,” she said defensively, causing him to laugh out loud.

  “It is a star,” he said in further amazement. She wondered to herself if he had ever seen a tattoo in his life at all, let alone on a woman masquerading as a lady.

  “Yes,” she said, touching the mark herself and thought of the young girl she had been when she got it.

  “Are you sure you do not remember who you are?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Yes,” she said, though she allowed herself the pleasure of giving him a smirk that cast doubt upon her words.

  “Hurry up and remember. I cannot wait to learn more about you,” he said with a grin.

  “I will do my best,” she said with a laugh.

  “I should let you rest. You have had a long day,” he said reluctantly.

  “I suppose I have,” she admitted, though she did not want him to go.

  “Good night Lady Mary,” he said as he rose and returned to the window.

  “What makes you think I am a lady?” she asked. If anything, her tattoo should have been all the proof that he needed that she was no lady of good breeding.

  “Oh, I do not quite know, but I would wager on it,” he said, looking her up and down in such a way that she felt as though her skin was on fire.

  “I think you would lose,” she said gently.

  “I think that I would come out ahead. Good night,” he said, swinging himself out the window and leaving her alone once again with her thoughts.

  She knew that she should be trying to find the necklace. It was the only thing that linked her own time to this one, yet she hated the thought of leaving. Something about being there felt so right, even if it was not her world.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, Lady Smithmont’s maid returned to prepare her for the day. She pinned her hair up again, though more simply than she had the day before. This time, she brought with her a yellow day dress and a pair of delicate white lace gloves. Once she was dressed, she made her way to the morning room and found Daniel there in addition to his mother and a few of the other girls in the party, all staring at Daniel as though he was some sort of judge for who they were performing while he took no notice of them.

  He jumped from his chair when she entered the room and grabbed a plate for her before she had the chance to prepare one for herself.

  “Why are you wearing those gloves,” he whispered as he piled her plate with all of the goodies that the cook had prepared for the group to graze on as they waited for everyone to awake.

  “Your mother lent them to me. I believe she said that they are your sisters,” she said quietly, not wanted to draw the atte
ntion of the many women who were already intently studying them.

  “That is not the reason,” he said with a sly smile and a twinkle in his eye that made her heart thud loudly in her chest.

  “If you know, then why are you asking me,” she said, unable to keep from smiling back at him.

  “Because I find you fascinating,” he admitted as he carried her plate to the table and sat it deliberately at the place next to his, looking at his mother as though he was challenging her to separate them.

  “You may be the only person in history who has,” she said with a laugh. Even her closest friends would have described her to anyone as calm and steady, but never fascinating.

  “You know exactly who you are, don't you?” he whispered, shocked that he had not realized before that she had known all along who she was.

  “Does anybody really know exactly who they are?” she asked, her eyes looking deeply in to his as she spoke.

  “You are play with me?” he said with a smile of admiration.

  “Maybe I am,” she said with a smirk, allowing herself to enjoy the moment.

  “This is going to be fun,” he said with a laugh that drew the eyes of everyone in the room.

  “I hope so,” she whispered to him.

  “Do you ride?” He asked suddenly.

  “I believe I do,” she said, doing her best to keep up her charade of memory loss.

  “Then I shall arrange a small group to go. Mother will be quite pleased,” he said loudly enough that the older woman clearly heard him.

  “I doubt it,” she said, watching Lady Smithmont’s expression turn to one of concern.

  “You might be surprised,” he said with a laugh as he rose and went off to prepare the details of the riding party.

  Within two hours, the party was ready to depart from the estate. Once word had spread that it was Daniel who was organizing the ride, all of the guests had expressed their desire to go, making the group much larger than he had originally intended. Still, when Mary made her way towards the stable she could see that he was still in high spirits.

  It was he who helped her in to the saddle of the spirited bay that had been selected for her. Luckily, she had spent her youth taking riding lessons and was as comfortable on the back of a horse as she was on her own two feet. She began at the same slow pace as the rest of the group, riding in such a way as to facilitate conversation because so few of the other young ladies cared at all for riding. Soon, though, she was chafing under the slow pace. Without a second thought for propriety, she urged her horse on. Her bay mare, just as eager for freedom as she was, was off in a flash running freely.

  In a flash, Daniel was off after her as the rest of the group looked on in shock. He caught up to her in a flash because his stallion was the superior horse, but he made no effort to pass her. Instead, they rode neck and neck. They jump shrubbery and creeks with no regard for those they had left in their wake. In was not until they were well beyond the group that they even made an effort to slow their pace. They were on top of the next hilltop before they even looked back. Even at that distance, she could see that a certain young man with blond hair rode a bit apart from the group, his eyes locked on Daniel in what could only be described as fury.

  “Who is that man watching us,” she asked as she gestured toward him.

  “Brian. He is a moody devil,” he said with a shrug.

  “Why is he looking at you with such hatred?” she asked, shocked that the warm man beside her could have caused such a feeling in anyone.

  “You have met Lady Jade, have you not?” he asked with a wicked smile on his face.

  “Yes,” she answered. She had been in their party for dinner the evening before. She was a quiet woman of great beauty.

  “He loves her desperately,” Daniel explained.

  “What does that have to do with you?” she asked, puzzled. She spotted the lady in question who was riding next to Lord Farmington, another eligible bachelor within the group. She was clearly giving him quite a bit of attention and yet it was Daniel that Brian turned his angry gaze upon.

  “Her mother has long been set on me as her husband,” he explained as though it was the most mundane of details.

  “Do you love her?” she asked, surprised how much the thought of him loving another woman bothered her.

  “No!” he exclaimed as though he was just as bothered that she might think he loved another. “She is a fine girl but we have never said more than six words to each other.”

  “Then why does he hate you so much?” she pushed, needing to understand.

  “Because her mother will never let him marry her,” he explained, now watching the dark haired beauty below them as well.

  “But it has nothing to do with you?” she asked, unsure what else might make him objectionable. He seemed a dour fellow, to be sure, but he seemed to be of a high enough standing to have merited an invitation to the event.

  “It is easier for him to blame me than to accept that the lady does not return his affections,” he answered, looking as though he truly felt bad for the man.

  “She does not?” she asked, though it did not surprise her. Lady Jade seemed a pleasant, warm woman. The man who glared up at them was none of those things.

  “No, I am afraid she does not. He got quite drunk at a ball last year and begged her to run off with him rather publicly,” he said, cringing at the uncomfortable memory.

  “How terrible for him,” Mary said sympathetically.

  “Yes, she was quite firm when she told him that she would never do such a thing,” he said, clearly pitying the man who hated him so.

  “Perhaps we should rejoin the group,” she said, though in truth it was the last thing that she wanted to do. She was beginning to realize that she had real feelings for Daniel and, though she knew that he could not return them, she wanted to spend as much time with him as possible before she was pulled back to her own time.

  “I suppose we have created enough scandal for one day,” he said, throwing her a roguish glance before taking off at top speed towards the party below.

  Chapter 6

  When they returned from their ride, Lady Smithmont had pulled her aside to tell her that there would be a dance that evening and to encourage her to get some rest after the exertion of riding. The thought of circling the dance floor in Daniel’s arms was so appealing that it nearly cancelled out her fear of dancing in public. She did try to lay down, but her excitement made sleep impossible.

  When Lady Smithmont’s maid finally did arrive to help her prepare, she opened the door gladly. She sat there as the woman did her hair, trying to remember the details of her former life. It was beginning to feel a bit like that life was the hallucination and this life was her true one. She was so lost in her thought that she did not realize how quickly time had slipped away. Soon enough, she was dressed and ready for the evening as though it had all happened in the blink of an eye.

  Her gown for the evening was much lovelier than any she had ever seen before. It was a deep blue that shone like the night sky. She could not deny that she felt more beautiful that she ever had before and that feeling only grew when she saw the look of appreciation on Daniel’s face when she entered the ballroom. He abandoned the group that he had been speaking with and crossed the room immediately to greet her.

  “You look stunning,” he said in approval as he swept her in to his arms for the first dance of the evening.

  “Thank you. It is so nice of your mother to allow me to use your sister's clothing,” she said as she looked down at the dress, wishing that it was truly hers.

  “Yes, she has been gone on her honeymoon for months,” he said with a smile.

  “That sounds romantic,” she commented, thinking of all the adventures she must be having with her husband.

  “Yes, I am sure that her hen pecked husband will agree when they finally get back,” he said with a chuckle.

  “That is a terrible thing to say,” she said, shocked that he would say such a th
ing about his own sister.

  “Once you meet her, you will understand,” he said with a wink.

  “I doubt I will have the opportunity to meet your sister,” she answered, her expression turning sad. She was not sure how much time she had left with him, but she knew that it was not long.

  “Oh, you certainly will,” he said dismissively.

  “I doubt I will ever see any of you again after is weekend,” she said, unable to keep from allowing the sad thought to creep in to her mind. The thought of never even having the chance to see him again was a blow to her.

  “And where do you think we will allow you to go, with no memory of where you even call home?” he asked, suddenly looking very protective. It warmed her heart, but it did not change anything.