Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (53 page)

But he was an actor, wasn’t he? And she
had
thought he intended to rip off her camera.

Well, there was only one way to find out the
truth.

To Morgan’s relief, the others had
disappeared from view when she peeked out the tower door. She
sprinted across the lawn to the entry of the special exhibit of the
castle’s history. Morgan elbowed her way through the crowds
filtering through the exhibit, pushing to the front of the crowd
gathered around the display case in the last room.

The Scottish regalia were the vestments of
royal authority gathered over the nation’s long history, now
finally displayed for all to see. The crown of Scotland perched on
a crimson pillow, the crown ringed with ermine and lavished with
garnets and pearls. The massive sword lay the length of the
display, its ornamented hilt and scabbard fit for a king.

But Morgan stared at the scepter as the
tourists flowed around her. A golden shaft spiraled with
inscriptions and said to have been a gift from the pope in the Dark
Ages, its gold had been reworked numerous times. Now it culminated
in a trio of porpoises, nosing a golden setting skyward.

An
empty
golden setting.

Morgan swallowed. The crystal in her pocket
had been mounted in that gold filigree this morning when she first
saw the regalia. She knew it. Morgan fingered the stone guiltily,
unsure what to do. She didn’t know how Alasdair had done it, with
so much security around, but the truth was right before her
eyes.

Alasdair was a thief.

And she had the goods!

Even Justine wouldn’t believe her little
sister could get into such trouble so effortlessly.

Morgan glanced over her shoulder, but the
guards stood as implacably as they had when she had been here
earlier. Wouldn’t they have closed the hall if there had been a
theft? Wouldn’t the case be damaged? Or an alarm set off? This
place looked to be Security Central.

Morgan recalled suddenly how everything
about Bannockburn had turned around while she was in the tower. She
dug in her bag for her guidebook.

“
The Crown Jewels and the
Scottish Regalia are part of a special exhibit at Edinburgh Castle
and the culmination of a tour re-creating the fortress’s past. The
regalia were given to Edward I of England in 1296 as a token of
Scotland’s subservience to England. They were taken to Westminster
Abbey, then returned to Edinburgh Caste in 1996 to commemorate the
seven hundredth anniversary of the joining of the two nations’
fates.”

That didn’t sound right to Morgan. She was
sure there had been something this morning about Sir Walter Scott
finding the regalia here in the castle. But Sir Walter Scott wasn’t
even in the index anymore.

That was too weird.

What had happened to her book? Morgan closed
it with a snap and eyed the untrustworthy volume with new
suspicion. It looked exactly the same as it had this morning,
complete with turned-down pages at places she wanted to visit.

But the text was all different. Morgan
turned her scrutiny on the display cabinet, which seemed oddly
undisturbed. The goose bumps returned, even though it was
comfortably warm in this room.

If Alasdair has stolen the crystal, then how
had he managed to change the text in her guidebook? And in Blake’s?
And how had he gotten the stone out of the display case without
anyone noticing?

None of this made any sense. She probably
just didn’t have a devious enough mind to see how the con job
worked. She never could figure out magicians’ tricks, that was for
sure.

Okay, Morgan knew she had seen the stone
firmly lodged in the regalia this very morning. But it wasn’t there
anymore – it was in her pocket because she had found it on the
floor in the tower room where Alasdair had been.

Obviously, he had dropped it.

Now, if Alasdair was a thief who had managed
to conjure the stone out of the scepter, then maybe he had
similarly substituted Morgan’s and Blake’s guidebooks. That would
be nothing compared to getting a gemstone out of a protected
display.

But why? Morgan frowned.

Of course! Alasdair must be intending to use
Blake, Justine and herself to smuggle the stone out of here! Ha! He
would follow them and steal the stone again, once they had done the
dirty work for him.

Morgan hadn’t been given a four-star
imagination for nothing, and it was working overtime now. Clearly,
they had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, looking
like hapless tourists.

And a hapless tourist was exactly what
Alasdair must have needed. Morgan groaned inwardly that she had
played along so well.

The whole scheme was far-fetched and weird,
but she couldn’t think of any other possible explanation. The way
those blue eyes sparkled with intelligence told her that Alasdair
had it in him to concoct a brilliant plan.

But what should she do with the stone? She
glanced toward the guards, standing with their stoic passivity, and
knew they would never believe her story if she handed the crystal
back.

After all, it sounded nuts. Did
they
think the stone had been lost for seven hundred years? The guard
standing to one side had been here this morning. She had answered a
question for Blake and just might remember Morgan.

She certainly would remember whether the
crystal had been in the scepter.

Morgan smiled as she walked toward the
uniformed guard, her heart pounding, her fingers unable to stop
toying with the quartz deep in her pocket. “Excuse me. I was here
this morning. Maybe you remember me?”

“
Oh, yes, miss.” The guard
summoned a polite smile. “Are you having a pleasant
visit?”

Morgan swallowed. “Yes, but I was wondering
something. Wasn’t there a crystal in the scepter this morning?”

The guard looked astonished. “Oh, no, miss,
there’s never been one as long as I’ve been here and it’s nigh onto
five years.”

Her words were probably meant to be
reassuring, but Morgan frowned. “I was sure I saw the stone this
morning.”

The guard shrugged and kept her tone light.
“With all respect, you canna have done so, miss. It’s been lost
since the time of that scoundrel, Robert the Bruce.”

Robert the Bruce a
scoundrel
?

Morgan blinked in surprise, but the guard
leaned closer and dropped her voice. “There are those to say he
stole it and sold it to pay for his petty uprising against the good
British.” She clicked her teeth in disapproval while Morgan
gaped.

The
good
British?

The guard’s words were so irreconcilable
with everything Morgan had heard since her arrival in Scotland that
she thought the woman might be joking.

But she was perfectly serious.

Was the guard in on Alasdair’s scheme?

Morgan tried another tack. “Can you tell me
anything about the actors in period costume within the castle?
Where do you find them?”

The guard looked confused. “Actors, miss? We
hire no actors here.”

“
But there was a man in a
kilt…”

The guard drew herself up proudly. “If you
are thinking of the Sutherland Guard who conduct the tours of the
castle, I must assure you, miss, that they are no actors, but loyal
veterans of Her Majesty’s Highland Military.”

“
No, no, not the tour
guide.” Morgan hastily tried to make amends. “It was another man,
in a different kilt.”

The guard’s glance was cold. “I assure you,
miss, that there are no other kilted men in the employ of the
castle. Perhaps you have confused another guest with our staff.”
Her polite smile returned. “Perhaps you might be moving along now,
miss, and make way for other visitors to see the regalia.”

No actors in the fortress.

And no crystal in the regalia.

Morgan eyed the other security guard, who
nodded crisply in her direction. He hadn’t been here this morning,
but surely not everyone could have been in on the scam, could
they?

Morgan crossed the room, repeated her
questions, and received exactly the same answers from this second
guard. In fact, the man seemed bemused by her curiosity, and Morgan
didn’t miss the tolerant glance the guards exchanged. The male
guard must have seen her note the look, for he smiled.

“
With all respect, miss, we
often have American tourists with fanciful ideas about Scottish
history. There has been no stone in the regalia for at least seven
hundred years, you have my word. In fact, of late there has been
some question as to whether the stone was really a quartz crystal.”
He rattled off a series of academic citations obviously intended to
put an end to Morgan’s questions.

It worked.

She stalked out of the gallery, knowing that
she wasn’t some fanciful American tourist. She had seen the stone
this morning!

Somehow Alasdair had bamboozled the guards.
Not only was the highlander a con man, he was a very, very good
one.

But just because Morgan was the only one who
had noticed his crime, that didn’t mean he was going to get away
with it. She wasn’t going to return the stone herself – because
that would be the quickest way to get herself in trouble – so, she
would make sure that Alasdair did.

Which meant that she had to find him, and
the sooner the better.

Well, her sister had spirited him off for a
“wee dram” and a confidential lunch. She knew that look in
Justine’s eye: Alasdair would at this very moment be embroiled in
an interview for Eligible Bachelor of the Year.

Which couldn’t be further from the
truth.

If that trio was anywhere between here and
Holyrood Palace, Morgan was going to find them. She wanted some
answers from Alasdair MacAulay, answers that probably wouldn’t show
him in a very flattering light.

Morgan smiled despite herself and headed for
the castle restaurant. She couldn’t help looking forward to proving
her always-knows-best older sister wrong.

Just once.

*

By the time Morgan headed back tot he
bed-and-breakfast, it was getting dark and her feet were aching.
When Blake and Justine weren’t to be found in the castle
restaurant, she waited for the one o’clock gun, certain that they
would return for that.

But they hadn’t.

Even though it had been on Blake’s
itinerary.

Which just added to the oddities of the day.
Thinking she had missed them somehow and they had gone on to
Holyrood Palace, Morgan had walked the length of the Royal Mile and
back. She hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of Justine and Blake,
or even of the con man Alasdair.

After a while, she became distracted from
his mission by her surroundings. Morgan couldn’t help but enjoy the
opportunity to dart down one mysterious “close” after another. The
crooked little streets leading to tiny squares were all named after
trades – Advocate’s Close, Fleshmarket Close – and Morgan loved
their engraved mottoes, wrought-iron signs and tiny windows.

She wandered as she searched and felt a
guilty pleasure at finally having the time she’d wanted. This was
the Edinburgh Morgan had hoped to see. She got lost at least half a
dozen times, but without Justine to roll her eyes at the
inconvenience, Morgan enjoyed her unscheduled detours.

She was incredibly proud of herself not only
for finding the hotel on Princes Street where they had intended to
go for tea but also getting there before four-thirty.

Half an hour late was nothing for
Morgan.

But Justine and Blake hadn’t been there.
Hungry and determined to celebrate her own success, Morgan had high
tea anyway.

And it was wonderful. She convinced herself
in the midst of her second scone with Devon cream that Blake and
Justine had gone back to the bed-and-breakfast for a little
afternoon interlude.

Following
her
itinerary for a
change.

And Alasdair, having charmed Blake into
buying him one drink, had flunked his interview for Hot Date of the
Day. Justine was pretty perceptive, after all. The con man actor
must have gone on his way, leaving Morgan with his prize.

She wouldn’t think about what would happen
when he realized his loss. With lucky, they would be merrily on the
road to wherever. For once, Morgan was grateful for Blake’s killer
schedule.

And then she could ship the stone back to
the castle anonymously, and all would be put right in the end. It
sounded to easy that she treated herself to another cup of very hot
Earl Grey tea.

By the time she found the bed-and-breakfast
– after only four wrong turns – Morgan was sure everything was back
to normal.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

*

Justine checked her watch for the fifth
time, then demanded that Blake give her the time again. “Seven!”
she repeated with rare irritation. “We’re going to be late, and all
because of Morgan! When will she ever start paying attention to the
time?”

Justine could manage anyone else’s stress
with one hand tied behind her back, but when it came to her baby
sister’s prospects for male companionship, she was more jumpy than
a cat on a hot tin roof.

She
had
introduced Morgan to that
rat, Matt, after all.

And she really, really,
really
hated
behind wrong. Morgan might not have known that her accidental
meeting with Matt had been contrived by her sister, but the truth
ate away at Justine.

Auntie Gillian hadn’t just guessed the truth
– she had charged Justine with fixing her mistake. Their aunt
needed only to give Justine a stern glance – the two women thought
sufficiently alike that Justine had understood her mission.

She had to find Morgan a real man to take
care of her.

Because Morgan was the kind of person who
really needed a guardian angel, if not a whole team of them. Auntie
Gillian was definitely pulling whatever strings she could reach
from upstairs, but Justine was the on-the-ground correspondent.