Then she knew she had not been mistaken. It was Lord Strathcairn and he was coming towards her!
He was riding as fast as she was and now Leona touched her horse with the whip and hurried forward, so eager to meet the man she was seeking that she was no longer concerned with her own safety.
The groom was still muttering and she knew that he was afraid Lord Strathcairn would berate them for trespassing on his land.
But there was no disguising the gladness in His Lordship’s expression when finally they came face to face.
“I had almost given up hope,” he said as he drew his horse beside Leona’s and held out his hand.
She put her fingers into his and he held them so tightly it was almost painful.
“You were – expecting me?” she asked in a low voice, finding it somehow difficult to speak.
“I have been watching for you every day since you left,” he answered. “In fact one of my stalkers had a spy-glass on you from the moment you crossed the boundary.”
It was what Leona had hoped and somehow expected and yet it was an irrepressible joy to know that she had been right. “I could – not come – before.”
“Did you want to?”
There was something searching in the way he asked the question and because she felt shy she could not look into his eyes.
“I-I – wrote to you,” she said, “but the – letter was never – dispatched.”
She saw his lips tighten and then he said,
“But you are here today.”
“The Duke is shooting with a neighbour.”
“Will you come to Cairn Castle?”
“There is no need for me to be – back before – late this afternoon.”
It was pointless, Leona thought, to pretend that she had not wished to see him.
Knowing that on her return she had to face unpleasantness, she might as well make the most of her escapade.
“You know how very welcome you are,” Lord Strathcairn was saying.
There was a note in his voice that made Leona turn her head to smile at him, but, having met his eyes, she found it difficult to look away.
“Let’s hurry,” he suggested. “We have so much to talk about.”
She knew he meant that what they said was best not overheard and so they rode on in silence, the Duke’s groom behind them, wondering, Leona was well aware, how much he would be blamed for what was occurring.
They reached The Castle and before the grooms could hurry forward to help Leona from the saddle, Lord Strathcairn was there first.
He lifted her down and she felt a sudden thrill because his hands were touching her. She wished that he would carry her, as he had carried her once before, into The Castle and up the stairs.
But instead they ascended the staircase side by side to enter his special room overlooking the loch.
Leona went to the window and sighed,
“It is even more beautiful than I remember.”
“And so are you!” Lord Strathcairn said quietly.
“Do you – really think so?” Leona asked.
“I really think so,” he repeated with a smile.
“I am glad. I wanted you to – see me in my new – clothes.”
Lord Strathcairn glanced at her hat and her fashionable habit as if he noticed them for the first time.
“Are they new?” he asked. “Your face is so lovely that it would be impossible for me to notice anything else.”
She felt herself quivering and turned towards the loch.
“So you have new clothes!” Lord Strathcairn said slowly, as if what she had said had just sunk into his mind. “Are they a present?”
“Yes – His Grace – gave them to me.”
She wished now she had not mentioned them, but she had wanted, every time she wore a new gown, for him to see her in it.
Lord Strathcairn moved from her side across the room. “Are you happy at Ardness Castle?”
“I – should be. The Duke is – extremely kind.”
“That is not what I asked you.”
“I know,” Leona replied, “but it seems so ungrateful of me to complain when His Grace has given me so much and I have everything any girl could possibly need.”
“Then what is wrong?”
Leona hesitated for a moment, until, as if she could not help herself, she said,
“When I left – here I saw some of the Duke’s people being – evicted!”
She dare not look at him as she spoke, because she felt that the anger she knew he would feel would somehow react on her.
Then he asked in an almost expressionless voice,
“Did it mean anything to you?”
“What would you expect it to mean – something so – horrible, so degrading – so utterly inhuman – it is difficult to speak of it – without tears?” Leona replied.
There was a passionate note in her voice and her words seemed to vibrate around the room.
“And did you speak of it?”
“I tried to,” she answered. “I swear to you, I tried to – but His Grace would not listen – and there was no one else from whom I could even – enquire about their – fate.”
Lord Strathcairn crossed again to her side.
“I am sorry you should have seen anything so horrible. But now perhaps you understand why the Duke and I are no longer on speaking terms.”
“You are right! Of course you are right, my Lord. But what can be done?”
“Nothing!” he replied. “I have tried to help some of the McArdns, but I cannot sacrifice the well-being of my own Clan by overcrowding the land.”
“No – I can understand that,” Leona agreed with a little sigh. “But those people! Those poor wretched people! I can hear them crying now – and one child was nearly burnt to – death when they set fire to the – croft!”
“It is intolerable!” Lord Strathcairn said and his voice was harsh. “It is something that has happened all over Scotland – the greed of the Landlords and the cruelties of their Factors have crucified the Highlanders and destroyed the very souls of our people.”
“I knew you would feel like that!” Leona cried. “It is how my mother felt too! But is there nothing you can do?”
“Nothing!” he answered. “I have tried in every way I can. I have met a number of the Landlords and talked with them. We have held meetings in Edinburgh!”
He sighed before he continued,
“But already thousands upon thousands of Scots have been sent abroad and scattered all over the world. Fifty-eight thousand left in 1831 alone.”
His voice was bitter as he finished,
“Now there is little land left that has not become a reserve for the sheep.”
Leona could not speak. She knew that always at the back of her mind she had believed that Lord Strathcairn, like a Knight in Shining Armour, would be able to save the people from the Clearances.
As if he knew what she was thinking, he went to the grog tray from which he had poured her lemonade the night she had stayed in The Castle and brought her a glass of sherry.
“We only have a little time,” he said, “so let’s resolutely talk of pleasanter things – you for instance.”
“But I want to talk about you,” Leona protested. “I want you to tell me what you are doing here on your estate. I want to hear about your plans for the people who are living in the crofts I can see round the loch.”
“Does it really interest you?” Lord Strathcairn asked.
“It really interests me,” she answered. “I want to understand the problems of the Scottish people. I hate feeling isolated and that I am not a part of them, even though I am living in Scotland.”
“Is that how you feel at Ardness Castle?”
“It is full of people,” Leona answered. “But they are guests. They come to the Highlands for amusement, but its problems are not theirs and they are not concerned.”
“As you want to be.”
“As I could – like to be.”
There was a little pause and she had the feeling that he was looking at her speculatively. Then he said,
“Have you decided to make your home at Ardness Castle?”
“I have little choice,” Leona answered. “I have no money, I have nowhere else to go and the Duke is very anxious to keep me there.”
Lord Strathcairn did not speak and she said,
“I only wish Ardness Castle was more like – this.”
“Where is the difference?” Lord Strathcairn enquired. “Except, of course, in the buildings themselves?”
“You know I was not referring to that,” Leona answered. “The difference lies in the atmosphere. I suppose you will think it – foolish of me – but I somehow feel I am a – prisoner there.”
She thought he looked startled and he enquired sharply, “Why should you feel like that?”
“I keep putting it down to my – imagination,” Leona answered. “Or perhaps the spirits of the past still inhabit the great rooms, the long corridors and, of course, the Tower! But although I try to pretend otherwise, I am a little frightened!”
“I am sure it is not like you to be afraid.”
“I don’t remember ever being afraid before. But the place seems to be dark and secretive – and there is something – I only wish I knew what it was – which makes me afraid!”
She thought that she sounded childish and, because she wished to change the conversation from herself, she asked quickly,
“Tell me about the Duke’s son.”
“Euan Ardn?” Lord Strathcairn asked. “He is not in The Castle?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Leona replied. “But everyone is very mysterious about him. I overheard the Duke’s sister warning a lady not to mention him to His Grace.”
“I believe he is in a Nursing Home either in Edinburgh or London,” Lord Strathcairn said.
“But why?” Leona enquired.
“Nobody quite knows,” he answered. “He was a sickly child and I remember hearing that the Duke had taken him to various specialists in Europe in the hope of finding a cure.”
“A cure for what?”
“That is part of your mystery,” Lord Strathcairn replied. “I do not know. In fact I think nobody knows!”
He paused and then went on,
“I met the Duke’s daughter, Elspeth, many times. She was a very attractive young girl and very like the Duchess, but I cannot remember ever having set eyes on the Marquis, nor has anyone else of my acquaintance.”
“How strange!” Leona exclaimed.
“There have, of course, been all sorts of speculations as to what is wrong with him,” Lord Strathcairn continued, “but I think it is generally believed that he has something wrong with his spine.”
That would account, Leona thought, for the Duke going from doctor to doctor to find a cure and obviously the boy had been given treatment in various European Spas.
“I can understand it is a great disappointment to the Duke,” she said aloud.
“Of course,” Lord Strathcairn agreed. “He has always been excessively proud of his family.”
“He is indeed,” Leona smiled. “He showed me the Family Tree. He also told me that the title had always passed from father to son and when he dies his son will inherit.”
“That sounds as if young Euan is improving in health,” Lord Strathcairn remarked.
“I think,” Leona said, “that His Grace wants me to take the place of his daughter. Lady Bowden told me that he was desperately unhappy when she died.”
“If you are trying to make me feel sorry for the Duke,” Lord Strathcairn said, “you will not be successful. I find him obstinate, pig-headed and ruthless to the point of cruelty! In fact I dislike him as much as he dislikes me!”
Leona gave a little sigh.
“I am afraid that he will be very – angry that I have come here today to see – you.”
“You say the letter you wrote to me was never despatched – why?”
Leona hesitated for a moment before she told the truth. “The Duke – destroyed it. I saw him put in the – fire when he did not know I was at the top of the staircase.”
Lord Strathcairn rose to his feet.
“That is intolerable!” he said angrily. “But it is what I might have expected. If only you were staying with somebody else in the neighbourhood – anyone, rather than at Ardness!”
“But that – is where I – am,” Leona said in a small voice.
“And yet by a miracle for the moment you are here. It was very brave of you and let me assure you that I am exceedingly grateful.”
“It is I who should be grateful to you, my Lord. You saved me after the accident. I was so happy the night I ‘discovered’ Cairn Castle.”
“That is what I hoped you were thinking, if you thought of me at all,” Lord Strathcairn said. “But I was afraid – ” “Afraid?” Leona questioned.
“That you had forgotten me!”
“I could – never do that!”
Again their eyes met and something strange and at the same time wonderful passed between them.
He took a step towards her and she felt that he was about to say something momentous, when the butler announced from the doorway,
“Luncheon is served, my Lord!”
Lord Strathcairn glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.
“We are eating a little early,” he said, “but I thought there might be a number of things we could do this afternoon before you have to return.”
“I am quite happy to agree to anything you have planned,” Leona replied.
She went into the dining room she remembered so well and which seemed so much nicer in every way than the great Baronial Hall at Ardness Castle.
Even though the servants were waiting on them, she and Lord Strathcairn could talk freely and there seemed to be so much for them to say.
But afterwards it was difficult to recall what they had discussed. She only remembered that the food was delicious and everything they talked about had a magic all its own.
But then, she thought, everything in Cairn Castle was touched with magic.
It was a joy after luncheon to talk to Mrs. McCray, to find that the other servants remembered her and that the bedroom where she had slept was just as attractive as she recalled.
She thought that, if she were sleeping once again in the Thistle Bedchamber, she would not be listening, as she did at Ardness Castle, for sounds that never came or be lying awake, feeling afraid of the shadows for no reason that she could explain to herself.
“Have you been watching the dancing in the Chief’s Room every night?” she asked eagerly.
“Not every night,” Lord Strathcairn replied with a smile. “They usually gather on Saturdays and once a month they bring their wives, families, their mothers and fathers and give a demonstration of their skill.”
“How I would like to see it!” Leona exclaimed.
“How I would like to show it to you!” Lord Strathcairn echoed.
They walked into the garden and once again Leona found that it was warmer than anywhere else, protected as it was by thick shrubs and walls, so that the flowers, even in September, were brilliant with colour.
Lord Strathcairn picked her a rose and she pinned it into the brooch at her neck.
She noticed he had chosen a white bud and she smiled as she remembered the white rosettes of the Jacobites. She mentioned this to him.
“Actually I chose it because it is like you,” he answered. “A white rose?”
“White, pure, very beautiful and still in bud!”
“And you – think that is – like me?”
“You give me the impression of being unawakened by life,” he replied. “When you meet reality, like the evictions, it hurts you, because to you the world is still a wonderful place. And that is how it should be!”
“That is how I-I – want it to – be.”
He did not speak and after a moment she said,
“You told me that one is often disapp
ointed.”
“But not always,” he replied.
They wandered down to the edge of the loch and she could see the water clear over the sandy bottom, small fish gliding in and out like transparent wraiths.
“Are there nymphs living in this loch,” Leona asked, “And goblins burrowing under the hills?”
“But of course! And when I see the mists lying over the water in the morning, it reminds me of you.”
She turned to look at him and for a moment they were both very still. Then he said, as if it was a decision that was wrenched from him,
“I hate to hurry you, but I feel we should be getting back. Besides there is something else I want to show you before we reach the boundary.”
Leona felt that the sunshine was suddenly dimmed.
“I must not be – late,” she said automatically, but in her heart she wanted to beg him to let her stay.
What did it matter if the Duke was angry? What did anything matter when she was at Cairn Castle with Lord Strathcairn?
If only she could stay there as she had done once before.
But she was far too shy to speak her inner thoughts and walked beside him back to The Castle to put on her riding hat and pick up her gloves and whip.
The horses were at the front door, the groom looking surly.
Lord Strathcairn lifted Leona into the saddle and then arranged her full riding skirt.
She had a feeling he did it in the same manner that he had held her close against him, protectively.
There was a gentleness about him, she thought, that she had not expected to find in a man and yet he was so essentially masculine.
He sprang onto his own horse and they moved away, the groom following some way behind so that he could not overhear their conversation.
“Did you really mean it when you said that there was always someone watching the boundary?” Leona asked.
“I have instructed my stalkers that one of them must always be on duty,” Lord Strathcairn replied. “I had a feeling they were beginning to give up hope and that they thought their vigil was a waste of time. Now they will watch more eagerly.”
‘So if I can – get away again – ” Leona began.
“I shall be waiting, but I have been thinking – ”
He paused.
The Secret of the Glen Page 8
