Sarah Gabriel (13 page)

Truth be told, she was hungry, and she did not want to leave Struan House and its laird just yet. If ever. The pull she felt toward him was strong, increasing even as she looked at him now. Each moment, each experience with him added more facets to what she knew of him, more to what she wanted to know. Now, with his crooked half grin, his damp hair and blue
eyes, the wide shoulders and lean build, she thought of how good those arms, those lips felt. And she yearned to run to him.

But she stayed where she stood. He held his walking stick so casually, yet she knew how much he needed it; he was empirical and factual, little given to impulse, yet he was learning about fairies. He was careful in his appearance, yet left his study in disarray; and now he stood with rain dripping from his fine coat, and egg smeared on his hands, a terrier licking his boot and another lifting up to paw at him in messy adoration. And he laughed, though she had hardly heard him do so. Her heart seemed to melt further.

She guessed he had little idea how to cook the eggs he had gathered, but she knew he meant to try. For her. It was an apology of sorts, she realized.

She sighed. For a while, she must keep her reasons and her fears to herself, though Struan offered hope, even with obligation. If he knew the truth about her and about Donal, he would withdraw his proposal. Better she refused him now, so that he would never discover the truth, or the extent of the eccentricity, at Kilcrennan.

But she wanted more of his company, and some food, too, before she left him. Nodding silently, she followed him into the kitchen, dogs trotting alongside.

D
aunting,
James thought as he surveyed the untidy desk piled high with papers and books, then sat to resume his work of reading and annotating his grandmother’s manuscript. The distraction—to put it mildly—over the last couple of days had brought respite from the work, but the task remained to finish the manuscript, and wed a girl of fairy blood. An improbable measure of worth, but he knew Elspeth was more than worthy; at the very thought, his body responded with an unbidden surge. Surely she would meet anyone’s standards in a wife for him.

But his great-aunt, Lady Rankin, would soon arrive at Struan House, and she would no doubt have a strong opinion on the matter, particularly as she favored Charlotte Sinclair for him. Still, she could be won over by Elspeth’s charm, he thought. If only Elspeth would accept his proposal, he felt sure the rest would fall into place.

Yet stubbornness ran as deep in the girl as mountains in the sea, and convincing her would be a challenge. Once he took her home and met her grandfather, he planned to court her. If she refused
him after that, he and his siblings might lose nearly everything.

Sighing, he fluttered the pages of the manuscript, which he had nearly finished reading, and he had made inroads with research and notes. The pages with his own jottings sat to the other side, weighed down by a plain rock. The subject of fairy lore still bewildered him, though the accounts themselves—mostly stories of encounters with fairies and the supernatural—were rather entertaining. But he would study the rock formations in the glen, for he was falling behind on his own work. Science still vied with fancy.

Last night, despite Elspeth’s insistence that fairies rode in the garden, all he had noticed were strange drifts of fog and strong gusts, explained by the weather. He was somewhat concerned that she imagined fairies, but he realized, thanks to Lady Struan’s work, how strong local traditions were in this glen. Elspeth had learned those perceptions.

Cold rain struck the windows, and the chair creaked beneath him as he set the manuscript aside. The scope of the work was challenging, but nothing was as difficult as convincing Elspeth MacArthur to marry him.

He could not wait much longer. Even before he had arrived at Struan, he had decided to offer the estate up for sale, for it seemed his best practical solution. He had sent a letter to his advocate, Mr. Browne, asking him to search for a buyer to discuss a fair arrangement. It seemed his only choice, for the sake of his family.

Mr. Browne had sent a reply within a week. James now removed that letter from a drawer to read it again.
The Right Hon. The Viscount Struan,
it read.

A lucrative sale would provide funds that James could divide among his siblings. That way, he could rescue their plummeting finances, and his own, and save their dreams as well. His own dreams were more modest—his geological studies, and now his bride.

Giving up Struan House would be far harder than he had anticipated, for he was already attached to its beauty and its unique atmosphere. But his circumstances had shifted dramatically in the course of the last two days. As preposterous as it seemed, he still had hope that all could be resolved.

He put the letter away and dutifully returned to his work. After a while, he heard the click of dog paws on the wooden floor in the library, and then the swish of skirts. He glanced up. Through the open adjoining door between the study and the library, he saw Elspeth perusing the bookshelves in the larger room. Rising, he went to the door.

She turned. “Sir, I did not mean to disturb your work. I came to read a little.” She held up a book. “A volume on fairy stories.” Her voice was soft, careful, her tone formal.

“There are many more like that one. You’re welcome to borrow any of them.”

“Thank you, but as I will be leaving soon, it is not prudent to borrow. The rain is lessening.” She looked toward the window.

“Aye,” he murmured. As Elspeth moved, she limped a little, supporting herself by grasping chairs or running her hand along the library table. “You should be off your feet,” he remarked, and stepped forward.

“I am fine, Lord Struan. I do not require assistance.”

Had they returned to formal terms so completely? He felt a strong urge to take her into his arms. He was not done with this, though she made it clear that she was. Even the space across the room seemed to him a mile or more. He felt as if he had lost her already, having scarcely known her. But he did not want to let go of this dream.

“It’s a handsome room, the library,” he said, searching for conversation, determined not to let her silence drive him back into his study.

“It is,” she agreed. The walls were set with books from floor to ceiling, and the room boasted a fine marble fireplace and the tall windows were hung with blue satin. Oriental carpets covered the wooden floor, and the walls, papered in hand-painted Chinese florals, held oil paintings of landscapes. “This is a house to protect and preserve. You and your kin must be proud of it,” she went on.

He nodded somberly. “Aye.”

“You would never want to sell it,” she said.

“I would not want to,” he agreed, wondering again how she knew his thoughts.

She wandered to one of the small display cases.

“Do you know much about the stones in here?” She pointed.

He joined her to look at the shelves in the glass-fronted case. “They look like stones that are easily found in this area. Quartz, some very nice cairngorms, some red jasper. My grandfather collected stones, fossils, arrowheads, and so on, and had cases made to display the interesting pieces. When my grandparents came here, they brought the cases and the whole odd collection. I remember playing with the stones when I was a lad, especially when my grandparents still lived in Edinburgh. It was my grandfather’s habit of walking about collecting stones that made my sister and me curious about natural philosophy, the study of nature. I was interested in rocks, and my sister liked fossils.”

“Your grandfather taught you to appreciate rocks, and mine taught me to weave. What of this one?” She pointed at a blue one in the center, one of the larger stones.

“Interesting. A Scotch pebble, that—an agate, and a beautiful specimen. We believe that agates formed when pockets of gases and liquids dried and hardened to form beautiful variegated rings of color. They’re often found with quartz, in volcanic rock. I haven’t heard of many agates found here in the central Highlands. They have a nice range of colors. The blue ones are quite rare,” he added thoughtfully.

“The various blues in it almost glow,” she said. “It runs like a rainbow, from moonlight to midnight.”

“It does,” he murmured. “And it has extraordinary luminosity. Agates like this would probably not be found near Struan. This must have come from elsewhere. Odd, there’s no label. Grandmother must have added it sometime last year.”

“If the case was open, we could examine it more closely.”

He rattled the little door. “I do not know where Mrs. MacKimmie put the key. When she returns, I will open it for you.”

“I will not be here then,” she said.

“Then you must come back,” he replied quietly. “Bring Mr. MacArthur.” James recalled something she had said. “You said your grandfather had lost a stone. Could it be this one?”

“I am not certain.” She leaned down. “I would have to look closer.”

He bent, his arm brushing her shoulder, a pleasant warmth and pressure. He glanced at her, at the purity of her profile, the long sweep of her black lashes, the slight blush on her cheek, her lips. He was still watching her when she glanced up.

She smiled. “Not a closer look at me, but the stone. Tell me more about it.”

He forced his attention back to the case. “To my knowledge, agates are often found in the Midlands, Perthshire, the Isles, some other places in Scotland. It is a type of chalcedony or quartz, as I said,” he went on, “probably formed by cooling gases during a time of tremendous heat in the formation of our planet. They can appear in beds of sedimentary rock, granite, under red sandstone layers, all indicative of very ancient age, and the stupendous amount of heat—volcanic, really—required to create such deposits in the first place. They are not generally found in the Trossachs, so far as I know.”

“But I have seen them in the hills here. Like this one.” She tapped the glass.

“Fascinating. Can you show me where?”

“In the glen,” she said. “And further, in the hills beside Loch Katrine, a few miles northwest. And I saw a stone like this years ago, in the hill at the top of your garden, before it was enlarged—and improved, as they say.”

“Very interesting! Are you certain?”

“I think so. There were stones of different colors, striated like this one. These hills once belonged to the fairies. And they say there is a gateway to the fairy realm on this estate.” She looked over at him. “The hills have a few such portals, so it is said.”

“Probably some fairy legends are based on natural phenomena,” he said thoughtfully. “Some geological notes would be an informative addition to my grandmother’s book. Perhaps you would kindly assist me, since you have an excellent knowledge of the local legends.”

“My grandfather knows more than I do. What I know, I learned from him.” She tilted her head. “But you do not really want to know the truth of the fairies, do you.”

“I prefer truth to fancy. Where did you see the agates?”

“In the hills behind this house, I believe. I was much younger then. Years ago my grandfather found a stone like this up there, when the property belonged to his family. There was neither wall nor grotto then on that hillside. Grandfather left the beautiful stone in place because he felt it should stay there. It is poor manners to take what belongs to the fairies,” she added.

“More fairy magic at Struan? We are rife with it.”

“There are many tales of fairy magic in this glen,” she said. “It is disrespectful to alter a fairy site, or to take something away that belongs to the other realm. Surely you have come across some of this in your research.”

“Aye, fairy sites are claimed in hills, glades, groves, stone circles, wells, natural springs, loch, streams, caves,” he said. “One wonders what is
not
a fairy site.”

“Scoff if you like. When the fairy hill on Struan grounds was altered into the grotto, it’s all very lovely—but I assure you they are not pleased.”

“If so, they have made no fuss about it so far,” he said.

“If the fairies are angered, they can be spiteful in their curses. For example, for altering the fairy hill with the grotto, your kin could fall under a curse, or lose a fortune, even have unfortunate deaths in the family, and no children born to continue the line.”

Lose a fortune? He frowned. “Sounds exceedingly grim.”

“Oh, it can be,” she answered.

“Then it’s a very good thing fairies are only imagination. I need not worry.”

She slid him a sour look and strolled away, looking around the room, stopping before the fireplace to hold out her hands to the warmth. She glanced up. “Oh, look!”

“What is it?” He walked over to join her. “The painting above the mantel? A favorite of my grandmother’s, I think. I haven’t looked at it closely myself.” It was a landscape, the design a little busy, trees in a meadow at moonlight, something like that; he had hardly paid attention to it.

“Such lovely detail,” she said, gazing up. “The dancers, the horses, the magical light.” Smiling, she looked at him. “You have a fairy painting in your library, sir.”

“Fairies! I thought it was just trees and such.” Puzzled, he gazed upward. The gilt-framed painting was a large, sweeping oil landscape showing luminous moonlight, dark clouds, and billowing trees, all done in a deft hand with some touches of delicate detail. At first glance the moor and woodland seemed empty. Then he noticed the small figures, a few dancers in gossamer veiling around in a ring of light, other figures visible inside an opening in a hillside that glowed with light. In the distance, cloaked figures moved on horseback between the trees.

“An imaginative artist,” he said.

“My father painted it,” she said quietly. “Niall MacArthur of Kilcrennan.”

James looked at her in surprise. “What! You said nothing of it.”

“I knew it was in the house, but I did not know where. He had a gift for painting, and did this one a year or so before I was born. At the time, Struan House was still in our family, the property of my great-grandfather, who sold the estate to your grandfather.”

“Aye, the record of sale was among some papers I recently saw. Does your father live at Kilcrennan as well?”

“He is no longer with us. I never knew him, or my mother. My grandfather raised me from infancy.”

Murmuring in sympathy, James glanced down at her, touched deep, feeling the urge to share something of himself and his past. “I lost my parents when I
was nine years old,” he told her. “My brothers and sister and I were taken from our Highland home in Perthshire and separated into the care of relatives. My great-aunt, Lady Rankin, raised me with Fiona, my twin, south of Edinburgh.”

As Elspeth studied him, James felt true acceptance there, and knew that the warmth in her eyes was genuine. “We are both orphans, then. We have that in common.”

“I would hope we have happier things in common than that,” he said wryly.

“So you and your sister were twins? I liked her very much when we met,” she added. “I am glad that you had each other to rely on during those sad years.”

“Aye. She liked you as well.” Later, Fiona had agreed with Sir Walter Scott that James should seek Elspeth out—both of them had hopes of a match, he thought.

She tipped her head. “You do not like people to know much about you. Why so?”