Velvet lips touched his hesitantly, freezing his tongue and sending a shock of molten heat racing through his body.

     Alex blinked in astonishment as the fire made its way straight to his groin. With a moan, he surrendered to the willing beauty pressed against him. His mouth covered hers hungrily as he threw himself into the kiss with hearty abandon, quickly turning the stiff kiss passionate with the barest stroke of his tongue.

     Lightning storms, lost relatives, missing turrets, and a pouch full of jewels were forgotten. Every thought burned from his brain but for the woman in his arms and her slow drugging kiss.

     Finally, his bizarre thinking headed in a direction Alex could enjoy. If this were the sort of fantasy a lightning bolt would evoke, he might make a habit of venturing forth in thunderstorms.

     As he pulled her supple body closer, devouring the sweet ambrosia the aggressive young miss offered, his hands caressed down her arms and thence to the curve of her slender waist covered only with the thin nightdress. He’d certainly conjured lovers in his sleep before, but never had he imagined one who fit so snugly in his arms.

     His hands ached to hold the rounded flesh of her derriere again. His head was still full of her womanly scent.

     The lass shuddered and he wanted more. He allowed one hand to rove up to the curve of her breast pressed against his bare chest.

     A mistake. His maiden gasped and stopped his movement. Straight away he yearned for the captivity of her sweet lips.

     “Damnation,” he muttered. Was not he allowed to do as he wished in his own addled mind?

     The rattle of the gate pulled at his attention. His face cocked in the direction of the noise, but silken fingers turned his chin back to his enchantress, keeping his head close to hers. Consuming his open mouth again, she smothered his questions regarding who had called out and focused his interest only on her.

     She should know just how focused every part of his body had become with her hips pressing into him again.

      “I beg of you, let us leave before they come for me.” Her voice held a desperation he had not heard before. But was it desperation be avoid capture or a desperation to finish what they’d begun?

     Staring into beseeching violet eyes framed with lush dark lashes, he wondered what it would be like when she cried out passionately under him. For him. Surrendering to the hypnotic draw of her gaze, he touched the silky smoothness of her skin.

     What a glorious sight to behold. Milky white breasts peaked from beneath a nightrail still askew from their tumble, untied at the neck and falling from her shoulder. He took full possession of her lips again. She returned his kiss completely and shifted to mold her body closer. His arms tightened, yearning for the release he desperately wanted with this woman.

     “Take your hands from my daughter at once, you swine.”

      The booming voice tore through the roaring din in his brain. Alex pulled his mouth free and stopped short at the stark hopelessness in his maiden’s eyes before confronting the one responsible for jolting him back to reality.

     “As much as I’d like to take this further, my dear, do you know who stands behind me bellowing like a she-devil?”

     “The Abbess,” she said a bit too meekly for such a bold woman.

     “An Abbess has taken up residence in my home?” His voice rose to a furious shout. “How could Madeline and Fiona invite such a woman to stay the night? What were they thinking?”

     Given the volume and tenor of that outraged demand for answers, he’d expected to find a giantess when he turned. Instead, he faced a woman the top of whose head, despite being covered with the oddest turban he’d ever seen, barely reached to his chest. But what she lacked in size, she made up in righteous anger.

     Fire fairly blazed from her eyes as she held herself up to her full diminutive height, chin in the air, fists planted at the waist of her severe black gown.

     Why in God’s name would his injured mind conjure up something like this? More to his liking, the beauty next to him remained in his arms, nightrail hanging off one shoulder, hair tumbling like he’d already had his way with her. Ready for him to resume their passionate encounter.

     “Well, sirrah? What mean you by pawing my novice?”

     Novice? The woman in his arms had not kissed like anyone new to the business of seduction. Still, he supposed he had been freer with the wares than had been offered.

     His beauty still had not set her gown completely to rights. Her creamy breasts bordered on the point of indecency. How had his sisters accepted such a dressed woman in their company?

     “My apologies, Madame. But she pleases me well.” He was not the kind to consort with harlots out of a bawd house generally, but her skilled kisses and striking figure had driven him past the edge of desire. “What is the price for a night’s pleasure?”

     His fair temptress gasped. The jaw on the harridan dropped. Behind her, the guard made a sign of the cross. Alex cocked his head at the latter sight. Catholics were quite rare in this part of Scotland.

     “You insult my daughter, sir.” Ice dripped from each word.

     “Daughter?” He glanced from the curvaceous beauty, to the

shrinking, platter-faced woman. He leaned toward the fair maid, and whispered, “She’s yer mother, lass?”

     “My mother died when I was a child.” Elegant brows wrinkled at him. “She is the Mother Superior.”

     “Indeed, I am. And you have despoiled my daughter and cast a shadow upon the reputation of my house.” She gestured at the abbey behind them.

     “Yer house?” he scoffed at such effrontery. Product of an injured head though she might be, this old woman put on unwarranted airs.

      The wee tyrant continued as though he had not spoken. “There can be but one price for what you have taken, sirrah.”

     Alex had only impatience for such dramatics. His body yearned for the closeness of the woman, but he’d not be hoodwinked. He glanced at the maiden and frowned as her look of desperation vanished, replaced with a questioning grin. The “daughter” was clearly forming a plan of action his instincts told him he’d regret.

     Those same instincts shouted at him that this was no illusion wrought by a knock on his head. What the hell was happening?

     “Lady Helena Lyon of Strathmore, you have been a thorn in my side since the date of your arrival. I have lost too many nights sleep to your adventures. Well, no more.” Mother Superior turned toward the gate and the slinking figure guarding it. “Hugo, send someone to fetch Father Dougal.”

     “Lady Helena? What trick is this?”

     “No, trick, sirrah. You have been pawing the daughter of the Earl of Strathmore.”

     Hell and damnation, he’d not been going at it with an earl’s spawn. No tricks, she’d been eager enough.

     “Nonsense.” He laughed. “I’ve met all six of Strathmore’s daughters, and they’re all harelipped and bucktoothed. The youngest one has spots, to boot. This beauty is not part of his brood. Not that the old hound is much to look at himself, of course.”

     The two women exchanged confused glances.

     “I am my father’s only child, sir.”

     “No doubt. But Strathmore has a pack of daughters. And despite the sad looks of the poor girls, he and his lady keep trying for a son.”

     “Mad.” The old woman pronounced her opinion as though giving a verdict in the dock.

     “You hope to force a marriage down my throat?” Had he fallen into a well-sprung snare? His sisters couldn’t possibly have arranged a trap of their own. Could they? "My two sisters are shrewish enough for one man to endure.” He turned to the older woman. “Madame you will leave this residence at once. Are you gypsies plying for my fortune?”

     “Plying for your fortune?” Lady Helena backed up a step, her look taking him in from the top of his bare head to the bottom of his bare toes. “Dear mother in heaven, are you in truth mad, you barefooted fool?”

     The prune-faced woman wagged her finger at his face. “Mad or no, there is only one thing for such a blatant disrespect of my abbey.”

     “Yer abbey?” This time, he sputtered the question even as her words resounded in his head. That costume. Good God, had his addled mind conjured a nun instead of a bawdy house madame?

     “Yes, mine.” She looked at Helena. “Understand child, I will not forfeit the jewels or cattle paid by your brother.”

     “’Tis my dowry and he is not my brother.”

     So the jewels were hers.

     The look on Lady Helena’s face told more than she’d ever share aloud. If possible, she grew taller, her expression cold. “He was only a foster son of my father’s. He has no rights--”

     The Abbess waved her hand dismissing Lady Helena’s differences. “However did you find such a lackwit to fit your needs?”

      Without a doubt, these women were trying his non-existent patience. He drew in a deep breath, “I am no lackwit, Madame. The MacAlpins have owned this abbey since the late sixteenth century and I won’t--”

     “The sixteenth century?” The women both gawked at him, eyes wide.

      “MacAlpin?” the young beauty asked.

      “What sacrilege is this? This is the year of our Lord twelve hundred and ninety-six,” the Abbess enunciated to him carefully before turning again to the maid. “Lackwit, fool, madman. Whoever he is, for your foolishness this night, you will marry him, Lady Helena, and be his caregiver for so long as he lives.”

     Twelve hundred and ninety-six?

     “Yes, Mother.” The Lady Helena replied meekly, eyes downcast in submission.

     A lie through and through. He might have spent scant minutes in the company of this lass, but she did not have one submissive bone in her delicious body. She wasn’t being punished, but rewarded.

     To hell with this impossible, too-realistic addled venture. He’d fetch his boots and be done with the lot of them. He marched through the gate, leaving the women to scurry in his wake.

     No stables. No horses. No coach.

     The courtyard was empty except for a garden toward the fully intact wall. He pushed the heavy abbey door open, hearing rants behind him from the booming Mother Superior.

     “Madeline,” he shouted above her caterwauling. “Fiona! Where are you? Fetch me a bottle and a cloth to put on my head.”

     Nothing was where it should be. Where it had been when he’d left with his cousins only hours before.

     Where was his home?

     What had happened to...everything? His head spun with doubts. A low buzz sounded in his ears as he tried to make sense of what his eyes told him.

     The great hall was cluttered with tables. Row after row of tables and benches. Gone were the dainty chairs his sisters kept near the hearth. There was not a familiar item in sight. And he had not been greeted at the door by his hound. The hound he’d fought with his sisters about keeping inside the abbey.

     Madeline and Fiona could not have managed this hoax on their own.

     Where were his cousins?

     They had to be behind this elaborate scheme. His stomach clutched in confusion as he made through the halls.

     Banging open doors did him no good. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness in each room, the same scene repeated again and again. Women, old and young, dressed in plain gray shifts. He knew none of their screeching faces when opening their cells.

     Nunnery cells? Where were the wide rooms and furnishings? Sparse they were throughout his home, but they were still his. Huntingdon couldn’t lay claim to them for another blasted week. He’d been gone but a few hours, yet there was nothing familiar about the abbey.

     Hold.

     There was one thing familiar. He strode to the end of the great hall, near the fireplace and looked up at the pride of the MacAlpins. The brilliant tapestry revealed the crowning of Kenneth MacAlpin at the Stone of Destiny. Shiny gold threads abounded -- threads which had been picked clean by a cash-poor MacAlpin a century before.

     A century before his time.

     Twelve hundred and ninety-six?

     Lightning? The fall? The Stone?

     It couldna be possible.

     “What is wrong, sirrah?” the latest in a long line of drab women appearing in the hall asked.

     “What day is it?” he demanded. “Tell me the year!”

     “T’is Lady Day, sir, the twenty-fifth of March.” She shuddered and looked at him as if he were truly a threat. “Twelve hundred and ninety-six.”

     Was he indeed mad?

     He’d never seriously considered that the fall had addled his wits. Could lightning burn his mind to a crisp without outward injury?

      “Stop scaring the sisters witless,” Lady Helena ordered from behind him. “The priest has arrived.”

     “A priest? I will not be married tonight or any other, especially by a priest.” He roared back at the wench who dared tried to force him into wedlock. “There isn’t a priest on this earth that can force--”

     Three sharp points jabbed him in the side. He need not turn to know swords were at his back. Evidently, the priest had brought reinforcements. Two he could handle without a fuss, but three?

     This probably was not the time to admit he was a Protestant.

2003-2010 Copyright -- Angi Platt, all rights reserved. May only be used with permission of the author for promotional purposes.