The move made his shoulders nearly fill the entire back seat of the car.
“This is not Scone,” he said with precision.
“Of course it is.” Justine folded her map and tucked it into the glove box.
Morgan was not nearly as unconcerned as her sister. Alasdair looked fit to kill, and she had an inkling that he could break the neck of any of them with his bare hands.
All that advice about not picking up hitchhikers came to mind a bit late for comfort.
“You have lied to me,” Alasdair declared through clenched teeth. He was positively seething.
“Get serious. This is Scone.” Blake was dismissive. “Listen.” He leafed through the pages and lifted one finger in his best imitation of a professor about to lecture learnedly.
“Scone Palace took its current form in the sixteenth century, although it contains fragments of earlier construction. It is located near Moot Hill, where the Stone of Scone, or Stone of Destiny, was the traditional crowning site of the Scottish kings.”
“Until the English stole the stone away,” Alasdair muttered. He looked so lethal that Morgan tried to edge away from him.
The Micra offered little chance of that.
Blake glanced over his shoulder, his finger running down the page. “No, it says here that the Scottish gave the Stone of Destiny to the British as a token of esteem when they welcomed foreign rule.”
Alasdair’s snort made his opinion of that clear.
The really scary thing was that Morgan agreed with him – and not with Blake’s tour book.
Blake read on, oblivious to raised hackles in the back seat. “Originally, the kings of Dalriada – an ancient name for Scotland – were crowned at Dunadd, a hillside fort in Argyll. But in the ninth century, the Stone of Scone was purportedly carried to Scotland from the high seat of Tara in Ireland and located on Moot Hill.”
“That at least is not a lie,” Alasdair acknowledged tightly.
Blake fired a glance between the seats. “They brought it here. This is Scone.”
“That it is not.”
The two men locked gazes in some silent challenge of testosterone, and Morgan knew she wasn’t the only one holding her breath.
Blake was the first to look away. He abruptly cleared his throat and continued. “Eventually, the seat of royal power moved southwards, first to Dunfermline Abbey, then to Edinburgh. Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh remains the official residence of the monarch in Scotland.”
“And which monarch would that be?” Alasdair demanded coldly. “Some poppet from south of the wall, that much is certain, and ’tis just as certain that no rightful monarch could come from such ranks.”
Blake twisted in his seat to face the highlander. “Look, I don’t know where you learned your history, but you’ve got it wrong. The Scottish welcomed British rule.”
“A filthy lie!” Alasdair retorted hotly. “The Scots would never welcome British rule!”
“Look.” Blake took off his glasses and jabbed them through the air toward Alasdair. “All this kilt business is very showy, but I really would have expected a real Scotsman to know his history…”
“I am a truer Scotsman than you will ever see!” Alasdair bellowed, the volume of his voice enough to rock the Micra. He looked like a cornered bear and his eyes flashed lightning. “’Tis clear enough which camp of Macdonalds you call your own, for there is naught but lies falling from your lips!”
“Lies?” Blake inhaled sharply and the color rose on his neck. “I haven’t told any lies!”
“It is one lie after another as I hear it,” Alasdair shot back. “With nary but a broken promise betwixt and between! This is not Scone!”
Justine laid a restraining hand on Blake’s arm and used the same tone that had successfully talked down countless hysterical brides. “Maybe it’s all changed. When were you last here, Alasdair? Have they added some new signs or something?”
The tone – which should have been patented for its unfailing success – had no effect on the highlander.
“Nay!” Alasdair looked fit to explode. “There is not a bit of it that resembles the Scone I know!” He gestured angrily. “That very building was not here, nor this foul expanse of blackness spread upon the ground! The land was not cluttered with your fearsome chariots, nor crowded with folk in odd garb.”
Alasdair flung out a hand. “And I know naught of this sixteenth century you tout. Sixteenth century since what? Always have I known right-thinking men to count their years from the birth of Christ!”
Morgan blinked, for the reference was to the sixteenth century since Christ.
Blake frowned, and picked his issue. “Well, it is Scone. No doubt about it.”
“I have my doubts, ’tis clear enough.” Alasdair leaned between the seats and Morgan watched Blake draw back ever so slightly. The highlander’s voice dropped with a threat so tangible that Morgan shivered.
“You have lied to me, Blake Advisor. You do not take me to Scone this day, nor do you ever intend to take me home. Be man enough to admit the truth.”
“Of course, we’ll take you home,” Justine assured him. “This is just on the way.”
“Another lie in the company of many!” Alasdair roared. He pushed at the confining wall of the little car and growled when nothing moved. Morgan was torn between a desire to put as much space between him and herself as possible and an unexpected urge to reassure him.
Alasdair tipped back his head and shouted. “For the love of God, let me out of this foul prison!”
Before Morgan could sort out her feelings – or Alasdair could explode – Justine opened her door and leapt out onto the pavement. Alasdair pushed the front seat forward with enviable grace and couldn’t seem to get out of the car fast enough.
He shook back his hair when he was on his feet and glared down at them with his hands on his hips. Morgan couldn’t help but stare. Alasdair was magnificent in his anger, larger than life, snapping with vitality.
He belonged outside, in the wind and the sun, and before she could stop herself, Morgan updated her mental image of how she would paint him.
“Make no mistake, this is not Scone.” Alasdair savagely bit out the words. “Second, the Stone of Scone was stolen. And third, Robert the Bruce is no treacherous dog, but a hero through and through. And that, Blake Advisor, is the ungarnished truth.”
With that, he pivoted and marched away.
Morgan could almost feel the aching of his heart. It was disconcerting to find her own memories perfectly reconciled with his view of history.
The only question was why.
“Alasdair, come back!” Justine cried, but Alasdair didn’t even look back. His long strides took him across the parking lot in record time. Instead of going to the palace, he stalked right into the woods, his tartan quickly disappearing into the shadows.
Justine turned back to Blake, and Morgan almost laughed at her sister’s dismay. “Blake, stop him!”
Blake took his time putting his glasses back on. He leafed through his tour book. “Let him go,” he said grumpily. “If he won’t even pick up a book and read the truth, there’s not much I can do about it.”
“He can’t read,” Morgan retorted, surprised to find herself defending Alasdair. She climbed out of the car impatiently. “And until yesterday, you were the only going on and on about Robert the Bruce.”
Justine and Blake both looked blank.
That was enough. Some of Alasdair’s impatience must have transferred to Morgan, because she was suddenly fed up with Alasdair’s mysteries. She was going to find out the truth, and she was going to find out now.
Justine caught her breath. “Are you going after him?”
“You promised him a ride home,” Morgan reminded her sister. “I guess I’ll have to make sure you keep your promise.”
At least that was the excuse she would use. She turned to follow Alasdair, deliberately ignoring her sister’s quick smile of satisfaction. While she walked, she took the crystal
out of her purse and buried it carefully in the back of her money belt, then retucked T-shirt and sweater to hide the money belt’s new bulge.
The stone dug into her ribs, but Morgan ignored it.
It was time to get to the bottom of things. Alasdair MacAulay was going to have to be straight with her about who he was and what he was up to if he really wanted that ride to faraway Callanish.
And if he was as broke as Justine suspected, Morgan was sure she’d get the answers but quick.
*
Alasdair glared at the chapel perched on Moot Hill as the anger drained out of him.
And left him feeling like seven kinds of fool.
Of all the glaikit things he could have done! ’Twas no consolation to find his gran right about his temper at this particular point.
Alasdair kicked at a clump of heather and berated himself silently but thoroughly. Would he ever get home now? Or had he trapped himself in Morgaine’s world for all eternity?
He deserved no less for being such a fool.
Yet he was still seething. How dare the advisors promise to win Morgaine’s favor, pledge that they would see him home, then break their word? Was a vow worth naught in this twisted world? Such faithlessness nearly made him growl aloud.
A man’s honor was the only thing of value he could call his own. But calling Blake Advisor the liar he evidently was had undoubtedly not made Alasdair any friends. What an addle-pated fool he was to have thought he could not make matters worse!
What would he give to be home this very moment? There was a certain irony in wanting no less than to be back at the cottage that had not been able to hold him seven years past, but Alasdair was not particularly appreciative of that.
He chose to forget that he had not been able to shake the dust of Lewis off his boots – nor sweep the guilt from his mind – fast enough in those days.
Alasdair was dirty. He was tired. He was befuddled and frustrated beyond all by Faerie games. And he had an erection that simply would not say die.
Curse Morgaine le Fee!
Alasdair pivoted at the sound of a light step, only to find the sorceress herself closing the distance between them. A man with naught to lose – and one with a temper still simmering – Alasdair spoke his mind before he could stop himself.
“Come to smite me, have you?” he demanded boldly.
Morgaine’s chin snapped up and her green gaze fixed upon him. Her footsteps faltered a dozen steps away, but Alasdair was interested in little she might have to say.
“Smite me then and be done with it!” he cried and flung out his hands. “Surely there could be naught worse than this? Filthy and tired I am, surrounded by your adder-tongued advisors whose words cannot be trusted even while they are uttered.”
“Blake means no harm.”
Alasdair spat on the ground. “He can mean no other when he breaks his word as readily as he makes it.”
The enchantress visibly bristled. “He didn’t break his word. This is Scone and it’s on the way to Lewis.”
A bald-faced lie!
Had Blake acted under her dictate?
Ha! Alasdair should have expected no less.
Alasdair shoved a hand through his hair and glared at Morgaine. “’Tis naught but lies from start to finish. Why tell me this is Scone, when any thinking man can see ’tis not? Why call that keep of yours Edinburgh, with its clarty English flag waving above it? Why insist he would see me home, when ’tis clear he intends no such thing?”
Alasdair swore in exasperation and paced the hilltop with rapid steps. “And why does Blake Advisor wear that torture device over his eyes if he has the power within him to remove it?”
Morgaine made a choking sound at that, though when Alasdair turned to look, she tried to hide her laughter from him with her hand. Something within him softened at the sight.
Another part of him did precisely the opposite.
’Twas an unwelcome reminder of his predicament.
“Do not push me, my lady fair,” Alasdair growled, shaking a warning finger in her direction. “If you mean to twitch your buttocks and tempt me with maidenly flushes, you had best keep your distance.”
Morgaine blushed pink, which only made matters worse from Alasdair’s perspective. ‘I have never twitched my buttocks…”
“Oh, I would insist the contrary!”
She gasped and stared at him, as though uncertain what to say. ’Twas all a game to her, no doubt, a game she played most artfully. And how could she not, privy as she was to Alasdair’s hidden desires? ’Twas no small advantage she had in her power to read his very thoughts.
Aye, but Alasdair could make her moan aloud, he could, and in this moment, the prospect was tempting indeed. On all sides, the heather grew knee-high and waved in the sunlight, fairly inviting man and lass to make use of its soft concealment.
“Be warned, mistress Morgaine.” Alasdair growled as though in anger, though in truth a different heat had laid claim to his tone. “Venture too close and I’ll be buried to the hilt afore you can gasp a breath.”
Morgaine took a cautious step back, as though she should be afraid of him. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would, with nary a regret.” Alasdair knew the truth when he heard it. “A man can only be tempted so much long, my lady, and make no mistake, my threshold is near.”
Morgaine looked so alarmed by this earthly reality that Alasdair turned his back upon her. What was she expecting of him, if she fashioned herself to appeal most strongly to his desires? He raked a hand through his hair again and paced across the mound Blake had so fecklessly called Moot Hill.
From first glance, she had set a fire within him, and that blaze showed no signs of dying down to embers soon. Alasdair took a deep breath and struggled to curb his raging desire.
He deliberately recalled the last time he had stood on the true Moot Hill. It had been a gloriously clear day, one not unlike this one, with a crisp wind on his face and a blue sky arched overhead. Robert the Bruce himself had lounged amidst them all, smiling in reminiscence as his squire shared the tale of his crowning on that very spot.
Well aware of the sorceress’s bright gaze resting on him, Alasdair turned. She had not moved, the dark tendrils of her hair lifting in the wind, her eyes wide, her manner uncertain.
“What is it you want with me?” he asked, a new gentleness in his words. She seemed to be encouraged by the question, for she drew nearer as he watched. “I thought you were not speaking with me.”
“I’m not,” she asserted, then evidently realized that her claim was nonsensical.
For she smiled. The winsome sight sent the frustration easing out of Alasdair as surely as if it had never been. The sunlight was golden between them, and Alasdair forgot everything his wary mind was telling him about this woman’s danger to his very hide.
Indeed, he felt an answering smile tug his own lips. “Aye, I can tell.”
The lady laughed, an enchanting sound if ever there was one.
Alasdair’s heart took a dizzying leap, and he suddenly felt the cur for railing at her so severely. “I would apologize, my lady. ’Tis true I have a fair temper when riled, but ’tis all bluster, as my gran is wont to say.”
Morgaine’s eyes danced. “I think I might like your gran. Wasn’t that one of her stories last night?”
“Aye, that ’twas.”
Morgaine took a tentative step closer. “I meant to thank you again for sharing it with me.”
Alasdair felt his brow arch in skepticism. “Even though you are not speaking with me?”
She chuckled and shook a finger at him. “Don’t let this go to your head.”
They stared at each other for a long, very warm moment, Alasdair recalling all too well how she had thanked him once before. When her lips quirked so playfully, ’twas hard to believe that this fragile creature held Alasdair’s fate in her tiny hands.
She tilted her head. “Why don’t you think this is Scone?”
“Because it cannot be.�
�� Alasdair frowned at the palace, regal enough but unfamiliar, the strange chapel, the clusters of people garbed as oddly as she.
“Why not?” the enchantress whispered, and Alasdair was surprised to find her by his side. He looked into the splendor of her eyes and saw the myriad shades of the sea reflected there. A part of him acknowledged the danger of staring too long, but Alasdair did not even want to look away.
He was beguiled by the Queen of Faerie, and in this moment, he did not care.
Indeed, he wanted no more than to win her favor. Alasdair recalled suddenly her fascination with the tales of mortals.
“I shall tell you of the Scone I know and what befell there,” he vowed softly. “Though this is a tale of truth, not some fable told to keep bairns tight in their beds.”
Morgaine’s eyes glowed. “Tell me.”
Alasdair took her small hand within his own and led her to the far side of the hill, where the view was of woods and fields. Here the sound of the crowds and chariots was less and the heather waved freely in the breeze. He sat down, then tugged the length of plaid off his shoulder and gallantly spread it across the greenery, his back to the palace.
Morgaine seated herself regally beside him, her bright eyes fixed upon him. Seated on the end of his tartan, she was dangerously close, and every fiber of Alasdair’s being was aware of her soft warmth. He could smell the sweetness of her skin, and a part of him insisted there were better things to be done here than share tales.
But Alasdair stared determinedly into the trees as he braced his elbows on his knees. A promise made was a promise kept.
“Long ago, a part of Scotland was known as the kingdom of Dalriada, established by men who sailed bravely from Ireland to settle a new land. Those men claimed Kintyre and called the ancient hill of Dunadd the crowning place of their kings. ’Twas there on the rocks that each king pledged to his people and had a circlet of gold set upon his brow.
“There came a day when Saint Columba’s own kinsman was to take the kingship and Columba came himself to set the crown upon that man Aidan’s brow. ’Twas said that then the Stone of Scone made its first appearance, and there are rumors that Columba himself brought it out of the mists of Ireland. ’Twas said to have been a gift from the High King of Tara to his distant kinsmen in Kintyre.
Time Travel Romances Boxed Set Page 47