Duncan gave a husk of laughter. “I would like that, but best do it the Christian way in St. Magnus Cathedral so everyone can come and say what a grand old man I was and Thorsay won’t see my like again.”
“True, and thank God for that,” Ramsay said tartly. “For heaven’s sake, let me take you back inside!”
Duncan shook his head stubbornly and took another gulp of whisky. “You really should marry Signy. She’s a grand girl and can run things if you take off for your foreign lands again.”
“I won’t be leaving,” Ramsay said, his words a solemn vow. “And I doubt I could persuade Signy to marry me even if I wanted to ask her.”
“Use some of that damned charm of yours, lad. That will change her mind.” Duncan began coughing again, paroxysms shaking his thin body. “A grand girl,” he repeated in a soft murmur. “The daughter I wished we had.”
After a long silence, a fierce tremor went through the laird and he whispered,“Caitlin?”in a voice of wonder.“Alistair!”
The whisky bottle tumbled to the ground as he slowly folded into himself with one last rattling breath.
Horrified, Ramsay felt for a pulse but could find nothing.Nothing.Odin rose, put his paws on the old laird’s arm, and gave a soul searing feline howl of despair. Then he leaped from the bench and disappeared into the stormy night.
Swamped with grief, Ramsay stood and gathered his grandfather into his arms. The old laird was so light, a shrunken shadow of the powerful man he’d been.
Then he carried Duncan’s frail body into the house, glad his anguished tears were lost in the rain.
Chapter 7
Signy had drifted off to sleep to the sounds of the rain and the rushing waves on the beach below her cottage. In Thorsay, people lived close to nature.
She was woken by pounding on her kitchen door. She came sharply alert, knowing that no visitor at this hour of the night would be bringing good news. As she swung from her bed, she pulled on a heavy robe and shoved her feet into fleece-lined slippers against the late-night drafts. Fiona came to her side, looking alert.
Her kitchen was dimly lit by the coals of the peat fire as the door swung open, revealing Ramsay. He was drenched, water running down his haggard face from his saturated hair and pouring from the cape of his oilcloth coat.
“He . . . he’s gone,” Ramsay said heavily. “The old laird is gone.”
Signy’s vision dimmed and she swayed, on the verge of collapse before Ramsay’s arms came around her. His body was chilled but his embrace was strong. She clung to him until she had come to terms with his news. She had known the end was near, but notnow,surely at some more distant time.
Sensing her distress, Fiona licked her hand in an offer of canine comfort. Signy scratched the dog’s head gratefully, then stepped out of Ramsay’s embrace, saying unsteadily, “We need to stop meeting like this. Most improper.”
He smiled crookedly. “You mean mourning together over the death of someone we both loved?”
She nodded as she bent to add more peat to the coals and move the kettle from the hob to the fire. “If ever tea was needed, the time is now.”
Ramsay took off his dripping coat and hung it on a peg by the door before he slumped heavily into one of the kitchen chairs. As Fiona lay down on his feet, he rested his elbows on the table so he could bury his face in his hands. “I can’t believe that I’ve been back in Thorsay for less than a day. It seems so much longer.”
“You’ve certainly had a very full day.” They both had. “At least you made it home in time to say good-bye.”
Voice muffled behind his hands, Ramsay said, “I think he was holding on until I returned. Then he simply . . . let go.”
Signy had no trouble believing that. The laird had been fading for months, and she’d sensed that he was hanging on by sheer force of will. “How did it happen, and why wasn’t I called over?”
“Mrs. Donovan organized a dinner to welcome me back. The weather sent people home early, and I went to sit with the laird. He ordered me to pour him some of Callan’s best whisky and tell him stories of my travels, so I did.
“Then he asked me to take him outside to sit and watch the storm.” Ramsay drew a ragged breath. “He said he wanted to die like a Viking, facing into the storm, but I thought that was just talk. He didn’t seem that much weaker. He spoke of the past, and then . . . then he died in my arms.”
As Gisela had died in Signy’s arms. Such memories were as indelible as they were painful. “It sounds as if there was no time to call for me.”
“No, his passing was swift and somewhat unexpected.” After a long silence, Ramsay said softly, “One of the last things my grandfather said was that you were the daughter he’d never had.”
She swallowed hard, her lungs constricting. “He was more my father than my real father.”
“As he was my father also.” Ramsay raised his head and gazed at her, his gray eyes steady. “But I’m glad that you and I are not blood kin.”
“Why would it matter?” She poured boiling water into the teapot, inhaling the soothing fragrance as the leaves began to steep.
