A Time & Place for Every Laird by Angeline Fortin (ebook reader TXT) 📕

…” he whispered into the brisk night air, shakinghis head. “But, nae. This place is foreign. Nae even that. I mighthae become accustomed tae a foreign land, but this is alien tae me.’Twas a simple thing yesterday and today during our journey taehide beneath bravado and humor. Tae ignore what I knew deep in mysoul and cast aside my … fear.” Hugh swallowed as he finally saidthe word, which was almost as alien to him as this land. He hadnever truly felt its power before. Never understood how it couldseize a man’s soul. Not even in the heat of battle had he felt suchterror.

“Hugh,” Sorcha whispered, breaking her ownrule to reach out and squeeze his shoulder sympathetically.

Hugh did not pull away as he normally wouldhave in the face of such compassion. Indeed, he longed to give into a childish impulse to lay his head against her soft bosom and becradled like a bairn in need. “I ken nothing of this world, Sorcha.Nothing at all, and it is that verra ignorance that frightens memore than anything else.”

“The one good thing about ignorance, Hugh,is that it can be cured,” she told him. “I can teach you what youneed to know.”

Hugh raised a haughty brow, and Sorchaanswered it with a sheepish grin, adding, “And what I can’t teachyou, books and the power of the Internet can. You’ll be fine. We’llget through this together.”

He envied Sorcha her conviction on thematter. “I wish I had such faith.”

“I thought you medieval men were all aboutfaith and religious quests.”

“I hae told ye before, I …” Hugh startedirritably but halted at the sight of her mischievous grin. “Yethink to solve all our woes wi’ humor.”

“Great minds think alike. It worked for you,right?” Sorcha drew her jacket more tightly around her, hugging herarms tightly over her chest. “Now, let’s go inside. It’s cold outhere.”

Hugh took off his sport coat and threw itaround her shoulders. Sorcha was a study in contradiction. Boldenough to brave the authorities of her own country but not thecold. Wary but trusting. Solemn but humorous. Her words of wit hadoften been biting in their humor, but when Sorcha had lost herselfto laughter that afternoon in the car, her bonny face had lost alltraces of the sadness that seemed to always linger there, replacingit with unmitigated joy.

That laughter had lit her eyes and softenedher features, her winsome smile blinding white and radiant. Thesight of it had filled his heart with the same light. Hugh hadnever seen anything so enchanting. He had wanted to frame her facein his hands and kiss her thoroughly, sharing in that joy. Theiragreement kept him from doing so, but the sight had inspired moredesire in him than her scant nightwear of the previous evening.

Now, she burrowed deep into the warmth ofhis jacket and smiled up at him freely, as if their shared laughterhad demolished any barriers between them. As if somewhere alongtheir journey she had crossed over the line between benefactor andfriend. “Won’t you be cold?”

The cold wind could hardly cool the desirewarming his veins. Hugh could only scoff. “Ye would ne’er haesurvived in my time.”

“Let’s get you through mine first, thenmaybe we’ll test that.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Hugh’s mouthand he bent in a courtly bow. “I will expect ye tae honor yerchallenge.”

“Mrs. Manning,” Phil Jameson called as hepounded on the door to the townhouse one last time before steppingback and nodding to the nervous man at his side. “If you could,please.”

“I have to tell you that I can’t imagineMrs. Manning being in any kind of trouble,” Rogers, the townhouse’slandlord, said as he shakily inserted his master key into thelock.

Jameson didn’t deign torespond. While it was true that he didn’t have any evidence againstClaire Manning, he was certain she was aiding the anomaly in someway. Only three people had left the campus before the lockdown. Butof the three, only Claire and one other had been seen nearFielding’s office. After hours of watching the video surveillance,he had pulled the feed on her as she had driven past the securitygate. There had been something in her expression—not fear butenough of something—to make her the likely culprit. None of the others leavingthe lab had looked even mildly suspicious.

Only her.

She had been forced into helping in theescape, he knew it. Now all he needed was the proof.

The only thing that didn’t make sense washer behavior when he had come to this townhouse before. She hadbeen breezy then, deliberately so. When compared to the expressioncaptured on the video camera just hours before, the change betweenthem was primarily what had caught and held his mistrust.

“Search every room,” Jameson ordered thefistful of men under his command, a combination of NSA and INSCOMpersonnel charged with the suppression and containment of the labbreach. The men fanned out through the townhouse, leaving Rogerslingering nervously at the door. “Bring me something.”

“I can’t imagine why you would think thatthis Manning woman helped at all,” Agent Nichols, his INSCOMcounterpart who was in joint command of their task force, said.“There is nothing to link her to the experiment.”

“Call it a gut instinct,” Jameson said,though the question plagued him as well. Why? He had seen thefootage from the cellblock that Fielding’s office had become. Theescapee was a brute of a thing, capable of killing Claire Manningwithout effort. Clearly, it had forced her aid to escape. So whyhadn’t she confessed when she had the chance? What could it havethreatened her with?

Jameson looked around the townhouse.Everything was tidy and neat. The sink was empty, and the dishes inthe dishwasher were clean. There were no signs of either anunwanted guest or a forced departure.

“Jameson, sir,” one of Nichols’ juniorINSCOM agents called out.

“What do you have?”

“Not much, sir. No purse or keys, but thatdoesn’t mean much. Nothing else looks to be missing, though itwould be hard to tell from a woman’s closet if she took anythingfrom it,” the junior agent, Majors, said.

“Come on, people!” Jameson barked irritably.“There must be something!”

“Sir, I think I have something!”

Jameson turned to find one of his own agentsstanding at