Nausea. Light head. Apprehension?
Excitement?
Aila couldn’t quite recall the specifics of the sensation.
“The duke has sent for an architectural assistant, I believe,” he told her. “That’ll do, aye?”
“Do? How am I supposed to find the right cottage? Or get inside?”
Donell chucked his tongue and went to the door. “Where’s the challenge if I gi’ ye all the answers, lass? This is yer adventure. Ye figure it out.”
“But…but…” she stammered as he opened the door.
He glanced at her with humor touching his pale blue eyes and the curves of his lips. “Ta-ra, lass. On wi’ ye now. Three turns should do it, I think.”
Chapter 4
Inveraray, Scotland
The past
Three turns to the greatest adventure of her life.
Three turns about and around again in indecision as she waffled between adventure and retreat, berating her cowardice all the while. Was a thrill such a rare thing she didn’t even know how to face it any longer? Brontë had gone boldly into the past with no solid plan, no ready identity, yet she’d winged it with open enthusiasm. How could Aila not do the same when armed with a clear mission and the armor of sorts Donell had provided?
She’d been pleased with the clothing in the trunk. The dress she wore had been at the top. The dark flax-toned linen bespoke an early Georgian era styling with its deep vee shaped bodice and elbow length sleeves. Delicate, colorful embroidery covered the stomacher and trailed along the hem. Over it she wore a cloak of rich blue velvet. After watching her friend struggle in her first foray to the past, Aila had remembered to style her hair in a loose knot. She’d even remembered to remove her many piercings and dab some foundation on her visible tattoos.
She was armed and ready. The adventure she was about to undertake should have infused her with enthusiasm, anticipation for the hours and perhaps days ahead sending her blood pumping with excitement.
Rather, it was creeping through her veins with a cringe-worthy and wholly uncharacteristic reserve when she should have been absorbing the sights and sounds of what was essentially an alien world to her. The chill of the autumn afternoon — her assumption, given the brilliant colors of the leaves, the burnt orange of ferns, and position of the sun — overridden by shivers of apprehension. The scent of burning peat mixed with a vague memory of her own grandmother rendering lard, superseded by the smell of fear.
Nay, Aila refused to call it fear. She’d never been afraid of anything other than the boogey man…and perhaps her Great Aunt Kay…in her entire life. Nevertheless, had she ever experienced anything akin to reticence, she’d always put on a brave face and soldiered forth.
So much for that. Today her progress was more of a muddle, her legs more wooden than lithe as they carried her along. The breakfast Donell mentioned sat like a rock in her belly.
Had her initial arrival in the past met her expectations, she might have managed a more brazen advance. However a momentary paralysis of nerves and wit inundated her when she arrived with nauseating abruptness — not in the whisky shop or any sort of shelter at all — but rather on the outskirts of a ramshackle fishing village with the harried bays of a herd of blackface sheep to announce her arrival. Their protest had startled her as much as her change in environs.
Everyone thought the wee buggers were so adorable. They scared the feck out of her.
Aye, well, she conceded, she might have a latent phobia or two deep down.
“I truly do appreciate ye coming back so readily when I called,” Aila said to Rab, who trotted obediently by her side without the aid of a leash. Amidst an uproar ofbaasand scattering of sheep, the dog raced through the herd with a merry bawl ofwoo-woo-woo. Her response had been more akin to a squawk of alarm. “What I’d have done if ye had no’ come back…. Aye, aye, I ken well enough,” she continued as if his quirked ear conveyed a spoken opinion on the matter. “Panic, most like. Nay, nothing so drastic as curling into a wee ball of despair, I’m quite certain. Well, fairly certain at any rate.”
Though she’d known deep inside…somewhere…that the village would be elsewhere. Reality overrode logic, leaving her so shaken she hardly recognized herself any more than her surroundings.
The only buildings she recognized from her time were the church at the center of town and the jail perched along the waterline. Here, both were under construction nearing completion, shiny and new. The contrast was more difficult to digest than she’d imagined it would be.
The original village stood upon the grounds of what was the castle’s parkland in her time, some distance along the lakeshore from where she’d arrived. Leaving the fishing boats to continue their placid bobbing in the loch, she headed in that direction. The blockish grey towers of the old castle loomed over the village like a portent of doom. A massive squared block on the right side was connected to the one on the left by a slant-roofed building punctuated by tall, pointed gables. The connecting wall was broken by a trio of arched openings, maybe to a portico of some sort, its only attempt to relieve the otherwise militant façade.
“At least I now understand why the duke would want to build a new one,” she directed her conversation to Rab once more, desperately glad Donell insisted she bring the dog. “That monstrosity is a medieval nightmare.”
Aila paused her slow progress to heft her trunk up a bit higher to relieve the growing strain on her shoulders and consider her surroundings. At the southerly fringes of the old village, the inn where she’d spent the night that had conformed so nicely to the town standard of white and black now stood in stark contrast to the rest of the buildings. By comparison with her time, the old version of the village was humbly bland. The neatly white-washed houses and orderly geography of the Inveraray she knew had been reduced to a rambling village of thatch-roofed cottages of either peat or stone huddled around a cluster of wooden structures with business placards hanging from the eaves.
The muddy lanes twining throughout were designed to lead one nowhere in particular. Villagers pulling handcarts or carrying bundles stopped, one by one, to stare curiously as she continued on. A few appeared distrustful. It seemed a disproportionate degree of suspicion toward a friendly visitor to the area. Aila couldn’t decide if they were merely a generally suspicious lot or if the greeting were particular to herself. Given the pointed looks at her dress, her appearance didn’t help the matter.
She shouldn’t have chosen such fine clothing. The ornate gown and the rich cloak were several steps above the apparel worn by the generally simple and well-worn clothing worn by the women in this time and place. She couldn’t have looked like any more of an outsider if she’d tried. Her breakfast grew an ounce or two heavier in her belly. There was little chance any questions she asked regarding the treasure or the Boyce clan would be met by anything other than further wariness and a silence stonier than the castle walls.
“There is some bit of convoluted fuckery afoot, for certain,” Aila lowered her voice. “Auld Donell is playing me. He must be. Remind me how I got lured into this again? Is my life so boring that the merest mention of excitement would entice me into such a scenario?”
