Love in the Time of a Highland Laird (A Laird for All Time Book 3) by Angeline Fortin (whitelam books .TXT) 📗

“And ye?”

“No.” Making the admission aloud was like putting the final nail in her coffin. “I wasn’t lying before when I said I knew I couldn’t go back. I can’t. While in many ways our experiment was a success, we weren’t able to predict exactly where the wormholes led. Nor could we replicate a destination. The whole project was useless without being able to do that.”

Another brief silence. This time she assumed he was trying to make some sense of what she’d said.

“So ye’re stuck here?”

“Yes.”

“And Hugh is forever trapped there?”

Al winced for him. “Yes.”

“Where is that?”

“Halfway around the world, I’m afraid.”

Give or take nearly three hundred years.

He grimaced, his grief diminished by her assurances of his cousin’s survival but not gone. “Will he be treated as poorly there as ye’ve been treated here?”

Ouch, that one was going to hurt. For a second, Al considered lying to him. She could tell him that his cousin would be well taken care of. Given the opportunity to live a life of freedom. It would probably be better for Keir’s peace of mind that she give him that comfort. But…

“He won’t be hurt, but I’m sorry to say he will be imprisoned there in the lab where I worked. He’s evidence of our project’s failure, you see? Dr. Fielding, one of the scientists I work with, will hide any proof that he can’t accomplish what he was paid to do.”

His eyes widened perceptively. “Hugh wisnae the first tae wander into yer worm’s hole.” It wasn’t a question.

Al fiddled with her silverware some more, then pushed her plate away. Reaching for her wine, she gulped it down. In for a penny, in for a pound. He hadn’t called for a stake to be raised for her burning in the village square yet. Odds looked good that he probably wouldn’t. There was no point withholding anything from him now.

“No. There’ve been a variety of animals, big and small, to wander into it. Dr. Fielding started collecting them in small cages at first. It seemed harmless at the time. Keeping them, I mean. They were just animals. The growing number of cages prompted him to build a room of cages. It was a regular zoo. Then, one day, a man came through. This was our first real clue just how far off target we were. I mean, a Native American… Anyway, our zoo became a prison. Dr. Fielding saw no problem locking a human being up with the animals. As if he were one of them. It was the worst sort of human rights violation.”

“Human rights?”

“It just means the rights every human is entitled to have on this planet,” she explained. “Freedom. Liberty. Dr. Fielding called me a bleeding heart for caring about them but I couldn’t stand it.”

“Why did ye work wi’ him then?”

Al shrugged. “Jobs like that didn’t just come along every day. It was an excellent opportunity. But it hurt to see what he did to that first man and when your cousin and that other soldier came through, I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to treat them any differently. He saw them all the same. Animals. Savages.”

“Just as ye saw me.”

“No, I didn’t assume you were a savage. You just acted like one.”

Her pert rebuttal brought a slight smile to his lips. But then it was gone with a heavy sigh. “Every word ye speak rouses a hundred more questions tae my mind. Native American? Zoo? This job ye were paid tae do? Yet all of it fades in significance when compared tae what I saw. I ken I saw it, but yet I disbelieve my own eyes. I hardly ken where to begin tae find answers.”

“Well, then maybe you could answer a couple for me while you’re figuring it out.” Keir lifted a brow and nodded, gesturing with a curl of his fingers for her to proceed. It was her chance but Al found herself almost as tentative as he’d been before to hear the answers. “Where am I?”

If possible, that brow rose even more. That hadn’t been at all what he’d been expecting. “This is Castle Dingwall, laying at the western end of the Cromarty Firth. Ye may hae seen the water from the terrace.”

Al nodded. “So Scotland then?”

“Aye, Scotland.”

Nodding again, she chewed her lower lip. “Okay, then second question.”

“Aye?”

“When am I?”

Chapter 10

When am I.

In three simple words, the lass explained everything Keir had found curious about her. It clarified so much. The perfect answer, but one he instinctually rejected. He was not a religious man, nor a superstitious one. He prided himself on being openminded to a fault.

Still, he inwardly rebelled against the idea, even reining in the compulsion to cross himself. Witchcraft, sorcery. The work of the devil. If he’d been any other man, he’d accuse her of them all.

Her hesitance in speaking of his cousin’s fate made all too much sense now. Most anyone else would have condemned her without asking for further explanation. Keir looked to the footmen not far away, but far enough to have missed Al’s softly spoken words.

This time.

“Leave us,” he commanded firmly, flicking his wrist at the pair. “I will ring for ye if we need anything else.”

“But the second course…,” one started to protest before he withered under Keir’s sharp glare and disappeared through the door with the other on his heels.

When.

Keir shook his head hard as if the motion could knock the notion right out of his head. It was ridiculous, insane really.

When.

Strumming his fingers one after another on the table, he struggled against the reflexive denial.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Logic wouldn’t work either. The very idea defied the natural order. There was no worm large enough to create such a cavity.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Even if there had been, it wouldn’t explain the swirling blackness he’d seen. It wasn’t a natural phenomenon.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Though his hand… and Hugh’s person had disappeared when entering the void, there was