In Bed with the Highlander

In Bed with the Highlander
Ann Lethbridge

Hotel Glencovie, 2013 Researching her family tree brings Moirag McLellan to the Highlands and a foreboding castle-turned-hotel. She goes to sleep alone surrounded by modern amenities, but awakens in a room lit only by candles–and occupied by a gorgeous kilted man. And he's far too real to be just an erotic dream…Glencovie Castle, 1715 Though Gavin MacIver doesn't know how the lusty wench in barely-there clothing came to be in his bed, he knows he never wants her to leave. But if her story of time-travel is true, how can he stop the only woman he's ever loved from slipping through his fingers once darkness fades into dawn?

Hotel Glencovie, 2013

Researching her family tree brings Moirag McLellan to the Highlands and a foreboding castle-turned-hotel. She goes to sleep alone surrounded by modern amenities, but awakens in a room lit only by candles—and occupied by a gorgeous kilted man. And he’s far too real to be just an erotic dream...

Glencovie Castle, 1715

Though Gavin MacIver doesn’t know how the lusty wench in barely-there clothing came to be in his bed, he knows he never wants her to leave. But if her story of time-travel is true, how can he stop the only woman he’s ever loved from slipping through his fingers once darkness fades into dawn?

In Bed with the Highlander

Ann Lethbridge

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Dear Reader,

Have you ever wondered what it would be liked to be whisked back in time? I know I have. As someone who creates stories set in the past, I can’t help but wonder what it was really like. And that was my inspiration for this flight of fancy. It also provided an opportunity to write a modern day heroine and one of those gorgeous Highland warrior heroes most of us dream about. The nice thing about dreams is that we can imagine them as we want them to be. All I can say is, lucky Moirag.

If you are curious to know more about me and my writing, you can find me at http://www.annlethbridge.com (http://www.annlethbridge.com), AnnLethbridgeAuthor is likable on Facebook and twittering @annlethbridge (http://twitter.com/annlethbridge) when the occasion warrants. Your participation is always welcome.

Ann Lethbridge

Dedication

To my own personal hero, who has more than a little bit of Scottish blood in his veins.

Contents

In Bed with the Highlander (#u5688c14e-33ea-5754-b7ca-fffaedda38a3)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

The object floating above the mist in Moirag’s headlights might have been a UFO hovering over a landing pad, if it didn’t look quite so much like a castle. Chilly fingers walked down her back. Because it looked identical to something she’d seen as a child. Something creepy wobbling on the surface of a bowl of water held by Granny “the auld witch” McLellan as her mother had called her great grandma. Destiny put out in plain sight, the old girl had breathed staring into the water at the image of a medieval castle. As a child, she’d believed it. She’d even studied history at school at Granny’s suggestion.

Not much call for history. Or superstitious rot as her mother had called Granny’s strange ideas. A degree in business had proved more useful. But history remained her passion.

And what she was looking at in her headlights was definitely a castle, when there hadn’t been one marked on Google maps anywhere near the hotel she’d booked. Probably one of those private places where they paid to be blacked out from prying eyes. So where was her hotel? She had to be lost.

Moirag geared down to a crawl and rubbed at the windscreen. Not fogged on the inside. She flicked the lever. The wipers did a quick one, two and park. Nope. Not misted on the other side of the glass. Definitely a pea-souper.

A glance at the Sat Nav on the dash didn’t help, either. It remained stubbornly blank, having given up the ghost an hour ago. Must be out of range. The dark shape ahead of her solidified, its stone walls and crenellations looming out of the mist. There was a sign over a stone arched entrance in the outer wall. Hotel Glencovie. Really? The description on the internet hadn’t said a word about it being a castle and there had been no picture to clue her in.

And this place looked more like the setting for a horror flick than your friendly B and B. The hairs on the back of her neck waved in a nonexistent breeze. A creepy sensation she didn’t appreciate with fog snaking over the road ready to swallow her and her car.

She shivered. Enough. She’d so been looking forward to this little holiday. To exploring the local library and church, looking for family connections. The finishing touches to her surprise for her parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The McLellan family tree went all the way back to seventeen hundred and ten. All it needed were a few details about her ancestor, the first, and apparently very naughty, Lady Moirag Breton.

A quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed a blank wall of white. No going back to Glasgow tonight. She was here and that was that.

The road took a twist right, and then left, and her lights picked out the jagged points of a raised portcullis. Water gleamed with an oily incandescence on her near side. Must be the moat. A little too close for comfort.

Slowing to a crawl, she eased the car across the wooden slats of the drawbridge.

The car did a rock and roll number over the cobblestones in the courtyard. Tarmac was invented by a Scot, but did anyone care about your springs? Nah. It was all about atmosphere. No doubt she’d be greeted by some old fogy in a kilt who had a Scottish accent as thick as a steak, only to discover the man came from Kent or York. That was how it was these days. She pulled up to the sign displaying the word Reception in Gothic lettering, popped the boot and opened her door.

Five hours on a trip that should have taken three locked her knees when she pushed off the seat. Standing up, she rolled her shoulders to the tune of cracking vertebrae. Ah, that was better. A blinding beam of light hit her full in the face. She blinked madly. Oh, right. Sensor light. At least she’d be able to pick her way across the courtyard. The heels of her favorite shoes hated to be jammed between two blocks of stone on any day of the week.

The thick oak plank door opened and...yeah. There he was. Knobby knees, hairy calves, a swath of green plaid and a foaming jabot. In her book, the only men who looked good in kilts were the guys in the Willy Lawson commercials.

Although Alec had looked great in a kilt, the bastard. Another reason not to trust anything flauntingly Scottish. Thank God she’d discovered what a rat Alec was and dumped him before he completely cleaned out her bank account.

“Good evening, Miss McLellan,” the ancient doorman wheezed. “I will lend you a hand, will I?”

The soft burr of his voice stroked her ears. She hadn’t heard an accent like that since... God, she could barely remember. A real Highlander. Things were looking up. “Good evening. Don’t worry, I can manage.”

“It is not a trouble.”

“Thank you, but I prefer to carry my own stuff.” A top-of-the-line laptop required personal attention and she couldn’t think of asking such a doddery old chap to carry her suitcase. She never had learned how to pack light. She heaved her cases out of the boot.

“I’ll be getting the door for you, then.”

“Thank you.” She followed him in. He went behind the desk. Porter and receptionist, then. A one-man band. Perhaps because she had arrived so late. While he signed her in, she glanced around a reception area designed like a medieval hall right down to hammer beams arching overhead, the faded and tattered banners hanging from the walls and a couple of rusted suits of armor. Welcome to tacky touristy Scotland. It would be so nice if these places invested in some real antiques and gave them some loving care. Though, on closer inspection, the chain mail looked genuinely ancient.

“Your room is on the second floor, Miss McLellan. Number two hundred and ten.”

She let her gaze following his pointing figure to a set of spiral stairs winding around a column of smooth gray stone.

Bloody hell. No lift.

Those stairs weren’t new, either. They’d been smoothed into grooves by centuries of feet. It really was a medieval castle. Had she somehow got her booking mixed up? Booked a millionaire’s retreat instead of a cheap B and B in the middle of nowhere? Places like this usually cost an arm and a leg. Her heart gave a lurch as she thought of the wee bit of room left on her Visa. Thank you, Alec, the rat. Men. She’d never trust another one as far as she could toss one with a caber strapped to his back. Tomorrow morning might well be embarrassing.

What choice did she have? Going back out in the fog was not an option.

“Right,” she said, shouldering both bags and trudging up and around and around in ever-decreasing circles until she hit a narrow landing and a door. Please let this be the second floor—otherwise she’d be tempted to throw herself off a turret.

Out of breath, sweat trickling in all sorts of unmentionable places, she opened the door labeled two-ten beneath a low Gothic arch and stumbled down a step into her chamber. She dumped her bags and glanced around a room with a ten-foot ceiling and windows at knee level set in walls two feet thick. Then there was the four-poster bed. A four-poster bed with the drapes pulled closed.

Hiding what? She whipped back the green damask and sighed. Thank God. A sprung mattress. Not your twelfth-century straw-padded horror for that authentic experience. And the pillows looked blissfully soft. And sheets of pale lemon percale with a count of at least eight-hundred. She gave them a pat.

Perfect, even if one night did leave her skint for a month or two.

The narrow room stretched for forty feet, with two windows overlooking the courtyard. Between them hung a landscape. “The view from these windows on a summer’s day circa 1715” the caption beneath proclaimed. Smoky hills and a loch, beyond the turreted walls. Not a person or a black house in sight. Romantic and sanitized Scotland. Nothing like Grannie’s stories. She shrugged and continued her exploration.

At one end, some kind soul had set an antique-looking sofa and a table along with the makings for tea bedside an armoire. At the other, another arch revealed three stone steps winding up to a door. Please let them arrive at en suite plumbing. She didn’t fancy trotting down the corridor with her lally-bag, toothbrush and towel in hand. She trotted over to investigate. The steps did indeed end up in a bathroom—shower, bath, bidet and a black-and-white-tiled floor expansive enough for a ball. Lovely. She’d survive the night. And be on the road in the morning to find a place she could afford.

Although, a few days might be nice in the back-of-beyond, in a castle... Quite romantic. If she wasn’t alone.