Allison found Logan tramping across a wet stretch of moorland about a quarter of a mile behind Stonewycke.
He turned when he heard the horse making its way through the shrubbery. She pulled up beside him and slid gracefully off the bay. He continued to walk. Allison grabbed the reins and jogged to catch up. “Logan . . . please!” she called after him.
“You still don’t know enough to get in out of the rain,” he said, still walking, staring straight ahead.
“I don’t care about the rain!” she answered passionately. “I wanted to apologize. It was just awful what Charles said to you.”
Logan stopped. That was the last thing he had expected her to say. Of course, how could he have any idea what to expect from her? He had all but concluded that everything which had happened two days ago was a mirage, when suddenly it seemed possible their blossoming friendship had meant something to her after all.
But until this very moment it had not occurred to him how Allison would conflict with his designs. Logan had always maintained a hard and fast rule—one he had learned from Skittles: Never hustle a friend. He might lie, cheat, and steal from anyone else. But with his friends—of which, to be sure, there were few—he had always been open and honest.
Were these people his friends? Was Allison his friend?
The latter question hardly needed an answer. The sincere expression on her face was more convicting in his soul than any reasonings he could have made with himself. She had never been honest with anyone, not even herself. And yet her face said that she wanted to change that—with him. She was trying to be forthright. How could he lie to her anymore?
His thoughts had taken the merest seconds. Now he turned abruptly and faced her.
“Allison, everything he said about me was true.”
“I’m sure you would have told us if we had asked.”
“How do you know that?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to know what you would have done. And no one in my family will care, either. That’s all in the past, anyway. I know just what my great-grandmother would say—that none of us are perfect, least of all me. And besides, none of them need know what Fairgate accused you of. I’ll not tell.”
“Why?”
“There’s no reason. And besides, who’s Charles Fairgate that I should believe him over you?”
“He’s someone who knew me many years ago.”
“I don’t care. That was then, now is now.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said Logan, still reeling from this sudden turnaround.
Allison paused a moment, and when she spoke again there was a quiet seriousness in her tone. “I haven’t behaved in a way I’m proud of these last couple of days.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I do worry about it. Sometimes the person I am isn’t very nice. And . . . I’m sorry. Logan, I do want to be your friend.”
“Thank you. You don’t know how much that means to me. But there’s still so much you don’t understand.”
“What does it matter? Don’t spoil it, Logan Macintyre, or I might run out of sweetness for you yet. A girl can be only so nice in one day.” She laughed, and he joined her.
Then Allison swung back up upon the bay. “Now!” she called down to him. “Get up here with me, and let’s go for a ride!”
“But it’s raining,” he protested with another laugh.
“That never stopped us before.”
He laughed, reached up and took her offered hand, and swung up behind her. He hadn’t forgotten his earlier decision to be honest with her. But why spoil the moment with confessions and revelations? They could wait for a more opportune time.
Allison led the mare eastward, away from the flooded low country. The rocky ground rose steadily until they reached the Fenwick Harbor road which, had they followed it, would have led them to Aberdeen. They rode north instead, toward the sea. As they trotted along, the wind increased in force and the droplets of rain became larger and larger. A ragged flash of lightning lit the afternoon sky, followed almost the same instant by a crack of thunder.
“That was close by!” shouted Allison. “Right over on the coast, I’d say.”
It was not much longer until they reached the Port Strathy road, with Ramsey Head directly to their right off the shoreline, shrouded in mist and clouds. Allison could not hold back a shudder at the granite promontory that would always be associated with evil doings.
“It might not be a bad idea to think of turning toward Stonewycke,” said Logan. “If we wait much longer we’ll get soaked again.”
“I don’t mind if you don’t,” said Allison cheerily. “But you’re probably right.”
They rode on past the Head. There had been a time, even during Lady Margaret’s childhood, when the place had been used for pleasant afternoon walks and picnics, despite its ancient history as a hideout for smugglers and shipwreckers. But since then, it had reverted to its former ways in the minds of the local inhabitants. The caves surrounding it were well known to house occasional drunks and derelicts who were unconcerned about the dark legends of the place. And every Halloween, a report would begin to circulate of a body popping up among the jagged and treacherous sea rocks.
“Cold?” asked Logan, concerned over Allison’s sudden silence.
“No, it’s just this place, I suppose.”
“What about it?”
Allison tried to relieve her nervousness by relating a portion of the history of the place. For the first time he discovered that the murderer who had killed himself had been involved in the events of Lord and Lady Duncan’s early history, news that on first hearing struck him as incredulous.
All at once, as if to emphasize the heavy, ominous feeling that had descended upon them, a figure darted out onto the road from the very point in which they had been staring, coming it seemed directly from the trail down to the shore at Ramsey Head.
Allison reined in the mare, and there beside them stood Jesse Cameron. She had been running and now stopped with her hand to her chest, trying to catch her breath again before she could speak.