“What have you been thinking?”
“That I should come to Ardness Castle and call on you.”
Leona did not reply and after a moment he went on,
“You are very young and the Duke is in the position of being your Guardian. I am very anxious to do nothing that will hurt you in any way or that could possibly damage your reputation.”
“How could you do that?” Leona asked in surprise. Lord Strathcairn smiled.
“I think a large number of people, including the Duke, would think it very unconventional that you stayed at Cairn Castle and that you had been alone with me to-day.”
“Yes – of course,” Leona said, a little dismally. “I had forgotten that.”
“That is why I will call at Ardness Castle with all pomp and circumstance,” Lord Strathcairn said. “I see no reason, whatever the difficulties between His Grace and myself, why you and I should not start our acquaintance, perhaps a little late in the day, on the right foot.”
He smiled as he spoke and Leona gave a little laugh.
“As you say,” she said, “it is a little late in the day. I have stayed with you, I have spent a day alone with you and – ” She stopped.
“I would like you to finish that sentence,” Lord Strathcairn said insistently.
“I was going to – say that I have been so – very very happy,” she answered.
“And so have I!” he replied. “More happy than I can express in words, more happy than I should say at this moment.”
Leona felt herself quiver at the meaning underlying his words and at the expression in his eyes.
They rode on in silence and now she could see the Cairn ahead of them, the stones silhouetted against the sky.
She had a feeling that Ardness was waiting beyond it, reaching out its arms to drag her back into its very bowels, holding her so closely that she would never be able to escape a second time.
Then, as the moor dipped down a small incline, Lord Strathcairn drew his horse to a standstill.
“Do you mind walking to where there is something I wish to show you?” he asked.
“No, of course not,” Leona answered.
He called up the groom and told him to take charge of the horses. Then he lifted Leona from the saddle and, taking her by the hand as if she was a child, led her a short way across the heather.
They rounded a small hillock and Leona saw there was a cascade, bursting out from the side of the hill and tumbling in a silver stream into a small burn, which twisted its way doubtless towards the sea.
“How pretty!” she exclaimed.
“It has been here for centuries,” Lord Strathcairn said, “and it has a special secret that I wish to show you.”
“How exciting!” Leona cried, but looking at the cascade she could not imagine what secret it could hold.
Lord Strathcairn walked ahead of her, drawing her by the hand to the very edge of the water, until, as he pushed aside the heather, she saw there was a narrow passage behind the cascade itself.
It was just wide enough for her to pass without getting wet.
Now the water was thundering down on one side of Leona like a silver veil and, as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she saw that there was a huge cavern going far back into the rock.
“A cave!” she exclaimed, and heard her voice echo a little eerily.
“This is where the Chief of the McCairns and thirty of his Clan hid after the battle of Culloden,” Lord Strathcairn explained. “The English searched for them everywhere, even trying to burn down The Castle, but to all intents and purposes they had disappeared.”
Leona moved a little further into the cave.
“How long did they have to stay here?”
“For three months! Somehow their wives and mothers managed to bring them enough food so that they did not starve and, when the English had gone, they emerged safe and sound!”
“It’s a perfect hiding place, my Lord. How kind of you to show it to me.”
“Even today very few people know of its existence,” Lord Strathcairn said. “I need not ask you not to mention it when you are over the boundary?”
“You know I would never betray – your confidence,” Leona answered.
“I was sure of that.”
He was standing with his back to the silver wall of cascading water, but Leona was facing it and the light of it was on her face.
“Now I shall think of you not only in the mists over the loch,” he said in his deep voice, “but also whenever I see a cascade or hear the music of it.”
Their eyes held each other’s.
Leona drew in her breath. Then without conscious volition, without thought, she moved towards him.
His arms went around her and, as instinctively she lifted her face, his lips came down on hers.
Leona had never been kissed before and she had not been warned what to expect.
Certainly not the little flame of fire that seemed to run through her veins nor the sudden warm wonder that invaded her so that she felt as if she melted into him and became part of his very body.
She felt as if his lips took possession of her and she was no longer herself.
His kisses were part of the magic that she had felt at the loch and at Cairn Castle, and yet it was more beautiful and more intense.
The water falling beside them, its silver light that glinted in the air and the strange secret atmosphere of the cave itself were all in the insistence of his mouth.
It was as if time stood still and she was part of the history and wonder of Scotland and Lord Strathcairn embodied all the courage and manliness displayed by her childhood’s heroes. He kissed her until the world no longer existed, they were alone and the secret of the place where they stood was part of their hearts, their minds and souls.
Lord Strathcairn raised his head.
“I love you, my beautiful darling! I have loved you since the first moment I saw you!”
“I – love you – too!’ Leona whispered. “It was because I felt so – safe in your arms that I wished – never to leave them.”
“My little love, I should never have let you go. I should have kept you with me. I should have held you.”
His lips found hers again and he kissed her wildly, passionately and possessively so that she felt the little flame that had streaked through her at the first touch of his lips become a fire that invaded her whole being.
‘I belong to him! I am his!’ she told herself triumphantly.
Then, as he went on kissing her, she could think no more but only feel – a feeling of rapture and ecstasy that was part of Heaven itself.
“You must go, my darling,” he said unsteadily.
“I cannot – leave – you,” Leona cried.
It was sheer agony to know that he must stop kissing her. She wanted the touch of his lips more than she had ever wanted anything in her whole life before.
“We have to be sensible,” Lord Strathcairn said. “I must look after you and see that we both behave with propriety.” “You will not – forget me?”
“Do you think that is possible?”
He held her close to him again and now he kissed her cheeks, her small chin, her straight little nose, then again her lips.
“Come, my precious,” he said at length.
“I would like to stay here – with you for months – as your kinsmen – did.”
“And do you suppose I would wish otherwise?” he enquired and she saw the fire in his eyes.
With an effort he drew her to the side of the cave and stepping out first pulled aside the heather so that she could pass from under the water unscathed.
The heather swung back into position and Leona noticed that it was impossible to see where they had been.
The sunshine seemed blinding and, because she wanted so much to look at him again, she dare not do so.
Because she longed for the touch of his hand, she did not put her fingers into his.
Instead they walked back in silence an
d, only when he lifted her into the saddle, did she look down into his face and see in his eyes an expression that made her feel as if once again he kissed her lips.
She knew he loved her as she loved him, but the groom was within hearing and the horses moved over the heather towards the Cairn.
Leona felt despairingly that there were only a few seconds left before they must part and she must go back to the darkness of Ardness Castle.
They reached the Cairn and she looked down into the Glen and felt herself shudder.
“It will not be long, my darling,” Lord Strathcairn promised, almost beneath his breath, “but, if in the meantime you need me, you know you have only to stand here beside the Cairn.”
“You know I will – come if I – can.”
“And you know I will come to you.”
For a moment they looked into each other’s eyes and it was with the greatest difficulty that Leona did not bend towards him so that he could kiss her lips.
But he lifted her hand and, regardless of whether the groom could see or not, he pulled back her glove at the wrist and kissed the little blue veins just below the palm.
She felt herself thrill at his touch and he knew that she quivered with a sudden ecstasy.
“Always remember that I love you,” he said very softly. Then, as if he could not bear to see her go, he turned and rode away in the direction of his Castle.
Leona watched him for a few minutes before she began the descent down from the Cairn towards the Glen.
CHAPTER FIVE
Every moment that took her nearer to Ardness Castle made Leona feel more and more apprehensive.
At the same time the glow of happiness within her heart made her feel that the whole world vibrated with joy.
‘I love him! I love him!’ she told herself intensely.
With a sudden sense of rapture, she raised her face towards the sky to thank God for having brought Lord Strathcairn into her life.
The wonder of his kiss and the ecstasy of knowing that he loved her made her feel braver than she would otherwise have felt, but at the same time she could not help feeling afraid of what lay ahead.
The Castle was grimmer and more threatening than ever as she crossed the bridge over the river and it loomed high above her. The windows seemed to be eyes looking at her with disapproval.
She was well aware that a feud between Clans was something that could be erased only by blood and even then the hatred would continue century after century, as violent and unrestrained as on the day when it was aroused. But this was not so much a feud between Clans as a personal enmity between two men.
She could imagine how incensed the Duke would have felt at having his actions challenged by somebody as young and, to his mind, as unimportant as Lord Strathcairn.
Yet, man-to-man, Leona thought that Lord Strathcairn shone with the light of an avenging angel, while the Duke was undoubtedly an ogre whom he should vanquish.
‘The Ogre’s Castle!’
The description came to her mind as she dismounted at the great iron-studded door and the grooms took her horse. She walked in to find the Major Domo waiting for her and she had the idea, although she may have imagined it, that he was looking at her in a disapproving manner.
‘What I do is not the business of the servants,’ she told herself proudly and she walked up the stairs with her head held high and her back very straight.
She was well aware that the fact that she had crossed the boundary would already be known in The Castle.
The stalkers would have reported it. The gillies on the river and the keepers on the moors would undoubtedly have watched her and the groom riding up the hill and disappearing when they reached the Cairn.
Such a bit of gossip would have run like wildfire through The Castle and perhaps by now it had even reached the chattering women in the fishing village.
It was easy to understand how fast such a piece of information could travel when one thought of how the Fiery Cross had gathered a Clan when their Chieftain needed them.
Her mother had explained to her how two burnt or burning sticks were tied with a strip of linen that was stained with blood and runners in relays passed the cross from hand to hand.
“One of the last occasions on which it was sent,” Mrs. Grenville said, “was when Lord Glenorchy, son of the Earl of Breadalbane, rallied his father’s people against the Jacobites in 1745.”
“Were they scattered over a large area?” Leona asked. “The cross travelled about thirty miles about Loch Tay in three hours,” Mrs. Grenville replied.
She smiled as she went on,
“A Clan which had been gathered by the cross was influenced by many superstitions – for instance, if an armed man was seen by the way, that was a portent of good fortune and victory.”
“And what was bad luck, Mama?”
“A stag, a fox, a hare or any other game that was seen and not killed, promised evil,” her mother replied.
Her eyes looked back into the past as she said,
“I was always told that if a bare-footed woman crossed the road before the marching men, she was seized and blood was drawn from her forehead at the point of a knife!”
Strange superstitions, Leona thought now, and shivered because just before she had reached The Castle, she had seen a magpie.
‘They may not believe that one magpie brings sorrow in Scotland,’ she told herself.
As she reached the top of the steps, she could not help wishing that she had seen two, which meant joy.
Then, resolutely, she gave herself a mental shake.
‘I am being absurd! What can the Duke do to me? He is not my legal Guardian and, since I take my father’s nationality, I am English!’
At the same time she knew that her Scottish blood would not let her ignore the fact that she had broken the rules of the Chieftain who had appointed himself her Guardian and, as far as he was concerned, had fraternised with the enemy.
It was with a ridiculous sense of relief that Leona found, when she reached the drawing room where the Duke’s sister was waiting for her, that the Duke had not yet returned.
“We were worried about you, dear,” the Duke’s sister said. “My brother did not tell me last night that you also would be away today.”
“It was rude of me and I must apologise,” Leona answered, “but I did in fact expect to be back in time for luncheon.”
“Well, you are here now,” the Duke’s sister said with a smile, “so we need not trouble His Grace with my anxiety.”
“I would not wish to – worry him,” Leona answered.
Equally she was quite certain that, as soon as he entered The Castle, the Duke would be told where she had been.
She went to her room and lay down before dinner, but it was impossible for her to sleep.
All she could think of was Lord Strathcairn’s eyes looking into hers and the wild wonder he had aroused when he kissed her until she could no longer think, but only feel that she was in a special Heaven where there was only love.
‘Love is divine!’ she told herself.
She knew that nothing in the world could stop her loving him and that they belonged to each other already as closely as if they were already united in marriage.
‘I shall live in that happy beautiful Castle,’ Leona thought. ‘I shall look out onto the loch. I shall help to tend and protect the people who shelter beside it, knowing that their Chieftain will never betray them.’
It was at luncheon that Lord Strathcairn had said to her, “Leona is a very beautiful name. I have never before met anyone called Leona.”
She had blushed a little as she replied shyly,
“It seems somehow remiss of me, but I have never heard your Christian name, my Lord.”
“It is Torquil,” he replied. “The name goes back far into antiquity. Many of my predecessors who were called Torquil have performed feats of valour.”
“Tell me about them,” Leona begged.
He had related deeds of heroism pe
rformed in war, affairs of honour when the Chieftain represented the whole Clan and ancient legends that invested those named Torquil with almost supernatural powers.
Leona had listened with glowing eyes and felt that the name became him.
‘Torquil!’ she whispered to herself now, then aloud, as if the words burst from her, she cried,
“I love you! Oh, how much I love you!”
She felt her words winged their way across the moors towards him as if carried on the wind.
She had a feeling that he was thinking of her at that very moment, in fact she was sure he was.
‘Love has made me fey,’ she told herself, ‘and because of it I can project my heart through time and space to him and he will understand.”
All too quickly Mrs. McKenzie and the maids arrived with Leona’s bath and she knew it was nearing the time for dinner.
Now she must face the Duke and she was thankful that they were not to be alone. The Duke’s sister would be there, although she had the idea that there would be no one else.
She was correct in this assumption, for one of the reasons the Duke had gone to shoot with a neighbour was that there were to be no guests on his own moors that day.
Actually the house party had departed in the morning, after Leona had left the house, but she only realised this from the conversation between the Duke and his sister over dinner.
She was aware that he did not address her directly and she was conscious that he was angry even before they proceeded into the Dining Hall.
But he said nothing and Leona ate in silence while the servants presented the food on silver crested dishes.
Even a profusion of candelabra on the table seemed not to illuminate the dark shadows in the corners of the great Hall.
The Piper had chosen to play laments and dirges that evening and by the time dinner was finished, she felt as if she had shrunk in stature and was so insignificant as to be almost invisible.
‘Perhaps the Duke is so angry that he will send me away,’ she thought.
Then she realised that, if he did so, she would simply go straight to Cairn Castle where Torquil would be waiting for her.
She felt her heart leap at the idea and now her chin was raised a little higher. She told herself that as a Macdonald she need not be afraid of a McArdn, however imposing he might appear.
The Secret of the Glen Page 9