It was strange to be back. His home, yet not his home.
Ahead, at the end of the corridor, a flickering light spilled from underneath the heavy oaken door of the laird’s study. Emeric hesitated, feeling the reassuring weight of the purse tied to his belt. He raised his hand and knocked softly.
“Enter,” came the gruff voice from inside.
Emeric took a deep breath and pressed down on the iron handle, pushing open the door. The room was just as he remembered: cluttered with old tomes, crumpled maps and worn parchment scattered across the massive oak desk, framed by towering bookshelves that reached up to the highceiling where cobwebs danced out of reach of even the most industrious maid.
Laird Douglas Mackintosh sat at the desk, poring over a document that was laid out in front of him. He held a pair of lenses up to his eyes to help him read—one of the many inventions he’d brought back from his trips to Italy—and a frown furrowed his forehead.
He looked up when the door opened and put the lenses down. The frown disappeared and he broke into a smile. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “So yearealive, after all?”
Emeric inclined his head. “Tales of my demise are greatly exaggerated.”
“Damn it. That’s a shilling I owe Marcus.” With a grin, his uncle heaved himself to his feet.
As always, the sight of his uncle sent an odd little pang through Emeric. It was like looking at his father. His uncle and father had not been twins, Douglas being a year older than his brother, Edric, but they looked so alike they may as well have been. Same tall build and bold nose, same sandy colored hair that Emeric had inherited. But like his mother, his uncle seemed to have aged in the last year. There was more gray at his temples and in his beard, and the lines of worry on his forehead seemed deeper.
His uncle put his hands on Emeric’s shoulders and looked him over. Then he pulled him into an embrace, almost crushing the life from him. Despite his advancing years, he was still as strong as a bear. After a moment, his uncle pushed him to arm’s length.
“Ye look like hell,” Douglas said, eyeing Emeric’s mud-splattered clothing.
“I feel like it too. Got into an argument with the marshes.”
Douglas snorted a laugh. “Aye, that will do it. Have ye seen yer mother? And yer sister? They’ve been going frantic with worry when ye didnae arrive by supper.”
“I have.”
Douglas studied him for a few seconds, then clapped him on the shoulder, and turned, leading him toward the fire crackling merrily in the grand hearth. “We’ve missed ye, laddie.” He waved to a decanter of amber liquid on a side table. “Come, pour us both a drink and fill me in on yer adventures.”
Emeric did as he was instructed, pouring two generous drams of whisky into pewter goblets before taking a seat across from his uncle. The chair creaked slightly under his weight.
He handed one goblet to his uncle and took a sip from his own, feeling the smooth burn creep down his throat and spread warmth through his chest. A silent toast to coming home alive. With the life he led, sometimes it was the best you could hope for.
“How are things with the clan?” he asked.
Douglas gestured with his cup. “Ye need not worry about such matters. Everything is fine.”
But the words rang hollow. There was a strain in his uncle’s voice that didn’t sit well with Emeric.
“I’m not a naive youth anymore, Uncle. Tell me the truth.”
Douglas sighed heavily. “Emeric,” he began gently, “ye’ve been away for a long time.”
“Aye, that I have,” Emeric acknowledged. “And the world hasnae stopped turning in my absence. Nor, I am sure, has life up here.”
The fire in the hearth crackled and popped, casting strange shadows on the old stone walls. Douglas took a sip of his whisky and then spoke.
“There’s been the usual unrest. Clan differences that are as old as the Highlands themselves. Nothing we canna handle, but...” He paused, gazing into the depths of his goblet as if searching for the right words. “They’ve become more... problematic of late.”
“Because of Aislinn’s engagement to Brodie Murray?”
His uncle’s eyes flicked up to meet his. “Aye. The MacDonalds didnae take it too well.”
Emeric took a sip of his whisky, digesting this news. The MacDonalds were their allies, their larger, more powerful neighbor, and for as long as Emeric could remember, Duncan MacDonald, the laird’s son, had had his eyes on Aislinn. Now she was marrying someone else he could only imagine the strife that had caused his uncle. Yet he’d allowed the engagement to go ahead all the same.
“Ye didnae insist on a match between Aislinn and Duncan MacDonald?”
It was Douglas’s right as laird and legal guardian to arrange Aislinn’s marriage. A marriage to Duncan MacDonald would have been the sensible choice, strengthening the alliance between the two clans. Yet that was not his uncle’s way. He’d lost his wife, Sarah, inchildbirth and had never remarried. As a result, Aislinn was the daughter he’d never had and he spoiled her like a princess.
