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

by Angeline Fortin

  “The problem is that…well, I think he lo— likes me.”

  “And so he should,” her friend chimed in and reached out to pat her knee. “You’re extremely likable.”

  She was going to make her say it. Aila fought the urge to cover her face again and deny this whole conversation ever took place. “Could be that he likes me more than he should.”

  During those long days in the nursery, Finn would often tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear or touch her arm or shoulder when she passed by him. She’d wondered if he was even aware of his actions. They’d slept in shifts while the children’s fevers raged, but several times she awoke to find him cuddled up behind her in the trundle bed. He was so endlessly affectionate with his children.

  It had taken a long while for her to connect those casual gestures to a growth in his feelings for her. Add that to their more intimate conversations and that final night with him…. It could have been no more than her imagination, but he had used the word adore.

  Brontë’s look bespoke complete understanding. “Oh, and how do you feel about him?”

  “I was only there for a week.”

  “Yikes. That much then?” Her friend offered a faux wince before her laughter returned.

  Aila hit her with a glower that would have withered spring flowers. Rising, she took her empty glass to the sideboard with the intent of refilling it only to realize it would be pointless. No amount of alcohol could wipe Finn from her mind. Nor could it compel Brontë to cease her questioning.

  “My point is,” Aila stressed meaningfully as she turned to face her confidante, “I cannae be with someone who would want to change me into someone I’m no’. Expect me to be someone I’m no’. Been there, done that. I willnae try it again. I dinnae want to see Finn hurt in the end. That’s why I left.”

  “How do you know he would have such expectations?”

  “Finn isnae like Tris. He has preconceived notions of a woman’s place in the world.”

  “He can learn to know better.”

  “And if he could no’?” She went to the window and looked out over the inky garden. “Moreover, what if I find I cannae live in that time?”

  “I thought you said you liked it there.” Brontë twisted around to watch her over the back of the sofa.

  “Aye. It’s no’ like Tris’s time where there’s a least the prospect of equality. I’d be considered little more than spare baggage back then.”

  “Come now, Aila. If this man cares for you, surely he wouldn’t treat you that way.”

  Aila stalled with a shrug while she sought a logical argument. “Even if he dinnae, who would I be in a world like that? I have a career here. Ye might be able to translate yers into fashion design but there’s nae place in the past for a makeup artist.”

  “A career?” Her friend frowned at the word. “Forgive me, I know you enjoy what you do, but I’ve always gotten the sense you were merely passing time at the theater, waiting for something better to come along. Maybe this is your something better.

  It would be better if she could walk away from this conversation. Brontë must enjoy this moment of payback, turning the tables in retribution for the unsolicited advice Aila had forced upon her friend when she struggled with her growing feelings for Tris. Being the voice of reason was far preferable.

  “Argue all ye like. In the end, I have to ken I can still be me. I cannae lose who I am. I’m no’ sure that’s possible there. Simple as that.”

  “I would argue there’s a chance you might find yourself instead.”

  Exasperation pursed Aila’s lips. “This isnae a game of what ifs, Brontë.”

  “I’m not trying to make light of your worries. I’m trying to give you a chance for love. Happiness. If it turned out you didn’t like it there, there are options. Tris and I have found a balance that works for us both,” her friend suggested. “Maybe something like that could work for you.”

  “It’s no’ only Finn I have to think about.” Others she had the potential to hurt. “He has bairns, a family. They cannae be jumping back and forth like ye.”

  “Maybe they could come here to stay?”

  Aila stared out the window and pictured Finn in her time. He’d hate floundering in the unknown, hate being helpless in a modern world. “He’d never do it. Finn is a man who likes to control his own destiny.”

  “So you’d rather not even try?” Brontë asked softly. “When you love some—”

  “Ye think I’m in love with him?” Aila cringed away as if it were catching. She retraced her steps to the sideboard and refilled her glass. “Och, nay! That’s no’ it at all.”

  “Isn’t it? You were always trying to set me up. Swipe right, swipe right. What a nag you were.” Brontë laughed again. “You wanted me to find love, yet always told me I was mental for chasing it. More to the point you wanted me to find what you hadn’t been able to. Well, my friend, your white knight has literally come into your life. Are you really going to sit there and deny it when you practically cried simply speaking his name? What are you afraid of?”

  Aila returned to her chair and sat, staring into the full glass. “I’m no’ afraid. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact I dinnae love him enough to give up my life for him.”

  When her friend spoke again, her voice was low. “You say you can always tell when I’m lying. That street goes both ways.” Brontë took the untouched glass from her and took a sip, grimaced and set it aside. “You want to know what I think?”

  She shook her head. “Nay, I dinnae. No’ a bit.”

  “I’m going to tell you anyway. You’re afraid of admitting you love him because you see it as a sign of weakness.”

  The words hit so hard, Aila flinched. By God, Brontë had her spot on, didn’t she?

  “You don’t want to be wrong.” Brontë jabbed a finger in her direction. “You don’t want to be vulnerable. And you don’t want to be the one who’s hurt in the end.”

  Aila ran her hands over her face. Gah, Brontë was right. Truth of the matter, she’d hadn’t fled from the past because of some overinflated fear of life in a sexist world. Her flight had been fueled by fear of her own feelings, the uncertainty of how Finn might use them against her.

  Love was vulnerability. Vulnerability was weakness. It allowed a person’s emotions to be weaponized against them. She’d seen it happen to her mother time and again. Her mother would throw her tattered heart at the feet of every man who came and went through the revolving door of their lives and let them trample it. It had gained her nothing beyond a life of emotional servitude and a slow painful death without one of those bastards at her side to comfort her.

  Aila had no intention of ever putting herself in such a position. She wasn’t going to change who she was for a man. She wasn’t going to give who she was completely over to one as if she had no value. If it turned out that Finn expected her to be something she wasn’t and never would be, it would break her heart. That’s what it boiled down to, didn’t it? Even worse, what if she let this thing between them become a relationship, and then decided she couldn’t live in a world with those same expectations?

  She couldn’t bear the thought of causing Finn a moment’s pain.

  If she permitted it to become a relationship.

  And she wouldn’t…couldn’t take that chance. For herself. Especially for him.

  Brontë scoffed as if she could read Aila’s thoughts. “You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever known. As much as I love you, you have this whole love thing wrong. It won’t kill you.”

  “Ye cannae ken that,” she argued. “Love nearly killed my mother before the cancer got to her. It hit her in the face, kicked her in the ribs, and broke her arm when she dinnae do something right. I swore I’d never be like her, giving everything I had for nothing.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t be nothing. Maybe in that crusty cookie layer is a man worthy of your trust and faith.” Brontë popped the rest of the candy into her mouth. “Are you truly going to let your future
happiness hang in the balance because you’re too afraid to try? You don’t know that he would want you to change. You don’t know that he wouldn’t love you as you are.”

  “That’s precisely the problem,” Aila retorted, ready to curl into a ball against the barrage of arrows her friend slung at her. “I dinnae ken. No’ a single thing.”

  “Then go find out.” Her friend wedged herself into the chair with Aila and hugged her close. “As Tris said a little while ago, perhaps the treasure Donell wanted you to find was a different sort than the one you expected.”

  Aila hugged her back. “Gah, I hate ye.”

  “Ha. I love you, too.”

  Inspiration hit. “I couldnae. Even if I wanted to. I dinnae have the device any longer.”

  “You mean that device? Nice try. Even if you didn’t have one, I do. So that excuse was never going to work.”

  Aila looked where her friend pointed to see the white oval amid the jumble Brontë had dumped out of her purse. He’d been in her purse?

  That wily auld bastard had thought of everything.

  Maybe, but he hadn’t counted on her, had he?

  Chapter 25

  Inveraray, Scotland

  Late September 1748

  “Good morn, Ian.” Finn scanned the servants’ hall before taking a seat at the table. A heaping platter of eggs, blood sausage, and haggis at the center of the table and the half-empty plate in front of his friend indicated Ian hadn’t been there long. “Have ye seen Aila about this morning?”

  “Nay, perhaps she’s still asleep? It has been a rather long week for us all.” Ian gestured to the platter of food. “Tuck in, will ye? I think that new maid Elspeth is flirting wi’ me via the stomach. She’ll keep pestering me until that plate is empty.”

  As comely as the kitchen maid was, she’d have a grave problem on her hands if she thought to win over Ian’s affections. They were fully engaged with Fiona, whether she flew with the angels or not.

  Finn had a grave problem with his own affections and little time or will to dwell on those of another. Besides, he’d broken his fast hours ago. “She’s no’ abed.” Nor had she been when he’d woken to a cold bed before the dawn. “Her dog is also gone.”

  Ian shrugged and continued eating. “She might have taken the beast for a walk then. She seems to enjoy doing so.”

  She did, true. And she had proven herself an early riser, awaking before him each morning when it was his usual habit to be up with the sun. Still, Finn couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. Awash with contentment in the aftermath of their passionate love play, he’d been in too much of a stupor to pinpoint it last night. The way Aila had lain stiff in his embrace, without a word to say…. While he couldn’t speak to what, precisely, in the morning light he thought he must have done something to upset her.

  Questioning her about the marks on her hip, perhaps? The many hours and nights they’d made love in the dark, he’d never had occasion to notice them before. It was possible she’d engineered their encounters to that effect. To keep him from seeing the birthmark, scar, or whatever it was. That didn’t make any sense, either. Aila wasn’t one to be ashamed of any portion of her behavior. He’d have to think that philosophy would extend to her body. One she had every reason to be confident in displaying. She would have shown it to him with the option to like it or not.

  What then?

  “She did say she wanted to return that necklace to Boyce, did she no’?” Ian asked around a mouthful of sausage. “Mayhap she went there.”

  Of course. The errand wouldn’t account for the early hour, but that had to be it.

  “I’ll look for her there. Enjoy yer meal.”

  His friend arched an inquisitive brow. “Ye’re going to seek her out? Should ye no’ be building yer precious castle this morn or might I hope ye’ve come to yer senses at last?”

  Finn tamped down a spurt of irritation. “My men have been hard at work for many an hour already. Something ye would ken, my friend, if ye had no’ slept off yer drink ’til mid morn.”

  A snarl curled Ian’s lip. He lifted a tin cup in mock toast. “Slept it off? Who said I ever stopped, my friend?”

  His hands folded into fists. It was all Finn could do to refrain from yanking Ian out of his chair and beating some sense and sobriety into him. Aye, he might have an issue or two of his own, Finn acknowledged. None as severe as Ian’s. Either drink or a short drop with a sudden stop from the hangman’s scaffold were going to send him to an early grave.

  If ye keep on as ye are, ye’ll join him there.

  Finn turned his back on the wee, nagging voice in his head. He turned his back on his friend, as well. For the time being only. He had no intention of giving up on Ian. Not only for Ian’s sake but Fergus’s as well.

  A mile-long walk in the brisk morning air to the mill did much to clear his head. Alas, when he arrived, he found the mill dark and vacant. With the village as the remaining option, he sought Boyce out at the pub. The taproom, typically bustling at any time of day now that the harvest was in, was vacant but for a few men seated before the fire.

  “Help ye, me lord?” one of them asked.

  “Aye, if ye would. I’m looking for the miller, Boyce.”

  “Sick in his bed,” the same man answered. “Like many this morn.”

  With a nod, Finn looked them over. Each of them appeared the worse for wear. Work-haggard faces ashen and slack. The illness that had afflicted his children was far more common in the village than it was in the castle proper. Odd, that. A majority of the townspeople and the crew working on the castle suffered from mild to debilitating symptoms, whereas a scant few castle workers and residents suffered from the mysterious ailment. At least no one had succumbed to the illness. That was good news.

  “Can ye tell me where he lives? I’d like to pay him a call.”

  Armed with directions to a house on the western perimeter of the village, Finn turned up his collar and headed that way. The streets were winding, some no wider than alleys. A recent meeting with the steward, Derne, regarding the duke’s correspondence had revealed that the duke was considering moving the village beyond the ready view from his new castle’s windows.

  The idea smacked of madness on paper. Argyll would have been better off reconsidering the placement of his new castle rather than relocating an entire town and the sum of its inhabitants, regardless of the vista he wanted from his bedchamber window. Nonsense, all of it. Walking these streets now, Finn could at least appreciate the concept of a well-planned layout with proper avenues to traverse.

  As it was, he was unable to scan the street farther than twenty feet ahead until he turned onto the main lane leading west. He’d covered half the distance when a flash of rich foxlike hair at Boyce’s door caught his eye. Partially obscured by people and handcarts crowding the street, he couldn’t identify the figure with absolute certainty before they disappeared around the corner of Boyce’s residence. He broke into a run, eager to catch up.

  By the time he reached the building, she was gone.

  If it was her.

  He turned to the front of the house where the door hung wide open. “Boyce?”

  * * *

  “Mr. Boyce? Hello?”

  With no response to her knock, Aila pushed open the door and stepped into the cottage where the miller resided. In truth, it was more of a house than a cottage as one might picture with the reference. Wood clad with a slate roof similar to the small shops and businesses that lined the main avenue, it exhibited a level of prosperity other dwellings in town lacked. There were others like it on this end of town whereas most she passed along the way were stone or peat with thatched roofs.

  Boyce lived on the posh end of town.

  The stench that hit her when she stepped inside certainly wasn’t a fine potpourri. While tidily kept, the place reeked of vomit and other unmentionable bodily fluids. Tugging the collar of her shirt up, she covered her mouth and nose. “Mr. Boyce?”

  There w
as a thump above stairs. She called for Rab to follow her. He hung back by the door and — she swore — shook his head. Aila didn’t blame him. She was about ready to gag herself. “Some protector ye are. I should no’ have listened to Brontë when she said to bring ye along.”

  Both her friend and Tris believed that Donell wouldn’t have insisted she keep the animal close if there wasn’t valid reason for it. Aila argued there didn’t appear to be any validity to half of the old man’s design. She’d been overruled.

  “Fine, then,” she told the dog. “Dinnae go far, though. The minute I’m done here, we’re gone.”

  There were no fires lit to stave off the autumn chill. Upstairs, she found Boyce in one of the two bedchambers lying on a bed with one bare foot listing over the edge from beneath the bedcoverings. Aila went to a window, pushed the heavy curtains aside and opened it wide, shedding light — and necessary fresh air no matter the temperature — on the dire situation.

  “Oh my God! Mr. Boyce!” She ran to the bed and gawped at the more faded version of the already pallid man she’d met days ago. Gone was the light of humor and jolly smile. If she were honest, he looked like he was hanging on by a thread. “Are ye all right? Obviously, ye’re no’ all right. Why isnae anyone caring for ye?”

  A chamber pot filled with vomit sat on the floor next to him. Since he looked as though he may need it any second, she was hesitant to do the unsanitary thing and heave it out the window. He retched and she changed her mind, returning it to him as fast as she could. Aila patted his back and offered a sympathetic coo or two until he finished and collapsed back on the bed.

  “Why is there nae one here with ye?” she asked. “Where are yer sons?”

  “Gone to Inverness years ago. We had a falling out,” he rasped out. “Never been back. Why are ye here, lass? What are ye wearing?”