Page 71 of A Rogue in Twilight
“What about your happiness and your incredible gift? Truly, I still do not know if I believe all of this or not. What if I stay and they never come for me? What if we find another way to make peace with all this? I will not destroy it for you.”
“Is that why you refused Struan? For me?”
She nodded, knowing it for the truth, fighting tears. “Also because of the threat to Struan if he should marry me—who knows what would happen to him, or to you, if I fall in love and leave this place? There is the lost fairy treasure to find too.”
“Ah,” he said. “You are so like the fairies. Capricious. Charming. Beautiful.”
“Please listen,” she pleaded. “I want to stay at Kilcrennan, and never fall in love.”
“Too late,” Donal said. “You are far gone in love now. That is the real treasure, lass. Do not give it up for any reason.”
Scratching his inkedpen over paper, James sat at his desk recording his most recent findings and thoughts. Earlier that day, while afternoon sun slanted golden through the windows, he had labeled the rocks and bits he had collected up in the hills, arranging them neatly on a small table. Now he was eager to develop his thoughts about the finds.
Lava, volcanoes, floods, tidal waves, earthquakes, and other catastrophes caused massive shifts of land and sea,he wrote.The physical record formed then and remains now in rock and stone: ripples and layers seen in rock, cracks formed in mud that dried in the heat of the sun and turned to stone, and the fossil remains of marine shells, plants, mammals, and reptiles—.
Osgar sat up from his nap by the desk and whined. James glanced down. “Did you know,” he said to the dog, “that even before the Greeks, man has noted evidence of a long-ago sea that surged as high as the mountains? Did you know whole continents once lay underwater? Or so we think. Rock preserves a record of the truth and the secrets of the earth and astute observers can interpret them. The past is key to our present and our future. Ah!” He scribbled the words.
The dog tipped his head as if trying to understand. James sighed and thought of Elspeth, who would surely have listened and asked something that would stir his thinking. He felt a sharp longing, missing her. She was never far from his thoughts.
Sanding the ink, blowing gently, he set the paper aside and reached for his grandmother’s manuscript. He needed to finish this wretched fairy business and move on with his research—though he dreaded breaking ties with Elspeth when the fairy nonsense was done.
A knock at the door had Osgar leaping to his feet with a deepwoof.James stood and opened to door to admit Eldin, who looked his usual grim and unreadable.
“Come in, Nick. May I send for coffee or tea?”
“Thank you, no. John and I will depart shortly for Loch Katrine. What a handsome animal,” his cousin said, petting Osgar. “A proud and ancient breed.”
“Aye.” James wished Osgar would growl at him, but the wolfhound merely nudged his head under Eldin’s hand for more. Greedy beast.
“I only need a moment of your time. Mr. Browne mentioned to me that you may sell this house. I am prepared to offer generously for it.”
James frowned. “I have not decided.”
“James,” his cousin said. “You should know that the addendum in Aunt Struan’s will regarding my role in the inheritance was entirely her doing. I did not influence her.”
“You corresponded with her often over business dealings, so you could easily have discussed it with her.”
“I only assisted her in some investments. She placed some capital in enterprises such as jute, herrings, and salt to support Scottish industry. She made more than a little profit in illicit trading as well to support the whisky industry in particular. My aunt believed that Highlanders had suffered enough in the Jacobite rebellion and the Clearances that tossed them from their rightful homes and lands. Her intention was to help Scotland, but she earned extra funds that way.” He shrugged. “She seems to have added me to the will as a contingency if her wishes are not met.”
“Then you know the conditions of the will.”
“I do, and I wish all of you luck with it. Very unusual.” His eyes were an intense dark blue, cool and hawkish.
“Some of us are convinced that you exerted influence over her.”
“I did not. Nor was I responsible for other unfortunate events in the family,” he responded in a cold tone. “I am unfairly accused of causing Archie MacCarran’s death.”
“You watched our cousin, Fiona’s betrothed, fight and die on a bloody battlefield and stood by when he needed help,” James growled. “You choose to save yourself.”
He glanced down at James’s leg. “You did not save him either. But you were seriously injured and must not recall the day correctly.”
“I do,” James said, on the verge of throwing the man out. Beside him, Osgar barked loudly and trotted to the window that overlooked the lane that led to the house, then stood to his impressive height, paws on the glass, barking again.
“What is it?” Eldin asked.
“Visitors,” James said, seeing a gig pass beneath the trees to approach the house. The dog woofed again. “Down, lad,” James told Osgar. But he knew why the wolfhound was excited. A person dear to him was on her way. Dear to James as well.
Elspeth rode beside Donal MacArthur. She wore a plaid shawl, and her bonnet partly covered her dark-as-night hair.
