Chapter 2 #2
“And as if it wasn’t enough to buy me a house, you had to buy me a title to go with that house,” Patrick continued. “So much responsibility, being lord of my own hall. I’d best go see to restacking the rocks atop one another so I’ll have a respectable place to entertain guests.”
Jamie grunted. “Wouldn’t worry about stocking my larder any time soon, if that’s the case. ’Twill be years before you’re entertaining aught but ghosts and rats.”
Patrick paused and looked at his brother.
Jamie stood before him, well over six feet of muscle, tolerable looks, and gruff affection.
But damn him if he wasn’t just as close-mouthed about his motives for doing anything as he always had been.
Patrick looked at his brother searchingly.
“Why did you buy me that hall anyway?” he asked.
Jamie only shrugged.
“I could have bought it myself,” Patrick announced unnecessarily.
Jamie knew just exactly what Patrick could and could not afford, given that he had been the one to divide up the family inheritance.
And Patrick did have money of his own. It wasn’t a fortune, what he earned, but it kept his belly full of sustenance and his cars full of petrol.
In spite of that, Jamie had one day up and presented him with a deed and a fancy bit of paperwork that granted him some bit of lordly title.
A year ago, as a matter of fact. Patrick had begun to suspect that his descent into perpetual grouchiness had begun at the same time.
And why not? Jamie’s castle, their own ancestral hall, loomed up behind them; a gray, unforgiving place that was filled with love.
Patrick’s house was filled with rotting tapestries.
“Were you weary of having me underfoot?” he prodded mercilessly.
“Of course I wasn’t weary of you,” Jamie said gruffly. “Thought you might want some responsibilities of your own.”
At that moment Patrick almost regretted having baited his brother. There the poor man stood, supremely uncomfortable, borne down by the weight of love and too many self-help texts. Patrick sighed as he reached out and clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“I thank you, brother. I’m grateful for a hall of my own and I know why you did it.”
“I daresay you don’t—”
“Perhaps I’ll come for dinner tonight. But now I’ll go home and actually do something responsible, such as take a broom to the place.”
“Shovel, more like,” Jamie muttered.
Patrick laughed. “Aye, you got quite a bargain.”
“Ha,” Jamie said. “Fair beggared myself to do it. You’ve no idea—”
“Actually, I do. You’ve told me repeatedly.” He resheathed his sword and headed toward Jamie’s stables.
“Patrick, wait!”
Now, that was a voice he would stop for without fear of having his innards examined for fatal flaws. He turned and waited as his sister-in-law waddled over to him. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.
“You’re staying for breakfast,” she said, not making it a question.
“Elizabeth, my love,” he said with a smile, “the last thing you need with a baby due any day is me eating through your larder.”
“We have enough to feed you.”
He cast about for a decent excuse, but by the time he’d formulated a very inadequate one, she had put her hand on his arm and smiled, an understanding one.
“All right,” she said gently. “Go. I’ll call you when the baby’s here.”
“It’s not the—”
“Of course it is.”
He sighed. “Very well. Ring me.”
“Go charge your cell phone. It’s dead.”
“I know.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re impossible.”
“But charming.”
She turned him around and pushed him toward the stables. “Good-bye.”
He smiled over his shoulder at her, then made for the stables.
It was safer that way, not to be at the hall.
He didn’t begrudge Jamie and Elizabeth their bairns; he just didn’t want to be there when those bairns made their entrance into the world.
It was damned idiotic, he knew, but when did sense have anything to do with wounds of the heart?
He retrieved his horse and headed across Jamie’s land to his own humble hut, northeast of Jamie’s hall.
It took him less than fifteen minutes, not because his house was close, but because his horse was fast and Patrick gave him his head.
He often wondered if he enjoyed speed simply for the pleasure of it or if it had some kind of deeper meaning, like trying to outrun his ghosts.
He decided that today was not the day to determine the answer to that.
He slowed his mount down and walked the gelding into his courtyard. Courtyard was giving it a lofty title. It was more of a front area boxed in by a crumbling wall. It would keep no enemy at bay, but it did give some sort of structure to the front of his house, and for that he was grateful.
His house had once been the hunting lodge of a seventeenth century English nobleman with delusions of being a medieval lord.
The entire place was constructed of stone and bore some resemblance to a small castle.
It sat on a very beautiful bit of land. Patrick had admired the place from time to time, given that it was so close to the borders of Jamie’s land and he’d had ample opportunity to see it, but he’d never considered buying it.
It was, put quite simply, a complete wreck.
It did boast its share of chambers, true.
There was a great hall, a kitchen, a pair of bathrooms, and several bedchambers.
Indeed, one of them contained the same sort of massive fireplace the gathering room did.
And it was also true that the owners over the years had modernized both the kitchen and the bathrooms—after a fashion.
Not that he cared overmuch. He’d made do in the past with less and been quite happy. But to make the place comfortable?
It was almost more work than he could comfortably contemplate.
He looked over the outside of the house.
It was in slightly better shape than the inside.
The courtyard was surrounded by a low stone fence, and contained the house, stables, and a garage that in its day had likely housed four or five carriages.
The stables and garage were in remarkably good shape.
Unfortunately for the house, the descendants of the first Lord of Benmore hadn’t had either his means or his enthusiasm.
The last resident, a distant nephew several generations removed, had let the entire thing go almost entirely to ruin before he’d sold both the house and his very small, very insignificant title to none other than James MacLeod, who had bought it to give his feeble younger brother something to do.
Patrick sighed and went to stable his horse.
What he could say for himself as the new owner was that he’d filled the stables with very fine horseflesh and he’d certainly done justice to the garage.
The house, however, was still a disaster.
He supposed it might have been less expensive to tear the whole thing down and start over, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it.
Maybe there was more of a romantic inside him than he cared to admit.
He couldn’t help but wonder who had lived within those walls, how had they loved, what had they lost. . . .
Well, the last he could readily imagine because what they had lost was his gain. Patrick sighed. He really should do something about fixing the place up. Buy some furniture. Fix the walls. Install something in the kitchen besides an ancient Aga stove and a periodically functioning icebox.
But not this morning. He didn’t have the heart to build anything today. This morning he would take another of his very expensive, very fast cars and drive very fast until he’d left his demons behind.
He walked inside the house, then came to an abrupt halt in his great hall. He sniffed. Pipesmoke?
He considered. It wasn’t the first time he’d smelled the like. Maybe it was something locked in the decrepit tapestry hanging on the wall. But he didn’t dare clean the thing. It would disintegrate.
He shrugged, resigning himself to smells he couldn’t rid himself of, then headed for his shower, stripping on the way. At least he had indoor plumbing. It could have been worse. He’d lived in worse; he knew how bad it could be.
He stood in his shower, rested his hands against chipped tile with his head bowed, and willed the water to wash away more than just dirt and sweat. It didn’t, of course, but he quite happily ran out the hot water in the attempt.
He dried off, grabbed fresh clothes from his armoire, dressed quickly, then headed out to the garage. He’d only made it midway across the courtyard before he froze.
Were those bagpipes?
He shook his head. There was no one at Jamie’s who played the pipes. Well, perhaps that wasn’t exactly true. There were pipers who came and went, but Patrick never exerted himself to make their acquaintance. He had better things to do than converse with those of their particular ilk.
Maybe this lad was a stranger using the mournful Scottish hill behind his house for a little practice. Might as well go tell the fool he was trespassing. Patrick hopped over the wall and walked slowly up the hill. He stopped well below the summit.
There was no one in sight.
And yet the pipes played on.
Patrick closed his eyes. He could imagine quite well a man standing there, his plaid and his music carried about by the breeze.
He allowed himself the pleasure of enjoying music he was certainly only imagining.
Apparently he had a damned good imagination, because the sound of the pipes stirred something in his soul he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
It was music from another time, music that belonged on a deserted, windswept hill, mournful music that was almost enough to make a man give in to his grief and weep it all out without shame.
He opened his eyes. There, at the top of the hill, was the piper.
His plaid flowed in a breeze that Patrick most certainly could not feel; his music was carried by that same breeze, coming to Patrick’s ears in snatches that were all too real.
The man finished his song, turned, and made Patrick a low bow.
And then he disappeared.
Literally.
Patrick stared at the summit of the hill and cursed fluently. Damnation, wasn’t it enough that the walls were falling down around him? He had to have ghosts, too?
He turned away and walked swiftly back to his house before he could give any more thought to that.
He was losing it. It was the only logical explanation.
He was not hearing a piper on his hill, he was not seeing a piper on his hill, and he was not going to indulge in any more of this Jamie-inspired speculation about his own mental state.
There was, he had to admit, far too much magic in Scotland for his own good.
He went to the garage, no firm destination in mind.
The only direction he could come up with was away, and he’d had enough experience pursuing that one to know it was a good one.
He opened the garage doors and stared gloomily inside.
His Vanquish that sat there, a perfect wreck.
Damned sheep. He should have flattened them.
He decided on his black Range Rover. Not as fast, but more sensible should he choose to pursue paths unknown.
He got in, slammed the door, then realized something was amiss. He climbed back out, saw the flat tyre, then swore with great enthusiasm. He was not having a good week.
Half an hour later, he was on the road and heading away for parts unknown.
Civilization was what he needed. Maybe Inverness.
It was a goodly bit more culture than he’d grown up with.
It would do for the moment. Besides, it would be a good thing to drop in on his mechanic and set up the fetching and repairing of his car.
He set his face forward and left the past, and that bloody ghostly piper, behind.