An awkward silence filled the room.
“Very good, very good,” her father said, looking from one to the other.
“If that’s all, then.” Angus turned as if to leave.
Her father shot her a meaningful, wide-eyed look, nodding encouragement.
Elspeth shrugged. She’d never been good at idle chat-ter. “Do bide a wee, Angus. We… we’ve just stoked the fire, and I’m afraid I’ve had enough of numbers this day.”
“Very well.” Angus went to the corner to retrieve another stool.
“What’s the word from town?” her father asked jovially. “I hear the oldest MacAlpin girl has returned a widow. Lost her husband to a war wound, or some such.” He looked to Elspeth. “You two were mates. What was the lassie’s name?”
“Anya?” Was it possible her dearest friend had returned? How strange to hear such tidings, as though Anya had been beckoned by Elspeth’s thoughts alone. Though sadness for Anya’s loss pierced her, she couldn’t help but beam. “Anya MacAlpin is back?”
She cut her eyes to Angus, feeling instantly guilty. He’d not weather the news so well. Long ago, Anya’s sud-den marriage had struck him hard.
Sure enough, he still faced the corner, stool in hand, standing frozen. She was certain Anya was the reason Angus had never married.
Her smile faded. Would that a man felt half for Elspeth what that farmer must’ve held in his heart for the oldest MacAlpin sister.
Anya hadn’t wanted to marry a stranger, but her father had given her no choice. The day she watched Anya carted away in tears, Elspeth decided she’d either marry for love, or not at all. And now to think her friend was already a widow, while Elspeth seemed destined to remain forever a maiden.
Her father seemed baffled by the tense silence, and filled it with mindless chatter. “Quite a year for that family. Cormac—and what a strange, dour fellow he is, aye?—he up and marries the prettiest girl. From Aberdeen proper, she is.” He shook his head, marveling. “And now there’s a rumor the brother’s back too. The twin. You remember the lad who was stolen? Aidan?”
“None would soon forget that name,” Angus replied, his features once again a stoic mask. He settled his stool before the fire.
Elspeth put her hand to her heart. “Young Aidan lives?”
She hadn’t known the MacAlpins when the lad was taken. But like every other villager on the outskirts of Aberdeen, she’d heard about the kidnap. Folk said he’d been mistaken for a poor climbing boy. Everyone had presumed him dead or worse, indentured to a faraway plantation.
Angus shook his head. “Not so young anymore.”
The mysterious Aidan popped into her head, a shadowy, featureless silhouette. What came of a man after such an ordeal? And what would he look like? If he’d turned out half as handsome as his twin Cormac, he’d be handsome indeed.
“Aye, he’s returned. But the family is keeping a tight lip about it.” Her father leaned in. “He was a slave in the tropics, I heard. They say he was branded.”
“Branded,” she gasped. Owned like a common slave. And yet he’d escaped. Bearing secrets, no doubt.
She shivered, letting her mind wander. How on earth had he made his way back to Scotland, sailing all the way from Jamaica, or Barbados, or Hispaniola? Battling pirates, almost certainly.
Aidan MacAlpin would be dangerous, swaggering. Just like one of the heroes in her books. Would he speak a foreign tongue? Months on the open seas, his skin would be as smooth and brown as a cowry shell.
The sun beat down overhead. The timber planks were hot beneath her bare feet. She stood, gazing across the endless sea. The afternoon was sultry. It loosened her muscles. She felt heavy with the heat. Wanton.
She sensed him, and turned. He was climbing up the ladder, his virile form rising from the cabin below. His sun-kissed skin glowed with the fine sheen of exertion, accentuating his rippling muscles. He called to his sailors, his voice commanding.
But then he saw her. Their eyes met, and the rest of the ship fell away. He stalked to her, his very being intent on one thing and one thing alone. Her.
Elspeth’s breath caught. She put her hands in her lap, wringing her skirts. She hoped the men blamed the flush in her cheeks on the heat of the fire.
She pretended to listen to her father, all the while enjoying the wicked pattering of her heart, as she let herself imagine.
Chapter 2
Aidan sat, folded into a too-small chair, situated as close as he could to the door without appearing like he wanted to run. Which he did.
Home. It was a foreign notion. And Dunnottar Castle, no less. How this cavernous pile of rubble would ever be his home, he had no idea.
He hadn’t intended to return, at least not until he’d found and avenged himself on the mysterious man who’d stolen him so long ago. But chance had reunited him with his twin brother on a dock in Aberdeen. And just as when they were children, Aidan had found himself enmeshed in one of Cormac’s dramas, but this time of a very dire, very adult sort. In the end, he’d decided to remain with his family, hunting for his enemy from the unlikely hideout that was Dunnottar.
“First you, now Anya,” his sister Bridget said.
He forced himself into the moment and found her peering at him with a frank stare. It’d do no good to rouse his family’s suspicion, and so he cracked his mouth into what he hoped was a smile.
Bridget swelled. “Oh, Aidan, it’s so wonderful to have you back where you belong. The family together again.”
A bolt of grief sheared him through. Not the whole family. Just the siblings. Their father had died in the Civil Wars, but that wasn’t the loss he felt keenly. It was their mother whom Aidan mourned.
Apparently, she’d died the year he’d been kidnapped, and though everyone’s grief appeared to have blunted through the years—indeed, Bridget didn’t even have memories of her—Aidan felt the loss as keenly as if it’d just happened.
Because, to him, it had. He’d endured his captivity by forcing himself to hold on to memories, even though they cut him sharp as any blade, and thoughts of his mother had been especially acute. He’d while away long nights, recalling her trilling laugh, or how she always smelled of rose water. The way she’d tuck his blanket about his shoulders when she thought he was asleep. He’d dreamed of the day he could sweep her into an embrace. She’d have been shocked at how he’d grown. She’d have been wild with joy.
But it wasn’t to be. Yet another dashed dream for Aidan, his beautiful mother lying cold in her grave, thirteen years past.
Anya came in, and he scrubbed a hand over his face to clear his thoughts. She crumpled into a chair, looking bled dry. “The lad’s asleep.”
Their brother Gregor reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “Are you certain you want to share a room with the boy? I assure you, we can clear out another room for him that’d suit.”
“No, I’m happy to share. Duncan is my son, after all.”
Anya mustered a smile for Gregor, and it was the first he’d seen on her face since her arrival.
It was such a small interaction, but it made him feel more of an outsider than ever. Gregor’s charm had always come naturally—it’d been the same when they were young. It was impossible for Aidan to imagine offering such blithe comfort to any woman, even one of his sisters.
He scanned the room. All of them, they sat with such ease, huddled close to the fire. It was all he could do not to resent the lot of them. But of course he didn’t. And yet, he couldn’t rise above the pained feeling in his chest when he was in their midst.
“What a fine boy you’ve raised,” Marjorie said. She was nestled close by Cormac’s side.
“You’ll have your own chance to raise one soon enough.” Smiling, Anya nodded to Marjorie’s belly. It was still flat, even though she was already with child.
Cormac beamed, and Aidan had to look away. Though Aidan couldn’t begrudge his twin’s happiness, it was a gulf between them. It always had been.
Only now, after his indenture, it was worse. He couldn’t fathom finding such easy joy with a woman. The only women he’d known had been either pretentious plantation wives, or their hard-used servants. Aidan had found physical release with both. But love? Never that. Never had he been the object of anyone’s care or concern. All he’d ever known was the hard heart, cold eye, and sweaty brow to which the Indies reduced a person.
Bridget shifted, getting a better view of Anya in the firelight, studying her features. “Duncan’s got your eyes, but that’s it. He must’ve been the very likeness of your husband. It’s a shame you could never visit when he was alive.”
Aidan watched, mesmerized, as Bridget got up and plopped next to Anya, grabbing her hand and stroking it. “It seems he was a fine man. You must’ve felt the luckiest of all women to have married such a nobly born gentleman. And a fine soldier, no less.”
Their older sister only nodded. The amber light accentuated the furrow in her brow. Aidan wondered at the look that flickered in her eyes.
His eyes went from oldest sister to youngest, as different in appearance as they were in attitude. Anya was thin as a willow and quiet as the breeze, with the lighter coloring of their mother. But Bridget’s eyes were almost as dark as her black hair, and they danced with wickedness.
Despite himself, Aidan felt a kinship with his older sister. Bridget had been just a babe when he’d been taken, and he found himself discomfited with her bold and buoyant ways.
“There’s so much to catch up on,” Bridget said. “As it is, it’s nearly impossible to pull stories from Aidan.” She shot him a scolding glance. “So, Anya, it falls on you. You must tell us your story in full. You must be so proud. Your husband died a war hero!”
Anya’s mouth was tight. “Not a hero, precisely. Donald died a full ten years after battle.”
Aidan would wager there was more of a story there that she wasn’t telling. He knew how to read people. Being attuned to the secret wants of others had been key to surviving his long years in captivity.