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

by Susan King

  Just yesterday, he had glanced up at the sound of her voice and nearly forgot that he was playing ball, where normally he never lost focus. Each time he saw her, his heart stirred, thumping as if he was a half-bearded youth.

  As many excuses as he found to keep away, from tasks in a stillhouse to visiting tenants, counting herds, or leaving the glen altogether, he could not stop thinking about her. Whenever he saw her, his body responded, his heart craved, yet his resistance made his loneliness feel even more profound.

  He was glad, now, that he had waited to speak with her until after his meeting with Lord Eldin. It was all too clear that the girl had to leave the glen, as much as he wanted her to stay. But the Laird of Kinloch had best manage the complications of his life alone.

  Nodding a greeting to the children as they passed, he stood waiting. After a few minutes, Fiona MacCarran emerged from the schoolhouse, tying the ribbons of her bonnet. Seeing him, she paused as if startled. Then she walked toward him.

  His heart pounded hard. She was simply beautiful in the gray gown, jacket, and bonnet that she had worn the first time he had seen her on the hillside. The wind pushing the soft fabrics revealed her womanly form and the natural, alluring, confident way she moved. He could have watched her endlessly.

  “Mr. MacGregor,” she greeted him quietly. “You wish to speak to me about some matter on your mind?”

  “I do,” he said smoothly. “So my uncles told you about the roof?”

  “They did. I asked if it could be patched, and delayed until I am gone.” She lifted her chin, her eyes snapping blue, bright and stubborn. “Unless you have your way and I leave soon.”

  “If I could have my way with you, lass,” he said low, “we would not be talking about a roof just now.”

  Her cheeks glowed like pink fire, and he saw her pinch back a smile. Tendrils of dark, glossy hair escaped her bonnet. He wanted to pull the hat away, loosen her hair, pull her close—

  “About the repairs,” she reminded him.

  “Aye.” He cleared his throat. “The thatch and some of the rafters need replacing. My uncles would rather install a slate roof, which would last longer and give better protection against the elements. But that would take time.”

  “Can it wait?”

  “Some kind of repair must be done soon since it is leaking. One more good rainstorm and the old thatch will come down over your pupils’ heads.”

  “So your uncles said. If you knew the schoolhouse was in such condition, why were the repairs not made before sessions began again?”

  “My uncles made some repairs a while ago. We did not expect you so soon.”

  “Or perhaps you are still telling me that I am not wanted in Glen Kinloch.”

  “You are wanted,” he said, “in the glen.”

  She tilted her head. “But not by you.”

  He sighed, looked away. “This glen is not a good or safe place for the sister of a gauger. It can be dangerous at times, as you have already seen.”

  “The only threat to me so far seems to be from you.”

  “And the roof."

  “Please do not send me away. I do not want to go,” she said bluntly.

  Dougal glanced away from those earnest sky-blue eyes. “You are a fine teacher, and you are needed here. That is true.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Lucy tells us about school. She enjoys it very much.”

  “She is a bright child, and quite delightful.”

  “She has loathed lessons until now. I owe you a debt there.”

  “She was not content at first, but she seems eager to learn. I must find more challenges for her. She works quickly, then sets about bothering Jamie. He is such an easygoing lad that he puts up with pestering, but she must be diverted to better activities.”

  “I agree. I am afraid I have little idea how to manage a small girl, let alone one as bright and willful as wee Lucy. Though I will say, Jamie adores the lass.”

  “And she knows it, which only makes it worse. She adores him, you know.”

  “Does she?” He tipped his head, watching her steadily.

  “Otherwise she would ignore him altogether.”

  He smiled. “Someday she will have her reckoning.”

  “Could be. What does she love best? If I knew, it might help.”

  “She claims she wants to be a smuggler when she grows up, and she is convinced they have no need of studies.”

  “Ah,” she said calmly. “I hope you discourage both those notions.”

  “I try to set a good example,” he answered wryly. “We are reading some poetry in the evenings. Sir Walter Scott and so on. So now she is convinced that smugglers enjoy poetry, but do not need maths.”

  She laughed outright, and Dougal smiled at the enchanting sound of it. “You, sir, will know better than I do what smugglers should study.”

  “Maths, of course, to figure the number of gallons and ponies and ships needed. And to accurately count the gaugers sneaking about the hills.”

  “And they must be able to count coin to the last penny,” she suggested.

  “But poetry, alas, they have little use for that.”

  “Poor Lucy! Will you tell her so?”

  “I do not have the heart for it. You tell her.”

  She laughed, and Dougal reached out, touched her elbow. “Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?” She did not protest as he led her along the path ribboning between gorse bushes and trees.

  “This will be a pleasant surprise, I hope.”

  “Are we off to see a troupe of fairies, or a pack of smugglers?”

  “Which would you rather?”

  “Both,” she said. “The fairies for me, the smugglers for—“

  “Surely not me. They would be more a reward for your brother, hey.”

  She frowned. “He is much on your mind, my brother.”

  “You have been more on my mind than he has. You and your safety. But he seems a decent fellow, and that sort of work can corrupt a good lad.”

  “That will not happen to Patrick.”

  “It could, and it has, to many good men before him.”

  She stopped to look up at him. “You truly believe he is in danger?”

  “Aye, and you as well.” Pausing beside her in the shadow of a thicket of trees, Dougal wanted to fold her into his arms, dispel her worry, make her feel safe. “Fiona,” he murmured impulsively.

  Her gaze searched his. “Aye?” she whispered.

  “Uncle Dougal!” A high-pitched voice sounded. “Uncle! Wait!”

  “Lucy?” He turned, seeing her. “What is it?”

  The little girl ran toward him, dark hair like a flag behind her, its ribbon lost as she came forward looking panicked, waving her arms, spilling to her knees on the path, scrambling up again. “Uncle!”

  Chapter 11

  “I want to go over the glen with Annabel to her house,” Lucy said, coming closer. She indicated the other little girl, waiting behind her.

  “Is that all? You gave me a scare, lass.”

  “I am invited to have supper with Annabel and her mother, and to stay the night there.”

  “Are you asking me, or telling me? What about your studies?”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday,” Lucy said. “There is no school. We have no assignments. Isn’t that so, Miss MacCarran?” Fiona nodded.

  “Very well. Ask one of your great-uncles to walk you both there, and go straight to Annabel’s house. Do not linger along the way,” Dougal said sternly.

  “Thank you! I will do that.” Lucy smiled brightly, her dimpled expression reminding him keenly of his sister. “I told Annabel we would give her mother some of our fairy brew.”

  “Did you now,” he drawled. “Then tell Maisie I said she can fetch you a small bottle and put it in a basket for you to take with you. Maisie is at the tower today, I think.”

  “Aye, she is cleaning and cooking. And I hope she has not put away my paper and pens to make things neat. I am w
riting a poem!”

  “Go on, now.” He waved Lucy onward, and she ran back to join Annabel. The little girls joined hands, chattering as they went up the hill.

  “Lucy writes poems as well as reads them?” Fiona looked up at him.

  “She loves poetry. She copies verses she fancies from the books, and writes her own too.”

  “You are a fine guardian, Kinloch. Some men would not have the patience for a child of that age.”

  “She is my ward, but I have come to think of her as my own. My sister has been gone three years.” That said enough, to his thinking. The love and protectiveness he felt for his niece was strong, but it was not in his nature to talk about such things.

  “Her father is gone too?”

  “Aye,” he said gruffly, without detailing the wooing and abandonment his sister Ellen had suffered. “My uncles and aunts lend a hand. There are many to care about her and watch out for her.”

  She nodded. “I can see that. What is fairy brew?”

  He walked beside her. “A spirit traditionally brewed in the Highlands.”

  “Not made by fairies?”

  He laughed, shook his head. “Not directly.”

  “My sister-in-law has a kinsman who makes a fairy whisky that has some kind of magic, so the family claims. They are secretive about it, though.”

  “You mentioned that Lord Struan married a MacArthur girl,” he said casually.

  “Elspeth MacArthur, aye. Her grandfather is Donal MacArthur, a weaver.”

  “Ah.” Donal was a cousin on his mother’s side, an older fellow than his uncles. That was yet another bond with Fiona MacCarran, but he was not about to reveal that he was the kinsman who delivered the fairy brew to the weaver.

  “What is fairy whisky?” she asked again.

  “Oh,” he said, “simply a Highland whisky made in some households, according to very old recipes kept within families.”

  She tipped her head. “According to magical secrets handed down by fairies?”

  He chuckled. “Not quite so special. A few flowers might be the difference.”

  “In whisky? You mentioned that another time, and I wondered about it.”

  “Flowers can flavor the water used in the brewing process—heather, primroses, buttercups, bluebells, and so on. The water has a certain character from the burn where it flows, and that can change and take on the flavors of its surroundings. Peat, flowers, grasses, wild garlic, and the kinds of rocks that the water flows over can affect the quality and taste of the water.”

  “I see. Is that what makes fairy brew, a certain flower or plant, or a kind of water? Is it illegal, this fairy brew, or just legendary?”

  “Legendary, lass.” He smiled. “Highland distillers pay careful attention to the many factors that influence the taste of the whisky. It is tradition and part of what sets Highland whiskies apart. We do not manufacture it merely for the quantity, but for the quality. As for what is legal and what is not, that does depend only on the quantity produced. Every Highland household is permitted to distill up to five hundred gallons a year.”

  “That seems like quite a bit.”

  “Not particularly, when you consider that families consume it and share it, and store it to age it. Whisky can be kept in casks for years, and its flavor and quality will increase, unlike ale. Once it is bottled, the taste and quality are captured and held.”

  “The value increases with the aging as well,” she said, nodding. “But fairy brew—such a romantic name! I might like to try some.”

  “And you such a practical lass, collecting rocks like a scientist,” he teased.

  She smiled. “Rocks fascinate me. They are so primeval and ancient, and they can have their own legendary character. I love hearing legends of fairies and such,” she added. “I want to learn more about the tales of Glen Kinloch.”

  Dougal remembered Eldin’s odd remarks about her, yet he sensed nothing unusual in her interest in local fairy stories, some of which involved Kinloch whisky and the fairy brew. He smiled, nodded, did not reply directly.

  “Is that a clachan ahead?” She pointed toward the buildings visible beyond the bushes and trees where they walked. The path skirted a bend there and crossed a meadow to the cluster.

  “It does look like a village,” he agreed. “But it is the Kinloch distillery.”

  “I thought Highland stills were hidden away to keep them safe from the revenue men.”

  “Some are. This one is legitimate. There is no need to hide it.”

  “Are there many such stills in the area?”

  Against his will, he thought of her gauger brother. “Why do you ask?”

  “The night we met, the customs man said the laird of Kinloch could be held accountable for any illegal stills found on his lands if the owners were unknown.”

  “A new law, aye. And a devil of a thing it is.”

  “It seems unfair,” she agreed.

  “Along with that, the government lowered taxes on barley to discourage us from plying our trade.”

  “The free trade?”

  “Not the free trade. The manufacture of it. Specifically, they are taxing the wort,” he explained. “That is the mash created from boiling and steaming the barley. The wort, you see, is the heart of the whisky process. The steam from it simmers in a large copper pot and is channeled through copper coils to drip down and be caught. The distillation that is collected will become the whisky itself.”

  “So the wort is key to making the whisky? No wonder they tax that part of the process. But how does lowering it make a difference?”

  “The boiled mash is taxed according to how much whisky might be produced. We are obligated to report each time a wort is made from barley.”

  “I do not see how the government can expect that,” she said, frowning.

  “Just so,” he replied. “It is part of the problem. Highlanders grow barley, use it for food, and sell it as grain. Only a portion of it is used to produce whisky, and not by all. Whatever we grow for our families and our livelihoods should be considered ours, with nothing owed to the government. Most Highlanders feel that way, I assure you. But lowering the wort tax means many more Highlanders can produce it, which eventually takes away the value of good Highland whisky. It is an underhanded way of making smuggling unnecessary.”

  “No wonder there is such tension between excise officers and smugglers.”

  “It goes even deeper. They do not show fair treatment to simple citizens or honor their rightful household production. Gaugers make a fee on each bottle they confiscate, so they are just as eager to take it as Highlanders are to hide it. Lower taxes on the wort makes whisky smuggling less profitable, and so the government assumes making it will no longer be worth the effort.”

  “Is it truly not worth making?”

  “Do you want a Highlander’s opinion?” He laughed. “At any rate, the king’s men have the devil of a time enforcing any laws in the Highlands. Regulations that make sense in the law courts of Edinburgh and London are nearly impossible to enforce in the Highlands.”

  “And you could be arrested for stills the revenuers find in Glen Kinloch, even if they are not your own stills?”

  “True. But Highland stills are well hidden. Many have been in place for generations. What my tenants produce is their concern, not mine. The law does not agree, so we make sure the stills are not found. Not all Highland whisky is illicit, I promise you,” he added. “And more legal distilleries are opening every year, encouraged by the lower taxes. The new laws will help many to make a living from producing and selling legal Highland whisky.”

  “And if the laws decrease smuggling,” she said, “those ventures will die out.”

  “Someday. So you see why we opened our Kinloch distillery, to make our very fine uisge-beatha ghleann ceann loch.” He touched her elbow. “Have you never seen whisky in the making? Come, let me show you.”

  As they entered a shady little glade, Fiona saw a tidy cluster of whitewashed buildings with ne
at slate roofs and doors painted in different colors. It looked more like a picturesque village than a busy enterprise. The path led to a wooden footbridge that crossed a burbling stream. All seemed quaint and peaceful.

  “I thought Highland whisky was made in small copper stills,” she said, looking up at Dougal MacGregor as he walked beside her. “The equipment here must be much larger than that. Surely you produce quite a bit here.”

  “We needed more buildings for a legal distillery and enterprise.” He strolled with her over the wooden bridge. “Originally these were outbuildings for Kinloch Castle. Two hundred years ago an old castle stood on the hill before the tower house was built,” he explained. “That largest building was the stable, and the others were byre, granary, and bakehouse. They were abandoned once the tower came into use. My grandfather and father reclaimed them for the whisky.”

  On the bridge, Fiona paused beside Dougal and looked down over the railing. Water rushed over rocks to channel away, the sound swift, the moisture in the air refreshing. Two young men exited the largest building and waved at Dougal. They glanced curiously at Fiona and went on their way.

  “It looks a flourishing place,” she said.

  “Busy enough.” He seemed pleased and proud, Fiona thought, his smile slight but genuine. Her brother had mentioned that there were hundreds of secret stills to be found in the Highlands, and casks moved by smugglers bold enough to manufacture and move whisky rather openly. The laird of Kinloch must be one of the bolder ones, she thought, to oversee such an organized business that included both smuggled and legitimate whisky.

  She thought of the moonlit night when she had stood on a hillside watching Kinloch and a band of smugglers walk past with their ponies. Fiona, go home, he had said, and lock your door. A shiver went through her at the memory.

  “What a rogue you are, Kinloch,” she said quietly.

  “Am I?” He tilted his head to look at her.

  “Making whisky without apology, and smuggling it out of Scotland, when you could make it all legitimately.”

  “One of the reasons I brought you here,” he murmured, “was to show you that I am not just a smuggler and a rogue. That I have dreams.”