It was an apology and an explanation for excluding MacKenzie from the conversation in the stable earlier.
MacKenzie arched her brows without comment.
* * *
—
Their carriage left the courtyard at dawn, with a yawning MacKenzie on the opposite seat in the role of chaperone. The air inside the coach was cold and damp. Both women were dressed in robust gray tweed dresses and coats to protect them from coal dust and chilly air during the two days of travel. Catriona nestled deeper into her plaid as the castle grew smaller in the rain-streaked rear window. Deep breaths.
“What a strange fellow this Mr. Khoury is,” MacKenzie remarked, her lined face turned to the misty landscape outside. “To insist on riding up there with the driver, in this weather.”
Mr. Khoury was indeed up there, with a wet face, somewhat protected from the elements by a borrowed waxed topcoat. As agreed, he was keeping out of Catriona’s space. It had to be the preferable option for him, too, she told herself. Never mind that hospitality was sacrosanct in Arab culture, and that between Wester Ross changing plans and her stipulations, they had provided him with a visitor experience from hell.
MacKenzie fixed her with a gimlet eye. “Mary says he drinks wine,” she said. “I thought Turks don’t drink wine.”
“His homeland is part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, but he is no Turk,” Catriona said.
“But he speaks Arabic,” MacKenzie said. “You said it’s Arabic.”
“Aye, and Turks speak Turkish. In any case, I understand Mr. Khoury is a Maronite—a sort of Catholic.” As a Catholic herself, it gave her some insight into his creed, though both she and Wester Ross had fallen in with the agnostics years ago.
Her companion made a face. “A Catholic, with an Arabic name?”
“Khoury is the Arabized version of curia, which is Latin for priest. His name literally means priest.”
“It’s very odd,” MacKenzie insisted. “A Catholic, from Arabia.”
“He’s from the Levant,” Catriona said with a yawn. “The region borders the Mediterranean Sea and is home to places like Antioch, or Bethlehem, Jerusalem . . .”
Confused silence.
“MacKenzie,” Catriona said, “where do you think Christianity originates?”
MacKenzie gave a nonchalant little sniff as if she had comprehended this all along.
“Mr. Khoury’s people date back to the days when the different branches of the faith first formed, and they didn’t adopt the Arabic language until the ninth century, when it was clear that the Muslim conquest was there to stay and Arabic became the lingua franca,” Catriona said, warming to the topic. “They still kept speaking a form of Aramaic, called Syriac, which . . .”
The flicker of alarm in MacKenzie’s eyes was impossible to miss—an unsolicited linguistics lecture while trapped in a carriage wasn’t her idea of a grand pastime.
“。 . . which means, Mr. Khoury may drink however much wine he likes,” Catriona concluded lamely.
“I’ll take a wee nap,” said MacKenzie.
Catriona opened the upper part of the carriage window, letting fresh, wet air stream into the compartment. For a few miles, they rattled along the pass in silence, climbing up the only way out of Applecross, a narrow road winding through a vast, green sweep of land. Sheep dotted the surrounding slopes. Occasionally, the silver surface of a loch sparkled in a dip between the hills. One day, much of this land would have been hers. Now they were preparing a sale to the Middletons.
When they reached the high point of the pass, MacKenzie woke from her snooze. “It’s been almost ten years,” she said after a bleary look outside. “More like nine years I suppose, that Wester Ross sent us away the first time, in this weather.”
Catriona tightened her shawl. “I remember.”
Wester Ross had sent her away from Applecross because of her foolish behavior over Charles Middleton, romantic failure number one.
MacKenzie reached for the tea flask in the provision basket. “I heard he’s newly engaged.”
“He is, yes.”
He had flaunted the announcement in the Glasgow Herald a month ago. Accompanying Mr. Khoury to Oxford was preferable over negotiating land deals with Charles, because that would require facing him, and she’d be left in no doubt that he had grown into a perfectly happy, well-adjusted young man, while she, well, she was still herself.
They reached the coaching inn in Glasgow during sunset, after a long train ride on a crooked railway route. If Mr. Khoury held a grudge over his various al fresco rides, he hid it well—he climbed off the shuttle carriage looking remarkably bright-eyed and unrumpled. He helped both Catriona and MacKenzie descend, and he stayed back to oversee the handling of their luggage. Catriona and MacKenzie went ahead to secure accommodation. Inside the old inn, the air hung heavy and stale like cheap cigarette smoke. The reception desk was located halfway down the narrow corridor, beleaguered by a queue. Off-key singing and braying laughter came from the taproom; a frantic atmosphere poured through the open wing doors that revealed an intoxicated crowd of locals. The queue at the reception desk was moving slowly; they would be trapped in the noise for a while.