“Nay.”
“The Fairy Flag?”
She shook her head. “I dinnae even believe that Molly Whuppie managed to sew the giant’s wife up in a sack.”
For all his outward expression of horror, mischief danced in the old man’s pale blue eyes. “Kate Crackernuts?”
A fable written in her home region of the Orkneys by chance. “Distracting fairy babies by rolling nuts?” she answered with a dismissive sniff. “What does that even mean?”
“The blue men of Minch?”
“Pure rubbish.” She flicked her wrist.
His lips twitched. “Auld Nessie then?”
She arched a wordless brow and was hard put to maintain her playful hauteur as he tapped his cheek in search of another option.
With a snap of his fingers, he pointed at her, eyes alight. “How about falling through cairn stones to travel through time?”
“Now ye’re truly talking nonsense,” she shot back with an exaggerated eye roll.
“Am I?”
“Nothing but drivel.”
The old man nodded slowly, his expression now solemn. His gaze intent on her. “Because of course we all ken that’s no’ how one travels through time, aye?”
The fun and games fell away and Aila stared, dumbfounded. His words were no offhand, jesting observation. They were a lure. A tease. An indication that he knew. Trulyknewknew. Everything. Every secret. Every truth. How?
“I’m no’ cer —”
He waved her words away and held out the bottle of whisky once more. “Dalmore King Alexander III. Single malt, rich and fruity wi’ a peppery finish. Well-rounded enough to satisfy even the most temperamental palate. Named after a Scottish king best known for a treaty of peace. The perfect choice to solve yer problem.” He withdrew his offering a fraction and presented his other hand, closed in a fist. “Or better still, how about we keep the problem in the past where it belongs and ye take this to solve the mystery at its origins?”
With those cryptic words, he opened his fingers one by one to reveal a flat oval object of smooth white ceramic. A dull buzzing crowded Aila’s mind, pressure building until she thought her head would burst. The phrasemind blowingbecame something more clearly defined in that moment.
The fragments of the mental explosion contracted with a snap leaving her mind crystal clear and her memory of where she’d seen this man before fully restored.
“Donell!”
“Aye, lass.” His enigmatic smile was back. “’Bout time ye remembered.”
“Inveraray is a long way from Edinburgh,” she retorted.
Yet, Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre had been where she’d first met the man so many referred to as Auld Donell. Not that she’d had much direct contact with him in her position as a makeup artist. He’d been acting as the stage manager of a traveling production ofCyrano de Bergeracthat passed through her workplace the previous year.
What was he doing here now, acting as the owner of this wee whisky store? “Acting” being the key word there, she thought.
Because she knew this man was no more a mere whisky shop owner than he was a theater stage manager. What he was exactly, she wasn’t quite sure, but she did know that he had more mischief up one sleeve than Violet could manage with her entire wardrobe. He’d proven himself to be a master manipulator, a man with a plan, as it were. One unafraid to lure in unsuspecting participants into his schemes, though he’d been — purposefully, she suspected — vague on the exact details of that plan.
While her path had rarely crossed with Donell’s,hishad with Brontë’s — Aila’s closest friend and Violet’s granddaughter — with astonishing effect. Brontë had been inadvertently given an object precisely like the one the old man offered Aila now. A time travel device. A time machine, to be more precise. Her friend had spent months stumbling around in the past, saving lives only to lose them again. Back and forth she’d gone, trying to change the history books to suit her purpose.
And his.
Her friend had later discovered that Auld Donell had a firm hand in steering Brontë about. Aila would have been bloody well pissed being toyed with like that. Brontë might have as well.
If she hadn’t wound up with a deliciously scrumptious Edwardian lover as a result.
Now Brontë was in love, planning a wedding, and living two lives with her true love. One in her time and one in his. While the pair seemed to enjoy their tumultuous life, the thought of such chaos entering hers when she’d only just settled into the eye of her own personal hurricane gave Aila a chill.
