Every Time with a Highlander (27 page)

Her face, so beautiful, and the duke's behind it. He had a vague sense of something in his hand. He looked and almost smiled. The orange paper. Had she even told him how to use it? Then he remembered.

He lifted the paper, tore it open with his teeth, and shook it as the world went black.

The last thing he heard was a barrage of pistol shots and a terrified scream.

Pale shades of pink and gold. The colors of her skin. The softness of her touch. The luxurious cascade of her hair. His mind, unhinged from the exigencies of the real world, flitted among the slivers of joy, painful and pleasing. Tumbling aimlessly. Adrift. Alone.

“Mr. Kent?”

He jerked to attention in his seat in the front row.

“Are you ready?”

As ready as he'd ever be. His foot throbbed and itched in equal measure. Healing.
Ha.
Returning to its former state, perhaps, but not healing. Nothing would ever be healed.

The hole in his side was different. His chest was empty and aching. As if a part of him was missing.
That
he would feel forever. He stuffed his hand in his pocket and clutched the embroidered handkerchief. With a sigh, he adjusted his foot on the folding chair before him.

Eve, who'd been watching him closely—she'd been watching him closely since his return from the hospital a week ago—sat down beside him.

“Pretty weird having you disappear right in the middle of
Romeo and Juliet
,” she said, voicing at last what had clearly been on her mind since his return.

“It was irresponsible, and I'm very sorry. I think what you'd call it is a breakdown. Between Deirdre and the responsibilities of the theater…” He damned himself for using Deirdre's death as an excuse, but he thought she wouldn't mind.

“Okay, that I can buy,” Eve said, “though how you did it in front of hundreds of people, I'll never understand.”

“It was a simple magic trick. I was out of my senses. I'm sorry. I know I left you holding the bag.”

Eve gave him an interested look. “But that's not even the weirdest part. The weirdest part is you return after several days and collapse onstage, barely dressed, long after the theater has closed for the evening, and you've apparently been stabbed
and
shot.”

Michael had refused to allow his surgeon to say anything about his condition to her, and Michael himself had been closemouthed. Eve was guessing. But then again, she was the one who'd found him and called the ambulance.

“I've been sort of embarrassed about it,” he said, “but to be honest, I didn't even notice. Yes, I'd had my wallet stolen, which I also hadn't noticed. But the guy must have had a knife too. It felt like a stitch in my side. I guess it was worse than I thought.”

“And he stabbed your foot?” Eve said, crossing her arms.

“I think he'd been considering stealing my loafers too. Balenciaga, you know. I can't explain it. People are strange.”

“Uh-huh. You know what's even stranger? I gave the ambulance driver your wallet.”

Shite.

The next actress walked into the middle of the stage. Michael knew before she began that she wasn't right. Helen of Troy needed to be both striking and imperious—the sort of woman men would fight a war for, the sort of woman a man would do anything for. That wasn't something that could be acted. One had to be born with it. Only one or two women he'd ever met had it…

The woman started her piece. “Not even close,” Michael said flatly to Eve.

“Thank you,” Eve called when the woman finished. “We'll be in touch.” Then to Michael: “That's the forty-third actress you've dismissed one line in. At least five of them were great, and one was freaking perfect. What's going on?”

“They don't have the presence to play Helen,” he said. “It takes gravitas and bearing and the sort of mythical beauty that—”

“Fine. You're back. You're recovering. And you've decided to stay in London and become the most miserable director to work with on earth. Got it. Well, we have one more actress to see today—and she happens to be great. I saw her in
Three Sisters
last year. But I'm sure you'll hate her, so I guess I'll call a different casting agent and ask for another round for tomorrow.”

“She needs to be perfect.”

“Sounds like an unwinnable quest.”

Eve motioned for the next actress, and Michael bent to readjust his foot.

“Primrose Longacre?” Eve said loudly, reading from her list.

“Jesus Christ,” Michael muttered. “I hate her already.”

“No,” the woman said. “My name is Undine.”

Michael unbent.

Undine stood next to a confused redhead who clutched a script.

“
I'm
Primrose Longacre,” the redhead said.

“And my assistant director here says you'll be perfect,” Michael said, shocked into a happiness he could barely express. “Eve,” he said, the script falling as he stood, “would you cover the contract details with Ms. Longacre while I…” He hobbled to the stage with all the speed he could manage, where Undine—in jeans!—met him in a violent and unbreakable embrace at the bottom of the stairs.

“I thought you were dead,” she said, crying.

“I wished I were. Where were you? What happened?”

“Slow down,” she said, smiling and burying herself deeper in his arms. “We have all the time we could want.”

They were dressed—briefly—long enough to eat the fine Catalonian sardines the landlady had left outside their door. Beyond their window, the Mediterranean waves rose and crashed under a cloudless blue sky.

Per als joves en l'amor
, the landlady had said.
For young lovers.
Michael made a private smile. Not so young. But definitely in love.

“Tell me again.” He watched with a shiver as Undine sucked the salty oil from her fingers.

“How many times do you want to hear it?”

“Until I can truly believe you're here with me.”

“I told you the home spell I'd created for you was powerful. I was very angry, you'll recall.”

“Oh, I recall.”

“If it worked like I'd planned for it to work, you and everyone nearby would have been transported to their home. You came back here. Tom would have been transported to whatever rat hole he crawled out of. Nab would have gone to his parents' cottage in Langholm, and the women with him—who were they, I wonder? Servants, I suppose—to their homes. The duke was probably dropped right in the middle of his castle, and I, of course—”

“Went to Pittsburgh. Why didn't you tell me you were from the future?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. Turned out the Barcelonan humidity brought out the waves in it.

“The future never felt like my home. 'Twas my mother's home as a child, and she returned there after I was born and her husband left us. His last name was—well, I suppose that's not important. But she certainly wasn't going to have me use Murray, the name of the man who raped her. So we took the name Douglas, her maiden name, and lived a quiet life. When she died when I was eleven, I was going to be taken to a foster home. Do you know what that is?”

He nodded, thinking sadly about the bereft young girl.

“And I didn't want that. So I went back. She'd shown me how. She'd always been honest with me about her past. I think when she got ill, she wanted me to have a choice.”

“And you went back to 1706, alone, at eleven?”

“An old spells woman in Drumburgh took me in. I cleaned for her and tended her goats. She taught me what she knew. I had a natural talent for spells. My mother—”

“Was a naiad. Yes.” He grinned, hardly able to believe his luck. The lines of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins song went through Michael's love- and lust-addled head. It was hard to concentrate when he knew what dessert was going to be.

“The trouble was, when I landed in Pittsburgh this time, I didn't know anything. I was only eleven when I left. I didn't know how to use the new phones or computers. It took me a long time to figure out where you might be, and even when I did, I had no money to get to you or papers to allow me to travel. So I had to figure out a way to earn them.”

“Oh dear,” he said, imagining the many things that a man might be willing to pay for where Undine was concerned.

“You have a dirty mind,” she said, adding brightly, “Did I say that right? That's what the woman next to me on the plane said.”

“Got it in one.” He stroked her hand with his thumb. “And Bridgewater?” He was the one person Michael hadn't been able to bring himself to ask her about. He'd heard the pistol shots as he'd disappeared.

“Dead, I hope.”

“Do you?” He touched her chin, so perfectly round.

She shook her head. “No, not really. Michael, I need to tell you something.”

His heart caught. He wasn't going to like it. “What?”

“I love you, and I never want to leave your side…”

“But?”

“But I want to go back. This,” she said with a gesture that took in the rented flat, the sardines, Michael, and the deep-blue, sun-soaked sea, “is wonderful, but I need to be useful.”

He pulled her into his arms. “As do I. I know where we can go.”

“I
knew
you'd be here!” Abby cried, spying Undine's reflection in her bedchamber mirror. She spun like a top and threw her arms around her old friend. “I knew you wouldn't miss today!”

“Today?” Undine had expected an astonished Abby to exclaim “I thought you were dead!” Not this.

“For the
wedding
!”

“
What?
” Michael looked at Duncan, who lifted his palms happily.

“We're getting married today,” Abby said, gesturing to her intricately beaded gown, though it was no more or less beautiful than the gowns she wore any other day, Undine thought. “In just a few minutes, in fact. When I woke up today, I got on my knees and prayed for you to come back.”

“That doesn't sound like something you'd do,” Undine said, skeptical.

“Fine,” Abby said. “I drank my coffee and read the broadsheet and prayed for you to come back. But I did pray for you to come back. That is the point. Duncan thought you were dead—”

“I did
not
,” Duncan said, trying to flatten the starched lace jabot that reached all the way to his freshly brushed hair. “I said I thought she was ‘as good as dead,' at least to us. Why would anyone with the powers she has come back
here
?” He elbowed Michael. “You, on the other hand, I was sure were dead.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

Duncan shrugged good-naturedly. “Life can be cruel to Arsenal supporters.”

“I'm afraid not everyone will be as happy as I am to see your return,” Abby said. “There's a warrant out for your arrest.”

Undine had expected that, so the news didn't surprise her.

“I tried to talk the general out of it,” Abby said, adjusting a curl that had fallen from its pin. “You know how charming I can be.”

“And how much English officers enjoy the company of clan chiefs with favors to ask,” Duncan put in.

“But the general wouldna be persuaded. He did mention that he would, and I quote, ‘give a lot of money to be able to harness the power of that bloody woman.' He ended up in Plymouth, by the way. It seems his family also has a more southerly estate—
far
more southerly—at which he spent his youth. He was verra discommoded. It took him a week to get back here.”

Oh dear.

“And Bridgewater?” Undine asked, hesitant.

Michael squeezed her hand.

Abby's smile faded. “Dead. Shot by one of the false clansmen he himself had hired. But General Silverbridge knows everything that transpired with that blackguard and his miscreant friend Morebright.”

“Bridgewater wasn't transported?”

“If you mean his soul to hell,” Duncan said, “then maybe. But his body was lying in the carriage. He was buried in the Bridgewater family crypt.”

“The home spell doesn't work on someone who's dead,” Undine said. “He must have died the instant before the herbs took effect. Was he alone in the carriage?” she asked Duncan.

“Aye,” Duncan said. “But one death will be enough to hang Tom and ‘the clansmen.'”

“What about Morebright?” Michael asked. “Has he been arrested?”

Duncan snorted. “A nobleman?”

“Take care, my dear,” Abby said. “You shall be the husband of a noblewoman verra soon.”

“Noblewomen are quite another matter,” Duncan said.

“Nab ended up somewhere safe?” Michael asked lightly, but Undine recognized the concern in the words.

“Ask him yourself,” Duncan said.

Undine turned.

Nab ran in, holding a piece of cheese in front of an energetic Russian wolfhound. The lad wore a red plaid, a green velvet coat, and a gleaming short sword, and when he saw Undine and Michael, he jerked to a stop, mouth open. “You're
back
.”

“We certainly weren't going to miss the big day,” Michael said, tousling the boy's hair.

Undine felt the last worry slip from her heart.

“Grendel, sit.” Abby smiled. “Michael, meet the newest member of Clan Kerr.” She gestured to Nab.

“And my best man,” Duncan said.

Nab flushed and gave them a deep bow.

“Nab's the reason we know anything about what happened that day. He's been given a citation for bravery from General Silverbridge.”

“How did you get out of that carriage?” Michael asked.

“'Twas an easy matter,” the boy said, rubbing Grendel's ears. “Grace—that's Eliza the cook's daughter—she was in the carriage with me, and she said she needed to take a piss—”

Duncan cleared his throat.

“Fine,” Nab said. “She said she needed to use the chamber pot—in the woods.” He rolled his eyes. “I think she knew they were holding me against my will. So she hid. And then they sent her mother to look for her. That left me and Harry and George. And then I escaped, partly because I wanted to eat the plum she'd given me but also because they were pissing me off.”

“How did you get out?” Michael said.

“
Och
, easy. I told them I was going to puke—and I did. Just stuck my finger down my throat. I saw my uncle do it once when he'd had too much to drink. Everyone wanted out of the carriage then. Then I heard you making a stramash with that stinking arsehole Bridgewater—”

“
Ladies present
,” Duncan said.

“It's nae bother,” Abby said. “Nab's been offered the position of scout under the general, which, if he knows what's good for him, he won't be taking.”

“
Och
, no,” Nab said. “I think I'd like to stay near Kerr Castle.”

“Your loyalty to the Kerr cause will be rewarded, I'm sure,” Michael said.

“In this case, I think loyalty may be overshadowed by a slightly different emotion,” Abby said. “Grace is going to be my new lady's maid.”

“Oh,” Undine said.

“Ohhh,” Michael said.

Nab turned seven shades of red.

“It's a verra fulfilling quest, by the way,” Duncan said, pouring four very generous glasses of whiskey and one smaller one. “May you enjoy it.”

“Though I would plan on taking a good long time,” Michael said. “There's a wealth of pleasure to be had in the journey.”

Duncan distributed the drinks and lifted his glass. “To the journey.”

“To the journey!”

“Speaking of that,” Duncan said, “how did you manage your return?”

“That's an interesting story. Once Undine decided she wanted to return, we were a bit at a loss as to how to do it without her herbs. Then I remembered a fellow who knew the secret recipe, as it were. Hang on, would you?”

Michael slipped out of the room and returned a moment later with the man who'd not only showed them the patch of the magical twinflowers, but had also insisted on returning with them.

“Grandda!” Duncan's face broke into a huge smile, and he took his grandfather in a tight embrace.

“I told him you'd managed to win the hand of the smartest and most beautiful clan chief in Scotland,” Michael said. “He said, ‘
My
Duncan? I'll have to see it to believe it.'”

Duncan's grandfather said, “Oh, lad, how I've missed ye.” Then he took Abby's hands and squeezed them. “Michael was right, though. You
are
a bonny lass.”

Serafina and Gerard, also in their best clothes, appeared in the doorway.

“What's all th—?” She spotted Undine and Michael, and her lip started to quiver. “You're alive!”

“There's the reaction I was expecting.” Undine held out her arms, and Serafina flew into them.

Gerard thumped Michael on the back. “She just couldn't shake you, could she?”

After a long moment, Undine released Serafina and saw the shock on Duncan's grandfather's face.

“You're the…the dead spit of her,” he said.

The “her” Duncan's grandfather referred to was the red-haired woman with whom he had fallen in love a score of years earlier when he had traveled into Scotland's past. Their relationship had produced Serafina, though, as Undine knew, Duncan's grandfather had returned to the twenty-first century before the pregnancy had been discovered. When Duncan had uncovered this surprising relationship, he'd told Serafina, but Duncan's grandfather hadn't known the truth—until now.

Duncan cleared his throat. “Grandda, I'd like you to meet Serafina Fallon Innes. Serafina, this is your father.”

The three gingers took turns hugging and crying, while Grendel ran happily in circles around their feet and Gerard, Michael, and Nab laughed.

Undine found herself grinning like a fool. Abby elbowed her. “I haven't had this much excitement in my bedchamber since Duncan's first days here.”

“We picked well, my friend.”

They clinked glasses.

“Why did you come back?” Abby asked. “I was certain you'd find each other in the future.”

Undine knew the one person with whom she'd shared the story of her childhood travails would not forget. “I could hardly leave you alone,” Undine murmured, “not when you're with child. Does Duncan know?”

Abby nodded. “He's verra pleased.”

“I'm with child too,” she said, trying without success to rein in her joy.

“Pardon? What?” Michael said. “Who's with child?”

“I am no director,” Abby said, “but I know a cue when I hear one.” She gave Undine a kiss on the cheek and slipped away.

“Did I just hear what I thought I heard?”

Undine gazed at him imperiously. “When you are present for the laying of the groundwork, the appearance of the house shouldn't come as a surprise.”

“Oh, really? Is that an old naiad saying? And if it is, shouldn't it be ‘dam' or something?”

“It's so small,” she said more quietly. “But the magic is quite powerful. I have no doubts.”

He put his arms around her waist and kissed her. “I can't think of anything more wonderful.”

Abby, who had been laughing with her guests, suddenly whooped.

“Undine,” she cried, “I just realized you're a countess! On your own! And your son—Is the child a son?”

“So much for secrets,” Undine said under her breath to Michael. “Aye, I believe it is.”

“Your son will be Lord Bridgewater!” Abby clapped.

The guests in the room blinked for an instant. The realization that her and Michael's child would technically be considered the child of John Bridgewater was rather startling. But when Michael smiled, they cheered.

“It seems Michael's training as Orlando Brashnettle, senior wizard, paid off,” Gerard said. “He's pulled a lordship for his son out of his hat.”

Undine wheeled. “I
knew
you were a wizard!”

“Only in my dreams,” Michael said, head spinning. “I'm hoping you can teach me a thing or two.”

“I have no doubt,” Abby said.

When the excitement settled, Undine pulled Michael aside.

“Is that something you could bear?” she asked under her breath. “To raise our son as John Bridgewater's? If it's not, then I shall take you to a place where none of this will matter. If it is, we must live as secret lovers for at least a year until we can marry. But I can tell you that wielding the power of one of England's oldest families will allow me to do even more to help the rebels.”

“What about the warrant?”

“I have a suspicion the duke would be willing to throw that out if I offer him the chance to harness a bit of my power.”

Michael's brows went up. “You'd help an English general?”

“So long as he worked for peace. So what do you say? My only priority is to be with you, so the choice has to be yours.”

Michael pursed his lips. “Would we live in Bridgewater's castle?”

“Aye. Or his townhome in London or the hunting lodge in Derbyshire or the horse farm in Galway. They have money and lots of it.”

“Then I believe I could bear it quite nicely. Tell me, what sort of activities would be entailed in being ‘secret lovers'? Might it include stolen hours in the open fields of the borderlands? Hand-to-hand encounters in linen closets? Or perhaps something even more salacious?”

“There are certain things a noblewoman doesn't stoop to.”

He pulled her into his arms. “But there are other things the secret lover of an unemployed director
does
.”

“
Och
,” Nab said. “They're kissing again.”

“Come, come,” Abby said. “I should not like to be late for my own wedding. Undine, I am eager to hear what the future holds. Tell me things that will make me long to see it.”

Undine slipped her arm around Michael's waist and squeezed. “Two words, my friend. Yoga pants.”