Chapter 23
“The Witch’s Well is on the other side of the river,” she said, leading the way across the footbridge. Once there, they walked to a place at the base of the abbey ruins. Riona enticed him to join her with only a glance over her shoulder. Smiling to himself, he followed her.
In a clearing, marked by a well and a double granite cross, he hesitated. She walked to stand in front of the monument and he joined her, glancing down at the crude inscription carved into its base.
“What did she do to deserve such punishment?” he asked.
“Perhaps she cursed a few people. Or refused to prepare a potion for a lovesick girl.”
“Or perhaps she was simply a lone woman without someone to care for her,” he said, turning away.
Walking to the edge of the well, James looked down at the bottom of it.
He could imagine the myths that grew up around this spot, the whispers about the magic performed here.
More than one pretty girl had sipped from its waters, he suspected, and perhaps more than one boy.
“I have seen enough of the world to know that each culture chooses to exclude the unusual or the different. The greatest victims are often those without others to speak for them.”
She came and stood beside him, looking down into the well. Gracefully, she sat on the rim, lowering the bucket by its rope.
“Shall we have a drink, James? Gathering Lethson branches is thirsty work.”
He bent and lifted the bucket with one hand and placed it beside her on the rim of the well. “A wish, then,” he said, holding the dipper for her to drink. “To always having someone to care for us.”
Her fingers supported the bowl of the dipper as she drank from it. Then he, too, sipped the cool water. A strange communion, he thought, in a place where magic was supposed to dwell.
“I think the well is older than Annie Mull,” Riona said, as if she felt the same odd tension in the air. “The stones look similar to those of the Roman wall.”
“What is that place?” he asked, his attention suddenly drawn to the hill above them and the same ruined wall he’d seen upon his arrival at Tyemorn.
“An old abbey,” she said, “but the villagers avoid it.”
“Yet they seek out a witch’s well,” he teased.
“Perhaps they are less afraid of witches than of God.”
“What about you?” he challenged. “Come explore it with me.”
He held out his hand and she took it with ease, smiling up at him as she stood. A moment later he found an overgrown path winding up to the top of the hill.
Once there, James stood and surveyed the view of the River Wye and beyond to the pastures belonging to Tyemorn Manor.
Because of the undulation of the landscape, the manor house was not visible, only a corner of the village and the hills that surrounded the place like the bony elbows of a protective nurse.
For the first time, he could understand what Alisdair had meant when he’d said that Gilmuir had called to him. James had felt ancestral ties to the old castle, but nothing as he did now standing where only one wall remained of what must have been a splendid place.
The spot cried out for structure to be built. Not anything as grand as the fortress of Gilmuir, because there was no further need for defense. But someplace where a man might look out and survey what he owned and be content.
How long had he been thinking of leaving Gilmuir?
Perhaps for as long as he’d been there. He needed a place for himself, somewhere to call his alone, where he might be lord.
A place where he might find some semblance of peace.
Where he might not be regaled constantly with evidence of the deep and abiding love between Alisdair and Iseabal and wonder why it had escaped him.
Here, on this spot almost isolated from the rest of the world, he might find what he sought, especially since there was no view of the manor house.
He turned to watch Riona. Instead of branches, she was gathering wildflowers. Her braid had come loose, and now her hair flew about her shoulders in an almost wicked way. As if she summoned him with a flurry of auburn curls.
In a matter of days she would be gone. Their paths wouldn’t cross unless by accident. Life would be once more as it had been before he’d come to Tyemorn. Seemingly complete yet unbearably dull.
The stones of the abbey wall were blackened either from age or from an ancient fire. Waist-high weeds, waving in the brisk wind, were now the only inhabitants of this place. But there was no sense of sadness, no waste of purpose as he occasionally felt at Gilmuir.
Riona came to stand at his side, her bouquet of flowers too much like that a bride might carry.
“My sister-in-law would study this wall,” he said, reaching out to touch the heavily carved lodestone over the one remaining arch. For all its wistful beauty the wall was unsafe. “Iseabal works in stone,” he explained, “and has created marvels where before there were only chunks of rock.”
“She sounds very talented.”
“She is. Her latest work is a bust of my brother. She insists on it being placed in the entranceway of Gilmuir, while Alisdair becomes embarrassed at the thought of his face greeting every visitor.”
“I have no abilities to speak of,” she said, bending to strip the flower from a sturdy weed.
Tall and stocky, the weeds had a beauty of their own, gently swaying in the breeze that swirled around the abbey ruins.
“I cannot help but feel lessened by someone else’s accomplishment. Is that a foolish way to feel?”
“You shouldn’t measure yourself against others.”
“No, I shouldn’t. But we do, don’t we? I always thought I knew my worth.
I was reared to believe that as long as I worked hard, that was all that mattered.
But now I know it’s ability that separates one person from another.
” She traced a pattern on the stone with one finger.
“I haven’t Iseabal’s gift in carving and I will never be as good a dancer as Maureen. Or even keep a home like my mother.”
“Then you will have to find your talent,” he said.
She glanced at him, surprised.
“Most people discover their paths in life early. Some must wait until it comes to them.”
“What do you think my skill might be? Or should I be brave enough to ask?”
He glanced at her, smiling. “Your way of dealing with people, perhaps. When you smile, others follow suit.”
“Really?” she asked, looking pleased at his words.
“You never ask anyone to do something you would not, I’ve noticed, which makes people want to work beside you. Even Ned does not have that ability to inspire others.”
“A trait that I cannot carry to Edinburgh. I wonder what my talent shall be there?”
Instead of answering her, he moved to stand at the point of land, looking down over Ayleshire and Tyemorn Manor.
The doubt she felt made him want to embrace her, reassure her with physical comfort as well as words.
The trouble was that he wanted years of her.
He wanted her smiles and frowns and observations, humor and complaints, all the untidy parcels of emotion that made life worth living.
He wanted to share his secrets and confess his most horrible thoughts, laugh at the unfunny and be ungainly, even rude, with her.
“I want to buy this land,” he said abruptly. “I like this place. I feel comfortable here as I never have before.”
“Even at sea?”
He shook his head. “I never truly had an affinity for the sea. Not like my brothers. While I believe that anything can be learned, it was difficult to overcome my physical aversion to ocean travel. I’m more like my father in that regard.
He would just as soon never put another foot on the deck of a ship. ”
“You were seasick?” she asked, smiling slightly.
How many confessions would he make to her if given enough time? She might well become the repository of all his secrets.
“Are you such a good sailor, then,” he asked wryly, “being a woman of Cormech?”
“I have never been on the ocean,” she confessed, placing a blossom on the curving arch of one now empty window. There was a sparseness to this place that oddly suited her, as if, with her auburn hair and gray eyes, she was the most vibrant ornament here.
She turned and looked at him quizzically, and he realized the moments had been spent staring at her.
“I apologize, my mind was wandering,” he said, and watched in surprise as color mounted her cheeks.
“I asked if there was another occupation you would prefer?”
“I’ve discovered that I have an affinity for farming. The land almost reaches out to me, and urges me to plant it.”
“I’ve heard Ned say much the same.” She turned, staring out through the empty windows of the abbey wall. “I’ll think of you here, then, when I’m in Edinburgh. Building your great house.”
“And learning about farming.”
“That, too,” she said, her smile not matched by the look in her eyes. They seemed too sad. “You’ll do well with it, I know. And you’ll come to love Ayleshire, I’m sure. From the moment I saw the village, I never wanted to leave it. But I’m glad that I have had this year.”
He didn’t choose to discuss her wedding, and banished the thought of Harold McDougal from his mind with a surprising alacrity.
A gust of wind blew a few leaves against the abbey wall, capturing their attention. Riona turned her head away, her hands impatiently pushing an errant lock of hair behind her ear.
His fingers replaced hers, his thumb lingering on the curve of her cheek, the shell of her ear.
“Do not be afraid, Riona,” he said, feeling her tremble beneath his touch.
“I’m not.” Her voice, however, was faint. “I am thinking of decorum and modesty, James, and all those emotions I’m supposed to feel.”
He wanted to reassure her that he would do her no harm, but at the moment he wasn’t entirely sure that was an honest statement. He felt less protective of her than possessive, wanting to make her his. Once, before she was taken from him.
His honor was in tatters, his will in shreds. He no longer cared.