EPILOGUE
Isle of Rawsey, 1869
The blindfold became her husband, accentuating his broad, angular cheekbones and the firmness of his jawline. Anna watched his throat as he swallowed, then found herself distracted by his lips, full and wet and gleaming.
“Mossy,” he murmured.
“Go on,” she murmured back.
“Nutty. A touch of the sea.” His lips curved into a smile. “This batch is ours. From the spring water, not the loch.”
“By Gad, he does it again!” The stool thumped as Iain MacDougall jumped to his feet. Anna, reminded abruptly of the company, applauded with the others as Liam pulled off the blindfold.
“That’s eight for eight,” MacDougall crowed. In his excitement, he had clawed his bright blond curls into an ecstatic halo and knocked his spectacles askew. “You’ve a talent, m’lord. We could market your services, I’ll wager, if only you weren’t known as an Englishman!”
Liam laughed. “His services are not for sale,” Anna said, but she was smiling—as were the rest of the men and women in this small room off the distillery. The floor was packed earth, the roof overhead thatched tight against the falling rain, and the long wooden table, solid enough to dance upon, held a variety of whiskies from all over Scotland—among them Rawsey’s, in two varieties stamped with the seal that young Mariah MacKay, not yet sixteen, had designed last year under the supervision of one of Liam’s visiting artists.
“However,” Anna added, “I believe Lord Lockwood accepts tips for his services, in the form of a dram for his wife.”
Laughter traveled the room, notes of relief uppermost. For five years, as the whisky had aged in oak barrels, the islanders had been anxiously awaiting this day, when the first batches would finally be tested. What dreams they had spun for this fledgling industry! And now, today, those dreams seemed closer than ever, for the whisky was more than fine. It had the robustness of the Islay, the complex flavor of the Speyside, and all the heat of a Highlands batch, thanks in part to the excellence of Rawsey’s barley—which had flourished due to Anna’s patented blend of ammoniated manure.
MacDougall, who had overseen the production, held up the two bottles, both single malt, one made with the peaty water of the loch, and the other from the fresh, clear springwater on the northern end of the isle. “Would you prefer homegrown, m’lady, or an Islay for your—”
“Oh bosh,” she said. “Homegrown, of course! But none of these foreign interlopers must go to waste. Indeed, we must get rid of them before the journalists arrive from Edinburgh.” It transpired that the oversight of an earl and countess did much to promote a newborn distillery; the newspapers had clamored to be invited to the formal inauguration of the business, and so, in turn, the islanders had quickly organized one—to occur the day after the true event. “Perhaps you might call in the others to help with drinking all this?”
Soon enough, the doors were thrown open, admitting the pearly gray light of the damp afternoon. The rest of the islanders, who had been patiently awaiting the verdict from the distillery’s board, took turns pushing inside for a taste.
Thomas Wilson had brought his fiddle, and his wife, Tammy, a flute; soon, with glasses in hand and bottles passing regularly, the crowd spilled back out into the rain, stomping and turning reels in the mud. Inside, the heat grew and the air rattled with happy chatter. Iain MacDougall, returning to the table after a triumphal procession through the crowd, fell into a seat beside Anna, interrupting her inappropriate and entirely whisky-fueled massage of her husband’s thigh beneath the table.
Happily, MacDougall was too distracted to notice this mischief. “Now,” he said to her husband, who took a deep breath, ostensibly to inhale the fumes of his glass—but perhaps, in reality, to collect himself, for beneath the table, his thigh pressed hard against Anna’s—“you didn’t say much of t’other one, from the loch. I had some fears over it.”
“Also superior.” Amusement flavored Liam’s voice. It had become a joke on the island that he, the only Englishman in residence, should prove the sharpest and most gifted taster of whisky. “Harsher, to be certain—but complex, with an aftertaste that continues to develop for minutes afterward.”
MacDougall nodded, looking satisfied. “Peaty, you’d say?”
“Certainly. But foremost, smoke—and beneath that, fruit: apricot, dried plum, cherry. A smooth, lingering finish to it—coffee, I’d say, and a touch of chocolate.”
MacDougall slapped the table, causing Anna to jump. “Chocolate. Aye, precisely!” He leapt to his feet and hurried down the table to share the news. “Very peaty,” Anna heard him pronounce, “but complex—smoky; his lordship called it so. A toast, lads and ladies, to the future of whisky!”
Laughing, Anna raised her glass again, touching it to Liam’s. As his own smile faded, something soft and tender entered his expression. “Shall we walk?” he said.
“Indeed.” She rose, looking fondly over the islanders, now plotting boisterously how they’d make use of future profits to expand the distillery’s production. The operation was wholly theirs: she had signed a document putting the distillery and its profits into the perpetual custody of the people of Rawsey. “Those journalists may see the proof of our whisky,” she murmured in Liam’s ear, “in the great number of headaches they’ll encounter on arrival.”
“We’ll feed everyone well tonight,” he said, grinning, “and then dispatch them to sleep it off.”
“Oh goodness! I forgot to check on the kitchens.” She had meant to do so before coming down to the distillery, but had been snared into a game of hide-and-seek with Robert and Ada. “Did you—”
“All in order,” he said. “Ada reminded me, before she set off to find you for a game.”
Anna laughed as she took his arm. They fell into step up the winding path toward the manor house, the rain a gentle light patter against her skin, cool and salt scented. “What a little manager she is. Mrs. Dawson”—their housekeeper in London—“says she would fear for her job, if Ada entered the competition.”
“Her capability is terrifying,” Liam agreed. “She takes after her mother, I believe.”
That deserved a kiss—and here, on Rawsey, Anna felt able to turn to him in public and give him one, for the islanders’ regard was ever only kind.
He caught her head to hold her to him, releasing her with obvious reluctance when a shrill girlish cry came from the direction of the house: “Papa! Mama! Robby is drawing on the walls again!”
Anna sighed and picked up her skirts to speed her pace. “Your fault,” she remarked to Liam. Robby had inherited an artistic talent from some unknown forebear—a talent nurtured, in turn, by the succession of artists whom Liam hosted at their many properties, and, of course, by his godmother, her grace the Duchess of Auburn.
“Entirely my fault,” Liam said, not even attempting to sound repentant. “Wagers on what he drew?”
“Sheep.”
“That was last month’s obsession. Horse, is my guess.”
“A unicorn!” announced Ada crossly as she stomped toward them. “But he gave her two horns! I told him that a unicorn has only got the one. It’s in the name, isn’t it? But then he told me I was wrong, and then he added wings!”
“Appalling.” Anna scooped up Ada with an effort that made her grunt. A shocking thought occurred: one day soon, Ada would be too heavy for her to carry like this. A bittersweet pang tightened her belly; she pulled her daughter’s red head against her, breathing deeply of Ada’s sweet scalp. “You’re growing so big, sweetheart.”
“I’m nearly eight!”
Anna laughed. “Another ten months. But yes, soon enough.”
“When I’m eight, I can come on your tour! You said so!”
“Yes, so you will. But there won’t be another tour for some time, sweetheart.” Anna had yet to complete the draft of her next manuscript, a new set of science stories for children. The last tour had been lovely—a great success, the publishers said, which had sent her second book into eighth and ninth printings. But the entire time, she had longed for her children. She would not tour again until they were old enough to accompany her.
Liam opened the door for them and she stepped into the vestibule. The savory smells of the coming dinner, a celebratory occasion for the entirety of the island, made her stomach growl.
She set Ada down. “All right, where did Robby draw on the walls?”
But before Ada could answer, Nanny came charging in. “Forgive me, m’lady! He got into your rooms somehow—I swear I was watching him—he sneaks off, I don’t know how he does it—he’s a proper escape artist, that lad—”
“Like his father,” Liam said with a smile.
That smile was wondrous to Anna. For a time, after his cousin’s death, she had wondered if the darkness would ever release him completely. Stephen Devaliant’s suicide had released him from his panics, but on occasion, she had still caught him brooding, shadows in his face as he looked at her, heavy with child. He had confessed that he feared some new trapdoor might open in his mind, and make him unfit to be the kind of father that he himself had been blessed with.
But after Ada’s birth, he had taken to fatherhood with an ease and open affection that acted like a tonic, washing away his anxieties. And nowadays, the darkness was such a distant memory that he could even occasionally make these glancing references to that portion of his history—references that others would find unremarkable, but that Anna considered precious proof of his wholeness. He could smile as he spoke of his talent for escape.
Glancing over, he caught her watching him. His smile shifted, into something hotter and more private, not intended for others’ eyes.
“Where is Robby now?” he asked Nanny, without removing his eyes from Anna.
“Oh, he’s back in the nursery. I would have had the mess cleaned up, but I thought first I should tell you—”
“We’ll manage it,” Liam said. “Will you take Ada up as well? We’ll come fetch them in an hour for dinner.”
“I don’t want to go!” Ada said. “I wanted to play hide-and-seek again—”
“After supper,” Liam said. “First I have some private business with your mother.”
Arm in arm they mounted the stairs, Anna turning her head now and then to inhale the scent of him through his woolen coat. His hand around hers drew secret patterns on her palm, his thumb rubbing lazily over hers, a small subtle movement that caused her breath to shorten and her knees to turn weak.
There were many miracles between them. What happened between their bodies was no less miraculous than the rest.
When he opened the door and ushered her inside, she turned immediately, lifting her face for a kiss.
But instead, he burst into laughter, then turned her by the shoulders to see for herself.
Robby had indeed drawn a winged unicorn—hovering aside the edge of a mountain, poised to catch the two stick figures falling from the cliff. Beneath this tableau, in the broken handwriting of a six-year-old, he had handily labeled the scene: BIN NEVUS.
“You told him that story?” Anna gasped.
Liam’s mouth touched her ear. “Of course,” he murmured. “He asked why men and women got married. I explained that it was to have someone to catch you when you fall.”
She turned. “Catch me, then,” she said, and threw her arms around him, laughing again when he picked her up and carried her to bed.