“What are you talking about?”
“Have you forgotten what I told ye?”
She laughed shrilly. “I’ve done my best to forget every word you ever uttered!”
He shook his head. “My, my, Madeleine, ye can do better than that. I told ye where I came from.”
She glared at him. This again? Yes, he’d told her some wild stories, stories that she had never believed.
“No, I’ve not forgotten it. I just refused to entertain your delusions.”
“Delusions, are they? Are ye so sure? Look around ye, Madeleine. Do ye see anything of yer modern times here? Electricity? Any mechanical engines? Anything at all that looks familiar?”
Maddy backed up a step. She would not listen to this nonsense. “Take us home,” she demanded. “Right now.”
“Yearehome,” he replied. “Even if ye dinna know it yet.”
He stalked up to her, moving with the grace of a panther, and she tried to back away but found her back pressed against the wall. Rodric put a hand against it and leaned close.
She caught his scent, and it was so familiar that it sent her spiraling back four years to a woman madly in love with this man. This wild, dangerous man who set her pulse racing and made her giddy with desire. He smelled musky, like sandalwood, and his breath on her cheek made her tremble despite herself. She looked into his eyes and the years fell away. She saw herself reflected in those dark eyes.
“Thisis yer home now, Madeleine,” he said. “Ye belong with me. Ye always have. Ye and Rory both.”
She opened her mouth, but no words would come out. Her mouth was suddenly dry. With a supreme effort, she ducked out from beneath his arm and scampered away from him.
“You can’t be serious?” she snapped. “You really expect me to fall back into your arms? You left me! The second you found out I was pregnant, you disappeared!”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “I told ye why I couldnae stay. I had tarried too long in yer time already. The spell would only let mestay a short time.” He stalked closer again, but Maddy held out a hand to stop him. “Ye bewitched me, Madeleine,” he said. “I stayed with ye as long as I could, but the pull of my own time was too strong and I had to return. I told ye I would come back for ye both though.”
“Yes, and you kidnapped my son!”
“Ourson,” he corrected her.
She clenched her jaw. She was furious. How dare he say these things to her after everything he’d done? How dare he act like he had the right to speak to her this way?
“You kidnappedmyson,” she continued. “And I only managed to find you because I followed you through that arch! And don’t tell me you meant for that to happen. You would have happily left me behind, Rodric. Don’t make out this is about me. You have no interest in me—only Rory—although I can’t begin to fathom why that would be since you’ve had nothing to do with him for the last four years!”
“Ye think I havenae thought about him?” Rodric replied. “Of course I have! How could I not when he is the key to everything! To all my plans! Damn it, woman, ye are the one who ignored my letters and refused to have anything to do with me!”
“Of course I ignored them! What did you expect? You turn up after four years and think you can just pick up where we left off? And what are you talking about, anyway? What has Rory got to do with any of your plans?”
He stared at her for a long moment, and she could see the cold anger in his eyes. It was an anger she remembered all too well. Rodric MacKay was not a man who liked being defied. The sight of it should have warned her to be careful but she was beyond caring. She would not be intimidated, not by this man. Not by anyone, damn it!
“Look around ye,” he said softly. “Do ye believe everything I told ye now?”
No!she wanted to shout.You’re as crazy now as you were back then.
But her eyes moved beyond him to the wood-paneled room, the huge fireplace, the leaded windows. Her mind flew back to the journey here, through barren wilderness without anything modern in sight. How could she disregard the evidence of her own eyes?
No. She would not listen. He was doing it to her again, just like he had four years ago. He was using all his charms, his raw masculine strength, the overwhelming power of his presence, to manipulate her. It had worked four years ago. Back then, he had charmed her so completely that she would have done anything he wanted.
She was not that person any longer and there was no way she was going to fall for his crap again. She might not know how she’d gotten here but there was a perfectly logical explanation, and she would find it. If he thought she would listen to his ridiculous claims, he’d better think again.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing,” she hissed. “But it won’t work.”
“Game?” he replied, raising his eyebrows. “This is no game. It is deadly serious. Rory is the culmination to plans that have been years in the making.”
“There you go again. Whatever plans you have for my son, you can forget them right now! I’ll take out a court injunction if I have to.”
