Chapter 4 Doppelganger
Ten minutes before the agreed time with Ms Elizabeth Endell – or Lady Lochellen he should start saying – Brun arrived in Aberfeldy and parked his car one street down from where the bus stop was located. It was his habit to be early for appointments, but in this case he had an added motivation to do so: he was eager to observe Triarell’s descendant without being seen.
He was not entirely sure what had motivated such morbid desire now, when for twenty four years he had outright avoided seeing the girl.
Other than what his duty dictated, he had taken no interest in her, but once he had seen her signature on that one sheet of paper, that small tangible part of her person, something had stirred inside him, though for the life of him he could not understand what had changed. If he did know not better, he could say it almost felt like a magic compulsion.
“Which is nonsense, of course…” he muttered to himself.
Brun scoffed, reckoning that although strictly speaking he had not aged in four hundred and seventy years, perhaps his mind could still be weakening. Perhaps the simplest explanation was that he was becoming senile.
Notwithstanding this, he was satisfied with the plan he had traced for himself: he would handover Glennloch to its rightful owner and once the new Viscountess was well-settled, he would disappear again – this time forever – to wait for his days to finally end.
The perspective of eternal rest warmed his heart.
His musings were interrupted when he spotted the bus approaching. What madness had possessed that girl to choose such pilgrimage across Britain, essentially backpacking from Truro to Aberfeldy, was beyond him. At least she should have allowed him to collect her from Edinburgh. He ought to have insisted on it a bit more firmly.
To be done with that business once and for all, he would have gladly paid for a private flight from Truro from his own pocket!
“Youngsters these days!” he muttered again.
Heavens, he was even grumbling like a doddering old man!
The screeching noise of the bus braking became louder. He scanned both sides of the street checking that no one was looking his way and then used a spell to render his body a little more than a shadow while he walked towards the bus stop soundlessly.
He halted at the corner of the street and shoved his hands inside the pockets of his trousers, wondering how he would recognise the girl. Although at this day and age pretty much every living soul had their pictures posted on some social media channel or another (way too much in his humble opinion), Elizabeth Endell did not have a single photo online, and neither did her father. He had found some pictures of her mother, who was a handsome woman with light brown hair and hazel eyes, so he was expecting the girl to have a similar colouring.
Girls did take after their mothers, did they not?
The bus came to a halt, and after another minute the door opened, allowing the passengers to come down: first a middle-aged couple, then a blonde woman. Brun perked, but she appeared to be in her mid-thirties.
Too old…
An elderly man was next, followed by a woman in her fifties with a brunette girl on her heels, and Brun stretched his neck again, but that girl could not be older than fifteen.
Too young…
He should have tracked her in Oxford or in Truro before, or even hired a private investigator to get some pictures of her.
Probably a tad overkill…
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other impatiently.
A few more passengers left the bus. A couple of teenage boys. A man with a small child of three or four.
Brun huffed, trying to spy inside the bus, but he could only see the silhouette of the passengers moving towards the door. Not many left…
Maybe she lost the bus?
He pulled the mobile from his breast pocket, but there were no new messages from Ms Endell he might have missed. She had thoughtfully sent him a text from Edinburgh earlier to confirm she was on the train, so he had assumed everything had gone according to her plans from there.
Brun turned his gaze back to the bus. A dark haired woman was now standing outside, speaking to the driver. She was dressed in rather ill-fitted jeans which were at least one size too big for her and a loose T-shirt which most likely belonged to her boyfriend. She had a mobile on her hand, a book under her armpit and a small, battered suitcase leaning against her leg.
The bus driver pointed in the direction of where Brun was standing under his magic glamour and she whirled on her heels, looking straight at him.
Brun froze and felt all blood drain away from his face. He staggered back a step and near lost hold of the spell. The air did not reach his lungs and for a moment he was sure he was going to pass out.
There could be no doubt that that girl was Elizabeth Endell because she was the spitting image of Triarell Endellys.
The trip from Edinburgh to Aberfeldy had been long and Lizzie had never been this tired before. It was past half three in the afternoon and by now all she wanted was a cup of tea, a shower and eight hours of sleep.
Not necessarily in that order.
When she boarded the train from Truro to Exeter, Lizzie decided to focus on the silver lining of that adventure, as Vivian had put it, and enjoy the time away from her mother. Her plan for her inheritance was simple: she would sell the property to pay any debts it most certainly had, with luck put any leftover moneys in her savings account and forget anything about titles and other similar nonsense for the rest of her natural life.
From Exeter she had boarded a flight to Edinburgh and on the following day she took a train to Dunkeld and Birnam. Finally, Lizzie hopped on a bus to Aberfeldy where Mr MacLugh had offered to pick her up and drive her to Glennloch.
Lizzie had wanted to refuse, picturing herself inside a forty-year-old car smelling of fuel in the company of the octogenarian Mr MacLugh, but he had explained that there would be no other way to reach the property. Either way, after refusing the ride from Edinburgh, she had no heart to decline again and offend the old man.
Maybe I shall introduce him to grandma. She surely has been alone long enough.
Her grandfather, Colin Endell, had died in his forties, a decade or so before Lizzie was born, and as far as she knew, her grandmother never even looked at another man again.
A very long time to be alone…
Pushing her glasses back in place, Lizzie scanned the square where she was waiting. Aberfeldy was a small market town in Perthshire with a charming architecture, still featuring the unmistakable signs of its rather notorious industrial history.
Feeling tired and a bit impatient, Lizzie pulled the mobile from the back pocket of her jeans for the tenth time in the past five minutes. She had agreed to meet Mr MacLugh in front of a fountain shaped like a flower at three thirty and it was five minutes past that.
Bonie lassie, will ye go,
Will ye go, will ye go,
Bonie lassie, will ye go,
To the birks of Aberfeldy!
She huffed, annoyed, repeating the verses of Robert Burns’ poem over and over in her head. She probably should not have read that Wikipedia article on the train from Edinburgh…
Normally Lizzie had some tolerance with tardiness, but given the exceptional circumstances, she was feeling a little testier than usual.
Well, after the age of eighty, it might be hard to be on time, she pondered, trying to curb her anxiety, after all, five minutes was within the acceptable lateness.
“Ms Endell?” sounded a deep voice right behind her. Startled, she jumped, nearly losing her balance and falling off the curb. She had not heard anyone approaching.
The owner of said deep voice was a very tall man, over six feet she estimated, dressed in an impeccable charcoal suit that did little to hide his muscular frame. Black hair fell in casual waves along the column of his neck and his eyes were hidden behind elegant sunglasses which seemed to have been exclusively designed for him. His face was freshly shaved, and although he was standing at a respectable distance from her, she could still smell his aftershave.
Lizzie calculated that he was in his late twenties or early thirties and describing him as handsome was an understatement.
The man was a complete knockout, and being a warm-blooded straight woman, she had no qualms in gawking at him.
With all due respect, of course.
“Ms Endell?” the man repeated, taking a small step closer and placing his hands inside the pockets of his trousers, “I am here to meet you… About Glennloch.”
She blinked, reckoning that he must be Mr MacLugh’s assistant or something.
Wish I had an assistant like that…
“Huh, yes, I’m Elizabeth Endell,” she replied stretching her hand, “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name…”
He grinned and Lizzie estimated that that smile alone had enough power to light up the whole Aberfeldy.
“My apologies, Ms Endell,” he lowered down his sunglasses in a Brad Pitt-style movement, revealing a pair of deep blue eyes that could not be real, briefly inclining his head before taking her hand. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss it, “I am Brun MacLugh, at your service. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Shut the front door!Lizzie thought, swallowing hard.
Bonie lassie, will ye go,
Will ye go, will ye go,
Bonie lassie, will ye go,
To the birks of Aberfeldy!
In hisover five hundred years of life,Brun had seen all kinds of strange things and had long convinced himself that nothing could shock him anymore, but when he saw the new Elizabeth Endell standing outside the bus, he had a hard time reining in the turmoil of emotions that assaulted him.
It had taken him a good five minutes just to steady his breathing.
When the girl looked at him – or rather in his direction because he had been invisible then – for a moment he thought that Triarell Endellys had come back from the dead.
How could that be? How could this distant descendant, this human be exactly like Triarell? What could that mean?
Realising that he was still inappropriately holding the young woman’s hand, Brun dropped it as if it were on fire and took a deep breath to compose himself.
“I hope your trip was not too abysmal,” he started, praying that none of his confused emotions would seep into his voice, “I would have collected you in Edinburgh, but you insisted on taking the train…”
She frowned a little and Brun cursed himself, realising that she had noticed it, nonetheless. He smiled broadly, hoping it would dispel any unease.
“Yes, well, being quite frank, I used the travel time to digest all this story of inheritance and titles,” she pushed her little hands inside the pockets of her jeans looking casual, but the edge of discomfort was clear in her voice.
“Of course, Ms Endell, I can understand how this may have been a bit of a surprise to you,” he was satisfied that his tone was more neutral.
She pushed her glasses over her nose and seemed more relaxed.
He, on the other hand, felt sweat running down his back when he noticed that her eyes were deep emerald-green.
It was not a very common tone of green.
Heavens, even her eyes are the same!
“A complete shock would not cover it, Mr MacLugh,” she chuckled, “But how did you even find me? My family left Scotland nearly two centuries ago: I would have expected that the late Lady Lochellen’s estate and title would have reverted to the Crown if there were no direct heirs for so long.”
Her eyes studied him with curiosity while she waited for his reply, slightly tilting her head to the side and Brun’s heart beat faster again. Triarell had the exact same mannerism, one which he had ever found ever so endearing, because it made him want to hook her hair behind her ear…
He cleared his throat to dispel the sweet-sour memory, “Well, upon Lady Lochellen’s… passing,” he started slowly. Even after such long time it was still hard to talk about Triarell’s death, “her son did not inherit the estate nor the title, as you know, and the management of her estate was left on my… on my family’s trust. Because of the way the Royal Decree was worded, neither the property nor the title could be reverted to the Crown, therefore I… my predecessors sought to unobtrusively keep track of your family, should a female descendant eventually be born.”
She nodded and from the way her eyes flickered from side to side, Brun guessed that she already knew all that, but wanted to hear from his mouth.
Clever girl… Does not trust easily.
“Just some mild stalking then?” she laughed, but her eyes were piercing him.
He followed her lead, grinning too, “Just some mild legal stalking. Simply tracking public records of marriages and births every now and then.”
She seemed satisfied with his answer, “This is quite odd, is it not?” she went on casually, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, “I have never heard of men being cut off an inheritance like that, at least not in the United Kingdom… Women yes, well don’t get me started on that topic, but men… I wonder what could possibly have induced King James V to sign a document such as that. Surely it was not done out of the goodness of his heart.”
For a moment Brun was amazed by her sagacity. The girl could be the perfect image of Triarell, but it was as if she had Aranna’s wit…
Curious…
Brun fixed his eyes on the street for a moment, searching for a way to explain that.
Amongst the Fae, name and property passed down from the female line, so it had been logical to invent a title for Triarell, the eldest female of the Endellys Clan. The Royal Decree had of course been obtained by magic, long after King James V was dead, as a cover to protect the secret of Triarell’s immortality, but when she and then Ryul died, Brun did not have the same power to unmake the records and allow Darron to become his mother’s heir, as it would have been more natural in the human world.
“The Lochellen Clan is quite… ancient and uniquely matrilineal. It was a powerful clan long before King James V acceded to the throne, and at the time that the King signed this decree, there had been a lot of turbulenceboth in England and Scotland, thus he sought to secure the support of powerful families such as the Lochellen.”
Her eyes widened, “Wow, you certainly know this family’s history, Mr MacLugh,” she commented genuinely impressed, “It almost sounded as if you lived it!”
Brun smiled at her, once more taken aback by her insight. He took a mental note to be very careful with what he said around her. Surely she would never guess that he was several hundred years old and had indeed lived through that part of history – and even before that – but she could start finding his behaviour suspicious and become wary of him.
Seeing that her lips were parted no doubt to ask more on that subject, he glanced at his watch and gasped theatrically.
“Well but will you look at the time! We must get going, otherwise we shall be late for tea.”
“Tea?” she bit her lower lip, “I thought we were going to Glennloch?”
He blinked at her, “Yes, that’s right. We’re having tea in Glennloch.”
She frowned, “Really? Well, that is fine I suppose…” then she pointed to her suitcase, “Would you mind if I check in to my Bed and Breakfast first? If I can just drop my things and wash my face, I’ll be as good as new!”
“Bed and Breakfast?” he repeated, “I am afraid I don’t follow, Ms Endell…”
“Well, I didn’t think we would get all the paperwork sorted today, so I booked a room for a few days…”
Brun was utterly befuddled, and frankly, rather offended, “A room in a Bed and Breakfast? Would you not like to stay in Glennloch? Your room is prepared for you!”
She blinked again, “Stay in Glennloch? Is the house… inhabitable? I thought… I mean, it’s been two and a half centuries…”
Understanding flooded him and Brun released a breath he had not realising he had been holding, “Apologies Ms Endell, this misunderstanding is my fault: I should have provided you with the full information on Glennloch’s status,” he cleared his throat, “The property still stands and it’s in perfect condition. Well, perhaps a little drafty in winter… We have a few staff there, keeping it functional throughout the year and the manor is ready to welcome you.”
She opened her mouth, but he quickly added, “Don’t worry about your booking, I am sure it will not be a problem to cancel it.”