She considered it and shook her head. A tendril of gold, one single curl, tumbled down beside her ear. Finnan struggled not to notice. “He spoke of the past but rarely, and only when in his cups.”
Finnan frowned. Geordie had not been a drinker, at least not in the days when they traveled and fought together. Oh, aye, he would take a dram when offered—what man would not? But he had often chastised Finnan for drinking to excess.
“As I said when we met beside the pool, Geordie and I were close as brothers—closer. There is a particular bond between fighting men.” That he could not expect her to understand.
“He once told me you were the best friend ever a man could have.” She twined her fingers together in her lap and raised those wide, blue eyes to Finnan. “That is why I find it so difficult to understand why you should want to chase me from his home now, when I am in need. You say he wrote you letters.”
Anger licked up inside Finnan at her feigned innocence. “So he did.”
“Might I ask what he said of me that angered you?”
Finnan fixed her with a fierce gaze. He could not let his ire overset him, not when he played the part of the remorseful friend. He spread his hands. “You must understand we were used to confiding in one another, always. ’Twas part and parcel of the pact we made to one another, to keep in touch. He sent the letters to a mutual acquaintance in Fort William, and I collected them whenever I could.” Sometimes sorely late, but he had them, every one. “Of you, he said many things. I acknowledge now I may have taken his words a-wrong—I was not aware he had turned to drink. Whisky can affect both a man’s mood and his opinions.”
She frowned. A second golden tendril fell, this one beside her cheek. “Still, I would know what ill he said of me.”
Finnan just bet she would. Scrambling in her mind, she was, wondering how the game she played with Geordie had gone wrong. She had not guessed Geordie sent letters to anyone. Finnan had to convince her he’d been mistaken, that his anger against her had flown.
Carefully, he said, “Does it matter now? I have come here to apologize. Geordie and I were used to defending one another and guarding each other’s back. And there was something in him that tended to make me feel protective.” Too true, that. “We each vowed to come whenever the other called.”
She gave him a cool look. “As I said, it is a pity you did not come to him in Dumfries when he stood in dire need of a friend.”
“I did not know. His letters did not call on me for help.” Geordie had been lost, aye, and clearly miserable, as evidenced by his presence in the lowlands, of all places. The past haunted him even as it did Finnan. But never once had he requested Finnan’s presence. “He had only to call on me,” he said simply, “and I would have been there.”
Indeed, he had very nearly gone anyway, when Geordie wrote to say he meant to wed the woman he had met. But he had been engrossed in his own battle here, trying to regain his birthright.
“As it was,” she went on, not quite calmly, “he had only my father for companion. They formed a…a curious relationship. In fact, that is how Geordie and I met.”
“Aye.” Geordie had described that as well. I helped the old gentleman home on more than one occasion, where I met his daughter. A precious flower she is, blooming in this cold, gray place. “Your father, a scholar—Angus Robertson.”
She inclined her head. “A once-practical, learned man, with a scientific mind, who taught his daughter not to believe in ghosts.”
“Ah, well.” Finnan treated her to his best smile. “You are in the highlands now, where ‘scientific’ principles tend to fly out the window. There exist in this glen many things you cannot hope to comprehend—fairies, boogies, a sea horse in the burn, and the spirits of ancient warriors. This is no’ the lowlands, you ken.”
“Nevertheless, Laird MacAllister, until a boogie man comes walking up the glen to my door, I will not believe in spirits.”
A boogie man had come walking up the glen to her door, Finnan reflected, did she but know it, one set to seduce her.
He wanted to ask how long it had taken her to persuade Geordie to kiss her, he who had believed so completely in true love. Had Geordie been lost at the first look from those blue eyes? How long would it take Finnan to persuade her to kiss him?
He fair ached for it, the touch of that soft mouth on his, ached for revenge, that was.
The maid cleared her throat and then sidled in between them, moving the way a man might in the presence of a wildcat. She carried a mug of what Finnan could only assume was tea in either hand. He longed for something stronger.
“Thank you, Aggie. Are there any scones left?”
“I will bring some.” Aggie’s voice made only a whisper. She placed a mug at Finnan’s elbow and handed the other to her mistress before turning away to the shelves beside the fire.
“So.” Finnan lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level, even though the lass could still hear every word. “You do not want to know what Geordie said to me?”
“I do not.”
“Even though I walked all this way through that torrent just to tell you? And even though ’tis to your benefit?”
“I thought you walked all that way to apologize.”
“That too.”
“Do you often expect sane, rational women to sit and discuss the conversations of ghosts?”
