Afirecrackled and popped in a well-used hearth in an equally well-used pub, reflecting off the faces of three women who lingered north of Hadrian’s Wall in search of an elusive and reputedly quite exclusive quarry.
“I reminded us all before in the shop that he’s rich,” said the first.
“And gorgeous,” said the second. “Remember gorgeous.”
“Available,” purred the third. She looked narrowly at her mates. “If I find him, I get him.”
“You don’t know where to start looking,” scoffed the first. She paused and frowned. “I’m not sure any of us knows that, and that shopkeeper wasn’t keen on giving us directions earlier, was she?”
The third young woman waved away the concern. “She probably didn’t want to look daft. They swear he lives in this part of the Highlands, near this village, so what else is there to know?”
The first seemed to be unconvinced. “But there are many rich men here. Hard to decide which one he might be, wouldn’t you say?”
“But those rich men are married,” the second pointed out. “The lairds, that is. But he isn’t a laird, is he?”
“Does it matter?” asked the third. “If he cared to, he could likely buy himself a title.” She paused. “As we decided earlier, he’s a Scot.”
“And gorgeous,” the second said. “Still.”
“I think we’re forgetting the difficulty,” the first said with a sigh. “He is, as we know, reclusive.”
A hush fell over all three as they no doubt considered the difficulties that presented.
The recluse in question sat in the shadows, sipped his whisky, and tried not to draw attention to himself by rolling his eyes too loudly. By now he should have been used to all the scheming and plotting that had dogged his poor self for the past handful of years. There were more sightings of himself than Nessie. As time had passed and the steady stream of fortune hunters hadn’t abated, he’d begun to feel a kinship with the waterlogged beast. If he’d been able, he might have asked its advice on how to remain elusive on a long-term basis.
It was surely better than the alternative.
“But he has a lovely name,” said the second girl. “Nathan MacLeod—”
“Oh, you’re an idiot,” the first one said. She seemed to be something of an authority on their current subject. “His name isNathanielMacLeod.”
“His middle name is Fergusson,” the third said, “but that likely isn’t anything we should say too loudly here. I understand they’re not a popular clan in this area.”
“A Fergusson,” the second said breathlessly. “My granny was a Fergusson. I can use that to bond with him right from the start.”
Nathaniel set his whisky aside and decided he’d heard enough. Nay, the Fergussons weren’t a popular lot in the area, but that likely had more to do with the local constabulary than anything that lay in the past. Sadly enough, he’d become something of an expert in what had gone on in the past with those lads.
He was also an expert in his own genealogy, which allowed him to state with a fair degree of certainty that his mother had indeed been a Fergusson, his father a MacLeod, and it had been a love match from their first exchanged glance over the threshold of a little cottage in the woods up the way. He had spent three decades enjoying their obvious love for each other before—
Well, before his life had taken a radical detour from what he’d had planned, which was something he did his damndestnot to think about any more than he had to. He rose, nodded to the barkeep, and made his way without dawdling from the pub. He heard quick footsteps behind him and cursed himself for not being swift enough to make his escape.
“Nat, you forgot your change.”
He stopped on the street and looked back to find Fiona MacLeod standing there. She was, thankfully, just the tavern keeper’s daughter, not one of the trio of lassies on the hunt for his reputedly handsome and filthy rich self. “Change?” he echoed.
“Da said you forgotten it. Thirteen pound eight-seven.” She smiled. “Likely don’t want to forget that much, aye?”
“Definitely not,” he said, holding out his hand. If that hand shook, well, perhaps it was dark enough that only he would notice. He gave Fiona a hefty tip, but that didn’t erase what she’d said.
1387, if one were to remove critical punctuation.
“You off on another adventure?” Fiona asked.
He wondered absently if he would ever manage to hide his surprise when things caught him off guard. With all the practice he’d had over the course of his very long thirty-five years, he should have been better at it. Unfortunately, he imagined he looked as if Fiona had just planted her foot in his gut, but there you had it. His life was not one fit for lengthy scrutiny.
“Adventure?” he wheezed.
“You know,” she said, “all that moneymaking Da says you do. Jetting off to London or New York.”
