Taken By the Laird

by Margo Maguire

  Hugh had already concluded that she had no involvement in the theft of his brandy. Her grief at the mention of her aunt had been quite real, and her story of an aggressive employer rang true.

  He was quite content to be the man who offered her comfort and solace.

  “Who is the ghost, Laird?” Bridget asked. “Or…who was she?”

  Hugh was hesitant to tell the story, but he finally repeated what he’d always heard. “According to legend, she was the wife of an ancient Glenloch free trader. An unwilling, unhappy wife.” A wife just like Amelia, no doubt. He put aside his suspicion that the ancient, legendary wife had also thrown herself from the parapet of the north tower to the ruins below.

  “What does she want?”

  Hugh shrugged and decided to tell her the truth. If she was going to stay with him at the castle, he did not want her jumping at every creak and odd reflection of light. “ ’Tis only a legend. There is no ghost.”

  Bridget shivered and drew the shawl tightly around her shoulders. “I saw it. Or something.”

  “ ’Tis not possible.”

  “I think it beckoned to me.”

  “Well, don’t follow it,” Hugh said, humoring her. He lowered his head, placing his mouth close to her ear. “This morn, you should follow me.”

  “Laird?”

  “Through Glenloch. There is much to see in this ancient pile of stones.” A tour was just the thing to keep her occupied while Mrs. Ramsay and her staff performed their duties. As they wandered through the castle, he could seduce her slowly, tantalizing her with the promise of pleasures to come. His task was to convince her that she need not run off to Dundee to find employment, but stay with him at Castle Glenloch. Perhaps he would even take her to Newbury Court in the spring.

  It was a perfect solution for both of them. He wanted her fiercely, and she needed his protection. Besides, he did not care to return to London any time soon. Life had become too complicated there. They could remain at Castle Glenloch, or visit one of his country houses where he and Bridget MacLaren could enjoy each other without interruption or interference.

  “Laird,” said Mrs. Ramsay, intruding once again. “MacGowan is here fer ye.”

  Hugh had known he would have only one night to learn what he could about his brandy before being discovered by the servants. As of last night, he knew exactly how many tubs of undiluted brandy lined the walls in the secret chamber in the buttery.

  He straightened up from Bridget’s delectable scent and answered Mrs. Ramsay. “Send him to my study.” Then he spoke to Bridget. “If you’ll excuse me, I must see my estate manager, but I’ll come and find you in your chamber in an hour.”

  “No! I mean, I’ll just meet you…here.”

  “Afraid of me, Miss MacLaren?”

  “Of course not,” she replied quickly. “ ’Tis only that I…”

  “You plan on exploring on your own?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps. If you’ve a library, I might find something to read.”

  “Aye. Just next to the drawing room.” She was a woman interested in books. A governess, then. He hid a small smile at the thought of pleasures to come. With a governess. She was going to be far more interesting than the well-practiced courtesans of his acquaintance.

  Hugh left the dining chamber and went to the study where estate business had always been conducted. There, he found Malcolm MacGowan, a tall, burly man with hands the size of shovels and a perpetually irritable expression on his face. Hugh wondered how he would comport himself in the ring and decided he’d be a formidable adversary.

  MacGowan combed his bright coppery hair over a receding hairline and grew thick muttonchop whiskers, perhaps to compensate for the lack on his pate. He was only five or six years older than Hugh’s own thirty years, but had never married. From his early morning discussion with Mrs. Ramsay, Hugh had learned the man harbored a secret infatuation with a Stonehaven lass. “The fool doesn’t know how lucky he is,” Hugh muttered as he entered his study. ’Twas far better to leave one’s emotions unattached and enjoy the moment with a willing lass.

  “Laird,” MacGowan said, rising from his seat by the fire. “We didna know ye were coming.”

  “Aye. It was an impulse. I left London rather abruptly.”

  MacGowan frowned. “Woman trouble, then?”

  “You might say so,” Hugh admitted, unsurprised that MacGowan knew of his reputation. The gossip sheets played fast and loose with his name so frequently that he was known for his supposed exploits all the way to Aberdeen.

  The worst yet was what would soon be said about his encounter with Charlotte de Marche, although she’d brought it upon herself. Hugh had never expected her to corner him the way she’d done. He’d been polite, but not quite a gentleman, for that kind of fool would have allowed himself to be shackled as a result of the lady’s bold advances.

  From here on, he was going to take pains to stay clear of the ladies of the ton. Not a one was trustworthy.

  “We’ve a shipment stored and waiting for dilution and distribution,” MacGowan said.

  “Ah?” Hugh remarked as though he did not already know it. “ ’Tis well-hidden in the buttery, I trust?”

  “Aye. ’Tis a large shipment, too. Ye’ll garner a tidy sum from it.”

  Hugh tried to discern if there was any dissembling in MacGowan’s tone, any disappointment or annoyance in his manner. If MacGowan was the one responsible for Hugh’s losses, he could not be pleased to have him there, in the midst of an operation.

  This shipment would go a long way toward compensating for the deficits Hugh had had to live with over the past three years. Rather than dealing with his insufferable partner, he’d made up the differences himself, and given a higher percentage of the take to the Falkburn folk. ’Twas long past time he put a stop to it. “When does it go out?”

  “We were hoping last night,” said MacGowan. “And now tonight does no’ look good, either. No’ with more rain comin’.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  “Aye. It must be tomorrow, for another of Captain Benoit’s ships will be comin’ in late.”

  Hugh considered the news, frowning at the inefficiency of it. “Then you’d best get the brandy that’s in the buttery diluted and out today, else where will you store the new shipment?”

  “Mayhap in the barn, Laird? ’Tis winter and none o’ the customs agents are likely to rouse themselves to poke into every wee cranny along the coast this time o’ year.”

  “No,” said Hugh. “They’re too unpredictable. I’d rather not risk Berk Armstrong or Angus Kincaid finding it. Or worse yet—Mr. Pennycook. Get it out tonight. Regardless of the weather.”

  MacGowan nodded, though he was clearly not happy about it. His reaction only confirmed Hugh’s suspicions, for the manager was his primary suspect in the thieving. No one else had access to the money Hugh sent, as well as all the information—the dates and times, numbers and distribution.

  “You’ve yet to say why you’ve come here, MacGowan,” said Hugh, for the man had already admitted he had not known of Hugh’s presence until his arrival at the castle.

  “Oh…uh, just estate business,” the man replied. “I come up every few days t’ check on things.”

  “Very good of you, especially on a day like this.”

  “Weel, I always like t’ know if anyone’s been poking round the product.”

  Hugh crossed his arms over his chest and looked at MacGowan. He knew it was sometimes best to stay silent and let the situation play out, a direct contradiction to his father’s ways. The old laird had been much more vocal, letting everyone know of his thoughts and plans…as well as his disdain. Hugh could not imagine the old man ever getting anything more than the most basic cooperation from those who worked for him.

  Or from his son.

  “I didna bring the books, since I didna know ye were here,” said MacGowan.

  Hugh waited, ignoring the harsh visage of his father, glaring down upon him through the dark oil
pigment of the painting that hung on the wall behind MacGowan. Jasper would have browbeaten the manager until he’d heard what he wanted to hear. Not necessarily the truth.

  But Hugh was a patient man, and he waited as MacGowan pulled on one of his muttonchops and started to pace before the fire. The estate manager had never been a calm man, and Hugh knew better than to ask him outright if he was cheating Hugh, the way his father would have done.

  “I can look over the books any time,” Hugh said. “Our priority is to get the brandy let down, and out of the castle before tomorrow.”

  Hugh could dismiss his estate manager out of hand, but he wanted proof. And he wanted the names of all who were involved, especially if they were Falkburn men—the very ones he’d been supporting these past three years.

  “Tell me, MacGowan,” he asked, in spite of his belief that Miss MacLaren was not involved, “do we use any women as carriers?”

  “Women? Nay, Laird. I doona believe so.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I canna be entirely sure, nay. But I doubt it. I’ve no’ heard of anyone giving o’er to a woman to sell the brandy. Why are ye thinking it, might I ask?”

  “Just call me curious. Do you think you can find enough experienced men to let down the brandy tonight? And to carry it out?”

  “Aye, Laird. Of course. We’ve none but the best in these parts.”

  The laird might think Glenloch’s ghost was not real, but Brianna had seen it. Or seen something. She’d felt no danger from that strange flickering light, and as she returned to the bedchamber given her by Laird Glenloch, she kept her gaze high, so she might catch sight of it once again. If only she could speak to it…she knew it was an irrational thought, but…perhaps the phantom might carry a message to her aunt Claire.

  She walked in on a housemaid who was doing up the bed. “Oh! Nearly done, miss,” said the girl with a quick curtsy. She was obviously nervous and hurrying to complete her task in order to leave as quickly as possible. “I’m Fiona. Mrs. Ramsay told me to give ye a few extra blankets.”

  “I appreciate it. But I can finish here, Fiona.”

  “Oh, thank ye, miss. What with the ghost and all, I doona favor being up here.”

  “The ghost has done you some evil, then?”

  Fiona shook her head. “Nay, I’ve ne’er even seen it. But I doona hold with bogles. Such creatures can do all sorts of harm. Can draw ye into their netherworld and trap ye—”

  “Has such a thing happened to anyone?”

  “Weel, perhaps some of the old laird’s visitors were caught in the ghost’s traps and followed it into the void,” Fiona said. “But we—from the village—we know better than to come up and stay here through the night.”

  Bree said naught. She’d spent one night in Castle Glenloch and felt no threat. On the contrary, she’d slept better than she had any night in the week since she’d fled London, in spite of her encounter with Laird Glenloch.

  “Ronan brought ye plenty of peat, miss. Enough to stay warm through the night.”

  “Thank him for me please, Fiona,” said Brianna. “Don’t worry about building up the fire. I’ll stoke it so that you can go back downstairs.”

  The girl gave another quick curtsy and started to leave, but Brianna stopped her. “One thing…Where did Ronan find the shawl he brought me?”

  “In Lady Glenloch’s chamber at the far end of the gallery, just afore ye come to the north tower,” the maid replied from the doorway. “Her Ladyship’s things are right where she left them. Before she…” Fiona swallowed and wrapped her arms around herself. “Ach, ’tis a wonder she hasna joined Glenloch’s ghost, dyin’ as she did.”

  “How do you know she hasn’t?”

  “We doona,” Fiona said. A loud keening sound rang out above them, and Fiona gave out a terrified squeal. “ ’Tis her! The bogle!”

  “Fiona, ’tis the wind,” Brianna said, but the girl ran from the room, and Bree heard her speedy footsteps all the way down the hall and the staircase.

  It went silent in Bree’s bedchamber, but for the crackle of the fire that was burning low, and she wondered if the noise had truly been the wind or the apparition she’d seen the previous night.

  Or had she imagined it, as Laird Glenloch had hinted?

  She thought about Fiona’s words as well as the laird’s concern that there was only one ghost haunting Glenloch, despite his dismissal of what she’d seen. But Brianna knew that she had not been imagining things. There had truly been a vague form of flickering light in this very chamber. And it had signaled her to follow it.

  Brianna considered the possibility that Lady Glenloch’s spirit had joined the castle’s phantom. If the gossip was true, then Amelia Christie had been so terribly unhappy in her marriage that she’d ended her own life. Perhaps her sorrowful spirit now haunted Glenloch’s rooms and galleries alongside the ancient specter described by the laird.

  There was a distinctly brooding aspect to the castle. It appeared to Brianna that certain rooms had been restored and updated, and she had even found a modern water closet near the bedchamber Laird Glenloch had given her. But the rest was dark and derelict—a perfect setting to be haunted by Glenloch’s restless spirits.

  Bree laid a new brick on the fire, then turned to look up at the ceiling, hoping as well as dreading that the filmy apparition would reappear. She felt sure that spirits would communicate with one another, and…more than anything, Bree wished she could speak with Claire, just once more.

  It was a ridiculous notion, she knew, and certainly not a good reason to remain at Glenloch, not when her coat had dried and she could leave. She should leave. She should run as fast as her feet would carry her through the cold rain. She believed there was a larger town not too far south of Falkburn, a place where there would be an inn.

  Yet she was warm and secure at Glenloch, and she was not without wits. She could resist Laird Glenloch’s seductive ways until the weather cleared sufficiently for her to go.

  As she stood at the nursery window looking out on the low cliffs and the sea below her, she felt the warmth of the fire heating the room…and then something else. It had waited until Fiona had gone, and now Brianna felt it in the room. The ghost.

  Slowly Bree turned, and saw the shimmering figure hovering above the bed. This time, Brianna was able to make out the shape of its voluminous gown and a veil arrangement on its head. Brianna was no expert on bygone fashions, but the ghost looked altogether medieval. “Who are you?” she asked it.

  The ghost made no reply, but fluctuated, and seemed to float toward the open door.

  Brianna rubbed her eyes, then looked up again, half expecting the thing to have disappeared. But the figure seemed to turn and face her, beckoning as she’d done the night before. Again, Bree felt no fear, though a sense of urgency filled her.

  “Can you…Can you carry a message for me?” she asked in a hushed tone.

  The ghost gave no indication that it understood Bree’s request. “What is it?” Bree asked, disappointed. “Should I follow you?”

  An infusion of color changed the appearance of the phantom, and Brianna approached it, ignoring Laird Glenloch’s admonition not to follow it. “Is there something you wish to show me?”

  Perhaps if she went along with it, the thing would grant a request to communicate with Claire.

  The shimmering light lost its shape, turning into a vague amorphous glow that moved slowly down the length of the gallery. Brianna walked behind it, passing closed doors and ancient furniture. She hesitated at the staircase that was at the halfway point, and listened to the eerie quiet below, wondering if the servants had already completed their work and left the castle.

  The eerie glow of the ghost stopped at the far end of the gallery, near a set of thick oaken doors. It remained floating there, and Brianna watched it, bearing in mind Fiona’s words. If Glenloch’s specter made a practice of pulling people into some ethereal world that destroyed them, this might very well be the way it would do s
o.

  Brianna wavered for a moment, but then sensed the phantom’s urgency, along with some other emotion she could not identify. She took a deep breath and walked past the staircase, heading toward those large doors, but keeping a prudent distance from the ghost.

  The shimmering light dissipated, and Brianna tried the latch, but found it locked. “The way is blocked,” she said quietly.

  But the phantom seemed undeterred, reappearing again just outside the last room they’d passed. Its door was also closed, but the phantom somehow slipped inside.

  Brianna tried the door, and found it unlocked. She pushed it open and stood under the lintel for a moment, then stepped inside.

  The room was in shadows, and cold, in spite of the lush furnishings within. The wide bed was covered in a thick, rich brocade of blue and yellow. The bed curtains had been pulled aside and tied with golden tassels, as though waiting for its usual occupant to return. This was clearly the room Fiona had indicated belonged to Laird Glenloch’s wife.

  Brianna felt like an intruder. She should turn around and leave, but her curiosity got the better of her. She took another step into the room and stood at the foot of the bed where Lady Glenloch had slept, trying to understand how it was possible to be so despondent as to take one’s own life.

  Bree went to Amelia’s richly carved, mahogany dressing table and touched the brush and ornate combs that lay there. She herself had felt a terrible, deep grief at the loss of her beloved aunt, and she was on the verge of being forced into an abhorrent marriage. And yet Brianna would never dream of doing herself in, of ending it all. She could not imagine what had driven Lady Glenloch to such despair.

  Surely not her husband.

  Now that Brianna had actually met the rakish Laird Glenloch, she did not understand how his wife could have felt so discontented. But her questions faded when the ghostly glow of the phantom returned, its light fluctuating like the unsteady light of a candle. It seemed to flatten against the wall above the table, then a few strange sparkles of light slid down, flowing almost like a stream of water, to disappear below. Bree tried to look down into the space where it disappeared, speculating that there was something the ghost wanted her to notice. But there was hardly any gap between the wall and the table.