Spell of the Highlander

Page 47

If only he’d brought her one.
Oh, well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. All she needed to do was get to her car and she could toss a jacket over it.
When he’d returned to the room and thrust the bundle of clothing into her hands, she’d exclaimed, Where did you get—
Hush, he’d said instantly. Dress and move. We must accomplish as much as possible as quickly as possible. When the glass reclaims me, we will have time to talk then.
Okay. She’d shrugged. She knew she couldn’t extricate herself from her current problems. Maybe he could. He’d already managed to accomplish two things she’d not thought she’d had a snowball’s chance in hell of accomplishing: body disposal and clothing procuring. Though she really would have liked a bra. Enthusiastic was hardly an adjective she would have applied to herself at the moment, but parts of her were acting downright perky with every step. She hoped she wouldn’t need to run for any reason.
The lobby was nearly deserted at this early hour. As they stepped into the long, gleaming foyer, her attention was drawn by a ripped, steroid-bulked man standing at the front desk with his arm around a sultry blonde who didn’t look nearly as distraught as he. Coincidentally, he looked like exactly the kind of guy who might wear an Ironman T-shirt.
The man was shouting furiously at two desk clerks. Good, Jessi thought. She couldn’t shake the paranoid feeling that any moment now a police officer was going to appear out of thin air and arrest them. Any distraction was a welcome one. Hopefully the clerks would be so busy dealing with the irate brute that they wouldn’t notice her and Cian skulking out. Although, with a six-and-a-half-foot-tall mirror tucked beneath his arm, nothing the six-and-a-half-foot Cian MacKeltar did remotely resembled skulking.
Cian’s hand tightened on hers. “Hurry, lass.”
She picked up the pace, jouncing jauntily along.
“I’m telling you, the man is one of your guests. I watched him go back up on the elevator. The son of a bitch took our clothes!” the man shouted.
Jessi blinked. Eyed the man and his wife. Glanced down at herself.
Glanced up at Cian.
He shrugged. “Not all of them. I left them their undergarments.” When her brows rose, he added, “They were our size. We needed clothing. I suspected they had more, and look, they do. I ran into them in the elevator. Keep walking, lass. Move.”
They were halfway across the lobby when the man abruptly threw his hands up in exasperation and whirled around.
Oh no, here it comes, Jessi thought, stiffening. We’re screwed. Now he’ll call the cops. We’re going to jail.
“There he is!” the man roared furiously. “That’s the prick who made my wife take off her clothes!”
Jessi noticed the sultry blonde wasn’t looking too terribly upset by it, not nearly as upset as her husband seemed to be. She had a sudden vision of the pretty woman stripping down to her panties and bra in front of Cian and had the weirdest urge to go punch her. As if anything was the blond woman’s fault.
“You will be silent and cease looking at us. The four of you will turn and face the wall. Now,” Cian said coolly.
Jessi rolled her eyes. Obviously Cian MacKeltar had been some kind of aristocrat or member of the ruling class in his time. A feudal lord, maybe, perhaps even a relation to one of the ancient Pict kings, or Kenneth MacAlpin himself. He behaved like a tyrannical dictator, expecting the world to obey his slightest whims. Cease looking at us, indeed!
“Oh, please, you don’t really think they’re going to—” Jessi scoffed, only to break off in stunned disbelief.
Four people had just turned, as one, to face the wall behind the Check-In desk, without uttering so much as another peep. Not a curse, not a protest, not even an ill-concealed, disgruntled sigh.
She blinked at the bizarre sight. Then gaped up at Cian. Then back at the obedient little sheep.
“You will not attempt to follow us when we leave,” Cian added. “You will remain silent and unmoving until well after we’re gone.”
His words reminded her of the way he’d dispatched Mark in the hallway, how he’d ordered the valets about and dominated the desk clerk when they’d checked in.
How was he doing it? What was Cian MacKeltar?
“Come, lass,” he said.
She stood rooted to the ground for a moment, assessing herself suspiciously, trying to decide whether she was feeling, in the least little way, compelled in some strange way to obey him.
Nope.
She inched away from him, just to be sure. Tipped up her nose defiantly. Made a face at him.