by Rosie Harper
The woman was very still, and his heart sank to see the blood, to see the state of her, and to understand precise what that may mean. Her clothing seemed fine enough, he wondered if someone was missing her. He didn’t want to get close enough to see if her heart still beat, he had seen his fair share of pretty women with no heartbeats in his time, and did not want his heart to break all over again. With a face that like, Alasdair knew that confirming her death would, with how beautiful she was.
“It might be best to find one of the gravediggers in the village,” he said sadly. One of his men, Conor, looked over at the mess with an unconvinced look.
“I do not think that will be necessary,” he said with a grin. Alasdair looked over his shoulder, and to his surprise saw the woman stir, and heard her groan. Panic gripped him for a moment, and then he was hit with something, it took him a while to realize that it was relief.
#
The note was short and to the point, written in that looping script he knew to be hers. To the last, she had always been a lady. Unfortunately what she had to say did not make him particularly feel like a gentleman.
He gripped the letter in his hands, feeling it crumple under his fingertips. Soon it was balled in his fist.
“Fetch me my horse,” he said to his butler.
She would not get far.
Chapter 1
The only thing that Effie could remember from her time “before” was the accident, and even then it wasn’t that much. A quick crunch, a scream (definitely hers) and the pain was all there. That was it, that was most of what she could remember, save for her first name, which she assumed was Effie. It was the only name she could remember, so it had to be hers.
The room she had awoken into was small and yet cosy, with a darkness lit only by the light of a single candle. It cast ghostly shadows on the wall, and Effie wondered as she watched them whether or not she would recognize the place in the light of day or not. She wondered if she would be able to recognize any place at this moment.
It would curious to have no memory, she knew things in general, a simple name, how to speak, she most likely would be able to read if someone gave her the words to do so. She could remember being English, and that being the language she spoke, she knew where England was, what it bordered, she knew about the Continent and which fork to use with what salad, but the people who may have taught her these things, her mother and father and any potential siblings were all entirely gone.
Instead she only had this thick wool blanket, the warmth of the candle, and the stone of the walls as each crevice was lit with an orange hue. It was cosy, and for all intents and purposes, it felt like home.
It took her a moment to notice the figure in the corner, breathing softly. From her place on the bed, she could see that he was seated by the door, as though guarding it, although from what Effie could not say. His head was bowed low and as her eyes adjusted to the light, she could see the beautiful lines of his face, the darkness of his long wavy hair, and the muscle that roped his arms. This man was used to a life of hard work, of dirty hands, he breathed slowly and deeply now, and Effie could see that he was asleep.
Who was this man that seemed so interested in keeping her safe? Had she known from before? Either way she did not know him now, although she was partially convinced that she had seen something close to his face swimming up before her eyes during the time of the accident. He had said something then, his voice had sounded so musical. His voice had sounded as though he had come from another place than she had, although for the life of her she could not precisely remember where.
In any case, she took comfort in his presence, and laid her head back down. It was only a few moments before she felt heavy, and sleep took her again.
#
“Be careful, Ness,” a small voice said in the darkness. “She’s hurt.”
Effie’s eyes flew open to look into a pair of striking blue eyes. A moment later she realized that the blue eyes belonged to small boy near the age of six with giant eyes and deep brown hair. He made a little childish sound of surprise and stepped back, before dissolving into giggles so infectious that Effie couldn’t help but join him. Next to him stood a little year of around three, with dark auburn curls and eyes to match the boy beside her. They must be brother and sister, Effie thought, and felt a huge burst of pride at the notion that maybe this was not simple a good guess. Perhaps she had known these children all of their lives.
The little girl looked back between her brother and Effie, unsure of whether or not to laugh herself. After a long pause she allowed herself a small smile, and that had satisfied her enough.
“Hello,” Effie said. “Who are you?”
She had hoped that the little boy would express some despair at not being remembered, as though Effie were a dear part of the family, but it didn’t seem to bother the boy when he answered.
“I’m Alec,” he said simply, as though introducing himself for the first time. Of course, he probably was, and Effie felt a further sinking in her stomach. Was she among strangers? Or did this little boy simply never meet her? She looked over his shoulder at the corner where she had seen the man sleeping the night before. He was gone, and she sighed. Perhaps she had dreamed such a man.
“Hello, Alec!” Effie kept her voice light and gentle in order not to betray her feelings. It seemed to work, although the little girl hovered on the edge of the conversation as though too nervous to join in. Alec took notice and reached for her hand, Effie smiled, how sweet!
“This is Ness,” he said. “She’s my little sister. She’s just scared of strangers.”
Little Ness lowered her head and looked up at Effie through her curtain of dark red hair. Effie’s heart melted a little bit at the girl’s shyness.
“Hello, Ness.” Effie moved her gaze back to Alec. “So I’m a stranger then?”
Alec looked unsure at the answer. She gave a little sigh.
“Where is your mother?” she asked them. Alec flinched a little bit, and Ness stuck her thumb in her mouth.
“Heaven.” He said quietly. Effie looked at him in shock until she heard a clatter ring through the house.
“Alec? Ness? Are you here?”
A man entered the room, and lightly closed the door behind him. Essie’s heart fluttered as she saw him, his handsome face, now alive with wakefulness. It was the man who had watched her the night before, she was sure of it. By the light of day his dark hair was light, the same rich brown that Alec had. As he moved closer, she could see the same look as the boy, the same sharp features, the same unsure smile. The boy would have been the spitting image of the man were it not for the man’s bright green eyes, instead of the boy’s blue.
“I told you to leave the lady be, she’s not well,” the man said. Effie shook her head in protest.
“No, it’s quite alright!” She replied brightly. “They were just keeping me company. They’re very sweet.”
Ness bolted to the side of the man and hid her face in his thigh. He knelt down to stroke her hair tenderly and looked to Effie.
“I apologize, it’s not so very often they see strange, beautiful women come into the village under the cover of night.”
Red rushed to Effie’s cheeks at his words. Beautiful? Effie could barely remember what she looked like, and yet this man she barely knew was calling her beautiful. His voice held a musical quality that differed from hers, they must have come from different lands. This was an interesting development: she must be outside of England. This not necessarily meant that she was away from home, however, perhaps she had merely moved here many years ago. The moment of fluttery elation passed as she realized he was also calling her a stranger.
“So you don’t know who I am, then?”
His face was ghosted by concern and he moved to her bedside, sitting gently on the bed.
“We found you in the wreckage of a carriage on our way back to the village last night,” the man explained. “We took you and your horse back here in order to get well.”
>
“My horse…?”
“She is doing well, a gentle thing, isn’t she? She seems worried about you. Well about as worried as any horse can be.”
Effie laughed slightly. “I’m afraid I seem to be unable to remember much of anything.”
“Even your name?”
She thought long and hard, and still the only thing that could come to mind was the name “Effie”. She was hesitant to speak it out loud, for fear that taking full ownership of the name bound her to it. What if she was incorrect? Would that mean she was getting rid of her old, shadowy life for good? She looked at the handsome face of the man before her and made a decision.
“Effie,” she said. “I believe that my name is Effie.”
He smiled, and it was so real and genuine that Effie could not help but smile back. Yes, in spite of who she may be, or who she was, she had chosen Effie. She would be Effie for now.
“My name is Alasdair,” he told her. “Alasdair McLeod.”
He stared at her and studied her face with so much intensity that Effie felt as though she couldn’t breathe. She looked down at her hands and saw the cuts and scrapes across them. Her smile quickly turned into a frown as she gently touched the abrasions, hissing in slight pain as they stung. Alasdair leaned forward and took her hand.
“Be careful,” he admonished softly.
“Am I very hurt?” Effie asked him. She didn’t feel anything besides the sting of her scrapes and the dull throb in her head. Alasdair shook his head.
“No, but there was a lot of blood, it was lost mostly from your brow, we think. All in all you’ll most likely be fine… save for the fact that you don’t remember anything.”
Part of her felt relief, a large part, at the notion that she was currently free. Another, wiser, part of her told her that she would surely end up a vagabond if left alone now, with no one in the world and nothing to her name save for the clothes on her back, if they were even truly hers. Alasdair studied her face with something close to sympathy, and reached out to touch her shoulder.
This was the second time he had touched her, and a distant echo in Effie told her that this was not very acceptable in polite society. Effie swiftly came to the conclusion that wherever she was, she was mostly a very long way from polite society, so she didn’t pay it any mind.
“You may stay with us if you like,” Alec said after a small pause. “Right, Dad?”
He turned his large eyes up to his father and begged, Alasdair laughed.
“Unless you’d rather be somewhere else, lass,” he said.
“No!” She said, perhaps too quickly. “I just...I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
She realized that sounded terrible, but it didn’t seem to bother Alasdair. She could not imagine living in the same place as this man, sharing his table, all without knowing a single thing about herself. How could he be so trusting?
“I won’t do it for nothing,” she said sternly. “I’m going to do whatever you need me to do. I’ll watch the children, I’ll cook if you need me to.”
She wasn’t fully sure that she knew how to cook, but how hard could it possibly be? He smiled and rose from the bed.
“I think that Auntie Leana could use a little help around here, don’t you?” he said to his two children. Alex whooped and embraced his father, and little Ness stood shyly and looked at Effie, her mouth turned into a tentative smile. Effie understood as best she could, with the mother gone, it had to be difficult to have a new woman around. She hoped that this Leana would be happy for the help, but as she looked at the handsome face of Alasdair McLeod, she had a feeling that she wouldn’t be.
Chapter 2
“What are you thinking bringing that stranger into this house?!” Leana placed her hands on her hips and squared her legs, fully prepared to sink into the warm waters of this argument she was heating up. Alasdair did not have the patience for it, although part of him couldn’t stand to see Elaine’s sister so horrified.
“I couldn’t just leave her out on the street,” Alasdair replied. “She’s a long way from home, I think, and she doesn’t even remember where home is.”
“Or so she says,” Liana huffed, tossing her long dark red hair down her back. Her hair was a hair of a shade lighter than her sister’s was, a welcome fact that he clung to in the moments when she was so like Elaine that he was still convinced that she was in the house. Leana was a fine woman, and he hoped that she could make a fine and happy marriage one day, but he knew it would never be with him. He didn’t want to marry the ghost of his wife, no matter how much she wanted to.
“What do you mean?” He asked.
“You know very well what I mean,” she said. “She could be one of those liars, those con men, who come all limping in like a wounded deer and then all of a sudden all your money’s gone.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alasdair said, his voice beginning to betray his frustration. Leana mistook it for doubt and lunged on it.
“You know it might be the case, and let you let her talk to your children? Even Ness, who doesn’t like to talk to anyone, you’regoing to let her around this strange woman, simply because you found her hurt?”
“What would you have me do, Leana? Toss her out on the street on the off chance she’s a cheat? No. I’d rather house a cheat than leave a poor woman out in the cold.”
Leana studied his face with her striking blue eyes, the same blue as his children’s, the same blue as Elaine’s.
“You always were soft for beautiful women,” she said, defeated. He smiled at her. She had said as much the day he asked for Elaine’s hand in marriage. Many people in the village believed that it had all been Elaine’s idea, but Alasdair had never known it. She had ensnared his heart upon the first meeting and he had spent every waking moment until the day they were wed winning hers. Leana knew this, but had been unconvinced until the moment her sister had been made a bride. She never wanted to talk about Elaine, it must have been too painful to lose her sister the way it had happened. It must have been painful as well, knowing that when others saw her, they saw Elaine.
Alasdair felt a pang of respect and sympathy for her then, to be haunted by his wife’s ghost was one thing, but how must it have felt to know that you were the one doing the haunting without meaning to? He moved to her side.
“Not all beautiful women,” he said as he gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek. She sighed and moved to begin to bake that morning’s bread, and Alasdair let her believe that he had not seen the look of longing on her face as she turned away.
#
Two days later, Effie was well enough to leave the safety of the McLeod house, but she still held onto doorframe and looked out onto the path leading the marketplace with a look akin to fear. Little Ness was at her side, looking up at her with expectant eyes.
“You need one more step, ma’am,” the little girl said in the same sing-song accent as her father. As Effie looked out to rolling hills the color of wheat, to the edges of forests all bursting with color. She brought her fingers to her lips and felt her sounding out the name of such a land.
“Scotland,” she said. Ness said nothing. Effie had a feeling that Ness was not a girl of many words, but Effie understood. She felt the little girl’s insistent pull on the hem of her dress, and she allowed the little one to guide her out into the open.
She hadn’t been in bed for long, but it seemed like she had been asleep for a hundred years as she took in the autumn sunlight, listened to the wind whistle through trees. The highlands, she thought. That’s where she was. The revelation of her knowledge excited her, but it yielded no fruit no matter how much she tried to focus on it.
“So you’re her, eh?” a voice asked from behind her. Effie turned to see the most beautiful woman she had ever seen walking towards her. She had long hair a shade lighter than Ness’ own reddish locks, and striking blue eyes the same as the little girl. If she had not heard otherwise, Effie would believe she was looking at the ghost of the mother Ness had lost. Inst
ead, however, she knew that she was looking at Leana, something she had prepared for.
She had not prepared for how beautiful Leana was. A distant feeling panged in the back of her heart, something like jealousy, but over what exactly she wouldn’t fully express. Was she jealous of her beauty? Effie could be just as beautiful for all she knew. Was she jealous of her place in Alasdair’s life? Well, Effie hardly knew what that place was, or who Alasdair was, so could she truly be jealous over something so utterly silly?
It took her a moment to realize… she was probably partially right. She was jealous of Leana, but she was jealous of Leana’splace. She knew who she was, where she has, who she was supposed to love and care for. Did Effie truly know that? Not particularly.
She desperately wanted to fit in in the village, but part of her could not help but wonder, was anyone looking for her elsewhere?
#
Lord Reginald Fairchild could was a good hunter, he had to be after the many hours he had spent on the sport. Because of this he wasn’t concerned over her loss. She had thought that by taking the carriage he would be slowed, but she ought to have known better than that assumption. He wondered if her emotions were clouding her usual cool judgment.
As soon as he found the carriage tracks heading north, he could not help but laugh. She had to be mad, she had to not be thinking clearly.
Or, far more likely, she merely wanted him to find her.
His lips curled into a smile… he loved being the hunter, especially when he was hunting such delicious prey.
Chapter 3
It took almost two weeks, but finally Leana seemed to turn around to her. It happened so slowly that Effie did not fully realize that it was going on. At first she had stubbornly ignored any attempt at help, refusing to allow her to dry dishes, shooing her out of the kitchen when it was time to make bread. It bothered Effie, for she wanted to have a purpose here instead of just loafing about.