Page 27 of Taming the Heiress
"The queen's own Highland bard! He was your uncle? I have read everything he wrote. How marvelous to have such genius in your family, Mr. Stewart."
"Did your island education stretch to romantic poetry?"
"It was more than adequate, thank you. We were taught English and other subjects in the village school. We had maths, reading, writing—and yes, even poetry."
"I did not mean to offend, Miss MacNeill."
"And from the time I was a small girl, I spent every winter on the mainland at my grandfather's house—my mother's father. He hired tutors for me. More poetry, languages, sciences, and far more mathematics than I cared to learn. I had deportment and music and drawing lessons, too, and a tutor who encouraged me to keep journals."
"Busy winters," he remarked.
"Very," she said. "I cannot say I looked forward to those months each year. I am not the fishwife you may think me, Mr. Stewart," she ended crisply.
He seemed amused. "Once again, I ask your forgiveness."
She heard the undercurrent in that and did not reply.
"I, too, had a tutor," he said. "But I loved mathematics and physics. The rest of it was deadly, though I enjoyed poetry readings at Dundrennan House—my uncle's estate. I often went there with my three sisters to visit our cousins."
"Three sisters!"
"My cousins Aedan and Neill and I got into more than enough scrapes to make up for the femininity that surrounded us." He grinned. "I was scarcely out of skirts when we began avoiding the girls to make towers and fortresses for ourselves. We built some shelters out of my uncle's books." He grinned. "Though it did not meet with approval."
A laugh bubbled up. "And you are still making towers!"
He grinned. "I suppose I am." Then he sobered. "And neither you nor the baroness will be able to stop this project, Miss MacNeill. We are on Caransay for the duration."
"We do not want the island disturbed. You worked on Guga before—why not go there, sir, and leave this island be. Find another sea rock. Sgeir Caran is not the site for your lighthouse."
"No other place suits."
"Commissioners and engineers give no thought to traditions and legends or to the people of this island."
"Should legends hold back progress, Miss MacNeill? Should more people drown on that reef to honor tradition?" He raised his voice, pointed toward the water, and she saw the hot spark of his temper. "Tell your baroness the lighthouse will go up and the barracks will stay, and if she wishes to further discuss the matter with me, it must be in person. No more letters. I have had enough of her lawyers and her tricks."
"Tricks!" Meg leaned forward. "How dare you—"
"Come here." He took her arm, hard and insistent, a fire of awareness exploding through her at his touch. He drew her firmly beside him toward the incline of a rocky hill textured with flowering heather. She glanced back to be certain that her grandmothers were watching Iain, who had left the water and was once again digging in the sand.
At the top of the hill she saw an expansive view of the western side of the island. Dougal pointed toward the islet at the northern end of the island.
"Look there, Miss MacNeill. What do you see?"
"Guga," she said obstinately. "With the scars of your quarry work still raw upon her."
"I will grant you that. What else?"
She looked. "Nothing else."
"Precisely. Our barracks are gone."
"Oh!" She remembered that one of his letters had detailed losing those shelters to storms.
"We built some huts there. Gone now, as you can see. They were taken down by gales twice."
"Perhaps you should have taken that for a sign to stop."
"I told you I do not give up, Miss MacNeill," he said curtly. "Guga is an inhospitable rock. We set up tents and lived on Mull after that. My men were miserable with the weather and the daily sea journeys. When Lady Strathlin and her lawyers ignored my pleas, I told the commission that we must find a secure site on Caransay for our quarters or the work would be seriously delayed."
