Her answer startled ahah!out of him.
“Ye couldnae be farther from the truth, lass.”
She walked silently for a moment, her hand pressing on his elbow, her skirts occasionally brushing that bare strip of skin between the bottom of his kilt and the top of his stockings.
The river to their left burbled as it rushed over rocks.
“What if I told you, with all honesty, that I do not like my own writing?”
“How can ye not like yer own writing?” Malcolm huffed in astonishment. “Why . . . it’s fair brilliant.”
Thatgot her attention. Viola stopped abruptly, her skirts swaying. She angled her head, eyes scrutinizing.
“You’ve read my work?” she asked. “Why have we never discussed this?”
“Because I thought it obvious that I had read ye. Every last story.”
“Truly?”
“Aye. I enjoyedPolly Pettifer. Those descriptions of London.” He shivered. “I could practically feel the creeping fog.”
He paused, hesitating to ask the presumptuous question that had lingered in his mind for weeks, fearing it might reveal too much of his own heart.
But she had lifted back the curtain a wee bit on her own desires. Couldn’t he do the same?
“Please forgive me this next question, but I have long wondered—are ye the pen behind the scathing revolutionary Oliver Aubord Twist?”
As he was already staring at her, he didn’t miss the panicky surprise that lit in her eyes.
She swallowed.
“How . . .” was all she managed to gasp.
“Hah! So I am correct?”
Viola nodded, a tightly controlled motion. “But how did you . . . ?”
Now it was Malcolm’s turn to squirm.
“As I said, I ken your writing. I know your ways of turning a phrase, of expounding scenes and personalities. And so when I readA Hard Truth, well, it just sounded like yourself. I cannae explain it. But I looked harder at the pen name of the author and realized thatOliver Aubordwas an anagram ofViola Brodure. But I honestly didnae know for sure it was yourself until this moment.”
She took a minute to absorb his confession, head shaking ever so slightly. In wonder? Bewilderment? Betrayal?
“A Hard Truthwas printed in the most obscure political journal,” she finally said. “You, Mr. Penn-Leith, have been hiding the vast reach of your intellect.”
As usual, she surprised a laugh out of him. “That’s your conclusion, is it?”
She nodded, a smile hovering on her lips. But the emotion didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Well, I am honored to finally meet the authoress ofA Hard Truth,” he said. “The world ye created in that story . . . well, I felt like I could ride tae Manchester and find it there, waiting for me.”
“Thank you. Such words are a balm to a writer’s soul.”
Malcolm waved them forward along the trail.
The gorge narrowed further here—a steep cliff extending up to their right, another falling off to their left—both covered in dripping moss and tenacious trees determined to hold on to the mountainside. However, the river didn’t rush along, despite the strait walls of its channel, choosing instead to flow with a calm solemnity.
Malcolm helped Viola to sidestep a large boulder in the path.
