‘Oh, you’re an actor too now, are you William?’ she laughed. ‘Here, have some wine and bread first. Our cook baked it this morning.’
William took a hunk of bread and tore into it with a hearty bite, chewing on it with an appreciative grin.
‘Your baker knows how tae make a fine loaf, he does!’
‘Here, some wine now to wash it down, go on, I insist!’
Aurora took an enamel cup from her satchel and filled it up with wine for William. When she handed it to him her fingers brushed his, and she allowed them to linger on his hand. As his skin met hers, William felt as if hundreds of candle flames were searing his skin with an irresistible yet delectable heat. Their eyes locked as her fingertips transferred their blistering energy from her body to his, and the same exchange of glorious voltage traversed the air via their gaze. At once William felt light-headed, and he swayed on his knees and stumbled back involuntarily. Aurora kept her eyes locked into his, though, and she chuckled, ever so softly, and in her laughter was a hint of an invitation. William grinned and took a greedy gulp of his wine, feeling an immediate and heady rush as the slightly bitter liquid rushed down his throat.
He cleared his throat and began his reading of Oliver Twist, and with melodramatic flair he put on exaggerated impressions of the voices of the various characters in the novel. Aurora was delighted by his vivid, animated acting, and she had to frequently pause in her consumption of bread and wine to let out bouts of laughter. After a while though, she held her finger to her lips, silencing William just as he was about to read one of Fagin’s lines.
‘William, wait. Look, look up there, at the standing stones.’
William set down the book and turned to follow her gaze. He saw the copper rays of the sun stabbing through a gap between two stones, filling the void with molten metal fire.
‘It’s really pretty, Aurora, but—’
‘Wait, that’s not all. Now have a look at the waterfall.’
He turned and stared at the sheet of rushing water, and saw that the ray of sunlight that was shining through the gap between the stones was also hitting the sheet of water, anointing the tumbling liquid with a gemstone dazzle.
‘Only for a day or two every year will the sun reveal the secret,’ she said. ‘And it has to be on this exact date.’
‘Secret? This exact date?’
‘Behind the water, William. I discovered it five years ago, quite by chance. I’ve always had a strange fascination with those standing stones, and I’ve ridden out here many times, ever since I was a little girl. But five years ago to the day, I discovered something very special about them, and about this waterfall.’
William’s interest was piqued.
‘What did you find? Was it faeries? Was it?’ he asked with wide eyes.
Aurora laughed.
‘Do you really think that faeries dance in the stone circle beneath the full moon, William?’
William scratched his head and bit on his lower lip.
‘I’m no’ sure, Aurora. There are stranger things in this world than we can imagine, I believe. An’ all the auld folk in the villages around Sir MacTaggart’s estate swear tha’ they’ve seen ‘em. Whenever I’ve ridden near any stone circles, I’ve felt … well I have tae say, I’ve felt something weird an’ uncanny. A prickling all over my skin, like. I’m no’ sure if it’s good or bad, but I cannae deny tha’ those stones make me feel something.’
Aurora stared straight into William’s eyes, her expression intense in its bold sincerity.
‘We have ghosts in our manor, William. I’ve seen them myself on late, dark nights, half-visible in the shadows cast by candlelight. So I know, no, I’m certain in fact, that another world beyond this one exists. However, as much as I’d like to believe that the standing stones are a gateway to the world of the faeries, we cannot waste time talking of those things right now. What I want to show you here has nothing to do with ghosts, faeries, witches, kelpies, or anything otherworldly.’
‘That’s a good thing, because I’m no’ so sure I’d like tae dance wi’ no faeries!’
Aurora laughed warmly.
‘There are no faeries here, William. Well, there,’ she said, her gaze drifting across to the waterfall.
‘In the water?’
‘Behind it, as I said. That’s why we’re going to swim across.’
William wasn’t sure if the fiery lick that lashed his skin was a result of his mild drunkenness, or whether it had been prompted by what she had just said, but what he did know was that as soon as she uttered those words his knees had become weak, and the ends of his fingers had begun to tingle with a delightful prickling.
‘But, why, our clothes will, they’ll be soaked, an’, an’, we dunnae have no dry ones.’
His bumbling speech made him only too aware of how completely his charisma appeared to have deserted him at this moment. Aurora, however, seemed completely nonchalant.
‘You swim in your clothes, William?’ she teased, her lips wickedly curved, and parted in a suggestive grin that verged on sultriness. ‘My, my, I wasn’t aware that you were a lady of the landed classes.’
‘Well ay course I’m no’,’ he stammered in reply, ‘but you are!’
Aurora rolled her eyes and a flash of annoyance flickered across her face.
‘I am most indebted to you for pointing that out, William.’
‘But Aurora, we, we cannae swim together! It’s no’, it’s no’ … modest,’ William gasped, his embarrassed words doing little to disguise the hungry excitement that was pulsing though his body.
‘Who will know of it, William? I won’t speak a word of it to a soul, and there’s nobody out here for miles. Unless, of course, you will tell someone?’
‘I cannae … I really…’
Hot teenage blood seemed as rocks and poking roots on
