Even before she completed the thought the rebellious voice returned, louder and more insistent, stomping over all her arguments, attempting to crush them to dust. Hadn’t she lived with her sisters for years without revealing the truth? It could be done. Surely she could do the same with Iain as well.
With incredible will she fought back against that line of thinking. She could not live that way for the rest of her life. And neither should Iain. He didn’t deserve a wife who would keep secrets from him.
But perhaps she didn’t need to. The idea was like a spark in dry brush, cleansing, burning down old ways of thinking. Perhaps she was thinking like her younger self, the one who’d had status and reputation practically beat into her. She was no longer an earl’s daughter. She and Iain were both of equal social footing, with no hint of a title hanging over their heads. Perhaps they were meant to have found one another at this point in their lives, to take this triptogether, to learn the truth about their separation and heal. They had been given another chance to claim the future that had been stolen from them, but as equals this time.
Against her will, that small hope took hold of her, like the roots of the resilient trees on Synne’s craggy cliffs, and it would not let go. Mayhap she had been overthinking it all along. There truly was no great disparity in their stations any longer. They could live a quiet life together, and finally claim some happiness for themselves. And if she did confide the truth of her past to him, who could it possibly affect but the two of them? Surely they could weather it as long as they had each other.
No sooner had the thought washed over her than she spun about on the pavement, determined to return to Iain and see where this new recklessness brought her, broughtthem. Before she had taken a step, however, she came too close to a pedestrian, jarring the package in their arm, sending it to the pavement.
“Oh goodness,” she babbled, even as she bent down to retrieve the bundle. “I’m so very sorry.”
Whatever else she might have said, however, stalled on her lips as she rose to hand the package back and met the startled eye of the same dark-haired woman she had seen from the carriage window.
But Seraphina’s typical raging curiosity, which would have had her attempting to learn why the woman had reacted so strangely to seeing their carriage, was nearly nonexistent now in the face of her determination to return to Iain. Until the woman said, in a breathless voice, “You were with Iain in the carriage.”
Seraphina froze. This woman knew Iain? And knew him well if she was using his given name with such familiarity.
“Y-yes, that was me,” she replied, tripping over the words in her confusion.
The other woman took her in from the top of her head to the tips of her half boots and everything in between, especially Phineas, whom she eyed with a healthy dose of trepidation.
“And how do you know my cousin?”
“Cousin,” Seraphina breathed, her confusion turning to shock. Of all the people in all of Scotland for her to literally run into, for it to be Iain’s newly found family was too amazing to comprehend.
“Yes,” the woman replied with a delicate, lilting brogue that nonetheless betrayed her disquiet. “But forgive me for not introducing myself. I am Miss Cora MacInnes. My grandmother is in that shop just there, or I would introduce her as well. And you are?”
There was so much more than a request for Seraphina’s name in that simple three-word question. She wondered what Iain might have told his family about her, if anything. Out of an abundance of caution for the future she hoped to share with him, she held out her hand and said only, “I am Miss Seraphina Athwart. An old friend of Iain’s.”
But there was no recognition in the woman’s eyes. Not that she thought Iain might have told his cousin about her. From all accounts he had thoroughly despised Seraphina in the thirteen years since they’d parted. And besides, he’d only had his family in his life for the past year; why would he tell them about the woman who’d been out of his life for longer than she’d been in it?
“And this is Phineas,” she continued, motioning to the parrot.
The woman nodded, her cautious gaze once more onPhineas. “A strange companion,” she murmured. “I wonder you do not worry about him flying away.”
“He’s quite tame and well-behaved,” Seraphina replied.
Which, of course, was the perfect time for Phineas to look at Iain’s cousin and say, loud and clear, “Ye scabby bawbag.”
Seraphina closed her eyes and groaned. Of all the times to call a person a scrotum. There was not a noise from Miss MacInnes, and for a moment Seraphina thought she might have perhaps gotten so offended she’d up and left without a word of goodbye. For the life of her, she didn’t know which would mortify her more: seeing the woman still standing there, or knowing she’d been so insulted she’d left.
In the end she forced her eyes open—only to see Miss MacInnes appearing for all the world as if she were trying her damnedest not to laugh.
“That is…” Miss MacInnes cleared her throat and tried again, even as her eyes danced with mirth. “That is quite the pet you have there.”
“Yes,” Seraphina muttered, casting a dark glance to where Phineas sat on her shoulder. That traitor leaned forward and peered at her with one much-too-innocent eye. “He is something else.” What that something else was, however, she didn’t know.
“But I’ve never heard a bird speak with a Scottish brogue,” Miss MacInnes said. “In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a bird speak. But while he sounds Scottish, you most assuredly do not. You are English?”
“Yes.”
Seraphina saw the questions in the woman’s eyes: mainly how her cousin knew an Englishwoman with a parrot that spoke with a Scottish brogue, and why he was travelingwith said woman to Edinburgh. She braced herself for a barrage of questions—only God knew what conclusion she had come to. She nearly laughed at that rogue thought, a wild, uncontrolled laugh. Whatever the woman came up with, it could be no more outrageous than the truth.
But at the last minute the woman’s eyes clouded, her lips pressing tight, the humor from before gone.
“Well, it was lovely to meet you,” Miss MacInnes said, her tone much more subdued than before. “Please do give my cousin our regards.” And with that, she turned to head into the small shop she’d indicated her grandmother was in.
It should not have surprised Seraphina that the woman was so cold where Iain was concerned. Iain himself had appeared almost angry when he’d spoken of his family. It was all too obvious that their relationship was one of deep strife.
