Finlay nodded. “And we canna forget your friends that we met the other night.”
This was the time where she would find out if Finlay would think her daft. But with naught else to lose, what could it hurt to ask his opinions? “Do ye believe that we can speak to the dead, Finlay?”
He choked on the bite of eggs he had just taken. Coughing and catching his breath, he dabbed at the corners of his mouth with the napkin. “Excuse me?”
She pressed her lips together and met his eyes. “When people pass, do ye believe that some people, no’ all, can speak to them?” she asked seriously.
He lifted his hand a couple of times before rubbing his nose and wetting his lips. “I havena e’er really thought of such things.”
“But if ye did, do ye think ’tis possible?”
He waved his hands in the air. “I suppose. I have heard of people in the past that claimed to do as such, but I ne’er paid them much attention.”
She took another bite of toast, chewing slowly as she bid her time to continue. “I, when I was in Inverness, after my husband died, I would hold parties at my home.”
“I see no issue with doing such a thing.”
“They werena your usual party. They were seances.”
She let the word hang in the air and watched Finlay’s forehead crease in confusion. “I dinna understand.”
“My friends and I would gather at my house. I had made the acquaintance of a reputable medium—one that can speak with the dead.”
“This was something that ye and your friends all participated in?”
She nodded. “Until the last party. I went with another medium, who in the end was a fraud. She said awful things to my friends that supposedly had come from their loved ones. Made an awful show of trying to make it seem like she was being overcome by spirits. Speaking in tongues. It was horrifying. My friends cried foul and blamed me for the fraudulent woman’s actions.”
“But hadna ye already provided them with someone reputable?”
“I had, but it didna matter. Word spread like wildfire in Inverness, and my friends abandoned me. The city shunned me. I was alone. And with my parents gone I had no one left.”
He sat back in his chair, staring out the window at the clouds hanging low in the autumn sky.
Would he put her out? Send her away? Ask for annulment? She wrung her hands together in her lap as she worried her lower lip with her teeth. They certainly had not consummated their marriage. He was well within his rights to demand such a thing.
“Mina, I can honestly say that I have no experience in such a thing. Was it something ye found helpful? Who did ye speak with?”
She shook her head. “’Twas ne’er for myself. I had no one I wanted to connect with. E’en after Gerard died, I didna want to see if the medium could contact him, though she did tell me once that e’en if I wanted to, I couldna. She wasna able to see his spirit at all. I had closed that chapter in my life and moved forward. But my friends? They wanted to speak with old friends, parents, siblings, children they’d lost. I just found the whole thing fascinating and since I had the means, I hosted.”
She clasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles were white. “I understand if ye would like to release yourself from me.”
“What? Why would ye say such a thing?”
She shrugged. “I just, since I,” she stammered, not able to come up with a coherent sentence.
“The fact that ye made a mistake and your friends decided to turn their backs on ye, doesna change my mind. I ken naught of how seances work, but I also think if ye mentioned it to my friends’ wives, they would have their interest piqued.”
Her eyes rounded. Finlay’s reaction was the opposite of what she had expected. Her cousin told her she needed her head examined for finding interest in such a morbid topic. But not Finlay.
“I think your friends were no’ your friends for abandoning ye in such a way.” He stood up and paced the length of the room until he stopped suddenly and pointed a finger in the air. “I believe we should honeymoon in Inverness,” he stated.
Willamina’s eyes snapped to his, her head shaking from side to side. “Surely, ye canna mean that.”
He leaned on the table in front of her, their eyes at the same level and smiled. “I do. One should ne’er be run out of the home they loved for such a trivial thing. Let us show Inverness that Willamina Primrose is back.”
*
Finlay was takenaback at Willamina’s reaction to returning to Inverness. Her main reason for their marriage was so that she could regain control of her assets.
