Page 74 of A Scot on the Rocks
“Ye can smile at any man ye please, speak to anyone, and bargain until the kirk bell rings if it makes ye happy. I’m only telling ye folk here may read more into it than ye intend.”
Olivia folded her arms beneath the cloak. “That’s absurd.”
“Mayhap.” His attention moved briefly around the market, taking in several people who’d made no attempt to disguise their interest in the conversation.
“But ye deserve to ken which rules ye’re breaking before six women decide ye’ve promised yourself to a traveling merchant because ye admired his wares.”
She stared at him. “Six women are paying attention to us?”
“Could be eight. Market’s busy.”
Despite herself, she laughed, which was probably a mistake too.
They continued toward the cooper’s awning, where several small casks stood on their ends beside lengths of new stave wood and coils of iron hooping. The cooper was a square man with broad pale hands, sawdust caught in the sleeves of his coat, and a long curl of shaved oak trapped in his beard.
So fascinated by what the man was doing, Olivia forgot the social lesson almost immediately.
One of the smaller casks had been opened for repair, exposing wood darkened where the liquid had soaked deep into the stave. She crouched slightly, careful of her skirts, and ran one gloved finger along the outer grain without touching the inside.
“What was in this?”
The cooper glanced at Jamie before answering. “Sherry, mayhap. Came up through Greenock.”
Olivia leaned closer and smelled the exposed wood. Dried fruit remained faintly beneath damp oak, along with old wine and something sharper where the cooper had pared the interior. “And this one?”
“Ale first. Then spirit.”
She straightened slowly, looking from one cask to the other. “Do you reuse whatever comes through?”
“When the wood’s sound.”
“Where do most of these come from?”
The cooper jerked his chin toward the sherry cask. “Merchants bring them through Greenock when there’s coin to be made. Wine casks. Sometimes rum. Ale barrels closer to home. Good oak’s good oak.”
It was another piece in the puzzle of Glenbrae’s lost whisky. Modern recreations had experimented with casks, of course, but modern cooperage, cleaning, transportation, previous fills, and wood treatment weren’t the same thing. The old whisky hadn’t simply gone into a barrel. It had gone into individual pieces of wood carrying histories of their own.
She stood and turned back toward the cooper. “How deeply do you scrape them before reuse?”
The man’s brows rose, and Jamie caught her gently at the elbow before she could ask anything else.
“Enough.”
She looked at him. “I’m asking about the wood.”
“I ken.”
“I need to know.”
“And you’ve already made him wonder why a widow from Boston knows more about barrels than half the merchants who buy from him.”
Olivia looked toward the cooper, who was absolutely listening, and offered an awkward smile. “Thank you.”
The cooper gave Jamie an interested look, while Jamie sighed and guided her away.
“I smiled at him again, didn’t I?”
“Aye.”
