She rolled her eyes and walked with him along cobblestones that were less treacherous than she might have thought, given how rainy it was. At least she wasn’t riding over them on the back of a horse. She wondered how anyone had managed that in the past.
The door opened for them as they approached, which she thought might have been a bit spooky, but she was quickly coming to the conclusion that spooky was going to be her lot for at least the next few weeks.
“Come in out of the wet, you two,” an older gentleman said, holding the door open for them. “Nice and dry here inside. I’m thinking you’ll want to see my collection of swords.”
Emma agreed with him that shelter was very desirable and refrained from comment about swords. She didn’t dare look at Nathaniel to see if his opinion on the matter showed on his face. She simply followed their host into his lair and happily listened to him introduce himself as Thomas Campbell, describe for them what they might expect to see, and begin the tour. Metalsmithing was metalsmithing, perhaps, regardless of what one was forging.
“It must have been a very hot business during the summer,” she remarked at one point.
“You mean for a day or two in June?” Mr. Campbell asked with a laugh. He looked at Nathaniel. “Ye ken what I mean, aye?”
“Och, aye,” Nathaniel said.
She feigned a sudden interest in a glass case full of daggers as curator and Highlander launched into a hearty bit of what she assumed was Gaelic. She decided right then that if she had the chance she would find some sort of crash course in it. Maybe she could bargain for some lessons from her nearest neighbor, though she wasn’t sure he would want either earrings or portraits of his very handsome self.
She definitely wasn’t going to show him the sketch she’d done of him in Inverness.
She memorized the contents of three glass cases before Mr. Campbell looked at them both, his eyes bright with excitement. “I don’t usually make this offer, but would you care to see my dearest treasure?”
“Definitely,” she said, realizing as she said it that Nathaniel had expressed basically the same sentiment. She looked at her traveling companion, shrugged with a smile, then followed the collector of treasure to the back of his place.
Mr. Campbell stopped in front of a glass case that was as tall as he was. Oddly enough, it held only a single, foot-long dagger. She wasn’t sure how the blade was suspended to makeit look as if it were simply hanging there in the air, but she had to admit it was well done.
“We’ve done a bit of investigating about this piece,” Mr. Campbell said, “though I’ve drawn the line at testing the metal. I believe, based on my own experience and expertise, that the dagger was made in the fourteenth century— Oh, lad, you don’t look well all of the sudden. Need something to drink?”
“Water,” Nathaniel croaked.
Emma turned and grabbed his arm as he swayed. She suppressed the urge to pepper him with questions about his tendency to swoon over historical items and instead put her arms around him to keep him up. “Bad eggs?” she asked.
“I don’t want to think about eggs,” he said with a bit of a groan. “I’m not sure I want to think about anything.”
She wished she could say the same thing, but she had too many questions that needed answers. Apparently the odd things that seemed to seek Nathaniel MacLeod out weren’t limited to Inverness and all points to the north and west of it, and she wanted to know why.
He sat, under protest, in the chair Mr. Campbell provided and leaned his head back carefully against the wall. She supposed it would be impolite to study him like a science project, so she offered her best nursemaiding instead. If she simultaneously and quite furiously filed away details to think about later, well, who could blame her?
Mr. Campbell returned again with water, then accepted an invitation from Nathaniel to distract everyone with a bit more information about that dagger there in the case. She watched Nathaniel out of the corner of her eye, partly to make sure he wasn’t going to faint and partly because she wanted to see what the depths of his reactions to a medieval blade were. He had some water, but that didn’t seem to help much.
What was going on with him?
Nathaniel was staring at that dagger with an expression she could only identify as horror, as if he’d just seen Death peeking at him from around a curtain, scythe in hand. She decided the kindest thing she could do was get him some peace and quiet, so she drew the curator aside and asked for his views on metalsmithing in the Middle Ages.
It was fascinating, she had to admit. She supposed the forgemight have been a decent place to be in the Highlands, especially in the winter, but it seemed like dangerous work. She had scars enough from her own modest forays into silversmithing, so she could only speculate on the potential for injury working on a much larger scale.
In time, Mr. Campbell excused himself to attend to other patrons. Emma glanced at Nathaniel, but he was only continuing to stare at that blade as if he expected it to leap out of the case and bury itself to the hilt in his chest. That was a different sort of horror than his previous expression, though she wasn’t sure how to qualify either. She decided after a minute or two that he looked like he’d just seen a ghost.
He started to speak, then his phone rang. He pulled it out, then looked faintly relieved.
“My own business for a change,” he said hoarsely. “Sorry, I need to see to this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I understand.”
“And you’re pitying me for it, I can see,” he said, heaving himself to his feet. “Brian has another phone waiting for you at the hotel, so don’t think you’ll be free of this sort of thing forever. Do you mind if we step outside?”
“Not at all.” She didn’t bother to protest a new phone for herself. She’d already tried and been politely ignored. She did follow him out of the museum, though, thanking Mr. Campbell on her way out.
She leaned back against the stone of the building and wondered about that dagger. She didn’t suppose she would have a chance to look at it herself without Nathaniel in tow, but it was tempting to find a way. She watched him pace in front of her, content to let the cadence of his words wash over her like a soothing wave. He seemed to have a different accent for different sorts of business, which would have made an interesting study all on its own. She wondered if he realized it himself.
He hung up, then looked at her. “Again, sorry. Hard to keep up with things at home with no signal.”
