**
“Blast it all, man! Where did she go?” Finn Adams demanded of Aidan the barkeep.
“Neall said she ran out of here like the hounds of hell were chasing her.”
Aidan shrugged as he wiped down a glass, but there was a flicker of worry in his eyes. “It's not my job to chase down gentry ladies who are in a rare state and need their smelling salts, now is it? I tried to call out to her, but she just kept running. Probably just wanted a nip of air.”
Finn felt a hot wave of worry and anger wash over him, and he curled his hands into tight fists to hold it back. To stay calm. He couldn't help Allison if he was in a fury. “It's dark as Hades out there tonight, and I know her carriage hasn't come yet.”
“She'll be back,” Aidan said, but then there was that quickly-vanished flash of worry again. It wasn't like him, and made Finn even more concerned.
“I'm going to find her.” Finn spun around on his heel and ran out the door past a group of new arrivals, leaving the roar of laughter and drunken chatter behind as he hurried into the night. Cold wind tore at his coat, biting through the thick tweed, but he hardly noticed.
He only knew he had to find Allison.
Dear, sweet, beautiful Allison.
She was nowhere to be seen outside the pub or along the roadway. As a gray, wispy cloud scurried in front of the moon, casting strange shadows on the ground, he started toward the woods. Something told him that he would find her there.
Ever since the first time he saw Allison, the day Lady Caroline Blacknall brought her to a Celtic Society meeting, Finn had felt the strangest connection to her. It seemed as if he'd seen her smile before, heard her laugh, touched her hand. The times when she stayed after a meeting to talk to him and share a pint—he looked forward to those with a schoolboyish eagerness that should have appalled him. Somehow it just made him smile, as did Allison.
And those fleeting hours, the kiss on the cheek when they parted, were no longer nearly enough. He'd decided that very night to declare himself to her. He knew her family wouldn't think him good enough, a professor and scholar, but if Allison would have him he knew he could surmount any obstacle.
He'd seen the way she looked at him, the shy glances, the smiles, the lingering touch of her hand on his over the bar. He'd dared hope she returned his feelings. He even determined to declare himself that night.
But then she ran out of the meeting so fast, not stopping to speak to anyone, not looking at him. It was as if she guessed his purpose—and did not like it.
He had to find her now. It wasn't safe for her to be alone in the woods. And if she had run there to avoid him...
He could never forgive himself.
“Lady Allison!” he shouted. His voice echoed back to him. “Where are you?”
For a long moment there was nothing but silence, heavy and ominous. Then a small voice answered at last.
“I'm here!”
Finn stopped on the path and heard the rustle of running footsteps through fallen leaves. Allison burst between two trees, the splintered rays of moonlight shining on her pale gown. She looked at him with a radiant smile on her face, and Finn knew he had never seen anything more beautiful. All his worry was replaced in that instant by golden happiness.
He ran to her and caught her up in his arms, twirling her around and around as they laughed. He reveled in the warm, sweet lifeof her against him, the fact that she was safe and here, in his arms at last. She wrapped her own arms around his neck, and he bent his head to kiss her. Really kiss her, finally.
She tasted of cool night air, of smoky dark tea, and of some sweetness that could only be Allison alone. She was perfect—they were perfect together, just as he'd known they could be. Their mouths and bodies seemed to fit, as if they were made to be together just like that.
“Oh, Finn...” she sighed as his lips traced the softness of her cheek. “I never thought it could be—that you felt like I did...”
“Neither did I,” he answered hoarsely. “I love you, Allison. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you.”
Her arms tightened around his neck. Her eyes shimmered bright as she looked up at him in the moonlight. “You love me?”
“I think I always have. I used to think such notions as love at first sight were absurd...”
Allison laughed, a wonderful, sunny sound that banished all the cold. “Me, too. Until now. Oh, Finn. I love you too.”
Finn laughed with her, happier than he'd ever thought he could be. As he pulled her close again, he suddenly felt a heavy weight drop onto his boot.
“Oh!” Allison cried. She knelt down and scooped up the strange object from the ground. “I almost forgot. This was what I came running to tell you. I found these in the woods.”
She held out her hand, and Finn saw the dull glint of gold against her pale skin. “What are they?” he asked.
“I don't know. They look terribly old. I thought perhaps you had seen something like it before.”
She shivered, and Finn's concern for her was greater than his curiosity about her strange find in the woods.
“Let's go inside and take a closer look,” he said. He slipped his arm around her waist and she leaned against him as they made their way back to the Rose and Shamrock.
“There you are,” Aidan said with a laugh as Finn helped Allison onto one of the high stools by the bar next to their friend Neall. “Knew you wouldn't go far.”
“Of course not,” Allison answered happily. “Finn found me.”
“So it seems,” Aidan said with a wink.
“And it seems Lady Allison found something as well,” Finn said.
“Yes, these were in the woods.” Allison laid one of the coins on the scarred wooden surface of the bar. “What do you suppose they are?”
“Where did you get that?” Aidan said, his voice strangely furious and deep, like the swirl of a gathering storm over the sea.
Allison looked up, her mouth parted and eyes wide as if she was startled, and everyone around them grew quiet with surprise. Aidan was never furious, even when fights broke out and furniture got smashed. Teasing and joking, yes, mischievous sometimes, but not angry. Especially not with ladies.
What was it about the coin?
“I—I told you,” Allison stammered. “In the woods. I only wanted to know what they were...”
Her words were drowned out by the sudden bang of the door slamming open. No one was there, but a rush of cold wind swept through the pub, overturning glasses and carrying away caps and scarves. Newspapers scattered across the dusty wooden floor.
And when Finn and Allison looked back to the bar, the coin was vanished. And so was Aidan.
Copyright © 2016 Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee
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