“Hae ye heard about the fugitive? Some thief stole Lady Boyd’s jewels.”
“I know, terrible, is nae it?” Wilf said, shaking his head.
“Hae ye seen anyone lurking around?”
“Cannae say that I hae. What about ye?”
“Well, the other night I was coming back from a delivery and I think I might hae seen someone in a cloak traveling north. It was dark and ye know how tricky the shadows of the night can be, but I called out tae them and I’m sure that they quickened their pace.”
Wilf’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, well, that is suspicious!”
“Aye, but I was wondering if ye hae seen anything similar? I know ye like tae stay out late. Hae there been anything strange in the shadows as ye hae been walking home?”
“Nae, I dinnae think sae.”
“Think harder, ye know what it’s like tae peer intae the shadows.”
“I dae at that.”
“And hae ye never seen something that ye thought was a person?”
Wilf paused for a moment. “Well, I suppose sae…”
Ian gripped his bony arm tightly and hissed his words. “Then ye might hae seen the thief! Oh, Wilf, I am glad I am nae the only one who saw them. Perhaps there are others as well. Ye should ask other people if they hae seen the same thing as us. Maybe if we all come together, we can track the thief down. I’m sure they were heading north. Would ye agree with that?”
Wilf looked confused for a moment, but then he supposed that if Ian was telling him this, then it must have been true. He nodded along, happily believing that he had indeed seen the thief. After all, why would Ian lie to him?
12
Lucy was humming to herself while the men were gone. She tidied up the basement to keep herself busy as the hours were long, and she wouldn’t have been surprised had Ian and Rory taken longer than they expected, being distracted by the company in the taverns. She had seen some of them in her time, mostly when her father had taken her through the village. He had always expressed disdain for them, telling her that only people of low character frequented taverns. But he was always like that, looking down his sneering nose at others. Lucy had always enjoyed the taverns, though. They were filled with so many different people and all kinds of bubbling conversations. Her father had always looked at these men as though they were blights upon the world. He had assured her that her husband would be an upstanding citizen, someone far removed from the troughs of the world, and then he had tried to get her to marry Bryn Colbert.
She shuddered at the name.
The first time she had encountered Bryn she had actually been charmed by him. He was different from the other weak-chinned men that had been presented to her with their limp handshakes, breathy voices, and halting laughs. Bryn was a force to be reckoned with, a distinct presence in the world, but she was quick to learn that harshness was a way of life for him. He had barely looked at her, treating her as though she were just some object in the world. He spoke to her dismissively and outlined how their marriage would unfold, even going so far as to demand how many children they would have, including the number of boys and girls, as though she had any control over it. He was just like her father, trying to control her destiny, mapping out the rest of her life as though it were a great tapestry, and she could not deviate from what they had chosen for her at all.
He may have been from noble heritage, but he was rough and coarse, his manner curt, his eyes devoid of any affection at all. She wondered if he knew of love, or if it was some mystical concept for him. It must have been like that for her father. Hamish wanted to impose his own will on the clan, using his influence over the laird to forge new rules and laws so that everyone had to adhere to the way he thought life should be lived. Ian’s distillery was in direct response to that. She found it wryly amusing that they had both been rebelling against Hamish Glennrock even before they had encountered each other. She couldn’t wait to tell Ian this, knowing that he would find it amusing as well.
There was a lot she wanted to tell him, in truth. She felt she ought to apologize to him again. After all, he had revealed a few intimate things about his past and all she had done was offer him a lie. Even now, the truth seemed inadequate. But how much time were they going to have together? After all, she couldn’t stay here for the foreseeable future. The longer she remained in the clan, the likelier it was that someone would recognize her. If Rory’s plan worked, then she would have to leave, traveling anywhere but north, and saying farewell to Ian was going to be more difficult than she anticipated. Despite not being allowed out of the shop, she had come to like her time here. It was a shame it could not continue in perpetuity. But where would she go? Since she liked taverns, she thought that perhaps she could find work in one in a small town somewhere, or perhaps an inn along the road where she could greet weary travelers and hear all of their stories. She could grow old there. Eventually, her beauty would fade, and the weary men would stop winking at her. The winters would grow longer and the nights colder, but she would always be warmed by a thought of that curt blacksmith, the one who loomed large in her memory, the flames he stoked never burning out.
It was a bittersweet thought. Her privileged life had been a gilded cage. If she had been nothing more than a scullery maid, then she would have been free to marry Ian and nobody would have questioned it. There were unwritten rules in the world, and it was deemed that someone like her should not be intimate with someone like him, but why not? Why should they both have to suffer simply because of other people’s expectations? Sometimes she thought a fool must have been in charge of the world because none of it made any sense.
But then she was interrupted from her thoughts by a sound from upstairs. She strained her ears, but did not sense Rory or Ian. She crept up the stairs, shushing Ginger behind her, and lifted the basement door, peering through the narrow opening. Her gaze fell upon the doorway, attracted there by moving shadows. Then, a thud as someone crashed against the door. It rattled, and then there was another sound, this time of something scraping in the lock.
It clicked open. The door swung. Lucy’s eyes widened and she ducked down, the entrance almost hitting her head as she let it fall, for she was amazed to see two strangers entering the forge. One of them was tall, the other was stockier and porky.
“Keep quiet,” one of them said. His voice was low. The other one spoke in hastier tones.
“I am quiet,” they hissed. Lucy crouched on the stairs, worried they might come for the distillery. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do should they enter, but perhaps she could scare them off. Their footsteps thudded against the floor as they moved around the shop.
“Right, let’s see what he’s got gaeing on here.”
“Are we sure he hae anything gaeing on?”
“Ah, come on, Rab, he must. I hae been watching him for a while. Dae ye think he makes all this money by selling forks and spoons tae the innkeepers? Nae, I think he hae something else gaeing on in here, we just need tae find it.”
“I dinnae know, he dinnae mention anything like that in the tavern the other night.”
“Ach, dae ye think he’s just gaeing tae come out and say it? Nae, he plays his cards close tae his chest, but I know he is hiding something. I am nae gaeing tae let him take our business. Let’s send him a message. He needs tae stick tae the forge. I dinnae want him interfering with us.”
