“To fetch the gig and ride around the base of the hill to find Mr. Scrooge. He needs to stop blasting—and loan his men andshovels to me!” Hitching up her skirts, she hurried along the incline.
Chapter Eight
Earth and rocksundered open, spitting debris into a blue sky as the blast shivered through the heather. Standing two hundred yards away, Aedan felt the vibration. He had witnessed countless explosions as a civil engineer, but this time the world—his very being—seemed to tilt. Swift as a shadow, a foreboding rushed through him and faded.
Just a routine blast, he told himself, a safe and necessary phase in the construction of the parliamentary road under his supervision. His contract with the Commission for the Department of Roads and Highways required the timely completion of this Highland project, and he was fiercely determined to meet that commitment.
In truth, he felt uneasy about making permanent alterations to his lands, for the highway would cut through the edge of his property. Still, he knew the merits of making improvements across Scotland, and he would do his part.
Underfoot, part of the wide road was already topped with a tightly packed layer of crushed stone that stretched south over the fells toward Glasgow. Northward, the road met a line of hills that crossed the moorland for miles. Wooden stakes zigzagged up the rough earthen incline of Cairn Drishan, marking the unfinished path.
For two years, through rough terrain and in unpredictable weather, Aedan and his crew had inched a gravel-packed routealong the Highland Boundary Line. Just a few weeks remained before the queen’s visit to Dundrennan, when the government expected the route to be completed. But the delays posed by the discovery of old walls on Cairn Drishan threatened to halt the work indefinitely.
He glanced toward Cairn Drishan, a mile away yet easily visible as part of a curving chain of hills. Its rounded top sat slightly askew, like a tilted hat. Notches halfway up one heathery slope marked the road cuts, and a deep gouge indicated the site of the ruined wall.
He thought of Christina Blackburn, examining the stones up there now, and his heart beat a little faster, which only made him frown. He had to detach his interest. But she was lush and spirited behind that gentle, bookish exterior, and he was fascinated. He wanted to learn more about her, wanted her to stay—
No,he cautioned himself. It would have been better had the museum antiquarian turned out to be an old fusspot after all. And better still if the stone wall proved unremarkable so his work could continue.
The explosion’s thunder gradually subsided, followed by a warm and dusty wind. Aedan stepped out from behind the protection of a large boulder just as several of his work crew did the same, a little further along the road. A young blond man approached him.
“Rob! Just a touch of black powder reduced that cluster of boulders and saved days of hard labor,” Aedan called. “Well done!”
“Thank you, sir.” Robert Campbell, his assistant engineer, smiled. He looked more like a towheaded schoolboy than the most promising student in Rankine’s classes in modern principles of engineering at Glasgow University, where Aedan had first met the younger engineer. “I know the plan callsfor grading by hand digging whenever possible to preserve the landscape, but we are finding more rock than anticipated.”
“Blasting is the best and likely the only solution.” Aedan brushed earth dust from his coat sleeves. “Placing charges cautiously keeps the damage to a minimum. Good work.”
“I cannot go wrong. Hector MacDonald watches me like a nursemaid.” Rob turned to grin as a lanky, sun-browned man came toward them.
“I made sure the lad didna pluff the cap off Cairn Drishan, and he did fine,” Hector said. “Though that earlier blast exposed the old wall. Did yer lady antiquarian decide if ’tis an ancient thing, as you feared?”
“She’s on the other side of that hill there, taking a look.” Aedan gestured. “And we will hope that nothing of great significance is there.”
“Yer father always protested the highway project,” Hector said. “Afeared of the damage to anything ancient.”
“I thought it was because he loathed improvements in the Highlands,” Rob said.
“Both. He did not want to sully the land or destroy local history,” Aedan replied.
“Ah, but a landslide or an earthquake buried that wall years ago,” Hector observed, glancing at the range of hills behind them. “Nature does its own damage.”
“The Drishan ridge runs into the Highland Boundary, where tremors have occurred,” Rob said. “I studied a semester in the new science of geology.”
“Perhaps a mud slide took doon that wee stone house,” Hector mused.
“Ancient walls can be several feet thick,” Rob said. “Perhaps your antiquarian will find that the case.”
Aedan rubbed a hand over his face wearily, feeling a sense of dread. Christina Blackburn had authority over part of his verylife. He told her the wall was recent, but suspected it was ancient. He just did not want it to be true.
He stood to lose all—road, career, estate, and ancestral home—if those stones proved ancient and the road could not go through. Thanks to a troublesome codicil in his father’s will, that would be disastrous for Dundrennan, and for Aedan. Watching the hills, he was anxious to hear Christina’s pronouncement.
“The road has to go through,” he told his companions. “We cannot afford to lose any more time on this project.”
“All we can do is wait and see,” Rob said. “The new law of treasure trove requires investigation when something of possible historic significance is found in Scotland.”
“Treasure, aye, that would be fine!” Hector rubbed his hands in delight.
“It would belong to the government, not us,” Aedan said.
