Dougal already shook his head. "I must away, sir."
"Gus."
"Gus," he said.
"At this time of year, a man must be desperate indeed to trust himself to the sea. Ye were lucky to make it here last time. At least wait until this current batch of squalls has moved on."
"You’re very generous," Dougal said. "But if you’ll be kind enough to lend me tools and materials to mend my boat, I’ll be off as soon as my craft is seaworthy."
"Your family wouldn’t want ye putting yourself in danger just to get back to them for Christmas, surely," Miss Macbain said.
"Aye, lad, there will be other Christmases. Best to stay
alive to enjoy them, eh?"
Dougal set down his coffee cup. "I’m no’ going back to Bruard."
"Och, it’s a lassie, then. I understand a young man’s urgency to be with his sweetheart, none better. But she’d want ye alive, too. No girl wants to be crying her eyes out for Hogmanay because her suitor is drowned at Christmas."
"She willnae be crying," he said, before he reminded himself he hadn’t intended to share his destination with anyone. His family had subjected him to merciless mockery for being a romantic fool, setting out so precipitously to rescue a girl he’d never laid eyes on. If people who loved him didn’t understand his purpose, how could he expect strangers to?
"She doesnae love ye? I find that hard to believe. Ye strike me as a braw young gentleman."
"No, that’s no’ it." The heat rose in his cheeks again. His attention might be centered on the laird, but he could feel Miss Macbain’s eyes on him. "But thank ye."
"If the young lady willnae favor ye, there’s even less reason to venture out into the cold of a December storm. Stay here with us, and let the ungrateful besom stew."
Dougal sighed and ran his hand through his hair, which he’d washed and tied back in a queue. Better he told the truth about his quest than let Gus’s imagination run wild, he supposed. "She’s no’ an ungrateful besom. She doesnae even ken I exist."
Gus frowned. "I’m sure that’s no’ true, laddie. It’s natural to feel downhearted when a wooing doesnae prosper."
Dougal gave a grunt of dismissive laughter. "No, I mean that literally. She has never met me, never heard of me."
"Yet you’ve set sail to meet her in the worst months of the year?"
Miss Macbain’s question made him look at her. She didn’t sound disapproving, but puzzled. He sighed again. "I know I’m speaking in riddles, when really it’s simple enough. I’m bound to rescue Fair Ellen of the Isles from her father’s vile captivity."
Large gray eyes rounded with amazement. "But she doesnae really exist. She’s a legend. Like a banshee or Morgan le Fay."
"At any rate if she does exist, she’s no’ on Innish Beag," Gus said. "I heard she’s on Pabbay. Or was it Canna? Or might it have been Scalpay?"
"At least you’ve heard of her," Dougal said stubbornly.
"Aye, I have," Gus said with audible doubt. "The bonniest girl in Scotland locked up in a tower on a crag, a prisoner of her tyrannical father who wants to keep the hordes of suitors at bay. It’s a fairy tale, Mr. Drummond."
"It’s no’, although I agree it sounds like one. I have it on good authority that she is real and suffering in her captivity."
"On Innish or Scalpay or Canna." Miss Macbain’s cynical tone cut him to the quick.
"I’ll find her if I have to sail to every island between here and Boston," he said sharply. "She’s the victim of heinous injustice. Any man with a trace of chivalry in his soul must rally to her cause."
Miss Macbain continued to study him as if he was a strange new species. "I suspect your soul is overburdened with chivalry, Mr. Drummond."
And not too much in the way of brains, he could guess she refrained from adding. His cheeks burned with embarrassment. "It’s a quest worth pursuing."
"If Fair Ellen is real and isnae just a figment of some Highland bard’s imagination," she said dryly. "Ye must have great faith in the person who told you the story."
"It was one of my cousins."