Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy (15 page)

“Good sakes, do other men ask thee to
sleep
wi’ them?”

“Och, aye, from a sennight after Jeb drooned. All commiserating like, and telling me they ken fine that Ah miss the bedding, as if Ah must be nigh begging for a boon or such. Ah canna say that Ah
don’t
miss the bedding. Tha must miss it, too. ’Tis only natural, that. Och, but Ah kent nowt afore Ah married Jeb, ’cause nae one tells a lass nowt about what to expect, just that she should do like her man says. But Jeb were a
fine
man in bed.”

Feeling heat suffuse her cheeks, Alyson said, “In troth, Lizzie, I’d liefer discuss another subject now.”

“Aye, sure. Ah can tell thee, though, Ah do miss Jeb touching me doon there. He were no just a fine specimen of a lad wi’ a good thick piece on him. The man were skilled wi’ his hands, too, a-stroking and a-petting till he’d drive me near to madness. He could mak’ me cry out for it, too, any time he’d a mind to. Times, it were like he mistook me for a plaything, wanting to stroke me all over, and nuzzling at me bubs like a wee pup at its mam’s tit. But Jeb were nae pup, Ah can tell thee. Sakes, that lad had only to put a finger to one o’ me nipples, and—”

“Lizzie, stop!” Alyson exclaimed, aware that her whole body was burning at hearing such intimate talk. What was Lizzie thinking to say such things to her?

Recalling that Lizzie supposed her to be just such a woman as Lizzie was, Alyson called herself to order. That she was a lady born and not someone who discussed her body parts and physical sensations with such careless abandon was not a point to make just then. However, she did find it tantalizing to imagine being such a person and having such stirring memories as Lizzie did.

She tried to imagine doing such things with Niall. Her imagination boggled.

“Will! Come, see what I found!” Jake shouted from right behind her, startling her so that she whirled toward him with a surge of dismay and brief fear that he might somehow know what she’d been thinking.

Swiftly collecting her wits but unsure, from his suddenly quizzical expression, if she had been quick enough, she said, “What did you find?”

Stretching out a hand, he showed her a smooth white
rock with a round hole about an inch in diameter through its center. “One might find a wee stone like this in a riverbed,” he said. “Mayhap even on shingle by the sea. But it is odd, I think, to find it up here on these cliffs. It’s gey smooth, too. Feel it.”

She took it from him, feeling an inexplicable reluctance to do so. The rock felt colder than she’d expected, but it was perfectly smooth, just as he had said.

“Let me see,” Will said, running to them. “What is it?”

“A rock,” Alyson said, handing it to him. “A rather odd one.”

“Coo, it’s got a hole clean through it! How’d it get like that?”

“In fast-moving water, most likely,” Jake said. “Someone must have found it somewhere else and lost it here. It doesn’t look like any other rocks I see.”

Alyson recovered her equanimity enough to say, “According to ancient Celtic folklore, if one looks through such a stone, one might see a person’s intended bride or groom standing by that person. Seers and bards say that one might even see one’s own intended mate.”

Will raised the stone to his right eye and peered through it. “I see gannets and more gannets, nowt more,” he said, handing it to Jake. “Ye should look, too, though. Ye’re at least
old
enough tae take a wife.”

Obligingly, Jake put the stone to his eye and turned as if, Alyson thought, he sought an intended bride wherever he might find her. After making a full circle, he lowered the stone and shook his head. “No spouse for me or anyone else I see. ’Tis a good thing for me, though. I’m a man who enjoys his freedom.”

“Me, too,” Will said, nodding fervently. “Hoots, but I
wish Jamie was here. He’d want tae look through it, too, I’ll wager.”

Jake put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

Mace asked if he could look through the stone. Jake handed it to him, but Mace had no better luck than he or Will had had and gave it back.

Jake offered it to Alyson. “Have a look, lass.”

Taking an involuntary step backward, she said, “Nay, it is too soon. Let Lizzie see what she can see.”

Lizzie having no better luck than the others, Jake slipped the stone into a small leather pouch attached to his belt, and they continued on their way. They had passed beyond the highest cliffs by then and were walking downhill.

Cliffs of varying heights ringed the bay from one end to the other. Below them, with the tide low, as it was, Alyson saw areas of smooth-looking sand, rough shingle, and hundreds of rocky outcroppings replete with tidal pools.

“Are there places where one can walk down to the shore?” she asked Lizzie.

“Och, aye. Nane so many o’ them, but we’ll see some.”

“Mace, walk ahead wi’ Lizzie and Will for a time,” Jake said. “Get Lizzie tae tell ye summat about this area. ’Tis a fine and splendid place, I’m thinking.”

Moments later, Alyson was alone with Jake. She could not help but note that he was eyeing her quizzically again. Suspecting that he had noticed her reaction to the rock, she sought for something sensible to explain it.

Jake wondered what had disturbed Alyson’s peace of mind. As the thought occurred to him, he realized that in the short time they’d been together, he had come to value her equanimity.

During the wind, storm, and chaos of the previous day, he’d found it astonishing that she could remain calm. Today, it disturbed him that she had not.

“What is it, lass?” he asked. When she did not reply, he said, “You seem distressed. Did something about that stone unsettle you?”

“Nay… or not the stone at all events.”

“Something has,” he said.

She looked at him then—measuringly, he thought.

Gazing steadily back, he saw that the angle of the sun was such that her eyes had turned an unusual shade of ice green and appeared to be almost translucent.

They crinkled at the corners. He saw then that she was smiling quizzically and realized that his steady look had turned into a rather rude stare.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve never seen eyes with such changeable color as yours have. With the sun shining down as it is from over my shoulder, they are a most unusual light green and so clear that I found it hard to look away.”

“I felt as if you were trying to see right to my thoughts,” she said.

“I would like to know what they are. Something has upset you.”

“I suppose that Lizzie did but by no fault of her own,” Alyson said. “Her mother told her that I’m a widow, and Lizzie asked how I felt about certain things. She apologized all the while, though, for asking such personal questions.”

“As well she should,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“Now you’re doing what I did,” she said with a glimmer of amusement. “We are pretending to be people just like Lizzie and her family, after all. She would have no cause to think she should treat me with any formality. But when she began telling me uncomfortably personal things about her husband and… and about bedding with him, including things he did that gave her pleasure…”

“Her words must have made you miss your husband more than ever,” he said then. “I ken fine that this is all gey difficult for you.”

“But it isn’t,” she said, surprising him. “Sithee, although I have known Niall since we were children, we saw each other only on certain holy days and whenever Parliament met in Perth. I have always liked him, but after listening to Lizzie talk about how much she misses her husband a year after his death, I realized that I barely know Niall as a husband. Not being distraught over someone so rarely at home must be only normal. I just did not see, before Lizzie said what she did, that although I’m worried about Niall, worry is
all
that I feel.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But shock often delays grief, lass.”

“Aye, sure, and I’ll admit that when I saw Mungo without him, I did feel a surge of emotion and greater concern for Niall. But not grief, certainly none such as Lizzie feels for her Jeb. I’d just like to know what happened to Niall.”

“A gey practical attitude,” he said dryly. “I’d commend it if I believed it.”

“Truly, I just don’t
feel
as if he can be dead.” She bit her lip, looked away, and he saw that she had clenched her hands in the folds of her skirt.

Glancing ahead to be sure the others were keeping
each other occupied, he said, “You know, this is the second time you’ve mentioned such feelings, as if you think you
ought
to be feeling his death.”

She stared straight ahead but not as if she watched the others.

Realizing that she was not heeding where she put her feet, Jake cupped a hand gently under her elbow but did not urge her again to share her thoughts.

He had his reward when she said, “Do you believe in… in magical things?”

“What sort?”

“Any sort.” Looking at him, she said, “You peered through that stone as if you thought you might see something. Did you do that for Will’s sake or because you believed you might actually see a betrothed couple?”

He looked into her unusual eyes long enough to gather his thoughts. Then he said, “I believe in God, and I have experienced things—especially on the sea—that defy logical explanation and thus may be magical. As a child I firmly believed in boggarts and worricows, especially when my da sent me down to tidy up the hold of his ship. It was dark, and he would not let me take a lantern. He said I was apt to set the ship afire and should seek to improve my night vision instead.”

“
Did
you ever set a ship afire?” she asked.

“Aye, come to think on it, I did. It burnt right to the water, too. But we need not talk about that. Tell me more about these magical things of yours.”

Instead, she said, “In a way, it was your doubting that I might sense Niall’s death. Sithee, I’ve experienced such things before… on occasion.”

“I think everyone has such feelings,” he said. “In my
experience, most of them turn out to be false. When you asked me about magical things, I thought you meant the wee folk, witches casting spells, and the like.”

“Do you believe in the Sight?”

“
Second
Sight?”

When she nodded, his impulse was to deny that he did. But her tense expression told him the question was important to her, so he gave it more thought.

“I don’t have much experience,” he said. “None, unless you count an uncanny sense of direction that serves me almost magically at sea on the stormiest day or darkest night. One doesn’t live in the Highlands or Borders, though, without hearing tale after tale of the Sight. However, I’ve never ‘seen’ anything, myself.”

“I did not want to look through that stone because I’d liefer believe I may still
have
a husband, God willing. But I feared I might see him dead.” She spoke quickly, as if overcoming reluctance to make the statement at all.

“But why should—” He broke off, eyeing her speculatively before he said, “Sakes, lass, do you imagine that
you
have the gift?” As the words left his tongue, he regretted his tone and added quickly, “I don’t mean to mock you, but—”

“Believe me, sir, I do not think of the Sight as a gift. Nor do I think that anyone else who has experienced it would deem it so. But you asked me what had unsettled me. In troth, I’m not sure. But something about that stone impelled me to give it back to you with
out
looking through it.”

“But have you—?”

“I would ask you a question now, if I may,” she interjected.

“Aye, sure.”

“You once said that Davy Stewart was as different from Jamie as flint from tinder, but did you
know
Davy?”

“I know about him, and I’d met him several times. But that’s all.”

“What do you know about his death?”

“I know he died at Falkland Castle almost exactly a year ago.”

“A year ago Tuesday,” she said. “Do you know much about
how
he died?”

“Too much,” he said, grimacing. “I won’t repeat the details to you, lass.”

“Do you think many others know what you know?”

“Not many, I’d warrant. I had what I know from Bishop Wardlaw, and he had it from monks at Lindores Abbey who prepared Davy’s body for burial.”

“My family will watch the Papal Legate consecrate Bishop Wardlaw as Bishop of St. Andrews and Prelate of Scotland next month at Scone,” she said. “But I have not met him. Nor do I know anyone at Lindores.”

“Why do you feel obliged to tell me that?”

“My parents and younger brother rarely go anywhere. Since my two older brothers died,” she went on, “the only visitors to MacGillivray House are members of our family. Many of them do like to visit Perth, though, and they stay with us. They look to me for many things, sir, but
not
to discuss political matters.” With a sigh, she added, “In troth, I’m rather hoping that those who lingered there since Christmas will have returned to their homes before I get back.”

“Again, lass, why tell me all this whilst we talk about magic?”

“Because when I describe Davy’s death, I don’t want you thinking I had the details from someone else. I know of no one who
could
know what I believe I do.”