She continued along the path with one eye on the children as promised while they sprinted back and forth. The shepherd chased them, then the stick, then the pair again. Aila was pleased by the smiles and laughter given what Finn had said about his daughter. She was pleased, too, by Rab’s unfettered joy. The playful pup with the lolling tongue bore virtually no resemblance to the somber shepherd that had greeted her in the whisky shop two days ago. He was thriving on the attention Niall and Effie showered him with and on the open spaces. No matter what Donell said, the dog needed the affection the children provided far more than she needed the protection he could offer her.
A cool breeze pulled at her skirts and swirled like a whirlwind beneath them raising goosebumps up her thighs. This was why she rarely wore dresses. Scotland was no place for bared legs, especially in the colder months. Most especially when one wore no underwear.
Because said underwear had been ripped from her body in a fit of passion.
The recollection was worth a bit of a shiver itself.
Lord knew, she didn’t need protection from Finn. She needed protection from herself. Her knees still rather wobbly after her encounter with him. Honestly the cold wind had done much to cool her flaming body.
“Where are we going, Mistress Marshall?”
Effie’s small hand slipped into Aila’s with a tug that had the same effect as Finn’s sentimental reasoning for her to accept the position as his nanny. A tug at her heartstrings. She’d been tempted to accept his offer for that alone.
Not to say he’d seduced her into it. His ability to sway her thoughts whilst pinned to a wall…or door…had nothing to do with it. In fact, her abrupt change of heart in agreeing to take the position had surely left his head spinning. She couldn’t blame him. She’d run hot and cold on the subject herself. Wanting to stay, then railing against it like a banshee….
Albeit to say, she’d thought she had grown beyond such bouts of anger. Her fury with the dichotomy of man versus woman. Role versus proper role as proclaimed by society. Labels that chafed and restricted. Her therapist would be most disappointed with her. As would Violet.
As was she.
Unfortunately, she’d have to let Finn wonder at her sudden reversal. To offer any portion of the truth would lead to questions she couldn’t answer.
“We’re on a treasure hunt.” She smiled down at Effie who skipped along by her side and squeezed the girl’s hand. Poor Jean. She couldn’t help but sympathize with the harried nursemaid now. The pair were a handful. Fifteen minutes ago, both had been squeaky clean. Now after running amok in the mud, clothes, bodies, and hands were in desperate need of a washing. “And if we’re to be friends, ye must call me Aila.”
“Ye’re no’ a friend.” Effie wiped her nose — dribbling in the cool morning air — on the sleeve of her free hand. A thorough washing. “Da says ye’re to be our nursemaid.”
“I prefer being friends,” Aila insisted. “So much better than nursemaid, aye?”
Effie’s face lit up with a bright smile. “Rab is to be my friend, too, then?” At her nod, the girl continued, “We used to have hounds in the stables…before. But Da would never let me play wi’ them. They were for hunting.”
“Well, Rabbie isnae like them. He is for fun only.”
“And helping us find the treasure?” Effie whirled in a circle under Aila’s arm and bellowed her brother’s name. “Ni-i-i-all! We’re hunting for treasure!”
The lad, who’d taken to running ahead in broad zigzags around the trees, circled back around to Aila’s free side. “What sort of treasure is it? Pirate treasure?” He wielded the stick he’d been throwing to the dog like a sword while Rab hopped alongside, ears erect, and pupils so dilated with delight and anticipation his eyes were almost black.
“More like the Holy Grail.” Thinking curiosity would rein them in, she lowered her voice to a furtive whisper. “A treasure lost for hundreds of years and it is our quest to find it. Our noble quest.”
“Oooo.” The pair shared a grin while the dog shuffled in time with little hops, eyes glued to the stick in Niall’s hand. “Like knights?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve read a book about knights.” His words tumbled one over the other in their rush to be spoken, much in the same manner as he ran hither and yon as if to do everything at once. “I like to read…sometimes. Do ye like to read? I like Gulliver’s Travels and Robinson Crusoe. When he encounters the cannibals—”
“Niall,” Aila interrupted, “have mercy on poor Rabbie and throw the stick before he has a stroke.”
He frowned up at her, the expression a perfect copy of his father’s. “A what?”
“Oh, give it here.” Aila took the stick and flung it as far ahead as she could manage. Rab bounded away and the children pursued the dog with the same enthusiasm. If nothing else, the chase should provide opportunity enough for her to come up with a tale worthy of the treasure. Something sensational to keep their interest and therefore well behaved while she investigated the matter. With the children tagging along, perhaps she wouldn’t be subjected to the same suspicion that had followed her through the village the previous day.
Not that she was going to the village today.
Today, her search was more pointed, her destination vaguely ahead somewhere.
As was the man she followed. The minute she’d seen Mr. Boyce pass through the bailey from the window above, she’d taken it as a sign that she was in the proper time after all. Staying on as the nanny provided the perfect excuse to…well, stalk him. If that was what it took.
She’d lost sight of him as the sparse trees of the parkland grew more dense. Two hundred years before, trees would have ruined the sight lines for the castle’s defense. These days, the relatively young cropping of fruit-bearing trees marked the perimeter of the castle grounds. A separation between nobility and the rabble beyond. If the dukes of Argyll were anything like the supercilious Mr. Derne, Aila would be willing to wager they hadn’t wanted to see the village out their windows any more than the current one. The one who would soon decide to relocate the village well out of his line of sight.
Where the village lie south of the castle, however, Boyce took the path west. Toward the mill, if Ian were to be believed. As they passed through the orchard, she was rewarded by the sight of a more definite destination in the distance.
Rab’s excited bark drew her attention and she turned about with a sigh of exasperation.
Weather eye, my arse, Aila thought.
This would be much simpler if she didn’t have two of the most hyper children in history in her charge.
“Niall Keeley! Out of that tree right now.” He stuck out his tongue at her and kept climbing while his sister found a foothold on the lowest branch and scrambled up behind him. “Effie! Come down this instant! Dinnae think I willnae come up there and get ye!”
Their hoots and hollers dared her to do just that. If she were in denims and a jumper rather than encumbered by layers of long skirts and a weighty velvet cloak, she would have obliged them and dragged them down one by one.
Option two: bribery.
Aila dug into her pocket and withdrew the candy bar she’d retrieved before setting out from the castle. She always kept a few in her purse. An emergency stash to stave off bouts of hangriness between meals.
This one was about to provide more satisfaction than ever before.
Rab swerved around at the familiar crinkle of the wrapper. He trotted over and sat at her feet with a look that told her he expected a treat. He might as well have held out a paw, he was so obvious. “Sorry, sweet lad, ye cannae have this.”
Awash with guilt over his disappointment, Aila turned her back on the dog and broke off a bit of the bar. She popped it in her mouth with an only partially feigned moan of delight. The food here was hearty, but there’d been no signs of sweets thus far. With a sweet tooth as powerful as hers, the absence of a nightly pudding had been a blow worse than her first encounter with the garderobe
.
“What are ye eating?” Niall called down with open suspicion.
Effie didn’t wait for a response. She slid off her branch and ran to Aila’s side with the instincts of a bloodhound on the trail. Or a child to chocolate. Her eyes darted from the candy to Aila’s face, then back again. “What is it?”
“Sweets.”
“Let me see,” Niall bellowed as he skinnied down the tree and to her in a matter of seconds. “Let me see.”
“That’s hardly a polite request.”
The lad swiped his palms down the front of his breeks — as if that somehow made a difference — and clasped his hands before him. “May I please see it, Mistress Marshall?” The words were drawn out with exaggerated courtesy and a too-broad smile.
Aila held out the candy to their round of exclamations. “Tunnock’s Care…am…eel,” Effie read off the red wrapper. “What is that?”
“Caramel,” she corrected, “is gooey goodness.” She pointed to the end of the bar where she’d broken off her bite. “It has layers of wafers, caramel, and chocolate. It’s like pudding after dinner but better.”
They both looked skeptical. Niall’s nose wrinkled. “Dinnae look like much to me. No’ as good as marzipan.”
“Our cook used to make it into the shapes of animals for us.” Effie clapped her hands at the memory.
“She’d make them into tall towers —” Niall stabbed a hand into the air with a leap to match “— or top them on cake, or at Christmastide she’d—”
“It’s far better than that,” Aila interrupted before he could talk her ear off again. Sugar was probably the last thing the boy needed, but since she needed compliance and cooperation to keep her sanity, she let it slide. Breaking off two small bites, she handed one to each of them. They eyed the offering with dubious frowns. “Go on then.”
The moment they put it in their mouths and their eyes began to widen, Aila turned and strolled toward her destination with a smile…and another piece for herself before tucking the remainder back into the wrapper and into her pocket. A second later, she had a child hanging off each arm.
“What is it?”
“I’ve never tasted chocolate like that before. It’s ever so tasty,” Effie sang out. “May I have more, Aila?”
“Aye, more!” Niall demanded, then descended into a series of pleas designed to drive an adult mad. Or into complying for no other reason than to regain peace.
“Ye may have another if and only if ye behave for thirty minutes.” Their expressions fell into disbelief. Aye, perhaps that was asking a wee bit much. “Twenty then, and no’ a peep from ye or ye’ll no’ get another bite.”
They stared up at her, wide-eyed and lips sealed. Bribery might have been the wrong approach to take, but the blessed silence was its own reward.
“Brilliant! Come along then.” Aila set off again at a brisk pace.
“Where are we —” Niall elbowed his sister in the side before she could finish the question which set up a wail of injury. In turn, the lad defended himself. And chaos was once again master.
So much for that. At least they followed her instead of running off again.
Making haste before they changed their minds, Aila hurried toward her destination. Perched on the bank of the River Aray, the stacked stone building stood two stories high and was topped by a gabled slate roof. At its side, a water wheel stood motionless. Crossing the waters via a small stone bridge, she climbed the steps to the only door she could identify, and finding it open, knocked on the wood frame.
“Hello? Mr. Boyce?”
Chapter 13
“What hae we here?” The miller’s wary greeting softened into a smile when Niall and Effie bounded up the steps with Rab close behind. “Well, well, what hae we here?”
The second intonation was far more welcoming than the first.
“Good morning, Mr. Boyce.” Aila extended a friendly hand in his direction, before her fingers curled and she withdrew.
Ian might not think the illness plaguing the area to be contagious, but Boyce had the look of a man taken down by a vicious flu. His complexion was greyish, and as she noted the previous night, he appeared to have lost weight. On the other hand, while she was no physician, he didn’t appear feverish so much as fatigued. Moreover, his delight as he greeted the children brought a flush of much-needed color to his cheeks. “If it isnae young Master Niall and wee Miss Euphemia!”
“Ye ken Mr. Keeley’s children?”
“I’ve seen them aboot and occasionally underfoot in the kitchens.” Boyce wiped his hands on a ragged towel and tossed it aside before stepping through the door where he pet Rab. “My apologies for my rudeness, mistress, I feared ye might be Mr. Derne come to further pester me. I dinnae believe we’ve met.”
In the light of day, she realized his illness, whatever it was, added years to his appearance. Up close, it was obvious that she’d overestimated his age by at least a decade, if not more. There was no chance this Boyce was old enough to have done some service worthy of reward for the first duke nearly fifty years before.
That didn’t mean he didn’t know the clansman who had.
“I’m Aila Marshall, Mr. Keeley’s…nanny.” She choked on the word. “So sorry to intrude, I dinnae want to bother if ye’re unwell.”
Nor was Finn likely to forgive her if his children came down with whatever had been plaguing the village.
“I was under the weather, but I’m on the mend now. Nothing to fear,” he insisted. “What can I do for ye?”
“I thought the children might gain some educational benefit from watching ye work.” Both children looked prepared to contradict her, so Aila forestalled the protest with a finger to her lips and a conspiratorial wink.
“Oh aye.” Niall caught on quick and responded with an exaggerated wink of his own. “We would love to be educated.”
“I’m afraid I wouldnae have much to offer today.” The miller stepped back into the building and waved them in. His pace was slow, however she noted none of the shuffle that had marked his step the night before. The children darted past him, exploring every corner without invitation while Rab moved with more caution, sniffing the floor. A series of windows on either side of the building provided the only light. On such an overcast morning, the room was dim and rather cheerless. “As ye can see there’s no’ much to see.”
Cheerless it might be, nevertheless, his assessment was wrong in Aila’s opinion. There was something unusual to see. In the center of the room stood a large millstone. An exact duplicate of the one she’d last seen on her tour of the castle garden in her time.
“The Blàr an Buie.”
This would-be cursed stone was free of the moss that covered it and lacked the weathered erosion of the centuries between. The stone pedestal, though, was identical. Water pooled on top and around the base where a bucket with a wet rag hung over the side stood. Another flat stone of the same diameter hovered a few inches above it, suspended by a crossbar of timber and iron with a cone-shaped hopper attached to it.
“Beg pardon?” Boyce asked. “Did ye say something?”
“Nay, sir. Nae milling today then?”
He shook his head. “Givin’ the stones a wee scrubbing is all.”
Aila nodded, tearing her eyes away to scour the space for a clue to the treasure she sought. Wooden braces overhead supported what she assumed was the mechanism that drove the stones. A series of belts, scoops, chutes, and augers of indefinable purpose crowded around them. Any of it might provide a hiding place, albeit an impractical one. Full bags were stacked against one wall next to a wooden bin full of raw, dried oats. A narrow staircase stood against the opposite wall, and she wondered if there were storage above or if perhaps Boyce lived there. If that were the case, how could she search it without his notice?
“What is that for?” Effie tugged on Boyce’s leather apron and pointed to the hopper.
“Well, ye see, lass.” The miller rubbed his hands together, his haggard face lifted with del
ight for the conveyed curiosity or the love of his craft — or both, Aila supposed. Though it could have been relief from the tedium of his day that drove him. He crouched next to Effie and directed her attention to the bin of oats. “There are the oats that the farmers bring me. They fall through the bottom where they are picked up by this elevator —” he pointed out the belt affixed with small buckets “— and carried to that chute to fill the hopper. The oats come out the bottom, then along this trough to be ground between the two stones. The bottom is the bed stone which disnae move, and the top is the runner. It rotates, grinding the oats between the stones. See these channels here?”
He pointed at the grooves that radiated out from the center to the outer edge of the stones like spokes on a wheel. Aila leaned in despite herself while Effie ran her fingers along the hollows with a soft “O-o-o-o” that brought a satisfied smile to the miller’s lips. Having been brought up in a shipping community and then moving to Edinburgh, the mechanics of where grain came from wasn’t a subject Aila had ever been schooled in. She was also curious about the oats because the bread on the table the previous night had been a wheat bread.
“This wheel —” he pointed to the taller of two iron circles set horizontally on metal posts “— controls the flow of water that turns the turbine that moves the runner stone. And the other adjusts the distance between the two stones.” He demonstrated the second, drawing Niall’s attention along with all his questions.
Rab followed and snuffled around the broad stone base, a low growl building at the back of his throat.
“Rabbie,” she admonished the dog who continued to growl, hackles rising at the back of his neck. “Rab, what the…” Biting her tongue, Aila grabbed the scruff of his neck and dragged him away with an apology to the miller. The shepherd persisted, straining toward the stones so she pulled him toward the door and outside. “What is wrong with ye?” She waved a finger to accompany the admonishment. “That’s nae way to behave in company. Now ye’ll have to wait out here until we’re finished.”
A Good Scot is Hard to Find (Something About a Highlander Book 2) Page 11
