“But you have met someone?” her friend persisted. “Tell me about him? What’s his name? Where did you meet him?”
Gah, she loved Brontë to death, but she could be like a dog with a bone when she wanted to be. She wouldn’t accept Aila’s usual sarcasm or a vague fabrication. As with Violet, Aila didn’t want to lie to her dearest friend. In fact, since she’d only been able to talk about part of the problem with Vi, it might be nice to share the whole of it with someone who could understand where she was coming from…and where she’d come from.
“His name is…was…Finn Keeley.” His name caught in her throat with an emotional crack. Aila hugged the purse she was still holding to her chest as if it were a lifeline. “And I met him in much the same manner ye met Tris.”
“What?” Brontë screeched while Tris’s gaze filled with compassion, as if he saw deeper and understood more than her words. Her friend was so lucky. “I thought you said you hadn’t seen Donell.”
Aila turned back to her friend. “To be fair, I said I had no’ seen him around here.” Before her friend could argue the fine details of prevarication, Aila glanced at Tris. “I met an ancestor of yers, as well, I think.”
His brow rose a notch. “Did ye now?”
A snort of laughter escaped her. “Most definitely. Ian MacKintosh? He would have been earl around the time of Culloden.”
“Culloden?” Brontë’s shriek was a fraction more controlled this time. “You went that far back? What was it like?”
“Ye realize ye’re perfectly capable of seeing any time ye like for yerself?”
Her friend scoffed at Aila’s dry retort. “That’s not what I…actually, yes, that is what I meant. Oh, come on, tell me everything! About what you saw, what you did. This white knight of yours? Why are you here if he’s there?”
Hot tears pricked Aila’s eyes before she even felt the pang in her chest. Bloody good question, wasn’t it?
A warm hand wrapped around hers. Not Brontë’s, but Tris’s. Through the haze clouding her vision, she saw him crouch in front of her. His eyes were green while Ian’s had been brown, but she saw there the same sort of friend Ian was for those he cared about. The stalwart sort. If she needed it, he would provide a wide shoulder to lean on, strong arms to hold her, or a safe haven to share her secrets. Going the distance for a friend must have found its way into the genetic pool. Aila was as lucky to count him as one as Finn was to have Ian.
However, if she let him hug her now, there was a fair chance she’d dissolve into a pool of tears, and that wouldn’t do. She squeezed his hand and released him with a smile. “I’m fine, thank ye.”
He smiled back and stood. “A whisky then?”
“Aye, thanks.”
He moved to the sideboard and pulled a pair of glasses out before perusing Vi’s selection. Two glasses. He hadn’t extended the offer to Brontë as courtesy normally commanded him to. Aila looked at her friend. “None for ye?”
Brontë shook her head. “No, I’m off the drink at the moment. I would take one of those candy bars you keep in your bag, if you have one. I’ve been dying for something sweet and there’s nothing like them in the past.”
Aila tossed her purse and her friend caught it. “There might be one left in there. Not like ye to crave chocolate though…. The little bird that drove ye home…Och, ye’re no’ pregnant, are ye?”
Glasses clanked together and Tris turned, jaw comically unhinged.
“Relax, baby.” Brontë laughed and waved him down. “Do you think I’d keep that big of a secret from you?”
“I should hope no’.” Tris returned with a glass in each hand. “I’m content to have my lass to myself for the time being. I’d be thrilled at the prospect should it occur somewhat farther in the future and certainly after we are properly wed.”
“Welcome to the mentality of an old-fashioned guy. No, as for the drinking, Tris’s family threw us an engagement ball last night and I’m afraid I overindulged. May take me a week to get over it.” Her friend grinned at him then frowned into the purse. “I don’t think there’s one in here.”
“Dump the bloody thing out. There’s got to be one in there.” Aila took the glass from Tris and held it up in mock toast. “To old-fashioned guys.” Before Brontë could recall their previous topic of conversation, she asked, “What was the little bird that brought ye home, then?”
“Hannah,” Tris told her. Hannah was his cousin from Edwardian times. A woman more unlucky in love than Aila, if they could be believed. They’d mentioned several times the possibility of bringing her into a new life in this time. “A brief visit. Ye might say a trial run to determine whether she’d be amenable to staying with ye and Violet for a time. She’s asleep upstairs now.”
“I cannae wait to meet her.”
“Ah, there’s one! Come here, you precious thing.” Brontë mined a sweet from the pile of rubble she’d dumped out of Aila’s bag as if it were solid gold. Tearing open the wrapper, she took a bite, then frowned. “What is this?”
“What?” Aila looked down and her high spirits sank. “Oh, shite. I must have grabbed that when I spilled my purse in my trunk. It belongs to the miller, Mr. Boyce. I meant to return it to him before I…. Shite.”
“Well, you still can.” Brontë’s smile turned to a concerned frown as she watched Aila. “What is it?” Aila’s throat clogged. It was all she could do to shake her head. “Oh, honey, what happened?”
She waved her hands in front of her face as if she could fan her eyes dry. How humiliating. She’d never been that person. The one who moaned and sobbed when things went wrong. Never the one with the sob story. She was the plucky, pushy friend. A survivor. A realist. The one who picked herself up and moved on.
Or at least, she had been.
