Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
The young Campbell chortles like a drunken frat boy. He nudges me, like it’s all in good fun, but I’m not amused.
It’s hard not to compare him to Callum. Callum teases me constantly, yet somehow, I never feel like the joke.
“So…” Hamish leans close. “Who is it?”
“Who is who?”
“Who holds your attention so?” He scans the crowd, and I see the exact moment his expression sharpens. He’s spotted Callum. “These coarse lads, are they to your liking?”
My spine shoots straight as a pike. “What?”
Hamish’s gaze consumes me, dragging from my eyes, to my lips, along my cheeks, and back again.
I feel exposed. Vulnerable.
And it’s just my face.
He rephrases. “You like your lads rough, is it?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I sound absurdly prim, but at the moment, I feel absurdly prim.
I need to tread carefully. I can’t forget his dad keeps a literal pit in their dining room. But I also need to hold onto the upper hand. I didn’t cower the last time we spoke, and he didn’t seem too bothered. If anything, he kind of liked it.
The thought makes my skin crawl.
But I have to ignore my disgust. Be cordial, but aloof. “I’m not here for the lads. Can’t a girl just sit and enjoy a key-kayl…”
“A cèilidh?”
“Yes. That.”
“Indeed. I can tell by the way you move that you’re enjoying it.”
I swear, if he doesn’t stop watching me, I’ll be forced to put an eye out. And—crap—is he scooting closer?
“I sense passion in your blood.”
Oh gross. He has scooted closer.
“Nope.” I grit my teeth into a smile. “Just trying to get comfortable.”
I scuff my toes in the dirt, unearthing a stone buried there, and suddenly, it’s the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen. I use the movement to edge an inch to the left.
Unfortunately, that lands my butt on a damp, freezing patch of bench.
“Cold?”
I must’ve shivered. I make my smile wider, plastering it on like a brittle mask. “Nope. I’m fine.”
“The weather’s turning. ’Twill get much colder than this.” He raises his arm like he’s about to wrap it around my shoulders. “Allow me.”
Oh, hell no.
“Oh!” I practically fold in half to pick up the stone, using the excuse to get away from him. “Hey, look.”
The rock is flat and round, the size of a half-dollar, and almost completely smooth. I smudge away the dirt and hold it up to the firelight. “It has a hole through the middle.”
Hamish flinches. Like, an actual full-body recoil. I bite back a laugh.
His eyes harden, flicking from me to the rock. “Gloine nan Druidh,” he mutters.
“What?”
“’Tis a hag stone.”
“A what?”
His glower snaps back to me. “Have you lost your hearing as well as your sense? ’Tis a witch stone.”
I swallow hard, frozen to the spot.
He peers at me, something sharp creeping into his expression. “Are you a witch, lass?” He says it playfully, but his eyes glitter with suspicion.
A lump of ice settles in my belly. He’s not just wary of the stone. He’s wary of me for having found it.
He’s superstitious—of course. This is the seventeenth century. Somewhere in the world, people are burning witches for sport right about now.
I force a carefree laugh that I’m afraid comes out a little too loudly. “What do you mean a witch stone? There’s no such things as witches.”
“Are there not?”
My pulse skitters, but I keep my voice firm. “It’s just a silly rock I found.”
“Och, no. These rocks find you. Not the other way round.”
I toss off as careless a shrug as I can manage. “That’s impossible.”
“Folk say these stones have many powers.” He snatches it from me. “They say you can use them to spy the magical creatures hidden around you. That if you peep through the hole of a hag stone, you can see through a witch’s guise to her true self.”
He holds it up to his eye and squints at me. A slow, creeping unease slithers over my skin.
“Aye,” he says with mock awe, “there’s a magical creature right a’fore me.”
I don’t know which is worse: his suspicion or the way he’s leering.
Enough. I pinch the rock from his fingers and pluck it back. “There’s no magic about it.” I’m assuring him as much as myself, because I’ve just about had my fill of magic for a lifetime.
“Just science.” I hold it up. “This thing was at the bottom of some riverbed when another rock knocked into it, chipping it. Add a few thousand years of flowing water, and boom, we have a rock with a hole.”
Hamish gives a dramatic look around. “Where’s this river then?”
“I don’t know.” I wave my hands awkwardly. How much do people even know about science in the 1600s? Probably less than they know about burning witches.
I quickly shift course. “Wait, does this scare you?” I summon the universal sneer of popular girls everywhere, curling my lip and holding the rock out like it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, and he’s dumb if he doesn’t agree.
“It’s just a stupid rock.” I turn and whip it into the bushes. “And now it’s gone.” I clap the dirt from my hands, forcing good-humored finality.
Hamish doesn’t move.
He stares through the darkness after it. He swivels his head back to me, giving me a once-over that makes me feel like a bug pinned under glass.
I refuse to flinch. I raise my brows, doing my best to look unimpressed. “Now can we please discuss something more interesting?”
I’m frantically scanning the garden, scrounging for a new subject, when I sense it—a shift in the air. A charge, like the moment before lightning splits the sky.
My stomach pitches.
Callum.
He’s seen us. And, like a storm, he’s coming.
Act casual.
I can feel Hamish watching me, so I make myself look anywhere but at Callum.
“So, Hamish.” My voice is too bright. “What brings you here tonight? Slumming it with us lowly menial laborers?”
Callum’s voice rumbles over mine. “Why are you here?”
So much for casual.
“The lass can come and go as she pleases,” Hamish says smoothly.
“I meant you.” Callum’s voice is loud enough to be heard over the music. Loud enough to be a challenge. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be dancing with your own kind?”
I want to catch Callum’s eye, to silently tell him to chill out, but not only is he not looking at me, it’s like he’s cast a force field around me.
Like nobody should be looking at me.
“Martinmas supper, all that food. It gets so tedious.” Hamish stretches out his legs and crosses them at the ankles, the very picture of relaxed entitlement.
It only highlights just how different the two guys are.
How fine Hamish’s clothes are. How shiny his black leather boots, how spotless his tan breeches.
“It’s good to be a Campbell,” he says. “Unlike others, I can go wherever I please, and sometimes what pleases me is watching how the rest of you live.”
The statement hangs in the air. It’s aimed directly at Callum. Who will never be allowed to leave.
Callum twists his mouth into the shape of a smile. “And?” His reply is quick. Dismissive. “Have you gotten your fill?”
“Oh, I’ve watched.” In a slow, deliberate move, Hamish turns his gaze on me. Scans me from head to toe. Then exhales a disappointed sigh. “Frankly, stable boy, I find it wanting.”
I blink. “Excuse me? You did not just insult me.”
But Callum is way ahead of me. His hand moves automatically to where his sword should hang, his entire body coiled. “I’ll wait as you give Rose an apology.”
He wouldn’t hesitate to draw blood to defend my honor. To protect me.
It’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
This is why I needed to keep my distance…but that ship has sailed. Now, worse, I’m starting to think I might actually need the protection.
“As I give an apology?” Hamish laughs lightly, but his gaze sharpens. He eyes me again. Then he drops the real insult. “I believe you’re the one who owes this poor chit an apology.”
Callum goes still, tension rolling off him in waves.
I’m chanting to him in my head—don’t, it’s okay, leave it alone, I’ve seen worse, no big deal…
“My point is,” Hamish continues, “you need to clothe our Rose more nicely. A bonnie lass like her should be wearing something finer than a sack fashioned from Donag’s discarded lawn cloth.”
I gasp, understanding what this is—he’s not insulting me.
He’s shaming Callum.
“I’m fine.” The words burst from me, too fast, too eager. This is my battle too. I can’t let Callum stand alone.
“It’s true. You are fine. And you shall look even finer.” Hamish gives me a look thick with false sympathy. “Tell me, has that old crow forbidden you from wearing aught but rags? I’ll have a new dress delivered to you tomorrow.”
I glance at Callum.
His jaw is tight. His fists clenched. But more than that, he looks…ashamed. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might wish nicer things for me.
Hamish, sensing his advantage, presses forward. “What do you say, stable boy? Let’s give the lass a day off tomorrow, shall we? In honor of her first Martinmas under Campbell protection.”
Hamish slides his hand behind me as he leans closer—
But before I can shove him off, I’m saved by a smell. I jolt upright. Alert. “I think something’s burning.” The smell is sharp and charred, like bonfire embers meeting musty wool. But clearly nobody’s running around in flames.
I look up at Callum. “Do you smell that?”
He’s got that look—eyes shining, lips twitching—like he’s enjoying something he shouldn’t.
“I’m serious.” I sniff again. “It smells scorched and foul at the same time.”
Callum’s chest shakes with suppressed laughter. “Aye, I ken the smell.”
“Well, what is it?” I inhale deeply, pinpointing why it’s familiar. “It reminds me of burning cow paddies.”
Callum explodes with laughter.
And he’s not laughing at me. He’s laughing at Hamish. Who, for the first time all night, looks genuinely murderous.
“Would one of you please tell me what’s going on?”
“There’s naught to concern you,” Hamish snaps, but his glare remains fixed on Callum.
Callum, still grinning, turns to me. “It’s a cure for balding. You’re smelling the burnt ashes of dove’s dung.”