The Secret Gift (9 page)

With a brief stopover in her room to drop off the voltage converter and grab her handheld (for note taking) and camera (for picture taking), Libby headed for the car. As she pulled out of the driveway, she realized she’d forgotten her umbrella, but figured she’d be back long before the rain hit.

Once she was outside of the village, she pulled into a passing place and took out the map for a quick study.

The map was incredibly detailed, illustrating every cairn, stone circle, and ancient broch that spotted the area. It also showed all roads and paths, marked or unmarked, and even some of the homesteads. It would have been a great help to her that first night she’d arrived.

She refolded the map and pulled out of the passing place, heading along a landscape filled with rises and falls and hills that were green with twisting, turning burns, some no wider than a ditch. Awesome mountains, green and ridged from the winter snowmelt that trickled down into rippling lochs, stood swept with heather and gorse, now brown with the approaching winter. According to her travel book, in the spring they would be bright with brilliant purple and yellow blooms. Trees were sparse, growing most often together in a copse. Every so often, she passed a house or a cottage surrounded by acres and acres of pastureland.

One of these pastures seemed to fall at the same spot on the map where one of the stone circles was supposed to be located. Libby slowed the car to a crawl, peering over the landscape, expecting to see something similar to Stonehenge. All she saw was grazing sheep—acres and acres, it seemed, of grazing sheep.

She stopped, pulled into a lay-by. She’d grown up in one of the most historic regions of the United States, but even there, stone circles weren’t something one ever came across. She might never get the opportunity to see one again.

She got out of the car and stood at the side of the road, shading her eyes, as if that might help her to spot it. She was so caught up with looking that she didn’t even hear the footsteps approaching from behind.

“Lookin’ fer somethin’, are you?”

“Oh!” Libby almost jumped. “I didn’t hear you. I was just ...”

He was an older man, probably early seventies, substantially built, with thick arms and a barrellike chest. He had a cap fixed firmly on his brilliantly white-haired head, his face was careworn, and his eyes, pale blue, sparkled with lively warmth.

“The map indicated there was a stone circle somewhere near here, but I can’t seem to find it.”

“Oh, aye,” he said. “ ’Tis just over that rise. Would you like I can take you to it?”

“Thank you.” Libby smiled. “That would be lovely.” She held out her hand. “I’m Libby Hutchinson.”

“Hallo to you, Libby Hutchinson. I’d be Gil.” It was all the name he offered in reply. Just Gil.

He’d lived on the estate (as he called it) all his life and spent his days working as something he called a “ghillie,” which Libby came to understand was someone who looked after the landscape, watching out for poachers, protecting the village from rabid wildlife. With him he had a small brindle-colored terrier whom he called simply Lad and who was presently nosing around the thick grass in search, no doubt, of something to chase.

“ ’Tis a marvelous place, this,” Gil said. “We’ve ospreys that nest here, and a number of capercaillie. They’re endangered elsewhere, don’t you know?”

Libby hadn’t known. Of course she didn’t know what in the world a capercaillie was, either. She simply nodded.

“ ’Tis usually hill walkers and naturists who come lookin’ fer the stones,” he said, giving her a once-over. “You dinna look much like a naturist.” And then he added on a chuckle, “For one thing, you obviously bathe.”

Libby smiled. “No, just a curious tourist, I’m afraid.”

“Well, then, this way. Oh, and mind the sheep as you go.”

They chatted together as they crossed the field, the sheep hopping away whenever they drew too near and Lad barking excitedly after them. Libby was grateful for the rubber soles of her duck shoes because the ground was boggy and wet beneath her feet. The wind had also picked up and was pulling at her hair, sweeping it into her eyes as they walked.

“So here they are now,” Gil said, motioning toward fifty or more stones, none of them more than two feet in height, fanning out across the hillside. They were moss-splotched, weathered, each differently shaped from the other. They were nearly so obscure, so overgrown, she could have easily walked past them without even noticing them, without noticing the exact placement of one to the other in a perfectly circular formation. But just to stand among them, with the wind sighing through the tall grass, surrounded by the earthy smell of the peaty ground, gave one a sudden sense of peculiar timelessness.

“What are they?” she asked.

“Naebody can say for certain. Some are of the opinion that they are megalithic, some sort of ancient astronomical gauge. But I much prefer the local legend of the stones.”

“Which is?”

“Well, tradition claims that the circle marks the site of a battle that was waged between two rival clans, the Mackay and the Sinclair. The Mackay, they say, won the battle, thereby securing this land, and set up a memorial to the day by burying the dead of both clans in this circle, marking the head of each fallen warrior with a stone. Only fifty-three remain today, but there is evidence that at one time the stones numbered well over two hundred.”

Just then Libby heard a sound, like a church bell, dinging three times.

Gil looked at her and grinned. “That would be my mobile ringing.” He pointed in the distance to a small cottage tucked against the side of a steep hill. A welcoming spiral of smoke issued from its short chimney. As if on cue, the bell rang again.

“The Widow MacLeod is calling me to tea. I promised her I would tend to her ailing milch cow. Seems she’s got a sour stomach—the cow, that is, not the Widow MacLeod. Won’t give her any milk, so I guess I’d best see to the cow afore tea, aye? I’m partial to cream in my tea. Would you care to join us, then?”

Libby gave a glance to the sky, which was darkening fast. “I’d love to, but I’m afraid my time is short today. I would love to come back another time, though.”

“Anytime you’d like, lass. The good widow loves visitors, especially lasses. She had six sons and her husband, Alec, afore he departed this life, so she’s lived with naught but lads all her life.” He turned to leave. “Stay with the stones long as you wish. They’ll not be going anywhere anytime soon.”

Libby thanked Gil and watched him go, whistling for his terrier, who fell obediently into step beside him. She liked him. He was the sort of man who made you feel as if you’d known him all your life, and she suspected he would have an endless repertoire of stories and legends that he could share. She realized only after he’d left that she’d forgotten to ask him whether he’d ever known her mother. Perhaps, she decided, she could seek him out the next day.

Libby didn’t leave the stone-strewn field immediately, but remained, lowering herself into the tall grass and flattening her hand against one cragged stone. She thought of Gil’s story, of the local legend surrounding the stones, and tried to imagine the field centuries earlier, peopled not with sheep but with kilted Highland warriors, claymores drawn as they locked in fierce battle. If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear their war cries carrying on the wind.

Yes, she had to agree with Gil that was definitely the most inspired explanation for the stone circle.

A short time later, Libby returned to the car and continued down the road. The road narrowed, then fell unpaved, but this time she knew she was on the right course. She checked the map as she entered a wooded thicket, past a cottage and a tall iron gate. Then, as the drive turned toward the sea, she finally saw it.

It was a castle much like any fairy tale she’d ever read, and it stood framed almost perfectly in the break in the trees. Twin towers flanked it on either side, so pristinely whitewashed that it almost seemed to glow. In fact, just as she looked at it, the sun seemed to break through the clouds, bathing the keep in a misty, delicate light. The image of it stole Libby’s breath, and she brought the car to a stop so she could fully appreciate the view.

It was quite simply the most beautiful place she’d ever seen.

The map indicated that the castle was privately owned, but Ian M’Cuick had sent her here for a reason. It was the Mackay castle, he’d said. Libby hoped that whoever lived in the castle wouldn’t mind her stopping by to ask a few questions.

But as she guided the car through a second set of gates, she found herself hitting the brakes, coming to a sudden, skidding halt.

There, once emblazoned but now little more than chipped and patchy ironwork, was the silhouetted image of two thistles intertwined. It was the same emblem that had been carved into the box where she’d found the stone, the same emblem her mother had always stitched on her handkerchiefs. Libby’s pulse began to race in anticipation.

She pulled the car into a space off the main drive and cut the engine. As she got out, she could see that the castle had been built atop a sea cliff, high above the North Sea. The wind was stronger here, buffeting the castle, pulling relentlessly at the map she carried. The view from the castle’s seawall seemed to stretch to the very end of the world.

It was as she walked to the arched front door that Libby noticed the mud on her shoes. Not the first impression she wanted to make. She spotted a boot brush in the shape of a hedgehog waiting to the side of the door and was bent over making good use of it when the front door suddenly, unexpectedly swung open.

“I hope you won’t mind my using your boot brush. I was just—”

Libby looked up into a familiar and utterly unexpected face.

“Oh,” was all she managed.

“You,” was all he said in response as he wore that same scowl she’d now seen twice before.

Libby stared up at Graeme Mackenzie’s frowning face in mute disbelief.

“You ... you live
here?”

“I believe you already knew that.”

He was wearing the same black sweater and jeans she’d seen him in earlier at the hardware store, only this time his feet were bare—and he had a pencil stuck behind his left ear. His accent, she noticed, sounded more English than Scottish.

“How could I possibly know that?”

His frown deepened. He crossed his arms over his chest, one brow lifting incredulously. “I hope you don’t expect me to believe you’ve gotten yourself lost again.”

Gotten herself lost? Libby stared at him, trying to decipher his words.

And then she realized.

That first night. The gun. The
man.

She had been here?

It had all looked so different in the dark, and she’d been so tired, the memory of that night was really just a blur. Still, exhausted or not, she certainly would have remembered seeing a castle.

“I’m sorry. Truly. I had no idea.”

“Right,” he said skeptically. “So what am I to believe now? That you’re here selling assurance policies?”

“No. I’m here because I was told this is the Mackay castle.”

“It is—rather it
was
—the Mackay castle. It was recently taken over by new owners. But then you already knew that, didn’t you?”

What on earth was he talking about?

“Look, Mr. Mackenzie, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I really did just come here to do some research.”

“Research? Is that what you call it?” His face hardened. “Well, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place.”

And with that he slammed the door soundly in her face.

Libby stood with her mouth open, staring at the weathered door, a mixture of outrage and disbelief clouding her vision.

“I see,” she said to the iron door knocker. “Well, then, I won’t trouble you a moment longer.”

She trudged back to the car and got in, muttering every word she could think of to describe him along the way.

“Rude ...”

“Unrefined ...”

“Ill-mannered ...”

“Insufferable ...”

“Handsome ...”

What?!

Ignoring that last thought, she jammed the key into the ignition and cranked it.

The car coughed, actually coughed, in response.

And then it went absolutely silent.

Libby turned the key again.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

Damn!

“No! No! No!” she said out loud to the steering wheel.

She tried pushing the
NAV
button. It had been useless since that first day, but she tried it anyway. It didn’t make a sound.

“What next?” she asked aloud.

She got her answer a second later.

The skies above her suddenly split in two with a resounding clap, and the rain that had been threatening came down in a sudden, roaring barrage.

It was the most unbelievable thing Libby had ever seen. The rain was pounding the car as she sat there with the windows steaming from her frustration. She counted off five minutes, three hundred seconds exactly, and then tried the engine again.

Nothing. Not a cough. Not even a click.

She counted off three hundred seconds more, and tried it again, tried it another seven times, all with no success.

In that time, the rain had only gone on to fall harder, pelting the car with a pebbly staccato.

Libby looked outside. Night was falling. She was miles from the village, too far to walk even back to the kindly Widow MacLeod’s. Oh, how she wished she’d taken Gil up on his offer for tea. She could be sitting snug in a warm kitchen at that very moment, enjoying a bite of shortbread, her mood all the better for not having had a door slammed in her face by that utter boor.

A roll of thunder rumbled across the courtyard, shuddering through the car, taunting her for her bad decision making.

She certainly couldn’t sit in the car all night. For one thing, she needed almost desperately to use the bathroom. And she needed to call the car rental agency for assistance. She peered across the courtyard, through the haze of pouring rain, at the very door that had minutes ago been slammed in her face.