The Highland Groom

by Sarah Gabriel

  “The fairy brew will do you no good. It tastes like an ordinary whisky, but for a few,” Dougal said. “The legends are exaggerated.”

  “I am one of the few,” Eldin replied. “And I want to be sure no one else will have the stuff. I want the rights to it, and the exclusive privileges of the source water that you use to make it.”

  “Nick, that’s madness,” Patrick said.

  “Madness to one man,” Eldin said, “is genius to another.”

  “What water source?” Fiona asked.

  “A spring in the hills,” Eldin said. “I have pieced that much together from asking around, and learning whatever I could of the Kinloch legend. The lairds of Kinloch will not say all of it, but some of it is known. I want the rights to that spring, and I want to know where it is,” he told Dougal. “You can have the rest of the glen, and you will be a rich man. Fiona would like that.” He glanced toward her. “She is desperate to find a wealthy Highland man, so I hear.”

  “I have found the one I want,” she said quietly. “I am going to marry Dougal MacGregor.”

  “A Highland laird with no fortune whatsoever? Excellent,” Eldin said. “That will break the conditions of the will, and the bulk of Lady Struan’s accounts will come to me.”

  “He has more wealth than you can possibly imagine, or ever accrue in your life,” she said. “The bottomless wealth of the heart—and endless good fortune from the loyalty and love that surround him.” She looked at Dougal then, her eyes wide and sheened with tears. He did not move, but caught her gaze, held it, felt his heart opening wide in that moment, filling to the brim.

  “What nonsense,” Eldin answered. “It is not a bad bargain I offer you, Kinloch. Take it.” He waved the pistol. “Agree to give me the fairy whisky and the rights to the spring, and I will let Fiona and the children go. I will pay you handsomely, as I said.”

  “I cannot sell the fairy brew,” Dougal said. “It would undo the magic.”

  “What?” Eldin leveled the pistol. “You lie. It has a potent and powerful magic.”

  “And would be rendered to poor quality peat reek if I took money for it. The spring would cease to bubble, and would never again produce water for the whisky, so says the legend.”

  “I have never heard that,” Eldin said.

  “Because it is a secret,” Lucy said with disdain. “We all know it in our family.”

  Fiona quickly covered the child’s mouth, leaning to whisper to her. She pulled the children to the back of the cave, in the shadows. As she did, Dougal gestured for her to stay back there, where they would be safer, and he could better concentrate on the matter at hand.

  “Enough, Eldin,” he said. “You cannot win this bargain. Give over the gun”—and he drew his own pistol, cocked it—“or I will shoot it from your hand.”

  “Kinloch is a perfect marksman,” Hugh told Eldin. “I would beware.”

  “He would be guilty of maiming a gauger, then,” Eldin said, and lifted the pistol once more. “I am one of the many customs and revenue officers named to this area. I can arrest you in the name of the king, MacGregor of Kinloch, for smuggling and a treasonous plot to take revenue from the Crown. Put away your gun, or I will shoot you—and the others if I must—and call it a good bargain indeed, to catch a bunch of smuggling scoundrels.”

  “Did you know this?” Dougal demanded of Patrick.

  “He is named an officer by document only—he never rides out. It is a formal title he paid to have.” Patrick scowled. “But he has the authority.”

  “You are a fool, Eldin,” Dougal said. “I would not have thought it.”

  “Not a fool, Kinloch. I simply do not care—I ceased to care long ago, when the heart was taken out of me. It needs fairy magic to replace it,” he said in a low and dangerous voice. “Fairy magic of great strength, or I shall never feel again, in my heart, in my soul. And I want that,” he said. “I want to feel as I once did.” He glanced toward Fiona. “I want to care again.”

  Dougal looked toward Fiona, too, and then stared. The back of the cave was dark—and empty. She was gone, and the children with her.

  “Fiona!” Eldin said, stepping toward the cage. As he turned away, unthinking, Patrick threw the torch toward his cousin, striking him on the shoulder.

  Eldin turned and fired the pistol. The ball buzzed past Dougal, and hit the rock wall. And then he heard the walls begin to split and crack, and a great rumbling noise began.

  “Fiona!” he called out, just as Patrick and Hugh both threw themselves on him in a heavy tackle, taking all of them back toward the walkway as the walls began to collapse, spitting rocks and shards of stone.

  “This way,” Fiona whispered frantically, leading the children along. “Quickly, before we are seen!” She glanced back over her shoulder, through the narrow crevice she had discovered in the back wall of the cave. The golden glow of the torch Patrick held was still visible, and she could hear the men arguing.

  Hurrying the children, she guided them through the slim, high channel she had found in the rock. Scant light glistened on the walls from the torchlight behind them, and she could feel the dampness on the walls. The floor of the passageway was damp, so that here and there she stepped ankle-deep in water, heard it rushing past her. “Walk carefully,” she whispered.

  The sound of water had first attracted her when she and the children were trapped in the cave, and she had quietly investigated, seeing the crevice, and a little trickling stream running through it. The walls were so honeycombed with cells and passages, formed the cooling bubbles in the original lava, that she was not surprised to find water leaking and pouring here and there—possibly it came from the loch far overhead.

  Where the passage would lead them now, she could not say. But if she could get the children out of danger, and remove all of them as bargaining pieces for Eldin, she could help speed the resolution of their argument.

  “There’s light ahead, Miss Fiona,” Annabel said, pointing. They had to walk sideways in this part of the passage, edging along with their backs to the wall; their feet, hands, hair and clothing were increasingly damp.

  Fiona saw a pale blue glow ahead, and felt a burst of relief. Although the channel seemed impossibly narrow, they managed to pass through, step by sliding step. As the light grew brighter, she saw more than the glisten of wet limestone walls.

  She saw the unmistakable gleam of gold veining the rock.

  As they edged along, the water became a stronger flow, and Jamie whispered mischievously that the loch would fall down around their heads any second, which made the girls whimper. While Fiona assured them it would not, she smiled in spite of herself at Jamie’s antics.

  “We are perfectly safe,” she said as they continued. “The channel in the rock is moving upward, see. Climb with me, now, and go carefully, for it is slippery.”

  “We are walking through a stream,” Lucy said. “It is so deep that my skirts are wet.”

  “When we are out, I will come back to mine this gold,” Jamie said. “It is inside these walls, isn’t that so, Miss Fiona?”

  “Aye, very good,” she answered. “Gold indeed, and the stream rushes right through the channel, adding the flavor of the gold to the water.” Realizing what that meant, she gasped.

  “That would make excellent whisky,” Lucy said, echoing her thoughts. “I will tell Uncle Dougal. He will want to know.”

  “I think he may already know,” Fiona said, and smiled so widely that she nearly laughed. “Look where this leads!” Ahead, the water rushed and pooled, propelled upward toward the opening.

  “Water does not flow upward,” Jamie said. “How can it be?”

  “It is an artesian well,” Fiona said. “It bubbles up from below, and bursts forth like a fountain. This one comes up away from the loch, and through the hill, and out on the hillside in a well. I think that is what we will find. Come ahead, and watch your step.”

  Through the opening, she saw a bright sunset sky in glorious colors—purple and re
d below wide streaks of amber cloud—and the exit, edged with thick grass. Climbing through the tight opening, where the water rushed out, took an effort that soon had each of them soaked. For a moment Fiona thought it was a little like being birthed into a new life, a new place. Into Glen Kinloch, where she would always stay.

  Stepping out, she reached down to help the children out, one by one. “Come up to me,” she said, and they did, and then all fell to the ground, exhausted, wet, and laughing a little.

  “Look,” Lucy said. “Oh, look! Bluebells!”

  Fiona looked around, and saw them—thousands of them, covering the ground like a haze of purple-blue, the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

  “This water will make a fine whisky, between the gold and the bluebells,” Lucy said, sounding so much like her uncle that Fiona smiled.

  “Very fine,” Fiona agreed, brushing off her skirts. “The perfect fairy brew, I suspect,” she added, while the three young ones stared at her in astonishment.

  This little glade and spring had to be the place, she thought, looking around, where Dougal and his father before him had collected water for the fairy whisky. He had never told her the whole of it, not yet—but she cherished his hint that he would tell her, and their children, someday.

  She gathered the children near and looked around for the way out of the glade. Then she heard a rumble beneath their feet, a sound like deep thunder. The well burst forth, soaking them as it rose upward, past the rim of the well.

  “Dougal,” she cried. “Patrick—the others—they are still in the caves!”

  Turning, she began to run down the hillside with the children behind her.

  Dougal and the others ran from the cave at last, having gone back to drag Eldin free of the rubble—he was hurt, but not badly, and limped with them, silent and as stunned as they were. Stepping out into the sunset light, coated with dust from the limestone, they hurried around the narrow loch side pathway as the rumbling continued underground.

  “Fiona,” Patrick said, running alongside Dougal. “And the children—trapped!”

  “I think they made it through,” Dougal said. Fiona is a brilliant girl, she found the old water channel back there. I had forgotten it. She got the children out safely.”

  “What if the walls collapsed on them?” Hugh asked, catching up to them, still giving Eldin a hand as the earl limped beside him. “We will have to get help and go back—”

  “I think I know where they are,” Dougal said.

  “The whisky—” Eldin said. “All that whisky—gone, too, if the walls fell.”

  “Not gone,” Hugh said, breathless. “The collapse was in the back of the caves—not where the kegs are stored. We may be able to go back and dig it out. Most of the kegs should be fine. It is Fiona and the children we should be concerned about.”

  “Fiona is fine. I know it,” Eldin said. “I feel it when she is not safe.”

  Dougal turned to look at him, then met Patrick’s grim gaze in silence.

  “Where is the fairy brew?” Eldin asked.

  “Kept elsewhere, not here,” Dougal answered. “And I will never sell it. Patrick—keep pace with them. I will find Fiona and the children—I think I know where they went.”

  He hurried ahead through a gap between two hills and headed upward, while the other men fell far behind. As he climbed a hill, though he was deeply weary, after the day of football and the events in the cave, he found strength to keep going. He could not rest until he knew Fiona was safe, and that Lucy and the others were safe with her. Behind him, at one point, he heard shouts and turned to look down the slopes. Men on horseback rode across the glen, waving Patrick and the others to a halt. Recognizing Tam MacIntyre with other gaugers, he knew then that the law officers had caught up with Eldin, and he felt sure, pausing there for a moment, that Patrick would know just what to say. He hoped that Hugh MacIan would not be implicated—the reverend was not a bad man, only grievously misled by Eldin. Turning away, he felt sure that he could trust Patrick MacCarran to handle it properly. One day Patrick might well be his brother-in-law.

  Fiona had to be safe and unharmed, he thought, growing desperate, frantic. A burst of strength came over him and he climbed onward, breathing hard, coated with dust, running upward as if he had not played to exhaustion at the ba’ or clambered from a cave. He ran as if his life, and the lives of those he loved, depended on his effort now.

  But still he did not see them. If the tunnel had indeed collapsed—he could not bear the thought, and ran onward. “Fiona!” he called out in sudden panic.

  Then, breathing hard as he paused to look around, he saw her just along the rim of the uppermost hill. She was holding hands with Lucy and Jamie, while Annabel walked beside them. The golden red sunset poured down over them, and Dougal noticed then that Fiona and the children all looked wet and exhausted. Lucy clutched bluebells in her hands.

  Bluebells. He laughed outright as he ran toward them. So the tunnel had led safely to the hidden spring, just as he had hoped. And Fiona, recognizing the geological structure of the place, had taken the children that way. The fairies, he was sure, had watched over them.

  As Fiona came closer, he reached out and grabbed her, lifted her up and spun her about. Her arms encircled his neck, and her laughter was sweet in his ears, her cheek soft against his.

  Setting her down, he kissed her, tasting heaven upon her lips in that slow, soft, endless kiss. She opened her lips under his, telling him that her feelings matched his own, relief and deep love, warm and washing over him. He held her close, wrapped his arms around her, moved his lips over hers, and felt his very soul ripple and awaken fully, keen to be with her.

  “Oh, my dearest girl,” he murmured against her mouth, her cheek, her damp hair. “I am indeed a rich man.”

  “Very rich, Uncle Dougal,” Lucy said. He pulled back and looked down, reaching out to touch the child’s head, pulling her close, while he smiled at the others, too. Lucy held up the bluebells. “We found these for the whisky. And there’s gold, too,” she said.

  “Gold?” He frowned a little, looking around, seeing them nod all at once.

  “We saw it,” Jamie said. “Lots of it!”

  Fiona pulled Dougal close, reaching up to rest her hand against her cheek. “And even if that gold stays there forever,” she whispered, “we are so fortunate, so blessed and wealthy. We need nothing else to make it so.”

  “Nothing?” He smiled. “Oh, there are always needs, my love.” He dipped his head to kiss her again. “Needs, and dreams, and desires.”

  “Obligations, too,” she said, and gave him that bright and luminous smile that he had once coveted, that beautiful smile meant for him, now.

  “Ah, those as well,” he murmured, bending close again. “And they will be easily, and happily, fulfilled.”

  Epilogue

  Fiona read another rhyme aloud for her students, and paused to listen to them recite it back to her—Gaelic to English, and English to Gaelic—and then she glanced at the door, hearing a commotion outside. Lessons had begun but half an hour ago, and it was early yet, though she had thrown open a window to the cool spring air. Hearing the rumble of voices outside, she excused herself and went to the door to open it.

  Several people stood out in the yard, men and women, some older children and adolescents. She recognized Neill MacDonald and his father, along with Helen MacDonald, Annabel’s mother, and several others whose names she did not know.

  “Good morning,” she said, heart thumping anxiously, having no idea why they had gathered outside the schoolhouse. She wondered, with a sudden ache, if they had come to send her away, for her time in the glen was nearly up, her teaching contract done. “What can I do for you?”

  She saw Mary MacIan now, walking through the little crowd. Mary had been saddened and disappointed to learn of Hugh’s involvement in what had happened in the caves, and she had blistered him with her opinion. Hugh had apologized to her, and to Dougal and Fiona, and had kept to hi
s side of the glen—but few knew the real details of that ordeal. Dougal had seemed inclined to forgive his cousin, at least eventually, and had not told his uncles the whole truth of it. But they had guessed what Hugh had wanted, once they learned of Eldin’s wishes that day.

  Fiona caught her breath as Dougal appeared just behind Mary. Her heart bounded a little to see him there. For an instant, he was the only one she saw in that group, her gaze intent on his, questioning, pleading.

  She did not want to leave the glen, if that was why they had all gathered here. Perhaps word had gone out about what had happened that day—perhaps they had all decided she must go, that her cousin Lord Eldin was a terrible man who would bring not only ruin but tourism to the glen. But he had sailed for the Continent, so Patrick had sent word, and likely would not return for a long time.

  A few days had passed since the ba’ game, and Fiona had resumed teaching, guiding her students through their lessons, and comforting their fears over some of the events that had happened in the glen. Everyone had heard about the collapse of the caves under the loch, a natural phenomenon that she explained away with a few geological terms.

  The few who had had been present kept the rest of it a strict secret, including the children, who were pleased to be entrusted with knowledge of the hidden caches of whisky as well as gold.

  Dougal had been busy rescuing whisky kegs from the collapsed cave, selling some to the promised merchants by night, when the cutters came, as he had agreed. The rest he had sold to Eldin for an exorbitant amount. Before he left for his holiday abroad, her cousin, keenly aware of the value of his reputation as an earl and peer, had realized that it would be best if no one ever knew about his disgraceful behavior in the caves under Loch Katrine.