“If you want to ride back home and think about the case, I’m happy to put off this visit for another day,” Elena teased him.
He shook his head. “And delay the pleasure of your company for another day? I don’t think so,” he said with mock ferocity. They rode up the main street, Brendan pointing out the various buildings of the town — the tavern, the local store, the blacksmith… It was a tiny little place, and Brendan confirmed that the majority of the residents lived in the surrounding areas. There were woodcutters, crafters and farmers, all spread out across the countryside — but the village was where they came for human contact, to socialize, to get their horses shod and their equipment repaired. It was a sleepy little place, but beautiful, in its way. Elena was especially drawn to the huge old church at the top of the hill — they rode up that way, and she realized with surprise that there was a figure in priest’s robes out the front, furiously digging in the front yard.
“Hallo, Father Caleb,” Brendan called.
The priest looked up. Elena was surprised by the man’s youth — he was barely into his mid-twenties, and he was one of those young men who’d never quite grown into their frames. Even under the robes, he was clearly a gangly, skinny young man. But he drew himself up with great pomp and circumstance when he saw Elena.
“Good afternoon, Brendan,” he said stiffly. “This must be the new arrival I’ve heard so much about?”
“I’m Elena,” she said, smiling as she reached a hand down for him to shake. He shook it after a minute pause, looking a little taken aback. Perhaps that wasn’t the usual method of greeting people. “Good to meet you, Father.”
“I hate to bring it up, Brendan, but I’m afraid I have some bad news about the wasting contagion that has been plaguing our men,” Caleb said solemnly.
Elena frowned, looking at Brendan, who looked worried too — they’d just made such useful progress on the case. “A dozen more reports — these from outlying areas, I’m afraid. Same symptoms, same age range, same odd sense of secrecy about their maladies. Oh, and a few wives reported a handful of the men waking in the night, moaning about the woman in green.”
Brendan was soon deep in conversation with Father Caleb about the locations of the new victims… but Elena was a million miles away, and several hundred years. She’d just made a connection with her own case, a case she’d thought she’d left behind when she traveled to this place… a case that was back, with a vengeance, now that she’d made the connection that if she could travel in time, then so could somebody else.
The case of the woman in the green dress.
Chapter 39
“I almost wish I could get around to the houses tonight,” Brendan said in a low voice as they rode away from Father Caleb. “But it’s too close to dark now, and it would be too dangerous for the two of us to be out so late. Not when there’s some Fae monster stalking the night.” He took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair, clearly stressed.
“Tomorrow,” Elena said, trying to sound confident. “You’ll have time tomorrow to go and check it all out. They’ll be okay until then. At any rate, probably best to check in with Donal and Malcolm before you start investigating, isn’t it?”
He was grinding his teeth, barely listening to her, and she felt a twinge of annoyance at that. “They were getting better… what happened? What changed?”
“You pulled the guards in, didn’t you?”
“Aye, they were getting overstrained, working shifts on the wall and shifts in the village… do you think that could be it?” He stared at her over the neck of his horse, looking shocked. “Do you think the guards were — of course. Of course! They were keeping the beast away with their iron!” He ground his teeth. “I should’ve realized sooner that this was Unseelie work. I’ll have to talk to Donal, get the men armed up with cold iron dirks again, warn them what they’re dealing with…”
“There’s time,” she promised, recognizing the signs of a detective whose caseload was spiraling out of control. “Just — one step at a time, okay? First things first, let’s head back to the castle and get something to eat.”
Brendan took a deep breath. “You’re right, of course. You’re a sensible woman, Elena.”
“Only because I’ve been where you are.” She shrugged, thinking of the murder case she’d been working on. It was a conscious effort, sometimes, to put the case down for a minute to allow herself to rest… but she knew from experience that rest made you a much better detective than worrying at the case 24/7 like a dog with a bone. “You have to look after yourself first, pace yourself, accept that you can’t do everything all at once. Like your sword,” she added, nodding at the scabbard at his belt. He looked at her, frowning in confusion. “You sharpen it, don’t you?”
“Aye, of course.”
“So why neglect sharpening yourself?”
He chuckled, giving her an appreciative look. “Aye, that’s a good way of looking at it, I suppose. I’ll try to take better care of myself.”
“Best way to take care of the people around you,” she said smugly, urging her horse into a faster walk to keep up with him. “Now, weren’t you going to teach me a faster gait?”
“Not tonight, I don’t think,” Brendan said, giving her a sidelong look. “As much as you’re doing very well at walking, I think I’d prefer a longer ride home with you.”
She blushed, always taken off guard by his compliments. But as they rode home, she could tell he was distracted. Well, that was yet another thing they had in common — she was distracted, too. Her mind was racing at the connection between these cases in the village and the cases of the men back home who’d been murdered. Hadn’t they been puzzled by their symptoms — emaciation, as though they’d been wasting away for months? Wasn’t that exactly what was happening to the men in the village, to the guards who’d briefly fallen ill, too? And now the common thread of the woman in green who’d been reported at both crimes…
She needed to talk to Una, she knew that much. She’d needed to talk to her the night before, and she needed to talk to her even more now. Whatever Una was, fae or human, she knew something about traveling between the Fae realm and the human one… maybe she could offer some insight into the creature that had been preying on the men in both times. Maybe she’d even encountered it in her own travels.
There was a worry prickling at the back of her mind, too — a worry that had a lot to do with the long, flowing dress that Una wore. She’d only ever seen her in the darkness, and the dress looked black in the low light of the evening… but Elena knew all too well that it was possible the dress was green. It was a little coincidental, wasn’t it? A woman in green had been reported at a bunch of crime scenes, an unknown Unseelie Fae creature had escaped from her imprisonment with the Sidhe numerous times, a woman (possibly) in green had been meeting with Elena by night on the docks…
But she just didn’t want to believe that Una could be responsible for what was happening to these men, for the murders. After all, the evidence was circumstantial at best — didn’t Elena herself technically match the description of the suspect? There were plenty of women in this world, plenty of green dresses. Why, she’d seen Nancy wearing one just the other night, and Nancy hated dresses. No — she wasn’t going to leap to any conclusions about Una having anything to do with what was going on. Not until she’d had a chance to interview her properly. Not until she’d had an honest, frank conversation about what she suspected… about what Una truly was.
They unsaddled their horses quietly, too — Brendan’s mind was clearly elsewhere, and though he gave her a distracted smile when she proudly proved she could fully untack and put the horse away by herself, she knew she only had a small piece of his attention. In a way, that was better… if he’d been paying closer attention, he might have noticed how distracted she was by her own case, by her raging confusion about her friend, the secret friend she was loath to tell Brendan about… the friend who thought Brendan, and all men like him, were bad news… the f
riend for whom she’d thrown away Brendan’s protective iron token.
She’d talk to him eventually, she promised herself as the guilt raged through her. As soon as she knew more about what was going on, she’d come clean, tell him everything she knew, everything she’d found out. Maybe she could even spin her friendship with Una as an investigation — she was protecting her informant, not keeping a secret from him. Would he understand it on those terms, the terms a detective would use? She’d still feel guilty for misleading him, that was for sure.
They ate dinner with Anna, Donal, Malcolm — and Nancy, who had made a triumphant return despite dealing with morning sickness for several days in a row. She ate enthusiastically, if slowly, clearly still a little suspicious of whether her body could handle the food, and Elena smiled in sympathy, remembering that feeling from her own slow recovery from her stomach bug.
“Honestly, I’m still not a hundred percent,” she admitted, chewing on a bread roll. “I don’t know how anyone survives this kind of thing.”
“The baby better be worth it,” Nancy said darkly, provoking a sympathetic chuckle from Malcolm.
“If I could bear it for you, I would, my love,” he said gently, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“Well you’ll be doing the bulk of the caring for it once it’s out of me, at least for a few years,” Nancy said archly. “That’s the deal. I grow it, you look after it. I dress it in cute little outfits,” she added, grinning widely.
Brendan and Donal were deep in conversation at the other end of the table about the developments in the case. The news that the perpetrator was likely to be an escaped Unseelie Fae, as well as the troubling news that the disease had spread to surrounding areas, not just the village, had both of them looking very serious and concerned. Anna patted Elena on the knee, a look of sympathy on her face — she realized that Anna had assumed her own sad expression meant she was disappointed in how her date with Brendan had gone. Well, that was technically true… but not for the reasons Anna might think.
“He’s married to the job, that one,” Anna said softly. “But he cares about you too, I’m sure of it.”
Elena shrugged. “I was married to my job, too. I miss my husband,” she said, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead like a woman in a melodrama, and Anna giggled.
“Well, if it’ll take your mind off it, how about a training session after dinner?”
“Tonight?” Elena blinked, taken aback. “It’ll be dark.”
“We’ll take a torch. It’s good to train at different times of day. Keeps you sharp,” Anna said brightly. “What do you say?”
“Maybe not tonight,” Elena said, trying to think of a good excuse and failing. She couldn’t very well tell Anna she had an important appointment with a suspect in her twenty-first century murder investigation down by the docks, now could she? Not with the men sitting down the other end of the table. Brendan was looking at her curiously, clearly surprised she was turning down the lesson — she’d spent a good part of their ride that day chatting happily about how much she’d enjoyed the training, how much she was looking forward to getting better and better with a sword. She bit her lip. The last thing she needed right now was for suspicion about her evening activities to be aroused… what if a guard followed her down to the docks and saw Una? With the climate of suspicion at the moment, she’d hardly get a fair trial… no, Elena owed it to Una to keep her safe.
“How about tomorrow morning?” she suggested. “I ate a bit too much tonight, but I’ll make sure I have a light breakfast.”
“Works for me.” Anna shrugged, grabbing another breadroll and covering it with lashings of butter. “Hope your blisters are ready for more blisters.”
After dinner, they all parted ways in the foyer… but she could feel Brendan’s eyes on her as she made her way to the spiral staircase. Is he suspicious of me? she wondered as she started climbing. Did he think she was up to something? She could hardly get angry about that, now could she? Brendan might have his faults, but in this particular case, he was spot on. She was definitely up to something. She only hoped she could finish her task before someone caught her.
God, when had she started thinking like such a criminal?
Chapter 40
She hid in her room for a little longer than was probably necessary. She couldn’t stop thinking about Brendan. She was anxious about him finding out about her friendship with Una, that was the trouble. It had gotten to the point where she should have told him about her. Even if she went right upstairs now, knocked on his door and told him everything… he’d still have every reason to distrust her, going forward. The fact that she had a secret friendship with the woman for so long… that she hadn’t even seen fit to mention what she’d learned about her?
The only way she could make it right, she knew, was to get out ahead of him. To finish the investigation herself — to clear Una’s name once and for all, so that when she did go to Brendan with everything she’d found out, she could quickly put all his fears to rest. Right now, she had no conclusive proof that Una had nothing to do with the illnesses of the men… or even proof that she was a human or a Fae, either way. All she really knew was that Una was a tall woman with red hair in a long green dress. Yes, she matched the description given by the sick men… but so did Elena, and she knew that she had nothing to do with it. Una was probably innocent, too. She must be.
Because if Una was some kind of evil witch — why did Elena feel so safe around her? Surely, an evil creature would have begun to harm Elena by now. She’d certainly had plenty of opportunities, sitting out there in the darkness, nobody having any idea where she was… Elena shivered a little, feeling an odd pang of worry about the idea of going out to meet Una now. What if she really was up to no good? But she shook it off. She knew Una — she’d known her for as long as she’d known Brendan. Longer, technically. And she trusted her — she knew that. She trusted her, and she was going to go and talk to her now and try to figure out what the hell was going on.
Resolutely, she set off down the stairs once the castle was mostly empty, moving as quietly as she could. She was jumpier than usual — maybe it was the increased tension around the person she was going to meet, maybe it was the fear that Brendan suspected her of something… maybe it was the growing concern that if he found out what she was up to, he wouldn’t like her as much as he seemed to. That was a worry… she was starting to feel pretty strongly about him, and she knew it would be painful if their growing relationship was cut short. But was she really going to let some infatuation with a tall, handsome guard captain stop her from doing what was right? From protecting her friend, from solving her case? Absolutely not. Resolute, she stole out across the courtyard, glad at least to know that Brendan himself wasn’t on guard duty tonight.
She waited in the shadow of the wall until the patrols had moved by, then slipped down the stairs — it was becoming a regular habit of hers. And to her delight, when she reached her usual waiting spot in the shadow of the wall on the outside, Una was already there. The woman pulled her into an embrace, her skin pleasantly cool against Elena’s, and they smiled at each other for a moment. God, it was good to see her. There was something about Una that just set her mind at ease… made her feel calm and safe. It was as though all her worries from inside the castle just… faded into background static, drowned out by the almost hypnotic pull of Una’s dark eyes.
“How are you, my Elena, my dearest one?”
“I’m good,” she said, smiling back at her. “I’ve been out on a ride today, down to the village and around the place.”
“Oh, yes? Not with that terrible guard captain?”
Elena frowned, feeling a pang of guilt. “Yeah, I went with Brendan.”
“Elena…”
“I needed him to show me the way,” she protested. “Besides, we’ve been investigating what’s going on in the village. Have you heard? A lot of people are falling ill, wasting away… we were looking into what might be going on.”
<
br /> “People in the village, sick?” Una tilted her head. “Women, falling sick? Children?”
“It actually only affects men, it seems. So far, anyway.” Elena shrugged. It was tempting to just talk — but she reminded herself that she had specific questions for Una, concrete information that she needed to get out of her. “Una — can I ask you something?”
“Anything, my darling.”
“Are you…” She hesitated, almost shy about the question now it had come time to ask it. “You know a lot about the Fae… the Sidhe were keeping you prisoner… I don’t want to be rude, but are you… are you Fae, or human?”
There was a long silence, broken only by the lapping of the waves and the gentle murmur of the wind. Una’s dark eyes were fixed on her face, and a strange expression was playing in them — something like a smile, but darker than that, older. “What do you think, Elena?”
“I think…” Elena took a deep breath. “I think you’re older than a human woman who looks like you ought to be, Una.”
“Good instincts,” the woman purred, her eyes lighting up with approval. Elena breathed a sigh of relief, and Una touched the side of her face curiously. “You were worried. Worried, to ask me this.”
“I was, a little. I wasn’t sure if you’d be offended.”
“Of course not, Elena. You wouldn’t do anything to harm me. I trust you. But are we still friends? Can we still be friends, though I’m so much older than you?”
“Of course we can,” Elena said, surprised. “I don’t care how old you are, Una — or what you are, whether you’re human or…” She hesitated. “What are you? Can I ask what kind of Fae creature you are?”
“What am I,” Una said thoughtfully. “Well, what are you? What are any of us? This disease you say is affecting only men. You’re worried about it? You want to cure it?”
Swept By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 3 Page 24
