Elspeth held out her arm. “I heard you were back. I thought perhaps you wanted to go on one of our sojourns.”
As girls, they’d whiled away countless hours on their walks, during which Elspeth would spin tales about ships in the distance, or imagine secret tragedies suffered by passersby. Sometimes she’d pretend they were on a dangerous trek across faraway lands.
“It’s been some time since our last expedition,” Anya said, linking elbows. “Where shall we venture today?”
They fell into step easily. Despite the playfulness of Anya’s words, Elspeth heard the strain in her voice.
“Mmm.” Elspeth tapped a finger on her chin, eager to do what she could to see a true smile on her friend’s face. “Exotic Afrique? Perhaps a journey to ancient Carthage? Mayhap,” she added in a wicked whisper, “we’ll espy a Roman soldier on the road.”
The errant image of Aidan flashed in her mind. Might they run into him on their walk? And how might he look in Roman helmet and breastplate? With that height and resonant voice, his bearing was decidedly gladiatorial.
There was a moment of quiet, in which their grins faded to contented smiles.
Anya patted her arm. “How I’ve longed to see you.” There was a distinct note of melancholy in her voice.
“But you’ve been the one journeying, in truth. Living all the way in Argyll?” Elspeth squeezed her arm in excitement. “The trip alone must’ve been a grand adventure.”
Anya shrugged. “Would that life turned out as we’d imagined as girls.”
“What’s happened to make you feel so decrepit?” Elspeth cocked her head, as though if she looked hard enough, she could read Anya’s story on her face. “I see that you’re tired. I can guess that you’re sad. But the rest …” She shook her head thoughtfully. “The rest is a mystery.” Her eyes grew playfully sharp. “Perhaps I’d know if you’d written me more faithfully. Your last letter was over a year ago. Uncommunicativeness is an unforgivable defect in any best friend.”
“Uncommuni …” Anya patted her arm. “Truly, Elspeth. Where do you come up with these words?”
Elspeth steered them onto a path leading down to the shoreline. It was a clear day, and she hoped breathing the salt air might be invigorating for her friend. She might even spare a moment to contemplate swashbuckling, seafaring sorts of men. “You shan’t change the topic,” she said, as much to Anya as to herself. “And don’t tell me it’s because young Duncan—who, by the way, I’m desperate to meet—took too much of your time. Tell me truly how you are.”
Anya sighed. “You had the right of it. I am tired. And relieved to be home. My husband was … a difficult patient.”
“It must be a hardship, though.” Elspeth stopped in her tracks, staring back up at the ruins of Dunnottar Castle, looming high on the mammoth seaside cliff top known as Dunnottar Rock. It’d been ravaged during the Civil Wars and then abandoned. The MacAlpin siblings had claimed it as their own, and thanks to three—now four—strapping sons, the townsfolk hadn’t the heart to challenge them. “You always loved finery, Anya. But now, to squat with your family in such a place, not knowing from day to day if someone might come and claim the castle from under you?” She sighed. “While your husband’s Stewart estates must’ve been grand indeed. It was always your dream to be a lady of such fortunes.”
“Donald was merely a very distant cousin. But yes, our home was grand. Though, I confess, I find myself preferring it here.” Anya paused, studying the jagged coastline. Veins of rich, green grass fanned down the cliffs toward the beach, a reminder of the tenacious farmland that clung to the eastern coast, refusing to be denied. Something in her eyes cleared. “Don’t you know, dear Elspeth, oak wainscoting and one’s own privy don’t make a home. And besides, Dunnottar has…”
“A peculiar charm?”
Brightening, Anya pulled them back into a walk. “Aye. Just that.” Loosening her arisaid, she led them to a large flat rock, where she spread the wool out like a blanket. “Come bide a wee. All I’ve done since arriving home is answer questions about my son, and my husband, and my husband’s infirmities, and his military career, and his land holdings.” She sat, growing stoic. “And my prospects.” Anya set her shoulders, as though those prospects were something to be borne physically. “I’d hear instead how my bosom friend is faring. So tell me, Elspeth. How fare you?”
“I’m well.” She shrugged, not much interested in talking about her own exceptionally mundane life. To do so would only be an exercise in fabricating some interesting tale where there was none to be found. It was enough of a strain to maintain a pleasant countenance among acquaintances; she had no wish to create such a charade around her oldest friend.
Anya pursed her lips. “That’s all you’ve to tell me? You’re well? We’ve known each other since we were girls hoisting our skirts and climbing to steal apples. I know when you’re not telling me something. Begin with your father. How is he?”
Elspeth settled onto the rock with a sigh. “I fear Da’s head is still in the clouds.”
Anya’s eyes narrowed. “You’re holding something back, I think. Tell me you’re no longer living your life completely in service to him.”
The words cut to her heart, though she feared the truth of them. “My life’s not so dire as all that.” She forced a smile. “Father began a woolen business.”
Anya sat next to her. “Well that’s a good thing.”
“Not when he had to sell off everything in order to do it.”
“Everything?”
Elspeth knew her friend really meant, Even your dowry? “Everything. Cattle, linens. All of it. For twenty head of sheep.”
“I hope you fancy mutton.”
It was such a serene rendering of such a preposterous situation, Elspeth had to let free a long, hard laugh. It felt good to find humor in the face of her despair. Dabbing tears from her eyes, she said, “Would that we could enjoy a spot of mutton. My father hasn’t yet grasped the concept of ‘give us this day our daily bread.’ Do you realize he’s
trading Angus Gunn for raw oats?”
Anya froze at mention of the farmer.
Elspeth’s smile vanished. She grabbed Anya’s hand. “I’m sorry. I … I didn’t think—”
Anya gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t fash yourself over it. Now that I’m back, I’ll be hearing his name, and I best get used to it. Go on. Finish your story.”
She hesitated. She knew there was much Anya wasn’t telling her. She wanted to probe and plumb and speculate— it was what friends did. But they both had a lifelong habit of avoiding talk of their private pains.
Elspeth wrung her hands in her skirts. Anya was a widow and a mother. Elspeth’s woes were silly nothings compared to what her friend had endured. She shrugged, and putting a fine point on it, said, “What more is there to say? My maddening, stubborn, doddering codger of a father is reducing us to paupers.”
Anya’s spine bolted straight, her face taking on a look Elspeth didn’t recognize.
Elspeth stiffened. “What is it?”
“You need money,” Anya said, her eyes bright.
“No.” Elspeth shook her head vehemently, thinking she knew what was coming. She wouldn’t stoop to charity, even if it was from her best friend. “I will not accept—”
“No, no, goose. I’m not trying to give you money. Well, you’ll make money, but … you’ll see.” Anya sprang from the rock, looking more animated than she had all morning. “I have an idea.”
Elspeth laughed weakly, not budging. “You’re frightening me. You’re not going to propose I sell the sheep in favor of a goat-breeding enterprise?”
“Nothing so coarse as that. You’re a smart woman. The smartest I know. The most well read in and around all Aberdeen, I daresay.” Anya waved her hand for Elspeth to take it.
Elspeth slid from the rock, taking her friend’s arm. “Which enables me to what? Write novels? Become an essayist? I’d have a better chance of wedding a mysterious foreign duke and ruling with a velvet glove over … over the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.”
They made their way back to the path, Anya steering them back toward home. “No, no. Not a writer. You’ll be a teacher.”
Elspeth pondered for a moment. She supposed Anya’s son would need some tutoring. “But I’ve not much experience with children.”
“Not with children,” Anya chided. “You shall tutor Aidan.”
Chapter 4
“What are you thinking, coming to Dunnottar?” Aidan grabbed his hired man, dragging him by the scruff of his jacket away from the castle grounds. “I told you. Nobody can know what I’m about.”
“But I assumed they was your family, sir.”
He thought of his brothers. They’d just meddle, Gregor and Cormac especially. Finding and vanquishing the man with the black pearl was his secret alone to tend, his revenge to savor. “Particularly not my family. Now, what news have you?”
Aidan began to head down the steep path to the beach, but saw his sister Anya talking with the strange girl who’d appeared on their doorstep that morning. Turning, he led them north instead. He knew of a secluded cove up the coast where they could shelter from spying eyes.
Aidan walked quickly, and the hired man stumbled, a city man uneasy on such rugged terrain. “You were very wise, sir,” the man said, clumsily recovering his step. “Wise indeed. It’s just as you said it’d be.”
Aidan clenched his fists, mustering patience. He slowed his stride. “Spare me the bootlicking and say it plain. What did you learn?”
“You and your brother done took down the smuggler.”
“Yes,” Aidan said, through gritted teeth. It was an episode he’d not soon forget. Cormac’s sentimental folly had almost killed him. Again. “So I recall. I’m not paying you to restate the obvious.”