Bridget tucked her feet beneath her, settling in for a grand tale. “But from wounds suffered on the field. ’Tis no less heroic. Come, tell us the story.”
There was a moment of stilted quiet.
Marjorie spoke up. “Bridget, love, I fear I’m too tired for tales of war. Cormac, do find the Chaucer for us.” She gave her husband a meaningful glance.
Cormac rose dutifully, perusing a small stack of books on the side table. It appeared his twin was still doing Marjorie’s bidding, after all these years.
Anya shot Marjorie a relieved look. It’d been meant for nobody else’s eyes. But Aidan prided himself on seeing what he wasn’t meant to see.
Bridget slumped. “Not the Chaucer again. Come now, Anya. Don’t you wish to tell us a story? Just one?”
“I’m just very tired is all,” Anya said. She was a widow at twenty-seven, with a nine-year-old son in her care, who’d recently made the long journey all the way from Argyll, across the length and breadth of Scotland. Aidan imagined she must be tired indeed.
Gregor spoke up, chiding the youngest sibling with his signature easy smile. “She said no, Bridget. So stop your badgering. And besides, you forget I was a cavalryman.” He shot Anya a wink. “I’m in no mood to hear captains’ tales.”
Aidan gave his older brother a thoughtful look. So Gregor had also noted their sister’s exhaustion. For all that easy charm, Gregor saw what others didn’t expect him to see.
Declan stumbled in, a book in hand. It seemed his younger brother’s nose was always to be found between the pages.
“Perhaps Deck can read to us,” Gregor said. “What’ve you got today?”
Declan pointed the cover toward him, even though it’d be impossible to read from that distance. “Peloponnesians.”
Aidan kept his features smooth. Declan had been too young to fight in the Wars, and he longed for battle. Longed to read about it, talk about it, study it. It was all that he’d talked about in the weeks since Aidan’s return. The boy was clearly touched in the head. If he had any real notion of what it was to face his own death, he’d not carry on so about the whole bloody business.
“Oh no, Declan. No.” Bridget flopped backward with a dramatic flourish. “Not the Greeks again. Cormac, get Sir Gawain down. We haven’t heard that in some time.”
“Here it is.” Cormac pulled a yellowed sheaf of papers bound with a leather thong. He tried to hand it to Bridget.
She shook her head, her face alight with excitement. “Oh, no, not me. I’ve just the idea.” She craned her head, catching Aidan’s eye. “You read it, Aidan! You do have the best voice of any man in the family.”
She bestowed regally apologetic nods upon the other brothers. Gregor laughed, Cormac rolled his eyes, and Declan didn’t even seem to notice.
He stiffened. “No. I’m not in the mood for reading tonight. Someone else.”
“Truly, Aidan. Your voice is so gruff, and so manly. With your tanned skin, you’re just like a pirate. So dashing! I want to hear you read the part of Sir Gawain.”
“I’m not inclined to read just now.” Not able, more like. He forced the stern line of his mouth into a smile. He’d not let his siblings know his shame.
“Are you shy? You battled, what, smugglers, pirates, privateers … marauders! And you won’t read us a wee story?”
“I’ve no time for this.” Aidan stood, and with a stiff nod to his brothers and sisters, he left the room.
He didn’t have time for foolishness like reading. He had one goal. One thing alone drove him. He would hunt down the man who’d ruined his life. He was going to find and kill the man with the pearl earring.
He sat on the bed he’d set up for himself in the old guardhouse, staring at his papers. He’d stolen them from a slaver, from a smuggler he’d helped Cormac take down. He knew in his heart that somewhere in that stack of parchment, there was some clue as to his enemy’s identity. But the letters and numbers swam before his eyes, all meaningless loops and lines and dots.
The door opened, and he startled. He quickly shoved the papers under his pillow.
Anya stood there, hovering like a shadow, her pale skin making her seem a ghost of the girl his sister had been. “You can’t read, can you?”
“Must you ask me that?” He bristled, bracing for a fight. He wouldn’t admit to anything. Since his return, his family had clothed him, fed him, tended him as though he were a child. “Haven’t I already suffered enough shame?”
“Easy, brother. There’s no shame in it.” She came and sat beside him on the bed, the heather-stuffed mattress crackling with the added weight.
He barked out a laugh. “No shame in a grown man not being able to write his own name?”
“I’m your older sister. Don’t forget it was I who sang you songs, I who kissed your scratched knees. Listen to me when I tell you, it’s not your fault. Your childhood was stolen from you, and your education with it.”
He couldn’t bring his eyes to meet hers, but he sensed her stare, until he felt his face burn.
“Aidan, do you want to learn?”
He thought about the sheaf of papers hidden under his pillow. How would he ever find his enemy if he couldn’t decipher a simple shipping manifest?
She sighed, realizing he had no reply. “Well, there’s no reason you shan’t learn. Think on it.”
She rose, silent as a wraith, but paused at the door. “Tell me, Aidan. The sweetest wee horse, carved of wood, mysteriously appeared in my Duncan’s things. It brought a smile to his face, and trust me, there’ve not been many smiles of late. Do you know how it might have appeared? Where it might have come from?”
He kept his head down, raking his fingers through his hair. “What do I know of toys?”
She was quiet for a moment, then said only, “I thought as much.”
He didn’t look up until he heard her whispered footsteps leave. He stood and closed the door, leaning his forehead against the cool wood. Learn to read?
Could he suffer further humiliation before his family? Would he confess his ignorance, doing lessons and exercises more suitable for young Duncan? But he knew, if it meant catching the man with the black pearl, he’d stake his very soul.
Thoughtful, Aidan dropped onto his bed, kicking back. He pulled a small bundle from his sporran, unsheathed his sgian dubh from where he’d tucked it at his calf. And he began to whittle.
A bit of wood, taking the shape of a knight.
Chapter 3
Elspeth stood before the scarred slab of wood that served as the front door to Dunnottar’s living quarters. A featureless silhouette of the mysterious Aidan MacAlpin had kept her up all night. Would he be wandering the grounds wearing sailors slops for trousers, topped by a half-opened shirt with sleeves like great bells? Had his hair been lightened by the sun? Would he have a roguish twinkle in his eyes? Would they twinkle for her?
She’d simply had to come see for herself.
She smoothed her skirts, chiding her silly notions. But then, raising her fist to knock, she made the mistake of sweeping her eyes upward, taking in the cavernous ruins the MacAlpins called home, and she snapped her hand back down. Last time she’d visited, her family had had more money. Her dress hadn’t been quite so threadbare. She, not quite so desperate.
But it was Anya, she assured herself. Anya wouldn’t care about last year’s dress.
Mustering her courage, she stepped forward to rap on the door just as it flung open. A man bolted out and knocked right into her. His hands grabbed her upper arms to steady her. She met his eyes, and the breath was stolen from her lungs.
He was tall, broad, tanned. And as dangerously handsome as any rogue she’d conjured for herself in the past twenty-four hours. His features were masculine, with a strong nose, full mouth, and an unruly thatch of dark brown hair. She stared at his blue eyes, willing them to twinkle.
Aidan? She opened her mouth to ask, but all that came out was a squeak.
Straightening his arms, he placed her away from him. “Who are you?” His voice was gruff and as rich as island rum.
His eyes never strayed from her. “Who are you to enchant me so? I’ve been waiting. For you.”
She gave a seductive laugh. “You wicked, wicked man. You know I’ve been here all along.”
She hiccuped in a breath. “I … I… I’m—”
He gave her a puzzled look, then turned, and leaning back inside, shouted, “Bridget! Someone’s here for you.” He gave her a brusque nod and stormed from the castle and out of view.
She swallowed hard, her arms tingling where he’d touched her.
“I must run.” He reached out, the backs of his fingers trailing down her cheek. “But I shall return for you.
Our ship sails at dawn.”
“Hello?” Bridget stood in the doorway. Her perplexed expression said Elspeth had been standing there, staring into space, for a few seconds longer than was customary. “Oh, it’s just you.”
Anya appeared behind her sister, her eyes going wide. “Elspeth!” She turned and held a bucket out to Bridget. “Be a dear, will you? I was off to fill this, but…”
Bridget let the implication hang for a moment, and then with a grand huff, took the bucket and edged past both of them out the door.
Anya stood in the doorway, smiling. But Elspeth saw through the surface cheer to her friend’s exhaustion—in the strain of Anya’s posture, in the faint purplish circles beneath her eyes. And yet, despite it all, Anya was even more ethereally pretty than she’d ever been.
“Anya,” she said, joining her in an embrace, “you’re as lovely as you ever were.”
Anya pulled back, taking in Elspeth’s face. “And you.”
She returned Anya’s smile, accepting the lie for what it was. She knew lovely was a word that would never be used to describe her. But she’d long ago told herself that though she might be plain, she wasn’t decidedly ugly, and that was something indeed.