A quick smile flashed across his face, and she breathed more easily, but then the smile vanished and he was again the remote savage. "This conversation is not about you, lass, or what you think or what you believe. It is about me, and whether I can find a reason to trust you and let you live. Your being from the future and your feelings about being here mean nothing to me. It is irrelevant where or when you are from. The fact is that you are here now and you have become my problem. And I doona like problems."
"So send me home," she said in a small voice. "That should solve your problem." She flinched as his intense gaze fixed on her face. His dark eyes latched on to hers and for a space of time unmeasured, she couldn't look away.
"If you are from the future, who is Scotland's king?" he asked silkily.
She drew a cautious breath. "I'm afraid I don't know, I've never followed politics," she lied. She certainly wasn't about to tell a warrior who was fighting over kings and territories that seven hundred years from now Scotland still didn't have a recognized king. She might not have a college degree, but she wasn't a complete fool.
His eyes narrowed and she suffered the uncanny sensation that he was gauging far more than her facial expressions. Finally he said, "I accept that. Few women follow politics. But perhaps you know your history?" he encouraged softly.
"Do you know yours from seven hundred years ago?" Lisa evaded, quickly intuiting where he was headed. He would want to know who won what battle and who fought where and the next thing she knew she'd be all tangled up in screwing up the future. If she really was in the past, she was not going to participate in instigating world chaos.
"Much of it," he said arrogantly.
"Well, I don't. I'm just a woman," she said with as much guilelessness as she could muster.
He regarded her appraisingly and the corner of his lip lifted in a half-smile. "Ah, lass, you are decidedly not 'just' a woman. I suspect it would be a vast mistake to deem you merely anything. Have you a clan?"
"What?"
"To which clan do you belong?" When she didn't answer, he said, "Do you have clans in Cincinnati?"
"No," Lisa said succinctly. He certainly didn't have to worry about someone trying to rescue her; she hardly had a family anymore. Hers was a clan of two, and one was dying.
He made an impatient gesture with his hands. "Your clan name, lass. That is all I am after. Lisa what?"
"Oh, you want to know my last name! Stone. Lisa Stone."
His eyes widened incredulously. "Like rock? Or boulder?" No half-smile this time: A full grin curved his lips, and the impact was devastating.
Her fingers itched with the urge to smack it off. Enemy, she reminded herself. "No! Like Sharon Stone. The famous actress," she added at his blank look.
His eyes narrowed. "You descend from a line of actresses?" he demanded.
What on earth had she said wrong? "No." She sighed. "That was my attempt at a joke, but it wasn't funny because you don't know who I meant. My last name is Stone, though."
"How foolish do you think I am?" he echoed the exact words she'd said to him about his name only hours ago. "Lisa Rock? That will not do. I can hardly present you to my men, should I decide to, as Lisa Stone. I may as well tell them you are Lisa Mud or Lisa Straw. Why would your people take the name of a stone?"
"It's a perfectly respectable name," she said stiffly. "I've always thought it a strong name, like me: capable of enduring calamity, mighty and able. Stones have a certain majesty and mystery. You should know that, being from Scotland. Aren't your stones sacred?"
He mulled over her words a moment and nodded. "There is that. I had not considered it as such, but aye, our stones are beautiful and treasured monuments to our heritage. Lisa Stone it is. Did your museum say where they found my chest?" he coolly resumed his inquisition.
Lisa reflected, trying to recall the discussion she'd overheard as she'd hidden beneath Steinmann's desk. "Buried in some rocks near a riverbank in Scotland."
"Ah, it begins to make sense," he murmured. "It did not occur to me when I cursed it that if my chest went undiscovered for centuries, the person who touched it would have to travel through both terrain and time." He shook his head. "I have little patience for this cursing business."
"It would also seem you have little aptitude for it." The words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them.
"It worked, did it not?" he said stiffly.
Shut up, Lisa, she warned herself, but her tongue paid no heed. "Well, yes, but you can't judge something simply by its outcome. The end does not necessarily justify the means."