Love by the Stroke of Midnight

by Raven McAllan

  She believed that, or else there were pigs flying around the battlements. Nevertheless, good manners forced her not to give the comeback she ached to, and she nodded. “Getting old is a bugger, eh?”

  A gong sounded nearby, and her dad almost sighed with relief. “That’s Mum with the half hour ‘get your drinks now or never’ warning. You’ll take a wee dram, Paden?”

  “As you’re offering, Ruari, who am I to turn a good malt down,” Paden replied in an easy manner. “Legal?”

  “I never said that,” Ruari Drummond said with a laugh. “Don’t you go putting words into my mouth. Will you be escorting Marcail in for me, and I’ll away to get the special bottle.” He disappeared as fast as anyone could without running. He hated confrontation.

  Marcail counted to ten under her breath and turned to glance at a blank-faced Paden. She hoped her expression was as unforthcoming as his.

  “It seems you’re saddled with me. Shall we?”

  He nodded and held out his arm. Marcail ignored the gesture. She might be prepared to accept his presence so far, but not that far. “Evidently as you’re family, there’s no need to stand on ceremony.” She walked ahead of him and opened the lounge door. “Why is my father still angry?”

  The fact he didn’t bother to answer her pettiness should have made her ashamed, she knew. Instead it annoyed her even more. He couldn’t even be bothered to supply an explanation.

  Well, sod him.

  “You will find everything out soon, mo ghaol.”

  Soon wasn’t soon enough.

  To her relief and pleasure, Bonnie was already in the lounge, sitting in an old armchair by the fire. She scowled when she saw Paden. It was obvious she knew as much as Marcail did—not much.

  “Thought I best be here,” she said lightly to Marcail. “In case I’m needed.”

  Reinforcements? If so, for whom?

  Bonnie had also gone for warmth rather than elegance and wore an old plaid shawl of their grandma’s around her shoulders. She held another one up and threw it to Marcail as she glared at Paden, who ignored her obvious antagonism. Why? Did he know something the others didn’t?

  Too many mysteries were happening. Marcail was about to speak when Bonnie frowned at her. It was a definite ‘do not say a word’ expression. She shivered instead.

  “Here,” Bonnie said. “I knew you’d forget yours. That one was Great-however-many-Granny Pearl’s. She said it was for you.”

  Marcail ignored the emphasis on Pearl. It was happening way too often. She caught the plaid and whooped—her bad mood vanquished in an instant by the sight of the faded material. Pearl’s or not, it was welcome. “You doll. Mine’s in one of several boxes due to arrive here whenever Joe McCormick gets his finger out—and his removal van on the road. He’s in his yearly I need to go stalking so the van’s broken session. Though he’s promised me next week or Ma gets a haunch of venison every month for a year. I’m betting she’s hoping he forgets my stuff.”

  “He’ll not,” her mum said as she came in with a tray of nibbles. “Not when money and meat is concerned. Your boxes will be here before the weekend and your dad will have to go and be a ghillie or whatever to stash some cash and some game.”

  Marcail and Bonnie burst out laughing at their dad’s anguished expression.

  “Mum, that’s positively cruel,” Marcail said. “Dad the would-be-veggie, but he hates them apart from cabbage, collecting deer or grouse? How could you?”

  “What’s with the would-be bit?” Ruari said. “I am.” There was a pause as his wife and daughters stared at him. “Well, I’m trying.”

  “Very,” Marcail said. “Often. But I love you. Well, most of the time I do. The rest, I’ll reserve judgement on.”

  “Ingrate,” her dad said huffily, then spoiled it by laughing. “I tell you, Paden, kids have no respect these days.”

  Paden shook his head. “Terrible,” he said in a mournful voice and with a lugubrious expression. “How dare they?”

  “Very easily,” Marcail and Bonnie said at the same time.

  “Pa, you’re a champion wriggler out of anything you don’t want to be in,” Marcail added. “And we’re on to you.”

  Their mum, rolled her eyes. “On that note, five-minute warning for dinner. Paden, ignore them. This family has got scoring points off one another down to a fine art.”

  Bonnie groaned. “Well, who showed us, eh? Mum, do you need help getting the food out?” She sounded desperate.

  “I’ll help as well,” Marcail said promptly, and was dismayed when her mum flapped her hands at her.

  “Nope, Bonnie, Dad and I can do it. You entertain Paden. He’s not exactly a guest, but he’s not used to us either. Just listen for my holler.” She ushered her husband and youngest daughter into the kitchen.

  Bonnie raised her eyebrows. “Good luck,” she mouthed.

  Why, Marcail wondered, did she think she’d need it?

  “Your family is something else.” Paden perched on a chair arm and saluted Marcail with his glass. “How do you keep up?”

  “With difficulty, and I thought Dad said you were family.” It still rankled. Marcail had had no idea she was capable of holding such a grudge, especially when there were a lot more important things she could be antagonistic about. It gave her something to ponder—later.

  “No, he said you needed to hear my story,” Paden answered her gently. “With regards to family. Which is something entirely different. About which we will not talk until Samhain.”

  “Why?” That was something else that was bugging her. “That’s my birthday. Why do we have to have whatever it is then, and spoil it?”

  Paden stared at her steadily, then slowly raised his eyebrow in query.

  “Sorry, but that’s how I feel,” Marcail muttered. How on earth could someone she was attracted to make her feel hot, bothered and, to put no finer point on it, horny one minute and like a chastened five-year-old the next? “I haven’t managed to get home for a couple of years and now…now our tradition has been changed and no one thought to mention it to me. I feel cheated. Oh, not by you,” she added hastily. At times he appeared as discomfited as she did. “But by whatever it is.”

  He nodded. “I can understand that, but this is meant to be. And it has to be this year. Before you progress into your next decade.”

  Clear as mud. Not. “Elucidate.”

  “I can’t. Not until the day of your birth. Only then.”

  She’d expire with curiosity. And she didn’t want to.

  “That is so not fair.” Gah, now she sounded like a whiny three-year-old who couldn’t get her own way. What next, stamping her foot?

  “It’s the rules.”

  Why did he have to sound so blooming reasonable? “Damn the bl…ooft.”

  Paden put his hand over her mouth. “Do not blaspheme what is in our heritage.”

  “Dfghm.”

  “Think it, don’t say it.”

  If she thought it she’d have to wash her mind out.

  He laughed. “Yeah…maybe blank it out for now.”

  How on earth did he understand that? Marcail decided she was getting a headache.

  The door to the dining room opened, and Bonnie poked her head around it. “Ready…”

  “Saved by the shout,” Paden said with a wry grin. “Hostilities put on hold, to resume later when we have no referees?”

  She smiled. She wasn’t hostile towards him, just the opposite.

  * * * *

  Contrary to what she’d expected, Marcail enjoyed the meal at first. As usual when they were together, no one stood on ceremony. Bread, platters and wine were passed around by whoever was nearest, and chatter came from all sides of the table. Bonnie decreed the turnip carving championship should take place before noon, so they could then observe Samhain in the traditional way. In their case, sunset until sunset the following day.

  Why she felt she had to say that Marcail had no idea. It was what they usually did. What did surprise her was the way
Paden seemed to fit in. He’d nodded at Ruari’s “We’ve one for you as well, Paden, if you fancy,” as if it were something normal and natural to be part of the Drummonds’ way of life. It unnerved Marcail, and by the time they were halfway through the meal she was jittery and had no idea why.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked Paden in a lull in the conversation—mainly because everyone except her had their mouth full. She’d lost her appetite. “Or known Mum and Dad? Strange how they’ve never mentioned you.”

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed, and she swallowed hastily. “Marcail Morven Drummond, how rude can you get? Apologise at once!”

  “No need,” Paden said before Marcail opened her mouth and no doubt dug herself deeper in the mire. “Valid questions I’d be asking in Marcail’s place. After all, no one had ever mentioned me, or that I’d be here, had they?”

  “They couldn’t.”

  Why?

  “Can’t share that, yet.”

  Paden inclined his head. “Therefore to answer you, Marcail, would take more time than we have right now. I’ve not been on the island many days, although coming here was long overdue. As for the rest? Your parents and I go back a while. Let’s say longer than anyone realises and not as well as we could or should.”

  Clear as mud. However, Marcail nodded. “Then I’m sorry for asking, and even more sorry I had the need.” She smiled at him. “Not your fault. Any more wine in the bottle?”

  “This one is full.” Bonnie passed it over without another word. Marcail filled her glass and ignored the ‘see what I mean’ expression on Bonnie’s face. She couldn’t have cared less if the rest of them were horrified, scandalised, or weren’t bothered that she, a lightweight when it came to red wine, was on her third glass. Passing out in a red-wine coma seemed infinitely more appealing than screaming at the top of her voice like a fishwife and demanding what was going on, which at that moment in time was likely the only other outcome.

  She counted to ten, sipped her wine and let the now somewhat stilted conversation pass over her head. Bonnie had a brooding expression, which showed she was either going to go dumb or explode over something as yet unspecified. Marcail gave her a warning look and what she hoped was a comforting glance. She herself accepted her life was upside down, and all she wanted—and was damn sure she wasn’t going to get—were a few days of normalcy. To experience the feeling of being home and comforted, and having time to chat to her family and recharge her batteries. To be able to tell them about her proposed trip—which so far only Bonnie knew about—and get their thoughts and ideas. Now even that appeared to have been taken away from her. The sensation was not good. She had, she realised, relied on that. To lose that ability was unpleasant. Maybe it was even lost for ever.

  “It isn’t, you know. Not unless you let it be.”

  “You said you’d butt out.”

  “Someone has to talk sense to you.”

  That annoyed her. She didn’t see why. They hadn’t bothered much before, had they? Marcail scowled. Who was the last to know how her birthday has been hijacked? That something momentous was about to happen to her and she hadn’t been warned? She’d bet that even Baird knew more than she did.

  “Of course, his mind is open.”

  “Yeah, well, I prefer to keep mine private, so go away. My mind, my ideas.” Including, she grudgingly admitted, her thoughts.

  There was that sensation of her mind going all huffy again. Could she tell it to grow a pair?

  “Ouch. No, not really.”

  That was enough to make her bite her lip before she said something that no one might ever forgive her for.

  She finished her meal in silence and stood up. “Who wants coffee?”

  Bonnie got up hurriedly. “I’ll do it, it’s not your forte at the best of times. You can come and help. We’ll bring it into the lounge when it’s made,” she said to the others and marched out without looking at anyone else.

  Marcail grabbed some dirty plates and followed her.

  “With a face like that, you’ll curdle the milk,” Marcail said as she spooned coffee into the stovetop maker the family preferred, added the water and put it on the Aga. “Get over it, hon. Bloody-minded Bonnie is back with a vengeance and there’s no need. Do you tell Mum and Dad everything that’s going on in your life?”

  Bonnie grimaced. “Okay, but did you tell me how things were the pits with you and Rotten Roddy? Did you heckerslike?” She used the expression they had used as kids so as not to incur the wrath of Ruari when he heard them cussing. “Nope, you chose to hide stuff. As do others. Accept it. There’s a lot going on, a lot at stake, and a lot none of us know all of. You can’t say everything is a load of rubbish, do the eye roll thing, not accept what some of us do, and expect to be in the know. Sharing is a two-way street.” She stopped speaking and scowled. “Or it used to be. I don’t know much, and yes dammit I did try to sense something—anything. Nothing. So do not go off on one. I’m as much in the dark as you. Uneasy, doubtful and not to put a finer point on it, wouldn’t trust Paden as far as I could throw him.”

  Marcail bit her lip. “Maybe it’s not all up to him.”

  “Thank you, ma ghaol, it isn’t.”

  She ignored Cyril. What did he know?

  “Enough.”

  “Maybe,” Bonnie said grudgingly. Nevertheless, for now my jury is out. I can’t sense anything there. I can sense you, though. And how Rotten Roddy affected you.”

  “I…”

  Bonnie put her hand up in the universal ‘stop’ gesture. “Yes, you.” She moved her arm to point an accusing finger at her sister. “Do not go on at me. No. You. Did. Not. Share. I had to sense it. Not that that was difficult, I could pick you up as if you were standing next to me. I can do that. You could if you really chose to. You don’t, your choice, and I’ll not say if it’s right or wrong. We all have our own ways of dealing with things. You never share your worry or anguish. Come to that, you never have shared much, have you? You bottle it all up, good or bad.” She removed the coffee pot from the stove and thrust it at Marcail. “May be time to stop that.” She pulled a bottle of milk out of the fridge and continued, obviously on a roll.

  “That’s you, fair enough, you’ve never been one for opening up much,” Bonnie went on, seemingly oblivious to Marcail’s stunned expression. “But don’t have a paddy when anyone else for whatever reasons appears to do the same thing. You take the coffee and I’ll bring the milk and sugar.”

  Thoroughly chastened, Marcail nodded and headed for the lounge. That was her told then. She felt about an inch high, and it was not a sensation she particularly enjoyed. If she thought about it, there was a lot going on. Somehow she sensed she was somewhat lacking in the gifts needed to fully understand what.

  “Lacking or unwilling?”

  “Who knows?”

  Bonnie wasn’t happy either—she didn’t need any extra senses to know that.

  ‘’You’ve got the means to change that, mo ghaol. All of it.”

  Great, now Cyril-Dragh was getting in on the act.

  She was convinced she not only heard the sigh, but experienced it as well.

  “Grief, love, one or the other, for all that’s dear to you, not both.”

  That made her snigger as she pushed the lounge door open.

  “Something funny?” her mum asked warily. “Care to share?”

  “Just something that tickled me. How some people…” She hesitated, not sure how to phrase what she was trying to convey. “Can be contrary for contrary’s sake.”

  “Just like you, maybe? Should I call you Pearl? She was. All of her.”

  It—he—better not.

  “Which I guess could apply to me,” Marcail added slowly. Especially if someone called her Pearl. She really didn’t like it and had no idea why. It chilled her to the marrow whenever anyone mentioned the name, or the gem. Fanciful maybe, but she could do nothing about it. “Or some people might think so. However, I would say I’m only self-sufficient or s
elf-willed when I need to be, and I’m not the only one.”

  “Half an apology is better than none, I guess.”

  She was never again going to believe the assurances that the voice would give her a break.

  “I promise, no more now.”

  Her mum smiled. “Marcail, love, you are so like your great-granny Pearl, it’s uncanny. She acted just as you do.”

  “Right down to the waster boyfriend?” Marcail asked wryly. “And the disproportionate disappointment about her birthday?”

  “I’m not sure about the birthday bit, because by twenty-nine she was married and had bairns, but the wastrel? Oh yes. I well remember her telling me how the Boy Clennan was a waste of space and she should have realised before she did. However, as the war had not long ended and thousands of young men never returned, it was a bit, in her words, ‘grab who you could and see what happened’. Or not.”

  Marcail nodded as Bonnie came in and they began the business of handing round cups. “What about your family?” she asked Paden, who had remained silent during the interchange. “Are you all sweetness and light, or…?”

  “Very much or.” He grinned. “My great-grandpa was a right old rogue until he met my great-granny, then he was a reformed character. Except in one way. He refused to stop his twenty-five a day habit, and said it was necessary to cope with life where he lived.”

  “Twenty-five a day isn’t too bad,” Ruari observed. “Or it wasn’t in his era.”

  “Drams,” Paden said, deadpan. “He worked in the distillery and they were considered necessary perks of the job. As he lived to be a hundred and two, I guess we can’t say they did him any harm.”

  Marcail spluttered as she swallowed her mouthful of coffee in a hurry. “He sounds quite a man,” she said when she was sure she could speak without choking.

  “And before you ask, mo ghaol, I do not follow him in any way. I was only ever half a rogue. It took too much effort.”

  “Good to know it,” Marcail said absently. Then his words filtered into her consciousness. “Why do you call me that?” And why did the way he said it remind her of something—or someone—else?