Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (2 page)

Aurelia knew she was not the only one to
wonder at their chances.

“
Bard, son of Erc, is mine
alone,” Hekod declared coldly. The silence was such that his voice
carried along the entire wall, the dark menace of his tone sending
a shiver down every spine.

Aurelia had the sudden thought that the
first strike could be telling. A quick gain for Hekod’s side could
lift the spirits of Dunhelm’s troops. Aurelia knew enough of war to
understand that that alone could send them surging to victory.

Without questioning her impulse, Aurelia
loaded an arrow into her crossbow, silently beseeched the Goddess
for favor, aimed and fired.

The arrow whistled through the air and was
quickly lost in the sun. It buried itself with a barely audible
thump as Aurelia strained to discern its landing point.

A heartbeat later, one of the men hauling
the lead ship faltered, then fell into the blue of the sea.

He did not stand again. The end of the rope
he had held trailed away into the waves, his alarmed partner missed
a step before boldly surging forward again.

The men on the walls of Dunhelm cheered
boisterously. Bard’s forces launched a volley of arrows that fell
far short of the stone walls. Aurelia felt a surge of victory
before her sire’s voice boomed across the ramparts.

“
Aurelia!”

Too late Aurelia realized that the accuracy
of the shot betrayed her hand.

All eyes pivoted to Aurelia when Hekod
spotted her and glared dangerously. Aurelia stubbornly held her
ground. Hekod muttered a curse, then pushed aside warrior and
mercenary as he carved a path along the wall to his errant
daughter.

And Aurelia knew she would not have another
chance to fire a shot. She had to make this fleeting moment count!
The men around her murmured in dismay, but Aurelia quickly fitted
another arrow and lifted her crossbow to aim once more.

She squinted and adjusted her sight on the
second man in the sea. He had taken an uneven gait, presumably to
foil her efforts. Precious moments passed before Aurelia was
satisfied with her aim.

Just as she was about to let the shot fly,
heavy hands landed on her shoulders. Aurelia jumped and lost her
sight, her fingers fumbled with the arrow.

Pain burned in her left thumb. The sensation
was hot enough to bring tears to her eyes.

“
Aurelia!” Hekod cried out
in dismay.

In that instant, a curious glow swirled
around Aurelia. Everything around her seemed enveloped in
shimmering silver, distant and unworldly. Aurelia herself felt
buoyed by nothingness in a most unnatural way. It was as though she
had been surrounded by a glittering fog.

Gods and goddesses! What was happening to
her?

Aurelia glanced to her father, only to find
him as ethereal as all else around her. His anger was gone,
dissipated as quickly as it burned bright, and now his features
were lined with concern.

“
The prophecy!” he murmured
hoarsely and his grip tightened on her shoulders. “It was true,
after all!”

Aurelia tried to laugh at such foolishness
but failed. The swirling gossamer haze had eclipsed the pain so
thoroughly that Aurelia felt as unsubstantial as a morning mist. In
fact, she tingled lightly all over. Aurelia had the strange sense
that if her father let go of her shoulders, she would swept away to
forever in the blink of an eye.

“
It is only the loss of the
blood that ails me,” she managed to say. Aurelia frowned, feeling
as though the cloud had numbed her reason as well. Had she felt so
odd when wounded before?

Hekod lifted his daughter’s wounded hand,
his great paw gently cradling Aurelia’s much smaller fingers. “But,
Aurelia, there is no blood.”

No blood? There must be!

But when Aurelia looked at her hand, she saw
that Hekod was right. The arrow had fallen away, leaving behind no
more than a gaping hole in Aurelia’s left thumb.

Right in the middle of the whorl, just as
the prophecy made so long ago had clearly declared. And her very
fingers sparkled against her father’s lined palm, as though she was
wrought of something other than flesh and blood.

Aurelia blinked, unable to accept the
evidence before her own eyes. The prophecy was a lie, after
all!

But before Aurelia could argue, the whirling
iridescent cocoon surrounded her and caressed her, lifted her so
high that she could not even feel the weight of her father’s hands,
let alone see the troubled blue of his eyes.

She could not leave him! She would not leave
him!

But Aurelia was to have no choice. She
faintly heard the clash of steel on steel, she struggled to join
the fight to defend Dunhelm, but felt herself swept away. She could
see nothing but thousands of shimmering lights dancing all around
her.

And then Aurelia knew no more.

*

Dunhelm Castle

March - present day

The thorny brambles had no chance.

The hedge clippers Baird had borrowed from
the groundskeeper were fiercely sharp and he wielded them with
characteristic determination. The brambles, though, refused to
surrender without a fight. Baird had never seen brambles grow so
big, so tangled or so robust.

They must be ancient, like everything else
at Dunhelm Castle.

Another massive thorn bit at him and Baird
cursed under his breath. No wonder the groundskeeper had refused to
clear this corner! Talorc could blame local superstition but the
truth was that he was just avoiding a miserable job.

It was raining this morning, as it had
rained every day since his arrival at his new holding, but the
light drizzle didn’t bother Baird. He was getting used to
Scotland’s wide variety of rains, as well as the national refusal
to let poor weather change plans for the day. After all, the skies
could change in the blink of an eye.

What wasn’t changing was the way Baird felt
at Dunhelm, and he wasn’t having an easy time getting used to that.
He felt as though nothing else mattered in the world except Dunhelm
and his being here.

Baird felt at home in the old ruins.

For a man who had never had a home, who had
been certain he never wanted one, and who had always made a point
of not settling anywhere for any length of time, this was more than
unusual.

It was downright weird.

Baird meant to put a stop to Dunhelm’s
strange effect on him, and he was going to do it today.

Dunhelm Castle - or what remained of it -
occupied a jagged point of an island dropped into the misty gray of
the North Sea. Although the grass was as level as a bowling lawn
where Baird worked, rocky cliffs fell unevenly to the crashing sea
beyond the encircling stone walls. There was a beach on the east
side of the peninsula, though the wind was cold enough to flay the
skin of anyone foolish enough to swim there.

All around Baird were the walls, the
crumbled ruins that once had been towers and halls and kitchens.
The wind from the west whistled through the ruins, and at dusk, the
castle seemed alive with whispers of forgotten times. Baird did not
consider himself an imaginative man, but Dunhelm seemed to pulse
with the heartbeats of all the people who had lived here over the
millennia.

He wondered whether it was the age of the
place that entranced him. Certainly, he had never owned anything a
thousand years old. And he couldn’t think of any other reason why
one sight of Dunhelm had been enough for him to make his decision.
It was almost as though he recognized the castle from some
long-forgotten dream.

But that would have been irrational and
Baird Beauforte was a supremely logical man.

All the same, from that very first glance,
Baird had known that this was the property for Beauforte Resorts to
establish its toehold in the European market. He told himself that
this was finely honed instinct at work, an understanding of the
market based on years of experience. A logical recognition of
opportunity.

But even to Baird’s own ears, that claim was
beginning to ring hollow.

One thing was for sure - Baird had never
felt such satisfaction in signing his name to the contract that
would make a property his own.

It was good that he was so committed to this
place, for Dunhelm was the largest renovation Beauforte Resorts had
ever undertaken.

And by far the most expensive.

But all the costs of restoration would be
worth it. Dunhelm would be spectacular, the crown jewel of the
Beauforte chain. Already the main circular tower rose restored
behind Baird and the restaurant at the top - with its panoramic
view - was being roughed in.

The massive wrought iron double gates Baird
had commissioned had been installed just the day before. They were
the perfect accent to the long stone wall that marked the perimeter
of the property and cut the peninsula off from the rest of the
world. The Beauforte Resort logo was forged into the gates and
dramatically silhouetted against the sky before the approaching
visitor.

The work was a bit behind schedule, but
Baird’s vision of Dunhelm was taking shape. There was no reason why
he shouldn’t leave this job in the capable hands of his staff, as
usual.

Except that he couldn’t bring himself to
leave Dunhelm.

Even worse, he wasn’t sure why.

This tangled mound of briars had aroused
Baird’s curiosity from his first tour of the property. His interest
was only strengthened by Talorc’s and every other local workman’s
refusal to go near the briars.

Not one to back away from a challenge,
especially with no reason other than superstition to do so, Baird
had taken the task of cutting back the thorns himself.

He was sure that revealing Dunhelm’s every
hidden corner to the pale sunlight would loosen the place’s hold
over him. After all, this was the last part of the estate still
hidden away. And he had always liked to solve puzzles.

That must be at the root of his fascination
with this place. Once he cleared the thorns, Baird was sure that
all mysteries would be solved. Then Dunhelm’s grip over him would
vanish.

Every fallen bough fed his conviction. Baird
had to conquer these thorns, and he had to do it today.

*

Baird had worked up a good sweat when the
briars reluctantly parted to reveal a flat stone on the ground
before him.

It was just a stone but he had a strange
certainty that it was a step. Baird hacked with renewed vigor,
smiling to himself with satisfaction when a second step was
revealed.

He was right! There was a secret in this
corner and he was about to uncover it.

Although the briars seemed to be suddenly
more resistant to his efforts, nothing could have stopped Baird
now. The rain fell like a protective mist all around him, a light
fog hiding the other workers from view. The mist even seemed to
muffle the sounds of construction.

It was as though he was alone in the world.
No stranger to that feeling, Baird shoved up his sleeves, and
methodically sliced back the stubborn growth.

The steps appeared before him, one after the
other, descending into the earth. Baird, hot on the heels of
solving a mystery, worked his way down them, his anticipation
rising with every minute.

What could be down here? Who had made the
steps? And why?

On the eighth smoothly fitted flagstone
step, the brambles became thinner. It was chilly down here, the
shadows of the walls on either side embracing him coldly.

Just a little further and he would know.

“
Baird? You down
there?”

Baird jumped at the sound of the familiar
voice. He wiped a hand across his brow and felt the exhaustion in
his muscles for the first time. How long had he been at this? Baird
turned back and spied Julian’s silhouette against the gray sky.

“
Down here,
Julian.”

“
Down there?” Baird could
imagine the grimace his words earned and almost laughed. Julian and
his damned shoes. “Won’t you come back up?”

“
Nope. Got to finish.”
Baird bent back to his task, Julian’s muttered curse not low enough
to be inaudible.

He was probably meant to hear it.

“
I don’t know why you had
to have this place,” Julian muttered as he trudged down the stairs.
“It needs more work than any other property we looked at, and it’s
miles from London. No one will come all this way, especially since
all it does is rain!”

“
They’ll come.” Baird’s
voice was low with conviction. “They always come to Beauforte
properties.”

“‘
Every guest is royalty to
us’ and all that,” Julian echoed the firm’s motto. “But all the
same, this is a miserable place.”

Baird caught a glimpse of Julian’s Italian
leather loafers, their patina looking somewhat the worse for wear.
Typically, the lawyer was dressed to the nines. Julian would never
abandon his suit and tie, even in the most inclement weather.

But Julian was too much of a California
child to ever completely succumb to the conservativeness of
business dress. Though he wore a suit and tie, the boldly cut
Armani suit was of a grayed eggplant shade, the tie a brilliant
yellow.

Julian had only recently allowed his
signature blond ponytail to be lopped off - after a young,
attractive woman had joked that he was compensating for the
increasing baldness on the top of his head by growing what hair he
had overly long.

The ponytail had not survived the hour.

Forty could strike a man hard, even one so
trim, well-groomed and successful as Julian.

Baird, on the other hand, had taken to jeans
and Gore-Tex within hours of arrival here. It was true it had
rained in some way or another every single day, but he loved all
the myriad shades of blue and green mirrored in the shifting sea,
not to mention the clouds drifting above it.