Love in the Time of a Highland Laird (A Laird for All Time Book 3), Angeline Fortin [top ten ebook reader txt] 📗

situation. Despite her self-doubt, she was as brave and bold as any person – man or woman – he’d ever known.

How far she’d come from the stuttering lass he’d chained in a prison cell. From mouse to lioness. From shy to siren. From waiting for his kiss to seducing him in his own study.

She continued to astonish him.

She might always astonish him.

*

There might have been a lot of things Al could say to Ceana but that night there was only one.

Surprisingly, it was thank you.

Ceana had saved her from making an utter disgrace of herself. Impossible as it seemed. She’d brought a fancy silk gown of sage green with a large print of flora and fauna to her room earlier. A robe à l’anglaise, she’d called it, with wide panniers holding it and a fine ivory silk damask under skirt out to the sides. She’d demanded Peigi help Al into it for dinner. At first, she’d been sure the woman was playing some joke on her but when she entered the dining room to find it filled with a half-dozen women dressed as over-the-top as Ceana tended to be and men in all their complementary formal jackets, she’d about hugged the woman.

Odd enough. But when Keir—though still in his linen shirt and kilt—looked her up and down slowly, his eyes blazing with open admiration, she’d almost been tempted to kiss Ceana, too.

He’d seated her at his right hand, taking the opportunity—she was sure—to peer down her daring décolleté as he pushed her in.

All through the interminable meal, his hungry eyes had been fixed on her. Mostly on her eyes but often enough on her bosoms being practically thrust right out of the low-cut bodice to feel hot anticipation rolling over her like lapping waves through the whole meal.

He liked it. As ridiculous as she’d felt when she’d looked into the mirror, she felt like a freaking goddess under the promise in that burning gaze.

She couldn’t wait for the meal to end.

“Miss Maines?”

Someone nudged her from the other side and she tore her eyes from Keir and turned to the woman beside her who immediately pointed across the table. An older gentleman, some sort of uncle or cousin’s uncle to Hugh, was regarding her expectantly. He was portly with white hair, a drooping white mustache, and a florid face. But he had kindly eyes that sort of reminded her of a benevolent St. Nick.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, I hear ye’re a colonist, lass. I served there with Saunderson’s 1st Marines on the attempt to take Quebec back in ’12,” he said.

“Take it from whom?”

“The French, lass. The French!” he blustered. “I take it ye’re nae from the northern colonies then?”

“No, sir.”

“Ah, makes sense,” he said. “Plus a wee lass like yerself probably disnae worry her head o’er history and such.”

Keir’s hand covered hers and the knife she held in her hand. “I wasn’t going to stab him,” she whispered.

His eyes danced. “Just making sure. I’m rather fond of Uncle Ranulf.”

“Where do ye hail from then?” Uncle Ranulf asked, demanding her attention.

“Maryland originally, sir,” she answered politely. “Though I… er, traveled far to the west as I grew older.”

“Maryland?” he frowned. “Can’t say I’ve heard of it. Is it far tae the south then? Tomas!” he called down the table. “Ye e’er heard of a colony called Maryland?”

Both men frowned. Tomas scratched his head. They turned back to her expectantly.

She didn’t know what to say. She’d never heard of a battle fought three hundred years before her time, it made some sense that the names for all the colonies might not be exactly as she knew them. But the revolution was only thirty years away.

“It’s just north of Virginia.”

“Virginia?” Keir repeated and she turned to look at him. He was frowning. A chill washed over her. There it was again. That sense that something wasn’t quite right here.

“Yes. The colony named after Queen Elizabeth.”

“Auld King Henry’s queen?”

“No, his daughter.”

It shouldn’t be that hard. It was Virginia. The largest British colony in America. She glanced around the table. Everyone was staring at her curiously. Even Ceana’s eyes were glittering with interest.

“Lass, Auld Henry had no daughters named Elizabeth, certainly none who became queen,” he told her, his frown deepening.

Dread prickled at her flesh. A terrible foreboding. First his discovery of planets that shouldn’t have been able to be seen for almost a century more. Then the references to Culloden as a religious war.

“Henry the Eighth,” she said, almost desperately. “His daughter. Elizabeth.”

“Bah, his bastard, ye mean.” Ranulf chuckled.

The room spun around her. Or was it her head that was spinning? She stood, pushing her chair back until it tumbled backward. A strong male arm reached out to steady her. Not Keir but one of the footman. But then he was there, concern in his eyes, leading her from the room.

“A map,” she gasped. “Let me see a map.”

“Mo ghrá…?”

“Please, Keir.”

With a terse nod, he changed directions. Taking her up a flight of stairs and down a hall, before he opened the door to his study. Leaving her by the door, he walked to a set of shelves and contemplated the spines before selecting a thick tome more than a foot across and two feet in length.

As the sun was beginning to set, he carried it over to a table near the window and opened it. She trailed behind numbly, reaching his side just as he laid the book flat.

“The American Colonies,” he said, pointing at the page.

Steeling herself with a deep breath, she looked down at the page.

Oh, Dr. Fielding was going to be so disappointed when he finally figured it out.

Chapter 27

She began to laugh. A little hiccup of a giggle at first that worried him beyond measure.

“Lass?”

“Oh, this is fantastic.” There was an edge to her voice. Pitched high somewhere between excitement and hysteria. “I mean, I knew we’d failed in executing our goals, but this…”

She studied the atlas, running her fingertips over