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the chief of Clan MacIver.”
    She stopped chewing. “Good Lord .”
    Scots blood would be an awkward thing in the highly regimented caste system of English noblemen. But to have a clan chief in one’s family—especially if one was a senior army officer—would have to be a social and political time bomb. The clashes between the clans and the English army had long made the borderlands a bloody and dangerous place. Sir Walter Scott had made a name writing stories about it, not to mention any number of other historical fiction writers.
    “Your father married the daughter of a clan chief ?”
    Bridgewater froze. He put down his spoon. “I think I have answered all the questions I should care to, if you don’t mind.”
    She flushed, realizing her rudeness. She’d asked the question as if she were examining the breeding history of a horse she was buying.
    “I’m sorry. That was rude.”
    He bowed. Then he leaned back in his chair, considering her closely. “It’s odd. You ask about things most people already know.”
    “Do I?” She struggled to keep her face neutral.
    “Aye. My grandfather. The peacock. The castle on the distant hill. Where is it you call home? That is not an English accent, nor even Welsh. There is something guttural and German to it to my ear, and yet it is not German.”
    “No. I am from—” She considered. “Penn’s Wood. In the colonies.”
    His pupils widened. “Penn’s Wood? The land of William Penn?”
    She nodded, pleased he knew her home. “Do you know him?”
    “I have been introduced, yes.” A wry smile came over his face. “He’s a bit of a frothing dog, don’t you think?”
    “William Penn ?” She’d never thought of William Penn being anything except the figure on top of the Philadelphia City Hall and the face on the oatmeal box.
    “I am not a religious man,” he said, returning to his soup, “and religious men make me wary; anyone with fanatical leanings does.”
    Not a religious man? The man whom she’d first seen on his knees, praying? She thought his statement was a convenient untruth, though what or who it was convenient for, she didn’t know.
    The cheese was marvelous—fresh, with a grassy tang. She wondered if there were cows out on those darkening hills. Cows, peacocks, cannons, border intrigues—this was better than a novel, she thought. Then she remembered Bridgewater’s bruised side and battered face and felt guilty for her blithe observation.
    “And what brings you to Cumbria?” he asked, looking absently into his bowl as he scraped out the last spoonful. He stopped for an instant, obviously startled, then broke his gaze and brought the soup to his mouth. “My apologies,” he said distractedly. “We have an agreement. No more questions.” He pushed the bowl away, tapping his fingers on the table. Whatever had come to him was still occupying his thoughts.
    She finished the cheese, watching the ebb and flow of tension in that aristocratic profile.
    Then he stood. Affability restored, he carried the decanter to the bookcase she’d opened, snagged her glass from the floor, and refilled it for her.
    “Was that the man who beat you?”
    “Who? The guard? No,” he said amiably. “He and his companion held me.”
    His fingers brushed hers as she accepted the glass, leaving a warm tingle. She gazed at her hand as if she’d never seen it before.
    “Is something wrong?”
    She hid her hand, startled. “No. It’s nothing.”
    He refilled his own glass and sat down again at the table. That look of smoky desire had returned to his face, and she felt a light giddiness spread through her, like the bubbles in champagne.
    “Do you let the soldiers borrow your books while they’re here?” she asked. “Or the townspeople?”
    He looked at her in some surprise. “No. Of course not.”
    Panna’s desire to keep her twenty-first-century self under wraps battled with her irrepressible evangelism on the topic of library access, and she knew which would