Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
R owan was getting used to the castle. The all-encompassing quiet had become her friend. So when her phone rang, slicing through the hush, she almost dropped it.
‘Hey, love.’ Her mother’s voice filtered through the speaker. ‘How’s married life?’
Rowan slid down the wall to sit on the floor. ‘Och, you know. It’s Downton Abbey , except with fewer dramatic deaths.’
‘Still can’t believe you went through with it.’ Her mum sighed. ‘You’re my daughter right enough. When are you coming to visit? Gran keeps asking.’
‘Soon.’ Rowan breathed through the guilt. She should go. She wanted to. ‘Maybe you could come up here first?’
‘Aye, as soon as I have more than one day off.’ Another pause. ‘You sound a little different.’
‘Different how?’
‘A wee bit more serious. Did marriage finally make you grow up?’
Rowan managed a laugh. ‘Must be all the fancy living. The silk sheets are going to my head.’
‘Right love, you take care.’
After saying goodbye, Rowan headed to the library. Over the past week, the room had become her sanctuary. A few ledgers lay across the oak table where she’d left them. She eased into what she’d started thinking of as her chair and flipped to her marked page. The handwriting detailed business transactions from the 1810s.
And there it was.
Dugald Drummond hadn’t just indirectly profited from the enslavement of human beings by trading in sugar and cotton; he’d actively invested in it, buying shares in Caribbean plantations. Or ‘the West Indies’, as they used to call it.
This entire place was tainted.
‘Fuck.’ She dug her fingertips into her temples, tracing small circles. It shouldn’t be a surprise, Glasgow’s Jamaica Street had that name for a reason. But seeing this hit differently, literally too close to home.
But she kept doing it. Because someone had to.
The compensation records from the 1830s made her stomach churn with nausea. Dugald Drummond and his son had received thousands of pounds – the modern equivalent of millions – for the ‘loss of property’ when slavery finally had been abolished.
He’d used that money to buy Dunmarach.
Rowan stared at the ledgers until the numbers danced. The castle’s luxury, which had seemed like a fairy tale at first, now felt suffocating. Every gilded frame, every crystal decanter, every thread in the rugs… All of it bought with human misery.
And here she was, married into it.
She had to talk to Max.
Part of her wanted to storm straight to him, demand answers, and make him face his ancestors’ sins. But what if he already knew? What if he didn’t care? He was a sharp-suited London finance player, after all. A cold fist wrung her insides. She had to see how he’d react when faced with the reality of the legacy he was so fixated on protecting, even to the point of marrying her.
The library’s silence weighed on her ears as she stood, stretching muscles stiff from hours of reading. Outside, the Highland twilight painted the hills in shades of purple and gold. Beautiful and brutal, like everything else about this place.
Rowan gathered her notes, her mind already on the conversation with Max. ‘Sorry, Dugald, but your bloody laundry’s about to get a public airing.’
Whatever happened next would change things. This marriage, this story, maybe even her understanding of herself. But that was what she did, wasn’t it? Stir up trouble. Ask questions.
Was it easy? Hell, no.
The scent of ageing paper wafted around her as she stretched higher, searching for the year 1834.
There – a flash of something newer wedged between two ancient volumes. As she gently jimmied at it, the folder slipped free. Manila, unmarked, corners soft with age. The kind of folder that shouldn’t have caught her attention at all.
Which was why it did.
Someone had tucked it between old financial records far enough to avoid casual discovery. It didn’t belong with dusty ledgers from the 1800s. It had been hidden. Not for safekeeping, but to keep it out of sight.
The folder felt light, its intentional lack of labels setting off her journalist instincts. She sat down again. ‘Aren’t you a suspicious little bugger?’
The first page was a newspaper clipping, yellowed and creased. The Scotsman , thirteen years ago. The headline punched her in the gut:
TRAGIC LOSS OF DRUMMOND HEIR IN HIGHLAND CRASH
Martin Charles Drummond, 20, killed. Younger brother Maxwell, 17, in critical condition…
‘Oh Christ.’ Rowan’s fingers trembled as she read on. The article painted Martin as the golden child. Head boy at Fettes College in Edinburgh, now at Oxford, ‘beloved by all who knew him’. The kind of young man who seemed destined for greatness.
The police report lay beneath, its clinical language somehow worse than the newspaper’s flowery prose.
23:47 – A87, near Fort Augustus. Porsche 930 Turbo. Male driver (17) lost control on wet road. Vehicle impacted passenger side. Fatal injuries sustained. Death pronounced at scene by attending paramedics.
A Porsche? That was a dangerous car in inexperienced hands – like those of a seventeen-year-old boy with a brand-new license, just two and a half weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday.
Max.
The insurance report completed the triptych. Max had spent a month in hospital. Multiple surgeries and physical therapy. The dry language couldn’t hide the severity of his injuries or the miracle of his survival.
But he’d lived.
And Martin hadn’t.
‘Oh no.’ She bit into her thumb. The words melted together as she followed Max’s name in the report.
The rain would have come suddenly. It often did on Scotland’s west coast. One moment of hesitation, one overcorrection…
‘That’s why you’re such a control freak,’ she murmured, as the pieces clicked into place.
Because the last time he’d lost control, his brother had died.
She gathered the documents with unsteady hands. The folder seemed heavier now, weighted with understanding. Max didn’t just carry his family’s legacy. He carried his brother’s ghost. She should put it back. Pretend she’d never found it.
I can’t unknow this.
The sky had darkened while she read, heavy clouds gathering over the hills. Rain spattered against the windows, each drop an echo of that long-ago night.
Knowledge was power, her journalism professors had preached. But this felt less like power and more like responsibility. The weight of understanding why Max had become the man he was.
For a flicker, Rowan could almost see them. Two boys in a sleek car, one golden and bright, the other eager to measure up. Brothers. Best friends.
She tucked the folder back where she’d found it, but its contents had already carved a space inside her. Some mysteries only led to painful questions. And some wounds never healed. They got buried under expensive suits, power, and control.
Should she bring it up? Confronting him about his family’s dark history was one thing. This, though… This was so personal. Traumatic. But the knowledge had already rooted itself in her, making it impossible to ignore.
She’d start with Dugald Drummond and see where it led.
The library felt colder as she gathered her notes. Strange, how one instant of lost control could echo through decades.
And somewhere in Dunmarach, her husband was shouldering that weight alone.