Aedan rose to his feet. “Shall we join Aunt Lill and your sister for coffee?”
Dougal rose. “Aye. Aunt Lill brought her monkey to tea today, and I heard the wee beastie chattering somewhere while we were at dinner. Does wee Thistle still keep late hours?”
Aedan grinned. “I assure you, Miss Thistle will not be taking coffee with us tonight.”
“Taking coffee, tossing cups, cracking china,” Dougal drawled. “She is entertaining company.”
“We are in luck. Amy is planning parlor games for tonight, and she finds Thistle tiresome, so the beastie is banned from the drawing room. A word of warning—your sister is delighted you are here for a good game of charades.”
“Please, not Amy’s endless games of charades.” Dougal groaned.
“We must submit,” Aedan said, pinching back a smile.
“Have you not submitted to her yet? I wondered if my sister would have convinced you to marry her by now, as she would be a safe and sensible match. She is aware of your hesitations regarding marriage.”
Aedan frowned, and Dougal saw the humor diminish in his cousin’s vivid blue eyes. “I am very fond of Amy, and she has been a great help to me in refurbishing this house according to my father’s will.” He gestured around the room, with its new tartan carpeting and chintz draperies. “But she is young, and we are cousins. I love her as a sister, but that is all I can offer her.”
“She is made of iron under all that charm,” Dougal said. “That will not break her heart.”
“Good. Still, I hesitate about marrying anyone. I want a wife and family, but I have not been fortunate in that regard.”
“Surely the luck of Dundrennan will change.”
“According to the black curse over my ancestors—and so myself—the lairds of Dundrennan can never risk falling in love. I tested the rule and found it too truthful.”
“I am sorry. Someday,” Dougal said quietly, “you will take the risk again.”
“Which means I would have to break a spell that has haunted this place for centuries. I am not certain it is worth it,” Aedan murmured, and opened the door.
Later, in the drawing room with their Aunt Lillian and Dougal’s two sisters, he could hear his aunt’s monkey chittering through the door, though Amy flatly refused to let it come inside. Dougal relaxed that evening, laughing as Amy, blonde and vivacious in yards of pink flounces, firmly shooed the tiny creature out of the room when it tried to sneak past a housemaid.
Glad to be with family, content and amused, he wondered how Meg MacNeill would suit with them. Very well indeed, he was sure. He could easily imagine her here, chatting and laughing with his sisters, laughing at Lill’s monkey, and deep in intellectual conversation with Aedan, who would be interested in Meg’s journals. His father, Sir Hugh MacBride, had been a famous and very prolific poet, and Sir Hugh’s vast library was one of the treasures of Dundrennan House. She would fit in with his family as if she had known them forever.
But he had no guarantee that she wanted to be part of his life. And he did not know when, or if, he would see her again.
He wanted genuine love in his life, wanted it with Meg. For Aedan MacBride, love was a dark curse, something to avoid, but Dougal had hope. Loneliness had become a burden, and the risk and danger of his work was less satisfying now. Meeting a beautiful, mysterious girl on a wind-lashed rock had been the turning point. He felt there was destiny there, if only she agreed.
Soon he intended to go to Caransay to resume the work—and to woo her properly. Though she had reason to distance herself, considering their initial meeting years back, he sensed that something else, something current, troubled her more.
But before he could travel to the Isles to see Meg again, he must face Lady Strathlin.
*
“Here it is.Campanula rotundifolia.The bluebell,” Meg said, turning a page in the volume spread open on the library table. She had arrived at Strathlin Castle a few days earlier, entering a whirlwind of demands on her time and attention, but today she had found a little time to work on her island journal. Writing a notation beneath a sketch of the tiny blue flowers, she sanded the ink and blew gently to dry it.
In Gaelic, thebrog na cubhaig,or cuckoo’s shoe,she wrote, is a blue bellflower common in Scotland and prolific on Caransay’s flowery machair. Fairies are said to make hats from the flowers and also use the tiny bells to ring out a warning of danger.
Hearing a knock on the door, she glanced up to see Angela Shaw enter and come toward her. “Working on your Caransay journal?”
“Just finishing some pages I did on holiday.” She felt a tug of the heartstrings to think of the island, where her son and family remained, and where Dougal Stewart had spun her head and her life around. The day she left, she had not seen him, but heard he had gone out to Sgeir Caran to work. Sailing with Norrie on her way to Tobermory to catch a steamer to the mainland shore, she had looked up at the great sea rock, aware that Dougal was either up there, or under the sea, and she wished she had said farewell—and wished she had found the courage to tell him all the truth.
“Bluebells!” Angela looked at the open page. “What a pretty drawing.”
“Thank you, I am rather pleased with it.” Meg inked a few refining strokes. “Is there news about arrangements for the soiree?”
“Mr. Hamilton and I are settling some of the details. And I had a letter from Mr. Charles Worth this morning. He is sendinga dressmaker from his shop in Paris to fit your gown. She will arrive next week by train to Edinburgh. The coachman can bring her here if you like.”
“How nice! She should stay at Charlotte Square townhouse rather than out here at Strathlin.” Meg looked up. “The soiree will be held there, and we should leave soon for the city. The fittings can be done there. Mrs. Larrimore can prepare a room for the seamstress to stay and work in comfort.”
