“Funny, that,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t think we’re related, but who knows? We’re a little foggy on our genealogy in my family, so for all I know, we’re cousins. Tell me if he becomes a pest, though, and I’ll have my brother exert a little lairdly authority over him.”
“I appreciate it,” she said. “And I don’t know how to thank you for what you’ve already done.”
He shrugged with another faint smile. “Highland hospitality. It all comes back round in the end, so no need to fash yourself over it.” He pushed away from the counter and walked to the door. He paused, then looked at her. “Be careful in the woods,” he said seriously. “The weather can turn very suddenly.”
She wanted to say that wasn’t all that could turn, but she didn’t suppose pointing out that her stomach tended to turn when dead guys landed on her back was very useful at the moment.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she managed.
He let himself out and pulled the door shut behind him. Emma locked the door, then decided it wouldn’t do to leave things out to rot. She filled the fridge with what needed to go there, then looked at the little black nylon bag in the bottom of the basket.
She took it out, unzipped it, and realized it contained the barest essentials for a survival kit. There was a note there as well.
Might want to keep this to hand, just in case.
It was signed by the good lord Patrick himself, and somehow the words sent a shiver down her spine. In case what? In case she found herself locked out of the house and the thought of catching a fish and frying it up was more appealing than using her phone to text someone for help? In case she found herself facing Bigfoot and needed to use a fixed blade she was fairly sure wasn’t legal to carry in the UK?
In case she found herself trapped in the midst of a reenactment battle and needed to make do with that little bag and nothing else?
She put it in her backpack just the same, because it seemed like a good accompaniment to her daily necessities. One never knew when being prepared might mean life over death.
She just didn’t want to think about under what circumstances that might be necessary.
She forced herself to sit in front of her stove and drink her tea, then she checked her phone for any stray messages from her neighbor who couldn’t possibly be anywhere besides at home nursing his migraine, then washed up and put the Aga to bed.
By the time she put herself to bed, she was starting to get back to that place where she thought she might be able to believe she was just having hallucinations. She was tired and she wasn’t sleeping well. All kinds of things were possible when that was combined with tall tales from the local greengrocer and jet lag.
Surely.
Chapter 10
Nathaniel stopped in front of Emma’s house and turned his car off. Perhaps coming to see her so soon after having encountered her in a compromising situation might be considered ill-advised, but it had occurred to him as he was washing medieval grime off himself earlier that morning that it would behoove him to keep Emma’s focus on him confined to the present day.
He thought if he told himself that often enough, he might just manage to believe it.
There were odd things afoot, he would be the first to admit that. First that madness at Cawdor, then the journey back to 1387 whilst suffering a colossal headache, then seeing Emma standing in a place she most certainly shouldn’t have been able to get to—
Oh, and realizing that someone was watching him.
It wasn’t the usual gaggle of hens in high heels and short skirts. This was something entirely different. He couldn’t say exactly what led him specifically to that conclusion—perhaps too many years in a different, more dangerous century—but he couldn’t deny what he knew:
That someone was sinister.
He knew he should have set aside everything else in his life to investigate that, but he honestly had nothing left in reserve to even attempt it. What he needed was a day or two to simply sit with the events of the past week to see if something significant came to mind. Even if all he did was breathe without wondering what was going to send him careening into a time period not his own, that might be enough.
The truth was, if he didn’t find a solution to his situation soon, he was going to go mad. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life feeling as though his life belonged to someone—or, more to the point, something—else.
He wanted a handful of days where he didn’t have to encounter any numbers that he knew would indicate a journey to a time not his own. He wanted more than a handful of days where he could simply live the same sort of life a normal bloke got to live. He’d never taken the trouble to determine exactly how far away from his house he had to get before the past stopped calling him, though he’d thought about it on the way over to Emma’s cottage. New York was far enough, as was London.
Inverness was apparently not.
But Edinburgh might be. He was willing to give it a try. Daft as it might have sounded, he wanted to give it a try with Emma.
He knocked on her front door, then waited. He’d seen lights on, but that might have meant nothing more than she’d left them on behind her before she’d gotten lost again in the past. He had hardly dared believe his eyes when he’d seen her run into the midst of a battle earlier, but there’d been no denying it. He’d done the first thing that had come to mind, which was to shove her back into the future and hope she went.
The door opened suddenly and he jumped in spite of himself. He jammed his hands in his pockets, damned grateful that he was in a time period with pockets, and wondered how it was he could be so full of his thirty-five years yet feel as if he were approximately fourteen years old, looking at his first pretty girl and daring to think she might be willing to go have a coffee with him.
“Good morning,” he said politely.
She looked fairly shattered. “Same to you,” she said quietly.
“I was thinking to make a journey to Edinburgh,” he said carefully, “if you’re interested in coming with me. Separate rooms, of course.”
She was watching him—too closely, if anyone was curious about his opinion. He tried to look as respectable and modern as possible.
“Of course,” she murmured. “I wouldn’t think anything else.”
Well, he would have suggested quite a few other things if he’d been in his right mind, but he was trying to be on his best behavior.
“Just a pair of days,” he said with as casual a shrug as he could manage. “Just to get away.”
“I’m just on a tight budget,” she added slowly, “so I have to be careful. I’ve already imposed too much on Lord Patrick—”
“Lord Patrick will survive,” Nathaniel said without hesitation. “Rich as Croesus, so I understand.” He leaned against her doorframe, partly because he was exhausted and partly because there was something about her that he thought he might like to sit down and study whilst at his leisure. “I think I can afford a pair of rooms in the big city.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t let you do that,” she demurred.
He looked at her earnestly. “I need a change of scenery and don’t want to go alone. Edinburgh is a lovely place. There’s a whacking great castle there, you know. There might be other interesting things as well. Can’t remember at the moment—”
“There’s the Camera Obscura,” she said without hesitation. “And Holyrood, the Tolbooth—oh, and ghost tours. That’d be interesting, don’t you think?”
With the number of things he had seen over the past five years—corporeal and not-so-corporeal—he thought he just might have an opinion on that.
“I could be persuaded to go on a ghost walk,” he said.
She looked terribly torn. “I can’t tell you how much I want to say yes.”
He couldn’t bear to tell her just how much his heart hurt at her enthusiasm. Bloody hell, the woman was goi
ng to be the death of him.
“You shall be my tour guide, then,” he said. “Very necessary for the success of the venture.”
“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” she said slowly. “You’re Scottish. How much tour guiding can you possibly need?”
He straightened and nodded toward the inside of her house. “You might be surprised. Besides, I’m always interested in someone else’s perspective of my native land. Pack your gear and come to Edinburgh with me. It’ll do you a world of good to get away from the grind at home. Feeding that damned Aga is enough to drive a lass to drink.”
She didn’t move. “I know what you’re doing.”
He experienced a moment of panic, but he was altogether too accustomed to moving right past that sort of thing. He fixed what he hoped was an innocent look on his face. “Mind reading now?”
“You’re not very subtle.”
“I make a living at being subtle. You simply leave me off-balanced.”
“Me?” she said, looking very surprised. “Why?”
“I don’t know where to even start,” he said honestly. “And aye, I’m trying to keep you distracted.” He hoped she wouldn’t ask him why, because he was too off-balanced to come up with a decent answer for that sort of thing at the moment. “If nothing else, you can drive when I feel the need for a nap. We’ve already seen how that works, haven’t we? Now, shall I put your stove to bed whilst you gather your gear?”
“Where did you go to school?”
“Eton,” he said, breezing past her. “Stuffy old place, as you might imagine.”
“I can imagine many things,” she said, “and I wasn’t talking about that. Where did you go to university?”
He paused at her stove, sighed, then turned and looked at her. He knew what she was doing and didn’t want to give her any fuel for her fire. “I don’t want to answer that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Where?”
He considered his alternatives. “If I tell you, will you come south with me?”
“Maybe.”
“Very well,” he said, dragging his hand through his hair. “St. Andrews.”
“And you want me to be your tour guide?” she asked incredulously.
“I want you to let me enjoy your company for a couple of days,” he said. “I’ll find us a vile little hotel, we’ll make a few visits to the worst chippy in the city, and we’ll take in a few tourist attractions. I can afford that, I imagine.”
“I suppose I could be your bodyguard and fight off the socialites who’ve probably put a tracking bug on your car just to see where you go,” she conceded. She met his eyes. “You could consider that my doing my part for the cause.”
“Perfect,” he said. “Shall I see to your fire?”
“Patrick would probably appreciate it.”
He supposed the man might, and whatever he could do to keep the lads from over the hill remaining over the hill where they belonged seemed a reasonable price to pay for his efforts with the cottage’s stove.
“I probably should leave a note as well,” she said. “So they don’t worry.”
“Or pop off a text,” he said. “You could tell him you’re rehabilitating one of the locals. I’m sure he’ll be impressed.”
She fussed with her mobile for a moment or two, but he didn’t dare ask her what she’d sent. Better not to know, surely. He settled her house as he’d done his own, then waited outside for her. She was quick about her business, but somehow that didn’t surprise him. There was a wench who seemed to find it necessary to be able to bolt at a moment’s notice.
He understood.
She locked her door, paused for a minute with her back to him, then turned and took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
He smiled briefly. “You sound as if you’re headed to the Tower.”
“I don’t like relying on anyone else.” She looked at him seriously. “I can pay my way in Edinburgh if I take out cash. I think this sounds a little crazy, but it’s probably better if I don’t leave a paper trail.”
“I have a thought,” he said, reaching for her bag. “I’ll cover things, then when the statement comes at the end of the month, you write me a check for the amount and I’ll run it through half a dozen attorneys to hide the origin. How does that sound?”
“Slick.”
“It will be.” He would also watch hell freeze over before he let her pay off anything with his name on it, but perhaps that was something they could fight over later. He walked with her to his car and saw her inside, stowed her gear, then got them on the road before anything untoward happened.
His life was exhausting.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye as he drove, but she seemed content to watch the scenery. If he stopped once to give her the chance to hop out and pick a bit of heather, well, who could blame him? The woman wasn’t just content to watch the scenery; she was breathing it in.
“Happy?” he asked at one point.
“I would live here forever, if I could.”
He had been all over the world, seen wonders and monuments and priceless treasures, and he had to agree with her. Even if his life hadn’t been so inextricably linked to Scotland, he would have lived there because he loved it. He had the feeling the time would eventually come when he had to do something besides be at the mercy of whatever it was that continued to make an absolute hash of his life, in any number of centuries, but perhaps he could put that off for another pair of days.
He took a little detour in Inverness, pulling to a stop outside where he garaged one of his indulgences. He looked at her.
“I thought we might want to drive something else from here.”
“Something that gets better gas mileage?” she asked, frowning slightly.
“Ah, nay,” he said. “Something that goes a bit faster. You know, for a long journey.” He supposed there was nothing else to be said. He liked good food, expensive wine, and fast cars.
He was such a cliché.
He opened his door, opened hers, then unlocked his garage and rolled up the door. He looked at Emma to see her reaction. She looked at the car, then at him.
“Seriously?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I have no self-control.”
“That’s a Lamborghini.”
“Indeed it is.”
“Is this the extent of your problem?” she asked sternly.
He shifted slightly. “I might or might not have an Aston Martin garaged in London.”
“I’m not paying off your credit card at the end of the month,” she said darkly.
He smiled. “I wouldn’t have let you.”
“You’re as rich as they claim you are, aren’t you?”
“Richer, assuredly.”
She looked at him, then laughed. “Humble about it, apparently.”
“’Tis part of my charm.” He held out the keys. “You can pull it out into the street, if you’d like.”
“And drive it to Edinburgh?”
He hesitated, then ignored her smile. “My altruism extends only slightly past the curb.”
“How far?”
He considered her. “What’s the fastest thing you’ve ever driven?”
“My father’s Bugatti.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Is that so?”
“I’m not a fan,” she said. “Too showy. But I have driven it more than he realizes.” She held out her hand for the keys. “I’ll pull your Range Rover inside and not tweak you about this one.”
Which was exactly why he might well hand her the keys at some point. He pulled his car out, waited for her to pull his Rover into the same spot, then transferred their gear. He locked the garage up, half wondering why he bothered, then got them out of Inverness with as little fuss as possible. He glanced at Emma to find that she was watching him.
“Sh
ould I be nervous?” he asked.
“I’m just wondering about you.”
“I’m not sure I want to know why, so let’s talk about you instead. But let me find us a hovel to stay in first. I have a mate who has some connections that might suit us.”
That was a gross mischaracterization of the reality, but that was probably something he would be better off not telling her at the moment. Brian did, after all, have a handful of little boutique places where Emma might be willing to stay if she didn’t know their price. He spared a kind thought for whomever had decided a satellite phone was a good thing to put in his car, then waded through a pair of assistants to get to his end goal.
“Nat,” the disembodied voice said with a laugh. “You lazy sod, where have you been? Slumming in some Caribbean resort?”
“My pasty-arsed self says nay,” Nathaniel said dryly. “Brian, I have a friend with me who is listening to every vile thing you say, so watch your mouth.”
“Ah, a woman friend?”
“Aye, and I’m trying to impress her with my good taste in mates, so, again, mind your manners. I need a pair of rooms in the city and a place for my car.”
Brian laughed. “Of course you do. Don’t you have a secretary for this sort of thing?”
“I don’t, which you already know, and you owe me, which is why I called you personally,” Nathaniel said. “Pay your assistant a bonus to find me something close to the castle, will you?”
“Done. I’ll text you details. I’ll meet you for drinks if you have an hour or two free whilst you’re here.”
“Absolutely,” Nathaniel said. “Cheers.” He hung up, then looked at Emma to find her watching him. He smiled. “Business mate.”
“What do you do? I’m guessing you’re not making payments on this thing.”
“I invest,” he admitted. He started to elaborate, then realized she had gone a bit still. “Not a fan of that sort of thing?”
“It’s what my father does,” she said with a shrug. “Big money behind the scenes. He’s a bit abrasive, though, which is why others do his talking for him.”