“You might want some water with that, lass.”
Finley gave him a skeptical look. “I’ve had my own share of drink, Blair, even if it weren’t Irish. I’m nae child.” She raised the cup and pulled a face, noting absently that her mother held her cup poised still, watching Finley. The stuff smelled odd; Finley could only describe it as hot, with a whiff of strong anise. She took the drink in a single gulp, and it seemed that her ability to breathe vanished.
When she could finally draw a searing gasp, her eyes streamed tears and the group around the table was chuckling with laughter.
“That’s nae mull,” she whispered.
Rory Carson slapped the tabletop with his hand as Ina gave a happy little whoop, then tossed back her drink neatly without so much as a grimace. “I’m proud of you, lass. You just had your first taste of Irish waters. A gift from God I’ve nae had the pleasure of in many years. Where did you come by it, Blair?”
Finley handed the cup back to Lachlan, noting the warming feeling in her stomach. It was pleasant, now that her throat didn’t burn quite so much.
“Now that,” he said as he refilled the cups again and handed one to Rory, “is nae important. What’s important is that I’ve the pleasure of sharing it with one who appreciates it.”
“Sure, and I do,” he said, giving Lachlan a toast. “Slàinte.”
Lachlan tipped his cup. “Slàinte.” After drinking, he looked to Finley with raised brows. “Another?”
It took her only a moment to shake her head no, but in that moment it seemed as if Finley debated with herself for a month of days. She could just picture in her mind what could happen if she allowed herself a little too much to drink, and followed Lachlan through the door and up through the darkness into the old house; she could help him out of his shirt, rub his muscles, which surely must be sore…
“Nay,” she said with a renewed flush blooming on her cheeks.
Lachlan nodded with an air of understanding and recorked the bottle. Finley caught her father’s glimpse of disappointment turning to delight as Lachlan slid the ancient-looking flask across the table toward the old man. “For you and Mother Carson,” he said, pushing back his chair as he stood. Rory was already uncorking the bottle again while Ina commandeered both cups. Lachlan held out his hand toward Finley.
“Fancy a walk?”
For a heartbeat of time, the only sounds in the Carson house was that of the sizzling fire, and if Rory and Ina Carson thought their furtive glances at each other discreet, they were mistaken. It only caused Finley’s blush to deepen, which was uncomfortable enough; she wasn’t used to feeling self-conscious, but it often seemed she felt nothing but that while in the presence of Lachlan Blair.
“I canna be running off as I fancy,” she tried to say breezily. “Mam needs my help with the—”
“Och, doona even think it, lass,” Ina said loudly with an enthusiastic wave of her hand. “I’ll have this cleared in a thrice. Enjoying me taste with your da first, I think.”
Rory Carson reached out a slender arm around Ina’s thick middle and pulled her close against his ribs. “That’s the word,” he agreed with a nod, and there was a merry flush to his usually pale face.
Finley looked back to Lachlan, who was watching her parents with something akin to a wistful expression. He turned his gaze to her once more, glanced down at his offered palm.
Finley frowned and swept past him, pulling her cloak from the peg before yanking open the door and stepping into the brisk night breeze to escape the suddenly uncomfortable familiarity. She heard the door shut behind her but didn’t turn, her eyes drawn to the ripening white slice of moon hanging over the inky sea like a broken pearl. The gusting wind swept up the hill, cold and clammy and washing Finley’s skin in gooseflesh beneath her clothes, although with the warm whisky in her belly and her tingling cheeks, the contrast was not entirely unpleasant.
Perhaps he shall kiss me beneath the moon tonight, she found herself thinking, and rather than push such a traitorous idea from her mind at once, as she normally would, she let it stay this time, wandering around inside her head and brushing up against the prickly parts of her mind until the sharpness was all but rubbed away.
He walked past her, tossing his head toward the path as he did, grinning that terrible, secret, dangerous grin. She noticed he had taken a lit oil lamp from her mother’s bench.
Finley followed and caught up with him. “Where are we going?”
“I want to show you something,” he said.
“Och. What is it this time? Hoping to lure me to the river and drown me?”
Lachlan laughed right away. “And why would I want to do that to such a pretty lass, and my wife, no less?”
Finley’s stomach did a sweet, wheeling flip. “Nae your wife for long though, eh?”
“Aye, probably nae for long,” he agreed mildly. “You are a pretty lass, though.” They walked on several more paces, through the cusp of the quiet little collection of dwellings that comprised the edge of the town while Finley’s heart pounded strangely in her chest. She fancied she could even hear it’s loud thrumming.
Lachlan didn’t speak again until they were on the path up to the old house. “I want to show you where I found the Irish.”
“Found it?” Finley said. “I thought you’d brought it with you from Town Blair.”
The moon outlined his queued hair in silver as he shook his head. “Archibald would have choked his mother to get his hands on some, I’d wager, but no Irish trader’s been through with such a thing in years.”
