Staggering to the bathroom, she leaned on the sink, taking deep gulps of air until she no longer felt like she was definitely dying, only almost dying.
She looked up and saw herself in the mirror, wincing at the sight. She winced again when she saw Donna’s reply waiting on her cellphone.
You know how I feel about David. I still can’t believe you forgave him for what he did in Paris.
Heather groaned aloud. Maybe Donna was right. Maybe she should have dumped him for sleeping with Caroline. She had thrown him out for a week but they’d talked and they’d drunk wine and they’d talked a lot more.
He’d grovelled and she’d told him to get up off his knees and then somehow they were back together in time for the annual conference. She wasn’t even sure how it had happened.
Got to go get ready. Wish me luck.
She left the cellphone on the side before climbing into the shower. Was Donna right? Should she have broken up with him after his one night stand with his French counterpart?
She refused to think about it. That was in the past. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing in the past mattered anymore. All that mattered was getting the promotion. David didn’t think she had a chance but she’d prove him wrong. Then he’d be proud of her.
When she emerged from the bathroom there was a reply waiting for her from Donna.
You’re going to nail this promotion, you know that, right?
Heather wrapped a towel around her hair before typing back:
Of course I am. I’m great. Big office here I come.
Donna’s reply came through at once.
Be sure to remember us little people when you’re sitting on top of the world.
Heather sent a final response.
Freezing my Cairngorms off.
She walked through to her bedroom, glancing up at the painting on the wall above her bed. MacGregor Castle immortalised in oils. It was the only thing of her parents’ that they’d held onto after the bankruptcy. Even the official receiver hadn’t wanted it. They did.
It was a painting of the castle that belonged to the man who’d ruined their family. The man who seven hundred years ago had walked into a peace treaty with her ancestor, Mungo Frazer. In the midst of the negotiations, laird Gavin MacGregor had stabbed her ancestor in the heart.
Why would they want a reminder of the MacGregors on their wall? She asked them many times and their answer was always the same. “To remember who did this to us. One day we’ll get revenge on the MacGregors, Heather. One day we will win.”
After their house was sold out from under them by the bank the only things they had left was the painting . They left it and a note on Heather’s door step. Then they drove a hire car out to the cliff top above the quarry. She found the note too late to stop their final drive. She kept the painting.
It was her only link to her parents. It was cold and dark and brooding like they’d been. Her grandparents had been the same by all accounts. Generation after generation bitter and angry because of one act that took place centuries ago.
She felt their anger and their rage at how unfair it all was. One act had ruined the family, had taken them from powerful lairds of the highlands to scraping by in abject poverty.
The Frazers had never recovered. By the time of her grandparents there was nothing left of their past wealth, only the painting and her parents house. Then the house was taken by the bank and all she had to connect her to the Frazer clan was the painting.
She had no idea how old it was, nor when it was completed. The frame was Victorian but the darkness of the oils suggested the canvas within was far older.
The artist had painted the castle how it appeared back in the Middle Ages. Near its base a small village had sprung up and among the wood and stone buildings tiny figures gave the impression of movement.
There was a blacksmith hammering at an anvil. To the left a hunter was about to fire an arrow at a passing deer. A market stall with a tiny scrap of tartan cloth held out to a potential purchaser. Children ran back and forth, dogs stuck their heads into chicken coops.
Above it all the castle loomed, casting the entire village into shadow. Only one figure was visible inside the castle walls, a face peering out from an upper window in the keep. Was that meant to be him? The man who ruined her family?
Gavin MacGregor?
Her parents were certain that was him. She’d often find her father staring at that face when he thought no one was looking, as if trying to reach out and ask him why. Why kill during a negotiation for peace? Why be so cruel?
She had her own questions for the laird of the MacGregors but she’d never get the answers to them. Not unless she could travel through time.
