Chapter 14 #2
“Yeah, google. When Sinclair came here, you must have given him a last name, one you haven’t given me. So, what’s your last name? What’s your clan?”
He continues to stare and then runs a finger over his chin, as if in thought. “MacCoinnich,” he finally says.
“MacCoinnich?” I repeat, the name pronounced Mac-KEN-ich. “Never heard of that last name before.”
“It’s old. Comes right from this area, from this coast.”
“And this crest?” I ask, looking down at the gold threads.
“It’s a bit worn, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be a mountain in flames. Same as our motto, Luceo non uro, which means I shine, not burn.”
“That’s beautiful,” I comment.
“Are you sure you don’t want something to drink?” he asks, clearing his throat.
“I’m fine, really,” I assure him.
“Then I would like to ask you,” he says, adjusting himself in his chair, “what you’d like to do.”
“What I’d like to do?”
“With the afternoon. With the evening. With the day, foxglove.”
“I don’t know.”
“Aye, you do.”
I look at him. He is watching me with the kind of patience he has been using on me for three weeks. He has no expectations; that much is clear. He’s offering me the day, and waiting for me to tell him what I want to do with it.
I want to get fucking railed, I think.
But instead, I say, “I want to know your house. This castle.”
He looks pleased with that, so I suppose I said the right thing.
“All right, then.”
“I want to see the library. I want to see the kitchen. I want to see wherever you spend your time.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
He stands, looming over me, and offers his hand. I take it. The blanket stays on my shoulders, like I’m a queen wearing a royal cape.
He shows me the library first, a long room behind the one we were in, two stories tall, the shelves going up past my head with a wooden ladder on a brass rail that rolls along the bottom shelves so a person can reach the upper rows.
How very Beauty and the fucking Beast.
The books are mostly old, like really old, but some are new.
A clothbound Italo Calvino in English sits on a shelf next to a leather-bound something in Latin.
There is a copy of a book about lichens of the British Isles that I actually have back at the cottage, having bought it right before I left the States.
“I have that one,” I say excitedly.
He watches me for a moment, that ghost of a smile cracking into something wider, into something like affection, and I realize he’s humoring me because only I would get excited that someone has the same book about lichens as me.
Calm down, you frigging nerd, I tell myself, but I know I’m hopeless.
Instead, I run my fingers along the spines of one shelf because I can’t help myself. The leather is so soft, thin and worn, and I bet the paper inside is the kind of paper that doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t dare pull a book out though, lest it crumble in my hands.
He shows me the kitchen next. It’s smaller and warmer than I expected, with a fire going too, banked low.
There is a small brass kettle on the hearth, and a long wooden table scarred with decades of use.
He opens a small side door that leads to a small kitchen garden full of bolted lettuce and a stand of leeks and herbs gone wild, rosemary like a small tree, lemon balm climbing toward the door.
“You grow herbs.”
“Some. Not as many as your garden.”
“You cook?”
“For myself. Aye.”
“Will you cook for me?”
He looks at me, brows raised. “If you’ll let me.”
“Oh, I’ll let you. I’m a terrible cook, and the only proper meals I’ve had are at the pub.”
He chuckles. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but somehow I’m not surprised.”
I punch him lightly on the shoulder. His muscle is rock hard and I try not to wince. “Show me what you’d cook.”
“For you? Now?”
“Yeah, why not? I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
I know I’m being a little pushy but I’m curious; anyway, he said the day was mine.
He thinks for a second, then goes to the door and looks out at his garden.
He picks rosemary and lemon balm and brings them in and sets them on the wooden table.
He goes to a stone larder room I had not seen and comes out with butter and a small piece of cheese wrapped in linen and a loaf of bread that he says he baked two days ago—he fucking bakes—setting all of it on the table and standing back as if to say, tada.
“Bread and cheese?” I ask, trying not to offend.
“Aye. With the herbs.”
It’s not exactly cooking.
“You know I can also make myself bread and cheese.”
“I’m sure you can. But I’m going to make you bread and cheese the way I would make myself bread and cheese. Sit.”
I sit on the bench at the wooden table and watch.
He toasts the bread over the fire on a long iron fork, browning each slice slow, then cuts the cheese into careful slices with a knife so old the handle is worn to fit his palm.
He puts the lemon balm on the back of the hot bread and layers the cheese on top until it melts slightly, then adds sprigs of rosemary on top.
He puts the small open sandwiches on a rustic glazed plate and sets it in front of me.
Then he uncorks a small bottle of amber liquid and pours it into two tiny crystal glasses.
Then he sits across from me on the bench and watches me eat.
The bread is incredible. So is the cheese, with a subtle smokiness. The rosemary is the right amount, and the lemon balm leaf he has tucked under one slice is the small bright note that makes the rest of it come together.
“Oh, hell, this is good,” I say, trying not to moan.
“It is.”
“No. This is literally the best bread and cheese I have ever had in my life.”
“Aye, foxglove. I know. Your face doesn’t hide much.”
True that. I eat the second piece slower because I want to savor it. He watches me eat and has a sip of his drink.
I do the same and I’m in for another surprise. The sweet tang of honey hits my lips, exploding on my tongue.
“Mead,” he explains, seeing my wide eyes. “Wine the way we do in the Highlands. Comes from heather honey. Very good. Might give you a headache if you’re not too careful though.”
It’s too late for that; I’ve already downed the heady liquor. He promptly refills the small glass.
“So, Iris. Tell me what you’ve been doing today.” He asks this like he’s genuinely curious, and is not just saying it to be polite and make conversation. By now I can tell he’s never one to talk for the hell of it.
“I drew sage,” I say before I take another bite of the bread. “Two studies. The first one was bad. The second one was less bad.”
“Will you show me, one day?”
“If you want. I mean, you’ve already seen my sketches on the kitchen table.”
“I meant, I want you to show me how you work. I want to see all of what you make, Iris.”
“Alright,” I agree shyly. “But I think we need to continue the tour.”
The afternoon goes along with certain ease.
He shows me other rooms. A small chapel that has not been used as a chapel in a long time, the altar gone, but the cracked stained glass still in the windows, casting blue and red on the flagstone floor.
A music room with an old piano, and a harp and bagpipes in the corner that he tells me he has not played in years—and I’m unsure if he meant the bagpipes or the harp.
A small study with yet another fireplace and a polished desk stacked with books and papers, maybe the most chaotic part of the castle so far, and one room that seems recently used.
I wonder what kind of work Alasdair does at the desk.
I don’t see a computer in sight. Actually, I haven’t seen any technology at all.
By late afternoon, we are back in the main room with the tapestries and hearth.
He pours me whisky now because the mead is finished, and we sit in the leather chairs across from each other as talk about this and that.
Plants. The loch. The books he has read recently.
Everything he says, every piece of information about himself he offers me, I take it like I’m starving, eating every piece of him up.
He tells me a story about a winter when there was so much snow he couldn’t leave the castle for days.
He tells me about a fox that lives in the wall on the east side of the keep that I will probably see if I come often enough (though I really hope it’s not missing a jawbone).
He tells me about the loch in October, when the light goes copper-bronze and the herons come down to fish before the season turns, and how he thinks it’s the most stunning time of year.
In exchange, I tell him about Colorado. I tell him about my mother and how she’s only texted me once since I got here.
I tell him about my stepfather Frank and how much I dislike him.
I tell him how much I miss my father. I tell him about Ryan, just enough that he knows I’m recently divorced.
I tell him I miss having a dog—I had one with Ryan—Princess Buttercup—but she died a few years ago from kidney disease and I haven’t had the heart to adopt another since.
I tell him I haven’t laughed properly in a year and I think I’m laughing again, here, today.
As we talk, the light goes amber, then bruised, then dim. The candles do more of the work. He gets up at some point and lights more of them around the room, moving from sconce to sconce with a long taper. The fire is built up. The room is warmer than my cottage has ever been.
I look around, trying to see if there are any actual lights. There is electricity in this place, isn’t there?
He comes back but he doesn’t sit down, just stares at me for a long second until I squirm a little in my seat.
“Iris,” he announces, as if he’s about to announce something serious. “I would like to take you upstairs.”
I don’t pretend not to know what he means.
“All right,” I say in a small voice, that apprehension coming back.