The door opened to reveal a woman about ten years her elder. She’d been pretty once, perhaps, but the sour look on her face turned her haggard. Fiona’s belly dropped. “Good day … I’m a weaver from Craignure,” she said. “I’m new here and looking for work. Are ye in need of an assistant?”
The woman’s gaze narrowed, raking over her. “Running from something, are ye?”
“A falling out with my family,” Fiona said.
“Well, ye made a mistake coming here. Ardnacross doesn’t welcome women of yer sort.”
Yer sort?Heat flushed through Fiona. She hadn’t mentioned the scandal she’d left behind in Dounarwyse, yet somehow the woman smelled her shame.
“Ardnacross only needs one weaver,” Beth snapped. “There’s no room for ye. Be on yer way.”
The door slammed.
Fiona stared at it, her cheeks burning. Spine stiff, she turned back toward the street.
A woman with a swollen belly was hanging washing nearby and gave her a curious but not unkind look.
Fiona plastered on a smile and hobbled back toward the tavern.
“Well,” she huffed to herself, “looks like I’m about to learn some new skills.”
23: IN RUINS
“MORNING, MACLEAN. WHAT brings ye back to these parts so soon?”
A cottar leaning on his hoe, taking a short break from his morning’s work, greeted Ailean as he rode in.
“I can’t keep away, it seems.” Ailean forced a smile.
“Has yer father sent ye in his stead?”
“He has.” Ailean pulled Sgòth up by the roadside. Leaning forward, he stroked the stallion’s neck, damp with sweat. His mood was dark this morning, yet he did his best to hide it from these cottars.
His search for Fiona had yielded nothing.
A ferry had departed just before his arrival in Craignure, for Oban, and he suspected she’d taken it. Choking the urge to go after her, he’d left Craignure the afternoon before and ridden north. He’d stopped a few travelers on the road to ask if they’d seen her—a lass with wild, curly blonde hair—but none had.
He’d then camped, sleeping rough near one of the beaches north of Dounarwyse before heading off once more and reaching his destination a couple of hours after sunrise.
And as he’d ridden into Ardnacross, something had occurred to him.
Maybe Fiona hadn’t left Mull. Villages scattered the eastern coast of Mull, this one among them.
Could she have come here?
The urge to ask these men if they’d seen her rose then, yet he checked himself. If Fiona was here, he wouldn’t do her any favors by linking himself to her. He’d already caused the lass enough trouble.
“The laird sent me to rebuild the tower,” he said after a pause. “It’s time Ardnacross looked proud of itself again.”
A smile bloomed across the cottar’s leathery face. “That’s fine news indeed.” He glanced at the outline of the ruin against an unblemished sky. “It’s a sad sight. It’ll be good to see it used again.”
Ailean followed the man’s gaze, his belly hardening. He remembered his last visit here with his father, how the laird had considered the idea of rebuilding the ruin. At the time, Ailean had been certain he never would.
“What will the tower be used for, Maclean?” another, younger man called from a few yards distant. He’d been weeding onions, but their conversation had drawn his attention.
“I’ll be moving in,” Ailean replied, injecting a heartiness he didn’t feel into his voice. “My father has made me steward of this place … for the time being at least.”
That was all true enough. He hadn’t lied. He’d just missed out the part where he had been disinherited and banished from Dounarwyse. He’d left out his father’s rage and disappointment, and his own shock and festering self-recrimination. These people didn’t need to hear any of that. Eventually, news would reach them of his shame. Merchants traveled between Dounarwyse and Ardnacross, and when they did, he’d have to brace himself for it. But there was no need to make his arrival here any more difficult. He had an arduous task before him, and he needed these people’s support.
