A Good Scot is Hard to Find (Something About a Highlander Book 2)

by Angeline Fortin

  “Aye. Then to decide that the existing village around him was too close — after the fact, naturally — and exploit his position to move it?” Aila grinned. “There’s a man who’s too rich for his own good.”

  “One cannot have one’s view spoiled by the rabble,” Violet replied in supercilious tones.

  “One should have thought about that beforehand.”

  “I’m certain the inconvenience didn’t bother the duke as much as it did the villagers.”

  “That reminds me…” Aila thumbed through the book once more. “I saw references to both an earl and duke of Argyll. Ye mentioned it earlier, too. According to the family tree here, the third duke was the one who built the castle. The first duke, his grandfather, was originally merely the 10th Earl of Argyll before he was bestowed with the title of duke by King William…er, the third I believe, for service to the crown. But it doesn’t say what service. Isn’t that odd? I tried to Google it but came up with only a few vague references.”

  “I recall reading of some speculation that he gained the title as recompense for initiating the Glencoe Massacre.”

  “The one that the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones was modeled after?”

  Violet gave a soft snort as she sat back in her chair and sipped her whisky. “Your generation and your pop culture references. Aye, that would be the one. The story goes that a group of Campbell militia, billeted with families around the Glencoe Valley, murdered dozens of MacDonald clansmen there when their chief was tardy in pledging his oath to King William. More fled to the moors where they froze to death.

  “Supposedly, the tenth earl himself was the one who ordered his clansmen to pull the sword on the McDonalds to further ingratiate himself with the king,” Vi finished. “The timing doesn’t exactly match, but that is one theory.”

  “Guess it worked if it’s true.” Aila idly flipped the edges of the pages against the pad of her thumb, deep in thought. “My primary school history must be catching up with me. Isn’t that where the supposed Curse of the Campbells began?”

  The Campbells had been generally disliked throughout history for their aggression and greed, having warred with clans like the MacGregors, MacEwans and MacNabs until those clans were near extinction. There’d been a curse by the Old Woman of Lawers placed upon any bearing the name Campbell, and to this day, there were still signs in businesses around Glencoe stating We don’t serve Campbells.

  “Aye.” Violet tapped her fingernail against the side of her glass, a light coming to her eyes. “You know, could be something so simple as the reward that the Boyce ancestor received from Argyll for services rendered was nothing more than a trickledown effect from Argyll’s deplorable actions.”

  “It could be.” Aila leaned forward, elbows on the table, that surge of curiosity welling up again. “But what do ye imagine the prize was, Vi?”

  Violet rocked her head from side to side and took up another of her wee drams of whisky, sniffing it with appreciation. “Coin most like. Long spent, no doubt.”

  “Aye.” It did make the most sense given the lack of results from the Boyces’ search that day. “I can’t imagine what else a person might be given as a reward that they would choose to hide rather than spend. There’s no logic to it.”

  “Unless the prize was an heirloom of sorts. A keepsake.”

  “Why hide it then?”

  “Maybe someone tried to steal it? Or take it from them?”

  “Could be. If that’s the case, though, wouldnae the location have been a secret carried down from one generation to the next? It makes nae sense.”

  The older woman laughed. “A mystery indeed.”

  Aye, and against her will, Aila relished it. “Could be one of the auld Boyces died before he could share the hiding place.”

  “Possibly.” Violet sipped her drink with a smile. “Too bad there’s no way to know.”

  “Aye, too bad.”

  Except there was. Och, a curse on that wily old man for putting it in her head.

  Then it hit her, so obvious that she felt a fool for missing it before. Yet she’d only known of it mere hours while generations of the clan Boyce had missed the obvious for centuries. More the fools they.

  “Vi, if the treasure was given by the first duke and hidden away…”

  Aila paused, swiping through the book to verify dates before continuing. “The building of the new castle wasn’t begun until forty years or so after the first earl died in 1703…”

  “Yes?”

  “Suppose that first Boyce ancestor or two died before he could share where he’d hidden it. And the village wasn’t moved until…” She pointed at the page, a rush of triumph pumping through her veins. “The 1750s!”

  Violet’s eyes widened.

  With a grin, Aila went on. “That would mean that all the Boyces pulling up floorboards in Bessie’s house are —”

  “— looking in the wrong house!” they finished together.

  * * *

  Rab jumped to his feet to greet her as the bell jingled to announce her return to Fyne Auld Whisky Shoppe the next morning. Tail swinging, a garbled half-growl that sounded suspiciously like a purr, his happiness at her appearance was evident. Donell, perched on his stool at the far end of the counter, merely lifted a brow as if her presence were of no great surprise.

  Perhaps it wasn’t.

  Aila dropped to her knees and greeted the dog with an extended petting and belly rub when the furry beast rolled onto his back, none too eager to provide the old man immediate satisfaction.

  “I’ll do it,” she said without looking at him.

  “Thought ye might.”

  At least he was gracious in his victory.

  However, she wasn’t going to let him jerk her about like the marionette he’d made of Brontë. If she was going to do this, she wasn’t going to go into it blindly. Life had taught her to be prepared. And so she would be.

  “I’m nae costume designer like Brontë. I’ll be needing clothing. Proper clothing.”

  “By chance I’ve gathered some fripperies and such for ye.” His lifted his whisky glass — at nine in the morning no less! — in salute toward a moderately sized, leather-bound trunk near the front window. “What wi’ yer friend the one wi’ the talent wi’ the needle and her…”

  “Away at the moment?” Aila supplied.

  If living in the late 1910s could be labelled away.

  “Aye.” Donell nodded. “I anticipated ye might need a change or two of clothes. Nae use wasting time gathering what I have handy.”

  No use questioning what he anticipated or why. If it had occurred to her in the long hours of the night — while she tossed and turned in her small bed at The Inveraray Inn with plans racing through her mind — that she might need more than a day to accomplish her mission, surely he would have considered it, too. The real question was, “Wasting time? What? The past cannae wait?”

  He shrugged. “Nae time like the present, aye?”

  “Nay,” she countered. “I have to drive Violet home first. Then I’ll come back.”

  “She still at the Inn?” She nodded and he returned the gesture. “I’ll fetch her. By the time we finish breaking our fast, so should ye be back.”

  “What? Oh.” Aye, the laws of time travel. Aila recalled how Brontë had spent days in the past during what was less than a blink of an eye from her perspective. A rush of nerves struck her. She hadn’t anticipated an immediate dive into the deep end. “What about my breakfast?”

  “Ye ate hours ago, dinnae ye?”

  Blast him. She swiped her suddenly damp palms down the front of her denims. “I should go straight away then?”

  “Aye, well, ye should change first.”

  Butterflies fluttered in her gut and she swallowed hard. “Of course.”

  He inclined his head to where the white time machine lay in a patch of sunlight on the counter. “I gather ye ken how to use it?”

  “I do.”

  Donell stood and plucked a wool coa
t from a hook on the far wall. He shrugged it on and straightened his cap as he came around the counter. Funny, his vibrant presence notwithstanding, the old codger was about an inch shorter than she. He grinned, more impish and downright mischievous than ever. “Dinnae fash, lass. Ye’ll do fine.”

  “Nae tricks, right?” The man did have a track record to consider. Plots and subplots that had nearly gotten her friend killed. “I’m only to find the treasure?”

  “And have a spot of fun.” He patted her cheek before transferring the gesture to the dog at her side. “Take Rab wi’ ye, if ye would. ’Tis nae time for a bonny lass to be traveling alone.”

  “How…?” She swallowed back the lump forming in her throat.

  “Keep him close. Simple as that.”

  He went to the window and turned the open sign propped against the glass around so the “closed” side faced outward. “Ye’ll do fine, lass,” he repeated.

  “People are going to wonder who I am. Why I am there,” she blurted out, recalling the list of details she’d considered over the course of the night. She’d determined to take charge of the matter and accept the task only on her own terms, but look at her now. A bundle of nerves! Like a child about to alight on their first rollercoaster ride. A teenager about to embark on their first date.

  Nausea. Light head. Apprehension?

  Excitement?

  Aila couldn’t quite recall the specifics of the sensation.

  “The duke has sent for an architectural assistant, I believe,” he told her. “That’ll do, aye?”

  “Do? How am I supposed to find the right cottage? Or get inside?”

  Donell chucked his tongue and went to the door. “Where’s the challenge if I gi’ ye all the answers, lass? This is yer adventure. Ye figure it out.”

  “But…but…” she stammered as he opened the door.

  He glanced at her with humor touching his pale blue eyes and the curves of his lips. “Ta-ra, lass. On wi’ ye now. Three turns should do it, I think.”

  Chapter 4

  Inveraray, Scotland

  The past

  Three turns to the greatest adventure of her life.

  Three turns about and around again in indecision as she waffled between adventure and retreat, berating her cowardice all the while. Was a thrill such a rare thing she didn’t even know how to face it any longer? Brontë had gone boldly into the past with no solid plan, no ready identity, yet she’d winged it with open enthusiasm. How could Aila not do the same when armed with a clear mission and the armor of sorts Donell had provided?

  She’d been pleased with the clothing in the trunk. The dress she wore had been at the top. The dark flax-toned linen bespoke an early Georgian era styling with its deep vee shaped bodice and elbow length sleeves. Delicate, colorful embroidery covered the stomacher and trailed along the hem. Over it she wore a cloak of rich blue velvet. After watching her friend struggle in her first foray to the past, Aila had remembered to style her hair in a loose knot. She’d even remembered to remove her many piercings and dab some foundation on her visible tattoos.

  She was armed and ready. The adventure she was about to undertake should have infused her with enthusiasm, anticipation for the hours and perhaps days ahead sending her blood pumping with excitement.

  Rather, it was creeping through her veins with a cringe-worthy and wholly uncharacteristic reserve when she should have been absorbing the sights and sounds of what was essentially an alien world to her. The chill of the autumn afternoon — her assumption, given the brilliant colors of the leaves, the burnt orange of ferns, and position of the sun — overridden by shivers of apprehension. The scent of burning peat mixed with a vague memory of her own grandmother rendering lard, superseded by the smell of fear.

  Nay, Aila refused to call it fear. She’d never been afraid of anything other than the boogey man…and perhaps her Great Aunt Kay…in her entire life. Nevertheless, had she ever experienced anything akin to reticence, she’d always put on a brave face and soldiered forth.

  So much for that. Today her progress was more of a muddle, her legs more wooden than lithe as they carried her along. The breakfast Donell mentioned sat like a rock in her belly.

  Had her initial arrival in the past met her expectations, she might have managed a more brazen advance. However a momentary paralysis of nerves and wit inundated her when she arrived with nauseating abruptness — not in the whisky shop or any sort of shelter at all — but rather on the outskirts of a ramshackle fishing village with the harried bays of a herd of blackface sheep to announce her arrival. Their protest had startled her as much as her change in environs.

  Everyone thought the wee buggers were so adorable. They scared the feck out of her.

  Aye, well, she conceded, she might have a latent phobia or two deep down.

  “I truly do appreciate ye coming back so readily when I called,” Aila said to Rab, who trotted obediently by her side without the aid of a leash. Amidst an uproar of baas and scattering of sheep, the dog raced through the herd with a merry bawl of woo-woo-woo. Her response had been more akin to a squawk of alarm. “What I’d have done if ye had no’ come back…. Aye, aye, I ken well enough,” she continued as if his quirked ear conveyed a spoken opinion on the matter. “Panic, most like. Nay, nothing so drastic as curling into a wee ball of despair, I’m quite certain. Well, fairly certain at any rate.”

  Though she’d known deep inside…somewhere…that the village would be elsewhere. Reality overrode logic, leaving her so shaken she hardly recognized herself any more than her surroundings.

  The only buildings she recognized from her time were the church at the center of town and the jail perched along the waterline. Here, both were under construction nearing completion, shiny and new. The contrast was more difficult to digest than she’d imagined it would be.

  The original village stood upon the grounds of what was the castle’s parkland in her time, some distance along the lakeshore from where she’d arrived. Leaving the fishing boats to continue their placid bobbing in the loch, she headed in that direction. The blockish grey towers of the old castle loomed over the village like a portent of doom. A massive squared block on the right side was connected to the one on the left by a slant-roofed building punctuated by tall, pointed gables. The connecting wall was broken by a trio of arched openings, maybe to a portico of some sort, its only attempt to relieve the otherwise militant façade.

  “At least I now understand why the duke would want to build a new one,” she directed her conversation to Rab once more, desperately glad Donell insisted she bring the dog. “That monstrosity is a medieval nightmare.”

  Aila paused her slow progress to heft her trunk up a bit higher to relieve the growing strain on her shoulders and consider her surroundings. At the southerly fringes of the old village, the inn where she’d spent the night that had conformed so nicely to the town standard of white and black now stood in stark contrast to the rest of the buildings. By comparison with her time, the old version of the village was humbly bland. The neatly white-washed houses and orderly geography of the Inveraray she knew had been reduced to a rambling village of thatch-roofed cottages of either peat or stone huddled around a cluster of wooden structures with business placards hanging from the eaves.

  The muddy lanes twining throughout were designed to lead one nowhere in particular. Villagers pulling handcarts or carrying bundles stopped, one by one, to stare curiously as she continued on. A few appeared distrustful. It seemed a disproportionate degree of suspicion toward a friendly visitor to the area. Aila couldn’t decide if they were merely a generally suspicious lot or if the greeting were particular to herself. Given the pointed looks at her dress, her appearance didn’t help the matter.

  She shouldn’t have chosen such fine clothing. The ornate gown and the rich cloak were several steps above the apparel worn by the generally simple and well-worn clothing worn by the women in this time and place. She couldn’t have looked like any more of an outsider if she’d tried. Her
breakfast grew an ounce or two heavier in her belly. There was little chance any questions she asked regarding the treasure or the Boyce clan would be met by anything other than further wariness and a silence stonier than the castle walls.

  “There is some bit of convoluted fuckery afoot, for certain,” Aila lowered her voice. “Auld Donell is playing me. He must be. Remind me how I got lured into this again? Is my life so boring that the merest mention of excitement would entice me into such a scenario?”

  The dog’s brows twitched.

  “Ye could at least attempt to disagree.” She sighed. “Let’s review at the facts, shall we? I have nae idea which Boyce I’m searching for. Nae way of knowing which cottage holds the prize. Auld Donell’s remark about challenges aside, I’ve been sent on a wild goose chase. Nothing more.

  What should she do? She could try her luck at the newly built inn? She could duck in, push the button to send her back to her own time and confront Donell over his plate of sausage and black pudding.

  Likely send Violet into a tachycardic tailspin at the same time.

  Or she could get over it and pretend to actually relish this adventure.

  Take what Donell had said about whisky and savor each moment. Just run with it. Aila’s pause was long enough for Rab to stop sniffing about and stare up at her, ears perked, as if waiting for the answer.

  The correct answer.

  “Fake it until ye make it. Isn’t that what they say?” The dog let out a chuff of agreement.

  She shifted her grip on the trunk handles, and with the shepherd once again at her side, carried on using the castle towers as a beacon. While not her ultimate goal or destination, relieving herself of her heavy burden and getting her bearings was a priority.

  Eyes followed her as she made her way through the village. Granted, she watched them as well, her anxiety finally subdued enough to turn her focus outward. She wagered it was common enough for a modern individual to picture villagers of the eighteenth century in a particular fashion. That being the case, she hadn’t truly expected the men and women she passed to appear quite so downtrodden. Most seemed more tired than suspicious. A few were haggard, almost sickly. One man bent over between two buildings and vomited as if to verify the notion.