Highlander Guarded: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 10) Read online

  "Scarlet," he repeated, a smile spreading across his face. "It suits you."

  "I know," she said, a little needled. "It's my name."

  "Of course."

  "You need to get over this thing where I look like your ex-wife or whatever," she said, shaking her head. "Listen, I have to get out of here. Can you point me in the direction of like — the road? A real one, not a dirt one?"

  Kieran sighed. "Look. I'm going to do my best to explain what's going on, but you might want a drink first. May I buy you an ale?"

  She hesitated. On the one hand, she was stuck in some kind of historical re-enactment bar with a drunk man who thought she looked like his ex-wife. On the other hand… God, did a drink sound good right about now. The bourbon was a distant memory, and while beer was always going to come second to spirits, at this point anything would be better than her nagging sobriety. So, she shrugged her shoulders, and he smiled at her quickly before heading up to the bar. Did that mean he was going to get himself one, too? He couldn't exactly afford to be any more incoherent than he was already. Had he said something about them being in Scotland? Hard to say whether that was the proposed reality of this little medieval re-enactment, or whether he legitimately believed they were on the other side of the world right now…

  He returned within a few minutes, two pewter tankards in his hands. He gave her one and she gave him a smile in thanks, not wanting to be any more complimentary than that in case he got the wrong idea. This was strictly a 'tolerating more of his nonsense' drink, no flirtation implied or assumed. He took a deep draft of his, and she sipped hers too, wrinkling her nose as she realized it was warm. Europeans. They did some weird stuff with their alcohol and no mistake. Still, there was something tasty about it — it was somehow hearty and clean, with that taste she'd always associated with preservatives missing. Did they brew their own here, or something? That would make sense, given how committed they seemed to all the other historical realities. The place was even lit by lanterns, and try as she might, she couldn't spot any discreet electrical fittings that might be helping the old-fashioned methods out.

  "Right," Kieran said finally. "Let me tell you what's going on."

  "I'm all ears," she said wryly, taking another sip of the ale.

  He had until this rather generous flagon was empty. Then she would be taking her leave and finding the road out of town by any means necessary. Her pouch of emergency money and credit cards was still intact — she'd blow through some of her emergency funds, sure, but that's exactly what they were there for.

  "You're in Scotland. It's the sixteenth century."

  "Right," she said, biting back on her annoyance. "Listen, I get that you re-enactors are really committed to the bit, and everything, but right now I really just need to get out of here, so —"

  But he was looking at her intently. "This isn't a game, or a joke, or some kind of performance put on by play-actors, Scarlet. I promise you — this is real. Years ago, a witch placed a curse on the men of my family. It's a long story," he added, shaking his head. "One for another night, perhaps. In short — she cursed us to lose our loves, often tragically, often far too young. It's happened to a dozen men of Clan MacClaran."

  "Right, look, has there been some mistake? I'm not playing."

  "Neither am I."

  Something in his voice cut across her vexation and gave her pause. Something raw, and aching, and hurt — something in the way his blue-green eyes burned into hers, no trace of insincerity to be found there. She quieted a little, surprised despite herself, and resolved to at least hear him out.

  "Fine. Sorry. Go on."

  "My wife — my Emily — I lost her seven years ago." His eyes were dark when he spoke of her, and Scarlet couldn't help but shiver a little at the thought of this woman who looked like her.

  "What happened?"

  "I don't know," he admitted, and the pain in his voice gave her pause. "I was told… it's a long story," he said, shaking his head. "Emily was English. One of Lord Weatherby's cousins."

  "Who's Lord Weatherby?"

  "The local English lord," Kieran said, and the resentment on his expression was very clear. "He's built a fancy manor on our land and insists on maintaining a presence here. There's an uneasy peace for the time being, but … well, none of the MacClarans are especially fond of him, leave it at that."

  "But you ran away with his cousin?"

  "I'd say that she ran away with me, actually," Kieran said, a smile toying at the corners of his lips and only seeming to accentuate his grief. "She was a firecracker of a woman, my Emily. No man was going to tell her who she could or couldn't love. We got to know each other when she came out here to stay with Lord Weatherby — her family were desperate to marry her off to someone, and she told me that they were considering him as an option."

  "Her cousin?" Scarlet wrinkled her nose.

  Kieran chuckled. "Exactly. As you can imagine, she was none too thrilled by the prospect… I mean, I suppose you can't imagine," he added, shaking his head. "Lord Weatherby… well, he's not exactly the most desirable bachelor out there."

  "Right. So, she married you instead."

  He chuckled. "Aye, that's the long and short of it. God, we were happy. Her family were furious, of course, but what could they do about it? So, I thought," he added, shaking his head. "When she fell pregnant … I'd never been happier about any news I'd ever heard. We were so excited."

  Scarlet felt a cold chill run down her spine and nodded quickly, not wanting to get into the details of exactly what had happened. Pregnancy, a tragic death… it was pretty clear that her doppelganger had died in childbirth. Fine. She didn't need to hear the details. Didn't need her phobia triggered again… she rubbed her right arm absently, her fingertips finding the spot where her regular hormone injections were delivered. She'd be sterile for another few months at least. She was safe. Kieran, too, seemed unwilling to get into the details there… he took a deep breath and shook his head.

  "At any rate, I lost her. But I wasn't alone. Just about half of the MacClaran men lost their wives over the years."

  "Because of the curse," she supplied helpfully, glad enough to move on from the subject of death during childbirth that she was willing to entertain the farcical notion of a curse. "The witch's curse."

  "Aye. It's said that with her dying breath, the witch attempted to reverse the curse. She got halfway through modifying it, said that the men who lost their loves would see them return… but she died before she could finish it properly. The curse stayed in place, but with a twist. Women were brought back through time to replace their ancestors — women like you."

  Scarlet took a deep breath. "So, Emily was my great-grandmother, or whatever."

  "A little more distant than that… but yes, that's what we think."

  "And here I am, dragged back through time to replace her." She glanced around the pub as she took another steadying sip of her ale, feeling her heartbeat beginning to accelerate. Maybe it was the ale… but somehow, the idea of time travel just didn't seem as ridiculous as it should. Could it actually be true? It would certainly explain how the river had brought her to such an utterly incomprehensibly rural area… had she been snatched out of the air as she fell and deposited in, what, medieval Scotland? Ridiculous. Absurd. But was there a better explanation… aside from a dream or a hallucination, neither of which seemed likely at this point? A better explanation for ending up in a medieval town when by all rights she should be maybe a mile outside of Philadelphia?

  Kieran was nodding. "I know it's a lot to take in, and you must be tired after your journey. Please — know that you're not alone. There are a dozen women like you, many of them living up at the Keep — I'd be more than willing to escort you up there."

  "I'm good here, I think," she said faintly. The idea of visiting a medieval castle in the middle of the night was… well, a little overwhelming. And now that he mentioned it, she really was bone-deep exhausted.

  "Let me cover your room and board,
at least," Kieran said firmly, getting to his feet. "I know the publican well; he'll ensure you're set up comfortably and fed well."

  Her stomach growled at the mention of food, and she realized with a start that she hadn't eaten since lunch.

  "We can talk more about all of this later. If you'd like to," he added hastily.

  She nodded, pleased by the offer of help. "Maybe in a day or so," she said hesitantly, quietly resolving to do a little more of her own research before she started taking every cue from this handsome but fairly unreliable witness. "Sleep sounds really good right about now."

  "Of course," Kieran said, giving her a soft smile that made her heart do a backflip despite her uncertainty about his intentions.

  Could all of this be some kind of ruse? Some long con? She'd keep her wits about her, that was for sure. But right now… well, she was going to be next to useless without some food and rest.

  In the morning, she'd set about figuring out just what the hell was happening to her.

  Chapter 6

  Kieran headed for the bar then, talked for a few minutes with the publican — she saw him drop a few coins on the bar, and sighed to herself. Of course, her currency — her credit cards and the little pouch of cash she always had on her — would be next to useless here. And her waterlogged phone would be of precious little use, even if she could remember where she'd buried it. At least if she'd time traveled, she knew the cops weren't going to be on her tail… she found herself suppressing a giggle at the thought of them trying to find her in the river. She'd tried a lot of things in her long history of running from the cops, but hiding in medieval Scotland was certainly new…

  She was delirious, she realized as she set her mug of ale down. Or the ale was stronger than she thought. Either way… time for bed.

  Kieran bid her goodnight, a soft look in his eyes that made her grit her teeth — she wasn't Emily, no matter how much he might want her to be, and the idea that he was giving her special treatment just because she looked like some dead woman didn't sit right with her. The cause of her death, too, was giving her the heebie jeebies, sending shivers running up and down her spine. Dying in childbirth… what a horrible way to go. Some parasite took root in your belly, grew fat and huge on your own blood and vital forces, then tore you apart on its way out… and that was supposed to be perfectly natural and beautiful? Then why did it kill so many women, or best-case scenario, leave their bodies horribly damaged, never the same again?

  It was distracting her, playing on her mind as the publican led her up a winding, narrow staircase to a wooden corridor with a dozen or so doors set in it. The room at the very end was assigned to her, and though it was simple, it was a huge relief to be behind a door that locked. There were several extra blankets piled at the end of the bed, which she appreciated — the night had grown much chillier than she was accustomed to — and the publican returned minutes later with a platter of bread and cheese, which she sat down to eat on the end of the bed.

  God, it was good. The bread tasted like it had been baked that morning, crusty and fresh, and the cheese was delicious, too. She ate her fill and then some, unable to resist nibbling on the last of the bread even as her stomach groaned with fullness. She'd always been in the habit of eating a lot whenever she got the chance to — you never knew when exactly your next meal would be when you were in her line of work. But from what Kieran had said, her meals were paid up for the next week at least. Well, good. That gave her a week to figure out just where the hell she was … and what she was going to do about it.

  Scotland? Medieval Scotland? Really? She'd always been a practical woman… she was hardly going to waste any time fretting about whether it was really true, whether she was dreaming or hallucinating, but a part of her did give very serious consideration to the idea that she was lying in a coma somewhere. Maybe the cop had shot her in the head, and she'd barely scraped through. Maybe this was all some last-minute flash of hallucination from her dying brain, and it only seemed like it was taking hours. Well, if any of that was true, she couldn't exactly do anything about it, could she? If she was dead, she was dead. But if she was alive…

  Well, if she was alive, she was going to have to make the most of medieval Scotland, wasn't she? First step would be to scope out the town, figure out the lay of the land. Make a few friends if she could. She supposed it would be too much to hope for a local thieves' guild or similar — some kind of organization of those who dwelt on the wrong side of the law — but maybe if she worked at it, she could find someone who'd appreciate her skillset. Kieran seemed the law-abiding type, though, so she'd have to keep her inclinations a secret from him if their friendship was going to continue.

  Right. That was the plan. Get a good night's sleep, then go exploring. She felt like the weirdest kind of tourist imaginable as she stripped her still-damp layers of clothes off and hung them over the table and the back of the rough wooden chair in her room. Her boots, too, she set out to dry, tipping them upside down in the hopes that that would help them dry out a little quicker. Shivering a little in her underwear, she dove into the bed, finding it surprisingly soft and comfortable, though the mattress was lumpy and irregular, and the sheets felt like rough cotton. Scarlet had slept in worse places, though, and it wasn't long before the embrace of sleep took her.

  She dreamed, though. She didn't often dream… or if she did, she rarely remembered them. This time, though, her dreams were as vivid and real as though she'd really been there… though there was no way that could have been the case. She was walking through mist — but instead of the foggy evening she'd been walking through earlier that day, this time, the mist was all around her, hemming in on her from every side. Each step she took, her feet sunk into the mist a little, and she barely dared to look down, frightened that whatever fragile layer was holding her up might cave in and let her fall into the interminable depths beneath her…

  But it was what she was walking toward, not what she was walking on, that was the truly unsettling part of the dream. There, up ahead, almost wreathed entirely by the mists and obscured by her view, was the figure of a woman. She wasn't a tall woman — she looked about Scarlet's height actually and seemed to have the same petite figure… at least at first. Then Scarlet realized she was standing with her back to Scarlet. As she began to turn, Scarlet had to fight the urge to recoil, knowing it was rude to react so strongly to the sight of a pregnant woman… her stomach was bulging and enormous, distended with the life growing inside of it, and though Scarlet tried to shift her eyes from the stomach to the woman's face, it was too late. Her heart was pounding, and she felt sick to her stomach, and she felt her hand fly to her own belly to make sure that it was still flat —

  But to her horror, she felt not the usual flat stomach that lay under her clothing… but a bulge just like the one the woman was sporting. Horror rose in her throat and she felt panic begin to claw at her, her mind desperately racing and trying to figure out how this could be possible, how she could have fallen pregnant and not realized, how this could be happening… and when the baby was due… fear clutching at her chest, she looked up at the woman, desperate for any consolation, for reassurance that it would all be okay. It would, right? People did this all the time… but when she looked at the woman's face, she felt fear grip her afresh. Her face was all too familiar, the face blinking back at her, pale and wan — it was the face she saw in the mirror every day.

  The woman with the enormous stomach was her.

  Was it a mirror? No — the woman's movements weren't mirroring her own. Quite the opposite — she was slowly but surely raising one trembling hand, the talon-like fingers reaching for her in wordless supplication, as though begging for help, for rescue. Scarlet took a step toward her, then felt herself stumble, the weight of her body unexpectedly pulling her down. She fell hard on her knees and felt herself begin to sink through the mist. The woman above her continued to reach into nowhere, her face twisted in fear, mouthing words that Scarlet couldn't hear, couldn't
make out — though she knew, somehow, that the woman was begging desperately for help. But Scarlet was falling… falling… sinking deep into the mist, feeling herself falling away from the woman, and there was nobody else around. Nobody else who could help her.

  Nobody but the mist, the mist that surrounded them both as Scarlet sank deeper and deeper, feeling it rush around her body, pour into her mouth, her ears, her nose… the last thing she saw before the mist took her eyes was a single tear roll down the woman's cheek and drip from her chin onto her white gown, where it left a striking mark — because it wasn't salt water, like most tears. It was a tear of blood.

  Scarlet sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath. It took her a few minutes to re-orient herself, to figure out where she was — the wooden shutters were letting a little sunlight through around their edges, and she realized it must be morning. She was sweaty, tangled in the bedsheets, having clearly been tossing and turning in her sleep… but that wasn't what was gripping her most direly. She flung the tangled sheets back, eyes flying to her stomach — then uttered a sigh of relief so heavy that she dropped back into bed, sagging onto the pillow with relief. Flat again. An unoccupied womb… at least, as far as she knew.

  God, what an awful dream. What had it meant? she wondered. She'd had friends who set great store by dreams — not because of any magical or spiritual connection, but because they thought dreams were a useful reflection of what was preoccupying the mind. Well, it was no secret that Scarlet was terrified of pregnancy… still, it was strange to have such a vivid, horrible dream about it. Usually, her fear was limited to baby announcements she saw on Facebook, or movies and TV shows where the characters went into labor… the eerie mirror-image version of herself had been a new feature.

  It must have been from eating cheese before bed, she told herself firmly as her rationality crept back in. In the light of day, it was a lot easier to be sensible about these things. Too much dairy late at night gave you funny dreams, wasn't that what her dad had always said? Besides, she'd had a very weird conversation just before bed, too. All of that stuff Kieran had been saying about his dead wife, how she'd passed away in childbirth, how she'd looked just like Scarlet… it must have gotten to her. That, and the stress of everything else. Fine. Good. That explained the dreams.