“Truly, you think so?” he asked, betraying an unexpected vulnerability.
“I do.” The notion that she’d been the one called upon to offer reassurance warmed her. “But why on earth do you need a dog?”
“Not why,” he said, sounding gruff once more. “The question is who. Who on earth needs such a dog.” He nearly threw the pup into her lap. “You do.”
“I do?” The animal exploded into movement, skittering tiny paws and claws over her skirts, and she nestled his chest in one hand, petting and soothing him with the other. “He’s for me?”
He tossed off her comment. “And who else? I certainly don’t need a sheepdog.”
“But … me?” Something in her chest clenched. Aidan had thought to give her a gift. Then she remembered the shears, recalling this wasn’t the first present from him. Though why he was so gruff and grudging about it, she couldn’t understand. “You got him for me?”
His eyes lit on her for a moment, looking quizzical. “Yes. For you. We can’t have you managing your flock from the treetops. This beggar will help you drive them to and fro.”
He’d thought of her enough to bring her such a gift. So many emotions filled her, she thought she might burst. How long had it been since anyone else had given her anything? “What’s his name?”
He shrugged, looking like he could care less. “You tell me, luvvie.” The pup had grown calm, and Aidan reached over and scruffed him roughly on the head. “Just please, as someone who spent a lifetime being called ‘boy,’ I beg you not call him ‘dog.’ ”
“I’d never think it.” She rubbed her hand, burning from where his fingers had brushed hers. “He’s a grand animal in need of a grand name.” She’d have treasured the dog even if he hadn’t been a gift—though the fact that he’d been from Aidan made him all the more precious. “But where did you find him?”
“I have my sources. It’s a long enough road from here to Aberdeen.” He leaned back in his chair, looking satisfied. “The pup’s mother was of superlative breeding—a sheepdog all the way from Shetland. Until she had the grave misfortune of having her virtue compromised by a terrier.”
Elspeth laughed. “A terrier?”
He nodded, mock gravity setting his features. “A terrier.”
His gruffness was fading, and she loosened in response. Picturing a regal Shetland bitch in coitus with a wee terrier, she laughed again. “Oh my. That must’ve been a sight indeed.”
“My thoughts precisely. The rest of the litter was claimed, but as this fellow was the runt, the owner had no use for him.”
She clutched the dozing pup to her breast. “Well, I do.”
This woke the dog, restoring his energy at once, and he leaped from her lap onto the floor. Elspeth patted her leg. “Come back! We must name you.” She patted again, but the dog ignored her, too engrossed in sniffing every inch of the dining hall.
“Oh, bother.” Forgetting her shyness, she simply put two fingers in her mouth and blew. The dog’s ears perked up and he ran straight for her. She scooped him back off the floor, and looked up to find Aidan gaping at her. “What?”
“Your infamous whistle. I’d been hoping to hear it, you know.”
She blushed to her very toes. Ignoring his comment, she held up her new pet to gaze into his eyes. “I shall call him … Achilles.”
A laugh burst from Aidan. “Achilles?”
“Oh yes.” She placed the pup in her lap, but he wriggled madly, and finally Elspeth just shooed him free. “Achilles was famously heroic, you know. And peripatetic, just like this fellow.”
“Peripa… ?”
“He enjoys moving about.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “Achilles seems a long name to shout about the glen. How about something simpler?”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. A real name. Like Duncan.”
She bit back a disbelieving smile. “Duncan is the name of your nephew.”
“Fine, then,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Why not Fergal, or Alasdair, or …”
The dog sniffed his way to the corner, and finding a patch of weeds that’d broken through the masonry, squatted and availed himself.
Aidan laughed again. “Pissing in the bloody dining hall. Bridget will be livid.”
“You see? He is Achilles.” Elspeth turned to face him, and this time she was the one to speak with mock stoicism. “He’s a warrior.”
“A warrior? Seems to me pissing in corners is something more suited to drunkards in public houses.” He looked back at the puppy, who was enthusiastically flicking bits of rock and weed over where he’d just let his bladder. “No, this fellow’s a sheepherder, plain and simple.”
“A sheepherder with a white paw.” She pointed to the white hind paw amid three black ones. “Just like Achilles, with his vulnerable heel. You see?”
“No, luvvie, I do not see.”
She turned to face Aidan, realizing he didn’t get the connection. And of course he didn’t. When would he have had the chance ever even to hear about the Greek myths? She knew a flare of regret, but seeing the open curiosity in his expression, she relaxed.
“Well, there was this man …”
As she began to recount her story, Aidan marveled at how she seemed to forget herself, rapt in her own tale. He tried to listen to her words—it was a rousing story, after all—but he found he kept watching her instead, how those pale eyes lit with emotion, how her delicate hands fluttered with expression.
But the true revelation was her pretty smile. He realized he’d never seen it, not like this. She’d given him polite ones, nervous ones, self-deprecating ones, but never this broad, easy grin telling him that, for just a moment, she’d forgotten herself.
It was only a squirming, wee mongrel, but the way Elspeth had looked at Aidan, one would’ve thought she’d never before received such a gift. And who knew? Perhaps she hadn’t.
She finally seemed comfortable with him. His coarse ways had cowed her at first. That he’d finally put her at her ease was nearly as great a triumph as escaping Barbados.
The dog came sniffing back to them. Aidan saw how Elspeth longed to hold the creature, but as he bent to get the pup for her, she practically jumped out of his way, and her elbow knocked aside the inkpot she’d put out for the day’s lessons.
“Oh.” She clapped a hand to her mouth, and chagrin bled her face of the joy he’d seen just a moment before. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’ve naught to be sorry for,” he said, dropping to the floor to grab the rolling inkpot.
Unfortunately, she’d knelt at the same time, and they knocked heads. “Oh,” she said again, with a hand to her temple. “Sorry. I am so sorry.”
Anxiety and embarrassment were seeping into her features, and Aidan would have nothing of it. He refused to surrender the contented rapport they’d attained. He snatched up the inkpot and said, “It’s all my doing, luvvie. I’ll fetch a rag.”
He raced from the room, and Elspeth was convinced it was to flee the likes of her.
She plopped onto her bottom. Her hair had come loose, and she brushed a lock from her eyes. Too late, she noticed the black ink smudged along the side of her hand. “Fool,” she said, scrubbing at it, but her efforts only served to spread the blot along her fingertips. She was certain she must have ink spread all over her face, too. “You’re a fool.”
She sat in silent shame for a moment, then realized there was an odd stillness in the room. She glanced around. “Achilles?”
Hearing a muffled whimper, she hopped to her feet, pacing the room, calling gently for the dog. She tamped down a surge of panic. Though Dunnottar Castle was clearly inhabitable, there were areas that’d fallen to ruin, piles of rubble in which a tiny pup could get lost or crushed. A high-pitched whine came from the corner.
“Achilles? Come on, boy. Where are you?” She heard the sound of settling rocks, and this time when the panic flared, Elspeth let it flood her. She ran to the noise, dropping and scrabbling on hands and knees. “Achilles?”
Spotting a small hole, she squatted low, putting her cheek to the ground just as a tiny black nose sniffed into view. She began to clear rocks away from the hole, but her dog was either too startled or too curious, and he disappeared from view.
“Where have you gotten to?” She worked quickly, plucking rocks away, revealing a narrow burrow, low and dark.
She thought about the layout of the castle. Such a place would likely feature a pit off the dining area—ogling prisoners had once been considered grand entertainment between courses. Was this a passage to a long-forgotten dungeon? The thought didn’t give her comfort—if the pup fell, they’d never be able to pull him out. “Get back here this instant,” she said, her tone distinctly alarmed.
Elspeth heaved aside a few of the larger rocks and, sweeping away loose bits of masonry, uncovered a hole large enough to crawl through. She didn’t hesitate, just dove in after him. The tunnel soon shrank around her, and she sank onto her belly, slinking forward on her elbows.
A mass of fur barreled into her. She yelped, and he scampered away again.
“Blasted pup.” He thought they were playing at some game. “Get here, you rascal.” She patted the ground, reaching an arm before her in the darkness, and seized a fistful of soft puppy. “Gotcha.”
She crept backward, doing her best to hold on to the dog, alternately nipping and licking her. “I should’ve named you Pan, not Achilles, you wee troublemaker. Don’t you know you could get crushed in here? Or you could’ve dropped down the pit, and then where would you be?”
“One could say the same for you,” a decidedly masculine voice replied.
Aidan. Elspeth dropped her forehead in defeat. He’d seen her embarrassed, helpless, and stuttering … he might as well see her covered in dust, engulfed to her waist by a hole in the wall.