She was desperately curious, as she tucked herself into bed, but she knew she had to be patient. This was Aelfred's story, not hers — this wasn't a case she'd been hired to investigate, this was her friend's traumatic upbringing, and she wasn't going to go into investigator mode unless he wanted her to. That being said… the minute he wanted to, she'd be there, guns blazing, strategy planned…
She fell asleep plotting it all out — the people she'd ask, the way she'd go about tracking down his village, even the specific questions she'd start with. Her dreams were all about the thrill of the chase, hunting down the information, shadowy figures coalescing here and there as she pursued them relentlessly through thick clouds of fog. They were the kinds of dreams she always had when she was in the thick of a case at work, and they always made her feel giddy and thrilled. But when she woke up, she felt thwarted, somehow. This wasn't her case. Just a case she was very interested in…
She headed down to breakfast and found Aelfred already there, eating with his cousins, talking in low voices about something or other. Filling them in on the previous day's events, perhaps? She shrugged, leaving them to it, but it wasn't long before he came to find her, clearly pleased to see her, and offered to spend the rest of the day riding with her. The best thing for improving riding skill, he told her with one of those dazzling smiles he was so damned good at, was practice, after all.
The next few days turned into the next few weeks, easy as anything. The two of them became fast friends, quickly adapting to spending every day together, riding whichever horses weren't currently being used by anyone in the castle or on the Watch. Her favorite was always the chestnut gelding who'd been the first horse she'd ever ridden, but as her confidence grew she rode more and more of the stable's collection of horses, her confidence growing even more as she got to know that her new skills were applicable to any horse, to any steed's personality.
Aelfred, for his part, quickly developed a reputation as being very good with even the most ornery of horses. He became very fond of the stable's handful of stallions, intact male horses who were feisty and powerful, and very, very fast. They must have reminded him of the horses back in the Fae, she supposed — they were difficult creatures to ride, challenging and fierce, but to her surprise, force wasn't the tactic he used to tame them. It was more like a conversation… more like a dance, with him giving way just enough to corner the horse into doing what he'd actually wanted it to do all along. Sometimes, she got breathless just watching him, worried for his safety though trusting absolutely that he'd come out on top.
And all the while, her crush on him grew deeper… and harder and harder to ignore.
Chapter 19
“Tell you what," Aelfred said bright one morning as they were eating breakfast. "Let's go somewhere we've never been before."
That caught her attention. They'd spend the last week riding well beyond the castle walls, exploring the trails through the forest and around the Loch — but their routes had generally avoided any human settlements beyond the nearest village, for some reason. Not that she minded… guiltily, she had to admit privately that she didn't like sharing his attention with anyone else. He was a striking man, and whenever they were around other people, he drew attention… attention that drew his attention, in turn, away from Melanie. Was that selfish of her? Perhaps. But she wasn't going to admit that to him aloud, was she? "Where were you thinking?"
"There's a road that runs through the village," he pointed out, and she nodded, remembering the layout from their visit to Leah's a few weeks ago. They'd returned once or twice to say hello, always enjoying the woman's company, but they rarely stayed long in the village. "We could see where it goes."
"I think it goes to another village," she said idly, taking another spoonful of porridge to hide her sudden excitement. The truth was, the village road ran directly to another village, maybe an hour's ride away, and it was a village she was especially interested in visiting since she'd asked around the staff of the castle, just casually, about what other settlements there were around here. There were at least half a dozen villages within riding distance, so she'd been told… and the closest one beyond the one they'd already visited, it turned out, had a tavern smack bang in the middle of it, making it a distinct possibility that it was the village that Aelfred was originally from. But she didn't want to drop that information on him right now — didn't want him to suspect she'd been asking around about his past, even though she had. He didn't look suspicious as he looked back across the table at her, shrugging his shoulders.
"I suppose we could go visiting," he said with a smile.
She bit her lip, not wanting to drop any sudden surprises on him. "It could be — you know. Your village," she pointed out, keeping her voice low.
He looked a little troubled at the suggestion, and she felt tension creep into her shoulders. They hadn't discussed the matter of his home village since that first visit to Leah's. Melanie had gotten the sense that he didn't want to talk about it, and she wasn't going to push him into considering something he didn't want to consider. His healing process was his own.
"Keep that in mind."
"Aye, I suppose it could be," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Still. I wouldn't mind a longer ride today. And if it's a nice straight road, we might even have a gallop."
Her eyes widened a little in surprise. Over the last few weeks, they'd learned three of the horse's strides — the walk was easy enough, the trot a little more of a learning curve, and the canter, fastest gait so far, was a lurching, rollicking gate that always made her a little nervous, as exhilarating as it was to move with a horse that was running at speed. But a gallop… that was a little frightening. "Are you sure I'm ready?"
"More than sure, I'm certain," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. "You're a born horsewoman, Melanie, I promise you. Besides, I think your favorite gelding is free today," he added with a smile. That made her feel a great deal better. If she was going to go unbelievably fast on horseback, she'd prefer to do it with a friendly, familiar horse under her.
"I don't even know if he can go that fast," she pointed out with a shrug of her shoulders.
Aelfred chuckled. "Well, a gallop is only a fast canter, and we know he can do that from last time. So." He shrugged his shoulders. "What do you say? Shall we give it a try?"
She nodded, grinning. His enthusiasm was always so infectious — it always managed to draw her out of her worry or apprehension about something. And so far, all of his ideas had been good ones. They headed out with a packed lunch and a spring in their step, looking forward to getting on the road. It was overcast today, the sky gray and threatening to drizzle, but she'd long since stopped minding about that. Her wardrobe of borrowed and gifted clothes had quickly expanded to include a cloak that was more or less waterproof, and when it rained especially hard, Aelfred had a knack for finding good trees to shelter under.
On the ride out, they paused to chat with a few of the guards, who had gotten to know the pair of them quite well over the last few weeks, keeping track of their comings and goings. They were very curious about Melanie and Aelfred, these men, and after their initial wariness had faded, the two of them had found themselves peppered with questions about where they'd come from, and especially their trip through the Burgh. One of the guards hadn't believed that it was possible to age in the Fae, and insisted that Aelfred must have been mistaken, that he'd been somewhere else since he was a child — or else he wouldn't have reached the age he'd reached. But he was quickly disabused of that notion by his colleagues on the watch, who argued with him fiercely as Aelfred and Melanie had ridden away.
"Are we always going to be a curiosity, I wonder?" Aelfred said to her, raising an eyebrow.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, Julia told me that all of the women got similar treatment when they first got here," she explained. She and Aelfred had talked a lot about the other women, about what they'd been through when they first got here — knowing their stories made her feel
a lot more comfortable about her own, a lot less lost and alone here. "The gossip dies down after about a month, that's what they said."
"Well, I'm looking forward to it," Aelfred had said, shaking his head. "I was enough of a curiosity back in the Fae. I was hoping that among my own species, I might be able to fit in and lead a normal life, but it doesn't seem like it…"
She nodded, knowing how he felt. The servants had been peppering her with curious questions too, mostly about her wardrobe. They'd done her the favor of washing her old clothes, the modern clothes she'd come here in — but in returning the neatly washed and folded clothes to her room, they'd had about a thousand questions about just what the fabric was that her trousers had been made out of. She regretted fiercely that she didn't know more about what denim was or what its long history was — the tight, stretchy denim that her jeans or denim leggings, really were made of was a far cry from what she usually thought of when she talked about denim, and she honestly didn't know what the difference was. When had blue jeans been invented? she wondered, fighting the mad urge to laugh. Were her pants likely to cause a time paradox? There wasn't very much she could do about that now, was there, she thought, shaking her head as she watched the servants head off down the hallway, deep in conversation about how best to replicate the strange fabric with the sewing and weaving techniques available to them. Maybe Scotland would have a sudden renaissance in blue jeans. Or maybe nothing at all would come of it — it was just idle chatter, that was what her friends reassured her when she expressed her worries to them.
Today, though, there wouldn't be any chatter or questions. Today, they hung around with the guards just long enough to be polite, then set off into the bright morning, dew still clinging to the grass as their horses' feet swished through it.
"Do you think you'd like to visit your home village?" she asked after a long pause, glancing across the space between them at him.
He was fidgeting with the reins — the saddle and bridle still weren't things he was completely comfortable with, despite how at ease he looked on the back of the horse — and he looked up at her with a sudden closed look on his usually open face.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean — if this village we're riding to turns out to be where you're from…" She took a breath, shrugging her shoulders. "We could go and talk to people if you'd like. I mean, we don't have to, but I wouldn't mind…"
"I don't think so," he said shortly, turning his eyes back to the road.
Melanie felt her heart sink. Had she offended him? "I'm happy either way," she told him, winning a sidelong glance and the hint of a smile from him. "I just like spending time with you, Aelfred."
That got her a proper smile, and she felt relief wash over her as he tipped her a wink. "Me too," he confided, eyes shining, and she blushed a little as she turned back to the road.
Were they flirting? She was almost certain that they were flirting… but you never could quite be sure, could you? That was the thing about flirting… you knew it when you saw it, but the whole point was to have plausible deniability. He'd certainly implied a fondness for her and an attraction to her quite a few times, with words that had kept her up long into the night reflecting on exactly what they'd mean, but there was nothing she could pin down and point to as having been explicitly flirtatious. Then again, she supposed she'd been the exact same with him, never quite teetering over the brink of friendliness and into flirtation. Honestly, the most forward she'd been was that first morning, when she'd told him her standards for men were very high and he'd asked if he was meeting them yet.
She hoped he knew, on some level, that he was not only meeting them, but exceeding them with aplomb. No man she'd ever met had been so kind, so thoughtful, so attentive — he was honest with her about how he felt, and what was more, he seemed to honestly, truly care about her. Her thoughts, her opinions, her feelings… he remembered what she told him about herself and asked questions about it later, and all without the lingering, unpleasant expectation she'd always detected in the men she'd dated that she'd sleep with him.
And paradoxically, she thought with another blush, the less he seemed to expect sex from her… the more she wanted to give it to him. Not that she was going to think about that right now, of course. That was a good way to get thoroughly distracted… and if they were going to ride fast, she needed her wits about her. She'd never galloped before. And no matter what Aelfred said about her being a natural equestrian, she was still worried about falling off and breaking her neck. Something told her that medical care in medieval Scotland wasn't going to be quite up to the challenge of mending a broken spine, no matter how ingenious her friend Karen was with the tools at her disposal.
They reached the road beyond the village by midmorning… and it wasn't long before Melanie had completely forgotten why on Earth she'd been so worried about riding fast in the first place. The chestnut gelding beneath her seemed to perk up when he saw the long, flat road stretching out ahead of them, and he barely required any urging from her to break out into a loping canter. She sat to the gait easily, taking deep breaths, keeping herself calm as she moved the way Aelfred had taught her, making sure her weight sat on the horse's joints the same way its own muscles did, trying to be as little of a burden as possible… and then, she whooped for joy as Aelfred came thundering past her on the gray stallion he was riding, a horse he'd taken a special liking to because of how ornery and difficult to tame it had been.
Her gelding seemed determined to compete. With barely any suggestion from her, he lengthened his stride, powering along rapidly to keep pace with the stallion, who huffed and flicked his ears back as though offended by the challenge. The two of them blazed down the road, laughing and shouting as they raced each other, exhilarated by the thrill of it all. Why had she been so afraid of going fast? Going fast was amazing! And when she felt the gelding begin to huff and puff beneath her, she almost felt a pang of regret as she eased him back to a canter, then a trot, then a long, loose walk. Aelfred wheeled his stallion around to keep pace with her, both of the horses breathing hard. They urged them to keep walking quickly, not wanting their bodies to cool down too quickly in the cool air for fear of injuring their muscles, and she couldn't help but grin at Aelfred like a maniac.
"See?" he said smugly, gesturing to the horses. "I told you, you're a natural."
"I should have been a jockey," she said, shaking her head. "I knew I was wasting my life as an investigator. I could have been doing that this whole time. I'm short enough."
He chuckled, shaking his head. "It's not about height, it's about heart," he told her firmly. "And there's no such thing as wasting a life."
"I guess not," she said with a smile, looking back up at him. "Plus, being an investigator had its perks, too."
"Do you miss it?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.
She'd told him just about all of her favorite stories from the job — all the exhilarating moments, the near misses, the creepy men and dangerous situations… and she sighed, thinking back.
"I do," she admitted. "Not as much as I miss my dad, but… yeah, I miss the work, too. I miss being armed," she added, wrinkling her nose. "Does that sound terrible? I miss my gun."
She'd told him a little about guns — about the terrible power they held, about how important it was to treat them with respect if you were going to carry one. He'd seemed to understand, likening it to a blade… but she had a suspicion that he didn't quite grasp the full seriousness of a gun. You still had to know how to use a sword — dangerous weapon or not, it was pretty easy to safely disarm someone who didn't know what they were doing, or at the very least keep them from hurting anyone else. But a gun… that was different.
"If my rapier was taken from me I don't know what I'd do," Aelfred agreed, shaking his head. He'd shown her the long silver blade he carried, the beautiful, ornate engraving on the hilt… it was a deadly weapon, and she always felt herself shiver when she saw it.
"I just miss knowing I w
as able to handle myself, you know? If anyone messed with me, I had pepper spray on my belt, or a gun on my hip if it got really serious. Here…" She sighed. "Well, I don't know if it's necessarily any more dangerous for a woman these days, but I know that all I've got to defend myself with is my fists. Not that I'm not pretty dangerous with those, but…"
His eyes brightened suddenly. "Melanie!" he almost shouted, startling her and drawing an aggrieved huff from the weary horse below her. "That's it! That's how I'll repay you for all you've done for me!"
"We've talked about the debt thing, Aelfred —"
But he waved that away impatiently. "Melanie, let me teach you to fight with modern weapons. What you've said about guns… you can have that power, still. I can teach you to fight with a knife and a short bow and you'll be every bit as deadly as you ever were back home."
She frowned, giving the thought some consideration. Hadn't she been jealous of Anna and her skill with a sword? "Won't it take ages?" she said, hesitant.
"Mastery, yes. But the basics can be covered very quickly, given enough time and dedication. And I've seen how dedicated you are to learning things," he said, gesturing at the horses. "Look how quickly you've learned to ride! I saw you racing along that road," he told her firmly, his eyes shining. "You looked like a woman who's been riding since she was born. You'll pick up the blade and bow just as well, I'm sure of it."
She couldn't help but flush at the description, flattered and pleased by his praise. "I mean, if you think you can teach me…"
"I know I can teach you," he corrected her firmly. "Come on. Let's get back to the castle. We can make a good start this afternoon, I think — I know the watch have wooden weapons we can use for now, and I've seen the dummies they use for training somewhere, I'll borrow one…"
Trusted By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 16