Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (62 page)

Morgan ran a finger under the type and read
aloud: “Bran flakes. Eight essential vitamins. Part of a balanced
breakfast.”

Alasdair looked unimpressed.

Determined to do a better job of opening
this one, Morgan turned her knife on the box. But before she could
really do any damage, Alasdair scooped package and knife out of her
grasp with a low sound of exasperation.

“
I can do it.”

He flicked a wry glance her way. “Aye, I
have seen how well you do.” Morgan flushed as he made short work of
the box, his gestures economical and easy.

He added the cereal to the remnants of the
previous box in her bowl, then looked her square in the eye. “If
indeed you must insist upon eating wood shavings, at least do not
compel the rest of us to wear them.”

There was nothing Morgan could say to that.
She tried to look indifferent to him as she poured milk on her
cereal, but Justine’s smug smile told her she hadn’t succeeded.

But she knew one thing that would wipe the
smile off her sister’s face.

“
I told Alasdair we’d take
him home,” she informed them brightly. Justine and Blake looked
delighted, but before they could say anything, Morgan continued.
“He lives on Lewis in the Hebrides. Near Callanish.”

Both faces fell with comic speed.

“
But that’s all the way
across the country!” Blake protested.

Justine dug her elbow hard into her spouse’s
ribs. “Well, we’ll be delighted to have such a tour, won’t we,
dear
?”

Blake blinked, looked from one sister to the
other, then shook his head. “All right. All right. We’ll take
Alasdair home.” He dove for his guidebook. “Lewis!” he muttered to
himself and started to scan his maps.

It served them right, Morgan thought. If
they didn’t know by now that Alasdair was Mr. Wrong, they would by
the time they reached his home.

“
We can still go to Scone,”
Justine said, her tone conciliatory.

Blake didn’t even look up.

“
Where Robert the Bruce was
crowned King of Scots,” Alasdair added.

Blake looked up at that. “As though that
matters. Crowning that troublemaker would have tainted the place
forever if the English hadn’t already taken away the Stone of
Scone.”

Morgan put down her spoon. Why didn’t anyone
remember that Robert the Bruce was a hero?

Alasdair’s hands landed heavily on the
table, and his voice was low with outrage. “Robert the Bruce is no
troublemaker!”

Blake set down his map. “Look, my own
forebear Angus Og was fooled by him, so I can’t blame you for
thinking this Robert the Bruce guy was all right. But he caused a
lot of trouble and cost my family a lot of land, so I’d rather we
just didn’t talk about him anymore.”

Alasdair sat back with a dissatisfied thump.
Morgan saw that his hands had tightened into fists in his lap.

And why not? He was right.

Always ready to leap in and set a wrong to
rights, Morgan tapped the edge of her bowl with her spoon. “But you
said on the way here that Angus Og
won
a lot of land for
supporting Bruce. When Bruce was victorious at Bannockburn…”

“
Morgan!” Justine
interjected. “The Scots
lost
at Bannockburn.”

But they didn’t and Morgan knew it.

Maggie brought breakfast at that point,
laying it before the men with a proud flourish. Alasdair recovered
himself enough to thank her politely for the meal, but Morgan heard
his growled words as he tucked in.

“
Robert the Bruce is a hero
and the King of Scots. Naught that anyone tells me will persuade me
to forget the truth.”

Why was it that only Alasdair remembered the
same details about Scottish history as Morgan did?

And how could Alasdair have changed Blake
and Justine’s
memories
?

Morgan thought about the Polaroid of
Alasdair with no one in it.

And the guard who swore she’d never seen the
crystal before. A little shiver danced down Morgan’s spine that had
nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

Morgan suddenly wondered whether this really
was a con job – because it would have to be an awfully good one –
or there was something Truly Weird going on.

Either way, the only one who knew the answer
to that was Alasdair. Who was he? Where had he come from? And what
was he up to? Morgan watched him out of the corner of her eye and
wondered how she could find out the truth.

“
I am begging your pardon
for zis interruption of your meal.” The German man at the next
table leaned toward them with a broad smile. He turned his
attention to Alasdair and fingered a fancy camera, his r’s rolling
almost as much as Alasdair’s. “But would you be minding if I take
your picture? My vife, she zinks you are a
real
highlander.”

*

Having conquered not only the unfamiliarity
of driving on the left side of the road and shifting gears with the
left hand, a North American tourist might consider himself an
accomplished UK driver.

At least until he encountered the humbling
experience of the roundabout.

Supposedly, this alternative to traffic
lights is intended to make driving from point A to point B less of
an ordeal – but to the uninitiated, the reality is a nail-biting
contradiction.

The roundabout – as might be expected from
its name – is a circular intersection, the converging roads
radiating from the center like spokes of a wheel. A given car
enters at one spoke, merges with the traffic already on the
roundabout, travels clockwise around the circle, then exits at the
destined spoke to continue on its way.

The equation is complicated by the structure
of the roundabout itself. There are usually at least two lanes: the
outer one for traffic exiting at the next outgoing road, the inner
one for vehicles traveling further around. Incoming cars must take
advantage of any break in the traffic and lunge into the
appropriate lane.

Just to add to the sport of it all, the
round format reduces visibility, as do the frequently adverse
climatic conditions. Add to the mix that drivers familiar with the
intersection tend to travel through the roundabout at high speed
and you have one intimidating obstacle for the novice.

With far too many opportunities for
practice, to many tourists’ minds. Morgan found it easy to believe
that there must be some drivers circling the same busy roundabout
for years, desperately trying to escape at their desired exit.

Blake was determined to conquer not only the
basics of negotiating the roundabout itself but also the fine
points of merging and signaling protocol. A perfectionist in every
phase of his life, he could be no less behind the wheel of a Nissan
Micra with right-hand drive.

Sadly, Blake was not as familiar with a
manual transmission as might have simplified matters. After all, he
had graduated from his Honda Civic to a sleek silver Mercedes –
with an automatic transmission – a long, long time before.

And shifting with his left hand was a new
art.

Alasdair, however, understood little of
these modern technicalities. He knew only that they were going to
Scone, where Robert the Bruce had been crowned King of Scots and
from whence the British had stolen the Stone of Scone. It was a
destination that suited him well, as Alasdair knew that in the
mortal world, Scone was on the way from Edinburgh to Lewis.

It seemed that Morgaine intended to keep her
word. The only question was when they would pass through the veil
between the worlds.

Such lofty expectations were tempered when
it became clear that they were to ride within a strange blue
chariot. Alasdair was astonished by the vivid blue of what they
called the Micra.

And he was even further amazed by the
advisors’ expectation that he would clamber into the tiny rear
seat.

Beside Morgaine.

But Alasdair could not risk their irritation
now. He managed to pack himself into the small space, though he was
far from comfortable.

Clearly the Micra was yet another implement
of torment designed by the malicious Morgaine. That she endured its
cramped conditions herself, apparently willingly, was a puzzle
Alasdair could not resolve.

The threesome shielded their eyes with
obsidian that shone in the sunlight, leaving Alasdair wondering
what damage this chariot would do to his own eyes for he had no
such armor.

’
Twas all so very
strange.

Once they were all inside the chariot, Blake
made a mysterious gesture. He muttered an incantation under his
breath, repeated the gesture, and the Micro began a disconcerting
humming. Alasdair surreptitiously looked for the flock of angry
bees, but to no avail.

When the Micra slid away from the walk and
moved along the road with no sign of a horse, Alasdair inhaled so
sharply that his nostrils pinched shut.

Any discomfort was forgotten with his
mistrust of this conveyance. The Micra vibrated like a country cart
but moved markedly faster.

What powerful sorcery Morgaine granted to
her minions!

The Micra darted down the curved streets
with disconcerting speed, and Alasdair wondered fleetingly whether
Morgaine intended to return him home in a shroud.

He glanced at his companions and was
startled to find that they all clearly took this wizardry in
stride. Alasdair strove to appear nonchalant but was certain that
he failed. He stared out eh window and watched the streets hasten
past.

No doubt this was some part of the magic
necessary to move between Morgaine’s domain and the mortal world.
He gathered that they intended to be in Scone before midday.
Indeed, he might be home sooner than he’d thought.

In one way or another.

*

By the time the humming Micra met its first
major roundabout, Alasdair had only just managed to find a way to
sit without doing any of his vulnerable parts serious injury.

“
Shit!” Blake declared from
the front seat. “This one has
eight
roads going into
it!”

Alasdair glanced through the space between
the front seats and had to close his eyes at the dizzying rate
their little chariot chewed up the road.

This was definitely not in the world of
mortals - though he would endure even this wild ride to see his
home island again. Alasdair was beginning to have very affectionate
feelings for his humble cottage.

He was even thinking fondly of his
sharp-tongued gran.

Justine touched Blake’s arm, her voice low
and soothing. “Don’t worry, you can do it. We’ll help. Right,
Morgan?”

The sorceress fairly bounced on her seat and
her eyes sparkled with some challenge Alasdair could hardly begin
to guess. “You bet. Which one do we need?”

Justine consulted an intricately drawn
manuscript, then squinted at the road ahead. “The fourth one.”

“
Got it,” Morgaine
said.

“
Jesus Christ, here we go,”
Blake muttered. “Second gear.”

“
Right turn signal,”
Justine murmured. She leaned forward in her seat, pulling off her
dark eyeshields as she did so.

An astonishing stream of similar chariots
sped across their path at breakneck speed. They looked like so many
beetles and when Alasdair looked carefully, he could see people
trapped within each one. They had the same dark shields over their
eyes as his companions, making it look as though the insects had
yet more insects in their bellies.

He thought of his gran’s tales of Faeries
riding the backs of moths and beetles.

Blake inched their chariot forward, watching
the stream avidly. Evidently they were going to enter this rush of
shiny beetles.

Alasdair was not certain he wanted to
watch.

“
First gear,” Blake gritted
out.

“
After the red one,”
Morgaine declared, her nose fairly pressed against the curved
window.

Blake leaned forward, his knuckles white on
the stick between himself and Justine. A red chariot not unlike
their own flashed by.

“
GO!” the women roared
simultaneously.

The Micra squealed in protest, and Blake
urged it forward. Alasdair’s eyes widened at the proximity of an
extremely large vehicle that was closing in at great speed and he
nearly squealed in sympathy.

Instead he crossed himself. It seemed rather
a timely moment to find his long-misplaced religious beliefs.

“
Three goddamn lanes!”
Blake swore under his breath.

“
Into the middle one,”
Justine directed.

“
Second gear,” Blake said
to himself. “Turn signal.”

“
One!” bellowed the
sorceress as an alley flashed past on their left.

The great chariot wheezed behind them, the
entire back view of the Micra filled with the great one’s massive
silver teeth. Alasdair strove to keep his composure and
simultaneously recall his rosary.

“
Two!” cried the
sorceress.

“
Third gear, no
signal.”

“
Left lane, left lane,”
Justine said.

“
I can’t because of that
truck!”

“
Three!” crowed the
sorceress.

“
You have to,” Justine
insisted calmly. “We can’t go around and around all day like we did
in Jedburgh.”

“
All right, all right. Left
turn signal,” Blake concurred and checked over his shoulder. “Am I
clear?”

As far as Alasdair could discern, there was
naught to see but the complaining chariot behind.

It looked large enough to consume them
whole.