Daydreaming about him would be simply that—a dream.
After all, it wasn’t as if she would marry him.
1
Nine Years Later
July 15, 1817
Cairnfell
Pettercairn, Scotland
He had arrived back at the beginning.
It seemed fitting, Captain Tavish Balfour supposed, that his path should take him here—across the River Southcairn at the shallow west ford and into the shade of the ancient Caledonian forest before sending him up the slopes of Cairnfell.
Yes. Returning to this place was good. To remember before confronting . . .
Well . . . everything.
The towering Scots pine dripped with moss as he urged his horse, Goliath,up the narrow path. Clouds raced overhead, blocking the sun and promising rain later. Wind tugged at his hat and snapped his greatcoat, bringing with it the scent of damp earth and whispered memories.
The trail crested the hill, the trees receding.
In the middle of a clearing, the ruins of Cairnfell Castle loomed—the abandoned ancient seat of his family, the Earls of Northcairn. Four stories of stones so old that ferns and lemon-colored marsh marigolds clung to them. Only the impressive oak front door guarded by an iron yett and the first two floors with their panes of glass showed any signs of habitation in the past century. Generations ago, Tavish’s family had built the roomier Castle Balfour to the north, leaving Cairnfell Castle to be slowly reclaimed by the elements.
Beyond the tower house, the hill rose a final time to an area of bare ground. There an ancient cairn stood—the cairn atop the fell—an enormous pile of stones over thirty feet high.
In short, climbing the path to his ancestral lands felt like traversing through History itself.
Or perhaps it was merely Tavish’s own history, specifically. The ghosts he had returned home to banish.
This reckoning had been long in coming.
He swore he heard laughter on the wind.Herlaughter. A giggling sound that had always clung to his senses like the sweetest honey.
Swinging out of the saddle, Tavish looped the reins around an obliging post beside the castle. He and his older brother, Callum, had driven the post into place when Tavish had been fourteen.
“Can’t leave our horses untethered while we . . .” Callum had drifted off with a suggestive lift of his eyebrows and a sideways glance at the castle, slamming the post into the loamy earth.
“While we what?” Tavish had asked, holding the oak pole steady.
His brother had rolled his eyes. Callum was nearly seventeen, and Tavish knew he had been spending far too much time with Farmer McKay’s bonnie widow.
“Ye’ll figure it out soon enough,” Callum had replied.
Tavishhadfigured it out—both Callum’s meaning, as well as what his brother had been up to with Widow McKay and other lasses at Cairnfell.
More history. More pain to be confronted.
At least Tavish had gotten Goliath out of Callum’s penance. He patted the horse’s neck before checking his Baker rifle and saddle bags—the muscle memory of a soldier too long at war.
All secured, Tavish turned for the tower house. He pulled on the yett—the metal gate protecting the oak front door—only to find it locked fast.
Huh. Here was something new.
The yett had never been locked, but now its iron bars appeared recently cleaned and oiled. At least someone was tending to the place. Mariah, most likely. His eldest sister had always been the first to address a need.
