Elspeth stood in the middle of the small chamber and folded her arms over her chest. “I’m waiting.”
Williams or MacLean or whatever his name was glanced about. “Where’s your companion?”
A loud snore answered him. His eyes widened, and he looked to the left, where there was another door—which led to Aunt Leah’s chamber.
“In the next room.”
“That’s not an animal?”
Elspeth pursed her lips so she wouldn’t laugh. “My aunt snores.” She stared at him expectantly.
He went to the hearth and crouched to stoke the fire, then added another piece of wood. “I had to lie. Those soldiers were looking for me.”
Dropping her arms to her sides, Elspeth exhaled some of her ire. Most of it, really. “They found you.”
He turned his head from the fire. “They’re looking for a man called Williams—a Jacobite. They don’t particularly know what he looks like.”
Shock replaced the remains of her anger. “You’re a Jacobite?”
Setting the poker back on the hearth, he stood and faced her once more. “I believe in Scotland and in my family. I have cousins who are—were—Jacobites.”
She moved to stand near the hearth. Not near him—she wanted the warmth of the fire. “You fought at Culloden?”
Stepping to the side, he gestured for her to take the spot in front of the fireplace. “I did. As Roy Williams.”
“But now you go by John MacLean.”
“Yes. However, my real name is Tavish Crawford.” He gave her a lopsided smile that made her heart skip even as he pricked her outrage once more.
“You lied about who you were when we met?”
“It was necessary, I’m afraid. At the time, I was on my way to Inverness to meet with Jacobites.” He didn’t seem the least bit sorry. “I had to be Roy Williams.”
“So Roy Williams is a Jacobite and a soldier. What is John MacLean?”
“A man who helps those in need. Particularly those wounded at Culloden.”
She had trouble retaining her anger given his desire to help people. “A Jacobite sympathizer, then.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I sympathize with those who have suffered and seek to provide aid where I can.” He took a step toward her. “I apologize for lying downstairs and for my rude behavior toward you.”
“I recognized you as soon as your hood fell away.”
His blue gaze held hers. “I recognized you as soon as you walked into the common room.”
The ripple of awareness or whatever it was that she’d felt downstairs when she’d looked at him returned with greater force. She was glad to know she hadn’t imagined the connection she’d felt to him two years ago. And that it hadn’t diminished. If anything, the attraction felt stronger.
Elspeth’s breath caught. She’d given up on him. Well, she’d tried to, anyway. “You said you’d come back.” Her words were barely above a whisper.
“I said I hoped to see you again. I was still hoping.” The crooked smile returned, as did the answering trip of Elspeth’s heart. “On this very trip, in fact.”
“You planned to stop in Dunkeld?”
“I did.”
Elspeth couldn’t help but feel a rush of pleasure. Still, she was a trifle hurt. “Perhaps I am betrothed.”
His gaze remained steady. “Since you said perhaps, I will take that to mean you are not.”
She blew out a breath. “No, I am not. Angus Macintosh did ask me last year, however.”
“You said no.” Of course he knew she had, but the confidence with which he uttered the words gave her a slight pause.
“It was at the Lammas Fair. He wanted to handfast, as was common in the past.” She rolled her eyes. “I was the third woman he’d asked.”
Williams—no, MacLean—no, Crawford laughed.
She put her hands on her hips. “What am I to call you? I feel as though I don’t know you at all.” And really, she didn’t. A few hours’ acquaintance over two years ago barely signified, attraction or not.
“How about Tavish? Unless you see a British soldier, then I’d prefer you call me John.”
“Mr. MacLean is probably more appropriate.” She realized they were alone together in a room, which would draw raised eyebrows, if not plain outrage, from some.
“Whatever makes you most comfortable, Miss Marshall. I should be devastated if you remained angry with me. Am I forgiven for my behavior downstairs?”
“And for not visiting Dunkeld in the past two years?”
He bowed slightly. “And for that.”
She looked him in the eye. “That depends. What do you know about this flaming sword that was seen at Culloden? Since you were there and you’re the one who told me about Lann Dhearg in the first place, I must presume you know something.”
“You’re still writing stories?”
“Always.”
“Then you must want to write this one. I wish I could help you.” His tone held a touch of regret. “I didn’t see it, but I have heard it mentioned several times before today.”
“I was just in Inverness visiting my cousin and listened to a few stories of the battle, one of them from a firsthand account. No one mentioned the sword.”
“As I said, I didn’t see it, and no one I knew who was at Culloden mentioned it.”
Elspeth paced to the small table where her stack of parchment sat. She’d dashed off the information she’d heard earlier in the common room. “I can’t decide if it’s one person’s fiction—a fantasy in the midst of a horrid event—or if someone, or multiple someones, actually saw something they thought was a flaming sword. In the absence of a firsthand source, I have to think it’s fiction.”
“Either way, just seeing a flaming sword isn’t much of a story, is it?”
She exhaled. “Not really. While I might use a superlative to tell a story, I try not to embellish what I’ve actually heard.”
“So you won’t position the sword as the turning point in the battle?” he asked wryly.
She smiled. “Not unless someone tells me that. I always write down my sources and whether they were firsthand.”
“Do you get many of those?”
She shook her head. “Not until lately as I’ve begun traveling to collect stories.” She’d accompanied Aunt Leah on trips to visit family and friends over the past year. “It’s much different from writing down a legend or a myth that’s been retold countlessly across time and space.”
“I can imagine.” He looked at her with a light in his eye. Was that admiration? “How wonderful to spend time talking with people and recording the history of our land through their eyes as they are living it.”
Elspeth hadn’t thought about it in that way, but she supposed that was what she was doing. “I find it fascinating, but I wasn’t sure anyone else would.”
He glanced toward the parchment on the table. “Miss Marshall, I wonder if you might allow me to read one of your stories.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected that. No one asked to read her stories except her father and her aunt. Children and even some adults asked her to tell them, but no one asked to read them.