3
The drive from London to Scotland should have taken nine hours. Heather stopped halfway, taking a short walk from her car to the service station.
Climbing into her car a few minutes later, she was about to start the engine when she realized she was crying. She still felt nothing but tears were running down her cheeks. She tried to work out why even as she wiped them away.
She decided it was the injustice of it all. Seven hundred years ago the laird of the MacGregors had stabbed her ancestor during peace talks. The Frazers lost their castle and their wealth, all stolen by the MacGregors.
She had been told the story by her grandmother who spat out the words. “Each generation made worse than the last ever since that fiend murdered one of our own.”
Each generation colder and more distant, her parents included. Two people alike only in misery. Why did she even care? Why was she crying?
Sobbing won’t do anything to fix things, she told herself as she wiped her face, taking a deep breath, glancing up to see her puffy eyes in the rear view mirror. You move on. You can’t change what’s been done. No one can.
By the time she set off she had herself back under control, whatever emotions the stop had brought out were back in the box where they belonged.
The rest of the drive was relatively painless, give or take a couple of sets of roadworks and steadily worsening weather. She made it to Cromarty just before seven in the evening.
Her guesthouse was on the outskirts of the village and she was glad to reach it. For the last hour rain had lashed down from a sky so dark it was almost purple, visibility reduced no more than the few feet in front of her car.
Coming to a stop in the guesthouse car park, she waited to see if there’d be a lull in the rain. It didn’t come so in the end she had no choice but to throw open the door and run for it through the howling wind.
The guesthouse was a haven of warmth and light calling her in. Pushing the door open was like going back in time. Inside the hallway was a grandfather clock that Heather almost crashed into in her rush to get out of the rain.
As she shoved the door shut behind her a face emerged from further down the corridor, an elderly lady with long white hair, frowning when she saw Heather was dripping onto the rug beneath her feet.
“You must be Miss Frazer,” she said in a strong Scottish accent. “I’m Edie MacDonald. Dinnae move, I’ll fetch you a towel. Jonathan!”
From the top of a stairs a young lad of no more than sixteen appeared. “What is it Grandma?” he called down.
“Help the wee lassie with her bags.”
The lad took the stairs two at a time, examining Heather closely when he reached the hallway. “You’re not Scottish.”
“ I have a Scottish background if it helps.”
“What’s your surname?” His eyes narrowed.
“Frazer.”
“Oh, I see. One of them.”
“What do you mean, one of them?”
The boy ignored her, picking up a raincoat from the rack beside him. “How many cases?”
“Oh, just the one.”
“Car unlocked?”
“No, here, take the key.”
He pulled the front door open, wind blasting in through the gap as he vanished. Edie appeared while he was gone, carrying a crimson towel which she handed to Heather.
“Here, dry yourself off, lass. I’ve put the kettle on. You can come and have some tea while he takes your bags upstairs. I’ve put you in room three. You get a lovely view of MacGregor castle from there, when the rain stops of course.”
“Right, thanks.” She thought about asking for a room that didn’t have a view of MacGregor Castle but decided that would lead to questions she didn’t want to answer.
She could handle looking at it anyway. Didn’t she look at it in the painting each night before she went to bed? The real thing would make it just like being at home. Maybe.
