A Time Apart: Time Travel Historical Highlander Romance by Lolita London Read Free Book Online Page B

whole of the country. As individual clans we are unlikely to halt them and it’s only if we come together that we have a chance of defeating them.”
     
    “So what happened?” Jenny asked.
     
    “My father is an influential leader and he argued for the clans to form an alliance that could defeat the English if they came calling,” James said. “The leader of the Glennet clan wasn’t exactly behind the idea simply because it was put forward for my father and a heated exchange led to a more violent encounter.”
     
    “Started by the Glennet chief,” Jenny queried.
     
    “Yes…,” James answered. “…but finished by my father.”
     
    “He killed the other chief?” Jenny asked in a hushed voice.
     
    “He had no choice,” James said. “It would have been him dead otherwise. The son of the Glennet chief, Cameron, vowed revenge and there has been war between our clans ever since.”
     
    “So Donald sees every stranger as a spy out to help rivals.”
     
    “Something like that,” James replied. “He is obsessed with the war and wants to attack, but I think that’s as much to do with extending his own influence as it is with protecting the clan. It’s making him a dangerous man and I’m not sure it’s what we need right now. My father is still in control, however, and has a more pragmatic approach. He’s hoping that diplomacy will be the solution, but…”
     
    “You don’t think it will?” she asked.
     
    “Cameron Glennet is much the same as Donald,” James told her. “He wants revenge and won’t be happy until my father is dead. I suspect he is prepared to risk everything to make that happen. There have been a number of minor skirmishes in the last few months, but it’s building to something more and I think it’s only a matter of time before the Glennet clansmen come marching to our land.”
     
    “So what…”
     
    Jenny was silenced by the finger on her lips.
     
    “Enough about me and the clan Dungannon,” he said. “Tell me the real story of why you were on Rannoch Moor and where you came from.”
     
    Jenny closed her eyes and let out a sigh.
     
    “I’m not sure I can to be honest,” she eventually let out in a hushed tone. “It’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you.”
     
    “What do you mean?” he asked.
     
    “Well…, the first thing I would say as that I knew nothing about the Dungannon and Glennet clans before you pulled me out of the loch on the moor,” Jenny said. “I’m not a spy and I’m not going to betray you.”
     
    “OK,” he replied. “But that doesn’t answer my questions.”
     
    Jenny let out another sigh.
     
    “When you dragged me out of the water, it was a surprise to me that I was on the moor,” she said. “That evening I went to a fair with a friend. It was just intended to be some fun after work, but became something more when she wanted to visit a fortune teller.”
     
    “A witch?” James said like he’d done on the moor.
     
    Jenny remembered cursing him when he said it, but she didn’t on this occasion.
     
    “Well…, I didn’t think so at the time,” she said. “Now I’m not so sure.”
     
    “You’re telling me a witch sent you here?” James asked and laughed.
     
    “No,” Jenny exclaimed. “Not as far as I know. A fortune teller is a mystic that supposedly can see into your future and tell you about it before it happens.”
     
    “And she told you that you would come here?”
     
    “Not exactly,” Jenny admitted. “She told me to be wary of water and that it would be a danger to me. I laughed it off as ridiculous and didn’t believe her, but on the way home from the fair I needed to walk around a lake and slipped on a wet rock. I fell in the water and…”
     
    “And what?” James encouraged her when she was silent for a few seconds.
     
    “And you pulled me out the loch on Rannoch Moor,” she answered when she lifted her head to look at him. “I know it sounds crazy and I can’t explain it, but