Page 18 of Taming the Heiress
"Mr. Stewart is not my husband," Meg insisted.
"One night with him made you his bride," Thora said. "You had his child. Such marriages are still made in Scotland. It is an old custom but still followed. And rightly so—he should marry you if he gave you a child."
"Go to him," Elga said. "Riches and happiness await. I've seen it in the fire and in the water. Your marriage will—"
"Enough!" Meg burst out. She could not bear the thought of a marriage to the low cad who had tricked her that night. "Enough of this talk of kelpies. He is just a man, and not one we want in this family. Leave it be!" She would spare her grandmothers the truth of what he had done. "I'm going up to the Great House," she said, standing. "I have correspondence to review with Mrs. Berry. Send Iain up to the house after he has had his breakfast. He is to have lessons with Mrs. Berry in reading and mathematics today. And tell him that if the weather holds, we will take him to the beach to play."
"We will come, too," Thora said. "Mrs. Berry is a nice woman. And small Anna loves to play in the sand."
"Small Anna likes to eat sand," Mother Elga grumbled.
"Good, come to the beach later," Meg said. She grabbed her shawl and went to the door.
"We must have a great ceilidh to celebrate when she finally accepts the truth," Elga said, leaning toward Thora.
"He's so handsome," Thora said. "What woman could resist a man like Stewart?"
Sighing, Meg left. Out on the machair, she saw that Dougal Stewart had gone, and the sun was bright over the sea.
* * *
His shelter was snug and cozy, the walls plastered thick to cut the wind and muffle the sound of rain. Barely ten paces side to side, the single room was warmed on cool nights by a coal brazier, and cozy during the days when the sun beat on the thick thatch roof. The small windows let in sea breezes—and sometimes rain and blown sand if Dougal forgot to close the shutters tight.
The best luxury of his little hut was that he had it to himself. He had a canvas hammock, a small cupboard, a wooden chair, and a table large enough to hold maps, charts, and a lamentable amount of correspondence. It was enough. As for the letters, he disliked dealing with those, but he always saw to his duty. As resident engineer, he was also required to keep a daily progress log, crammed with figures and his observations. The Stevenson firm and the lighthouse commissioners expected to be kept informed of all events, problems, and successes in correspondence and, if they requested it, the progress log.
The wind howled, and the night was heavy with rain. Dougal was weary and sore from another long day out on Sgeir Caran. He and his men had been drilling through solid rock in the beating sunshine that was relieved only by sea spray from waves reaching high enough to splash the workers.
Out there, Dougal had paused now and then to watch seals cavorting on the rocks, and a few dolphins had made the men laugh with their antics in the waves. Returning to Caransay later, the men had eaten supper and gone off to their huts to rest, but Dougal was up late, working at the notes, the reports, the maps and drawings. He knew that Alan Clarke and Evan Mackenzie would be doing the same. There was a great deal of detail work to make sure that the project was closely supervised and the resulting structure safe and solid and built to last the ages.
Finishing his report for the commissioners, he then wrote a note to David Stevenson, the brilliant engineer who had recommended him for the job on Sgeir Caran after Dougal had assisted him in completing the nearly impossible task of building a lighthouse on Muckle Flugga, a challenging and inhospitable environment. On Sgeir Caran, Dougal was encountering some of the same issues of design and safety.
But he had a worthy and experienced crew that he could fully trust, and he knew that together they could build a fine lighthouse on Sgeir Caran, one that would serve many.
Sealing the envelope, he reached into a small wooden box where he stored his correspondence and removed a recent letter from Lady Strathlin—or more correctly, her Edinburgh solicitors.
Be assured that you shall not build on Caransay without Lady Strathlin's permission, Mr. Stewart. Despite your parliamentary order, we will stop this enterprise. Your structures will come down, if not by Nature, then by legal writ.
Dougal frowned as he considered the threat. The new barracks were ten stout houses along Innish Harbor, protected by the high headlands. They would not blow out to sea, like the houses his men had constructed on Guga, the small isle beside Caransay had done. Nature indeed. These new huts would stand in high winds.
The letter, like the others, was written in the tight script of some anonymous clerk or secretary. Regardless of their protests, Dougal intended to remain and see that lighthouse complete. Somehow he must convince the baroness and her lawyers of the worth of this project.
Turning the page over, he read the curious postscript there, which had puzzled him earlier. This had been written by the baroness herself—the first direct contact he'd had from her.
Mr. Stewart, the birds who frequent Sgeir Caran may desert the rock if a lighthouse is placed there. A magnificent pair of golden eagles makes their home there each year. At any time of year there are gannets, puffins, and shearwaters—even the little storm petrels that are rarely seen and that make their homes on the undersides of rocky protrusions. The gannets in particular are hunted cruelly in other places. They are bludgeoned to death in a ritual called "the hunting of the Guga." But on Sgeir Caran, they are safe and protected by ancient tradition. The golden eagles are, of course, most beautiful, most spectacular, and to be revered and protected.
For the sake of all these birds, I ask you recommend to the commission another location for the lighthouse. I understand the urgent need for a light to aid seafarers, and I applaud the courage of the men who would build it.
I beg you, sir, to erect your tower elsewhere.
Yours most sincerely, Lady Strathlin at Strathlin Castle
Birds! Intrigued by this new action in their little war of words, Dougal sighed. Each letter had been a move or a countermove, as if they played chess. He never quite knew what might come next, and he had begun to enjoy the correspondence, wondering what the baroness and her lawyers would do next.
But birds—here was an unexpected challenge. He had heard of the lady's acts of charity and generosity, and knew she preferred privacy. He knew little else about her.
Sometimes he imagined her as a formidable older woman. At other times, he wondered if she could be some magnificent, mysterious creature. Whoever she was, he was sure she took some pleasure in their little game of wills. At times she surprised and secretly delighted him—witty, commanding, haughty, plaintive at times, all through her lawyers, but for the new message about the birds. He had a grudging respect and a growing curiosity about the baroness. He did not care for her lawyers at all.
Her handwriting intrigued him, too, now that he saw it. This was not the wobbly hand of an elderly lady, but flowing, feminine, confident, educated. It was the hand of a well-educated and seemingly younger woman.
