Tall, Dark and Kilted Read Free Page A

her voice, a pathetic croak. “I am not seeing you—”
    She blinked.
    Mr. Wasn’t-Really-There was gone again.
    Only the shadow on the glass remained.
    “Oh, man.” Her shower forgotten, she snatched up her bra and the rest of her airplane clothes, tossing them back on even faster than she’d taken them off. She should never have accepted Uncle Mac’s welcome dram.
    Not after being up nearly thirty hours.
    “Miss Swanner?” A woman’s voice called through the closed door, accompanied by a quick rap. “Are you awake?”
    She almost flew across the room, half-tempted to answer that, yes, she was awake, but she was also having waking hallucinations .
    Instead, she ran a hand through her hair and opened the door. “Yes?”
    “I’m Honoria, Dunroamin’s housekeeper. I’ve come to take you down to tea if you’re feeling up to it?” An older woman in a heavy tweed suit and sturdy shoes peered at her, the oversized print of an unusually large badge pinned to her jacket, repeating her name.
    Following her glance, the woman put back strong-looking shoulders and cleared her throat. “Some of our residents have difficulty remembering names. Others”—she looked both ways down the dimly lit corridor, tactfully lowering her voice—“don’t see well.”
    Cilla almost choked. There wasn’t anything wrong with her memory, but since a few moments ago, she had some serious doubts about her vision.
    About everything.
    The world she’d known and understood tipped drastically when she’d peered at that poster.
    Hoping the housekeeper wouldn’t notice, she stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her. “I’d love tea,” she said, meaning it. “And I’m looking forward to meeting the residents. Aunt Birdie and Uncle Mac always talked so much about them, I feel as if I know them alrea—”
    “Ach, you won’t be seeing any of them just yet.” The housekeeper glanced at her as they moved down the plaid-carpeted corridor. “They’ll be having their tea in the library. Your aunt and uncle are waiting for you in the armory.”
    She blinked, wondering if her hearing was going wacky as well. “The armory?”
    Honoria paused at the top of a great oak staircase. “It’s not what it sounds like, though there are still enough weapons on the walls. Your uncle uses the room as his private study. His den, I believe you Americans call it?”
    “Oh.” She felt foolish for thinking she was going somewhere that would give her the willies.
    A den she could handle, even if it did have a few swords and shields decorating the walls.
    But when Honoria opened the door, ushering her inside, she found the armory unlike any American-style den she’d ever seen. Full of quiet and shadows, medieval weapons gleamed on every inch of wall space, and two full-sized suits of standing armor flanked a row of tall windows across from the door.
    Cilla froze just inside the threshold, the willies making her stomach clench.
    Her aunt and uncle were nowhere to be seen.
    Her heart thumping again, she turned to the door. “Are you sure this is where Aunt Birdie and—” She closed her mouth, catching a glimpse of the housekeeper already rounding a curve at the far end of the corridor.
    “Ach! There you are.” Her uncle’s deep voice sounded from the room’s shadows. “Come away in, lass, and have your tea with us.”
    Spinning around, she saw her aunt and uncle at last. They sat in the soft lamplight of a corner table set for tea. Aunt Birdie, with her sleek, tawny-colored hair and large, deep blue eyes, looking so much like an older version of Cilla’s mother and herself, she started.
    Uncle Mac, kilted as always, wore the bold, masculine room like a second skin.
    With his larger-than-life good looks and full, curling red beard, not to mention his horn-handled sgian-dubh , the ever-present dagger peeking up from his sock, he looked every bit the fierce Highland chieftain.
    So much so, Cilla forgot herself and blurted what she