He said nothing...only smiled and looked away. But not before she registered the admiration in his eyes.
Before Alistair, had anyone asked, Chrissi would have described her physical person as abysmally undecided—average, unremarkable. Was her hair blonde or brown? Her eyes gray or blue? Her height short or average? Her face plain or pretty?
She supposed her personalityhadto become strong in order to marshal all that indecisiveness into order.
But under Alistair’s gaze, her hair transformed into the golden brown of honey, fresh from the comb. Her eyes turned the color of the North Sea off the coast of Stonehaven, storm-blue and undulating with life. For him, her height was neither short nor average but the perfect size to tuck under his chin. And he declared her face to be an enchanting echo of theMadonnas painted by Raphael or Botticelli in the Uffizi Museum.
Alistair made her feel she was anything but ordinary. He openly admired her love of learning and sympathized with her frustration that women could not attend Oxford.
Chrissi noticed his own distinct qualities, too.
How his brown eyes would stare intently into hers as she spoke of her aspirations. How the timbre of his brogue would deepen as he described Scotland and home.
The son of a solicitor from Aberdeen, with family ties to the aristocracy, Alistair had lived a life typical of the gentry—an excellent education in private school, followed by antiquarian studies at the University of St Andrews in Fife. He longed to become a professor, like Chrissi’s father. To make learning his life-long profession. At twenty-one years of age, he had seized the chance to apprentice at her father’s feet.
Falling in love with him was effortless. An exhilarating free fall. Chrissi and Alistair were puzzle pieces slotting together. As if they had always been destined to live and breathe as one entity.
ALISTAIR PACED THE great hall of Kinord Castle as if wearing a path in the Axminster carpet would somehow help untangle thefankleof his thoughts.
Hands clasped behind his back, he walked from the impressive hearth to the enormous windows at the south end of the hall and back again.
Generally, Scottish castles were dark and dreary places with narrow windows built for defense, not illumination. But his predecessor had removed almost the entirety of the south wall of the great hall, replacing it with pane after pane of glass. Not only did the large window harness the warmth of the sun and flood the room with light, it also gave a commanding view over the surrounding landscape—the boggy marsh melting into rolling hills, thick with Scots pine and fields of fluffy sheep, stretching to the peaks of Ben Avon and Beinn a’ Bhùird in the distance.
The scenery did nothing to quiet his mind.
Chris was here.
Alistair’s stuttering brain could scarcely reconcile the absurdity of the situation.
After pulling her from the bog—truthfully, she was fortunate not to have broken her wee neck or been drowned in the fen, tumbling down the embankment as she had—theyhad retired to the castle. Alistair had summoned servants and a bath, both for himself and for her.
She was currently in his best guest room, surely attempting to wash moss and dirt from her hair and cursing the Fate that had deposited her on his doorstep.
As for himself, the mud had been easily dispatched from his person.
Would that thoughts of Christiana Rutherford Newton were banished as easily.
This was to have been his year.
The year that he reclaimed his life from the memories of her and their lost love.
Particularly, Alistair had resolved to recoup his love of archeology. He had abandoned the field after his tumultuous break with Chris. Even if he had wished to continue with his studies, Dr. Rutherford had made it clear Alistair would not be welcomed. Antiquarians were a tight lot, and Dr. Rutherford had stood beside his daughter.
But Alistair’s ascension to the title of Lord Farnell two years ago had come with a respectable fortune attached. And as Dr. Rutherford had passed away, Alistair felt the time had come to again explore archeology.
Hence his hiring of Mrs. Newton. As the wife of Dr. Stephen Newton, she had gained a reputation for her own expertise in ancient Celtic excavations, working alongside her husband and even publishing the occasional paper jointly with him. Alistair had never heard a mention of her Christian name...pun intended, he mused to himself.
Dr. Newton had passed away over two years ago, but his widow had continued his work. Therefore, the professor’s widow had been the most logical—nearly theonly—choice when hiring an archaeologist to assist Alistair in understanding the history of his—
A rap on the door interrupted his thoughts.
“Come,” he called.
Mrs. Craib, his housekeeper, entered, bobbing a polite curtsy. “Should I still plan on Mrs. Newton joining the party for tea, my lord? Or do ye ken she would prefer a wee rest? The poor thing was properclatty, dripping mud on the flagstones as she was.”
Yes, what would Mrs. Newton prefer? Well, likely to be quit of him. But until she said as much...
“Plan on Mrs. Newton joining us, Mrs. Craib. I shall inform ye if that plan changes.”
