His stress on the word “he” told her that Ethan had held to his promise to tell his father all that happened while not make her father any the wiser about her activities. The Laird, however, knew all. Now that she had done her part and passed the baton to her father, Violet felt somewhat at ease. The Laird was gesturing for a servant who, after leaning his ear to his master, hurried off to the kitchen.
“Is Master MacFerson well?” she asked, looking around, not so subtly to see if she had overlooked Ethan. She had not. He was nowhere in the hall.
“Eh,” his father sighed waving his hand. “The boy is fine, off in the stables as he’s wont to do. Nay wonder Finley would always tell him to live there instead of the castle.”
There was pain when the older MacFerson son’s name was uttered, and it was still raw. The man’s son was dead; no wonder he had almost lost reason the other day when his brother had jabbed at him for drinking. God forbid the day that Violet, if she did get married, would have to bury her child.
A servant came and deposited a bowl of warm porridge before her and a trencher of bread and squares of butter. With a quick thanks to the server, she began eating. “It’s a habit for him then, caring for the horses.”
“That and riding them,” the younger of the MacFersons said. “I remember when Ethan was three-and-ten, he had been begging to go from ponies to stallions and we finally gave in. That boy—” Callum shook his head, “—took off with a speed that made me fear he was going to be thrown and break his neck. Much to me amazement, he managed to reel the horse in with a level of control I’ve only seen master riders perform.”
“I swear me son can be in a dead sleep and hear an ailing horse calling from Ackwell, and rush out without a care,” his father uttered an amused grunt.
Both men might be making fun of Ethan, but all Violet heard was that Ethan was a caring, empathetic soul. Having been in close contact with him over the past few days, she could attest to that. Ethan did not have one malicious bone in his body to see anyone hurt, human or animal.
She ate her fill and slipped a roll into her pocket. “If ye will excuse me, I’ll be at the stables. I ken Ethan promised to take me near the loch today.”
The two shared a look, then the Laird nodded, “If the tide is right, ask him to take ye on a boat ride. Some of our birlinn ships are small enough so that even one man can control it.”
“And be free to tell Ethan to take ye to that ‘secret’ cove he kens we dinnae ken about,” Mister Callum smiled while lifting his goblet. “His brother told us about it a long time ago.”
Hiding a snort, Violet nodded to both of them and left the room, hurrying to the stables. This “secret cove” sounded interesting, and since they had found this elusive woman that had the key to finding Finley’s murder, she felt it was time to enjoy these Highlands.
The grass blades were still wet with morning dew and by the time she got to the stables, the hem of her dress was damp. She went in and the smell of hay and leather hit her softly. She spotted Ethan’s golden head over a stall before it ducked.
She went over and knocked softy. “I come bearing gifts.” Plucking the roll from her pocket, she dangled it over the stall’s doorway.
A warm chuckle was his reply, and Ethan came out, dusting his hands on his trousers. “Good mornin’ to ye too.” Reaching out, he plucked the roll from her hand.
“Have ye eaten at all this morning?” Violet asked, looking around. “How long have ye been here?”
“Eh?” he murmured around his munching, “Dawn…before dawn, doesnae matter.”
“Oh, and yer faither and uncle have told me to tell ye, if ye do plan to take me to the loch, like I made them believe, that ye are free to take me to yer secret cove.” She smiled at his wide eyes and slightly slack mouth. “They said yer brother told them about it a long time ago.”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat then he shook his head wryly. “Should hae kent.”
“So…” She stopped herself from rocking on her heels with the anticipation building inside her. “Would ye be interested, in taking me to the loch, I mean?”
His brow quirked while holding the rest of his roll, “Is that somethin’ ye want?”
“I dae,” she said, dipping her eyes. “I mean, if its nay too much of an imposition.”
“Of course nae,” he said, looking around. “If ye want, we can go now.”
The temptation was strong, but she did not want to take it on so quickly; instead, she looked around for a seat and spotted a crate. “Before we dae, can we talk for a moment?” She went to the crate and sat. “Why dae ye like horses so much?”
He let out a breath that was chased with a soft laugh before he sat on the floor and rested his arms on his bent knees. He was so close the tips of his boots brushed her feet. “Nay one has ever asked me that. Everyone just takes it as a foregone fact that I love horses more than anything else.”
“Dae ye?” she asked.
His head swiveled to her with a shake. “Nay…well, nae entirely. There is nay complexity with horses. They’ll like ye or nae, but the one thing I’ve found that when they’re loyal to someone, they’re loyal to them for life. It's more than some people.”
There was a story behind that, but Violet was not going to pry. “I befriended a squirrel once. I found him half-frozen in the snow one winter and took him in, warmed him up and fed her all through winter. When I let her back the next spring, I’d wake up and find a pile of nuts on me back doorstep every day. It continued for a while but then stopped. I supposed it had gone away and found a mate. Six months or so later, I saw three baby squirrels skipping through me yard and could only smile. Animals can be loyal.”
Charmed by his crooked smile, she almost lifted her hand to touch his face, but stalled, before daring to trace her fingertip over the scar that nearly bisected his eyebrow. The moment she touched him, he shivered. It was barely there but she felt it.
His brow, smooth light brown hair, was grown out but the paler skin, above and below his brow, told her a cut had been there, “Did ye fall or…”
“I did fall,” he said, tilting his head upwards. “From there.”
Looking up, she realized that there was a tiny ledge built above them, about three or four feet wide. “What we ye doing up there?”
“I cannae tell ye,” he shrugged. “I was a boy and probably doing mischievous boy things. After I fell, I went unconscious. I was told a stable boy found me and rushed me back to the castle. When I woke, me head was on fire. I wished I could pluck it off me shoulders and set it aside.”
The image of a headless Ethan had her both grimacing and giggling at the same time. “How old were ye?”
“Old enough to ken better,” he said, getting to his feet and extending his hand to her. “Care to take that ride now?”
Sliding her hand into his, she smiled at the feel of his large, roughened hand. “Lead the way.”
* * *
When Ethan helped her off the horse, she did not see him, only felt his touch at her waist. Her eyes were pinned on the Loch Obha. It was a wide swathe of cobalt water, flowing peacefully for miles beyond. Standing on the grassy bank, she gazed at the greenish-gray hill far off, the slope of the nearer hills that led down to the waterway. Her eyes flitted to the dock of boats, ranging from small to hulking, lined up on the dock, then at Ethan’s extended arm.
Taking her hand, he guided her down the muddy slope. “Watch yer step. Have ye ever been on a boat before?”
“Nay,” she said with her eyes on the ground. While holding up the tail of her dress, she added, “I should have worn me breeches.”
“Aye, ye should have—”
Her foot suddenly lost purchase on the patch of soil underneath it and as she floundered backward, arms grabbed her from beneath her back then under her knees. When the world straightened itself, she was in Ethan’s arms and cradled to this chest, right next to his bared collarbone.
His skin smelled lightly of olive soap a
nd river water and she hung onto him while he carried her to the boat without any discernable strain. When he stepped onto it, and it swayed with their combined weight, she grabbed his shirt in fright.
“Calm ye,” he said in her ear. “I’d never drop ye.”
His softly muttered words evoked a nervous shiver to run over her skin and fed the dormant hope for something more between them grow in her heart. As Ethan set her down on the seat, she watched as he fixed the sail, untethered the tie and picked up an oar.
“Ye might smell salt as there are two lochs, just over yonder, that carry in the sea’s water from time to time,” Ethan said as he rowed.
Violet’s eyes went from the shifting blue water to the rhythmic stroke of the oar to Ethan’s powerful arms and the move of his shoulders. A lock of his hair was lingering over his eyes and she wanted to reach out and smooth it away, but she was fearful of leaving her place. Moreover, her white-knuckled hands, grabbing unto the seat were not brave enough to let go.
The water was tranquil and once or twice she saw the swift silver dash of a fish before it vanished. Ethan did not take her into the middle where she imagined the water would be so deep that she would only see darkness. Instead, he stuck to the shallower banks, where she would see bleached white river stone and mottled sand.
He sailed them down the river then angled the boat into a side stream that, though following the main river’s course, took them into a mangrove. The water was silent and dark under the cover of trees that had barnacled roots arching up over the water’s top. Other trees had thickly bearded wisps that swayed eerily on the nearly non-existent wind.
Ethan had stopped rowing, but allowed them to drift through it. Captivated by the sporadic glimpse of sunlight she could see through the treetops and the reflection that glittered over the water’s top, Violet could not decide if the place was enchanting or eerie.
“Ye come here a lot?”
“When I had time, aye,” he said, head swiveling side to side, “I dinnae ken I will have much free time from now on, though.”
The indirect reference to him taking up the lairdship had her inquiring, “Ye told yer faither about it all, dinnae ye? This morning, at the table he gave me a look that had me almost sure that ye told him how we found Miss O’Bachnon.”
“I did,” he said, “and got him to promise to only tell yer faither about what I had discovered.”
“I hope Faither will believe it was all ye,” she said while daring to pry her fingers away from her seat. She dared to dip her fingers in the water over the side. “He has a way of seeing through things.”
“If he dinnae have that gift, then we wouldnae have called him here to help with Finley,” Ethan said while using the oar to push the boat away from a tangle of roots.
They sailed into a wider part of the stream and the tide had them flowing a bit easier. “Faither went off to Perth to see if he would find any more leads on her,” Violet mentioned. “I hope he gets something solid there.”
When the boat was angled to a mossy bank she wondered if they would be stopping on their sail. They rounded the moss to find that the other side was dry and rocky. Ethan used the oar to halt their sail. “Violet, look there.”
As her back was facing the stream, she twisted and looked up the hill were Ethan directed and saw a rock shrine jutting up at the crest. Rounding it, were smaller stones, and if she peered harder, she spotted runes carved into the stone. “Is that a druid’s shrine?”
“Aye, one of the last that the church dinnae find and destroy,” he said. “I dinnae ken if anyone worships here or nay, but I wouldnae be surprised.”
“I’ve never seen one before,” Violet said in awe as she dared to lean on the edge of the boat. It dipped but Ethan slid to the side to counteract her shift. “I’ve heard about the druids, but I never saw any physical marks of their presence.”
“They are few and far between to find,” Ethan said as he pulled the oar away and the boat drifted away from the hill. “But they are there.”
Moving away from the hill they sailed out from the cove, and when emerging back into the loch, Violet blinked at the harsher sunlight. Looking over her shoulder she could see why the old mages had chosen to worship in the secluded cove; there was an air of mysticism and mystery inside there.
Ethan began to row back up the stream and this time, working against the flow, he had to put all his effort into it. His arms were moving with smooth power and finesse. He made sure to, again, stick to the banks where the flow was not so fast and arduous. They soon got to the pier and near to the tethering pole. When Ethan leaned to cast the line over the jutting rock, she braced her hands on the seat as the boat rocked.
When they were tethered, he came to help her off the boat. She did not need him to carry her over to dry ground, but she did mourn the lack of his touch. Her hand was still in his but she lost all breath when he shifted to lace their fingers together. She tried to meet his eyes but he was looking across the loch, wistfully.
“Hoping ye would have time to come back soon?” she prodded, knowingly.
“Aye,” he said and then his thumb—unwittingly?— began to stroke the back of her hand. “I hope so.”
Turning, they went to the horses and mounted them, her with Ethan’s help, and they moved off back to the castle. They walked instead of urging their mounts into a trot. Unwillingly, Violet hoped, to get back to the castle where the magic of the past hour would fade away.
“Ethan,” Violet asked, “if we do find this woman, and she gives us what we need to find who killed yer brother, what would ye dae to her?”
His sigh was audible. “I cannae tell ye. She might be imprisoned in the dungeon if she kent exactly what was going to happen to me brother, but then…if she does have a son like Daivdh said, maybe we can put her in isolation. Her bairn doesnae deserve to have his mother taken away. But she will be punished; why else would she have carried the sleeping draught if she dinnae ken that this would happen to Finley?”
She understood what he was saying, and even more, felt his pain, but she had to correct him. “Ethan, sadly, there can be some distance between all these events. We ken she can make the potion, and we ken she took Finley out of the tavern, but nay one said that she took the potion with her or even gave it to him. Sometimes, some things are nay as linear as they seem. Someone could have interfered somewhere along the way.”
“Ye believe that?” he asked, doubtfully. “Seems straightforward to me.”
“It’s nay what I want to believe,” she replied quietly. “But Faither and I learned the hard way that there are some very cunning masterminds out there that will make someone look so guilty that it cannae be refuted.”
He angled his horse that much closer. “And how did ye find that out?”
Digging into her memory, she told him about a case she and her father had been called into in Glasgow. “A man was working on a way to improve on an ancient Roman and Egyptian steam engine machine. From the day he had started, he was under a constant accusation of another inventor that he had stolen his idea. When the accuser got the authorities to search the man, they found a manual, written in the accuser’s hand, and he sank into disgrace. A few months later, he was found dead and the man who was crucified as the murderer…”
“The accuser,” Ethan added.
“Aye,” she agreed. “And he was sent to prison for it. But lo and behold, a few months later, someone else made the machine. It was the apprentice of the accuser. We found out that he had broken into the first man’s home, copied the man’s work in his master’s hand, framed him, then went back to kill him and let his master take the fall. He then made the machine and got rich until he found himself at the bottom of a bottle and spilled his secrets. He was arrested and sentenced to death.”
His face twisted with the troubling idea. “So there might be someone else other than the woman and the man who killed him we will have to search for.”
“Sadly, yes,” Violet said as they entered t
he hilly pass to MacFerson’s lands. “I ken this was nae what ye would have like to hear, but it’s the truth.”
She left him to mull over the unpleasant truths until they made it to the stables and he helped her off the horse. He did not drop his hands from her hips though—and again, her hope mounted—but he sighed.
“I ken that was nay easy for ye to tell me that, but is it wrong for me to say that I hope we dinnae have to face that situation.”
“I dinnae want it either, but it is what we might have to look into,” she said, slightly regretting that she had the well of experience to draw from.
He stepped away and slid his hand to the back of his neck. His face was downcast and troubled. When he did look at her, she hid her reaction to his grimace and tried to prod a smile from him. “Thank ye, though, I loved today. Ye gave me another good memory to contrast the bad ones.”
The Highlander's Captured Bride (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Page 10