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

captor took a step back, regarding her with astonishment. His full lips compressed. “So, ye do hae spirit in ye, lass. I had wondered.”

“There’s a whole lot going on here you’d wonder about,” Al shot back, surprising them both. In the normal course of her life, she was terrible with confrontations. It wasn’t like her to react aggressively in any situation. Especially one where she’d hardly been able to squeak out a word otherwise.

“And I do. Unreservedly.” His quiet tone was the most reasonable she’d yet to hear from him. To her further surprise, he unhooked the chain holding her manacled arms above her head and gestured for her to sit on the bench. With weak knees, she slid the stubby candle aside and sank down. He retrieved a wooden chair from the shadows beyond the circle of candlelight and sat as well. “I wonder aboot ye. From whence ye came. Why ye’re dressed so… peculiarly?”

He studied her for a long while, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Since ye dinnae respond to threats of violence, I gather ‘tis something ye expected from a barbarian such as myself, perhaps ye’ll respond tae reason. I am nae a simpleton, whatever ye think. I ken that ye’re nae unassuming Highland lass. Something happened out there… I cannae begin tae describe. But ye… ye showed no surprise. Ye kent what it was.”

His calm, forthright manner was oddly compelling. He seemed almost like a normal guy in that moment. An average 21st century guy with at least average intelligence and enthralling blue eyes. Al struggled against blurting it all out. Where she had come from and how. How would he take it?

“I’m asking ye plainly… nay, beggin ye,” he continued. “Tell me what has become of my cousin.”

Al closed her eyes in a silent plea for help. From anyone. From anywhere. The man who’d come through the portal wasn’t just a random acquaintance, he was his cousin? Could this whole situation get any worse?

“Please?” he added. “Hugh is as much a brother to me as my own kin.”

Apparently it could. She groaned, stifling the regrets that were not just for herself and her own fate any longer.

“I willnae…nay, cannae leave the reason for his disappearance a mystery. Not when there is any chance I might save him.”

There wasn’t, she knew. Could she be the bearer of such news? Wasn’t mystery better than the reality of what might actually be happening to the man who was like his brother right now? Surely telling him the truth wouldn’t make anything better for him?

Vacillating internally, Al maintained her silence, but as before, her refusal to answer sparked his unpredictable temper.

“Argh! Ye obstinate witch.” He stood, throwing back his chair in a sudden burst of violence. “Just tell me what I want tae know!”

“Please don’t yell at me. I hate being yelled at.” He stared at her with thinly leased violence, but rather than cower in fear or retreat into silence as she typically might, she continued, “My stepfather was an ugly drunk. He used to bellow like a rabid ape at me and my mom. It was invariably a precursor to something far more unpleasant. And I just can’t stand it anymore.”

“If ye dinnae want to witness my temper then put an end tae it,” he snapped, his burr all the thicker in his anger. It rumbled from deep within him. “Tell me. I beg of ye. Put me out of this misery uncertainty has born.”

“I wish I could. I want to.” She did, Al realized. The pain in his soulful eyes was so real, she wanted to give him the truth. To let him rest his head in her lap while she stroked his hair back from his broad forehead as she assuaged his fears.

Except she couldn’t do that.

It was as much a fantasy as thinking that anything she might say—even if he understood it all—would alleviate his anxiety.

How could she explain that to him?

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Al chewed her lip. Where to begin in the summation of Quantum Physics for Idiots?

“Well, I…” No. “There’s…” No. “You see…”

“Lass…”

“Keir!”

A dark-haired young man banged open the cell door and ran in, chest heaving and a panicked expression on his face.

“Nae now, Oran!”

“It’s Frang and Father,” Oran panted, glancing between them.

“Ah, bluidy fookin’ hell!”

Chapter 6

Four days later

Storming into the library, Keir tossed his scabbard and sword on his desk. Four days and still his temper hadn’t been relieved. Nor his father found.

Nor his curiosity about his cousin satisfied.

No, all the past four days had brought him was misery. Tragedy. His brother Frang had been killed in the aftermath of the battle on the Drumossie Muir. Killed, not in the blood bath of the battle itself, but murdered.

According to the witnesses he could find, those fearful few running for their own lives but willing to talk, the Duke of Cumberland had ordered his redcoat army to kill every surviving clansman left on the field that day, be he injured terribly or only marginally. Some of the Highlanders had been buried alive in great pits. Frang among them.

His armies had then marched on toward Inverness, raiding homes, searching for other Jacobites fleeing the battle. Any person being suspected of being one of, or even supporting, the Jacobites had been killed by means of musket, bayonet, or left dangling at the end of an all-too-short rope. Their homes burned. Women, children. It seemed to be an issue of little importance to Cumberland, who had already been labeled ‘The Butcher’ around the region.

Who knew what other atrocities might be committed in the days to come?

Luckily, his family home east of Dingwall was too far afield, too remote to attract immediate visitation. Though it might very well in the days and weeks to come as the search spread.

Prince Charlie was fleeing to the west Highlands, he’d heard. Perhaps the Isles. The information was sketchy but available. From men still loyal to his cause, eager to salvage