Laird of Secrets (The Whisky Lairds, Book 2): Historical Scottish Romance (The Whisky Lairds Series)

by Susan King

  The last haunting note faded. He set his pipes over his shoulder and walked higher on the hillside, wind sifting through his hair. Stopping along the slope, he drew a breath, set the pipes again, and propelled air through the blowstick to inflate the woolen bag and the stretchable sheep bladder inside. The bag with its four chanters had belonged to his grandfather, and its sound was rich and resonant. Tucking the full bag under his arm, he let fingertips fly over the holes along the main chant pipe. The tune was older than his bagpipe, played over so many generations that the echo sounded as if the hills themselves rang it out.

  Dougal preferred playing in solitude, for his own listening and for whatever sheep, cattle, goats, and wandering locals happened to hear. He did not play at weddings or funerals, nor at ceilidhs held in the glen villages—Garloch to the west, Drumcairn to the east, with Kinloch House halfway between. The two villages had a long rivalry, their competitive natures expressed in ceilidhs, kirks, ball games, free trading, and whisky brews. Over generations, the Lairds of Kinloch had been noncommittal. His father had played the bagpipes for social occasions, and his uncle, Fergus MacGregor, played for any and all. But Dougal kept to himself.

  Keeping apart was protective, he knew, a habit developed by a boy who became a laird too soon, with all the responsibility of tenants and estate on his young shoulders. Loyal to his bones to the people of his glen, he did not pipe for them, nor did he involve himself overmuch in their lives. Truth was, he did not consider himself very good at piping. He simply enjoyed it.

  He had learned much from his father, and after him, his father’s brothers, Ranald, Hamish, Fergus, and their great-uncle Hector. His kinsmen had taught Dougal nearly all he knew, guiding him, stepping in to father him as he grew. He had learned to make Kinloch whisky from his father and old Hector; to play the pipes from the red-headed blacksmith, Fergus; herding and husbandry from stodgy, calm Ranald; and Uncle Hamish had shown him how to repair nearly anything.

  Everything but that blasted old coach, he thought. As soon as he and Hamish fixed it, the old thing would start to shimmy and creak once again.

  Sometimes what was broken stayed broken, he told himself. Like his heart. Once broken, it had stayed that way. First with the early loss of his mother, then his father, and later the girl he would have married. She would have kept a neat house and a kind bed for him, but she had asked him to give up smuggling. He had refused, and she had left the glen to marry a shepherd.

  And may she be happy with her four wee children and her placid husband, he thought. Since then he had realized that he was better off without a wife.

  The last note he blew rang out like a lamb’s bleat, slightly off. He rested, looking toward the long loch below, and the pale ribbon of the lochside road. The old coach was nowhere to be seen.

  After a while he saw Hamish walking along a ridge toward him, with two dogs at his heels, leggy gray beasts whose majestic, formidable forebears had ambled the halls of Kinloch House for generations. But this lazy pair, Dougal knew, wanted nothing more than to flop in doorways. Still, Sorcha and Mhor were fine guardians and amiable companions. And their presence meant that Hamish had returned to Kinloch House before following the sound in search of his nephew.

  “So she refused,” Dougal said as Hamish approached.

  “She did.” His uncle picked up a stick, tossed it. The dogs watched it fly, then settled at the man’s feet. “Useless beasts,” Hamish muttered.

  “Fetching would make them seem obedient, and they cannot have that.”

  “Aye, and that lass o’ yours is not the least obedient either,” Hamish said.

  “My lass?” Dougal laughed. “Well, I did not expect her to agree, to be sure. But on the chance she saw the wisdom of it, I sent you with the coach. But I take it you could not convince her.”

  “That lass has more than a touch of stubborn to her. It was a waste of time and breath to tell her to leave. She intends to stay.”

  “Her brother is a gauger,” Dougal reminded him. “He will bring his comrades into our hills. She must go.” He felt a twinge of regret saying it.

  “She is determined to open the school, and even now the reverend is out telling the families so. Mary said so while I was eating sausages at her table.”

  “Sausages?” Dougal raised his brow. “Mary MacIan gave you breakfast?”

  Hamish took a parchment bundle from his pocket. “For you and Lucy.”

  Setting the bagpipe on the ground, Dougal unwrapped the packet and found several sausages and a stack of oatcakes. He ate a sausage, savory and still warm. The hounds stood, suddenly interested, and he tore off a bit for each of them. “Mary MacIan is a fine cook.” He licked his fingers.

  “The Lowland lady made those for you,” Hamish said. “She made oatcakes and good strong tea, too. We shared a fine breakfast. You should have been there, Kinloch. She cooks.”

  Dougal ate another sausage; it was seared, savory, perfect. He wrapped the rest to take home, wiping his fingers on his plaid. “So she cooks? That may be a reason to keep her, then.”

  Hamish chortled. “True, now that your Aunt Jean has run back to her mother again, leaving the household to you and me once more.”

  “Jeanie would come back if you were both less stubborn.”

  “Bah. Life is peaceful without her. This Lowland lass can cook. That is enough for me.”

  “Lucy is near old enough to help.”

  “That wee lassie has no interest in household matters. It comes of being raised by scoundrels.”

  “We are not so bad,” Dougal said. “Aunt Jean taught her to make her bed and keep her clothes neat, sweep the floors, sew a seam, cook a little.”

  “She is not even seven years old. And she makes salty porridge and weak tea, nor can we expect a child to tend the fire in the hearth and take on such things. The wee lass needs a mother,” Hamish said. “You should have married the one who ran off with the shepherd.”

  “She did not want me,” Dougal said.

  Hamish grunted. “Then marry this Lowland lady so we can have good sausages and cakes, and she will teach the school and tell her brother to keep his officers away from her husband. And we will all be content.” He grinned and patted his belly.

  “You have thought it all out,” Dougal drawled.

  “For the sake of our stomachs, one of us needs a wife in our house.”

  “Jean will return,” Dougal said. But he feared that this time, Hamish and Jean might be done with their stormy, passionate, stubborn marriage. “Miss MacCarran would be out searching for wee rocks and letting us fend for ourselves, I guarantee. Nor would it help if I married a gauger’s sister.”

  “Blast all gaugers!” Hamish shrugged. “Well, make her leave if you can. A pity the reverend brought her here at this time. I wish he had waited a few weeks more.”

  “Aye.” Dougal bent to pick up his bagpipes and walked beside Hamish, the dogs following. Aye, indeed, he did want the Lowland lass to stay, and he could not explain the strong feeling of it, the surge of craving inside him. He barely knew the woman. But he could not forget those kisses—or the fine way she stood up to him and expressed her own thoughts and her own will. He admired that even more than sweet, earnest kisses.

  He was not desperate for a wife, he told himself. He had dallied now and then with one girl and another, if they were willing, and lived beyond the glen. In truth, a long while had passed since the last time he had let his heart become even a little interested. By now he was resigned to bachelorhood. It suited him.

  But this Lowland girl was different. He felt it all throughout body and heart.

  Scowling, he picked up another stick and threw it. The deerhounds ignored it. “Lazy beasts.”

  “I know how to get the Lowland teacher to leave,” Hamish said then. “Let the fairies do it.”

  “What?” Dougal looked at his uncle. Hamish was tough as an old ram, like his brothers. But unlike them, he was skeptical of fairies and suchlike. “You do not believe in any
of the legends of Glen Kinloch.”

  “I do not. But this glen has legends and haunts enough to frighten any Lowland lass away. Tell her about the fairies and haunts of Kinloch, and she will run back south. And we will carry on. But without a cook,” he muttered.

  Dougal laughed. “If she ran off in a fright, her brothers would be here the very next day to ask what we are up to in Glen Kinloch.”

  “Brothers?”

  “One of them is Lord Struan.”

  “Och,” Hamish muttered. “We would also have to deal with the—what did the reverend call them? The Edinburgh Society for Ladies Who Fancy Themselves Better than Highlanders?” He huffed a curt laugh.

  “The Edinburgh Ladies’ Society for the Betterment of the Gaels.”

  “The very ones. Wha’s better than us?” Hamish said, quoting Robert Burns, and Dougal laughed too. “And what would scare that lass away from this glen, and none the wiser but us?”

  “Very little. She breaks rocks for amusement.”

  “Tcha,” Hamish said, shaking his head. “We will tell her about the sprites who haunt the caves, and the tall ancient race of fairies who live in the hills, and the ghosts who bother all at Kinloch House. Except they do not, but she need not know.”

  “When she first met me on the mountain, she thought I was one of the Sidhe, or even a ghost. I only startled her for a moment. She was not frightened.”

  “Then we will warn her of women stolen away by the fairies.”

  “Scaring her is not the way. And do not take that scheme to the other uncles.”

  “We cannot risk the gaugers learning that we have a supply of whisky more valuable than any cargo yet moved from this glen. And we do not need the sister of a gauger wandering the hills breaking rocks and seeing things.”

  “True. I do not want to sell that cache of whisky, Hamish,” Dougal murmured.

  “You have no choice. We all agreed. Selling that whisky will help you buy back the land that might be sold out from under us.” His uncle looked hard at him. “Sell it, unless you wish to sell the fairy brew and earn a fortune. And some of us think you should.”

  “Never. My father honored the old ways. I will do the same.”

  “Fairies do not exist, Kinloch,” Hamish said. “Your father honored old legends, and that’s fine. But he made a bad bargain that we knew nothing about until recently. Protecting the fairy brew for tradition’s sake will not benefit the glen. Selling it will.”

  “I will not sell the fairy brew. Enough. We will find another way to save the glen and all in it.”

  “What if you told the teacher about the risk? She has a soft heart, that one. I could tell.”

  “We do not know if she can be trusted. We have too many secrets.”

  “Sometimes a man must give up something of value to gain something even more valuable.”

  “Tell that to Jean’s stubborn old husband,” Dougal said.

  Hamish snorted, then whistled to the deerhounds that had bounded ahead.

  Thoughtful as they all returned to Kinloch House, Dougal could think of nothing important enough to convince him to give up Glen Kinloch’s long-held secrets.

  “Good evening, Grandmother. And Miss MacCarran, how nice to see you.” The young man entered the cottage as he spoke, and removed his black-brimmed hat, bowing a little.

  “My bonny lad is here!” Mary MacIan smiled, looking up as she set plates on the table. “Hugh, you are just in time for supper.”

  “So I hoped,” he said, bending to kiss his grandmother’s cheek.

  “Mr. MacIan, greetings,” Fiona said. He grasped her hand, dark eyes shining. Dressed in the old-fashioned black frock coat and white neckcloth worn by Free Church Highland ministers, he was a handsome and robust young man with thick sandy hair and a quick, boyish grin. Yet the pleasure she felt at his smiling attention was nothing like the strong, passionate pull she had felt toward Dougal MacGregor the night before.

  “Did you ride far over the glen today, Hugh?” Mary asked.

  “I did,” he answered, “and visited the good folk to let them know that the school would begin again tomorrow. I rode here from Drumcairn to share supper with you.” He turned to Fiona. “Miss MacCarran, I hold the living at the manse near Kinloch House, on this side of the glen. Garloch and Drumcairn are villages situated at either end of the glen, with Kinloch House closer to the middle, near the manse and the school. My father, Rob MacIan, keeps the Knockandoo Inn by Drumcairn bridge. He would much enjoy it if you would visit his inn for a good meal at his blessing.”

  “I would love that,” she said. “And I would love to see the whole of the glen. It is very beautiful, no doubt with a fascinating local history and legends.”

  “Aye. We do have some interesting legends, and we are proud of them.”

  “Miss MacCarran had an adventure the other night after you left here, Hugh,” Mary said. “Out walking the hills in the mist, she met Kinloch.”

  “Aye so? I am glad you came to no harm walking the hills, Miss MacCarran,” the reverend said. “The laird is quite the fellow to meet on a dark night.”

  “I was not in any danger,” she said quickly.

  He laughed. “Of course not. We have a brave lass in our glen teacher, Grandmother,” he said with a wink.

  Dougal MacGregor had been in her thoughts the last few days. Certainly she understood that the smuggler might be dangerous—he had all but kidnapped her, and then kissed her to distraction before she knew anything of him.

  “I was collecting rock specimens up in the hills,” Fiona said. “Mr. MacGregor, er, Kinloch, offered to take me back in a cart we met, driven by his kinsmen, as it was foggy and growing dark. He told me he was the laird of the glen, so naturally I felt safe.” Though from the first she had sensed a threat to heart and soul, stirred by his charm, his smile, his unexpected kiss and caress in the dark.

  “When Kinloch MacGregors are out and about in the hills, it is best not to know too much about their business,” Mrs. MacIan said.

  “We would not accuse anyone,” the minister said carefully, “but you should know that these hills are not peaceful at night. There are revenue officers and smugglers about. Some free trading traffic goes on here, as in many Highland regions. Nothing to be concerned about, so long as you do not go out alone in the hills,” he added.

  “I appreciate the warning.” Fiona turned away to stir another scoop of butter into the mashed turnips that she and Mrs. MacIan had prepared for supper. The MacIans knew that Patrick was an excise officer at the other end of the loch. And now the MacGregors knew. She would have to be wary.

  “Good, since you will stay here for a while,” Mrs. MacIan said.

  The reverend looked puzzled. “She will be teaching at the school until summer.”

  “Kinloch sent Hamish with that wreck of a carriage this morning to take her back to Auchnashee, where her kinsmen could send her back to Edinburgh.”

  “Miss MacCarran, have you changed your mind?” MacIan asked.

  “The Laird of Kinloch seems to think a teacher is not needed in the glen. We told Hamish MacGregor it was just a misunderstanding,” Fiona replied.

  The reverend frowned. “I shall speak to Kinloch.”

  “It is already resolved,” she said, as she moved dishes to the table.

  “Will you share supper with us?” Mary asked her grandson. “There are mashed turnips and mutton stew, very tender. Fiona prepared it herself, and it is quite good.”

  He nodded and drew out the chairs for the women. When they were seated, they bowed their heads for the grace that Hugh MacIan murmured in a voice that seemed more suited to sentimental love poems than insistent biblical sermons. Fiona served the turnips and the stew, and as they ate, she glanced at her new friends, content in the cozy atmosphere, and content to stay.

  Mary’s front room combined parlor, dining room, and a narrow kitchen, and a wide hearth wall, furnished simply with cupboards, a wooden table, a few comfortable chairs. At the back of t
he small house, two snug bedrooms curtained off from the larger room held a box bed in each. A side door led out to a small garden.

  The walls were whitewashed and smoke-stained, the old, dark rafter beams overhead were hung with dried herbs that added a light, clean fragrance, which combined with the sweet musty smell of the peat fire made the modest house seem very cozy. The table was set with very fine things—crisp bleached linens, blue and white porcelain, good silver pieces. The few furnishings were of excellent quality with polished wood and velvet cushions, the lanterns were of very good metalwork, and the window curtains were Belgian lace. Aware of the history of smugglers in the area, Fiona wondered if they had brought Mary such nice things—and if her late husband had engaged in transporting goods himself.

  Hugh smiled at her. “Miss MacCarran, I hope you cleared your, ah, misunderstanding with the Laird. You will surely see him at the glen school.”

  “Oh? Will he take the class?” That puzzled her, as she had the impression Kinloch was an educated man. “You mentioned in your letter to the Ladies Society that there might be adult students in the school.”

  “There could be, since some in the glen do not have much English.” He smiled. “But Dougal MacGregor is hardly one of those. The schoolhouse is on his estate, and his young relatives will be in your class.”

  “Ah. He did not mention that to me.”

  “He keeps to himself and says little enough. May I have more turnips? They are delicious.”

  Fiona passed the dish to him, privately not surprised that Kinloch had said little about the school. But he had been determined that she should leave and abandon her obligation to the school and its students.

  Later that night, as she drifted to sleep curled up in the box bed, which was deep, snug, quaint but very comfortable, she remembered how good Kinloch’s arms had felt around her, and how sweetly their lips had melded together beneath the old plaid in the pony cart.