Chapter 3: Highland Defense
The air outside was a cool, shocking relief. Roz leaned against the rough stone balustrade of the patio, breathing in the scent of damp earth and night-blooming jasmine. The frantic pulse of the music was muffled here, replaced by the low murmur of a few smokers in the shadows and the distant, rhythmic croak of frogs from the loch.
“You looked like you were about to spontaneously combust in there.”
Catriona, Elaine’s older sister, appeared beside her, offering a fresh glass of champagne. She was a sturdy, no-nonsense lawyer from Inverness with a kind smile and eyes that missed nothing.
“Is it that obvious?” Roz accepted the glass, her fingers cold against the bowl.
“Only to people who actually look at you, hun. Which, in that crowd, is maybe three of us.” Catriona took a sip. “Including your new archaeologist. He’s quite intently observant, isn’t he?”
Roz felt a flush that had nothing to do with the dance. “He’s… different.”
“He’s a man who knows what he’s looking at. Refreshing.” Catriona leaned next to her. “The others are just looking for cracks in the glaze. Especially her.”
She didn’t need to specify. Fiona was already pushing through the French doors, her silhouette sharp against the golden light from inside. She’d been hunting.
“Air! God, yes, it’s a furnace in there,” Fiona announced, gliding over as if joining a planned gathering. She held her champagne flute like a weapon. “Roz, darling, there you are. We lost you after that… energetic dance. I was just saying to Mo, that dress is really holding up, isn’t it? After all that spinning. Some fabrics just collapse, but yours looks… resilient.”
It was delivered with a smile, a masterclass in the back-handed compliment. Resilient. As if the dress, and by extension its wearer, was a sturdy, unglamorous workhorse.
Roz opened her mouth, but the weariness was a weight on her tongue. She didn’t have the energy to decode and retaliate.
Catriona, however, straightened up. She turned to face Fiona fully, her expression one of polite curiosity.
“Fiona, that’s an interesting word, ‘resilient’,” Catriona said, her voice pure, clear Highland. “It makes me think of something that survives despite not being particularly cared for. Like a weed in a car park.”
Fiona’s smile tightened. “Oh, I just meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Catriona continued, taking a gentle step closer. “You meant it doesn’t look expensive. You meant Roz looks like she’s trying a bit too hard tonight, and you’re confused as to why it’s working on someone like Alasdair. Isn’t that right?”
The directness was a surgical strike. Fiona blinked, her social armour visibly cracking. “I— that’s not— how rude!”
“Is it?” Catriona’s head tilted. “It seems ruder to me to follow someone outside to pick at them with wee, nasty words dressed up as niceties. We’re all adults here, Fiona. If you’re jealous, just say so. It would be quicker for everyone.”
Fiona’s mouth opened and closed. A flush mottled her chest. She looked from Catriona’s implacable face to Roz’s silent one, seeking a weakness and finding none. The silence stretched, filled only by those croaking frogs.
“You’ve always been a bitch, Catriona,” Fiona finally spat, the civility evaporating.
“Aye, maybe,” Catriona agreed calmly. “But I’m an honest one. Now, away you go back inside. I think Mo’s found a fresh batch of gossip to dissect. Probably about you, by now.”
For a terrifying second, Roz thought Fiona might throw her champagne. Instead, she let out a sharp, hissed breath, turned on her heel, and stalked back into the reception, the doors swinging shut behind her with a definitive thud.
The quiet of the night flooded back in. Roz realized she’d been holding her breath.
“Jesus,” she exhaled.
“Och, she’s a petty woman with a small life,” Catriona said, her tone returning to its normal warmth. “She peaked at seventeen and has been trying to re-create it ever since. Uses other people’s victories to feel something. Or their failures.” She patted Roz’s arm. “Don’t let her live in your head rent-free. She’s not a worthy tenant.”
“Thank you,” Roz said, the words heartfelt. “I just… I never know what to say back.”
“You don’t need to. People like that, they feed on the engagement. Starve them.” Catriona grinned. “Or have a scary big sister type do it for you. Now, I’m going to find my husband before he gets into a debate about politics with the bagpiper. You stay. Enjoy the quiet. He’ll be out in a minute.”
Roz didn’t need to ask who ‘he’ was. A deep, unshakeable certainty had settled in her bones. She stayed at the balustrade, finishing the champagne, letting the cool air clear the last of the claustrophobia from her lungs. The fairy lights strung through the pergola twinkled, casting delicate, moving shadows on the flagstones.
The door opened again, softer this time.
Alasdair stepped out. He’d found his jacket but it was open, his tie gone completely, the top button of his shirt undone. He scanned the patio, his eyes finding her instantly in the semi-darkness. He walked over, the sound of his shoes on stone deliberate and steady.
He didn’t speak at first. Just leaned his forearms on the stone next to her, looking out at the dark shapes of the hills against the slightly lighter sky.
“Cake is cut,” he said finally. “Speeches are done. I did my duty. Told a mildly embarrassing story about Euan at a dig in Orkney. Everyone laughed. It’s officially a free-for-all now.”
“I heard Catriona eviscerated Fiona out here.”
A low chuckle escaped him. “So that’s why she stormed back in, grabbed Mo, and left. Didn’t even say goodbye to Elaine. Just a theatrical flounce out the front door.” He turned his head to look at her. “Good.”
“Very good,” Roz agreed.
He pushed off from the balustrade, standing squarely in front of her. The playful energy from the dance floor was gone, replaced by a focused intensity. “I meant what I said inside. I want to see you. Properly. Not with a hundred people around us. Not with a DJ playing. Just… talk.”
“I want that too,” she said. The admission was terrifying. And exhilarating.
“My car is just there,” he said, nodding towards the gravel car park where vehicles glinted under a single security light. “We could go. Now.”
“Now?” The word was a whisper.
“Is there a better time?”
She thought of the rest of the night: the drunken slow dances, the messy goodbyes, the inevitable post-mortem in the morning group chat. Fiona’s absence would be a topic. Her leaving with Alasdair would be the main event. The knives would be out, but she’d be far away, out of their reach.
She looked at him—the strong line of his jaw, the quiet demand in his eyes. This was the real grit, the impurity in the smooth surface of her carefully managed life. It wouldn’t integrate. It would change the composition entirely.
“Okay,” she said. “Now.”
He didn’t smile triumphantly. He just nodded, as if she’d confirmed something crucial. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t take her hand. He simply turned and led the way across the patio, through a side gate that bypassed the main entrance, and onto the gravel. His car was an older, dark green Land Rover Defender, boxy and solid. He opened the passenger door for her.
As she climbed in, the interior smelled of old waxed canvas, coffee, and cold, clean stone. It smelled like him. He shut the door, a solid, heavy sound, and walked around to the driver’s side.
The engine turned over with a gritty, diesel rumble. He switched on the headlights, illuminating the winding driveway lined with ancient rhododendrons. He didn’t look back at the manor house, glowing like a jewel in the darkness. He put the car in gear and they moved forward, gravel crunching and pinging under the tyres.
The last glimpse Roz had was of the lit-up patio, now empty, the fairy lights like a forgotten constellation. Then they were on the single-track road, swallowed by the vast, velvet black of the Scottish night.
He drove competently, his hands relaxed on the wheel. The silence between them wasn’t empty; it was thick with everything that had been said and everything that was to come.
“Where are we going?” she asked, not really caring about the answer.
“My place,” he said, glancing at her. “It’s not far. Twenty minutes. Is that alright?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a cottage. A bit of a mess. I’ve been writing up a site report.”
“That’s fine.”
They lapsed back into silence. The headlights cut a swathe through the darkness, catching the eyes of sheep huddled by drystone walls. Roz watched his profile, the concentration, the way he bit his lower lip slightly on a tight corner.
“I’m not… I’m not usually this impulsive,” she said, the words breaking the hum of the engine.
“I am,” he replied, a quick glance her way. “When it matters. This matters.”
The simple declaration landed in the centre of her chest and warmed there.
He turned off the main road onto an even narrower track, the Defender jostling comfortably over potholes. They climbed a hill, and then, nestled in a dip below them, she saw a single light. A small, whitewashed cottage with a slate roof, a thin plume of smoke rising from its chimney into the night sky.
He pulled up beside a drystone wall and killed the engine. The sudden quiet was absolute, profound. No music, no chatter, no frogs. Just the tick of the cooling engine and a vast, windless quiet.
“Here we are,” he said, his voice soft in the darkness.
He came around and opened her door. She stepped out into air that was colder, sharper, scented with peat smoke and heather. The sky was a breathtaking spill of stars, undimmed by any other light.
He didn’t hurry her. He stood beside her, both of them looking up.
“It’s incredible,” she breathed, her words forming a small cloud in the air.
“It’s why I live here,” he said. Then he turned, key in hand. “Come in. I’ll light the fire.”
He unlocked the heavy wooden door and pushed it open, reaching inside to flick a switch. A warm, low light from a table lamp spilled out. Roz crossed the threshold.
The cottage was exactly as described: a comfortable mess. The room was a combined living area and kitchen, dominated by a large stone fireplace where embers still glowed. The walls were lined with books, real books, stacked on shelves and piled on the floor. A large desk was a landslide of papers, maps, and what looked like fragments of pottery. A well-worn leather sofa faced the hearth. It was cluttered, lived-in, and utterly authentic.
Alasdair went straight to the fireplace, kneeling to add peat bricks from a basket, blowing gently on the embers until a flame caught and grew.
Roz stood just inside the door, taking it in. This was his landscape. Not the polished, performative world of the wedding, but this: textured, layered, real.
He stood, brushing his hands on his trousers. He looked at her, suddenly uncertain. “Can I take your coat? Would you like a drink? Whisky? Wine? Tea?”
“Whisky,” she said. “Please.”
He nodded, moving to a small kitchen area. She shrugged off her jacket, laying it over the back of the sofa. The peat fire was beginning to crackle, spreading a deep, smoky warmth.
He handed her a heavy crystal tumbler with a generous measure of amber liquid. His fingers brushed hers. He kept his own glass, clinking it gently against hers.
“To grit,” he said, his eyes holding hers over the rim.
“To grit,” she echoed.
They drank. The whisky was smoother than the wedding bar’s, with a complex, honeyed finish. It burned a gentle path down her throat, settling the last of her nerves.
He gestured to the sofa. She sat at one end. Instead of sitting at the other, he sat right in the middle, angled towards her, his arm stretched along the back of the cushions. Not touching her, but the space between them was charged, alive.
“So,” he said. “Tell me about the stone in the painting. The one that looked like it was trying to remember being something else.”
And just like that, with a question that saw directly into the heart of her work, the last wall crumbled. She began to talk.
She began to talk. The words, usually locked tight inside her studio, spilled out into the firelit room. She told him about the quarry on Mull, the rain that day, how the exposed rock face gleamed like a wound. "It wasn't about the stone remembering," she said, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass. "It was about the violence of being seen after so long in the dark."
He listened, absolutely still. He didn't nod along or interrupt with empty platitudes. His silence was a deep, attentive vessel.
"The light was wrong, flat," she continued, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. "I almost packed up. Then a cloud shifted. Just for a second." She looked up at him. "The edge of it, where it had been split… it looked less like rock and more like a lightning bolt frozen in mid-strike. That’s what I painted. The moment of the split, not the stone."
Alasdair’s gaze was unwavering. "The trauma of becoming a new shape."
"Yes," she whispered, the word catching in her throat. No one had ever understood it so immediately, so completely. It was as if he’d seen the same fracture in himself.
He set his glass down on the floor with a soft click. The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. The world outside the cottage windows was a void of pure black, making this room feel like the only living space in the universe.
"You see things," she said, not a question.
"I have to. It's the job. A pattern in the soil, a discolouration in a fragment. It’s a story waiting to be read." He moved closer, his hand coming to rest on the sofa cushion near her thigh. "You see the stories in the silence. I think that’s harder."
His fingers were inches from her skin. The air between them thickened, charged with all the unspoken things from the wedding, from the car ride, from this conversation that felt like peeling back layers of themselves.
"Alasdair," she started, but her voice failed.
He reached in and kissed her.
It wasn’t tentative. It was a direct, confident claim, a final answer to all the questions of the night. His mouth was warm, tasting of whisky and peat smoke. A shockwave of pure sensation obliterated every thought. Her hand came up, her fingers finding the rough texture of his hair, pulling him closer.
He broke the kiss, his breath ragged. His eyes searched hers, a question in the dark. She answered by leaning in, capturing his mouth again, a soft noise escaping her throat.
He kissed a trail from her lips to her jaw, his hands cradling her face. Then his mouth traveled lower. He gently pushed the strap of her dress down and kissed her collarbone, his breath hot against her skin. The touch was electric, a stark contrast to the cool air of the room. She shuddered, her head falling back.
He stood up, and she watched, her blood humming. His eyes never left hers as his hands went to the buttons of his shirt. He undid them very, very slowly, each pop of a button a deliberate sound in the quiet room. He peeled the shirt off, letting it drop to the floor.
Roz watched, biting her lip. The firelight danced over the planes of his chest and shoulders, revealing not a gym-built physique, but a lean, strong form shaped by real work. A pale scar cut across his ribs. He was utterly, breathtakingly real.
The firelight traced the pale line across his ribs, a story written in skin. She reached out, her fingers hovering just above it, not touching. "What's this?"
"Barbed wire. A farmer's fence on Skye. I was fifteen and thought I knew a shortcut." His voice was low, a rumble under the crackle of peat. "It taught me to look for proper gates."
Her fingertip finally made contact, tracing the smooth, raised weave of the scar. He inhaled sharply, a tremor running through him. She looked up, meeting his eyes. The intensity there was a physical force.
"You're staring," he said, the corner of his mouth lifting.
"I'm observing," she corrected, her thumb brushing the hard plane of his stomach. "It's what I do."
He laughed then, a soft, surprised sound that broke the tension. He captured her hand, pressing her palm flat over his heart. It beat a frantic, steady rhythm against her skin. "Noted. Now it's my turn."
He leaned down, his lips finding hers again, but this was different. Slower. Deeper. A conversation without words. His hands slid to the zip at the back of her dress, the sound loud in the quiet room. The silk sighed away from her skin, pooling at her waist before she shimmied out of it, the cool air raising goosebumps he immediately soothed with his palms.
They moved to the thick wool rug before the fire, its texture rough against her back. The world narrowed to the heat of his skin, the smell of him, the play of light and shadow across the muscles of his shoulders as he moved above her. There was no rush. Every touch was a question, every sigh an answer.
Afterward, they lay tangled in a borrowed blanket, legs intertwined, watching the flames consume the last brick of peat. Her head was on his chest, rising and falling with his breath. The silence was comfortable, full.
"Fiona will have told everyone I've been murdered and buried in your garden by now," Roz murmured, drawing a idle circle on his skin.
"Good," he said, his voice vibrating under her ear. "Let them dig. They won't find you." He shifted, propping himself up on an elbow to look down at her. His hair was a mess, his eyes dark and content. "You're staying. Tonight."
It wasn't a question. She nodded. "I know."
A log collapsed in the fireplace in a shower of orange sparks. The chill of the night was finally seeping past the hearth’s glow. He sat up, the blanket falling to his waist. "It's getting cold. Bed's upstairs. It's just a mattress on the floor. I warned you it was a mess."
"It sounds perfect," she said, and meant it.
He stood, a silhouette against the fire, and pulled her up. They gathered their discarded clothes, a trail leading to the narrow staircase. The upstairs was a single, sloping-ceilinged room, the promised mattress piled with duvets, a skylight revealing a square of star-dusted sky.
They fell into the cool sheets, skin seeking skin, fitting together with an instinctual ease that felt older than either of them. She was drifting, wrapped in the scent of him and the profound quiet, when he stirred.
"Can't sleep?" she whispered.
"Just thinking." His hand stroked her arm. "About that first dance. You were so far away, even when I was holding you."
"I was bracing for impact."
"So he said, his muscles twitching. Dance with me again.
He held his hand out.