Page 82 of A Scot on the Rocks

Finlay returned from the door and planted himself opposite her. “I thought he was going to take Jamie’s head off with that cup. We couldn’t get over to him in time.” He grinned, showing one missing tooth. “But then ye came at him with a plate of turnips.”

“There was mutton, too,” Olivia said. “For a very short time.”

One of the younger still hands leaned down to look at the dog beneath Jamie’s bench. “Looks as though he enjoyed it.”

“I’m delighted for him.”

Finlay started laughing again. Even Alasdair, coming back to his seat, had a small smile on his face.

“Ye saw the second man move before I did,” he said to Olivia.

“He wasn’t watching his friend. He was watching Jamie.” Olivia retrieved her cup, grateful it had survived. “People give themselves away when they think everybody’s looking somewhere else.”

Alasdair nodded once, as if she’d settled a question that had been bothering him since the day at the still. Finlay, meanwhile, was telling the younger men that the next time trouble came to the glen they’d best arm themselves with their suppers.

Mairi returned with another plate of food for Olivia and a look of fierce approval. “Useful lass,” she said, depositing the food in front of her.

Olivia dug in as Jamie’s men teased her, saying they’d be careful not to get on her bad side or they might find themselves wearing their supper. The alehouse gradually found its rhythm again, the strangers’ departure already becoming a story that improved whenever Finlay retold it. The two dogs curled up together under the table, full and deeply satisfied with the evening’s entertainment.

When Mairi returned from serving a table, she dropped onto the bench opposite Olivia with a look Jamie seemed to recognize and dread. “He’s a terrible flirt, ye ken.”

“Am I?” Jamie asked, though he looked much too pleased with himself for an innocent man.

“He’s terrible because he’s good at it,” Mairi said. “But I’ve never known him to promise a lass what he didn’t mean. His trouble is making folk like him enough to overlook the things he says he canna offer.”

Olivia glanced at Jamie. “That sounds terribly specific.”

“It’s an old grievance,” he said. “She once wanted me to court her cousin.”

“My cousin had excellent prospects.”

“Your cousin wanted a respectable husband with a roof.” Jamie spread one hand. “I’m not and ye’ve seen my roof.”

Mairi gave a reluctant laugh. “At least ye told her straight. More than I can say for most men.” She rose with her jug, pausing to look at Olivia. “Mind ye, lass, he’s even more attractive when he starts mending things without being asked.”

Olivia watched her go. She’d seen Jamie make light of almost everything, including the hole in his roof, but his amusement had quieted at Mairi’s remark. He’d had lovers before, of course. It would have been more surprising if a man who smiled like him hadn’t. What unsettled her was the ease with which he could speak about his past without hiding anything important.

She had to think carefully before answering a harmless question about hers. It would be nice to just be herself, but that was never going to happen here.

The fiddler reclaimed his chair beside the hearth, and a woman with an infant tucked against her shoulder called for a song everyone seemed to know. Voices joined in, rough and cheerful, while the men argued over who had got the words wrong.

A boy came to ask Jamie whether he’d look at his mother’s sticking shutter. An elderly man wanted to know if the ghost at Dunarraidh had taken to wandering near the lower road, and Jamie gravely explained that ghosts were restless after rain. A young woman pressed a folded scrap of linen into his hand and whispered something Olivia couldn’t hear. Jamie asked her a question, tucked the cloth into his coat, and promised to see to it in the morning.

Apparently he couldn’t enter a public room without leaving with a list of jobs. Olivia found the thought oddly comforting. In another place he’d have been the man Grandma Bennett sent downstairs when the cellar lock stuck or the kitchen door refused to close, and she would have fed him twice as payment whether he wanted it or not.

She reached into her skirts for the little purse Morag had lent her for the penny she’d won, meaning to give the purse back. The way the old lady told the tale, Olivia should have had a bag of gold by now. The clasp had snagged the day before, but when she brought it into the candlelight she saw the torn leather had been stitched and the fastening polished clean.

“You repaired this.”

Jamie glanced at it then took a drink of his whisky. “Aye. It needed doing.”

“You might have mentioned it.”

“And then ye might have thanked me.” He looked appalled by the prospect. “Why spoil a perfectly good evening?”

She ran her thumb over the neat little stitches. Grandma had always said there were men who knew how to talk about helping and men who simply rolled up their sleeves. She hadn’t ever expected to find a man like that, had thought they were extinct. Looked like she had to travel through time to find the kind of man she’d dreamed of, one who happened to be living in a castle that didn’t possess an intact south wall.

“Mrs. Bennett?”