She put her hand on the wrought iron gate in front of her and studied the place that would be her home for at least the next week. It boasted a grim sort of austerity, a look that would have been right at home in a BBC adaptation of a Gothic novel. It was tempting to speculate on how few amenities she might find inside, but she forbore. As long as she encountered only ghosts in formal dress instead of Norman Bates in a kilt, she would be fine.
Besides, it was November, it was rainy, and it was Scotland. What else did she need? It was tempting to burst into song right there in the street, but perhaps later when she was better rested and more able to convince any potential constabulary that she was just happy, not punch-drunk.
She adjusted her backpack over her shoulder, took a no-nonsense grip on her suitcase handle, and let herself inside the gates. She shut them behind her, then suppressed a yawn on her way up the path to the front door. She ached with weariness, but promised herself somewhere flat to lie down very soon.
The inside of the place was no more welcoming than the outside, but she wasn’t there to live, she was there to sleep at night after spending her days dreaming her way through the Scottish countryside. As long as she had a bed, a bathroom, and a place to stash her stuff, she would survive.
She greeted the owners who manned the desk as if it were the last thing that stood between them and inevitable destruction, signed what was necessary, then happily accepted her key and directions to her room. The climb up the narrow staircase was an adventure, and there was more Victorian austerity waiting for her inside her bedroom, but she ignored it. She had ignored all the one-star reviews the inn had earned, so she probably deserved exactly what she was getting. None of that mattered at the moment. She had a turret room, she had rain, and she had Scotland.
Life was very good indeed.
She shoved her suitcase into a corner, dumped her backpack on the bed, then left her room to look for the bathroom. The floorboards creaked badly enough that she wasn’t entirelysure she wouldn’t go right through them, but fortunately her mission was accomplished without trouble and she was soon back in her room, wondering if anyone would notice if she just took a minute or two to sit on her bed and rest.
That was a mistake, she decided a couple of hours later as she woke with her face plastered against her backpack. She’d thought that taking a sleeper north would have given her a chance to sleep off a bit of her jet lag, but apparently that hadn’t been the case. Freezing her backside off earlier that morning while waiting for the rental car place to open hadn’t done the job, either.
She sat up, waited until her head cleared, then decided the best thing she could do was just power through the mental fog. She could sleep later.
She staggered back downstairs, considered asking for suggestions from her hosts, then thought better of it. There wasn’t anyone at the desk, and those were either pot lids or swords being used in the dining room. She had absolutely no desire to investigate which it might be. She had a phone and knew how to use it. That would just have to do.
She pulled up a travelers’ guide to the village of Benmore and its surrounding environs, scrolled through the possibilities, then looked out the front-door window at the rain. That she suspected the blurriness of the scene wasn’t entirely due to the rain led her to believe that maybe she would be better off limiting herself to the village for the afternoon. She could leave anything farther afield for the next day, when she would actually be awake enough to get to it safely. For the moment, a good walk was probably the most sensible choice. She left the inn and itsGreat Expectationsvibe behind her and went off to explore.
She walked through the village and enjoyed the illusion of being a local simply out for a leisurely stroll. She passed a post office, a touristy kitsch seller or two, and a shop that proudly proclaimed itself Fergusson’s Herbs and Sundries. She was an over-the-counter sort of gal when it came to medicine, and she wasn’t sure she needed any sundries, so she decided to give the place a miss and keep going. She yawned her way past places she supposed she wouldn’t remember in the morning, but made a mental note about the location of the two pubs she’d seen on opposite ends of the main street. No sense in notknowing where to get dinner, if she could stay awake long enough to eat it.
All in all, the village was a very charming place with people seemingly going about their lives in an ordinary, unremarkable way in spite of their spectacular surroundings.
She thought she might envy them.
She noticed a little grocery store tucked into one corner of a weathered building and decided a quick boosting of her blood sugar might be a good idea. She made sure she knew which direction to turn once she left the shop, then went inside.
She wandered up and down the aisles, not exactly sure where to start or what she wanted. It would have been easier to shop if she hadn’t felt as if she were walking through thick fog, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. Jet lag was, no matter how much willpower a person had, absolute hell.
She picked up a couple of things with wrappers she thought she might successfully remove without undue fuss, then staggered over to the checkout line. She was unfortunately behind a trio of well-dressed women who seemed less interested in paying for their groceries than they were in pestering the cashier. She looked around herself, hoping rather desperately for a chair she could use until they had finished. There was no chair to be found, so she settled for the sturdy support of a steel post. She leaned, closed her eyes, and hoped she could stay awake long enough to get herself back to bed.
“What are you lassies about?” a weathered voice asked.
“We’re hunting, aren’t we, girls?”
“Grouse season is over,” that same well-worn voice said tartly, “which perhaps ye don’t ken.”
Emma opened her eyes at that. The last thing she wanted was to get downwind of something that sounded very much like a shooting party at Pemberley. She looked at the three women standing in front of her, facing off with the no-nonsense granny manning the cash register, and considered the players there. She couldn’t say she knew much about hunting past what she’d seen on TV, but she suspected that heels that high, skirts that short, and jackets that flimsy were definitely not on theWhat to Wearlist of any person worthy of being trusted with a shotgun.
The woman behind the counter was dressed very sensiblyin a sweater and a stern look, and she had to have been every day of eighty. If anyone would know about the local grouse season, Emma suspected it would be her.
“Make haste, gels,” the granny said. “There’s another customer behind you. Come up from the south, too, did you?”
Emma realized she was the one being spoken to. “Ah, actually no,” she managed. “I’m here from the States.”
“Are you here for the hunt?” one of the girls demanded.
Emma looked at her blankly. “The hunt?”
“She doesn’t know what we’re talking about,” one of the trio said, “though I’d be suspicious of her reasons for coming this far into the woods, no matter what she says.”
“I’m just here for the scenery,” Emma protested.
“Well, there’s scenery enough in the area,” one of the other women said shortly, “but keep your eyes off the prize.”
The proprietress made a sound of impatience. “He’s not a prize, and I don’t think he fancies being hunted. Leave him to his peace in the forest.”
