Page 42 of Highland Fire

The estate of matrimony was not nearly as irksome as she had feared it would be. The stray thought flitted through Caitlin’s mind, circled, returned, and captured her complete attention.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

She was thinking that if she were honest with herself, she would admit that this last month she had enjoyed herself enormously, and she could thank her husband for it.

Rand was not the tyrant he sometimes pretended to be.

Oh, he could be stern, he could be fierce, when he wanted to be, but she knew how to get around him.

No man liked to be backed into a corner.

Every man liked to think he was master in his own house.

So a wise woman cultivated the virtues of tact and diplomacy, and where Rand was concerned, Caitlin was coming to believe she’d become something of a sage.

Drawing her Randal plaid more securely about her, she began to descend the track which led to Strathcairn.

With the thaw, only odd pockets of snow remained to hamper her progress.

In another week or two, the woods and moors would be carpeted with the first hyacinths and bluebells of the year.

It was only on the mountain peaks and in the passes that winter dared to linger.

Soon the swallows would return from their winter quarters in Africa and the cry of the cuckoo would echo in every glen.

Checking her stride, she held up her face to the watery sun. The moors, the ancient forests, even the snowcapped mountains in the distance seemed to be at one with her. A laugh started deep in her chest, gurgled to her lips and spilled over. Then a cloud covered the sun and she shivered.

Suddenly conscious that her hound had wandered off, she put her fingers to her lips and emitted one long, shrill whistle. Moments later, Bocain came sailing over one of the dry-stone dikes which bordered the track.

“I’ve never seen you so restless,” Caitlin scolded. “What is it, girl? Wasn’t the run on the moors enough exercise for one day?”

With a snap of her fingers, she brought her dog to heel.

A moment later, Bocain growled softly and would have bounded away if Caitlin had not restrained her with a sharp command.

Though they were still some way from Strathcairn, Caitlin was taking no chances, having promised Rand that in his absence she would keep her hound on a tight leash.

The gamekeepers, it seemed, quite unnecessarily in Caitlin’s opinion, feared that Bocain might scare off game or savage the livestock.

She had promised Rand something else: she would not go far afield unless attended by one of the grooms. Her conscience was easily soothed.

She was out walking, not riding. A groom’s presence on a walk was entirely superfluous. What could possibly happen to her?

At one point in the track, where the trees in the valley thinned out, there was a clear view of Strathcairn House and its policies.

Caitlin halted and surveyed the spectacle with unmitigated pleasure.

It wasn’t only the house which pleased her, though there was much to admire in the beauty of Strathcairn’s graceful lines.

It was a Georgian edifice to suit Scottish sensibilities, that is, the architect had made no attempt to gild the lily with ornate pediments or elaborate Grecian columns and porticoes.

The solid, granite building suited its setting—noble in its stark simplicity.

Caitlin acknowledged the house’s appeal to her aesthetic sense, and her eyes moved on, absorbing the lingering trail of smoke from the chimneys of various cottages which, until recently, had stood empty.

This evidence of prosperity was her doing.

Rand had given her carte blanche to refurbish Strathcairn, and she had held him to his offer.

His former tenants were now employed in a variety of capacities inside and outside the house.

Strathcairn was going to rack and ruin, she had told her husband, and had proved it to him.

Used only as a hunting lodge, the house has been neglected for years.

The walls were dingy, the plasterwork was falling down about their ears; the roof leaked; there was dry rot in the attics and wet rot in the cellars; the wainscoting was riddled with woodworm; and the privies were an offense to anyone with an ounce of delicacy.

She very much feared that it would take an army of carpenters, plasterers, slaters, painters, and general laborers to set the place to rights.

As a further persuasion, she had added something to the effect that she hoped to have the place ready by summer.

“We shall be expected to do our share of entertaining,” she said, then added with a little less eagerness, “Even if your family has no thought of coming into Scotland, we must at least extend the invitation to them.”

Rand had looked at her in that way of his which indicated he was weighing every word and measuring every omission. Then he had smiled, a knowing smile, that warned her she was not pulling the wool over his eyes.

“Now this is something I can have my factor handle,” he said. “Leave it to me. Serle shall take care of it.”

She didn’t trust Rand’s factor, and would have argued the point if Rand had not been called away.

Thinking she had lost the skirmish, she’d turned her attention to augmenting Strathcairn’s meager staff.

With only two persons in residence, however, she could hardly make a case for employing an army of servants.

A week later, to Caitlin’s great surprise, she noticed chimneys smoking all over the estate.

“Your workers have been hired on,” Rand told her. To her profuse expression of thanks, he had merely returned, “You are not to deal with them directly, but through my factor. Understood?”

She’d nodded her assent, though in truth she did not understand her husband’s confidence in the dour-faced lowlander.

She surmised that Rand was intent on demonstrating that she could not have everything her own way.

It was a small price to pay if even a few families could find a living on the estate.

This was only a temporary measure, of course. When work on the house was completed, she would have to find another way of convincing her husband to keep on his tenants. There was no dearth of ideas in her head, if only she were given enough time to execute them.

“He really is a nice man,” she told Bocain, and moments later, “a very nice man.”

Wanting to express her gratitude in tangible ways, she had cultivated the good graces of the three people at Strathcairn who were in a position to know her husband’s tastes.

With Rand’s valet, chef, and housekeeper as her mentors, she had exerted herself to please.

The clothes she wore, the food they ate, the regimen they followed were all calculated to please Rand.

Of course, Rand had soon divined her purpose.

“If you really want to show your gratitude,” he had said, “you would become a real wife to me.”

“I…I can’t.”

He regarded her soberly. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

Her voice was stronger, more confident. “I can’t. And you know why.”

“You’re still insisting that we are brother and sister?”

She nodded.

He didn’t press her, although she could see that he was not best pleased by her answer.

She hated deceiving him, but it was the only sure defense she could hit upon.

She refused to allow their marriage to become a real one.

Though she had long since forgiven him for the insults he had heaped upon her, she had never forgotten them.

The words were branded on her heart. She was willing to allow that he had spoken in the heat of anger.

All the same, she recognized the truth behind the furious words.

It was perfectly true that she would never fit into his world.

Just thinking about Rand’s family—their wealth, their prestige, their English modes and manners—was enough to bring on a fit of the dismals.

When they found out about her, she was sure the explosion would be heard all the way to John o’ Groats.

Soon, she must press Rand for an annulment. But not yet. Time and enough when Rand returned to England, as she knew he must. He was more English than Scots, while she was Highland born and bred. But oh, she wished…

Her eyes filled with unexpected tears, and her throat clogged.

Almost at once, anger rushed in to rout her self-pity.

Their marriage, she reminded herself, was not of Rand’s choosing.

Though he might lust after her, he had made his sentiments regarding her person and her lowly estate insultingly clear.

She had too much pride to hold a man who did not really want her.

Following the steep, downhill track, she entered the home wood.

Tall, stately oaks cut off her view of the surrounding countryside.

The wood of these same oaks was much in demand in Aberdeen for its fledgling shipbuilding industry, as evidenced by the logging operations all along Deeside.

In summer, selected trees on various estates were felled, stripped, and floated downstream to Aberdeen’s harbor.

Rand had no interest in shipbuilding or in turning his forests into a profitable operation.

His moneys came from his holdings in England.

That was the trouble with him. Since he did not depend on Strathcairn for his living, he treated it as a rich man’s toy.