Duchess of Mine (5 page)

She straightened then, thinking back to the
dream or hallucination or whatever. Coyote, the trickster, had paid
her a visit. Fleur could almost hear Na tsk with apprehension at
that, although her grandmother had been dead for a couple years
now. Yes, seeing Coyote was never good.

She’d thought it had merely been a delusion
from over exercising. However, as soon as she had realized her
CamelBak was gone and her wristwatch that also registered her
heartbeat, she knew she was screwed. Seriously, screwed over. She
remembered Coyote saying something about this
glimpse
being
good for her. But if that were the truth, why wouldn’t she be here
at 947 ADE, when the Viking, whose remains she was drilling DNA
for, would have died? Then she wouldn’t need to do so much work,
but merely come back to her own time, and say...Just tell everyone
she’d gone back in time and saw his dead body for herself.

Right. That would have worked out
brilliantly. And probably have granted her a visit to a psychiatric
hospital.

Man, she was screwed.

Surprising her even further, she wasn’t as
panicked as she thought she should be. That had to be shock, right?
Hypovolemic
shock. But she wasn’t
bleeding. She checked her body, reassessing that, yes, she wasn’t
bleeding. However, she was suffering from similar symptoms. She was
anxious, agitated, and extraordinarily confused. She was in a
different time. Was there a swear word strong enough to mimic her
feelings? Back to the assessment: she had cool, clammy skin, but
was sweating. Her breath was a bit too quick, especially when she
looked at Duncan. So check on the altered breathing. And, again,
when she glanced at Duncan she generally felt weak, as if she would
melt into him. What the hell was that?

Shock, just shock. That had to be what was
going on.

Once more, she peeked at Duncan who kept
walking forward, but now glanced up at her, concern written through
his furrowed red brows, his multicolored eyes fascinating her, like
looking through a kaleidoscope. Instantly, she felt both panicked
and calm, somehow wanting to get closer to him and maybe take the
horse and gallop as far from these feelings as possible.

“Yer things, Lady Anpao, ye lost yer things,
eh?”

She nodded, trying to shake herself into the
current conversation. Again. But he was such an odd mix—impeccably
symmetrical squared jaw with chiseled cheekbones, making him almost
a pretty man. But his nose had been broken and set slightly off. A
scar ran through one eyebrow and over one of those high cheekbones.
Plus he was huge, at least six and a half feet of him, and all
muscle across his powerful chest and arms, especially through his
wide back that narrowed to a slim waist and hips and yummy bum.
Even through the kilt, she knew she could bounce quarters off his
backside. Jeez, she was objectifying him. She had to stop.

“Do ye remember anything before losin’ yer
things?” he asked.

Okay, conversation was difficult to hold when
she looked at him. Her stomach and heart fluttered, and she tried
her best to tell herself that she was merely in shock.

She nodded again, but didn’t know whether she
could utter anything about Coyote or the weird twin-like red heads.
Instead, she thought of what Duncan had told Rory. “Why did you
tell that Rory guy I was a lady? And I’m now an ambassador to the
American colonies?”

He shrugged and looked away. “I’m not good at
duplicity. I’ve never been good at lyin’. That’s the best I could
think up, since ye made me promise not to tell that ye don’t know
where ye are.”

She smiled down at him, liking that he wasn’t
a good liar.

His shoulders stooped. “I—I kept makin’ the
lie worse too, for now ye are an Indian princess to boot. Ye
wouldn’t happen to be a princess, would ye?”

She’d read the literature about Indian
princesses. She knew the bigotry, but that was a couple hundred
years from now, more in the nineteenth century. What would a guy
from his time think of Native American’s that lacked the hierarchy
for such titles? However, as he looked over his shoulder, his brows
furrowing just so, she found herself saying, “Not even close.”

“I doubt that.”

At first, Fleur didn’t know what to think of
the comment. Then Duncan actually cracked a lopsided grin at her,
and she felt the power of his smile zip straight through her skin
and into her stomach where it ignited, radiating electricity in
every cell of her body. Down to her mitochondria, she felt that
smile.

They stared at each other for a long moment.
Just as Fleur wondered how he kept walking forward while he looked
at her, he tripped a tad. He straightened with lightning reflexes,
no longer looking at her, but straight forward.

“Do you want to ride up here with me?”

“’Tisn’t far now.” His voice cracked.

She noticed how he hadn’t really answered her
question. But she gave him a break and changed the subject. “Why am
I an ambassador? And why at your mother’s request?”

He was silent for a beat, but then said in a
deep voice, “Ye are Indian, eh?
Coilltich
, right?”

“
Coilltich
, that means forest people,
doesn’t it?”

Ian and his incessant smartphone had been the
one who had informed her of that word, of what the Highlanders had
thought of Native Americans when they first encountered them.
Although Britain had colonized America around fifty years ago, in
1608, all of Europe, even the Scottish Highlands, were abuzz about
the land and the people therein. Ian had talked about a colleague
who researched Native Americans and Highlanders—their differences
and similarities. But before Fleur had learned much, they’d been
interrupted by one of Rachel’s interns.

“Well, it means more than that,” Duncan said.
“At least now it means much more. But, aye, I suppose that’s a
definition.”

“What’s another definition? Savage?” Her
anger had gotten the better of her, and she couldn’t believe she’d
said as much, spoken in a harsh tone. She’d gotten teased and
bullied and called much worse than a forest person, and she’d never
uttered a word in her defense back then. She’d swallowed the pain
instead and tried to forget it. So why did she have so much moxie
now? With him?

He stopped the horse, turning to look up at
her. “I don’t ken what clan yer from, but my brothers are somewhere
in the Virginia colony, and their saviors are people like ye. I ken
it’s rude to associate ye with all Indian tribes, as it would be to
associate me, a MacKay and proud of it, with a Sutherland, my sworn
enemy.”

Hmm, he was a MacKay like that Rory guy, like
the laird of the land. Interesting.

But then again, Ian had informed her,
smartphone in hand, that there were hundreds of MacKays in Tongue.
Maybe it was the same in Durness during the seventeenth century
too.

“I—I just don’t ken fast enough to lie, I
suppose,” Duncan continued. “And all I thought about was my own
circumstances—my brothers in Virginia, and my ma seeking more
letters from them, more information. She keeps askin’ me what’s
Virginia like, as if I would ken. I have no answers. And so, out
popped the bald lie.

“And lastly, no, I think ye no savage. Er,
actually, I’m a Highlander, my lady. I’m called a savage all the
time. Besides, just lookin’ at the two of us, and anyone would
point to me as the brute. What with yer delicate...lovely—shite.”
He winced, perhaps from complimenting her, or maybe from swearing.
Fleur thought it was the latter.

He was adorable when he was flustered like
that.

“There are many tribes from Virginia, but my
people are not from there,” she said calmly. “I’m from the plains
of America. However, I’ve been to Virginia. It’s a very beautiful
state, er, colony. I wouldn’t mind telling your mother that, for my
role as an ambassador and all.”

A lopsided grin sneaked on his face again. He
took a sip of a breath. “Is it? Do ye ken my brothers are
safe?”

Although not at all an historian herself, she
vaguely knew many of the tribe’s history of the South, mainly for
her own continuing DNA research of original American people. She
knew that from the instant the Europeans, especially indentured
servants, met Native Americans, many tribes had taken them in as
their own. Granted, several settlers would tell horror stories of
tribes terrorizing the colonizers, but the truth was never as clear
as fiction, was it? Then she remembered Ian telling her something
about some of the Southern tribes having a special fondness for
Highlanders. The two peoples assimilated, but neither one giving up
their culture. They learned to speak Scottish Gaelic and Algonquin,
wore plaids and doe-skinned leggings, embracing the long sword in
battle as well as the traditional flint arrows.

She nodded. “I do. I think your brothers are
safe.”

His broad shoulders released a few inches
down, as if she had unburdened him from an immense load.

“Why are your brothers in Virginia?”

His shoulders hunched all over again. His
face soured for an instant, then he turned from her, clicking his
tongue and the horse began walking. She didn’t think he would
answer, but finally he said roughly, “Long story.”

“Maybe you’ll tell me about it...later?”

He shrugged.

“You never told me what you said to that Rory
guy.”

There was no mistaking that every time she
called Rory, that Rory guy, Duncan softly chortled. She really
liked that, making Duncan laugh.

“I told him about yer missing things,” he
said. “That more than likely some mosstroopers stole from ye, and
I’m wantin’ my ma to see ye to make sure ye weren’t hurt.”

“Wait, you think I’m hurt?”

He pivoted his head again. “Ye said ye don’t
ken where ye are. I’m assuming someone hit ye over yer head. Once
we get that sorted, then we can find out why ye’re really
here.”

She squeezed her legs and pulled on the
horse’s mane, effectively making him stop, even if she didn’t have
the reins. Duncan halted and looked up, a frown of irritation sent
at the mount.

“I didn’t get hit on the head.”

“Mayhap they hit ye without yer awares. It
can happen.”

“I didn’t get hit on the head. Feel for
yourself.”

He swallowed.

She pulled her ponytail holder out, letting
her hair go wild and wrap around his face as she leaned down toward
him again. “Feel my head. I don’t have a bump, not even a bruise.
I’d have a headache if I’d been hit, and I don’t. I feel fine. I
feel...great in fact.”

His shoulders hiked a little more, and his
eyes stayed fixed on her hair waving around from the sea
breeze.

She leaned as close as she dared, holding
tight with her inner thighs to the horse. Duncan’s face was only a
couple inches from hers.

He cleared his throat. “Then—then why is it
ye don’t ken where ye are?”

“I know where I am. I just didn’t know
when
.”

He started to shake his head slowly.

She didn’t know why, but she had to have him
believe her. Although it was utterly insane. If he believed her,
then maybe she wouldn’t feel so alone.

His gaze drifted from her eyes down to her
lips where it stayed for a few seconds. A zip of desire shot
straight through her. He glanced up into her eyes again, but his
own had turned a dark green. No longer hazel, but were now a forest
of color.

“That can’t be,” he said softly.

“I know. I don’t believe it either, but here
I am.”

“That can’t be.” He repeated.

“I
ken
.” She emphasized his Scottish
word usage.

Briefly, he smiled, but it was lost once he
said, “The fae are playing a trick on me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think fairies
had a part in this. And besides, it was
me
they threw back
in time.”

He sucked in a breath. “Ye’re from the
future?”

The way he’d said it, with such incredulity,
it made her laugh and think of all the
Back to the Future
movies. When she was a girl, she’d watched them over and over again
at the community center in her hometown of Porcupine, South Dakota.
She remembered them with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that
made her heart hurt. Still, she nodded. “I guess. Unless, none of
this is real. Unless, I’m dreaming you.”

He shook his head and returned to walking the
horse. “No one would dream of me.”

At first, she didn’t think she’d heard him
right, because the words had been said on the quietest of a
whisper, and probably only for his ears. But the wind had taken his
words and given them to her. It cracked her heart to hear the big
man say such a thing. He was stoic, yet...captivating with his
voice gone so soft, with his ever-changing-colored eyes, with that
huge scar down his cheek and through his red eyebrow. Fleur thought
when she’d been down on his level she’d have liked to kissed his
scar, because she thought that injury was just one of thousands the
man wore. Inside and out.

He walked toward a large stone house, one
that looked surprisingly modern without a sod roof, but some kind
of tile. It was a long home with arched windows, and Fleur couldn’t
guess where to get the glass for such a thing during this time.
Lovely was the only word Fleur could think of for the house,
looking more from a fairy tale than anything of reality with high
stone walls and bright green ivy sprigging cheerfully up the
dwelling. A huge colorful garden mixed with vegetables, flowers,
and herbs, just like what her Na would have had, welcomed her.
Duncan tied the horse to a rail of the fence that surrounded the
estate. With a swift move he had Fleur by the waist and eased her
down.

Right against him.

Chapter 5