Enraptured (42 page)

“You talk as though I never see you.”

“Oh, nae, we see each ither at a dance or if I gae up to Duncally to visit you.” Alan's blue eyes danced.

Coll scowled. “I dinna ken why I came here.”

“That makes the both of us. But it doesna matter, does it?” Alan gave him the winsome smile that had sweetened many a temper and won hearts the width and breadth of the country. “You are here now, and we'll drink to that.” Alan lifted his glass in a salute.

Coll sighed and drank, watching as his father poured two more shots into the glasses. “I never was in this house much.” It was as much apology as explanation. “Gran wasna . . .”

“Welcoming?” Again Alan's eyes twinkled. Coll had never understood how his father could find the world so amusing. “Nae, my mither was not an easy person. She dinna like Janet overmuch.” Coll snorted, and Alan dipped
his head in acknowledgment. “True, she dinna like anyone overmuch. But she hardened her heart to my Jan—mithers are like that. Hard to blame them for wanting their lads to be happy.”

“Were you not happy?”

“With your mither?” This time, sorrow was in his father's smile. “Och, that was when I was the happiest, with Janet. She was a bonny, bonny lass, your ma. And not just the way she looked, you ken; she was bonny in every way. Sometimes still I can hear her laugh, and it makes me smile. I should hae said, my mither wanted me to hae what
she
counted as happiness. It wasna ever my idea of it.”

“If you loved Ma so, why did you always leave?” The words were out before Coll knew it, and he glanced away, chagrined.

“I never left
her
, Son.” Surprise colored Alan's voice. “You canna think I dinna want to be with Jan. Or you and Meg. I would hae taken you with me, wherever I went, but your ma was tied to this place. She couldna leave any more than I could stay here ayeways. Meg's the same, though not as much so.” Alan's brow wrinkled, and he swirled the whiskey in his glass, staring into it. “I hope your sister's man understands that.”

Coll grunted. “That one will stay or go as Meg pleases. You dinna need to worry. Mardoun's a bloody arrogant Sassenach, but Meg's his center. He'll not leave her, any more than—” Coll broke off and drained his glass. This time it was he who picked up the jug and poured again.

“Good, then. You'd understand that better than I. The not leaving, I mean.”

Coll shrugged and downed the whiskey.

“What is it, Coll?” His father watched him. “What's troubling you?”

“How did you do it?” Coll's voice came out quiet but fierce, and he leaned forward, setting the glass down hard on the table. “How did you stand to be with her and not really have her? If you loved her, how could you not want to marry her?”

“Whoever said I dinna want to marry Janet?” Alan asked reasonably. “Surely you dinna think I was the one who wouldna take the vows?”

“No. I know. But did it not eat you up inside? Knowing she would not let you—” Coll shook his head, unable to find the words, and curled his fingers into his palm.

“I take it this is about the lady with the ruins. The one with the lovely name and the eyes like a doe.” Coll shot him a sullen glance, and Alan hid a smile. “Och, weel, Son, there are some women you canna own.”

“I do not want to own her. Why do you assume that? Why does she? Am I such a monster? Am I so overbearing, so dictatorial?”

“Dinna play the fool, Coll. You know no one thinks you're a monster. But you are the sort of man who—who fills up a room. Who does things. Fixes things. Takes charge. You want people to be . . . better than they are.”

“I dinna ask her to change. I certainly would not demand it. And she's no shy flower, despite her name. She'll argue you into the ground over whether some bloody rock should be up or down. She has no fear of me or any man.” Coll jumped to his feet as if unable to sit still and began to pace the small room. “She knows I would never hurt her.”

“Of course you wouldna.”

“Or force her.”

“Clearly.”

“Or push her to do anything.”

“Weel, now, there I dinna think you can say you would not push if you thought it for the best.”

Coll swung around to glare at him. “As if she would not do the same! She is the pushiest woman I have ever met. She
likes
to argue. She
likes
to poke and prod at me until I want to—” He broke off and plopped back into the chair. “Well, you know what I want to do.”

“I've a fair idea,” Alan agreed wryly. He chuckled. “Ah, she sounds like a grand woman, Coll.”

“She is. I just want . . .”

“Yes? What is it you want of her?”

“I want to
be
with her. I want to marry her. I want to give her my name. I want her to bear my children. I want to see her hold them and cuddle them and scold them. I want a life with her.” Coll sighed, bracing his elbows on the table, and dropped his head into his hands, fingers pushing into his skull. “And she does not.” He looked up at his father, his eyes desolate. “She does not love me.”

“She told you this?”

“No.” Coll grimaced.

“Then how do you know?”

“It's clear, is it not? She will not marry me.”

“So you believe your mither did not love me because she wouldna marry me? That she lied when she told me she did?”

“Nae! Ma did not lie. Everyone knew she loved you.”

“However foolish that was of her.”

“I dinna say that.”

“Weel, I suppose I should be thankful for that.” Alan sat
back, studying Coll, folding his arms across his chest in a mirror image of his son, which anyone other than the two of them would have recognized. “But this woman, your Violet, is the sort of woman who
would
lie about it?”

“No! Not at all. She's damnably blunt. She never said she loved me; she never pretended to.”

“She must hae given you some encouragement for you to ask for her hand.”

Coll shrugged.

“Och . . . getting words out of you is a miserable business. Does the woman hae no interest in you? No interest in men? Does she want nothing to do with you?”

“Oh, no, she's fine with that! Bedding down is perfectly acceptable to her.” Coll stopped, looking abashed. “No, I should not have said that. I dinna mean—you must not think—Violet is not loose. She's not known any man but me—oh, bloody hell!” Coll jumped to his feet again. “I canna talk to you about that.”

“I'd just as well you not.” Alan paused, frowning. “But I dinna understand. I thought you said you could not be with her. But now you're saying she would be happy to have the . . . um, sort of life that Janet and—”

“Yes!” Coll flung out his hands. “Yes. She, apparently, would like that. She does not care that I canna take her hand or that I have to mind how I look at her in front of Mardoun's servants. It doesna bother her that I have to sneak into her bed at night and out again before the maids get up. Indeed, she said why worry about it, as if that would not make her a scandal on the tongue of everyone in the glen. I dinna want to have to pummel every man who makes a remark about her—and I canna do so with the women. But
I will not have her scorned. I will not be the sort of man who exposes her to their gossip.”

“The sort of man I was.” Alan rose to face him.

“I dinna say that.” Coll looked away.

“You dinna hae to. Do you think I dinna ken what you think of me? What I'm sure others think of me?”

“This isn't about you or Ma.”

“Is it not?” Alan swung away. “I was not the father you wanted. Or needed. I admit that. I love my music; I canna stay anywhere long; I dinna know how to be an upright man or a guid father.”

“Da . . . no . . . do not . . .”

“Hsst.” Alan raised his hand in a stopping gesture. “You listen to me this once. Whatever I am or however I hae lived my life, I loved your mother. I never touched another woman from the time I first kissed her. I gave Janet everything she asked of me, every part of me she would take. Mayhap she dinna love me as much as I loved her. Or mayhap it was that she wanted something else as much as she wanted me. But I loved her enough, I was man enough, to let her love me as she wanted. To let her live the life she needed no matter what others might think of me for doing so.”

Coll turned to him, frowning. “Da, I'm sor—”

“Nae. I'm done with it. I am as I am. You are as you are. And no doubt you'd be a far better husband and father than I ever was. But I want to give you one bit of fatherly advice. In all your thinking about what you want of her, what you want to do or be or what other people think of you, have you considered what
she
wants of you? Do you love this woman enough to give her what she needs?”

Coll had no answer for him.

It was a long walk back to Duncally, and Coll took it slowly. As he walked through the gates, he heard Violet calling his name. His head snapped up. She ran down the drive toward him, her face lit from within.

“Coll! Coll! I have it! I figured it out!”

H
e opened his arms and
Violet leaped into them. “What are you talking about? What do you have?”

“The answer!” She kissed him hard, then raised her head. “At least, I think it's the answer.”

“You aren't making any sense. Here.” He set her back down on the ground. “Take a few breaths.” He led her into the gatehouse and sat her down at the table. “Now, what is this all about?”

“The treasure. I realized where I went wrong about the treasure. We were looking for it on the wrong day!”

“It wasn't the date Faye wrote in her journal?”

“No, it was on that date.” His eyebrows shot up, and Violet hastened to add, “Wait, just listen.” She drew a deep breath. “It was the day
she
knew as December sixth. But it is not the date we know as December sixth. They changed the calendar.”

Coll dropped down onto the chair beside her. “I beg your pardon?”

“In 1750, they changed the calendar!”

“Who changed the calendar?”

“England. It had been changing all over Europe for some time, but they didn't do it in Britain until an act of Parliament in 1750. I should have realized this before.”

“Explain this to me. How could the calendar change?”

“For years everyone followed the Julian calendar, which established a year of twelve months and 365 days.”

“Aye. Like now.”

“Yes, except for the way they accounted for leap years. You have to add an extra day every so often to keep in tune with the actual cycle of the earth, you see.”

“I understand that. Leap year.”

“Well, the Julian calendar added that extra day too often. The result was that over years and years and years, the real seasonal equinoxes were falling on dates that were too early. It would throw church holidays like Easter into the wrong season. So during the sixteenth century, the Gregorian calendar came into use. For a while both were in use in different countries. England did not adopt the new calendar until an act of Parliament in 1750.”

“All right. What does that mean about the treasure?”

“By the time they adopted the new calendar, they were eleven days off. So suddenly the calendars jumped forward eleven days. They also changed the month when the year was considered to begin, but that doesn't matter here. What is important is that in 1747, the date Faye hid the treasure was December sixth. But if it had been under the calendar we use now, it would have been eleven days past that. December seventeenth.”

“Oh.” Light dawned in Coll's eyes. “It might not matter
about a number of other things what date was attributed to something, but it matters very much if you are talking about the position of the sun.”

“Exactly. It's the time dawn arrived on the day Faye hid the treasure that is important, not what number has been given to that day.” Violet sat back, her face flushed with excitement. “In 1747, the winter solstice would have been on December tenth. Today it is on December twenty-first.”

“And on December seventeenth, the sunlight will fall in the barrow on the same spot that it fell when Faye put it there on December sixth.”

“So we were not wrong in the theory; we were simply wrong about the date. Instead of last week, we need to dig for it the day after tomorrow.”

Coll grinned. “Good thing you didn't think of this in January.”