THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

other possibility.”
    Isaac wasn’t so sure. They had a boy king, James I, trapped in the Tower of London and the lad’s ambitious regent uncle held sway over all in Scotland. While Albany—in no hurry to pay Henry IV the lad’s ransom—played God, half of Scotland’s chieftains were either plotting, raiding, or at each other’s throats.
    Isaac ran a hand through his thinning hair. He’d be bald before this ended. “Wode or sane, if ye believe Lady Beth be the one sent, ye canna give the Bruce reason to cry foul to Albany.”
    “‘Tis decided,” Duncan grumbled. “Sane or wode, I will tup the woman as soon as I am able. Consummation binds the marriage. Since the woman is a widow and willna bleed, ye must act as witness.”
    Isaac shuddered at the prospect. “Ask the priest. He has no love for ye. And John the Bruce will not be able to claim that we—being friends—ye lied about bedding the lady and I swore to it in an effort to defeat him. The priest bearing witness would be safer.”
    After a moment’s thought Duncan nodded. “Aye, then should I learn Lady Beth deliberately deceived me, I’ll deal with her.”
    It was the sanest plan given the circumstances and Isaac nodded. “Shall I send her to ye?”
    Trepidation climbed Isaac’s spine as Duncan growled, “Oh, aye, Isaac, send my lady in.”
     
    ~#~
    “Ah, she returns.” Duncan’s gaze traveled down the length of his wife’s lithe form. “Wife, come ye closer.”
    At his side, she asked, “Are you in pain? Did Isaac say something to upset you?”
    “Nay.” He pointed to her feet. “What, pray tell, are those ye wear?”
    She looked down and waggled a foot. “Sneakers.” She smiled as if they were the most natural things in the world for a ladywife to don. “I can run three miles in thirty minutes and not feel a thing in these.”
    “You lie, lass.” He waved toward the small window and the mountains beyond. “My horse can barely run that distance in that time.”
    She grinned. “Where I live the ground is flat. I run along the paths in Central Park.” When he continued to just scowl she added, “In New York, where I once worked. Remember? I told you about it when I arrived.”
    She’d said much—most of it confusing babble—that first day. Now, being more accustomed to her speech, he prayed he’d have less trouble garnering the truth. His future depended on it. As she started to unbraid his hair, he said, “Tell me of this new York.”
    “New York has very tall buildings, some with over one hundred floors, levels. We call them skyscrapers.”
    He craned his neck to stare at her in disbelief.
    She nodded and turned his head back around. “As I was saying, New York is our financial capital and has the best food in the world. You should taste Junior’s cheesecake.”
    She sighed a bit too wistfully for his liking and he wondered what this junior meant to her.
    “We have theaters and universities—-you might call them colleges.”  
    “And your home in the new York?”
    “My home was nothing special, a small apartment. Before I got transported here, I had been thinking about staying at my castle permanently.”
    Ah huh! Now he was getting somewhere. “Tell me of this castle.”
    “I recently inherited it from my mother’s people. It looks exactly like this one. But I have indoor plumbing, cranky as it is.”
    “Plum ink?” He kenned this not but heard the note of pride in her voice.
    “Plum-ming. Running water inside the keep. I even have a contraption to heat the water. Just turn a faucet—-tap—-and voila, hot water any time you want it.” She ran her fingers through his hair then picked up the brush. “Most of the time, anyway.”
    Her imagination had to be the grandest he’d ever witnessed for her world to be filled with sky scrapes and plum minks .
    “I want to turn the castle into a bed and breakfast—-a place for travelers to stay overnight—but I guess that will be delayed.”
    “How many be in yer hostiel?”
    “I live alone.”
    He knew her to be a widow, so she must have misunderstood his question. “Aye, but how many suggits, guards?”
    “None. As I said, I live alone. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to convert the castle into a bed and breakfast. So I’d have company, occasionally.” 
    God’s teeth! He spun and found her smiling like a bairn on Michaelmas Eve. ‘Twas no wonder Albany wanted her wed.
    No woman in her right mind would invite strangers to her hearth without