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

retreat. Still, Hugh kept after his prey, chasing him across the open moors to the south and through the rubble remaining of the park wall, which had been destroyed to make room for the Highland dragoons to advance.

Finally breaking free from the fringes of the fray, Keir kicked his mount into motion to follow, determined to save at least one life that day.

It was with some amusement that he realized his cousin was far more fleet of foot than a man of his size should be. He gained on his quarry far quicker than Keir was gaining on them. Hugh would get his man shortly, then Keir would take him up and together they’d leave this place before the Hanoverians began taking prisoners.

The redcoated Sassenach looked back over his shoulder in terror. Hugh was but an arm’s length away, however, before Hugh could grab him, the Sassenach fell out of sight, swallowed by a gaping hole.

He yelled for his cousin to beware. Hugh skidded and stumbled, trying to stop his forward charge, but it was too late. With a shout of alarm, he too fell out of sight.

Shaking off his shock, Keir kicked his horse into even swifter motion but as he neared the breach, the animal spooked and reared, tossing its rider before sidestepping nervously away. Cursing the animal, he scrambled the few remaining yards as the cavity began to shrink. Calling frantically for his cousin through the curious blackness.

He was as spooked as his mount. He’d never seen such an oddity before. A chasm that appeared from nowhere. So black that he couldn’t see into its depths. Could not see his cousin below. Or hear him over the whipping wind shrieking around its mouth.

Gathering his nerve, he thrust a hand into the void, hoping a hand might clasp his own, but there was nothing within. He felt nothing beyond an odd tingle stretching up his arm before he yanked it back.

“Hugh!” he called again, frantic now. “Hu—”

He scrambled away from the shrinking precipice when a white bundle sailed from the hollow, landing with the soft thud not far away as the gap closed.

“Hugh!” he yelled one last time, pounding a fist against the now-solid earth. Confusion ripped through him. He fisted his hands in the stiff grass, pulling it from its roots.

What had just happened?

Where was Hugh?

“Oh… Oh, no.”

At the soft feminine moan, Keir spun around and gawked at the tiny woman unfolding herself from the ball of white the crater had spewed forth. Light blue eyes blinked up at him.

And widened.

Her surprise could be no greater than his own.

Chapter 3

Rough hands grabbed Al’s shoulders and lifted her, shaking her hard. The hard jolt rebooted the slow ebb of the nausea her trip through the portal had prompted. Blinking against the bright sunlight, she glanced up into a blue gaze almost identical to the one she had met moments before in the lab.

But this was not the lab. Nor was this the man she’d seen there, though he was dressed almost identically.

He surveyed her in surprise and glanced down at her bloody hands before shoving her away. His eyes narrowed menacingly as she landed on her bottom. He pointed another of those long swords at her, bringing it closer and closer until Al’s eyes nearly crossed.

“Where is Hugh?” he snarled in a harsh brogue. “What hae ye done wi’ him, ye bluidy wee witch?”

Speechless, she stared at him, torn between awe and terror. Mostly terror, though he was the most magnificent looking man she had ever seen or imagined. The living, breathing manifestation of the untamed Highland warriors she so loved in her favorite novels. Black hair, a wild mass of tangles and curls, surrounding a granite-sculpted face that one never came across in real life. And those riveting eyes!

But those eyes weren’t warm with the desire she’d read about. No, beneath his dark brows, they were glacial with an anger bordering on murderous.

Swallowing hard, she tried to find her voice. He came closer, the tip of the sword touching the tip of her nose.

She could smell of the coppery tang of the blood tainting the metal. Practically feel the frenzied beating of his heart.

“Speak, ye barmy witch!”

She jumped at the command. His harsh voice demanded a response though she didn’t have a clue how to answer.

“Where is Hugh? What happened tae him?”

What on earth could she say? She didn’t have to think twice about what had happened to him. She knew exactly what had transpired. And how. Fielding’s project had been a comic disaster straight from the beginning. They hadn’t at all achieved what they had set out to do.

Mark-Davis had taken government funding from UNICOM—U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command—to develop a way to win the war on counterintelligence and information warfare. Fielding’s idea was to create a passage through space. A covert way of traveling throughout the world to reposition troops, spy, or even assassinate without anyone being the wiser.

They had succeeded in generating the wormhole but that was all. Their lack of success in controlling the portal’s destination in place, and even more surprising, time had Fielding hovering on the verge of a mental break for weeks.

No, she knew what had happened.

The only questions that remained for her were where and when. She couldn’t get those answers from him any more than she could provide the answers this raging philistine demanded.

“Speak!”

She wasn’t sure she could manage that either.

“I-I don’t know,” she stuttered.

The sword dipped as he neared until his face was just inches from hers. His eyes pierced hers but Al fought the urge to cringe and cower, meeting him steadily.

“Ye lie.”

Leaving the grumbled accusation hanging, he pushed away and paced over the place where the churning portal had once thrived. He brought his foot down hard on the spot, even going so far as to stab at the ground with his sword, but that wasn’t going to bring his friend back, nor was it going to help her