In Bed with the Highlander by Ann Lethbridge Read Free Book Online

said.
    “Why?”
    “Because they are so old.”
    He stared at the one that seemed to have caught her attention,
a black boar on an azure ground. “That’s the laird’s standard. It is hardly old.
His wife made it.”
    She closed her eyes briefly, as if in pain. “Of course. What am
I thinking?”
    “I wish I knew, lass. Come sit with me while I eat.” He took
her by the hand and led her back into the kitchen. She would have taken a stool,
but he pulled her onto his lap. He didn’t want her slipping away when he wasn’t
looking. He poured a glass of wine and placed it in her hand. “Health to you, my
lady.”
    “And to you,” she said.
    He raised a brow.
    “You are not my lord,” she said.
    “But I would like to be, if you would but agree.” He held his
breath as her eyes seemed to fill with clouds. It was like watching mist flow up
from the sea and masking the heather-clad hills, hiding their features, the
rocks and the gullies, and softening the harsh truth.
    “What is it, lass,” he asked softly.
    “It’s hard to explain.”
    “I’ve got all night.” He took a long swallow of beer and began
buttering the bread.
    For a long moment she stared into the ruby liquid in her glass.
“You have to keep an open mind,” she said. “Not get angry or impatient.”
    The hollow feeling in his stomach expanded. The bread and the
beer were doing nothing to help it go away. He nodded. “I’ll say nothing.”
    “I think I traveled through time.”
    She said it as if it explained everything. As if he should
understand. And when she said nothing more, he gently turned her chin with one
finger to bring her face around. She looked a little pained. “I’m not getting
your meaning, lass. You traveled in a clock?”
    “No. I went to bed in the year of our lord two thousand and
thirteen and woke up with you in the room in the year seventeen-fifteen. I
traveled back through time.”
    The breath caught in his throat as he tried to take it in. His
mind went blank for a second. It seemed impossible, but at the same time, here
she was. Different from any other woman he’d ever met. Bold and lovely and
different. He opened his mind to the currents of air in the room, the wavering
ones from the fire, the strong draughty ones from beneath the door. Carrying
laughter. The fae.
    “My mother always said there was something about this castle,”
he said. “She thought they’d built it on ground sacred to the Auld Ones.”
    “You believe me, then?”
    The hope in her voice cut him to the quick and made him wary.
If he denied his belief, the ones he never admitted out loud, she might
disappear like a candle flame in a gale. The fae had their own ways of punishing
humans. “Only a mad woman would make up such a tale. And you’re not that. Where
were you when you fell asleep?”
    “Here in this castle. Only, it is a hotel. And it’s...well,
it’s changed a lot. And the man who is the laird, offered to carry my bags.”
    “The laird?”
    “Well, his great, great, etc., grandson, I suppose.”
    “Why did you say you would not be here in the morning?” This
was the real reason for this conversation, whether she knew it or not. His heart
picked up speed as if the wee lass had him terrified. But it was a different
emotion altogether. Something deeper, more personal.
    She lifted her face, her large eyes searching his. “My theory
is this could be a dream, in which case I am going to wake up where I went to
sleep.”
    He pinched her. “I’m no dream.”
    She punched his arm. He rubbed his biceps. “You pack a wallop
for such a little thing.”
    “You haven’t seen me at Taekwondo.”
    “Huh?”
    “It’s a form of fighting. Old Asian art.”
    He nodded. “That accounts for the trousers, then. You are
Chinese. I have read about them in books.”
    “’Fraid not, but let’s not go there. So either this is a dream
or I traveled in that bed up there. And with a bit of luck it will take me right
back where I started.