“Took you long enough.”
Chapter
Eleven
PORTIA
The rabbit was cooked to perfection.
Golden-brown on the outside and tender on the inside, the meat melted in my mouth. Tavish had even managed to season it. He sat across the fire from me, while Albie had settled to my right.
“This is so good,” I said around a mouthful. The fire popped, sending a few embers into the air.
Tavish didn’t look the least bit modest. “‘Course it is. I made it.”
He looked so pleased with himself, sitting cross-legged with his kilt stretched over his knees. He’d tied his hair back with a strip of leather, and his rolled-up sleeves showed the thick blue symbols and swirls inked on his arms. The muck and dampness of the gray, desolate time period hadn’t diminished his looks in the slightest. If anything, he looked more rugged and masculine than before.
And dangerous, a little voice in my head whispered. My dragon didn’t care.
Time travel had been just as good to Albie. The firelight gilded his blond hair, which was even wavier than usual inthe damp. He’d removed his cravat, exposing the hollow of his throat and the top of his muscular chest.
I’d dressed again after he carried me inside, but the jacket had been too damp to put back on. Tavish had spread it over the rocks while Albie laced my corset.
My lips still tingled from his kiss.
And my body hummed with desire. The hard, insistent throb between my legs hadn’t faded since he’d carried me back to the cave.
No, it was stronger, and now I didn’t even have a bedchamber to escape to. I squeezed my thighs together, desperation making me rack my brain for a distraction.
“Where did you even find herbs?” I asked Tavish.
He dragged a hand across the back of his mouth, and it should have been gross but was sexy instead.
Damn him.
“Herbs grow in English forests the same as Scottish ones, lass.” He tossed a bone in the fire. “Scottish herbs taste better, though.”
I smiled despite myself.
Albie wiped his fingers on a handful of moss, then pushed his spectacles higher. Tavish had a pile of it beside him, and he’d used it to clean his hands after he pulled the rabbits from the spit.
“I think we should try the chronomancer’s spell again in the morning,” Albie announced.
My smile fled.
“We can’t stay in this time,” he said, “and a night’s rest will prepare us for another jump. We were unprepared last time. We won’t be tomorrow.” He drew a knee up and rested his elbow on it, his glasses winking in the firelight. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe we need to be more deliberate aboutwherewe want to go. Weneed to have Portia’s time in mind. Maybe that’s how we actually get there.”
I thought of my parents. My brother. An image of Castle Beithir appeared in my head, its hundreds of windows blazing with light. Dad had built a home theater for Mum last year, and they giggled like a pair of teenagers over popcorn and action movies.
What if I never saw them again?
The last time I’d seen my father, I’d insulted him. Worse, I’d hurt him. What if I had to carry that memory around forever? And wherever he was, it was the same for him. He thought I looked down on him for being Consort to the king.
The food in my stomach formed a hard lump.
“Lass?”
Tavish’s deep voice brought my head up.
