The Key to His Castle: A Clean Time Travel Romance (Clan MacGregor Book 5)
Page 1
Contents
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About the Author
Also by Blanche Dabney
The Clan MacGregor Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Author’s Note
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About the Author
Blanche Dabney is the author of the bestselling Clan MacGregor books, a series of sweet and clean time travel romances set in medieval Scotland.
Growing up in a small village on the west coast of Scotland, Blanche spent many happy childhood hours exploring ancient castles, all the while inventing tall tales of the people who might once have lived there.
After years of wishing she could travel through time to see for herself what life was like back then, she decided to do the next best thing, write books about the distant past.
Since then, she has published more than half a dozen highland adventures, each filled with the passion, danger, and intrigue that are her hallmarks.
Blanche lives in Haworth with her partner and their two children.
Also by Blanche Dabney
The Clan MacGregor Series
The Key in the Loch
The Key in the Door
The Key to Her Heart
The Key to Her Past
The Key to Her Castle
Highlander’s Time Trilogy
Held by the Highlander
Promised to the Highlander
Outlaw Highlander
The Clan MacGregor Series
The Key in the Loch
When a mysterious key sends Rachel Fisher back through time she arrives during a violent time in Scottish history.
The Key in the Door
To save her own life, Jessica Abrahams must convince everyone in the clan she is the missing fiancée of the laird.
The Key to Her Heart
Daisy Stone doesn’t believe in love stories. But when she steps into the past she discovers a happy ending of her very own.
The Key to Her Past
Natalie MacCallister lands in medieval Scotland in time to change history for the better.
The Key to His Castle
A Clean Time Travel Romance
Blanche Dabney
For our family. Small, and broken. But still good.
1
Heather Frazer was panting for breath, her lungs burning, her heart racing. The spinning of her feet as she sprinted the last few miles on the exercise bike made her feel good, helping to blow away the cobwebs of another rough night.
As she turned the music up on her cellphone for the final push to the end, she spotted a notification.
It was a message from her best friend.
You up?
She texted back while easing off on the bike.
Yep. Promotion here I come.
A picture of flowers appeared on her screen.
You’ll rock it for sure. Pink or white?
Heather typed quickly.
Donna, it’s quarter past six in the morning and you want to know which color flowers will look better at your wedding? Bridezilla much?
So the pink then?
That message was followed by a picture of a dinosaur stomping on a wedding cake.
Obviously the pink. What are you doing up so early?
Donna replied immediately.
Wanted to wish you luck you great big executive, you. I still need you to be my backup wedding planner though.
Heather smiled as she typed.
And I told you I had as much experience planning weddings as I do mountain climbing in the nude.
Careful, it can get chilly around the Cairngorms.
Heather couldn’t resist laughing as she wrote.
Never heard them called that before.
Donna’s reply appeared almost at once.
Your turn next and I’ll be there to watch you get all stressed over what flowers to have.
Heather almost responded but decided not to bother. What was there to say? Her love life was in the same condition as her exercise bike. Creaking and ready for the trash. Instead she wrote:
I might break up with David.
Picking up the pace again, she was soon sprinting as fast as she could, legs a blur as she tried to finish the last mile faster than yesterday.
She wanted to be exhausted. That meant she wasn’t thinking about the fact that the last of her friends were getting married and she had to think about why she wasn’t. Then she would think about her family and about her past.
Then the despair would creep in and it would knock her off her feet for the rest of the day. Sprinting harder she let out a roar of defiance at the end, she could outrun anyone.
If only she could outrun her past.
She refused to look at her cellphone, afraid of what the response might be. Jumping from the exercise bike, she landed clumsily, her legs buckling as she fought for breath.
Staggering to the bathroom, she leaned on the sink, taking deep gulps of air until she no longer felt like she was definitely dying, only almost dying.
She looked up and saw herself in the mirror, wincing at the sight. She winced again when she saw Donna’s reply waiting on her cellphone.
You know how I feel about David. I still can’t believe you forgave him for what he did in Paris.
Heather groaned aloud. Maybe Donna was right. Maybe she should have dumped him for sleeping with Caroline. She had thrown him out for a week but they’d talked and they’d drunk wine and they’d talked a lot more.
He’d grovelled and she’d told him to get up off his knees and then somehow they were back together in time for the annual conference. She wasn’t even sure how it had happened.
Got to go get ready. Wish me luck.
She left the cellphone on the side before climbing into the shower. Was Donna right? Should she have broken up with him after his one night stand with his French counterpart?
She refused to think about it. That was in the past. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing in the past mattered anymore. All that mattered was getting the promotion. David didn’t think she had a chance but she’d prove him wrong. Then he’d be proud of her.
When she emerged from the bathroom there was a reply waiting for her from Donna.
You’re going to nail this promotion, you know that, right?
Heather wrapped a towel around her hair before typing back:
Of course I am. I’m great. Big office here I come.
Donna’s reply came through at once.
Be sure to remember us little people when you’re sitting on top of the world.
Heather sent a final response.
Freezing my Cairngorms off.
She walked through to her bedroom, glancing up at the painting on the wall above her bed. MacGregor Castle immortalised in oils. It was the only thing of her parents’ that they’d held onto after the bankruptcy. Even the official receiver hadn’t wanted it. They did.
It was a painting of the castle th
at belonged to the man who’d ruined their family. The man who seven hundred years ago had walked into a peace treaty with her ancestor, Mungo Frazer. In the midst of the negotiations, laird Gavin MacGregor had stabbed her ancestor in the heart.
Why would they want a reminder of the MacGregors on their wall? She asked them many times and their answer was always the same. “To remember who did this to us. One day we’ll get revenge on the MacGregors, Heather. One day we will win.”
After their house was sold out from under them by the bank the only things they had left was the painting . They left it and a note on Heather’s door step. Then they drove a hire car out to the cliff top above the quarry. She found the note too late to stop their final drive. She kept the painting.
It was her only link to her parents. It was cold and dark and brooding like they’d been. Her grandparents had been the same by all accounts. Generation after generation bitter and angry because of one act that took place centuries ago.
She felt their anger and their rage at how unfair it all was. One act had ruined the family, had taken them from powerful lairds of the highlands to scraping by in abject poverty.
The Frazers had never recovered. By the time of her grandparents there was nothing left of their past wealth, only the painting and her parents house. Then the house was taken by the bank and all she had to connect her to the Frazer clan was the painting.
She had no idea how old it was, nor when it was completed. The frame was Victorian but the darkness of the oils suggested the canvas within was far older.
The artist had painted the castle how it appeared back in the Middle Ages. Near its base a small village had sprung up and among the wood and stone buildings tiny figures gave the impression of movement.
There was a blacksmith hammering at an anvil. To the left a hunter was about to fire an arrow at a passing deer. A market stall with a tiny scrap of tartan cloth held out to a potential purchaser. Children ran back and forth, dogs stuck their heads into chicken coops.
Above it all the castle loomed, casting the entire village into shadow. Only one figure was visible inside the castle walls, a face peering out from an upper window in the keep. Was that meant to be him? The man who ruined her family?
Gavin MacGregor?
Her parents were certain that was him. She’d often find her father staring at that face when he thought no one was looking, as if trying to reach out and ask him why. Why kill during a negotiation for peace? Why be so cruel?
She had her own questions for the laird of the MacGregors but she’d never get the answers to them. Not unless she could travel through time.
Think about the promotion, she told herself, turning her head away from the painting. Don’t think about the past. Think about the future. That’s what matters. Think about what you can change, not what you can’t. What’s done is done and can never be undone.
She rehearsed her speech as she got ready for work. It had to be snappy. She only had ten minutes of Boris’s precious time to prove she was ready for this. With Donna’s help she’d spent weeks honing her speech until she had it word perfect. As she dried her hair, she rehearsed it again and again.
“Why do I deserve this post? Well, I’ve been with the company ten years and in that time…”
She sighed to herself. Ten years. A decade with the same firm. What happened to the dream? The history degree? What happened to the life on a smallholding in the highlands? Finding some Chris Pine Outlaw King of her own to rule over her own tiny little kingdom.
She knew the answer, of course. Her parents taught her that dreams were pointless. What she needed was a steady income, not survive on welfare like them. A steady job and a steady boyfriend.
She’d always planned to move north when she had enough money saved up. But her savings ended up going on their funeral. She barely had time to grieve. The first thing to go was the degree. She needed money fast. Life in the city grew more and more expensive, saving up became impossible. And then somehow ten years had gone by.
“Why do I deserve this post?” she said while getting dressed. “Because I’ve been here ten years and in that time I was responsible for the Birkbeck file getting resolved, doubling our profit just in time for the latest quarterly shareholder meeting. As someone used to taking responsibility for complex projects, I am used to working under pressure and I have already analyzed the specific strategic systems that will guarantee-”
She glanced at her cellphone. Time to go.
She was out the door and heading for the subway a minute later, still running over her speech. The sun was low in the sky, a cold autumn wind blowing pages from an old newspaper along the gutter. She shivered. The heat of summer felt like a distant memory. Winter was coming and it was going to be a cold one.
The meeting was scheduled for eight-thirty. She was there half an hour early. Boris was already in his office, phone clamped to his ear. He’d been there when she’d left at eight the previous evening. Did the guy ever go home? He looked on the verge of a heart attack.
She knocked on his door and he immediately waved her in. As the door opened he pressed the phone to his chest. “You’ve got one minute,” he said to her before putting the phone back to his ear. “No, you tell him three o’clock today or I come down there and take him out of his chair and we’ll see what flavor pizza he looks like when I chuck him into the street. I’m guessing Hawaiian with human guts splattered all over the kerb flavor.”
He pressed the phone to his chest again, nodding at Heather. “Go.”
“Well, Sir,” she began, rattled by the way he was staring at her. “As you know the post of regional manager has come up and it’s always been a goal of mine to progress further within the company and I think-”
He shook his head. “We gave the post to Alan. David recommended him.” He put the phone to his ear and immediately began barking down the receiver. “No, no, no!”
She tried her best to process what he’d just said. They’d given the post to Alan? The man who took two hour lunch breaks and openly watched adult videos on his office computer? The post she’d worked solidly toward diligently and professionally? They’d given it to him?
She realized Boris had said something she hadn’t caught. “Sorry, Sir?”
“I said there’s a project up in Scotland I need you to take control of for me. The R and D department are onto something new and they need someone I can trust. Tony asked for you personally. Reckon you can handle it?”
“Scotland? I don’t know. I-”
“No, no, no!” he shouted down the phone while pushing her toward the door. “You tell him right now he either goes to Berlin and his family lump it or he stays here and they have an unemployed loser dad. Would he like that? He does what I tell him. He goes to Berlin or he loses his job. I can’t put that any simpler. Tell him that right now.” He lowered the phone to his chest again. “Well? What do you say?”
“Scotland sounds great.”
He didn’t smile but he managed a thumbs up with his free hand. “Good. I wish I had more people like you, Heather. I’ll get the deets emailed across. If this goes well there’ll be an office with your name on it waiting for you when you get back.” He closed the door in her face, turning away from her, still yelling down the phone.
She could hear his muffled voice. It was mainly shouting things about balls being removed and mailed to various parts of the country. She felt sorry for the person on the other end of the phone. Then she stopped feeling sorry for them and started to feel sorry for herself.
Alan had taken her promotion? Snatched it from her. Were her parents right. Was it pointless to have hopes? To have dreams? It seemed that way.
Someone else would always come along and snatch them, leaving you feeling that weird feeling like when an elevator suddenly lurches downward and leaves your stomach behind. To make matters worse, David had recommended Alan. Her boyfriend had undermined her. Why?
Scotland though, she thought, trying to distract herself. That was
good. Get to see the department that no one talked about but that ate up two thirds of the profits the entire corporation made. What were they doing up there?
During her lunchbreak she sat opposite David in the office canteen, trying to get him to explain. He had his laptop open in front of him.
“Look at this,” he said, turning the screen to face her. “Down four points this morning. I swear no one listens to me. Honey, you know me right? You’d listen if I told you the Tokyo deal was dead in the water? They never ever listen to me.”
“I know the feeling,” she replied.
“Huh?” He frowned and then smiled. “Sorry, darling. I promise I am listening. You were saying something about going on vacation to Scotland? I can’t at the minute but maybe next month.”
“That wasn’t what I was saying at all. Can you just close that for a moment and take an actual break from work.”
“The Tokyo office doesn’t take breaks, Heather. I’ve got to keep an eye on things over there. Go on, I am listening, I promise. What was that thing about Scotland?”
“Will you answer me first. Why did you recommend Alan for the promotion? You knew I was going for it.”
“His margins are better than yours.”
“No, they’re not. I outperformed him every quarter since he started here.”