“Ah!” She clapped her hands, white teeth flashing.“But it is a great honor to meet the famous MacPhersons en persona. I have heard much of your heroics.”
Phoebe’s expression resembled that of her Celtic shield-maiden ancestors. “Interesting. Since we’ve never heard of you.”
“Please, do not blame Brandon,” Gabriella hurried to put in. “This was my wish. Though I have always known the ways of the family, I believe Celia to have no honor. For years, I wanted only to continue my studies, to have nothing to do with this viaje en el tiempo. Only recently have my choices become more limited. But know that I will never reveal your alliance. This I swear on the grave of my grandfather.”
Gabriella wobbled when she stepped back onto her unstable left leg. Mr. Proper Gentleman, Collum, steadied her. She beamed up at him. “Gracias.”
“Aye, n-no problem.” Collum’s cheeks blazed as he stepped back.
“For God’s sake,” Phoebe muttered under her breath.
“You should go, Gabi,” Bran said. “I’ll—?I’ll be right behind you.”
Gabriella nodded. Her green eyes met each of ours in turn. And though part of me wanted to rip her pretty face off, there was something about her. Something that made me want to trust her.
She limped away. Collum spun on Bran. “What. Was. That?”
Bran’s eyes squeezed shut. “That,” he said, “was nothing. Gabriella won’t say a word.” When his eyes opened, he was looking straight at me, ignoring Collum’s grumbling agitation. “Hope. Please understand. I never mentioned her before because—?up until now—?she has been a nonentity in all this.”
“Didn’t look like a bloody nonentity,” Phoebe snapped.
Bran slid past Collum and Phoebe to take my limp hand in his. “Please, listen,” he said. “Gabi can help us. She already has, in fact. She agreed to be my alibi so I could come here to see you. And she has a better chance of finding out where my brother is, since they don’t monitor her every move as they do mine. She could be valuable to what we’re trying to accomplish.”
“So,” I said, “she’s not going, then? She’s not part of this new team of yours?”
Bran’s shoulders rose. Dropped. “Actually, Do?a Maria has insisted that she accompany us, though it irks Celia no end.”
I looked away, my thoughts returning to the girl. Her delight at meeting us seemed genuine. Still.
Doug rambled up, holding the last of the boxes. “Mac’s already left. I told him we were right behind him, so we better . . .” He paused, sharp eyes roaming over our faces. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
But as I caught sight of Gabriella’s retreating figure, I mentally tacked a word onto that statement, amending it to Hopefully, nothing.
Chapter 10
“WAIT TILL YOU SEE THE GOWNS,” PHOEBE GUSHED around a mouthful of eggs. “Gah! All that silk. They’re a dream. And hey, maybe no one will try to kill us this time, yeah?”
As I’d discovered on my very first morning in Scotland, my best friend was one of those annoyingly perky morning people. As she yammered on about bustles and petticoats, I nodded at the appropriate times, tried to avoid looking at the congealing mass of baked beans she’d piled on her eggs and toast, and did my best not to think about Bran and his BFF cousin.
After my breakfast of champions—?coffee and a bite of toast—?we rinsed off our plates and headed for the library. The smell of aged wood and lemon polish, mothballs and damp ash surrounded us as we tromped through the dining room and past sporadic groupings of antique furniture lining the long, interconnecting rooms of Christopher Manor’s first floor.
When I’d first arrived at my aunt’s house—?an immense, blocky affair of white Highland stone, built in the mid-seventeen hundreds by one of the sour-faced ancestors whose images lined the main staircase—?I admit I’d been intimidated. But I now knew it as a place of warm hearths and cozy nooks. Of knitted afghans and ancestral shields. A place for family. A home.
The view from my second-story bedroom displayed a pastoral scene of sheep and river and valley so lovely it made my heart hurt. Beyond the small village’s ocher roofs, the Highland moor spread out in an explosion of purple heather and yellow gorse.
It was a travel agent’s dream come true.
But no tourist bus had ever disgorged its camera-wielding cargo at Christopher Manor. Butting up against the base of an enormous bald mountain, the house held its secrets close.
As Phoebe and I entered the library, bright beams of morning light slanted in through the tall multipaned windows. I smiled as Moira’s mortal enemy—?billions of golden dust motes she battled with singular hatred—?swirled up to settle on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and burrow into the crevices of buttery leather chairs. Tiny tea tables were laden with framed photos displaying generations of manor residents. And in the central place of honor, the long oak table where I spent the vast majority of my days, eyeball-deep in research.
Out of habit, I glanced up at the portrait above the marble fireplace. Lord and Lady Hubert Carlyle glared down with the prim, constipated expression common to portraiture of the eighteen hundreds. But I’d always loved the mischievous slant the artist had captured in their young son Jonathan’s hazel eyes.
Jonathan was grown in the next portrait, though you could still see that spark as he gazed down at his stunningly beautiful wife, Julia. Looking at them, you’d never guess at the horrible tragedy that would soon befall the two sweet-faced little girls kneeling at their mother’s feet. As I stared up at the doomed family, something struck me.
“Crap!” I bolted over to a shelf and snatched up the leather-bound journals I’d left there two days earlier. “Why didn’t I think of this last night?”
I plopped down at the table and scanned the gilt-inlaid covers. Setting aside the one for the last quarter of 1894, I opened the diary labeled January?March, 1895.
Jonathan’s scrawl filled every page. The entries were meticulous and straightforward, and yet revealed his wry sense of humor. In January, there’d been a wildly unsuccessful, if colorful, voyage to Verona in the late sixteenth century. This, on flimsy evidence they’d uncovered, proved that William Shakespeare had—?in fact—?visited the Italian city.
They were sorely disappointed to learn that the Bard had likely never been anywhere near that most famous story’s location.
But I quickly flipped past all that to the latter part of February. And there it was, a short, somewhat vague notation.
An interesting visitor arrived today with news of great import. This charming lady knew much of us and more. Though Julia took to her at once, I felt some measure of reluctance, especially when viewing the countenance of her companion. Still, as her proof is sound, we have no reason to doubt her. And so I have booked passage on the RMS Campania. Soon, I take ship to New York, there to visit my very dear friend.
“Balls,” Phoebe groaned, reading over my shoulder. “Well, that’s it, then, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I guess.”