As indicated earlier, Adrian is growing stronger (the curse is wearing down and Brunhilde is due for a visit). He fully manifests and Penelope finally sees him for the first time. He is splendid. He has no idea why he can be seen, but they both suspect he may finally be free of whatever was wrong. She is elated. They make love for the first time with him visible, and it is incredible. Penelope introduces her friend to the staff (although no one is really fooled).
Some weeks later, Penelope goes to meet Dinah at the university for a previously arranged meeting. It is a stormy day, with heavy rains and flash flooding in and around the valley that nestles Ballyhock.
When Penelope and Dinah don’t return by late evening, Adrian and the Gilchrists are frantic. They call a cab to go look for them, but the cabs aren’t running because the weather is so bad. Adrian takes off on foot into the storm. He goes down the valley, through the woods, to the edge of the property and crosses it, drawn by the beacon of headlights pointing skyward, and as he nears, he hears the sound of Dinah’s cries. He finds her with Penelope; a small flash flood had washed them over a slab and Penelope has been knocked unconscious.
As Adrian kneels beside Penelope, he starts to feel himself coming apart. He carries her back toward Lyssford, but he has been too long off the estate and is dissipating. When he gets her close to the house, she regains consciousness and sees that he is fading.
Suddenly, he disappears.
Adrian materializes in a hut in the woods. He has no idea where he is or what time it is. He is about to march out the door, when Brunhilde flings it open, all seductive woman, trying to seduce him (some people never change, and Adrian accuses her of failing to evolve when he did so splendidly). Pieces start to fall into place and make sense to Adrian. They fight and she finally tells him what she did to him and why. But now that he has offered his life for the love of a woman (knowing he would cease to exist, he still rescued Penelope), he is free of the curse and may return to Dalkeith and his own time.
Adrian is outraged and argues eloquently to be returned to the woman whose love freed him. Petulantly, Brunhilde refuses. Adrian demands a fair trial and Brunhilde, her interest piqued by this possibility, grants him a hearing before her sister Valkyries. He argues his case—his love for Penelope—before the full tribunal of Valkyries. (One man, convincing nine women of his love for Penelope—great scene!)
They vote to return him to his woman. Even Brunhilde is swayed. But Adrian wants his life back. He demands to be given the choice of staying with her or having Penelope return with him. (Throughout the story, Penelope has expressed a longing to live in a simpler time, when she wouldn’t have been considered brilliant, because most people didn’t read and write. He wants to be able to give her the choice.)
Brunhilde grudgingly concedes to leave it up to Penelope.
The story concludes precisely where it began: at the masked ball at Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea. Adrienne and Hawk are frantically looking for Adrian, who disappeared a few hours before.
Suddenly, he comes strolling in with a beautiful, oddly garbed woman (who certainly piques Adrienne’s interest) and four strangers. He apologizes to Adrienne and Hawk and says it is definitely time he settled down—he’s wasted a lot of years, so he will marry this woman and gratefully accept their birthday gift—and this is his new staff, by the way.
The last page is a newspaper clipping:
The entire staff of Lyssford-at-the-Lea seemingly vanished overnight. The oddest thing is that they seem to have hung new portraits right before they vanished …
DELETED SCENES FROM
KISS OF THE HIGHLANDER
Halfway through Kiss of the Highlander, I took a wrong turn. In these deleted scenes, rather than confronting Drustan with the truth, Gwen claims amnesia—and nearly has sex with the laird of the castle up against the wall in a corridor shortly after arriving! In this version, she doesn’t get confronted by both Dageus and Drustan the first morning she’s there, and still believes Dageus is dead.
CHAPTER 12
Silvan might be charming, Gwen mused, as she finally escaped from his clutches a few hours later, but he was also dangerous. Behind his disarming manners and haphazard gait lurked a clever, clever mind.
He’d nearly tripped her up a dozen times, and she’d had to resort to acting helpless and tiny and vulnerable. She’d even squeezed out a few tears during his subtle interrogation, and still she wasn’t certain she’d convinced him that she recalled nothing of her life before this morning.
Thank God for Nell, who’d brought breakfast to Silvan’s tower—soft poached eggs, deliciously salty ham, and crusty bread—and berated Silvan for pushing “the wee lass too hard and too soon, and canna ye see she has no memory?” Fierce, protective Nell, standing up to Silvan, bristling with indignation. In Gwen’s estimation, Nell was what every mother should be.
And Silvan? He looked like a cross between a mad philosopher and a sorcerer in his brilliant blue robe, and had the instincts of a killer shark when he felt like exerting himself. Part of what threw Gwen off balance about Silvan was that he really did resemble Albert Einstein, and revering Einstein’s work as she did, a bit of that adulation spilled over to Silvan, whether he deserved it or not.
But she’d quickly realized that his resemblance to the brilliant theorist didn’t end with his appearance. She’d glimpsed a copy of Copernicus’s The Revolution of Heavenly Orbs lying near his armchair. It had astonished her that a medieval man had a copy of the very recently published—1543, if her memory served her, and it always did—manuscript that had infuriated the Catholic Church with its claim that the earth orbited the sun, not vice versa.
He was as intriguing as his son, who knew how to manipulate time. Who were these men? And why did history mention nothing of them? If men had existed in the sixteenth century who knew so much about science, surely they would have penned at least one or two texts that survived to modern day.
Obviously, they were men of great intellect, who had a heightened understanding of cosmology. Drustan possessed knowledge that had allowed him to access multidimensional travel. It was no wonder someone was after them. In her century, men would wipe out entire nations trying to get their hands on such knowledge.
Perplexed by the situation in which she found herself, she descended the stairs then paused at the bottom, pinching her lower lip and thinking.
I know it’s 1545, Gwen had said in a disgustingly breathy, helpless voice to Silvan, hoping she had the year right, but I can’t seem to recall the month and day.
He’d regarded her intently before telling her it was February twenty-fifth and not correcting her on the year, hence confirming its accuracy with his silence. She had one month to uncover the traitor.
She would create a list of the occupants of the castle, identify their place in the scheme of things, and determine who might have possible motive. Her primary goal was to prevent Drustan from being enchanted. Any scientific knowledge she might acquire would have to come second. Mentally, she’d begun to prepare a list of questions. She hoped that by the end of Silvan’s interrogation she’d succeed in making him believe her a bit daft. No one expected too much of a simple-witted person, therefore no question she would ask might seem too strange.
“Lost, English?” a deep, mocking voice inquired, as the door to the Greathall slammed shut.
Gwen pressed her fingertips to her throat, shivering. He must have been standing in the doorway, watching her for several moments, perhaps the entire time she’d walked down the stairs, for she hadn’t heard the door open.
When she’d found him in the cave, he’d called her English in exactly the same tone. But he still doesn’t know me, she reminded herself. Try not to let it hurt. Pasting a smile on her lips she turned toward him. “It’s a big castle. I’m still trying to find my way about.”
God, he was gorgeous. Now that she knew he was truly a sixteenth-century lord, she wondered how she could have ever believed otherwise. He dripped command and control, as
blatantly as he wore his sexuality. He was a man who thoroughly enjoyed being a man.
Looking grim, Drustan moved away from the door and stalked in her direction.
Stalked.
Like a large, hungry, and very angry animal, his soft boots ate up the space between them. Dark, wild hair dusted with snow, body bristling with irritation, he cornered her.
It took all her willpower to not blurt a hasty apology for him having been accused of raping her. But since she’d told both Nell and Silvan that she could remember nothing but her own name, she could hardly exonerate him now.
“We need to talk,” he growled, taking her by the elbow, steering her through the Greathall and propelling her down a corridor.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, her toes barely skimming the floor. This, too, was similar to what he’d done in her time—wrapped a hand around her arm and dragged her through the tunnels. But there, he’d tried to seduce her first.
One could always hope.
“While you filled my da’s head with more of your lies, I paid a visit to the village. It seems no one there is missing a wench. Or not one they’re willing to own up to. Mayhap someone was glad to be rid of you.”
“I’m not a wench.”
He slanted her a look. “Aye, you are a wench. You are the reason I got both an unpalatable breakfast and a tongue thrashing from my da the likes of which I haven’t suffered since I was a lad. And I doona appreciate it.” Stopping abruptly, he backed her up against the wall of the corridor and braced his palms on either side of her head. “So, you and I are going to have an intimate little chat, and you’re going to tell me where the hell you came from, and how you came by my plaid. And you will not lie to me, wee English, or you’ll regret ever seeking shelter in my castle.”
Gwen froze, cradled between his arms. The instinct to touch him, to press her body against him was just as strong as it had been in her time. In fact, it was even stronger, because she’d so recently made love with him. She longed to reach out and brush his unshaven jaw with her fingertips, to caress his hair, to kiss him, to demand that he remember her.
But he was a stranger, and a very angry stranger at that.
“I thought it was Silvan’s castle,” she said mulishly.
His stare was flat and unamused, with no little silver lights dancing in it. “Then it would have been wiser for you to don Silvan’s blue robe, not my plaid. I assure you he is far more accommodating than I. Talk, wench. Whence came you and what is your purpose here?”
“I told your father—”
“I care naught to hear what lies you told my father. ’Twas plain to see how beguiling he found you, but I will not make the same mistake. I doona underestimate you, nor will my wits be disarmed by flouncing hips.”
“Flouncing hips? I don’t flounce,” she sputtered. “I have never flounced.”
“Where are you from?” he repeated icily, crowding her with his big body.
She braced her hands against his chest to hold him at bay. She didn’t miss how his eyes flared the moment she touched him.
He knocked them away, and placed his hands back on the wall to either side. “Doona touch me, wench. You know not what you provoke. If I’m going to stand accused of something, I should be able to say I enjoyed it, so doona push me.”
Gwen closed her eyes. If he bent much nearer, his lips would be a breath away from hers and she wasn’t certain she could prevent herself from wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him down, and kissing him.
“Open your eyes,” he insisted.
Gritting her jaw, she opened her eyes. He was no less domineering in his time than he’d been in hers. “I don’t know where I’m from,” she said defiantly. “I don’t know how I got here. I already told your father that.”
He clamped her head in his hands and forced her to meet his gaze. “Tell me that again. Look straight into my eyes and tell me that again.”
Gwen drew a deep breath and looked directly into his eyes. “I don’t know how I got here.” That much was certainly true. She had no idea how he’d done what he’d done with the stones.
“Liar. You know me. How do you know me?”
“Do you know me?” she countered cautiously.
“Nay, despite your efforts to make it look as if I took your maidenhead.” He paused then added vehemently, “I am not marrying you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Then why did you come here? Why do you act as if you know me?”
Gwen puffed her bangs from her eyes with a soft breath. “Are you certain you don’t know me?” she asked tentatively. “You see, I have amnesia,” she tried out the lie, “and I don’t know if you know me or not.”
His silver eyes narrowed and darted from left to right as he scanned her features. It was obvious that she disturbed him on some level. She could sense that he felt a connection that logic insisted couldn’t exist. Suddenly she felt almost sorry for him. Almost. If she understood the theories about space-time, technically, he had the memory of her in him somewhere. There had never actually been two different Drustans: only two different fourth- or fifth-dimensional projections of a single set of cells and DNA. Rather like a single ray of light, beamed into a prism and exiting on the other side at multiple angles; one ray of light, just the same. She could imagine how hard a person might work to suppress memories they believed they hadn’t lived. Would such memories be perceived as dreams? she wondered. Blurry and vague and nagging?
“I know I doona know you. I would recall a woman such as yourself.” He paused. “Yet …”
“Yet what?” she encouraged, daring to hope. Might he be strong enough of mind to tolerate the memory of two different realities? She could see something in his eyes, she also saw the moment he pushed it away. His scowl faded, and his eyes took on a seductive gleam.
“Yet you look at me with those hungry eyes, like you know me. Or would like to know me.” He lowered his head another inch. “Is that what you wish of me, English? To know me?” he purred. “Your maidenhead is gone. Are you so eager to repeat the experience you had last eve?”
She swallowed, mesmerized by him, by the heat in her body, by the lust in his gaze.
Bending near, he brushed his lips against her ear. “There is a mating heat on your skin, and it sets my blood to fire. Shall I ease your discomfort?”
Gwen shivered. God, she wanted him.
“I wouldn’t care it to be said of me that I left a woman in distress,” he said, brushing his lips against her neck. “ ’Twould ruin my good name.”
“Aren’t you afraid your father would make you marry me?” she provoked, irritated that he refused to marry her, despite the fact that she wasn’t even asking.
“Nay. There are ways around that. And I assure you, ’tis only a matter of time before I discover where you’re from. Besides, if you doona recall what happened to you, perhaps you were wed yesterday. Perhaps you already are married,” he pointed out. “That would certainly explain why you were no longer maiden.”
“Then you shouldn’t be messing around with someone else’s wife,” she snapped.
He laughed. “As a rule, I wouldn’t. But as I said before, if I’m going to get blamed for the crime, at least I should get the pleasure of committing it. Besides you want me. I can feel it. Here,” he said, cupping her breasts with his hands. Her nipples crested instantly. “And I see it in your eyes.”
Slowly, inexorably, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Why should she resist? She wanted him, plain and simple. And it was clear that the desire he’d felt for her in the twenty-first century was in no way diminished in the sixteenth. He’d tried to seduce her the moment he’d seen her in the twenty-first century, and she was glad that he was doing it again. She liked knowing that he found her desirable in any place and time. She would greedily take every minute with him she could get, consequences be damned.
He brushed his lips across hers then pulled back, his eyes wide. She nearly laughed, becau
se while she knew to expect the sizzle when they touched, he was experiencing it for the first time. He stared at her until she wet her lip with the tip of her tongue, then he kissed her, sucking her tongue into his mouth. Framing her head with his hands, he plunged his tongue between her lips with the intensity of a drowning man.
Heat exploded between them.
Nudging her legs apart with a knee, he tugged her forward so she was astride his thigh. He tugged at her nipples with his fingers, coaxing them to hard crests through her gown. He kissed her so deeply that he sucked her whimpers into his mouth.
He was hard and hot and ready, and she was about to have sex in the middle of a hallway, and not even care about the impropriety of it.
Back and forth, up and down he rubbed his muscular thigh between her legs, pinching her nipples, hammering her with that double-thrust rhythm of tongue and thigh, and Gwen whimpered into his mouth.
Frantically, she tore at his plaid, desperate to press her hands against his skin, but he caught them in his and stretched her arms above her head, securing her wrists against the wall with one hand, while the other resumed a leisurely exploration of her body.
“Let go of my hands,” she complained, against his mouth. “I need to touch you.”
“Nay. I cannot speak for my actions should you touch me.” He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, and made an animal sound deep in his throat.
“You’re the one who offered yourself,” she mumbled. “Now cooperate.”
“I doona offer all of me, English.” He dropped his head to draw her nipple deeply into his mouth, gown and all. He nipped at the puckered crests, pushed her breasts up and together, and laved the cleavage with his tongue.