Sarah Gabriel
Page 26
“The Southies will win,” Jamie said, “they have more players. And besides, the gaugers will be happy then, and will pay no attention to what Cousin Dougal is doing.”
Pausing as she sketched the ammonites, Fiona looked up. “What would Kinloch be doing today, other than playing the ba’ game?”
“Smuggling,” Lucy said. She was sorting flowers now, laying them out in groups on a sun-warmed rock. “He and my other uncles are smuggling tonight, and as soon as it gets dark, they will be meeting a great secret ship from France or Ireland, come to take their load of whisky and give them good coin in payment. We will be rich,” she said, looking up.
“It will be a cutter or a sloop, not a ship,” Jamie pointed out. “It is only a loch, and connected to other lochs by rivers, and so only fast boats can come up here for the whisky runs.”
“Is it so?” Fiona asked. “Only fast boats on the loch?”
He nodded. “They sail up here and then down, and when they reach Loch Lomond, they take the river route to the sea. Dougal MacGregor showed me on a map,” he said. “I have seen the cutters coming up the loch.”
Fiona had seen one, too, she remembered. Frowning, she glanced toward the game, with the great clog of men at one part of the meadow, and spectators and other players standing or walking about. It seemed as if the men would never give up and go to their homes. Some of the women had told her that the game could go on for a day or two, even near a week, it was said, generations back. Men came and went in shifts, giving each one a chance to eat some and rest a little before diving back into the fray.
Women, being more sensible creatures, Mary MacIan had said, soon went about their business at home or tended to whatever wounds needed it. Now and then, women would dive into the throng, too, welcomed like any player, to give as good as they got, and then some.
Now Fiona saw men walking over the moorland, and she recognized the one in the lead. She knew the set of those shoulders, the rhythm of that walk, the swing of the dark-sheened hair. Her heart quickened to see Dougal, and she wondered if he had seen her, too, standing on the hill with the children. He was not coming toward them, but rather walked toward the loch along with his uncles. No doubt they knew that the game was thrusting toward the lochside goal.
Smuggling, Lucy had said her uncle was doing today, despite the game.
Or because of it, Fiona thought then. Narrowing her eyes, she lifted a hand to her brow. What an opportunity for distraction the raucous game provided—and Dougal himself had suggested that the game be played this week, earlier than the usual first of May. What was he planning?
Hearing a shout and Lucy’s quick answer, she saw Hugh MacIan climbing the hill toward them. He waved, smiled a greeting for Fiona, and admired the children’s collected items before turning to watch the glen beside Fiona.
“The Southies look to win it,” Hugh said. “We are all moving toward the loch. Do you want to come down and watch?”
“We want to see!” Jamie said, and within moments, the children were racing down the hillside, while Fiona laughed and called to them to slow down. Gathering her things, she walked with Hugh.
“Is the game over then?” she asked. “It is late afternoon, and twilight is coming.”
“They will play until there is resolution, even after dark. We have attracted the attention of some outsiders with this day’s work,” he added, gesturing toward the glen.
“Customs officers?” she asked, seeing a few strangers on horseback and on foot.
“Aye, including your brother,” he said. “I spoke to him—he will meet us down by the loch. Lord Eldin is here, too. He heard of the game at the inn, and came to watch. Dougal had best be careful,” he added, low.
Fiona shot him a glance. “What do you mean?”
“The ship,” Hugh said, nodding as they reached the meadow and began to cross its rolling ground. “Dougal has arranged for a trade tonight. Did he not tell you?” He looked at her with surprise as Fiona shook her head. “I understood he might be courting you.”
“We are not courting,” she said quickly, and lifted her chin.
“Miss MacCarran,” he said. “Fiona. I must ask—as kirk minister in the glen, concerned for all the souls in it—when you stayed at Kinloch House, I hope all was well that night between you and the laird. In such a situation there would be a chance of scandalous behavior, especially between two people with such…passionate natures.”
She shook her head, looking away to hide her blush. “Of course all was well.”
“Maisie—who will be my intended one day, I hope—said that there were whisky glasses and a broken glass in the library when she returned next day.”
The glasses, Fiona thought; she had forgotten completely about them. “I had a cough after being near the smoke of the fire at the MacDonalds, and at Kinloch House I took a little whisky for it. I dropped the glass and it broke, so I got another.”
“Was it the fairy whisky?” He glanced at her. “Maisie said that flask was open. The laird takes very little whisky, though he brews it. I confess I am curious—did you try the fairy whisky, and if so, did you feel any effect from it?”
Startled, she nodded. “I did, and found it a very nice whisky. If there was any magic result, I did not notice. On the whole…it was a lovely evening.”
They were nearing the lochside road, walking toward the crowd, as the game headed toward the standing stones on the slope beside the road, where Fiona had met Dougal on the night he had given her an unforgettable kiss. Now she called the children closer, anxious about their safety with the rough game going on nearby. Hugh took her arm, drawing her away from the horde, and calling the children to follow.
“Come this way,” he told them. “I will take you to meet Dougal.”
She glanced at him, surprised. “I thought we would be watching the rest of the ball game.”
“Not quite,” he said, and pulled her along. “Come,” he said, beckoning to the children.
Frowning as she went with him, Fiona felt the pressure of the reverend’s grip as he led them all to the shoreline of the loch. A massive section of limestone layered with red sandstone rose almost straight up from the loch, the sections near the water screened from view by a thicket of bushes and trees, which sprouted close along the shore. A narrow path wound its way there, she saw, and the shoreline followed a deep curve, cutting into the gigantic wedge of rock that thrust upward. In places the water flowed within an arm’s length of the cliffs.
“Mr. MacIan, where are we going?” Fiona asked with growing concern. “Children, hold hands and stay by the wall. The way along the shore is narrow through here,” she called to them. Perhaps the reverend wanted to show her some rock formations by the loch, she told herself; yet a feeling deep in her gut told her that something was wrong. “Is there some trouble?”
“Dougal promised to meet us here,” Hugh said, but her sense of dread only increased.
Within moments, her practiced eye for geological forms told her that there were caves along the narrow shoreline, and soon she saw dark crevices splitting the rock face, hidden in part by bushes and trees. As Hugh shepherded them forward, his manner even more insistent, she wondered what made him so anxious, and why he continually looked over his shoulder.
“In here,” he finally said, and shoved them ahead into one of the triangular crevices that split the rock. They had to duck their heads to go inside, but once in, could stand easily. Jamie and Lucy jumped about, delighted to be inside a cave they had never seen before, while Annabel turned in circles, looking in awe at the shadowed ceiling and sloping gray walls just overhead.
Lucy looked up. “It is not very big,” she said. “And it is empty. Why are we here?”
“An excellent question.” Fiona yanked her arm from Hugh’s grip. Then she saw that a few footprints in some light dust on the floor led toward a shadowed wall. “Well, Mr. MacIan?”
“This way,” he said without explanation, and led them toward the wall. Now Fiona saw
that overlapping walls formed a crevice, with a floor sloping downward into shadow.
“But I want to watch the ba’ game,” Jamie protested, as Hugh guided each of them into the second cave, Fiona going first, the children guarded between her and Hugh, who then took up a lantern from some unseen shelf and turned up the wick, shedding light on their descending path.
Following the narrow path formed between one cave and the next, Fiona saw immediately that there were more caves under the original—several, in fact, like cells in a honeycomb, formed by bubbles in the ancient liquid material that had turned, over eons, to limestone.
By habit she looked at the quality and nature of the stone, and saw patches of other strata—sandstone, some graywacke, the sparkle of thousands of crystal particles as the lantern light caught them, all common enough stones and so deeply embedded that removal would be difficult, though there were veins of lead, she saw, that could even be mined out. But the stone itself was not what caught her attention in the series of caves.
“This is astonishing,” she said, her voice echoing. “So many cave cells progressing eastward, I believe, from the entrance above us. So these caves go under the loch!”
Hugh nodded. “They go deep into the earth, with the loch sitting above us,” he agreed, as they continued a downward trek.
“Under the loch!” Jamie hooted his delight, as did Lucy, their voices echoing.
“Hush,” the reverend said sharply.
“Will we drown?” Annabel seemed so nervous that Fiona took her hand.
“This is perfectly safe,” she told her. “The rock layers overhead are very thick, and have been here for a very long time. A millennium,” she said, and explained the word to the children, and told them something about the limestone. Only Annabel listened, the younger two chasing about.
Fiona paused, slowly turning, peering in one cell after another as the lantern light swung and spread. Every small cave contained whisky kegs.
There were hundreds, she thought, most small enough to be carried on a man’s shoulder; the larger ones could be rolled up and down the sloped pathways. Transporting the casks into these caves would be the trickier part of the enterprise, she realized. Once brought out of the upper cave, the loch was so close that waiting rowboats could take cargo to a larger cutter or sloop, and away down the loch, before being seen.
“This is Dougal’s smuggled whisky cache,” she said. “So that is why the game is going on today.” She looked at Hugh.
“That could be,” he said.
“Smuggler’s caves!” Jamie said, as he and Lucy ran about, yelling so that Hugh snapped at them to be quiet.
“I regret bringing them with us,” he grumbled.
“We could hardly leave them. Why are we here?” Fiona asked pointedly.
“I know you are interested in fossils. This place must be is thick with them.”
“That is not your reason,” she said, both puzzled and wary, now.
“I also want you to know what Dougal is doing. If you are considering courtship or marriage, you need to know what a rogue he is.”
“I know he cares about his glen and the people in it, and smuggles to protect them from the bite of taxes. And I know he makes legal whisky. This must be a cache of Glen Kinloch brew.”
“This,” he said, gesturing, “is all aged whisky, made by him and his kinsmen as well. He will make a fortune on the shipment.”
“Where is he?” she asked. “You said he would meet us here.”
“Soon. Come this way.” He turned left to follow a natural corridor in the stone, and Fiona, feeling even more unsettled, gathered the children close, then turned and began to run with them.
Hugh whirled and grabbed for them. As they struggled, the children kicking and screaming, another man stepped out of the shadows. He snatched Fiona by the waist, dragging her away, while Hugh grabbed the two younger children and barked at Annabel to go ahead of him. She obeyed.
Fiona twisted to see that Eldin was holding her. “Nick! What is this all about?”
“Go inside,” Eldin said, dragging her toward a small cave, while Hugh pushed the children into it as well. To her amazement, the reverend slammed an iron grate shut, forming a cage. Until then, Fiona had not noticed the metal framework, which was hinged into the very rock.
“What are you doing?” she called, while the children shrieked, Annabel whimpering. “These are just children. Let them go, and Annabel will lead them back to the glen. You are very brave,” she encouraged the older girl, “and I know you will watch after the young ones.”
“We will hold all of you for a little while, and release you soon,” Hugh said. “For now, we need the insurance.”
Golden lamplight bloomed where the walkway sloped upward, and footfalls sounded brisk over stone. “What sort of insurance?”
Fiona gasped to see Dougal, his expression a fierce glower in the light, as he descended toward them. Then she saw Patrick walking behind him, carrying a flaming torch.
Chapter 18
“What the devil, Hugh—and Eldin,” Dougal growled. “I should have known you might come after that whisky,” he added, glaring at the earl.
“MacGregor,” Eldin said smoothly. “And Patrick—what brings you here now?”
“When we heard about the game, I came to the glen with the other officers to watch,” Patrick answered his cousin. “I happened to see Dougal, and we noticed the reverend heading this way with my sister and the children.”
“But we did not expect this,” Dougal said. Beside him, Patrick held the torch high, revealing the two men standing near the cell that had been fitted with an iron grate decades ago, when other smugglers had used these caves.
Behind the rusted iron bars, Fiona stood with the children, her face oval and pale and perfect as she looked through the bars at him. All of them were so achingly beautiful to him, in that moment, that the urge to protect them, even to tear the bars open and send men flying, made his muscles clench, his nostrils flare. He would have to be cautious, and make no move just yet.
He suspected what they wanted—the fools. He would not put it past Eldin, but he could not so easily understand Hugh’s involvement. Meanwhile Patrick MacCarran, whom he had been ready to mistrust all along, stood at his shoulder like a stalwart and trusted comrade.
“Where are the other gaugers?” Hugh asked Patrick quietly.
“Out in the glen, watching the game,” Patrick said. “They do not know we are here. We are on our own with this, Kinloch,” he added under his breath, and Dougal nodded.
“Eldin, why bother to take children and a woman captive?” Dougal asked. “Is it complete cowardice you mean to prove here, or something more serious?” He stepped closer, surreptitiously sliding his hand to the butt of the pistol hidden under the drape of his plaid.
Quickly the earl produced a pistol from inside his frock coat, and cocked the thing; it echoed, and Fiona jumped, and Annabel shrieked a little. “Stay where you are, Kinloch,” Eldin said. “Patrick, you too. Move, and you will both regret it.”
“Nick,” Patrick said, holding the torch high. “Stop this. What is it you want?”
“Kinloch knows exactly what I want,” he answered.
“Not seven casks of twenty-year-old whisky,” Dougal said.
“Not that,” Eldin confirmed. “The other sort of whisky will do.”
“Nicholas,” Fiona said, and Dougal glanced toward her. “I have known you all my life, and I have seen you change from a kind boy to a smug, cold youth, for some reason of your own. But this…is reprehensible. How could you?”
“He seems eager to inherit Grandmother’s fortune,” Patrick said.
“Ah.” Dougal frowned. “The cousin who will take it all—Fiona mentioned that to me when she explained about the will.”
“Did she tell you?” Patrick said, raising a brow. “Interesting. She trusts you implicitly, then.”
“I would hope so,” Dougal replied, with a quick, grim glance toward her.
“By all means, find those damn fairies,” Dougal murmured.
“Be quiet,” Eldin said.
“Nick, in all the time we have known each other,” Fiona said, “I never thought you capable of evil…until now.”
“Evil, my dear, is a harsh term,” Eldin said. “I have my reasons, as you astutely said.”
“You are a wicked man,” Lucy said.
“Hush it,” Eldin hissed, glancing toward the cage.
Dougal stepped forward. “Do not,” he warned Eldin.
“I have no interest in the children,” the earl said. “Nor do I wish harm to my cousins, though they think ill of me. Once I have what I want, you are all free to go. With some exceptions.” He stared, flat and cold, at Dougal. “But that depends on what you decide to do.”
“And you?” Dougal looked at Hugh. “What is your part in this?”
“I want you to sell the whisky to Eldin,” Hugh said. “Do not bother with the ship.”
“It is a cutter, not a ship,” Jamie spoke up.
“Hush,” Fiona said gently, and rested a hand on Jamie’s head. She pulled the children close to her to stand in a huddle by the iron bars. “What is it you both want?” she asked. “Hugh, I hope your grandmother does not know about this!”
“She does not,” Hugh answered, without looking at her. “And if she did, she might agree. I only want Dougal to realize that he can make a bigger fortune selling the aged whisky to Eldin and his contacts in England. I have tried to discuss it with him. Eldin’s offer for the lot is greater than we could earn from the French and Irish merchants. It could save this glen. That is my concern.”
“Save the glen from me,” Eldin offered in a mocking tone, “as I hold the deeds now. Not all of them, but enough to control the south end of the glen.”
“Who won the ba’?” Jamie asked.
“Southies,” Patrick said. “They had more players.”