Read Online Claire Delacroix by The Last Highlander - Free Book Online

remember me?”
    “Oh, yes, miss.” The guard summoned a polite smile. “Are you having a pleasant visit?”
    Morgan swallowed. “Yes, but I was wondering something. Wasn’t there a crystal in the scepter this morning?”
    The guard looked astonished. “Oh, no, miss, there’s never been one as long as I’ve been here and it’s nigh onto five years.”
    Her words were probably meant to be reassuring, but Morgan frowned. “I was sure I saw the stone this morning.”
    The guard shrugged and kept her tone light. “With all respect, you canna have done so, miss. It’s been lost since the time of that scoundrel, Robert the Bruce.”
    Robert the Bruce a scoundrel ?
    Morgan blinked in surprise, but the guard leaned closer and dropped her voice. “There are those to say he stole it and sold it to pay for his petty uprising against the good British.” She clicked her teeth in disapproval while Morgan gaped.
    The good British?
    The guard’s words were so irreconcilable with everything Morgan had heard since her arrival in Scotland that she thought the woman might be joking.
    But she was perfectly serious.
    Was the guard in on Alasdair’s scheme?
    Morgan tried another tack. “Can you tell me anything about the actors in period costume within the castle? Where do you find them?”
    The guard looked confused. “Actors, miss? We hire no actors here.”
    “But there was a man in a kilt...”
    The guard drew herself up proudly. “If you are thinking of the Sutherland Guard who conduct the tours of the castle, I must assure you, miss, that they are no actors, but loyal veterans of Her Majesty’s Highland Military.”
    “No, no, not the tour guide.” Morgan hastily tried to make amends. “It was another man, in a different kilt.”
    The guard’s glance was cold. “I assure you, miss, that there are no other kilted men in the employ of the castle. Perhaps you have confused another guest with our staff.” Her polite smile returned. “Perhaps you might be moving along now, miss, and make way for other visitors to see the regalia.”
    No actors in the fortress.
    And no crystal in the regalia.
    Morgan eyed the other security guard, who nodded crisply in her direction. He hadn’t been here this morning, but surely not everyone could have been in on the scam, could they?
    Morgan crossed the room, repeated her questions, and received exactly the same answers from this second guard. In fact, the man seemed bemused by her curiosity, and Morgan didn’t miss the tolerant glance the guards exchanged. The male guard must have seen her note the look, for he smiled.
    “With all respect, miss, we often have American tourists with fanciful ideas about Scottish history. There has been no stone in the regalia for at least seven hundred years, you have my word. In fact, of late there has been some question as to whether the stone was really a quartz crystal.” He rattled off a series of academic citations obviously intended to put an end to Morgan’s questions.
    It worked.
    She stalked out of the gallery, knowing that she wasn’t some fanciful American tourist. She had seen the stone this morning!
    Somehow Alasdair had bamboozled the guards. Not only was the highlander a con man, he was a very, very good one.
    But just because Morgan was the only one who had noticed his crime, that didn’t mean he was going to get away with it. She wasn’t going to return the stone herself – because that would be the quickest way to get herself in trouble – so, she would make sure that Alasdair did.
    Which meant that she had to find him, and the sooner the better.
    Well, her sister had spirited him off for a “wee dram” and a confidential lunch. She knew that look in Justine’s eye: Alasdair would at this very moment be embroiled in an interview for Eligible Bachelor of the Year.
    Which couldn’t be further from the truth.
    If that trio was anywhere between here and Holyrood Palace, Morgan was going to find them. She wanted some answers