A Scottish Love (38 page)

For a time.

He quickly scanned the letter, his answering smile indicating that this was no surprise to him.

“You suspected as much?” she asked. “Did you know Helen was going to marry Mr. Loftus?”

“Didn’t you see how much she doted on him? She might become a wealthy widow in a few years.”

Shocked, she stared at him. “You make her sound quite conniving.”

“Not at all. But she did manage to snare the wealthiest man in the group.” He handed her back the letter. “You could have married him, you know.”

“And be exceptionally wealthy,” she added, nodding. “There is that.”

If she could have tolerated the man.

She placed the letter on top of the desk and crawled back onto his lap.“But I wouldn’t have been happy,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Are you?”

His look was direct, his beautiful blue eyes holding only love for her. She laid her head against his shoulder, thinking that the world was a lovely place as long as Gordon was in it.

He’d once said that love wasn’t simple for her, that it was twisted up in other emotions. This last week had been a lesson learned, and a foretelling of the future. Love for Gordon was pure, uncomplicated, direct, and endlessly satisfying. A rainbow, a feast, and a symphony.

“With my whole heart,” she said. After that, it was difficult to think because he was kissing her again.

“Ah, but you’ll soon be a great deal wealthier than Mr. Loftus,” he said, when she pulled back, intent on luring him upstairs.

“Will I?”

How very curious not to care all that much. A roof over her head, some security was all she’d wanted. Instead, she got Gordon. She already was a wealthy woman.

She placed her cheek against his, wishing she didn’t have the most curious wish to weep at the moment. Joy was the reason for these tears, not sorrow.

“Aren’t you curious?”

Pulling back, she looked at him. “You evidently want me to be,” she said, smiling.

“I’ve sold the blasting powder to the War Office.”

Surprised, she stared at him. “Have you?” she said cautiously.

“And to the consortium. And to Mr. Loftus.”

She began to smile. “Can you do that?”

“I can. It’s the only way to ensure that it’s used correctly, I think. It will temper the War Office’s use as well.” He glanced down at the letter on his desk. “They were bound to discover the formula sooner or later.”

“Have you a plan for all this wealth?”

He smiled. “The Works need to be fitted to make the new blasting powder. Plus, I’ve had an idea to transport it to Inverness using Loch Mor.”

She raised one eyebrow. “You have been thinking,” she said.

“There will be a great many more people in Invergaire Glen in a few months.”

“And some won’t be here,” she said, thinking of Helen.

“We can go to America, if you wish, make sure she’s settled in. And meet other Americans. Something tells me they’re not all like Mr. Loftus and his daughter.”

“I’d like that,” she said, taking a moment to kiss him again.

“There’s another absence I need to tell you about,” he said a few moments later. “Rani’s going back to India.”

“After he’s become wealthy?”

“He wants to help his country,” he said, “and who could blame him? Also, I think a woman is at the heart of it.”

She smiled. “Aren’t we always, dear one?” She bent and placed another kiss on his lips to mark her place there, on his body, in his heart, forever.

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Author’s Note

The first passenger elevator was installed in a New York City department store in 1857.

Alfred Nobel set up Works in Ardeer, Ayrshire, in 1871 to manufacture nitroglycerine. Sir Andrew Noble is considered the father of the science of ballistics. A physicist and gunnery expert, he devised a method to increase the firing accuracy of guns. I’ve taken both Nobel’s and Noble’s achievements and combined them for Gordon MacDermond.

Kieselguhr is another name for diatomaceous earth.

According to
Scottish Customs
by Margaret Bennett (1992, Polygon),
bean tuiream
, or mourning woman, refers mainly to a professional weeper, hired to mourn at a funeral. The word
tuiream
means to mourn for the dead, while
bean
means woman or wife. I’ve borrowed the term
bean
tuiream
for one of the ghosts, the weeping woman.

Gairloch is also a town in the Highlands with a history dating back to the Iron Age.

After 1845, poor relief in Scotland was administered at the parish level. Several parishes in the east of Scotland operated smaller poorhouses such as almshouses, parish cottages, or parochial houses.

Kensington is now a very fashionable part of London but it once housed slums.

In Scotland, an irregular marriage didn’t require the auspices of any official, religious or civil, but was as binding, as long as it was held before witnesses.

The Ninety-third (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot was a Line Infantry Regiment of the British Army. It was united with the Ninety-first (Argyllshire Highlanders) Regiment of Foot in 1881 to form the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

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