“It’s me you are going to marry,” he asserted.
“You are reading my thoughts – ”
“Just as you read mine,” he answered. “And if you read them at this very moment, you will know how much I love you.”
Sheinna made a sound of happiness.
“Oh, Alpin. It is so wonderful that we have found each other. We both wanted to marry for love and that is just what we are doing.”
“Exactly,” he agreed, “but you have forgotten to ask me a very important question.”
“What is that?” she quizzed him.
“About the Viking treasure we found. On my way back from the doctors I went into the tunnel again. I still can hardly believe it, but I now think that all the treasure stolen from the Castle by the Vikings is there.”
“How is that possible?”
“I think now that it may have been hidden there by the Viking marauders themselves when they found out that the people hid from them in the tunnel or else, and this is I think the most likely story, some of the most loyal of our Clan realised that the Vikings were rifling the Castle and ambushed them on their return to their boat. They either killed and buried them or allowed them to escape without the treasure they had stolen from my family.”
Sheinna was listening wide-eyed and then the Duke went on,
“When the Vikings sailed away, the Clansmen took the treasure, I should think at night, and hid it in the tunnel. It would have been far too dangerous to tell anyone it was there. They therefore kept silent and the secret died with them.”
Sheinna gave a little cry.
“You could write a novel about it. It is the most exciting tale I have ever heard. Do you think everything is there that was taken from the Castle?”
“I have been careful not to disturb it too much, but it seems that there is a good chance that all the treasure is there in the tunnel waiting for us.”
“How wonderful, Alpin, and I am sure that it was my prayers which led you to find me and now you will be able to restore the Castle as you have always wanted.”
“I shall hate to sell any of the treasure, but it’s more important that the Castle should be restored and the houses of our people renovated. As your father rightly pointed out to me, we also require many more river watchers.”
“Perhaps there will be no need for you to sell all the treasure,” said Sheinna, “because you can use my money.”
“Your money?” the Duke echoed and before she could reply, he added, “but, darling, I am afraid we need not hundreds of pounds but many thousands.”
“My grandmother was very rich and although it did annoy Papa, she left me everything she possessed when she died. But I am not allowed to touch the money until I am either twenty-one or married.”
The Duke was so astonished that for the moment he was silent.
“Are you telling me that you are an heiress?”
“I don’t know whether I can compete with Mary-Lee, but I think Grandmama left me nearly seven hundred thousand pounds. Of course I am only too happy that you should spend it on making our home as beautiful as you wish it to be and on whatever the estate may require.”
The Duke put his hand up to his forehead.
“I am dreaming,” he cried. “I know I am dreaming. This cannot be true! We will wake up to find you have to marry Sir Ewen and I have to marry Mary-Lee!”
Sheinna laughed.
“That was just a nasty nightmare. The truth is, you have won yet another battle although you were not aware of it.”
“I do believe, Sheinna, that God sent you especially down from Heaven to help me. I have been looking for you all my life. When that swine carried you away, I was frantic. I was terrified, when I heard he had turned down the coast road, that he intended to take you out to sea and it might be impossible to ever find you again.”
“But you did find me, Alpin. I was praying all the time I was in the carriage with him and when those horrible men bound me up and dragged me into the Viking hiding-place.”
“I sensed that you were calling me and it made me even more afraid that you might be putting out to sea and I would have to search every ocean, which I would have done, to find you again.”
He knew that he had been very conscious of her calling for him and it was a feeling he could hardly believe was true until he had spied Sir Ewen’s carriage outside the entrance to the tunnel.
And if it had not been there he knew he would have gone straight on into the village and he would have been quite certain they had put out to sea.
“I will never doubt again,” he said, “the importance or the value of prayer. I have found you, my darling, and now I will never lose you – never, never!”
“That is what I want you to tell me, because I love you with all my heart. If we had to live in a cottage rather than in this glorious Castle, I would still be happy because I was with you.”
The Duke then kissed Sheinna until they were both breathless.
Eventually he raised his head and declared,
“I have to go and talk to my own elders about our wedding. I told Rory to bring them here, for they must not feel they are being left out of the arrangements.”
“Of course not, Alpin, I will get up and be waiting for you downstairs when you have finished with them.”
“Promise me, Sheinna, you will not disappear or be kidnapped again.”
He was teasing, but Sheinna gave a little shiver.
“I have never been so frightened in my entire life and I thought I would never see you again.”
“But now you will see me for always and for ever – and I will grudge every moment we are not together.”
He kissed her again and walked towards the door.
Sheinna looked round at the clock and saw to her astonishment that it was already approaching dinnertime.
She had been so totally exhausted after the terrible experience of being manhandled by Sir Ewen’s men that she had fallen into a deep sleep.
It was just as men did on battlefields after fighting a battle. They would fall sleep into a deep unconsciousness that would often alarm those who had come to search for them.
Sheinna rang the bell and the maids brought in her bath and then helped her to dress in her most glamorous gown.
She hoped that after all this commotion she might be dining alone with the Duke.
Suddenly she realised that she had not asked him whether his mother was distressed by all the happenings of the day.
But the maid told her,
“We didn’t disturb Her Grace by tellin’ her what be happenin’ till luncheon time when she questioned me why you, my Lady, and His Grace wasn’t there.”
“I do hope she was not worried too much about us.”
“She be a little distressed until you returned. Then she hears from Mr. Rory that His Grace had gone to the village.”
Sheinna did not ask any further questions, but went down to the drawing room.
There was no one present and then instinctively she walked to the window to look out at the sea.
The sun was just sinking behind the moors and she could not imagine a more stunning view anywhere in the world.
Then the door of the drawing room opened and the Duke entered and because they were alone she ran towards him and put her arms round his neck.
“Is everything all right, Alpin?” she asked.
He kissed her.
Then still holding her very closely against him, he replied,
“Everything, my darling, is even better than I could have expected. Everyone wants to help make our wedding the most exciting celebration that has occurred at the Castle for at least two hundred years!”
Sheinna laughed and as he had spoken so seriously he laughed at himself.
*
Their wedding day was arranged to take place in two weeks time.
Although the Duke did not wish to upset Sheinna, he hurried the arrangements as he was worried that the doctors had said that her father might die
, in which case she would be in deep mourning for many months.
The Earl, however, was in most capable hands and the nurses assured the Duke that he was living in a world of his own and reasonably happy.
He was blissfully unaware of what was happening to his daughter, his family or his Clan.
The Duke tried to contact Sheinna’s elder brother, Bruce, who she had not seen for some years. He had been abroad taking part in the Crimean War and was now in Africa.
There was no chance, he was told, of his being able to be back in time for the wedding.
The Duke expected, although he did not say so, that Bruce would resign from the Army and come back to look after his Clan, but all this would take time and he had no intention of waiting.
“I have arranged,” he told Sheinna, “that you will be given away by the most senior of the MacFallin elders, who has known you ever since you were a baby and I have found him to be a charming man.”
“Oh, I like him too and he has always been very kind to me, but living with my Grandmama I have not seen him for years.”
“He is looking forward to seeing you and as he is very tall and good-looking, although he is over seventy, he will certainly make a very picturesque appearance at our wedding.”
He most tactfully had arranged for it to take place in the Kirk on the estate belonging to the Earl and it was, as it happened, much larger than the Kirk near the Castle and all the MacFallin Clan were delighted that the wedding would be celebrated on MacFallin ground.
The wedding breakfast, however, was to be held at the Castle and the pipers of both Clans were to escort the married couple from one place to the other.
In fact as the day grew nearer, Sheinna learnt that members of both Clans were determined to make it, as the Duke had suggested, a great festive ceremony.
It would celebrate not only their marriage but the union of the Clans.
The only person who did not agree that this was a marvellous idea was naturally the Countess of Dunkeld.
She was still upsetting the Dowager Duchess with her criticisms and complaints and discouraging many of the McBarens from celebrating the marriage.
The Duke felt that he must speak to her husband – an intelligent man who had no wish to quarrel with anyone.
He had not listened to his wife’s moaning about the MacFallins, but he had only occasionally managed to make her see that she was being far too over-dramatic and over-aggressive about them.
When the Duke appealed to the Earl of Dunkeld for support, he most sensibly took his wife, his daughter and Mary-Lee away on a tour of the Orkney Islands.
He knew that the fishing would be excellent and the people there were always most hospitable.
No one regretted that the Countess would not be present at the marriage ceremony.
*
Everyone else grew more and more enthusiastic as the day drew nearer.
The Duke and Sheinna had so many arrangements to make that there was hardly time to worry about anything else.
It was with great difficulty that Sheinna managed to obtain a delightful wedding dress from Edinburgh.
The Dowager Duchess produced the lace veil that had been in the family for generations and she insisted that Sheinna should wear the majestic ancestral tiara she had worn herself at her own wedding.
“It has stayed in the safe ever since,” she confided, “because it is too big and too flamboyant for me to wear, unless I was invited to Windsor Castle!”
“You are quite certain you don’t mind me having it?” Sheinna asked. “I know it will please Alpin if I wear it and the one my grandmother left me is not so magnificent nor, I must point out, so heavy!”
The Dowager Duchess laughed.
“I am afraid mine is rather heavy, but you need not have it on for too long, unless you stay very late at your wedding feast, which I am sure Alpin will not wish to do.”
She realised that the Dowager Duchess was teasing her, but she had to admit that the tiara was fantastic and finer than anything anyone locally had ever seen.
Rory had cleaned it until it shone almost like a star in the sky and with her own family’s jewellery Sheinna felt that she would glitter as every member of the Clan wished.
*
Early in the morning on her wedding day Sheinna jumped out of bed and looked out of the window to see if the sun was shining.
She had left the Castle the day before to sleep in her own home and, although she hated to admit it, it looked extremely dull and gloomy after staying in the Castle.
“I hate you having to leave, even for one night,” the Duke protested. “I am so afraid you will disappear and I will have to spend the rest of my life searching for you.”
“I will never do that, darling Alpin, but it is only correct that I should stay in my own home before I come to yours.”
“You promise me you will be in the Kirk tomorrow morning – and I will not wake up to find that I have lost you again?”
“I promise I will be there,” answered Sheinna. “I know it will be such a wonderful day not only for us but for your people and mine, who are uniting for the first time in more than four hundred years.”
“How could they have been so stupid? How could our ancestors have spent so much time fostering the feud instead of trying to stop it?”
“Which is what you have now achieved and it is wonderful of you,” said Sheinna. “I am certain that before you die, you will be declared a Saint!”
The Duke held up his hands.
“I have no wish to be a Saint. I just want to be your loving husband and to take you to so many places in the world which neither of us have seen and which will give us new ideas and new inspiration.”
He paused for a moment before he added,
“I am so delighted that your brother, who you tell me is not in the least like your father in his hatred of the McBarens, is giving up his Army Commission and coming back to run the estate.”
“That is just what he says he will do as quickly as he can, but he told me in his letter it will take time for him to quit the Army. In the meantime we must leave it to the elders to look after the Clan, as I am sure they will do.”
“Some of them are delightful. I have always been very fond of my own elders and I cannot help feeling, now they have met, they will enjoy each other’s company.”
“Of course they will and you must help them with new ideas and perhaps a certain amount of money even though we want a great deal of it for ourselves.”
“If we all work together, there will be no further problems. It is what, my beautiful one, you and I will plan together.”
“You are wonderful, Alpin, and I do love you.”
He gave her a long, passionate and fervent kiss before reluctantly he left her and went back to the Castle.
“I will be counting every moment until you are with me again,” he sighed before he left.
“I will be praying that tomorrow comes quickly.”
The house was packed with her relations, many of whom she had never even seen before. They had quarrelled with her father, but now they knew he was no longer there, they had eagerly accepted their invitations to the wedding.
She had also asked several of her closest friends in London and those who had loved her grandmother and in fact the house was full and some had to share a room.
Much the same was happening at the Castle.
When the Duke started to send out his invitations, he had no idea that he had so many relatives or indeed so many friends.
He was very touched by the way so many of them were prepared to come all the way to Scotland to attend his wedding.
It was a very acceptable wedding gift when the Earl of Dunkeld told him that, as he would be in the Orkneys with his family, his house was at the Duke’s disposal.
The Duke was extremely grateful to him and even more grateful that the Countess would not be present to try to spoil his wedding day.
“Everything,” he said to his mother that eveni
ng, “has gone exactly as I want it to go. I know you now think Sheinna is the right wife for me.”
“I think she is absolutely charming,” the Dowager Duchess said. “I know, dearest boy, how much she loves you and that is what I am really happy about.
“I was always afraid you would be married for your title, but I know that Sheinna would marry you if you were just an ordinary Clansman and without this beautiful Castle which will be a real home for you both.”
“I know, Mama, and I was desperately afraid of being married for anything but myself. I thought perhaps I would never marry anyone.”
“That would have been disastrous. Now, my dear Alpin, as you know, I am looking forward eagerly to my grandchildren!”
The Duke kissed her cheek.
“You are going far too fast, Mama. Let’s get our wedding over first before you begin to plan which rooms will be the nurseries.”
“Of course you will have the rooms you had when you were a boy!”
The Duke laughed because he was only teasing her.
*
He was as thrilled as Sheinna when he saw that the sun was shining.
He rose early to supervise the roasting of the stag, which was to take place in the grounds of the Castle and there was plenty of food and whisky for the Clansmen.
For his personal guests a special luncheon had been arranged in the garden. It would have been disastrous if it was raining and they had to carry everything back indoors.
It was Sheinna’s idea that they should eat amongst the flowers.
A local orchestra was to play soft romantic music, except of course when the speeches were being made by himself and other members of both families.
When Sheinna was finally dressed and came down the stairs of her own home, those present thought that no bride could look more enchanting or happier.
She had chosen several small bridesmaids, none of them over fifteen, from her own relatives and some of the Duke’s.
They were dressed in white and carried bouquets of roses and white heather and there were two small boys aged seven to carry her train.
When she stepped out of the carriage at the door of the Kirk, the crowd outside cheered and clapped her, not just because she looked so beautiful, but because they too were excited and thrilled by such a magnificent wedding.
Love and the Clans Page 13