Maura laughed. “I was just about to say that very thing!”
The well was perhaps six feet across, built up to about the level of her hips. She peered far down into the round opening, down the moss-laden sides that ended in shadow. “It’s dry,” she said in disappointment.
“I’m not surprised. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to make a wish here, since one never knows when it will fill with water.” He smiled slightly. “My sister and my cousin Caro used to wish upon stars. I often wondered why they never came here.”
“Perhaps they did,” Maura said.
“Possibly,” Alec said wryly, “but I think perhaps they simply wanted to stay up long into the night and bedevil their nurse or the rest of the household.”
He paused, as if in fond remembrance, Maura suspected.
“When the well does fill with water,” he said, “by the next day it’s completely gone. It’s the oddest thing, but I believe it’s been that way for a number of generations.”
“Well, I find it just as charming as your mother,” Maura announced.
“Do you, now? Why do I have the feeling you merely wish your opinion to be contrary to mine?”
“Your statement, sir, not mine,” she retorted.
And one he chose to ignore. He held out his hand. “Come. The loch isn’t far. Just over the next rise.”
Maura hesitated. She didn’t want to take his hand. She didn’t want to touch him. Her response to him was too unpredictable. She couldn’t control it. The thought sprang wildly into her head that she couldn’t control him.
“Your grace?”
He beckoned with the tips of his fingers. The glint in his eyes was almost a dare.
He knew, damn him. He knew full well what he did to her.
Maura’s chin came up. Almost defiantly she placed her hand in his. Perhaps just as defiantly, his fingers curled hard around hers.
They walked in silence for a time, following a winding pathway through the forest. Sunlight played hide-and-seek through the treetops.
But all was forgotten when she caught her first glimpse of the loch. Wooded hills rose on the opposite shore, their shadows reflected in the brilliant blue of the loch below.
She ran down the grassy hillside, exclaiming in delight. “A boathouse! Oh, and look at the dock!” She ran out farther, perching her hands on her hips, then pointing across to the hills. “The trees near the shoreline, the ones with the lovely, arching branches. Are they downy birch? And Scots pine higher on the hills?”
“They are.” Alec seemed pleased that she knew. “I’m glad to see there is something in Scotland that pleases you, Irish. You should see it in the autumn, when all the leaves are brilliant and gold. And in the springtime, with primroses and violets everywhere.”
Ah, but she wouldn’t be here in the autumn. Or the springtime.
Maura ignored the insistent little voice in her head. Plunking herself down near the end of the dock, she tugged off her slippers, peeled off her hose, hiked up her skirts and dangled her toes in the water. Feeling like a child again, she was unaware of the way Alec’s gaze alighted on her darned cotton stockings.
He sat down, long legs stretched out before him. Laughing, Maura aimed a splash at him with the bottom of one foot.
He ducked.
“What, your grace! You’re not the sort who wails at getting a bit damp, are you?”
This time he couldn’t evade the spray of water she sent his way.
With a peal of laughter, Maura leaned back on her hands. “Is there a boat in the boathouse?”
“Aye. And you are not to venture out alone in it,” he said sternly.
Maura pulled a face. “And you, your grace, are behaving like a stodgy old man.”
“Am I? Lovely as it is, my sister Anne and my cousin Caro once spent a very frightening night here on the loch when a sudden storm blew in. If you were alone, Irish, and I could not find you, I might think you’d been spirited away by a selkie.”
