Rose stopped dead. “Cailean. You startled me.”
He straightened, brushing a wisp of dark hair out of his face. He looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes and beneath his plaid his linen shirt looked a little rumpled. Perhaps he had a hangover after all.
“My apologies,” he murmured, his dark eyes finding hers. “But I thought ye would want this right away.”
He had a leather satchel dangling from his hand which he placed on the desk and opened. He pulled out a thick wad of parchment.
“What’s that?”
“The records ye asked for. From every settlement on Barra, detailing the numbers who became sick in each.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You’ve collected all that already? But I thought that would take ages!”
“It did,” he said, his voice sounding slightly amused. “I sent riders out yesterday, straight after we got back from North Cove. They worked through the night and have been returning all morning, the last of them around half an hour ago.” He glanced at the wad of parchment. “I hope this provides what ye need, lass.”
“So do I,” she muttered.
He placed the bundle on the table. “Aye, well. I’ll leave ye to it. Let me know if ye need aught.”
He turned to leave, but Rose caught the sleeve of his shirt. “You know, this would go much more quickly if there were two of us working on it.”
Anyone could help her with this task, of course. Maggie, Beatrice, even Catriona. But it was Cailean’s company she wanted.
He glanced down at where her hand grasped his sleeve and then up into her eyes. She couldn’t read the look on his face but something in the way he watched her made her heart beat a little faster. Oh hell. He was the laird for God’s sake! No doubt he had a hundred thingsthat demanded his attention—
“All right,” he said softly.
He held out a chair for Rose then sank onto the stool opposite.
“So how do we do this?” he asked.
Rose took the bundle of folded parchment and split it into two piles, pushing one across the desk towards Cailean.
“Simple. For each settlement we need to count how many people fell sick and put a marker for each case next to the settlement on the map.”
“To what end?”
“Like I said, I’m hoping it will show us a pattern. Is the sickness concentrated in one area? Are there places that have escaped it all together? That might allow us to find where the curse originates from.”
His expression turned fierce. “Aye, I would dearly love to find the origin of this curse. And whoever who created it.”
His voice was low and dangerous, leaving Rose in no doubt as to what he would do to such a person. Not for the first time, she found herself glad they were on the same side. Cailean, she suspected, would make a formidable enemy.
She did not reply. Taking a quill and dipping it in the inkpot, she read the first report then marked on the map where it recorded cases of sickness. In this way, each settlement on the map began to have a tally chart marked next to it, allowing her to see at a glance the concentration of cases across the whole island.
She and Cailean worked in companionable silence, neither speaking. Rose found herself glancing at him as they worked. It seemed odd watching him doing such a mundane, clerical task. To Rose’s mind he was more suited to the outdoors, to the moors and mountains, the sea and the cliffs, rather than sitting in this cramped study, reading reports.
Still, she mused, being laird of this island undoubtedly involved much more of this kind of work than she realized. Cailean certainlyseemed at home with it as he read each report carefully before adding his notes to the map.
Rose wasn’t sure how education worked in this time, but it was clear that Cailean was well educated. Some of the books on the shelves were written in French and Latin, suggesting he could read both. She watched as he leaned forward and made another notation on the map. She couldn’t stop a smile spreading across her face. The stool was way too small for his large frame, and he looked faintly ridiculous perched there with his knees practically around his ears.
“Something amusing, lass?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not at all. You carry on. After all, you looksocomfortable.”
Cailean glanced at the stool on which he perched. “I get the feeling ye are making fun of me.”
Rose widened her eyes and put her hand over her heart in mock innocence. “Me? I wouldn’t dream of it. But seriously, you could have had the chair. Thisisyour study, after all.”
