The Shadowy Horses

I nodded. "Ancient history, that."

"Was it serious?"

"With Adrian? Never. He's not the serious type. Besides," I added, 'I've the wrong hair color for Adrian. He likes blondes. I rather fancy he's cast his roving eye on Fabia, poor girl."

Jeannie shrugged and reached for the teapot to pour herself a cup. "Nothing odd about it, she's a beautiful lass. And not nearly so helpless as she lets on. Care for some shortbread? Quietly, though, don't rattle about in the tin, or the men will be in here before you know it."

I mumbled my thanks through a crumbling mouthful of biscuit. "Your father," I informed her, "seemed surprised I wasn't blond."

"Aye." Her eyes danced. "He had his doubts, ken, when Peter said he'd hired an old girlfriend of Adrian's. Full of dire warnings, was Dad. What did you think of him?"

"I barely saw him all day," I admitted. "He was digging with Quin—with Peter and David, while I sifted dirt with Fabia, but what I saw of him I liked."

I could tell she was fond of her father by the way she swelled with pleasure at my words. "He's a grand old man," she said, "but you want to watch him. He can be a right bugger when he wants to be."

"Talking about me again?" David Fortune filled the doorway as he walked through it. He had cleaned himself up a little, washed his hands, and his walk had a cocky, self-satisfied roll to it.

Jeannie sent him a motherly look. "If you were chocolate," she told him, "you'd eat yourself." By which I gathered she was calling him conceited.

Unconcerned, he smiled and looked around the narrow kitchen. "Speaking of food, did I hear you open a tin of shortie?"

"Certainly not."

"Liar. Verity's eating it now. . . aren't you?" His cheerfully accusing eyes swung from me to the tin on the table, sparing me the effort of replying with my mouth full. I went on munching while he helped himself. The unfamiliar Scots terminology reminded me of something I'd meant to ask Jeannie earlier. Chasing down my shortbread with a sip of cooling tea, I casually inquired what a stoater was.

"A stoater?"

"Yes. Someone told me I was one, so I just wondered."

"Oh, aye?" Her mouth curved in spite of her obvious attempt to keep a straight face. "And who was it said you were a stoater?"

Behind her shoulder David smiled and cupped a hand beneath his chin to catch the shortbread crumbs. "Your son," he said. "That's who."

"Cheeky," she laughingly pronounced judgment on her absent son. "That's his father coming out in him, poor lad. A stoater," she explained, to me, "is a very good-looking woman."

"Oh," I said. Because, after all, there seemed very little else to say ...

David angled his gaze to meet Jeannie's. "We'll need to be getting her a wee Scots dictionary, so she can understand us. D'ye still sell them at the museum?"

"Aye, I think so."

I looked from one to the other of them, intrigued.”There's a museum here in Eyemouth? I didn't know that."

"A good museum," David confirmed. "Not a big one, ken, and it shares space with the tourist information service, but the exhibits are nicely done and they give you a feel for the past of a fishing town."

Jeannie nodded. "I can take you through, if you like. I work there Thursdays, on the desk." She sent a teasing glance up at the big archaeologist. "We'd best pick a day when your mum's not there, though, or we're liable to get stuck."

"Aye." His smile flashed a faint cleft in one clean-shaven cheek as he leaned across to take more shortbread, and I marveled at how much more relaxed he was in Jeannie's presence than when we were on our own. He had lost that faintly rigid and reserved air I'd grown used to, and his eyes laughed easily, engagingly. "My mother," he informed me, "can be a bit of a blether."

"She likes to talk," Jeannie translated.

I smiled. "Don't all mothers?" Mine certainly did. My father had developed a habit of daydreaming in self-defence, occasionally rousing himself to murmur, "yes, yes of course" or "quite right, dear," to keep my mother's monologues running. When I'd asked him once if he wouldn't prefer silence, he'd said no, he quite liked the sound of my mother's voice. He just lost interest, now and then, in what she was actually saying.

"My mum was quiet," Jeannie put in. "Like a mouse. But then living with Dad, she'd not have been able to get a word in."

"Trade you," David offered.

"Och, you don't mean that. Your mum's a lovely woman." She lifted a curious eyebrow. "Is she still being difficult, then, about having someone to help her?"

"Difficult," he said, "is not the word."

"She'll soon come round," was Jeannie's optimistic pronouncement. "And if you want difficult, Davy, you can have my dad any day. It's the funny thing about life, isn't it? If you're not taking care of your kids, you're taking care of your parents."

"Aye, well, Mum's enough for me, thanks." Grinning, he brushed the crumbs from his shirt and glanced at me. "How's the headache, now?"

"I'm fine." For a moment it occurred to me that I might be wise to have that printed on a T-shirt, for future use.

"Peter'll be glad of that," he said. "He sent me in to find out how you were; thought he might have overworked you on your first day out."