Despite the gloominess of the day, the view was breathtaking. The water was a deep blue, its mirror-like surface reflecting the clouds above it and stretching out wider than she could see, across to the grassy knolls that reached up to the sky on the other side. There was green everywhere she looked, belying the rocky crags that one had to carefully traverse to get to the lake. Her heart soared out along the water, and before she could think of what she was doing, she was unlacing her boots, slipping her stockings off, and making her way to the shoreline with her cane.
“What are you—? Rachel, we dinna have the time for a swim,” Adam said to her, before she heard him sigh as he walked toward her.
“I’m not swimming!” she called back to him from where she had finally made it to the water’s edge. “For I do not know how!”
She heard him curse as he began to make his way out toward her. Wearing only his kilt, he had no clothes to shed and quickly unlaced his ghillies and set them to the side.
“It’s no’ very shallow!” he yelled out to her. “Do not fall in!”
“I won’t!” she replied, smiling at his concern. “I actually have very good balance!”
She had pity on him, however, and waited for him where she stood before gingerly putting her toes into the water. It was cold, and despite the warm summer air, she shivered as the waves lapped at her ankles. She had never felt such a sensation before, having spent most of her life within the city of London.
“Is it always like this?” she asked breathily, as she felt Adam’s strong, solid presence beside her.
“Like what?”
“So beautiful. So peaceful. So… free.”
He gave her a strange look but shrugged his shoulders and looked out beyond him. “I suppose so. You become somewhat used to it when you have seen it nearly every day of yer life. Although when I’ve been to the city — whether it be Edinburgh or even Inverness — I always yearn to return home to this. It’s in my blood. It’s part of me.”
She looked over at him. It was the most poetic thing she had ever heard him say, and it spoke to something within her — to a piece of her that had never known a home where she felt she truly belonged.
“Have you not somewhere you feel the same?” he asked as if reading her thoughts, his gaze turning from the lake beyond them to her face. She was taken aback somewhat by the intensity of his dark eyes and the strong features of his face that were always so serious, so deep in thought.
“No,” she said, turning away from him to stare back out at the water. “I have no place, really. I have the house I grew up in, I suppose, but it is not home. It is simply a place where I eat and sleep, where I live. I could leave it forever and never miss it.”
His head dropped before he followed her stare toward a seagull that swooped down in front of them.
“That’s rather sad,” he said.
“I suppose it is,” she responded, smiling wistfully. “For they say home is with those you love, and there truly isn’t anyone that holds my heart. I respect my father to a point, but I’m not sure… well. We have never had that close of a relationship. And there has definitely never been a man.”
“And what of your mother?” he asked her cautiously, as if he realized it may be a subject he should not speak of. “Do you still have her?”
“I do not,” said Rachel, swallowing the lump that grew in her throat. She seldom thought of her mother, choosing not to. She certainly never spoke of her, but when she looked into Adam’s dark blues eyes, she felt as though she could trust him. “Shortly after I was born, she left me with my father. They were not married, and of course, my birth meant she was ruined. She was not gentry, but her family was respected. When she gave me to my father, she told him she never wanted anything to do with either of us ever again. My father is a blowhard, a man out for himself at all times. But, at the very least, he has provided for me over the years. He’s given me a roof over my head, food on my table. He has not given me much love, and as much as I do not understand why he believes Vincent would be a good match for me, or for the company, he is trying to ensure I am provided for in the years to come. So while he is a hard man to love, I am grateful for all he has done for me.”
It was more information than she had told most, and, in fact, she had hardly thought of her father that way even to herself.
“I’m sorry,” came Adam’s soft response, “about your mother.”
“It’s fine,” said Rachel. “I’ve never known any different.”
She cleared her throat, no longer wanting to speak on the subject.
“You said the lake is deep. Are there a few feet of shallow water? Can I wade in?”
“A few,” he said, his brows furrowing above concerned eyes. “Here, take hold of my arm in case the ground falls away. I know these waters fairly well, but there are still mysteries that lurk beneath the surface.”
“Mysteries? Like what?”
“Well, now, lass, dinna tell me you haven’t heard of the monster that lives in these waters?”
He took hold of her elbow then, and she felt fire shoot up her arm from where his fingers lightly held her. She tried to deny how affected she was by
