Kissing the Countess
Page 15
"But Catriona is deserving of your songs," Morag said.
"She is countess of these lands, and her husband took part in the clearances on that day of sadness, years ago. I saw him with his father, watching as the people were sent from the glen!"
"That's so," Morag murmured. "He was there too."
"I will not let the son take my songs away, as his father took my kin," Flora said.
Catriona bowed her head. She, too, had seen Evan that day, riding with the despised earl. Yet she was Evan's wife now, no matter the true state of her marriage.
"The old earl sent away fourteen of my children and ten of my grandchildren. They were all grown then, with their families," Flora said, ushering them to the door. "They left me alone here, with few of my own left to take care of me. And not the best ones either," she added, darting a glance at Morag.
"Now, you listen to me—" Morag said.
Catriona stepped through the doorway, ducking her head, and turned. "Flora MacLeod, I am sorry for the past," she said. "I, too, grieved that day for kinfolk and friends who left Glen Shee. But neither my husband nor I caused that tragedy. We share your suffering, and we share your hope that one day those who left will return to Glen Shee, where they are loved and remembered. Come, Morag."
She walked away, her skirt and plaid blown by the wind, her senses filled with the mountain air, but tears blurred her vision. Morag, grumbling, followed.
As they crossed the yard, she heard Flora begin a song of mourning in raspy, quavering tones, although the quality of the voice she had once possessed was still evident. Hearing the song, Catriona turned.
Where shall we go to make our plea
When we are hungry in the hills?
Hiri uam, hiri uam
The old woman sang a lament, the same tuireadh that Catriona had sung herself, years before, the day the people left Glen Shee. Standing on a hillside overlooking the road, she had honored their leave-taking in the only way she knew.
Now, raising her head and drawing a breath, Catriona added her voice to the melody. Her notes were higher and more pure than the old woman's, but the harmony was strong and haunting.
Where shall we go to warm ourselves
When we are chilled with cold?
Where shall we go for shelter
Since my love's hearth is dark?
Hiri uam, hiri uam....
As the song ended on a soul-wrenching note, the echo of its passing rang out over the mountains.
Flora emerged from her hut and walked toward Catriona, looking up at her with an intense blue gaze. "You," she said. "You were the one who sang a tuireadh for the people that day."
Catriona nodded in silence.
Flora looked at Morag. "Did you hear her that long-ago day?"
"I did," Morag said. "I knew it was her all this time."
"Why did you not tell me? Come here, tall girl." Flora grabbed Catriona's arm and dragged her back toward the house while Morag followed. "Come back inside."
Chapter 15
"Morag sings like a frog, so I could never teach her my fairy songs," Flora said, once they were back inside the cozy croft. Morag gaped at her in protest as Flora went on. "I have always wanted a pupil worthy of the music. Your voice is pure, Catriona Mhor, and now I know you understand the old songs, why they are beautiful and why they are valuable."
"I do, Mother Flora. I love the old songs," Catriona said.
"But you are Countess of Kildonan. This is not good. However, I liked your mother." The old woman frowned.
"Catriona Mhor is worthy of your songs," Morag insisted. "She wants to protect and save them. Put aside your resentment of Kildonan and give her your teachings."
"But her husband cannot be trusted," Flora said. "How could my songs be safe in his house? The outlanders and holiday climbers would ask his wife to sing her pretty songs. Bah, that is not the way. These are beautiful, powerful songs. Their magic must be appreciated, and the new earl will not understand that—just like his father."
"Evan is not like his father," Catriona said. "He is a good man, and he will love these songs for what they are. You misjudge him." Suddenly she felt fiercely protective.
"He is a beautiful man, too," Morag said. "If you would ever come down off this mountain, Mother Flora, you would see him for yourself. Such a man!"
"Ach, there was no man finer than my husband," Flora said. "I will set you a test, tall one. Did your mother teach you any of my songs?"
"She knew many songs, but only one of your fairy songs."
"Sing it for me now."
Catriona closed her eyes to remember. Tilting back her head and sitting tall, she began the beautiful air that her mother had sung years ago to lull her children to sleep.
My joy and my heart
My laughter and my tears
My child, my little child
Hill o hu ro
Hill o hu ro, hiri o...
As Catriona trilled the last notes, beautiful mouth music rather than true words, the melody seemed to chime and fade.
"Ah, nicely done," Flora said.
"Is that the test? Then she passed," Morag said.
"Of course it's not her test. That is the fairy song my own great-grandmother heard from the fairies themselves, when they came to peek at her child in the cradle. So you want to know the rest of what I know, eh?"
"I do," Catriona said.
"You have the fairy's own gift of singing. That is good. But we must know if the fairies approve. Hmm..." Flora looked around the room thoughtfully. Then she stood and went to the window to take something from its place on the wooden sill. "I want you to bring me a crystal stone." She held out her palm, in which was a smoky crystal a few inches in length.
"That's a Cairngorm stone," Catriona said. She knew that the quartz rocks, which occurred in translucent shades of brown, could be found on Highland mountain slopes and were named for the mountains to the east. Catriona had sometimes found them while walking the hills. "I would be happy to get one for you."
Flora set the crystal in the windowsill, where it winked, whisky colored, in the light. "Bah, that sort is easy to find. I want one that is far more rare. I want a fairy wand."
"A what? There is no such thing," Morag said.
"They exist, but they are not easy to find," Flora said. "They shine with their own magic light. If you can find one and bring it to me, I will teach you my songs."
"Fairy wands—the stones they also call fairy crystals?" Catriona nodded. "I've heard of them in the old tales, but I don't know of anyone who has ever seen one. I would not know where to find one or what it might look like."
"They exist only at the top of Beinn Sitheach." Flora pointed upward at the ceiling to indicate the great mountain that shadowed her house.
Catriona blinked. "But no one has ever gone all the way up there. They say it is impossible to climb that peak." She knew that well enough—Evan had fallen in his attempt, and her own brother had died on those rocky slopes years ago.
"It is not easy, but it can be done. If you want my songs, girl, you must find the will and the heart to do this. They say the mountain peak sparkles because the fairy crystals grow so thick up there. But what I want is the most special kind—the one that shines in moonlight."
"Moonlight?" Morag said. "There's no such stone. Mother Flora, you cannot send the girl up there in the darkness!"
"Hush, you. It is her choice," Flora said. "The most precious of the fairy wands hold magic light, and will show themselves in darkness and moonlight. If you want the songs, tall girl—then go up there. The fairies themselves will help you get up there, and show you where the stone is, and get you safely down again. So it is not so hard as you think—if the fairy kind agree that you should have the fairy wand, and the songs."
"Ach, she's lived with her crazy dreams for too long," Morag muttered to Catriona. "Mother Flora, this is the Countess of Kildonan and a new bride, not some girl to send on a magic quest like in one of the old tales!"
"What was it? Flying over the mountains on a broomstick?" Morag asked.
"If you must know, crabby girl, I was to win handsome Rory MacLeod's heart and make him my own," Flora said. "And I did it. And winning that man was a harder task than climbing that mountain could be, I tell you. Ah, but it was worth any price." She smiled and looked at Catriona. "What say you?"
Catriona frowned thoughtfully. All her life she had wanted to learn the old, legendary fairy songs, for those exquisite melodies held a special magic of their own. And her dearest dream was to learn and then preserve the old Gaelic songs, to keep them safe in case the Celtic culture that birthed them truly faded away.
More than any others, the rare and beautiful fairy songs lured and drew her—and no one knew them as well as Old Flora. Without the fairy songs, the work of Catriona's heart would never be complete.
She must find a way to do this, she told herself. Just last night, Evan had talked about risks, wanting her to take a chance on their marriage—but she clung to what felt safe to her.
Now she would have to find the courage to climb that mountain peak, go higher than anyone, higher than her brother or Evan had gone. She would find the fairy crystal that Flora wanted—or her life's work would never be finished.
"I will do it," she said, lifting her chin.
"Good. But hurry," Flora said. "I'm a very old woman."
* * *
Returning to Kildonan Castle alone, Catriona came back by way of the old bridge that she had crossed a thousand times before, leaping the gap as she had always done. A little while later, she met Evan when their paths intersected on the rolling moorland near to the castle, where the long grass was autumn gold and the wind cut cold and damp.
He did not ask about the bridge, and they strolled back to Kildonan chatting politely about their afternoon. She told him about walking with Morag and going to visit an old woman who knew the old songs, and he nodded.
"They are important to you, the ancient Gaelic songs."
"Very much," she agreed, without elaborating. "Did you walk the hills with your friend Mr. Fitzgibbon today, or go hunting?"
"No—I've been spending time with the estate's account books, and then went to the stables, where I met Mr. Gillie, and we talked about horses and sheep, the livestock and the living the land gives us, and so on." He shrugged. "A long day, and there is more of it ahead. But it is well past time I devoted my days to Kildonan and the glen."
He shrugged, as if he felt some kind of regret over it. Catriona glanced at him, frowning. He seemed tired, she thought, and pensive. Her own thoughts were focused on her meeting and her mission, which she did not want to discuss in detail with him or anyone, beyond the two or three who knew.
"Did you learn a new song today? Would you sing it?"
Surprised, she nodded, and paused to begin the fairy tune that her mother had taught her long ago. Evan listened, quiet and attentive, closing his eyes, tilting his head.
When she finished, he opened his eyes and touched her shoulder, a simple caress that sent a wonderful thrill through her. When he murmured thanks, she felt the affection in it as warmly as if he had kissed her.
Then he resumed their stroll, Catriona beside him, walking toward the graveled drive in the castle forecourt.
Inside the foyer, they parted politely, Evan saying he must meet Arthur in the library, while Catriona murmured that she wanted to go upstairs to change.
"I'll have Mrs. Gillie send tea up to your room," he said.
After solitary and peaceful tea while she read a little, she dozed in the chair, waking to twilight, and the sound of knocking on the door as Lady Jean called her name.
Feeling foggy, Catriona let her into the room. "Sorry, I was asleep," she said, blushing.
"Even is sleeping too," Jean said, smiling. "I've told him, and the others, that neither one of you should be expected down for dinner. Trays for each of you. I've pleaded fatigue for both of you, and so you should not feel pressed to appear."
"Thank you," Catriona said, surprised and touched.
"Both of you survived quite an ordeal in that awful storm on the mountain," Jean said, "and then the rushed wedding and all the challenges of arriving in a new home. All of it has happened so quickly." She smiled again, patted Catriona's shoulder. "You and Evan need rest, just as Mr. Grant advised."
At the mention of Kenneth Grant, Catriona suppressed a shudder and nodded in silence. She stood by then while Jean took charge like a brisk wind, running her bath herself without calling for a maid, drawing the draperies closed, even building up the fire in the hearth.
"Relax. I will have supper sent up, and ask that you not be disturbed. You or Evan," Jean said, and left, a finger to her lips in a hushing gesture as she shut the door.
After she had bathed, emerging warmed and refreshed, she dressed in a simple nightgown, pulling around her the generous folds of a woolen shawl. Then she heard a tap on the door, and Deirdre entered with a tray that held a covered bowl of hot, thick soup, a plate of bread and cheese, a pot of very hot tea.
Eating a little, sated and drowsy, Catriona settled in the bed, leaning back on its abundance of pillows and quilts. Taking up the book, she did not stay with it for long, slipping quickly into sleep again.
In the dark of the night, she woke, and after a while, got up to use her private water closet. Then, pausing by the door to the sitting room, she felt a pang of temptation—and padded through the little room to stand at Evan's door. The urge to knock was strong, but she only rested her hand on the door.
Footsteps. She heard creaking, the rhythmic fall of steps on carpeting. He was pacing. Something bothered his sleep.
The steps paused just at the door, and Catriona felt as if he was just there, keen and present on the other side of the door. Leaning her brow against the wood, she breathed slowly.
But she did not knock. She closed her eyes, thought of slow, tender, heated kisses, of passion, of need. All she had to do was knock, go into his arms—and the marriage he had described would be made. All or nothing, he had said.
But she wanted more than marital compatibility and fulfilling of duties. She wanted love, deep and real, and all that went with it. A fancy, a dream, perhaps. But she would not give up on it just yet.
She turned away, slipped back to her room, sliding under the covers to bury herself in soft, snowy linens and loneliness.
Laying there, she thought she could still hear his pacing, sense his thinking, his presence. She did not have to be alone tonight. All she need do was open the door.
What she wanted was finer, stronger, yet just out of reach.
Chapter 16
Glad to be outside in sun and wind, Evan was glad to have such a physically demanding chore that morning. He worked alone on the broken bridge, fetching and carrying rocks from among those scattered on the hillside. Wedging each one between the broken stones that edged the gash in the bridge, he did his best to shore up the loose stones.
Straddling the breach, he secured several rocks on both sides. Then he walked to a wooded area to gather stout sticks, breaking them to appropriate lengths, fitting them across the gap space. This would add some necessary countertension to the sagging haunches of the bridge and help, if only a little.
After breakfast he had sent word to Finlay MacConn, but young Davey MacGillechallum had returned with the answer that Mr. MacConn was in Inverness. He would have asked Catriona when her brother might return or why he was there, but she had left to meet Morag MacLeod, saying they meant to gather more knitting from a croft wife in the hills.
"Shall we meet by the fairy bridge before teatime?" she had asked, and Evan agreed, with a warning not to take the bridge. She had smiled and slipped out the door.
Evan had sent Davey after her with the pony cart, asking him to take the two women around the long way and make
sure they were safe and had an escort. Then he had set out for the bridge himself.
Now, satisfied that his makeshift repair would hold, he brushed off his hands and clothing, covered in dust. Thirsty, he wiping his forearm over his brow, he walked down the steep embankment to drink from the cold, clear stream at the bottom of the gorge, then scrambled back up again.
In the distance, he could see two men walking along the road from the direction of Kilmallie, the smaller estate that bordered Kildonan along the eastern border.
"Hey there! Kildonan!" Arthur Fitzgibbon waved, and Evan recognized that the other gentleman with Fitz was Kenneth Grant. Waving in reply, he waited as they approached. They both carried long-barreled hunting guns and wore tweed suits and caps, Arthur in the knickers and boots that he preferred, Grant in darker coat and trousers.
"Kildonan! Mr. Grant invited me out for a bit of shooting on his lands. Very fine," Arthur said, brandishing his gun. "He lent me his rifle. I haven't seen many of this sort, a fine weapon with a true aim. We had an excellent morning."
"Did you?" Evan asked, shoving his hands into his pockets, still without his jacket, which lay draped over the parapet of the bridge. "What did you bag?" He saw they carried nothing beyond a gun and a canvas knapsack apiece.
"Three brace of grouse on the moorland between here and Kilmallie, five partridges on the crofter's hill to the south, and a brace of wild ducks along the reeds by the river. We sent them back to Kilmallie and Kildonan with Grant's gillie."
"Good! Mrs. Baird and Cook will be pleased to have something fresh to prepare for dinner," Evan said. "Thank you, sir. Mr. Fitzgibbon enjoys hunting, though I did not plan to do any hunting this time," he told Grant.
"Not a hunter, Kildonan?" Grant asked, leaning his gun against a boulder. "Your father was quite the sportsman and had a good array of guns, and a very impressive row of stag heads mounted on the wall in his billiard room."
"Aye," Evan agreed. Since his father had died after his gun accidentally went off during a morning spent deer stalking with guests on the Kildonan estate, hunting was not one of Evan's preferred subjects or pastimes. "You know his collection. Did you hunt with my father?"