Page 21 of Forever My Lass

When she’d broken down into a massive puddle of tears as she’d relived her terrifying moments in the water, Iain had been kind and understanding. If he’d been Martin, she would have received a few pats on the back until she stopped crying. The moment her tears dried up, the focus would return to him. It was how she’d learned to console herself without anyone else’s support.

It wasn’t until Iain had pulled her close that Madeline realized how much she’d needed to lean on someone else for comfort. The past couple of months of grief and loneliness had been difficult, with no one to turn to for support or comfort. Even if she and Martin had still been engaged, he would have balked at spending emotional capital trying to ease her grief.

And Martin sure as hell would never have reacted like Iain by offering her his shoulder to cry on while he held her in silence. Heaven forbid she mess up one of his pristine jackets with her tears. It was ironic a stranger in the distant past had offered her more solace than the man she had been prepared to marry. Even more astounding was how Iain’s fierce anger had changed to gentle kindness in the space of seconds. His ability to override his anger and offer solace instead of dismissing her fear made him an unusual man, no matter what the time period.

There had been pain in his voice when he’d reassured her that her reaction was a normal one. It made Madeline believe he’d experienced something equally traumatic in his life. An event that gave him a better understanding than most people, of the shock and fear she’d relived moments ago. Whatever had happened to him, it had given him the ability to understand her terror.

Madeline could only hope he was wrong about a repeat performance. She didn’t like the idea of reliving those terrifying moments again. Although she didn’t have a clue how she would get home, at least she was alive. It was an important fact to remember the next time she relived those terrifying moments in the water. From deep in the recesses of her mind, a dark whisper tried to tell her something she didn’t want to hear. Madeline quickly shoved it into the back of her mind. She wasn’t ready to go there yet.

Chapter 6

Iain tugged hard on the drapes to close off the last bit of sunlight pouring into his study. With the last window covered by the dark curtains, the room was lit by nothing more than a thin border of sunlight that forced its way past the outer edges of the drapes. With most of the bright light blocked out of the room, he released a harsh sigh of relief. Shutting out the light was the first thing he’d done the moment he’d entered his study a few moments ago.

The brilliant sunshine pouring into the room would only worsen the minor headache he’d been nursing. Fingers massaging his forehead, he tried to ease the faint, but persistent throbbing that had started in the early morning hours. He blamed it on his sleepless night. A night of tossing and turning brought on by the mystery surrounding his far too tempting guest.

Yesterday, while Madeline was recovering from her frantic race down to the sea, he’d sent his stable hand to Aberdeen to inquire as to the arrival of the Destiny’s Dream. His fear that McLeod’s ship had suffered a similar fate as the Phoenix Rising had been alleviated less than an hour ago when Cecil had returned with good news.

Captain McLeod had asked the Rotterdam harbor master to telegraph Aberdeen that the Destiny’s Dream had set sail with the morning tide. It meant that with fair weather, the screw propeller steamship would most likely reach Aberdeen by tomorrow night, along with his cargo.

If he could secure a good price for the silk, lace, and the small load of steel he’d been able to add to his investment, he would have little debt hanging over his head by this time next week. There would even be enough left over to cover back wages for Cecil and the McFaydens. There might even be enough for a few new dresses for the girls. While there wouldn’t be enough money to send them away to school, he was hopeful he could hire a governess for their schooling.

If his next trip proved to be an equally profitable investment, he could send them to school then. He would also be able to repair things in the house that had been left to languish in the past year of financial losses. The first thing would be to finish the piping for the bathrooms. He liked the convenience of having hot running water and plumbing in his suite. But he wanted to add plumbing to the servant quarters as well as the guest rooms. Not that he had many visitors.

The sudden memory of Madeline standing in front of him in the hallway after her bath filled his head. If the guest rooms had been plumbed, his sleep last night would have been far less eventful. Instead, his dreams had been filled with images of him caressing Madeline’s lush breasts while tasting her sweetly curved mouth. Iain groaned softly at the erotic thought. If he didn’t send the woman on her way quickly, he was apt to find himself in a sair fecht as Angus was fond of saying when he was struggling with a particularly troublesome problem.

The difficulty was, where was he supposed to send her? Cecil had checked with the MacDonald Norwood Hall and Douglas hotels, but neither of them had a guest registered by the name of Miss Whitworth. Nor had the hotels had her on their list of expected arrivals. The lad had also checked several other reputable lodgings in the city. No one had heard of the woman.

That left him with a mystery he wasn’t sure how to solve. Captain Napier had been adamant Madeline hadn’t been aboard the Phoenix Rising. Madeline had been equally adamant that she’d been on the Destiny’s Dream. Now, as he pondered Madeline’s mysterious arrival, he remembered Grace and the an dara sealladh.

Last night, when his oldest daughter had whispered that Madeline was the woman she’d seen drowning in her vision, Iain had been more relieved than startled. Grace’s gift rarely revealed a complete picture of events, but when his daughter had seen her twin sister in the same vision with Madeline two days ago, it had alarmed him.

But last night, he’d known Ainslie was safe and sound, eating her meal in the dining room. So that still left the question as to how Madeline had come to be in the water? The memory of the woman he’d seen on the cliffs filled his head.

The cliffs weren’t frequented by many people. In fact, he rarely met anyone whenever he took a stroll along the edge of the precipice. There was also no conceivable way anyone could have landed in the water if they’d jumped from the cliffs that towered over the inlet. Even at high tide, the inlet was a sizable expanse of beach with rocks abutting the face of the cliffs.

Ghost stories were prevalent among the villagers, but he’d never heard any stories of a woman haunting the cliffs above the inlet. What made it particularly difficult to believe he’d seen a ghost, was the woman’s close resemblance to Madeline.

Both women had the same short, light-brown hair, although he’d not been close enough to tell if the woman’s hair had possessed the golden highlights Madeline’s did. But the woman on the cliffs had been just as tall as Madeline, and both women had the same lush, womanly curves. On the cliffs, the wind and rain had made the woman’s clothing outline her curves in the same way Madeline’s bath water had made her nightgown cling to her in such a delectable manner.

Then there was the fact that the two women had been dressed exactly the same. It was one of half a dozen things he’d noted about Madeline as he’d carried her back to the house the night of the storm.

Iain had scoffed at himself the first time he’d even considered the ludicrous possibility that the two women were the same person. Logically, he knew if the woman he’d seen on the cliffs had actually jumped, they would have found her body on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. Iain had no explanation for anything other than he was mad and had imagined the woman disappearing before his eyes or the fae had been at work.

Then there was Madeline’s reaction yesterday morning. It had only added to the mystery surrounding his guest. It wasn’t just her disbelief and astonishment over the fact he owned neither a telephone nor a car he found puzzling. The moment he’d told her the date, she’d become paler than anyone he’d ever seen.

He’d fully expected her to faint. Instead, she’d raced frantically out of the house and down to the inlet. Everything about her behavior had been that of someone in a deep state of panic and shock. When he’d reached her on the beach yesterday, he’d been so preoccupied with his concern for her welfare that he’d forgotten her questioning the date until now.

Iain frowned as he recalled her agitation and strange mutterings about not believing the year was 1896. He could understand why she might be surprised by having lost track of a few days, but she’d clearly been questioning the year. It made him wonder if she’d been a patient in a convalescent home for a long period and had just learned what year it was. A strange whisper of a thought told him it was something altogether different.

His lips twisted slightly in a small grimace as he remembered carrying Madeline back to the house after her mad dash down to the sea. It had been much more than simple concern for her that had pushed her strange words out of his head. The unexpected strength of his desire to comfort and protect her had startled him. Even last night, as she’d relived her harrowing brush with death, he’d been stunned by his intense need to console her.

As he remembered the look of terror on her face, another memory from deep in the recesses of his mind pushed its way forward. Iain understood her fear. He understood the way it could cripple you, but even worse was the guilt. It was something he’d lived with ever since that terrible day in the sea cave. The moment the memories tried to push their way firmly into his conscious mind, the throbbing against his temples strengthened. With a grunt, he crushed the past and thrust it back into the darkness where it always hid.

Determined to fight off another migraine, he sank down in one of the wing-back chairs facing the fireplace. Stretching his legs out in front of him, he rested his head against the cushions and closed his eyes. Forcing himself to relax, he focused on slowing his breathing and pushed all of his problems out of his mind. As he calmed his thoughts, he slipped into the quiet darkness of sleep.

A loud noise pierced Iain’s light slumber, and he jerked upright in his chair. The sight of a glowing piece of charred wood pressed against the andirons in the fireplace made him grab the poker to push it back into place. When he’d finished stoking the fire, Iain leaned back into his chair again to stare into the flames. His brief nap had removed all traces of his headache, but it hadn’t cleared his thoughts of Madeline.

From her clothing, to her mannerisms, to her language, she was unlike anyone he’d ever met. While he knew Americans were an unusual lot, Madeline appeared to be even more eccentric than what he’d heard from others right down to her unconventional short hair. It suited her, but other than the woman on the cliff, he’d never seen a woman with her hair cut so short.