Sarah Gabriel

by Highland Groom

  “The Highlanders who told me that story were very amused,” he said. “Perhaps I ought to send him some of our own Kinloch brew.”

  “We have a family friend who could convey a bottle to him, if you mean it. I will ask Sir Walter for you.”

  “Sir Walter Scott? You have impressive friends, Miss MacCarran. An earl for a cousin, a viscount for a brother, and now the Bard of the North himself. I am surprised you are willing to spend weeks teaching in a Highland glen. You must have a busy life at home.”

  “Not really. It can be rather dull. Besides, I like your Highland glen.” She waved toward the distillery buildings. “My brother did not mention a legal distillery at Kinloch. He told me only to beware the Kinloch smugglers.”

  “Those rascals,” Dougal said wryly. “Your brother is new to his post and perhaps does not know about this place. We were only recently approved by the government.”

  “If your tenants get licenses, too, there will be an end to smuggling,” she said.

  “So the government hopes, but it is unlikely to happen for a very long time. And Highland whisky is superior to Lowland, being made from malted barley, rather than the cheaper grain whisky of the south. It comes dear here, so prices will always be high. Especially with more excise officers being sent into the Highlands to find the small stills and put an end to them.”

  “My brother was given just such a post, after working in Edinburgh as a lawyer. He wanted something with more adventure, and so he came north to Loch Katrine.”

  “He will find more than enough adventure here, and may he survive it,” he drawled. “Why would he want to come here? And you, as well?”

  “My brother and I must—” She stopped, realizing she could never explain the reason she was there, and had to stay. “Well, for one reason, our brother James now lives at Struan.”

  He nodded, accepting that explanation. “Your brother would make a better living in Edinburgh as an advocate. No one needs this adventure. Customs officers do not last long.”

  “I know it is dangerous. Patrick knows, too.”

  “The government pays them poorly, but a gauger earns extra coin for every bottle or keg turned over to the government. So they turn sly, and resort to scheming.”

  “Patrick would not,” she insisted. “You simply do not care for any sort of revenue man.”

  “Gaugers killed my father,” he said curtly. “He died for the price that could be collected from the whisky kegs he carried on two ponies.”

  “I did not know,” she murmured.

  “He carried whisky made within the limits of the law, not smuggled. They did not care.”

  She sighed, shook her head, uncertain what to say. “Was it recently?”

  “I was nearly fourteen.”

  “Just a boy!” Heart stirring, she looked up to see a guarded expression fleet over his features, and she realized that he would accept neither sympathy nor fuss.

  “So I was. But I became laird of Kinloch that day, and I have learned a great deal since then. Most of it outside the schoolroom,” he added.

  “As it should be, given the circumstances. Is that all the schooling you had?”

  “I went to university for a while—my father wanted that—but I was needed here and came home. This way, Miss MacCarran.” He took her arm to guide her over the bridge, their footsteps thudding over the planking. “We’ve lingered too long, when I intended to show you the distillery. Now it’s near gloaming.”

  “I would rather have talked to you than toured the distillery. Another time, perhaps.” She looked at him, feeling a sudden shyness. “I should like to see it, if you will show me.”

  He waited for her to precede him on the bridge. “We spent the last year repairing and expanding the place. We planned to rebuild the schoolhouse this spring as well. But the Lowland teacher arrived sooner than expected.”

  Fiona looked over her shoulder toward him. “I have not fit your plans from the start, I think.”

  “So it would seem,” he murmured, standing close to her, his arm brushing her shoulder. She did not move away.

  Lifting her head, she detected a sharp, strong odor wafting in the air from the direction of one of the buildings. “The smell reminds me of the beer the servants made when we lived in Perthshire, when I was a girl.” Since coming to her great-aunt’s estate, where beer was purchased from a local brewer, she had smelled it less often. “It is so distinct—like wet hay and dried flowers.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “The processes of making whisky and beer are the same, to a point,” Dougal answered. “What you smell now is the hot barley mash, being boiled down to produce the wort, from which the whisky will be distilled. It’s not a very pleasant smell. But it’s not the first step in making whisky. First the barley must sprout, turned for days with shovels. Then it is dried over peat fires, which lends it a smoky flavor. After that, it is boiled down to the wort, distilled and collected, mixed with water from the clearest burns and streams, and set in casks to age. I will show you each stage, if you have the time.”

  Fiona turned toward him. “I have the time. I will be in Glen Kinloch a long while.”

  “Will you?” He stood with her on the bridge, the water rushing and frothing below them, and Fiona felt so drawn toward him, so entranced, that at first she did not hear what made Dougal turn, and step away.

  Then, hearing a man shout, she looked around. Hamish MacGregor was running toward them, waving his arms.

  “What the devil,” Dougal muttered. “What is it?”

  “Fire!” Hamish shouted in Gaelic. “Fire over at Thomas MacDonald’s!”

  Kinloch began to run toward his uncle. Without thinking about whether she was welcome, Fiona picked up her skirts and followed.

  Chapter 12

  Feet pounding, skirt hems lifted, Fiona ran just behind Dougal along the earthen lane that led between two of the buildings along another winding path—the place seemed like a warren of paths, some of them hidden from sight, she noted. The Kinloch distillery was located in a secluded spot that was surrounded by dense stands of trees and evergreens, where the enterprise would not be easily noticed. Hamish had emerged from one of those hidden paths and hurried toward them, waving his arms.

  Fearing that someone might have been hurt, she came along, somewhat surprised that Dougal MacGregor did not send her back immediately. He glanced at her and moved ahead.

  “Hamish! What is it?” he called.

  His uncle came closer, halting to catch his breath. “Fire,” he repeated. “The black pot.”

  Dougal swore. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “Not hurt, but the smoke and flames could be seen from afar.”

  “Black pot?” Fiona asked in Gaelic. Poit dubh, she repeated, as Hamish had said.

  “A still,” Dougal answered in English, and then she wondered if he used English to remind her that she was not one of them. He gestured behind her. “Go back.”

  “But I want to help,” she replied in Gaelic.

  “No need.” He turned her by the shoulders then, and gave her a little shove toward the distillery. “Go home—go back to Mary MacIan’s.”

  “She cannot go now, Kinloch,” Hamish said. “The smoke will be seen by the gaugers, and they will come this way. The lass should not cross the glen alone with that sort about.”

  “True. And there’s no one to escort her back to Mary’s just now,” Dougal muttered, and glanced at Fiona. “Go back to the school or to Kinloch House, and wait there.”

  “I will not,” she said, continuing in Gaelic as they had done. “I can help if there are injuries, and I am strong enough to carry buckets of water.”

  “Fiona—” he said quickly, urgently, and his impulsive use of her name sent an unexpected thrill through her. He shook his head. “We have no time.”

  “Bring the girl,” Hamish said. “Pol and Mairi are her students. She wants to help.”

  “Very well, come along,” MacGregor growled. He moved her in front of him, his hands
strong yet gentle as he shifted her position with firm intent. That touch was simple yet powerful somehow, and she caught her breath.

  “If I cannot be of help, then I will keep out of the way,” she told him.

  “See that you do. And whatever happens, you must not speak of it to anyone.”

  She frowned. “You still do not trust me.”

  “Caution is best in some matters.”

  “This from a man who so often takes a risk himself?”

  “Some risks are…safer than others.” He glanced at her.

  “Do you still think me a threat because of my kinsmen? You saw for yourself how Patrick assisted you that night. I was there, and saw it, too. I did what I could as well. Surely that tells you that you can trust us.”

  “My girl,” he murmured, taking her elbow to move her along with him, “I do not trust so easily, and with good reason.”

  “Perhaps you might be happier if you did.”

  “It would take more than that,” he drawled. “Besides, there certain aspects of your very person, my dear girl, that pose such a danger that I…do not trust myself.”

  Another thrill went through her then, lovely and heart-pounding. Fiona glanced toward him, but saw only his profile, and no hint of his feelings: good features, firm mouth and lean jaw, a sweep of dark hair, and those beautiful and guarded eyes. “I trust you,” she said. “Why do you fear trusting me?”

  He smiled, wry and even bitter. “Tinneas-angradh-dubh,” he replied.

  “The black lovesickness? Easily cured.”

  “Is it? Hamish has gone far ahead. We had best hurry,” he added.

  He rushed her along, his hand briefly touching her shoulder or arm as they negotiated the narrow path, walking tightly together by necessity. The light was dim along the path where it cut up and then down through a wooded slope, and the way was studded with roots and tangled bracken. Fiona reached for Dougal’s arm now and then for balance, and once his hand gripped hers, warm and sure, for so long, his fingers lingering over hers, that her heart beat faster. That secret clasping of hands, simple as it was, felt thrilling—then he let go and reached out to push back overhanging branches.

  “Again, I want your promise,” he murmured, “that you will not speak of what you see.” He took her arm again as they left the wooded area to enter the open sweep of the glen floor.

  “You have it. Why did we go this way, when we could have crossed the glen?” she asked.

  “We do not want to be seen in the open too long if gaugers are about. The distance is shorter this way. We cannot risk leading excise men to where we are going.”

  The glen lay flat and open ahead, and when they came to a narrow stream winding through the valley floor, they leaped its rushing waters crossing rock to rock—Dougal holding her hand again, and she glad of it.

  Ahead, massive, rounded hills rose upward, and along those shoulders, she saw two cottages, sheep grazing the slopes, and the deep track of another stream rushing downward. A patch of pine trees thrust upward on one side of the hill. Above, she saw curls of white smoke too thick and dense to come from a chimney.

  “There,” Dougal said, pointing. “Run—hurry, we cannot stay out in the open for long.” He hastened into a long stride, while Fiona strove to keep up, watching the dark mass of pines ahead, with the smoke rising upward. As she ran, the ribbons of her bonnet loosened and the hat dropped to her shoulders; moments later it blew away, skittering over the glen and quickly out of sight. She stopped for a moment, sighed, and then turned. There were more important matters at hand than wayward bonnets, she knew.

  Hurrying to catch up with Dougal, she noticed small, odd lights flitting over the glen, like dust motes glimmering in sunlight. She slowed, glancing toward them. Just motes or reflections of some kind, she told herself, and rushed onward.

  Far ahead, Dougal’s uncle met two men who ran toward him. Within moments, Dougal joined them, Fiona only footsteps behind. She saw that the newcomers were her student Pol and his father, Thomas MacDonald, who now turned toward Dougal.

  “It is Neill’s poit dubh on fire,” he said, with barely a glance for Fiona.

  “Is the lad hurt?” Dougal asked quickly.

  “He is fine, thanking the Lord. And the fire is nearly out now, but the hut is destroyed, and a good copper still blown to bits. We have moved the casks, but until the rest burns off, there is nothing more we can do.”

  Dougal nodded. “Any word of gaugers?”

  “Always the risk,” Hamish grunted. “Thomas sent his other sons out to ask if any have been seen. We’ll go look at the still,” he told the men.

  “What is left of it,” Thomas said, and waved them onward. The men walked without hurrying, though Fiona felt anxious about the fire and hastened faster than her companions. She lagged back, not knowing where to go, so that Dougal walked beside her.

  “So Neill was testing the proof?” he asked the MacDonald father and son.

  “He lit the sample, and it blew,” Thomas said. “Too strong,” he added with a grunt.

  “Your proofs are never too strong,” Dougal said.

  “It was Neill’s own batch,” Thomas said.

  “Neill?” Fiona asked, looking at Pol, who walked to the other side of her.

  “My oldest brother,” he said. “I am the youngest of four sons.” She nodded, certain that they were all in the whisky smuggling trade.

  “Everyone is safe,” Thomas assured them. “And Neill has learned more about the power of the whisky brew.” He shrugged matter-of-factly, while Dougal laughed, curt and humorless.

  Moments later they heard shouts, and the men began to hurry, Fiona going with them. As they looked toward the smoke rising above the pine trees, her attention was caught by a flash below, between the trees. The lights again, she realized, swirling among the trees.

  Then she gasped, for a narrow trail of flame snaked down the slope. “Look!” she cried out, running closer. Dougal grabbed her arm to keep her back. “What is that?”

  “The stream,” he answered after a moment. “It’s burning.”

  She stared in astonishment, and then saw that it was true. Yellow flames licked along the surface of the stream and came flashing downward like a dragon’s tail.

  And above the stream of fire, she saw tiny round lights that swirled in the air between the fire and where she stood. Sparks, she thought—but these differed from the hot gold of fiery sparks. Instead they were pale and luminous, soft colors floating like bubbles spun out of a rainbow.

  Puzzled, she watched the small lights disappear as she walked forward with the others.

  The bright ribbon of fire dancing upon the water was so awesome a sight that Dougal slowed, watching its downward course. Sparks flew all about, snapping up into the air. He glanced upward, concerned the trees might catch fire, too, but so far the fire was contained to the area of the stream of water. He knew what could happen—had seen this get out of control before.

  Men shouted from above, running downward as Dougal and the others approached. Fiona walked past him and he stopped her with a hand to her arm, keeping her a safe distance away. She stood staring at the burning water, while others gathered along the banks to watch as well.

  “There is little we can do,” Dougal said, glancing at Fiona. “It will extinguish on its own.” She nodded, and coughed a little in the smoky atmosphere, though she seemed transfixed as she watched the water and flame.

  He frowned, considering her. There was soot on her cheeks and dusting her dark hair, he saw—and noticed then that she had lost her bonnet, no doubt blown away while they ran.

  Hamish came closer and indicated the flames on the water. “You know what it means,” he said. “Gaugers about.”

  “Aye,” Dougal said. “Neill dumped a fair amount of brew into the water.”

  “Is it whisky burning like that? I have never seen anything like this,” Fiona said. She coughed, waved her hand a little in front of her face, and he noticed that she blinked as the
smoke riding the air stung her eyes. For the most part the smoke was traveling upward, but the odor of burning was strong, and the air hazy with smoke.

  “Whisky must have been poured into the stream,” Dougal told her. “If there is fire present, the whisky alights, and the stream itself seems to burn until the spirits burn out. If the water is shallow and calm, as it is here, the fire burns the length of the spill—sometimes a long way.”

  “A beautiful, terrible thing. It looks like the end of the world,” Thomas said philosophically.

  “A waste of good whisky is what it is,” Hamish said practically. “But it will not last long.”

  “You’ve seen this before?” Fiona asked. Dougal and the others nodded.

  “We’ve all caused a stream to burn like hellfire now and again,” Thomas said. “It is part of the risk. Do not be afraid, miss. We are safe if we keep back.”

  “I am not afraid. Just…amazed.”

  “Neill must have been told that gaugers were coming,” Hamish said, and Dougal nodded.

  He had glanced around while they spoke, taking account of those who stood on the banks, and the shadowy forms of others standing among the trees. He knew each of them—his kinsmen, tenants, and comrades, and young Neill MacDonald standing at the top of the stream, near the smoldering remains of the hut that had housed his black pot still.

  “I see no gaugers about. I’ll talk to Neill,” Dougal said, and stepped away. Then he turned back on a quick thought. “Miss MacCarran, please come with me.”

  She nodded and turned with him, plucking at her skirts, her slim-fingered hands lifting the fabric so that it draped gently around her form. As she moved, he saw narrow-toed boots and the flash of a slender ankle in white silk. He knew well by now that her limbs were long and well-made, and the rest of her was neatly shaped, too. Truly, he had noticed far more about the lady than he would ever let on.

  “Can I help?” she asked, as she walked with him.

  “Not just now. I must talk to Neill, and I want to know where you are,” he replied. “You’ve seen a bit more than I expected,” he admitted, sifting his fingers through his hair, trying to think. He and his kinsmen and friends would have to rely on the girl for silence. But only he knew that the first time he had seen her, she and her brother had been exploring the hillside, while she took notes about the area. He frowned, remembering that.