by Karen Ranney
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Announcement Page
An Excerpt from In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams
About the Author
By Karen Ranney
An Excerpt from An Heiress for All Seasons by Sophie Jordan
An Excerpt from Intrusion by Charlotte Stein
An Excerpt from Can’t Wait by Jennifer Ryan
An Excerpt from The Laws of Seduction by Gwen Jones
An Excerpt from Sinful Rewards 1 by Cynthia Sax
An Excerpt from Sweet Cowboy Christmas by Candis Terry
Copyright
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE
July, 1880
Drumvagen, Scotland
Her driver slowed to a halt, no doubt getting an eyeful of Drumvagen and the Scottish coast. Ceana would wager a goodly sum that by the time the week was out, he would have posted a report of everything to her brothers-in-law. The same intransigent, annoying, and beloved brothers-in-law who were trying to render her as dead as her poor husband, Peter.
She’d been a widow for three years now, during which they’d been her guardians. She couldn’t escape them. Wherever she went, one of the three brothers was there.
“Do you need anything, Ceana?”
“Can I fetch anything from town for you?”
“Shall we order something from London?”
“You’re looking a little peaked, would you like to take the sun with me?”
They’d offered their arms, their interest, their help, and their eternal interference.
So she had done what any self-respecting Scot would do when faced with three Irish brothers-in-law: she’d run away from home.
She dismounted from the carriage, standing there staring in awe.
Granted, Iverclaire was a lovely place, an enchanted castle in Ireland, quite a forbidding yet beautiful structure. But Drumvagen, this had been created by her own brother.
They’d been so poor once upon a time, but Macrath had taken his dream and made it come true. Because of him, she’d had a season in London and had married the son of a duke.
Yet she always thought she had something to do with his happiness as well. Her friendship with Virginia had led them to be introduced at numerous events. When Virginia and Macrath were finally married after her first husband died, she wasn’t the least surprised.
Nor was she the least surprised when Alistair, Virginia’s first child, looked just like Macrath.
The seabirds called a greeting to her, swooping down on air currents blowing the scent of the sea to her.
For days, she’d been alone in the carriage, encased in a bubble of silence. Other than speaking to the driver first thing in the morning and when they stopped for a meal, she hadn’t talked to another person.
At first she’d missed her daughters terribly. Then she realized the time was her own, to think, to mull, to remember. When she went home, she’d be a better mother to Darina and Nessa.
She stood at the base of the steps, staring upward. Virginia had told her about Drumvagen, but even her description failed to convey just how impressive the house was.
Built of gray brick sparkling in the sunlight, it was four stories tall with rows of windows reflecting both the sun and the sea to her right. But most impressive of all was the twin staircase beginning at the broad front doors and curving down and around like arms reaching out to enfold her.
She took the right staircase and, with her left hand gripping her skirt, placed her right on the broad stone banister, slowly ascending the steps.
At the top, she stopped and turned and looked at the ocean. Far off in the distance was the North Sea. Drumvagen and its neighboring village, Kinloch, was the perfect place for Macrath to live. From here he could simply sail away to anyplace in the world he wished to be.
She glanced down at the carriage and her driver, standing at the head of the horses with his cap in his hand. Thomas was a good man, but he was a toady to all the Meads. He was going to tell them everything they wanted to know, which was a pity. The man had a good memory, and she’d no doubt already erred in some manner.
Her lips twitched at the brass knocker on one of the big broad doors. Macrath had evidently had the refrigeration machine’s likeness made especially for Drumvagen. She picked it up and let it drop, hearing the echo in the foyer.
A moment later the door was flung open. A body slammed into her, arms gripping her waist, pulling so tightly on her dress her train almost toppled in a flurry of fabric. She found herself falling, only righting herself by gripping the door frame.
“Save me! Please! Don’t let her get me!”
Ceana stared down at her niece. The poor girl was trembling and she had splotchy color on her cheeks.
“Fiona?” She reached down, enfolding the girl in a hug. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Brianag, I’ve done something terrible and she made the sign of evil over me just like a witch. I’m going to get sick and die, I know it.”
Who was this Brianag who was tormenting the poor child?
“Aunt Ceana.”
She looked up at the sound of the composed voice, blinking at her nephew. Alistair was only fourteen but already had the height of his father, not to mention his demeanor.
As she stood on the doorstep, he extended his hand to her.
“How nice to see you again Aunt Ceana,” he said. He glanced down at his sister dismissively. “You must pardon Fiona. She’s a silly little thing.”
“I am not silly. I’ll tell Brianag you broke her jar of spices.”
To Ceana’s great surprise, Alistair paled.
“That wouldn’t be well done of you, Fiona. You know as well as I do it was your carelessness that made the jar fall. Father always says we have to deal with the consequences of our actions.”
“Where are your parents?” Ceana asked. “Where are Macrath and Virginia?”
“They’ve gone to Edinburgh, they have,” a voice said. “Leaving me to deal with their spawn.”
She looked up past Alistair and—God help her!—took a step back toward the steep stairs.
Fiona was more correct than she had assumed.
Drumvagen did have a witch.
The woman who met her eyes was tall and square with a face the same. She was almost masculine in appearance, a warrior like creature whose legs were braced apart and arms folded in front of her. Her nose was a formidable hawkish feature, as were her narrowed eyes and clenched jaw.
Was the woman a watchdog Macrath had put in place to guard his children in his absence? Was she going to have to fight her to advance a foot farther into Drumvagen?
“I’m Ceana Sinclair Mead,” she said.
“She’s my aunt,” Alistair said.
Fiona moved to stand behind her.
“Aye,” Brianag said, nodding. “You’ve got the look of the Sinclairs. It’s the eyes. Devil’s eyes, I call them.”
Since three of the people in the foyer had the deep blue Sinclair eyes, that was hardly a polite or tactful way of describing them, but she doubted Brianag did anything remotely polite or tactful.
�
�I understand my brother has gone to Edinburgh,” she said.
A sharp nod of the head was the only response she got.
“I’ve come to visit,” she said, straightening her shoulders. She hadn’t traveled from Ireland just to be put in her place by a Scottish terror.
Ceana looked at Alistair, standing with his arms folded, watching the byplay between the two of them. She was determined to have the same sangfroid as her nephew.
“Have you a guest chamber at Drumvagen?” she asked him.
“I’m the housekeeper here,” Brianag said.
Oh, so that was the position the Scottish terror occupied. Macrath evidently thought a great deal of her to both install her in the position and place her in charge of the children.
Where was Carlton?
“Then I suggest you act as a housekeeper,” Ceana said, her voice icy. “I am Macrath Sinclair’s sister and I’ve come a very long way. A proper housekeeper would not keep me standing in the foyer but would have been gracious and inviting. Show me to a guest chamber, direct my driver to the stable, and fetch my baggage. Afterward, you can offer me some refreshments. Some tea, perhaps, and something to eat. You would be better served doing that than terrifying children.”
She took Fiona’s hand, nodded at Brianag and turned to her nephew. “If you’ll show me to a parlor, Alistair,” she said. “I’ll wait there until your the housekeeper has decided to welcome me.”
And with that, she and Fiona followed Alistair through Drumvagen. She heard a sound behind her, a kind of grunt mixed with a muffled oath. One of her brothers-in-law was forever swearing, and she knew a daunting collection of Irish oaths. She didn’t doubt she could be Brianag’s equal in profanity.
She didn’t care how annoyed the housekeeper was as long as the woman did what she asked and didn’t put anything in her food.
That might be too much to wish for, however.
She followed Alistair into a room filled with Scottish fervor. The tartan of the window coverings was matched by the pillows on the emerald settee. The chairs were tartan as well, as if to remind the inhabitants of this parlor they were in Scotland.
She took one corner of the settee, not at all surprised when Fiona sat beside her. Evidently, she’d acquired the status of a female slayer of dragons by refusing to be cowed by Brianag.
“Where is Carlton?” she asked, referring to the youngest of Macrath’s children.
“He’s been sent to his room,” Fiona said. “Papa is not happy with him.”
Alistair rolled his eyes, an expression Ceana had seen Virginia make often enough that she bit back her smile.
“What did he do?”
“It’s what he didn’t do,” Fiona said, sighing. “He rode Papa’s new horse without telling anyone. He hitched the oxen to the wagon and took himself off to the village. He refused to eat something Brianag made for him. And he sassed Papa.”
Well, the latter two would have gotten him gruel, no doubt.
Carlton was only a year or so younger than Fiona. Surely a ten-year-old would not be so adventurous. But then, he was Macrath’s son.
“He won’t stay in his room,” Fiona said. “He never does.”
“Well, if that happens,” Alistair said, “the punishment will just be more strict. Our parents are considering sending him off to school, which won’t be a good thing for Carlton. He loves Drumvagen.”
“And you, Alistair? Do you go off to school?”
That would account for her nephew’s almost adult demeanor.
He looked exactly like Macrath had at his age, tall and spindle thin, with black hair left longer than it should be and the piercing blue eyes marking a Sinclair. There were touches of Virginia’s beauty in the young man’s face, in the shape of his nose and the perfection of his cheekbones and chin. Alistair was an attractive young man. Fully grown, he would be incredibly handsome.
“I do, yes, Aunt Ceana. I’m off to England again in a matter of weeks.”
“Do you like it?”
“I do,” he said, to her surprise. “I’m interested in mathematics and engineering. There’s no one here who can give me training other than father, and he’s busy with the new invention. I want to learn as much as I can to be of help to him.”
So Alistair understood he was Macrath’s scion, the heir to his empire, one that was growing daily, from what she understood.
Fiona looked up at her wide-eyed. “You talked back to Brianag. Nobody ever talks back to Brianag,” she said. “Not even Mama.”
Alistair sent her a look, one she interpreted as, What are you going to do about a little sister?
Since she was Macrath’s little sister, she felt some kinship with her niece.
“What did you do that made Brianag so angry?” she asked Fiona.
“Brianag wasn’t all that angry,” Alistair said. “She was being rather kind.” He spared a glance in his sister’s direction. “Fiona was racing through the kitchen and she knows she’s not allowed to run in the house.”
“It was an accident,” Fiona said. “I must’ve knocked off the jar from the table. I never even saw it until there was a mess on the floor. All of Brianag’s special witchy herbs.”
“She isn’t a witch, Fiona. She likes people to think she is, but she isn’t. She goes to church every Sunday and she gives alms to the poor. She does a lot of good works.”
The image of a St. Brianag didn’t quite conform to the person she’d already seen, but Ceana thought it would be better if she withheld that comment until she learned a bit more about the household.
“I should have sent word I was coming,” she said, a remonstration to herself and a comment to her very adult nephew.
He smiled, an utterly charming expression, and so like Macrath she stopped for a moment, catapulted back into the past. He might have said the same words Macrath often said to her back then: It’s going to be better, Ceana, don’t worry. It’s going to be all right, I promise.
They would have enough food to eat. They would have enough money to make sure they stayed warm.
He’d made good on all those promises and more. Because of Macrath, she’d had a London season with new dresses and a dance instructor. Because of Macrath, she’d married the son of a duke.
“If you’ll pardon me, Aunt Ceana,” Alistair said, unaware of her mental trip to Edinburgh and the days of penury, “I’ll go and see what room Brianag has assigned to you.”
She had the most absurd wish to apologize for her arrival. Or causing a disagreement with the housekeeper, but she had a feeling facing Brianag down had elevated her stature in Alistair’s eyes as well.
What was Macrath thinking, to allow Brianag to be in charge of the children? She chided herself for the question. What she was engaging in now was a little of her Irish brothers-in-law behavior. What right had she to dictate anything? Sweet and unassuming as Fiona appeared, there was every chance she, herself, was as much a hellion as Carlton was rumored to be.
Drumvagen was as different from Iverclaire as she’d hoped.
CHAPTER TWO
“See? I told you he wouldn’t stay in his room. See? I told you,” Fiona said, pointing to the window.
At first Ceana couldn’t make out exactly what she was seeing: a corner of a curtain, perhaps, or a bit of laundry falling from the window. Then she realized it was a rope made of some material, perhaps sheets. As she watched, two shoes came into view, then a pair of trousers.
“He’s going to the grotto.”
“He’s going to kill himself,” Ceana said, standing and estimating the distance to the beach.
Fiona shook her head. “He’s done it before.”
Just then Carlton’s face came into view. Her nephew grinned at her, an expression reminding her of Virginia’s smile, just before he glanced down and his look changed to terror.
“W
here’s the grotto?” Ceana asked, her voice rough with urgency. She’d heard of Drumvagen’s grotto but had never seen it. “Show me, Fiona. Now!”
Her niece slid from the settee, grabbed her hand and pulled her from the parlor, racing down one of Drumvagen’s corridors.
They came to a closed door, but Fiona opened it without hesitation, revealing a library that was probably Macrath’s domain and forbidden to his children. She would have to make her apologies after she’d saved Carlton.
Fiona ran to the bookshelf.
“There’s a latch up there,” she said, pointing to the second shelf from the top. “Can you see it?”
She could.
“Pull it down and then pull the bookshelf out. It leads to a passage to the grotto.”
She turned. “Aren’t you coming, Fiona?”
The girl shook her head. “No, it’s too dark.”
She wasn’t fond of the dark, either, or things lingering there, like bugs and snakes and vermin. But she had Carlton to think of. How horrible would it be for Macrath and Virginia to return from Edinburgh to find she’d been present at the death of their child?
The darkness was nearly absolute, leaving her no choice but to stretch her hands out on either side of her, fingertips brushing against the stone walls. The incline was steep, further necessitating she take her time. Yet at the back of her mind was the last image she had of Carlton, his bright impish grin turning to horror as he glanced down.
The passage abruptly ended in a mushroom-shaped cavern. This was the grotto she’d heard so much about, with its flue in the middle and its broad, wide window looking out over the beach and the sea. She raced to the window, hopped up on the sill nature had created over thousands of years and leaned out.
A naked man reached up, grabbed Carlton as he fell. After he lowered the boy to the sand, he turned and smiled at her.
