He smiled, warm with mischief and—affection, in a way. “My uncle wrote books—poetry, mostly. Romantic, lofty stuff, legends and tragedies, much beating of breasts and angst. Perhaps you have heard of him. Sir Hugh MacBride.”
“I have read everything he wrote! How marvelous to have such genius in your family.”
“Did your island school stretch to overblown romantic poetry?”
“We learned English and all subjects in the village school. We had math, reading, writing—including good and bad poetry.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And as a small girl, I spent winters on the mainland at my grandfather’s house. He hired tutors for me. Literature, languages, sciences, and more mathematics than I cared to learn. I had music and drawing lessons, too.”
“A mainland education as well. Impressive.”
“I am not the fishwife you may think me, Mr. Stewart,” she ended crisply.
He smiled, small and rueful. “I beg your pardon. I, too, had a tutor. I loved maths and sciences, and thought the rest rather deadly. I studied alongside my three sisters and our cousins.”
“Three sisters!”
“My cousins and I got into some scrapes, perhaps to counter all the femininity around us.” He grinned. “We made towers and fortresses out of books in the library. It did not earn approval.”
A laugh bubbled up. “Now you still make towers!”
“I do.” He looked chagrined. “And earn some disapproval.”
“What about another island? Guga is nearby. Put your lighthouse on another sea rock.”
“Sgeir Caran is the best suited for the placement as well as the construction.”
“Commissioners and engineers do not consider traditions and legends or what all that means to these islanders.”
“The legends are holding back progress. Should more people drown out there to save old traditions?” As he pointed toward the water, she saw the hot spark of his temper suddenly. “Tell your baroness the lighthouse will go up. If she wishes to discuss it, it must be in person. No more letters. I have had enough of her lawyers and their tricks.”
“Tricks!” Meg leaned forward. “She would not trick anyone.”
“Her solicitors are pulling every angle they can, but they do not seem to understand. Come here.” He took her arm, firm and insistent. A fire of awareness exploded through her at his touch. He drew her toward the slope of a hill covered in purple heather. She glanced back to be sure her grandmothers were watching Sean, who skipped out of the water to kneel on the sand.
At the top of the hill, he stopped, and she looked out with him at an expansive view of the sea. Stewart pointed toward a low wedge-shaped rocky isle.
“Look there, Miss MacNeill. What do you see?”
“Another great rock, and the Isle of Guga in the distance just past it. Guga bears the scars of your quarry work still raw there. But it would be a good place for a lighthouse.”
“What else?”
She looked. “Nothing else.”
“Precisely. Our huts are gone.”
“Ah.” She remembered that one of his letters had detailed losing those shelters to storms.
“The huts we built there were taken down by gales.”
“Perhaps it was a sign for you to stop the work.”
“I do not give up, Miss MacNeill,” he reminded her. “Guga is an inhospitable rock amid a thorny patch of half-submerged rocks. My men took too many risks due to the weather and the treacherous seascape out there.”
“Sgeir Caran is just a rock like Guga. Not—hospitable either.”Well, but for the little cave that proved a fine shelter one stormy night,she thought wryly.
