Page 26 of A Rogue in Twilight
“If you wander these hills, be careful. You may encounter theDaoine Síth.”
“The dowin-shee?” He looked puzzled.
“It means the people of peace in Gaelic. The fairy folk. The caves and hills in this glen are their territory. Geologists should take into account that otherworldly creatures may inhabit the subterranean earth.” She smiled.
“Not if they value their reputations.” He sat forward. “I am also here to study my grandmother’s work on fairy lore. Perhaps you can help me understand some of it.”
The thought excited her, but she only smiled. “Studying the rocks here might bring some surprises. Fairies are everywhere here, or so they say.” She felt a little mischievous.Sitting here before you,she thought,if family lore is true.
“I cannot believe in fairy nonsense, but I promised to work on her unfinished book, and I must honor that. Tell me about the fairy riding custom,” he added.
“They ride in this season of the year especially, but might be seen at other times. The ‘time-between-times’ are the hours when the curtain between our world and theirs can grow very thin—dawn, twilight, midnight, mist, and some holidays too. Halloween, and so on.”
He tapped fingers on the table, thoughtful. “Just when visibility is poor enough to allow for tricks of the eye and mind. I see.”
“I think you do not see,” she murmured. “Though you could, if you wanted to.”
He quirked a brow again. “Well, the custom has frightened the living wits out of my staff. Between the banshee in the foyer, the ghosts in the house, and the fairies in the garden, the maidservants who came from Edinburgh have packed up in haste and left. They could not get away fast enough.”
“Southrons.” She laughed. “Highlanders do not mind such things.”
“Even the Highland staff have gone because of this fairy riding business. From what I hear, everyone avoids Struan House and lands this time of year.”
“Not everyone. But no one wants to be taken by the Fey, you see. Legend says they ride through this glen and across this estate at this time each year. Neither you nor I should stay here, come to that.”
“I am not intimidated by legends.” Then he smiled, and it was so warm and genuine that she felt herself relax. “But you are the expert, being a fairy yourself.”
She nearly spit out her tea. “What do you mean?”
“One of the housemaids claimed there was a fairy in the garden, and she departed in great haste. She must have seen you out there.”
“That was not me, unless it happened just before you came outside. Perhaps it was one of the fairies of Glen Struan.” She frowned, wondering what Grandda might have said about that.
“Of course, that is the explanation. Such stories are part and parcel of folklore. By the way, I saw your grandfather’s name in my grandmother’s manuscript. She seems to have respected his knowledge of tales and traditions. So I thought I might talk with him about some things.”
“About your grandmother’s book? Or about me spending the night here?”
He huffed. “Good point. I suppose—both.”
Elspeth laughed too. Sitting here with him so peacefully, sharing a meal while the rain lashed the windows, she felt good. She liked him, she realized. Quite a bit, in fact. His intelligence, his stubbornness, his wit, even his skepticism was sharp and intriguing.
She stood. “The dishes need cleaning. I will do that.” She carried her bowl to the work table while Struan brought the rest over and fetched warm water from a kettle to fill the wash bowl.As she cleaned the tea things, he helped, and within minutes, the dishes were cleaned, dried, and set away. Then Struan took the lamp from the big pine table.
“I’d best close up the house. There are no servants here to attend to any of it.”
“A Highland laird sees to the shutting of his own house, regardless of servants,” she said. “Even in fine Highland houses, it is the laird’s responsibility to bolt the doors and look to be sure the fires are banked.”
“Then I am a good Highland laird this night. I hope locking up is custom rather than necessity here in this glen.”
“We have not had cattle raiders or feuding clans for two generations or more. There are whisky smugglers in the hills, but they keep to themselves even as they bring their goods along the lochs and rivers to the sea. We hardly see them, and if we do, we look away. The next day a keg or two might appear on the doorstep.”
“I suspect we all benefit from their work by cover of night.”
“The people of the glens definitely benefit from the efforts of Highland smugglers who move Highland whisky and other goods—wool, yarns, laces, hides, and such—to avoid unfair taxation and put the coin in the pockets of the folk who need it most.”
“Ah,” he said. “The noble smuggler.”
“Here, it is more often true than not. We look after our own. Only English pockets and accounts are deprived of coin.” She shrugged. “What disturbs the peace of any house in this glen is not kept out by locks, unless they be bolts and latches of iron.”
