A Time & Place for Every Laird (8 page)

“Are ye
afraid, Sorcha?”

“Of you?”

“Aye.” Hugh held his breath, curious for her answer.  He had no desire for her to fear him.

“No,” she whispered
finally, and Hugh breathed a soft sigh of relief, but she wasn’t finished.  “Of all the rest, though?  Yes.  Yes, I am.”

“Justifiably so,” Hugh returned quietly, watching as she rubbed her arms as if she were suddenly chilled.   He set his big hands there as well and chafed
her arms lightly.  He kept the contact light but her body tensed anyway, a shiver shaking her from head to toe.  “Sorcha,” he whispered, waiting until she lifted her head and met his gaze.  “For what ye hae done for me, Sorcha, ye will forever hae my earnest and heartfelt thanks.  Ye hae nothin’ tae fear from me, lass, I promise ye.”

“Do you swear?”

“Often and wi’ inspiring éclat,” he responded solemnly.

Sorcha just shook her head
, as she tended to, but Hugh saw humor lighten her eyes if only briefly before she continued, “Still, maybe we should set some ground rules.”

“Such as?”

She didn’t respond immediately, and Hugh could sense that she had a great many rules warring in her mind and was merely trying to prioritize them.  The realization sent a shaft of humor through him, and Hugh had to stifle a smile.  She was a prickly thing but a good sport nonetheless.

“No
more removing clothing in my presence,” she said finally.  “And no touching.”

“Done,” Hugh agreed immediately, dropping
his hands.  “I promise I willnae touch ye again wi’out yer express permission.”

“I told you before, Hugh, I am offering
… my help.  Only my help.”  She stepped back out of his reach.  “Get some sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Hugh felt a reluctant grin
tug at the corner of his mouth. She had certainly put him in his place, but little did she know, for so many reasons, sleep would not be gracing him this night.

“And ye get back tae
yer warm bed ’fore ye catch a chill.”

In her room, Claire leaned against her closed door, rubbing the goose bumps that covered her arms and refusing to acknowledge that they had nothing to do with being cold.

The day after the e
scape

The sofa was empty and the blankets folded in a neat stack when Claire crept down the stairs the following morning.  Hugh was nowhere to be seen, but as she descended, muffled grunts and thumps became audible, and crossing the kitchen, Claire cracked open the door to the garage.  There she found Hugh beating on the punching bag she kept hanging from the rafters for her kickboxing as if he were battling an army of men.  He hit it again and again, his muscular torso covered with sweat and glistening in the dim light of the overhead lamp. 

Her hand tightened on the
doorframe as she watched him move.  The muscles in his back worked with the effort, and as he circled she could see the huge span of his biceps, the bulge of his pecs … and the stark despondency written on his face.

Pain.  Aggravation.  Desperation.  Claire closed the door before he saw her.  Caveman type that he was, Hugh would probably resent being seen in such an emotional state
, and better than many, she understood the need to lash out at something when in a hopeless situation.  Venting the frustration and rage he must be feeling for the world at that point seemed natural.  She supposed, in the big picture, she should be glad he wasn’t venting it on her.

Still
… Claire hesitated only a moment before opening the door again, aware that Hugh had stopped to watch her, his chest heaving.  Silently, she went to the back of the garage and dug into a plastic storage bin before turning and holding out an old pair of her husband’s boxing gloves.  Not the huge ones used professionally, but rather fingerless gloves with heavily padded knuckles and wrist supports.  She waited until Hugh pulled them on over his already bruised hands before wrapping the long strap around his wrist and fastening the Velcro.

Patting it down, she gave him a tight smile and a nod.
  Hugh nodded as well, and Claire left him alone to thrash his demons, hoping for his sake that he was far more successful than she had ever been in driving them away.

The thump and grunt of his efforts resumed while Claire
turned on the news and pulled out her laptop to Google the history of Scotland and Britain in the years before Hugh’s departure, hoping to learn enough to answer his questions, should the subject come up again. With time to spare, she also looked up INSCOM, looking into the scope of their reach and finding that they worked hand in hand with both the Army and the NSA in all areas of counterintelligence, electronic warfare, and information warfare, which helped to explain nothing of what their project with Dr. Fielding might be about.  The morning news ended with nothing about the situation at Mark-Davis on the local stations, and Claire decided that the director and INSCOM weren’t going to go public with the incident.

No, all the better to do away with the problem quietly when they caught up with Hugh
, she decided.  No watchful public eye.  No muss, no fuss.  Just quietly dispose of the problem.  Claire could only hope they would be more democratic than that with her after all this was over.

After a long while, silence fell in the garage.  Picturin
g Hugh as she had been so many times before—forehead resting against the bag, with energy, if not will, exhausted—Claire turned off the TV and took some orange juice out of the fridge.  She was holding a glassful when Hugh came in, covered now by a T-shirt that clung to his sweaty body.  Wordless, she held it out, and Hugh took it, drinking without hesitation.  His eyes widened in surprise but he finished it.  His first Florida OJ, no doubt.

“Get a shower,” she whispered tightly.  “Breakfast will be ready soon.”

“Just in time,” his hostess said as Hugh came back downstairs dressed in another of her husband’s
soft shirts and knit breeches.  She handed him a plate with two dark brown discs stacked one on the other.  “I’m sure they’re nothing like your bannocks but I hope they’ll do.”

“I’m
certain they will be delicious,” Hugh said seriously, noting that Sorcha still seemed as tense as she had when he had looked up to find her watching him earlier.  Whether it was wariness or her discontent at having him break one of her two simple “ground rules” by having no shirt on, Hugh was uncertain.

Joining her at one of the high stools on the opposite side of the
freestanding kitchen worktop she had called an “ island,” Hugh followed Sorcha’s lead, covering the bannock substitutions with butter and syrup, though he usually had his with jam.  There were sausage links and more of the orange juice set out as well as coffee.  Cutting off a section, Hugh met her solemn amethyst gaze with his as he ate.  “Ye dinnae ask why.”

Sorcha shook her head but
remained silent.

“Because y
e dinnae need tae.”  It wasn’t a question so much as a confirmation on his part. For whatever reason, unlike the women he was used to, Sorcha understood a man’s urge to expel his frustration and anger, and had even encouraged it with her silent offering of gloves to protect his knuckles from further injury.  He had seen the understanding in her eyes when she had come into the garage, had seen the empathy, and would be willing to wager that she had done the same on more than one occasion – as odd as that might seem.  Rarely had he seen a woman driven to violence, at least not the sort that wasn’t dispensed justly or unjustly upon the nearest male.  It was yet another thing that made Sorcha so unique.

“No, I didn’t,” was all she said before lowering her eyes to his plate.  “How
did you know what the punching bag was for?”

“I dinnae ken what it was when we first arrived yesterday, but I saw in yer periodicals an article on boxing,” he explained.  “There were portraits of the bag in use.”

Sorcha considered that with a nod and changed the subject.  “How are the pancakes?”

Hugh mouthed the
foreign word to himself as his gaze returned to his plate as well.  “Tasty. Thank ye again for all that ye hae done.”  The pair of pancakes were consumed within a few more bites, hardly putting a dent in his hunger, but Sorcha surprised him by bringing over another covered plate, raising the lid to reveal a pile of a half dozen more.

Lifting his eyes back to hers, he found the jeweled tones dancing with laughter even if her expression remained as solemn as ever.  “After dinner last night, I anticipated that your appetite might be more akin to an elephant
's, so …”

The words
trailed off with a shrug but that bit of humor brought the color back to her cheeks, until Sorcha was once again radiating the life and energy that had seemed barely contained the previous day.  Contained until he had subdued that energy with his own idiocy.

Hugh found he didn’t want to see that light die in her eyes again.
  “Elephant?” he scoffed good-naturedly.  “My aunt always likened me tae a small herd of cattle or a wolf, though everyone knows that the last wolf in Scotland was shot by a Mackintosh in Invernesshire nae more than a decade past.”  Hugh paused, his humor fading, as did Sorcha’s when they both realized what he had said.  A wry smile twisted his lips.  “A decade, a few centuries.  ’Tis all the same now, is that nae true?”

Sorcha offered a tight, sympathetic smile. 
“Time is what we make it, Hugh.  Some quantum physicist said that kind of tongue in cheek, but more than anyone, I think it applies to you now.”  She took her plate to the sink while he continued to eat and rinsed the platter before setting it aside.  “I took the opportunity this morning while you were … uh, out exercising to do a little research on the history of Scotland so I could answer your questions better than I did yesterday.”

Raising a brow, Hugh did his best to look interested though
his stomach knotted with dread when she hesitated.  It wasn’t a good sign.  “Go ahead.  Ye can tell me now what I would hae seen wi’ my own eyes if I had stayed.  We lost the battle, aye?”

“Yes,” Sorcha said.  “George I stayed on the English throne
, but the government was pretty shaken by what had happened.  I read on one site that the forces in Scotland made up of Highlanders, who most in England considered a backward people—their words, not mine—had ‘an ill-equipped, ill-prepared, and often ill-led army’ but that it was one that had won many battles.  It seemed to be something of a surprise to them.”

“For hundreds of years they underestimated
the determination of the Hielanders,” Hugh said in answer to her unspoken question.  “And then what happened?  Go on.”

Still, she bit her lip hesitantly before continuing.  “The government wanted to punish those responsible for the rebellion.  I guess that meant the lairds
, because they took away all their power, trying to do away with the clan system.  The Highland lairds forfeited their lands and legal rights …”

Hugh straightened at that.  “Bah, a laird isnae a laird because of his wealth and land!  Ye
cannae just take the title away and make it so!”

Sorcha nodded in agreement.  “One historian noted that a laird was something more personal to the people than a title alone
, but the government fought pretty hard to make the clans disappear.  They passed a law making it so the Highlanders could not carry weapons.  They outlawed the broadsword, the playing of the bagpipes, and the wearing of Highland clothes or plaid for everyone except soldiers serving the Crown.”

Anger curdled in Hugh’s belly for his people, for Highlanders like himself who had been suppressed by the Sassenach. 
Appetite gone, he pushed his plate away.  “Dinnae tell me there were nae executions,” he said bitterly.  “The Sassenach love a good execution.”

“There were some,” Sorcha admitted hesitantly.

“The Earl of Cairn?” Hugh asked.  “Was he one of them?”

“Not that I saw,” she answered
, and Hugh released a sigh of relief.  “On the bright side, forty or fifty years later, most of the restrictions on the suppression of the Scots culture were lifted, giving back the right to wear the kilt and all that.  Most of the lairds got their land back, as well.”

“Then what?” he asked.  “Do the Sassenach repress us still?”

“No, not really.  Scotland is its own country,” she said, inexplicably twitching the index and middle finger of each hand in the air as she said the word “country.”  “Scotland and Wales regained some control of their countries about twenty years ago but are still technically a part of the Union.  They are part of Great Britain along with England and Ireland.  A hundred years after Culloden, Scotland boomed during the Industrial Revolution.  There was shipbuilding, mining, I think it said, and they were major exporters of linen.  The Queen has a castle at Balmoral.  There has even been a prime minister or two from Scotland.”

Hugh grunted at that.  The advancement of politicians from his lan
d was nothing to brag over.  It was heartening to know that his country had prospered over time, though Hugh knew that the years immediately following the revolution would have been the worst of his life if he had still been there.  He didn’t know whether to be saddened or cheered that he had missed them.

“Are you all right, Hugh?” Claire asked softly when Hugh continued to wallow in silence.  He must be miserable after what she had told him.  Certainly it was not what he would have liked to hear.

“Aye, Sorcha,” he
murmured.  “I was just thinking about what was lost tae us.  I wish I could see my home once more.”

He looked so homesick that when the idea spr
ang to her mind, she didn’t think twice.  “Well, you can!”

“How?” he asked suspicious
ly.  “How might I do so when ye say it is impossible for us tae travel from this country?”

“Two words:  Google Earth,” she answered
enthusiastically.  “We can just look it up.”

“Look it up?”
he repeated curiously, but Claire was already pulling her laptop in front of her.  “What is that?”

Claire explained the basic operation of the computer as her laptop was booting up.
Using the simplest terms, she gave him a base description of the Internet and finally answered his questions about Google. “Where is it?”

“
Rosebraugh?”

“
Yes.  How do you spell it?” Hugh spelled out the name while Claire typed it in and hit enter expectantly.  Nothing.  “Is that a town?  It’s not coming up.”