Page 3 of Falling for Her Highland Steward
“Died?” He looked puzzled. “Like Brian’s dog?” His best friend had lost his beloved and very old collie Fia a few weeks before.
“Yes,” Erin replied. “Just like that. He was very old and very sick. We must not be sorry for him because he is in a wonderful place now.”
“In heaven?” Stephen asked. “With the angels? And Brian’s dog?”
“Yes,” she replied, kissing his soft cheek. “He will be looking down on us right now and smiling at us.”
“Will he have wings?” Stephen asked innocently.
“Aye, wee man,” Betty replied. She could see that Erin was having trouble answering all her son’s questions, perhaps because she was struggling to speak. “Big white fluffy ones, an’ he will be young an’ handsome again.”
“And happy?” Stephen asked.
“Vera happy,” Betty answered, smiling. “An’ ye must be happy for him. An’ ye must be a good boy because he will be watchin’ ye.”
Stephen thought about this for a moment, then clapped his hands and smiled widely. “Then I am very happy too!” He went to the window and waved his hand at the sky. “Hello, Papa! I hope you are having a lovely time in heaven!”
Erin went to him and picked him up, then hugged him tightly. Her heart was so full of love for her son she could hardly contain it. He was the sunshine that lit up her life, and she knew that she would need a lot of that from now on.
The men who sat with Erin in her husband’s study were not lairds or elders of the McCaskill clan, although one, Michael Oliphaunt, was a distant cousin. The other two, Alastair Dunn and Gordon Menzies, were trusted friends of her husband’s, and he had requested their presence while the will was being read. Father Thomson was in attendance, also in accordance with Nairn’s wishes. He had been nominated as the person who would read the will.
Father Thomson scanned the single page briefly, then began to read. “I, Nairn William McCaskill, being of sound mind, leave the entirety of my estate to my wife, Erin Marie McCaskill, to be held in trust for my son, Stephen Nairn McCaskill, until he reaches his sixteenth birthday when it will pass to him, and only him. I request my dearest friends Alastair Dunn, Michael Oliphaunt, and Gordon Menzies, as well as Father Gerald Thomson, to give them as much help and advice as they both need.” The priest looked up. “That is all.”
There was a deep silence for a moment, during which Erin began to pour wine for all of them. She held up her glass. “To the memory of my dear Nairn,” she said, her voice husky. “One of the finest men who ever lived.”
The others joined in the toast then sat down again. Alastair Dunn, who had bought most of the wool from Nairn’s sheep and then dyed it and exported it to France, seemed to have the most forceful personality and began to speak first.
“Milady,” he began, “what this document does not tell you is that Nairn, in spite of being a very good man, had no head for business, and he was slowly but surely allowing the estate to be bled dry. This was not intentional—never that—but he owed money to many people, and still others took advantage of his weakened state.
“In the last few years of his life, he was unable to oversee matters of finance which should have demanded his complete attention, and I am sad to say that a few unscrupulous traders swindled him out of much of his wealth. Gordon and I tried to advise him, but he would not be told.” Alastair frowned and shook his head. “He said that it was his estate and he was the laird, and nobody was going to tell him what to do.”
“Aye,” Gordon, a childhood friend of the laird’s, cut in. “We even spoke to two of the men whom we knew had stolen from him and threatened them with exposure, but they laughed at us. They said that nobody would believe us, and they were probably right. I had a very good steward at that time who was willing to work with Nairn until the estate was back on its feet, but again he said no. I will not say he was a fool, milady, just that he was ill and perhaps not thinking clearly.” He looked embarrassed.
Erin banged her glass down on the table and glared at them, her eyes blazing with anger. “And did none of you think of talking to me?” she demanded. “I may be only a woman, but I am not a complete idiot! Why did none of you come and tell me about this?”
Michael sighed. “Because, milady, he would not let us.” His voice was weary. “I wanted to, but he expressly forbade it and said he would banish me from the estate if I breathed a word to you. I had a good relationship with him, and it was better that I could stay here and try to help as much as I could. I left some of my own business matters to do so. I owed him so much—not in money, but in the ways in which he enriched my life—that I had to obey him.”
Erin looked into his eyes for a long moment. He was telling the truth, and as she looked around at the others, she saw that they were nodding in agreement. “I am sorry,” she sighed. “You are not to blame, of course. Perhaps I should have seen the way things were going, but I was too worried about Nairn to care about anything else.”
“No, milady.” Michael stood up, shaking his head. “This fault belongs to those who took advantage of Laird McCaskill’s illness to line their own pockets. However”—he looked around the table—“it is now our responsibility to put right the wrongs that have been done and to bring the estate back to a state that is decent enough for Stephen to inherit.”
“Aye!” the others chorused.
“How can I thank you all?” Erin smiled tearfully. “I could never do this on my own.”
“By putting matters to right. You need to tackle this like a battle,” Father Thomson said grimly. “Work out what you need to do, then find out the best way to do it. If you wish to recover stolen property, then take it back, but do it in such a way that it is to your enemy’s advantage to give it back to you. Tackle him with such force that he will have no other choice but to do so.”
The others stared at him in amazement.
“I knew you were a soldier, Father,” Erin said, shaking her head in wonder, “but I had no idea you were quite so clever!”
Gerald Thomson smiled. “You need more than to retrieve what you lost, though,” he said calmly. “You need to mete out justice too. Alastair, tell us what else we must do.”
“Well...” Alastair thought for a moment. “Before we start our ‘military strategy,’ we need to see what needs to be done to make the place work properly again. So many things, like the watermill and most of the thatched buildings, need to be mended. The castle drains need to be cleaned since they are blocked with filth, and the stench is terrible. The list is very long indeed. After that comes the actual work, but before all that, we need to employ a very honest and capable steward. With all due respect, milady, you have no experience with this type of thing, so perhaps you should allow Gordon, Michael, and myself to make the choice.”
“Absolutely not.” Erin’s voice was flat and firm. “You three may do the choosing, but I insist on being there to see you doing it. This is my son’s heritage you are dealing with, and I intend—no, I insist—on having a say in it.”
The three men looked at her beautiful, determined face and exchanged glances. At last, deciding that they would not be able to change her mind, they agreed. Obviously, dealing with Lady McCaskill would not be as easy as they had first thought.
