She closed her eyes.
Think upon Simon. How he smiles attentively and never says an impolite word when Mrs. Green chatters on far too long. Recall the weight of his hand in the small of your back whenever the dark panic of your memories loom. You must go through this in order to return to him.
Taking a deep breath, Eilidh opened her eyes and dutifully studied each person in the room.
Four men. One woman.
All the men sported a length of plaid in the same tartan pattern as Master MacTavish.
Her eyes instantly went to the lithe man that she had recognized the evening before.
“Dr. Whitaker.” Eilidh nodded her head and bobbed him a small curtsy.
“Miss Fyffe.” He bowed, low and courtly, the tartan sash across his chest slipping slightly.
Unconsciously, she ran her gloved thumb over the scar on her palm.
“Ye look lovely,” the doctor continued. “It is wonderful tae have ye with us again.”
“Thank you. And you.”
Eilidh said the words reflexively and then frowned. The entire exchange felt . . . odd. Stilted. As if it were the first time they had ever been so polite with one another.
She looked beyond Dr. Whitaker to the others. They all studied her with rapt attention, as if she were a unicorn who had stumbled into their midst.
It was rather unnerving.
A tall, broad-shouldered sandy-haired man leaned against the fireplace mantel, his dark great kilt a mirror of Master MacTavish’s. Here was the man she saw walking with MacTavish and the doctor the evening before.
A dark-haired man stood beside him, a white scar running from his right temple down his cheek. Like Dr. Whitaker, the man wore a tartan sash atop an immaculately-cut superfine coat of deep green.
Eilidh frowned further. Neither man looked familiar, but she felt a tug of something warm when she looked at them.
It was frustrating. Memory teased at her—a toy dangled just out of reach. As if she should know the men well, and yet when she reached to recall anything tangible, she only encountered empty air.
In front of a long sofa, a kilted red-headed man stood with his arm around a woman. He was enormous, towering over them all.
But the giant ginger, at least, was . . . familiar. An image of him sketching a bird flitted through her mind.
Eilidh blinked and the memory fluttered away.
Was this Mr. Ewan Campbell then? The artist Master MacTavish had mentioned yesterday?
If so, the woman at his side would be Lady Kildrum, the countess that Eilidh had yet to meet. Tall, with chestnut hair carefully styled, her ladyship was expensively dressed. Though no gown could hide the girth of her pregnant belly. Eilidh noted the careful way Mr. Campbell held her, his large hand spanning the small of her back.
A pang of anguish sliced through her chest.
There was a babe who was clearly wanted. A child, conceived in love, who would come into this world with two doting parents—
She looked away, fingers clenching into fists, her thumbs tucked against her palms. She imagined the raised white scar on her left palm—a wound that, though healed, had forever changed the appearance of her hand.
Was her whole self—skin, limbs, emotions—now like her hand? The torment of her lost year a jagged blemish that had altered her forever?
“Perhaps ye should introduce me after all, Master MacTavish,” she murmured.
The men all exchanged a look—part surprise, part concern.
“Ye dinnae recognize any of us except Alex, lass?” the red-headed giant asked.
