A Good Scot is Hard to Find (Something About a Highlander Book 2)

by Angeline Fortin

  Finn covered his eyes with one hand. When he looked again, surely the world would have righted itself. “Aye, exposing his perfidy to the world. I told ye, he raped my wife.”

  “Aye, he deserves to be called out for his behavior. Can ye do that? Is it even legal?” she asked. “Gah, Finn, he could kill ye instead, couldnae he?”

  His wife. His wife. It made no sense. He shook his head hard. “She killed herself.”

  “Aye, ye said that.” A soft caress stroked his temple. “I think ye hit yer head harder than I thought. We should get ye to a doctor.”

  “She left a note,” he reminded himself. “It confessed everything. It was in her hand. She said she couldnae live with the shame. She threw herself in the river.”

  One of his tenants had seen her at the riverbank.

  Then how had she been sitting in the solar moments ago? Of her own free will? Why had she called Etteridge my dear?

  “We never found her body.” Uncovering his eyes, he stared up at her in disbelief. “We never found her body. Och, it disnae seem possible. She staged her own death and…ran off with that buggering ponce?”

  “What are ye talking about?”

  Faithless, scheming…. Hell! Bloody fooking hell, Ian had been right about her. “My wife is alive.”

  “What?”

  Birdsong pierced the dumbfounded fog pervading his mind. Finn sat up and glanced around again only to be thunderstruck once more. His head swam. “What have ye done to me? Did ye pull me outside?”

  In the blink of an eye? And alter the weather while she was at it?

  “I’m sorry. I did what I felt I had to do to stop ye.” Aila petted his arm as one might soothe a spooked horse. “We are exactly where we were a few seconds ago, only about two hundred and seventy years later. Give or take.”

  He had no need of more fairy tales. “My head is splitting, lass. I beg ye, nae more of yer tales.”

  Framing his face with her hands, blue eyes overflowing with…sympathy? She turned his head to the left. Finn’s heart knocked hard against his ribs before his eyes even registered what he saw. With a hard blink, he looked again but the image before him did not waver.

  A castle. One he’d only seen in sketches and in his mind. One that mere hours ago had been no more than three feet tall. It stood before him tall and proud, a rounded tower topped with a conical cap on each corner. The walls connecting them rose three stories high with another, narrower addition above.

  There should be another floor. That’s what Aila had said.

  And there was.

  His head swam and he swallowed back the urge to retch. “What have ye done?”

  “I told ye, I —”

  Finn batted her hands away. He didn’t need to be coddled like a child. He needed the truth. Preferably one far more palatable than the bitter ones he’d been dealt in the last few minutes.

  “I dinnae care. I dinnae care what it is. Send me back.”

  Send her back. He’d said those words when Elliot had brought Aila to him for the first time. When she’d turned to go….

  Had her ludicrous story contained some truth? Nay, it was impossible! What she’d suggested was impossible. Beyond the whims of man or science.

  She’d told him she was leaving.

  Losh, is this where she would have gone? So far from his reach?

  “I will,” soft words assured him. “We have to move to a safe spot first. I dinnae ken if Ian followed me or no’. If we go straight back…. I’m sorry, I dinnae ken the precise time to make it appear instantaneous. We’ll have to return somewhere else where we ken nae one will be standing.”

  “Now ye’re havering, lass.”

  “I am. I’m sorry. I just cannae think of the best way to explain it.”

  “Start with that.”

  She turned her head to follow his finger. “That is Inveraray Castle, home of the Duke of Argyll. The thirteenth duke, presently.”

  Finn rose to his feet, again shaking her off when she tried to provide succor. He was a grown man with a good head on his shoulders, one who took pride in his education and intellect. It was a blow to his manhood that she didn’t believe him capable of absorbing this bizarre reality. Even if he wasn’t entirely certain he was capable of it himself. Blast, it would be nice to have her wrap her arms around him.

  “Dinnae treat me like a bairn, lass.”

  “I’m sorry.” Aila dropped her hands. Her face fell much in the manner it had when he’d dismissed her earlier. Etteridge’s arrival had brought with it none of the pleasure for which he’d long hoped. He’d done nothing but bungle every minute since.

  “And stop apologizing,” he added, spoon-feeding his remorse.

  “I’m—” She bit back the words and glowered at him, nose wrinkled. “I’ve apologized more in the last ten minutes than I have in years. I’m no’ in the habit of doing things I’ll be sorry for later. This I did in a moment of panic and without consideration for yer feelings. And for that I am sorry. If ye want to go over there near the side of the castle, I will take us back.”

  Something unexpected rebelled in him at the thought. By rights, he should want to leave this place as promptly as he’d arrived. He needed to return to his children. And to the ugly revelations that had been left behind.

  Finn rubbed his temples, wishing he could drive one particular surprise from his mind. This astonishing journey Aila had taken him on and the mind-boggling actuality before him were easier to accept and far more palatable than the discovery that Marta was alive and well. He needed time to ponder the information. Accept it. And decide what steps to take. Whatever time that may be.

  Including this one.

  At least he no longer need dwell upon taking his vengeance on Etteridge or consider that he might by chance die in the duel he’d meant to challenge the earl to and leave his children orphaned. As his mind cleared, so did the certainty that his wife had been complicit in her disappearance.

  Aila hovered at his side. Several sizes too large, her billowing shirt nearly fell from her shoulders. Untied, the deep open vee bared her collarbones and exposed an unseemly wealth of cleavage of which she appeared unaware. Her voluminous breeches were gathered into one fist to hold them up. That was what had delayed her pursuit, nothing more. Her calves and feet were bare, toes curling in the grass. Her plait had frayed allowing long strands to frame her face and straggle down her neck. She should have looked ridiculous.

  All he saw was the uncertainty in her bonny blue eyes. She might prevaricate and omit glaring truths, aye. She might argue with him, berate him for his moments of shortsightedness, and try to put him in his place. Never would she betray such a solemn vow, he knew it. She would stand by his side, prepared to catch him should he fall, as she did now.

  And he would trust her to do it.

  What would become of them?

  “I’d like to see inside.”

  “Really? Sure. I’ll have to get tickets so I’ll need to get my phone from the car….” She waved a hand between them as if to erase everything she’d said. “Simple answer, aye. I’ll need to do a few things. Would ye prefer to wait here or come with me?”

  She gestured to a gravel field on the far side of the castle dotted with small containers encased by windows on all sides. They varied in size and color. Each had thick wheels. Vehicles. Carriages? He didn’t want to know. Finn studied the castle as Aila went to one of them. His gaze strayed when she opened a door and disappeared within.

  Nay, he did not want to know.

  Eyes forced back to the castle, he tried to focus on the changes made from those applied to paper. He couldn’t keep his eyes or his mind from wandering. The land to the immediate left of the castle, where according to his plans the main entrance to the building should be, was concealed by a thicket of trees, weeping willows and hedges. Finn rotated in a slow circle, taking in the loch to his right, the rugged hills, then the twin stone arches of Inveraray Bridge partially obscured by a wealth of trees. With the except
ion of the glaring absence of the medieval fortress he’d lived in for the past year and the humble village that stood outside its walls, the landscape within sight was much the same as his.

  With slow measured paces, he followed the route Aila had taken, and with a stab of satisfaction, discovered the main entrance where he’d believed it should have been to begin with. If one stood at the door, the splendor of the vista across Loch Fyne to the mountains of Dun na Cuaiche beyond was just as splendid. Unchanged. Except it was springtime.

  Finn wiped his hands over his face, trying to contain the racing of his heart. A less disciplined man would panic. Nay, any man would be well justified.

  Would that this and all he’d seen and learned in the past ten minutes were only a dream. Better the blow to his head had knocked him senseless.

  * * *

  Aila declined the offer of the audio tour for herself and Finn as they entered the castle. For his part, he ignored the tour guides just as he’d studiously looked away while they scanned their tickets off her smart phone at the door. As he diligently avoided looking at her since she’d changed into the long plaid flannel shirt, leggings, and booties she’d had on earlier that morning before she’d donned her manly disguise.

  In turn, the tour guides and a few visitors ogled him. What a sight he was. Even with his shirt open at the front to his chest, Finn cut a dashing, Darcy-esque figure in his long coat and tall boots. She wasn’t the only one who thought him swoon-worthy by the look of it.

  The sword at his side was an impressive addition. Good thing the attendant at the door hadn’t noticed it. She doubted if Finn would be taking this so well if he were unarmed given the way he gripped the hilt.

  Once inside, he drew in a deep breath and exhaled it with audible relief. He was once again among the familiar and visibly glad for it. Eyes darting around the modest space, they landed on a portrait to one side.

  He tapped the frame with the back of his knuckles. “The second duke.”

  “Ye knew him?”

  “We’ve met.”

  “Sir, please do not touch the artifacts.”

  Finn flinched at the tour guide’s reprimand. “Artifacts. Bollocks, that’s difficult to assimilate.”

  Yet he went of his own will into the drawing room to the left. Hands clasped behind his back, he circled the room at a pace that granted him time to absorb the elaborate tapestries and elegant décor that were so dissimilar to that of the current castle… rather, the old castle. Mentally, Aila threw up her arms and stopped debating herself and followed in Finn’s footsteps. Now that he’d acclimated to the time change — somewhat — she was able to let down her guard, as well.

  And consider what he’d revealed out there.

  His wife was alive. As there was no chance the truth had miraculously come to him steps outside the solar doors, she had to assume he’d seen her inside. What a shock that must have been for him! To believe for more than a year that she had committed suicide only to come upon her alive and well….

  And in the company of the man Finn said had raped her.

  There was a level of betrayal there Aila couldn’t help but wonder if he’d processed yet. Unless she’d been kidnapped — and unless Marta Keeley had been bound, imprisoned, and unable to write to Finn in all that time, which seemed unlikely — she’d abandoned not only Finn but Niall and Effie as well. Aila wasn’t experienced with the emotion of maternal love and God knew, her own mother hadn’t displayed a wealth of it. Even so, she couldn’t imagine being coldhearted enough to disappear and let her children believe her dead.

  What must he be thinking? Feeling?

  She’d ask him if she weren’t already well acquainted with his response to such questions. And if she hadn’t recently vowed never to do so uninvited again.

  They crossed the entry hall and took a turn through the dining hall opposite without Finn saying a word. He paused to read the printed information about the space and its history. Something on the page brought a spasm to his handsome face. She wished she knew where she stood with him. There was nothing she wanted more than to hold his hand and be here for him while he processed everything he was seeing. Everything he’d discovered.

  Aila swallowed hard as one of the implications of his discovery occurred to her. If Finn’s wife was alive, that meant he was still married. Far before Kyle, she’d had a boyfriend of close to a year who’d cheated on her with a married woman. In the end, it had destroyed the woman’s marriage and ended Aila’s relationship at the same time. That betrayal had soured her to the practice, which was why she’d been determined to keep her hands off Finn when they’d first met despite her immediate attraction.

  She didn’t know if she would be willing to make that sacrifice now. If Finn wanted her, she’d run the gamut of ninety percent of documented sins for him with no regrets. It wasn’t as if she were breaking up a marriage.

  If Finn wanted her.

  She still didn’t know if he did or not.

  For all she knew, he might be hoping to reunite with his wife right now.

  Blind to the sights around her, Aila trailed Finn into the central Armoury Hall with its soft yellow walls and ornately carved white trim that belied the array of fierce artillery mounted over them.

  Finn nodded his approval and spoke for the first time. “Impressive display. I’ve seen the like before. Usually at castles owned by men who think their geese are swans.”

  Overcompensation wasn’t a new practice, then.

  He paused at a display bearing the dirk and sporran that once belonged to Rob Roy MacGregor. As he had in the entry, he tapped it with the back of his finger, this time along with a smirk. “That’s amusing.”

  Aila wanted to ask him why, but refrained when his spurt of good humor was dashed by the next exhibit. A pair of broadswords that, according to the placard, marked the visit of Queen Victoria in 1847. A hundred years after his time. He stilled and turned his gaze upward for a long while, then back to her.

  “Would ye like to see the upstairs?” Finn shook his head in response to her question. “We can leave whenever ye’re ready then. The gardens should be a good place.”

  They exited through the gift shop in the cellar, passing by a group of tourists clustered around the tea shop on their way around the rear of the castle. Finn eyed the group with suspicion and a hint of distaste for their overzealous reaction to his presence. They wanted pictures with him believing him to be a costumed player for the castle. Aila hung back to subdue them while Finn continued up the gravel path.

  “We’ll have to find a quiet corner somewhere where nae one can see us,” she said as she caught up with him. The spring florals crowding the flower beds were blooming, even more lovely than they’d been when Aila had been there with Violet only a few weeks before. It seemed like a lifetime.

  Then amid the fauna, she spotted something that brought her to a stunned halt. Amidst the chaos of the last couple of hours — oh the laundry list was long! Finn seeing through her costume, the duke’s arrival, their talk followed by his flight to the solar and the plethora of ugly truths that followed — she’d forgotten about the thing she’d gone back to Inveraray for in the first place.

  “Finn. There’s something else we need to talk about.”

  Chapter 31

  Finn stopped mid-step at Aila’s words. “I believe I’ve had all the surprises I can endure in one day, thank ye. I confess, I’m in need of a stiff drink and some time alone to mull them over.”

  As it had before, his dismissal brought sorrow to her eyes. And as before, he experienced a rush of guilt for it. None of this — check that, most…nay, some of this — muddle in his mind was no fault of hers. Even so, he wasn’t insincere when he said he had much to think about. He hadn’t yet come to terms with the magnitude of what he was seeing, breathing, and experiencing at this very moment. He needed time to untangle the truths and their implications without these peculiar people in their garish, meager clothing milling about, gawking at him.
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br />   Never had a single day, not the battle at Culloden nor even the day he’d thought Marta died, produced such upheaval to his life and mind as this day had thus far.

  And by the look of it, the day was young.

  “This is important. Please.” Her tone was insistent, as was the hand on his arm when he attempted to walk on without her. “If for nae other reason than its effect has come to bear on Niall and Effie.”

  He stilled as if his feet were as rooted to the ground as the flora around them. “What is it?”

  “Mr. Boyce is dead.” He stared at her, stunned by the revelation. She wasn’t finished with him. “What’s worse, he was poisoned.”

  “What!”

  What more could this day heap upon him?

  “Mr. Boyce’s mill stone…this mill stone —” he looked at the moss-covered rock she indicated and read the wee sign embedded in the ground beside it “— well, it says it was cursed, however that isnae the case. Someone poisoned it. Shite, I dinnae even think to look up what it might have been.”

  Aila bit her lip and lifted that flat, stiff object she’d presented to the castle’s majordomo upon their entrance before her face. Rendered speechless by her claim, Finn stared at her much as she stared at the luminous surface. As if it held the secrets to the universe.

  “It could have been thallium, maybe, whatever that is,” she said as if that clarified anything for him. “It says here that it is tasteless and odorless and has a long history of use in murder cases since it’s difficult to detect.”

  Who it was who knew these things and how they were being relayed to Aila were questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask. All that mattered at the moment was how his bairns had been affected.

  “The poison on the stones passed into the oats that were ground on it,” she told him. “Everyone who ate porridge or oatcakes made from that flour everyday were sickened with the symptoms ye’ve seen in village.”

  “And those in the castle who used wheat flour were no’?” he deduced. “What of my bairns then?”

  “The levels of radiation on the stone itself were lethal.” She stopped gnawing her lip again, remorse clouding her eyes. “Both Effie and Niall handled the flour. They washed the stones. Effie touched it directly when Mr. Boyce showed her the channels on it. Perhaps that was why her symptoms were worse than Niall’s. Direct contact. It’s my fault for taking them there. Ye’ll never ken how much I regret it.”