Page 3 of Laird of Secrets
John laughed. “Go ahead now. Tell your Aunt Jean that we have returned with the fairy dew. Tell her to start baking and cooking, for we shall have a celebration. Tomorrow, we will spread fresh barley to sprout, and begin your first batch of fairy brew.”
* * *
A year to the day, John MacGregor was pistol-shot by revenue officers in the twilight and died at midnight. The laird of Kinloch had been carrying four kegs of whisky in panniers on the back of a pony when the excise men had found him. They gave him no chance to explain. MacGregor had not died defending his people, or even trading Kinloch’s fine legitimate brew. Instead, he had traded his life for a few casks of peat reek whisky. The kegs were not smuggled stuff. They were a gift meant for the manse and the reverend.
His father’s unjust death troubled Dougal deeply, devastating him at night and hardening his heart during the day. He realized that his father’s wish at the fairy well had come true: now the son was laird of Kinloch, and far too soon.
In the years that followed, he knew that he could never be Kinloch’s finest laird—John MacGregor had been that. Nor did he want to be the educated, wealthy gentleman and advocate of the law that his father had wished for him. Dougal found another way to honor his father as fiercely as the man deserved.
He became a smuggler the likes of which the hills had not seen for generations.
Chapter 1
April 1823, Loch Katrine, Scotland
“Did you hear that?” Patrick MacCarran glanced up the long Highland slope as a gust of wind stirred the tail of his dark frock coat and sent a few loose pebbles scattering. “I thought I heard footsteps over the rocks up there.”
Standing near her brother, Fiona looked up the steep hillside buttressing the towering mountain, with its limestone cliffs and dark scree and scrub. “Bogles,” she said. “Haunts and fairies. Small stones shifting along the slopes.”
“Or smugglers,” Patrick muttered. “Had I known we would climb so far into these hills in search of wee rocks, I would have brought a firearm.”
“Smugglers only come out at night.”
“They’re men, not bats,” her brother drawled. He moved ahead, looking around as if he suspected criminals to leap out from behind the boulders and tall trees along the hillside.
Fiona smiled to herself, aware that Patrick only meant to protect her. Turning, she looked down, where the long slope swept toward Loch Katrine and Glen Kinloch. The hill might have more fossils hidden along its rocky incline—the area had already yielded nice examples, and she would have plenty of time to search, as she had agreed to stay in the glen until summer to teach in the glen school. Lifting a hand to her gray bonnet, she drew in a breath, admiring the vast Highland beauty spreading out below.
Though the hills were misty and the sky was gray, from her high vantage point she could see the loch below, where fog drifted over the water and nudged along rugged foothills.
“This place has a wild beauty even in poor conditions,” she said. “It would be spectacular in better weather.”
Patrick looked about, nodding. Although Fiona wanted to explore more, her brother seemed impatient to return to the hotel at Auchnashee, where he was staying. He seemed uneasy, she thought, frowning a little.
For several months, her youngest brother had been serving as an excise officer at the southern end of Loch Katrine, and so seemed constantly on the alert for trouble wherever he went. The work had made him more somber, but she hoped he would soon regain his inherently cheerful nature.
“Did you hear that?” Patrick called again, walking toward her.
“Just the wind.” She had heard something odd, but it did not worry her.
“Wind—or free traders on their way through the hills. Are you ready to go back now?” He stooped to pick up her canvas knapsack.
“Not quite. I found some excellent trilobites here today, and I am hoping there are more on this slope. And I want to make some sketches and notes before I go.” A cool updraft lifted the ribbons of her bonnet and danced the skirt of her gray woolen gown over the tops of her sturdy leather boots. She brushed her gloved hands together, powdered with dirt and rock dust. The hillside was mostly rocks, earth, and scrub here, with a little spring green emerging among scraggly heather and gorse. But a wintry nip in the next gust made her shiver slightly. “This place is desolate, I know, but it is a perfect environment for finding trilobites and such.”
“It is fairly remote, which makes it appealing to smugglers moving kegs through these hills to the loch and then down the river. Fiona, I know have said it before, but I do wish you were not staying alone in this glen. We have had too many reports of rogues in this area lately.”
“I agreed to teach here until summer—and I intend to do my best to meet the conditions in Grandmother’s will while I am here. Well, some of them. I hope you can do that too, and William as well.”
“Grandmother Struan’s will is a bane for all of us, though it proved a boon for James, who did find his fairy bride—or close enough to satisfy the conditions of the will,” Patrick said. “I hope you can find a way to do that too. As for me and William, too, I cannot imagine finding any sort of fairy. But be that as it may, do consider returning to Edinburgh. You know Lord Eldin would lend his barouche anytime you decide to leave. He is fond of you, though he dislikes most everyone else.”
“I do not want his charity or his barouche. I have promised to stay until summer with Mrs. MacIan, and I will keep my word.”
“From what I could tell, Mary MacIan can barely hear, talks endlessly, and drinks whisky like a man. Months of that could drive you mad, sweet and amiable though you may be.”
“I have not been sweet and amiable since I was three, but thank you. Mrs. MacIan is delightful and could use the company. Her grandson is the Reverend, and he looks after her, but I am sure she will enjoy having someone in the house. And you know it is perfectly acceptable for Highland women to take a dram with the men or even on their own. I may even try it myself.”
He laughed outright. “Beware of picking up her odd spinsterish habits! Truly, she is not a fit companion for walking about the hills, and I know you are stubborn enough to do that on your own. And stubborn enough to stay, I see.”
“I did give my word.”
