“He knows everything.”
“And what he doesn’t, your mother does.”
Young Ian looked out over the inside of the croft with a thoughtful frown. Oliver joined him. It had been that sort of holiday so far.
Young Ian looked up at him, his expression troubled. “Will it harm Mair, do you suppose?”
“We won’t allow it to,” Oliver assured him.
“I should go speak to my father.”
“It might make you feel better.”
Young Ian nodded briskly, put his shoulders back, and strode away, no doubt to conquer. Oliver didn’t blame the lad at all if he changed his mind two steps into his journey and instead went to prop himself up next to Oliver’s sword. He sent Oliver a look of pleading that was unmistakable, so Oliver only shook his head and smiled. He wasn’t going to tell the lad’s tale for him, though it did answer at least the question of how the book had found itself liberated from the lady Elizabeth’s bookshelf.
He supposed the next question to be answered was where both halves of it found themselves at present.
He leaned back against the door for a bit, picking up the thread of the thoughts he’d been thinking at Cameron Hall whilst he’d been about the happy labor of keeping Mairead warm and comfortable on the sofa. The manuscript Sinclair McKinnon had fashioned had been remarkably preserved, though he was still committed to the idea that it was because the little stone box had been above the flood line. Perhaps the chapel had also benefitted from a lack of patronage which had left the air inside not quite as moist as it might have been otherwise.
A book out in the open, though, was an entirely different story. He hadn’t questioned Mairead as to the particulars, but he couldn’t imagine the same hollowed out spot she’d used hadbeen the same one Young Ian had discovered. The tree would have grown, for one thing. Even if the manuscript had remained in Mairead’s hiding place and survived the four hundred subsequent years of tree growth and Scottish weather, it just wasn’t possible that it would still be intact. He wasn’t above hazarding a bit of a climb to make certain at some point, but definitely not for the next few days.
“You thought Oliver was the Duke of Birmingham?”
Oliver snapped back to himself and had the words Derrick had just choked out register. He listened to the rest of the lads have a jolly old laugh about it, treated his boss to the rude gesture he was obviously expecting, then rolled his eyes and walked over to see if he couldn’t commandeer a spot next to his bride.
“The man on the cover was fair-haired,” Mairead offered, “though Oliver is far more handsome. His noble qualities, though, and obvious chivalry seemed a perfect match to me.”
And with that, they were off, though Oliver credited those lads there with knowing how close they were to death by his hands because the sport at his expense was mercifully brief. He imagined that had to do with Jamie rubbing his hands together as if he had something important to say.
But before he could, Young Ian stepped forward and looked at his father. “I apologize, Father,” he said, making his sire a low, formal bow. “I am the one who lost the book after having pinched it from Mum’s library.”
Oliver suspected Jamie was trying very hard not to smile, but he did manage a very serious look at least initially.
“Stealing is wrong, son.”
“I was borrowing, Father.”
Oliver looked around to find the entire company conceding that with nods of agreement. He took a moment to smile at his wife who had slipped her hand into his and given him a smile of her own, then turned back to the conversation at hand.
“You see,” Young Ian said, looking as if he hoped very much that his father would, “I was looking for wooing ideas.”
Jamie looked as if he might have wanted to stroke his chin, but perhaps that moment hadn’t quite arrived. “Do you have a lass you fancy, then, son?”
“I’m interested more in a general sense,” Young Ian said frankly. “If I find a gel I like, I had planned to ask you for the particulars.”
Oliver shook his head in silent admiration of the lad’s technique. The clan MacLeod was in good hands with Young Ian in line for the chieftainship. He listened to without really hearing the rest of the conversation which seemed to revolve around books lost and manuscripts found and concerns over things being in the past that shouldn’t be.
“But all’s well that ends well,” Jamie said, rubbing his hands together. “Is there dessert?”
“Da, we haven’t had lunch yet,” Young Ian said, sounding slightly appalled.
“Son, if there is dessert in front of you, ‘tis best to avail yourself of it whilst your mother isn’t watching.”
Oliver watched Young Ian absorb that advice with the appropriate solemnity. And he didn’t particularly want to eavesdrop, but the cottage was so damned small that he couldn’t help but overhear Young Ian coming to kneel down by his father and apologize again.
Jamie smiled and reached out to ruffle his hair. “You could have chosen much worse tomes to study.”
“I’m sorry, Da.”
