Page 43 of Laird of Secrets
Tam muttered low, but turned his horse, riding away with MacCarran behind.
Dougal let out a long breath. Fergus glanced at him. “I like your wee teacher. I think she should stay for the whole of her agreement with the reverend. Two months, is it?”
“I may throttle her before then,” Dougal growled. But he breathed out in relief as Fiona and the little dog walked over a rise and out of sight.
Chapter 9
Rain drummed on the windows of the schoolhouse, and the soft squeak and scratch of the chalk added a layer of sound as Fiona wrote on a large, framed slate bolted to the wall. She glanced over her shoulder. The students sat quietly on their benches, working on their assignment to copy her chalked words onto the small slates each one held.
They were concentrating on their work now, and all that morning they had listened intently and seemed happy to be in school, laughing and chatting, passing around slates and chalks and reminding each other to hush.
Fiona added a few more words to her list and drew simple images—cat, chair, cradle and so on. While she worked, chalks squeaked and children whispered.
She was pleased and a bit surprised how quickly the glen school was flourishing. With Kinloch and his uncles seemingly eager for her to leave the glen, she had been uncertain if they might have interfered with progress. But after the events in the moonlight the other evening, she understood. Routine nighttime wanderings in Glen Kinloch might be hindered with a gauger’s sister nearby to see what was happening. They did not trust her—and she could not blame them. Although she would never report what she saw, they could not know that yet.
Her brother, though, had drawn his own conclusions. He had sent a message to Fiona the following day, carried by a man who had beached a small boat in the cove below Mary MacIan’s house and knocked on the door with the sealed note.
Dear Fiona, Patrick wrote,If you are ready to leave Glen Kinloch, send word with Mr. MacGrath, the bearer of this note. He is Eldin’s man. A carriage will arrive for you within a day. If you intend to stay, as I suspect, please tell MacGrath that you are content, and he will understand.
However, should you feel that you are in immediate danger, MacGrath will wait while you gather your things, and bring you to Auchnashee today.
Fiona read the note while the man sat at the table drinking a cup of Mary’s good brown beer, brewed a week earlier. Had the laird of Kinloch told her brother outright that the sister must leave the glen?
That was not going to happen. She looked up. “Mr. MacGrath, please tell my brother that I am content to stay. I will give you a note to deliver to him.”
Now, standing at the slate board, lost in thought, Fiona frowned. Wrong or right, smugglers or none, she would stay, despite other opinions. They were stubborn men, but so was she, and more than a match in determination. She had agreed to teach; she was also here to satisfy the request assigned her in Grandmother’s will—if indeed that could be accomplished at all.
Sighing, she knew very well how complicated that situation had already become. She feared that she had already lost her heart, quickly and unexpectedly, nearly as soon as she had arrived here. But she could not meet Grandmother’s conditions—and help her brothers—by falling in love with a poor Highland smuggler.
Love. The chalk paused on the board. Did she feel that, truly? She longed for marriage, a family, a home of her own. Yet after Archie’s death, she had never expected to feel love, or loved, never thought she might have happiness again.
Not love, but fancy, she assured herself. Just the romanticism of a Highland smuggler on a moonlit night, a man unlike any she had ever known. Whatever feelings she was experiencing sprang from an insubstantial daydream.
Besides, he did not share her feelings. His kisses and kindnesses were only meant to coerce her into leaving the glen, so that his smuggling enterprise would be undisturbed.
Lifting her chin, resolve set, she wrote fiercely on the slate, chalk squeaking.
All of it only made her more determined to stay. She cared about her students, wanted to encourage them, help them learn and improve. She wanted to succeed here. The students and the glen needed a teacher who would stay.
They were quick-witted young scholars and quick learners, and she was working hard to keep pace with them. She spent evenings writing lessons by lantern light until her eyes stung from oil smoke and her fingers were ink-stained. Soon she planned to challenge them further, adding more mathematics, even some geography; she had found a dusty book of maps in a cupboard in the schoolhouse.
Her own work was going well, too, for she was finding time in the afternoons to search for fossils and rock formations, and make sketches and rubbings. Of course she had found no traces of fairies, and never would. But she would find some way to fulfill that request too.
As for the other part of it—marrying a wealthy and titled Highlander—she could not simply find one and demand marriage. And her infatuation with Dougal MacGregor would soon pass, she told herself. She was simply too busy to think about him or look for chances to encounter him. The time would pass quickly until summer came.
If nothing else, she thought with a quick intake of breath, she would consider marrying Lord Eldin—he might be interested, for he seemed to have a fondness for her, a weakness for her, one of her brothers had said once. They were not close cousins. Marriage to the Earl of Eldin would certainly meet the requirement and solve a host of problems.
And stir up others, she thought. Eldin was a cold, mysterious, and selfish fellow, though he had been a good and friendly lad and youth in their childhood. Something had happened to change him. She did not know if she could bear life with a man who had closed off his heart so completely.
Kinloch MacGregor was much the opposite, and no matter how hard she tried, he was never far from her mind.
Still, though she walked by his tower house daily going back and forth to the school, she had not seen him for days. When she did next, he would just urge her to leave Glen Kinloch. He did not care about her, she reminded herself. He was only doing what he thought necessary to protect his secrets from a troublesome woman. However unfair his misconception, she should simply ignore it.
Hearing chatter rising behind her, she turned. “Lucy MacGregor, that is enough,” she said crisply. Lucy had been whispering to her cousin Jamie, and now the girl looked up with an innocent smile.
“Lucy, you have so much energy—please fetch fresh chalks from the basket and give them to everyone,” Fiona suggested firmly. Lucy nodded and set to the task. The child had no malice, Fiona knew, only a strong spirit and an impish nature.
She glanced at the two new students who had arrived that morning. Duncan and Sorcha, a young brother and sister, sat quietly working on their slates. She smiled, nodding her approval, and they looked pleased. She was glad that the people of the glen were sending more students as word spread.
