“But—”
“And ye should, too, before they catch ye and flay yer skin from yer hide.”
Reaching into her apron pocket, Farah produced something the size of a tin of potted meat wrapped with linen. Setting it on the table, she uncovered a half-eaten slab of cheese, some dried roast, and most of a bread crust.
Dougan’s mouth watered violently, and it was all he could do not to snatch it from her.
“I couldn’t finish my supper,” she said.
Dougan fell upon the offering like a savage, seizing the bread first, as he knew it would produce the most filling effect. He could hear the rooting, growling noises his throat produced around gaping mouthfuls, and he didn’t care.
When she spoke again, her voice was full of tears. “Dear friend…” Her little hand pressed against his hunched back and patted it consolingly. “I shan’t let you starve again, I promise.”
Dougan watched her reach for the book as he shoved as much of the roast in his mouth as would fit. “Waff’s tha?” he asked around the food.
She spread her tiny, pale hands to carefully smooth across the open pages, and nudged the tome toward him. “I felt bad for not knowing enough about the rifles this afternoon, so I spent all evening searching, and look what I found!” She mashed her wee finger next to a picture of a long Enfield rifle. Beneath it were smaller pictures of different parts of the disassembled weapon.
“This is a Pattern 1851 rifle,” she offered. “And look! Here are the bayonets. The next chapter is about how they’re made and how one affixes them to the top of—What?” She’d finally glanced over at him and something in his expression caused her to blush.
Dougan had almost completely forgotten about the food, for his entire body was suffused with the most intense and exquisite sensation he’d ever known. It was something like hunger, and something like fulfillment. It was wonder and awe and yearning and fear encapsulated in a tender bliss. His chest expanded with it until it pressed against his lungs, emptying them of breath.
He found himself wishing there was a word for it. And maybe there was, lost in all these countless books for which he’d never before had use.
She turned back to the pages, clearing her throat. “They noted all the names of all the different components right below the pictures, see?”
“How do ye know?” He peered down at where she pointed and noted the markings below the pictures, but, to him, they were meaningless.
“It says right here. Can’t you read it?”
Dougan filled the silence by tearing off a chunk of cheese and popping it into his mouth, chewing furiously.
“Did no one teach you?” she asked astutely.
He ignored her, finishing off the crust of bread whilst staring down at the pictures, wanting very much to know what they were about. “Will ye—read them to me, Fairy?”
“Of course I will.” She leaned forward on her knees, the table too tall for her to sit on the rickety chair and see over the top. “But tomorrow when we meet here, I’ll teach you how to read them for yourself.”
Feeling full and satisfied for the first time in as long as he could remember, Dougan began to point to pictures, and she would tell him the caption beneath while he savored the cheese in little crumbles.
By the time they got to the chapter on bayonets, Farah’s head had sunk to his shoulder as they huddled around their book and candle. He used one finger to point tirelessly at picture after picture, and the other found its way into one of her ringlets, idly pulling it straight and letting it bounce back into place.
“I was thinking,” he said some time later as she paused for a drowsy yawn. “Since ye doona have any family to love anymore, ye could love me…” Instead of meeting her gaze, he studied the way the pristine white of her petticoat bandage made his hand look that much grubbier. “That is, if ye wanted.”
Farah buried her face in his neck and sighed, her lashes brushing against his tender skin with every blink. “Of course I’ll love you, Dougan Mackenzie,” she said easily. “Who else is going to?”
“Nobody,” he said earnestly.
“Will you try to love me, too?” she asked in a small voice.
He considered it. “I’ll try, Fairy, but I havena done it before.”
“I’ll teach you that, as well,” she promised. “Right after I teach you to read. Love is quite like reading, I expect. Once you know how, you can’t ever imagine not doing it.”
Dougan only nodded because his throat was burning. He put his arm around his very own fairy, reveling in the fact that he finally had something good that no one could take away from him.
* * *
Dougan learned much about himself in those two blissful years with his fairy. Namely that when he loved, he did it nothing short of absolutely. Obsessively, even.
She told him how her father had been exposed to cholera while visiting a friend at a soldier’s hospital and had brought it home. Farah Leigh’s older sister, Faye Marie, had been the first to die, and her parents had followed in short succession.
He told her that his mother had been a maid in a Mackenzie laird’s household. She’d borne one of the laird’s many bastards and he’d lived with her for about four years until she’d died violently by the hand of another lover.
One of the things Dougan had realized from an early age, which set him apart from other people, was that he remembered almost everything. He even recalled conversations he and his Fairy had a year later, and would shock and delight her by reminding her of them.