Taming the Heiress (25 page)

He pored over the pages with great care, then closed it and wrapped it again in the ribbon and cloth. Resting his hand on it for a while, thinking, he turned to open his mail.

Outside, the rain began to pour in earnest. As he read his correspondence by lamplight and contemplated his answers, the wind shook the walls of his solid little hut, and he soon heard the waves crashing relentlessly onshore.

20 August 1857

To the Northern Lighthouse Commission

George Street

Edinburgh

Dear Sirs,

Recently we endured a storm of considerable force, with high winds, heavy rain, and breakers over six feet high. This confined us to our barracks on Caransay for two days. We emerged to find a world misted gray and littered with debris.

The work site on Sgeir Caran sustained some damage, including two work sheds and the smithy. The iron storage house, once riveted in the rock, now lists to one side. Missing are various tools, workbenches, and an anvil stone, all presumably blown into the sea.

Most astonishing of all, two stone blocks, weighing four tons each, were shifted off the rock by wind and wave, and now lie at the bottom of the sea. We hope to fetch all of these items up again with cranes and divers.

Funds are needed to repair and replace buildings and equipment. This will increase my original estimate of fifty thousand pounds by at least five percent. However, Lady Strathlin's advocates now inform me that some contributors who previously offered assistance will no longer extend it.

I plan to return to Edinburgh shortly. With the commission's approval, I hope to obtain promises from other contributors.

And I intend to pay a call on Lady Strathlin.

Yrs. respectfully,

Dougal Robertson

Stewart Innish Bay Caransay

Chapter 15

"So you refuse to abandon this project," Sir Aedan MacBride said. "I agree wholeheartedly, Dougal. That lighthouse must go up. The location is ideal, and the need is paramount." He leaned back in a leather-upholstered chair that matched the one Dougal occupied. The two men had retired after dinner to the smoking room on the top floor of Dundrennan House, Aedan's Strathclyde manse. "A shame Lady Strathlin cannot understand that."

Dougal nodded, appreciating his cousin's natural reserve and his ability to listen calmly, giving others time to sort things out for themselves. Lingering over glasses of port, Dougal had confided in Aedan, an engineer of highways and byways, his difficulties with the lighthouse as well as the baroness.

"Despite the latest maneuvers of Lady Strathlin and her mob of solicitors, I cannot, and will not, give up this cause." Dougal rolled the bowl of his glass between his palms, staring at the dark liquid sloshing inside. "I will build the thing myself, even fund it myself, though it would break me. I will set every damned stone with my own hands." He sat forward and rubbed a hand over his face, weary and frustrated yet feeling an almost overwhelming determination. "It has to go up."

Aedan regarded him steadily. "That persistence was a bit of a fault when you were younger," he said. "A more bullheaded lad there never was. But you've used it for the better by facing impossible odds and downright danger to build these lighthouses. The Caran light looks to be a magnificent structure, by the drawings and plans you showed me. The design is spare and elegant, combining aesthetics with practicality. It will outlast the ages. And it will go up. I have absolutely no doubt." He smiled. "I know you."

"Thank you. I hope you will make the journey to see it."

"I'd like that. How is Evan, by the way? Still spitting into the wind? The two of you on that rock—what a pair of rascals."

Dougal laughed. He and Aedan had attended Edinburgh University with Evan Mackenzie, so that Aedan knew the viscount as well as he knew Dougal. "Somewhat. He's subdued and keeps his own counsel since that awful incident last year."

"I am convinced that the bridge collapse was not his fault—though unfortunately not everyone agrees."

"Nor is he to blame for the faults of his father, the earl."

"Lord Kildonan is a discredit to the whole of Scotland. No wonder Evan rejects association with him."

"Nonetheless, he remains his father's only heir. One day our friend will be the Earl of Kildonan, which is the last thing he wants—or needs."

"An inherited black mark when his reputation has already suffered." Aedan shook his head.

Dougal stared at the tartan-patterned carpet beneath his boots. "Aedan," he said, "what do you know of Lady Strathlin?"

"Little, really. She inherited the biggest fortune in Scotland rather unexpectedly—the male heir and the next in line both died, and old Lord Strathlin shortly followed. Awful business, but I understand she's been a credit to the title and a generous and charitable lady. But it's surprising that she is so determined to prevent you from your work."

"It is surprising, in a way, and does not chime with what I've heard of her magnanimous nature. She bought the lease of that island years ago from the English lord who owned it, fired the factor, and secured the island in perpetuity for her tenants. She ensured that they will never have to worry about anything—but for the weather, I suppose," he added. "For all the trouble the woman has caused me, I admire her treatment of the islanders."

"They say she supplied relief elsewhere in the Hebrides by sending food shipments and starting industries so that the people could support themselves. My father spent much of his personal fortune on shiploads of grain and goods for Highlanders and Islesmen a dozen years ago, when the potato crops were blighted and so many Scots suffered. If Lady Strathlin has made a difference for those people, I heartily applaud her.

"Beautiful, as I recall, young and quite appealing," he continued, "and neither haughty nor vain. She has a train of attendants and hangers-on, but that is a pitfall of such wealth. She did not seem to relish the attention. We did not converse. It was an introduction only."

"Interesting," Dougal said thoughtfully. "It did not occur to me that she might be lovely or—appealing."

"Quite,"Aedan rose to his feet, and Dougal stood, too. "Shall we join the ladies in the drawing room for coffee?"

"Aye. Aunt Lill allowed her monkey to be at tea today, and I heard the wee beastie chattering in the hallway before dinner," Dougal said. "Does Thistle still keep late hours?"

Aedan grinned. "Do you wonder if Miss Thistle will be taking coffee with us tonight?"

"Taking coffee, tossing cups, cracking china," Dougal drawled. "Miss Thistle is always entertaining company."

"We are in luck. Amy is planning parlor games for tonight, and since she finds Thistle tiresome, the beastie is banned from the drawing room. A warning—your sister is delighted to have another male available for charades."

"Please, not Amy in charge of charades!" Dougal groaned.

"We must submit," Aedan said, pinching back a smile.

"Have you not submitted yet, then?" Dougal asked. "I rather thought my sister would have convinced you to marry her by now, as the safe and sensible match. She's aware of your hesitations regarding marriage."

Aedan frowned, and Dougal saw the humor diminish in his cousin's vivid blue eyes. "I am very fond of Amy, and she has been a great help to me in refurbishing this house according to my father's will." He gestured around the room, with its new tartan carpeting and chintz draperies. "But I am not sure that I love her in quite the way she wishes." He shrugged. "Still, I have not yet made up my mind what to do. I wish to marry someday, but... well, according to that black curse over my ancestors and myself, the lairds of Dundrennan can never fall in love. Unfortunately, I have tested the rule and found it truthful." He still frowned.

"Someday," Dougal said quietly, "you will risk it again and break the spell that has haunted this place for centuries."

"I pray you are right," Aedan murmured, and opened the door.

Dougal went with Aedan from the billiard room to the drawing room, where their aunt Lillian—Lady Balmossie—and Dougal's two youngest sisters waited. He could hear the monkey chittering as they opened the drawing-room door, and Aedan ducked out of sheer habit, as if to dodge some invisible flying object.

Dougal laughed and continued to smile as blond Amy, pretty and vivacious in yards of pink flounces, firmly shooed the tiny creature out of the room in the arms of a reluctant housemaid.

Glad to be home among his family, Dougal watched them, content and amused, and soon found himself wondering how Meg MacNeill would suit with them. Very well indeed, he decided. He could easily imagine her within these walls, chatting and laughing with his kinswomen and deep in some intellectual conversation with the laird of Dundrennan. Aedan would no doubt be very interested in Meg's journals. His father, Sir Hugh MacBride, had been a famous, prolific poet, and Sir Hugh's vast library was one of the treasures of Dundrennan House.

He knew that Meg would enjoy Lady Balmossie's blunt Lowland mannerisms, and he could even imagine her facing the truculent little monkey and winning a friend. Meg would fit in at Dundrennan as if she had always been part of the family.

But he had no real guarantee that the girl wanted to become part of his life. He did not even know when, or if, he would see her again.

He smiled while he watched his family, but inside his thoughts and emotions churned. Like Aedan MacBride, for whom love was a dark curse, Dougal still wanted a real, soul-deep love in his life. He had found it with Meg. Being with her would strengthen and improve him, help him to reach the height and breadth of potential. Loneliness had become a burden, and risk and danger seemed less satisfying than before. His meeting with a beautiful, mysterious girl on a wind-lashed rock had been a turning point in his life. He wanted to fulfill that destiny with her.

Soon he would return to Caransay, and if he could only see her again, he would woo her properly. He feared that his intensity and passion for her had only alarmed and confused her. No wonder she had distanced herself—though some instinct told him that her reasons went deeper.

But before he could return to Meg, he must face Lady Strathlin.

* * *

"Ah, here it is....
Campanula rotundifolia,"
Meg murmured, spreading her fingers carefully on the thin page of the encyclopedia volume spread open on the library table in front of her. "The bluebell, or harebell, as it is known in Scotland." She copied the name and wrote some notations in ink beneath a finished study of a cluster of tiny blue flowers. Sanding the ink, she blew gently to dry it and sat back.

In Gaelic, the
brog na cubhaig,
or cuckoo's shoe, is a pretty blue bellflower commonly seen on the machair that covers Caransay, as well as throughout Scotland. Fairies are said to make their hats from the flowers, and the tiny bells will ring out a warning to hares and rabbits at the approach of danger.

"Working on your Caransay journal?" Angela Shaw entered the library after knocking on the door.

"Yes. I wanted to finish the pages that I did while on holiday," Meg said. She had arrived at Strathlin Castle a few days earlier, entering a whirlwind of demands on her time and attention. Craving the easier pace of life in the Isles, she found that working on her journals helped soothe and relax her in mind and soul. Re-creating Caransay's natural beauty also served as a remedy for the homesickness that she often felt so keenly after leaving Caransay.

This time she had left behind not only her little son, her island, and her family, but she had left Dougal, too. The tug on her heartstrings was deep and enduring.

In fact, she had not even seen him the day that Norrie had taken her and Mrs. Berry back to Tobermory to catch the steamer to the mainland. Dougal had been at the work site on Sgeir Caran. She remembered sailing past the great sea rock in Norrie's fishing boat, gazing up at its massive bulk, aware that Dougal stood somewhere on the rock—or he might have been under the sea in diving gear. Either way, she sailed past and out of his life without even a farewell.

Although it nearly broke her heart to go, she had not known how to say goodbye.

"Oh, harebells," Angela said, looking down at the open page. She smiled. "What a pretty drawing, and it captures them exactly. I remember how beautiful they looked spreading over the meadows on Caransay in spring and summer, like a soft, blue-purple mist."