Page 19 of Taming the Highland Misfits
Finley reddened. “I’m sorry, Isla, but I cannae read,” he told her. “My Da said it was a waste of time, an’ a blacksmith had nae need tae learn fancy stuff like that.”
Isla could have kicked herself. Of course, a humble blacksmith could not read! Very few working-class people could. She tried to make light of the situation as best she could. “Then I must teach you,” she said, smiling. She took the bottle from him and looked at the label. “Yes, it’s French, from the Loire region. I am not too knowledgeable about wines but I have heard of this place.”
Finley sat down and looked into the fire, thinking of his mother. She too had loved wine on the very odd occasion when she could get it.
“You are thinking of your mother, aren’t you?” Isla asked softly as if she had read his mind.
“Yes,” he answered sadly. “I still miss her every day.”
“Then we are in the same boat.” Isla sipped her wine and put her hand on Finley’s where it lay on his thigh. It had been meant as a gesture of comfort, but she was surprised when he turned his hand around and grasped hers tightly. She felt closer to him, knowing that they were both going through the same pain.
“At least you were spared the pain of finding your mother,” Isla observed. “I will never forget her face, so still and pale, and her body, cooling down but still a little warm. After she died, nothing in my life seemed to go right, and the result is what you see now. I am a fugitive from the very man who is supposed to protect me from the world. Instead, I need to be protected fromhim.”
Finley looked at the tears glittering in Isla’s eyes, then he shifted a little so that she could lay her head on his shoulder, but did not move to put his arm around her. A moment later, he felt her hair brushing against his cheek, and the sleeve of his tunic became wet with her tears. “I know how ye feel, Isla,” he said softly.
‘Yes, he does know,’she thought.‘Better than anybody else in the world.’
Neither of them moved for a while, then Isla raised her head. Their hands were still clasped together, but she felt no inclination to separate herself from him, and neither, it seemed, did he.
“Thank you for everything you have done for me these past few days,” Isla said. “What can I do to repay you?”
“Teach me tae read,” Finley replied promptly. “That is all I want.”
“I will be very happy to do that,” Isla replied. “Do you have ink and paper?”
“Auntie left some,” he answered eagerly. “She learned fae the local minister. He taught a lot o’ people tae read, but Auntie Bettie hadnae the skill tae teach me.” He could not believe it; all he had ever wanted was to be able to read books, and now he would be able to. It was a dream come true, and he had this wonderful woman to thank for it. Who could have foreseen that the pesky wee girl from the forge would turn into his teacher? He looked forward to their lessons; he foresaw a lot of laughter, and for the first time in a long while, he was hopeful.
* * *
As he had expected, the first lesson was a great deal of fun, since Isla was a very patient teacher who did not laugh when he made mistakes. His first clumsy attempts at writing made him cringe inwardly with embarrassment, but he persevered, and that same evening he learned the alphabet and how to write his name. He still felt like an idiot compared to Isla, but he was determined that he would not feel that way for long, mostly because he wanted to impress her with the speed of his learning. He went to bed that night reciting the letters of the alphabet over and over again, engraving them on his memory so that he could recite them perfectly the next day.
Isla was indeed impressed. She could see before her a very clever man whose hands could create pieces of art the likes of which she would never be capable of producing. He had found ingenious solutions to problems she could never solve, and she was lost in admiration for him. So he could not read? That was only one realm of intellect, and she could see that he had the capacity to pick it up very quickly. He would be reading before autumn—she was determined, and as she lay down to sleep that night she was planning new lessons.
* * *
Finley was tossing and turning on his pallet on the floor of the kitchen. He wanted quite desperately to tell Isla the truth about what he had been doing in the last few years, but he was afraid to take the chance. She was a refined young lady, even though her father was a monster, but he was a criminal of the worst kind.
With his mask, hood and cloak, he was unidentifiable. He had stolen, and committed violence on other men, even though he was gentler with women, and no doubt he had caused some people to be so frightened that they never recovered.
His life had once shown such promise; even if he had never been more than a blacksmith it was still a life of honest work and he would never have felt ashamed of himself. As it was now, he was awash in it. He could never reveal himself to her under any circumstances, and it hurt him because she was such a good and worthy woman, the kind he would have been more than proud to call his own.
Once more he remembered the little girl who had sat with her mother not far away from the forge, staring at him as if he was an object of worship. At that time he had found her extremely annoying, but now he could look back and love her innocent admiration, even though that was not what he wanted from her any more. Now, he wanted her in a different way, in the way that a man wants a woman, but he knew he could never have her.
He got up and paced restlessly to the window, then breathed in a great lungful of the fresh, damp evening air. It was a beautiful night; even though the occasional cloud scudded across the sky, it did not block out the sight of the full moon. It was bright, almost full, and cast its light over everything, gilding the landscape with silver.
‘Stay as long as you want,’he had said, before he had really thought about what that entailed. He could not sleep on a thin mat on the floor for however long it took Isla to become well again, and eventually his supply of money would run out. What would he do then? Before, he could just have gone out and stolen some, but now even the thought of doing that was repugnant to him. He was seeing himself through Isla’s eyes, and what he saw was an abject failure of a man, one who had started his life with so much promise, and then thrown it all away.
He gave an exasperated sigh, then lay down on his pallet and closed his eyes, but it was a long time before sleep claimed him.
8
The next morning Isla rose from bed early and put on one of her new dresses. It was a little big, but she pulled the ties tightly around her waist so that it felt quite comfortable. It was dark blue in colour, made of wool, with long sleeves and a modest round neck. Underneath it, she wore a white tunic and looked just like a common working woman, which was exactly what she had aimed for.
Unless they heard her voice or knew her already, Isla was sure no one would mistake her for the rich daughter of a merchant. She had bathed while Finley was out the previous day, so she was clean for the first time in over a week, and felt about fifty pounds lighter.
The pain in her head was gone, the cut had crusted over as it healed, and Isla felt better than she had in weeks. She wondered what had happened to Maura, and once more cursed her father for his brutal treatment of her. Every time she thought of the scene she had witnessed, her father trying to force himself on her, the terrified look in her eyes, Isla’s blood boiled.
Isla often wondered what had happened to her father to make him into the brute he had become. Had he always been that way? Perhaps bad people were just born that way, she thought, but even if they were, and her father was one of them, there was not a damned thing she could do about it now. She growled in frustration and was about to embark on another round of fretting and worrying when the door opened and Finley came in carrying a brace of rabbits and a basket of newly picked mushrooms.
