Chapter One
Loch Katrine
“Did you hear that?” Patrick MacCarran glanced up the long Highland slope as a gust of wind stirred the tail of his dark frock coat and sent a few loose pebbles scattering. “I thought I heard footsteps over the rocks up there.”
Standing near her brother, Fiona looked up the steep hillside buttressing the towering mountain, with its limestone cliffs and dark scree and scrub. “Bogles,” she said. “Haunts and fairies. Small stones shifting along the slopes.”
“Or smugglers,” Patrick muttered. “Had I known we would climb so far into these hills in search of wee rocks, I would have brought a firearm.”
“Smugglers only come out at night.”
“They’re men, not bats,” her brother drawled. He moved ahead, looking around as if he suspected criminals to leap out from behind the boulders and tall trees along the hillside.
Fiona smiled to herself, aware that Patrick only meant to protect her.
Turning, she looked down, where the long slope swept toward Loch Katrine and Glen Kinloch.
The hill might have more fossils hidden along its rocky incline—the area had already yielded nice examples, and she would have plenty of time to search, as she had agreed to stay in the glen until summer to teach in the glen school.
Lifting a hand to her gray bonnet, she drew in a breath, admiring the vast Highland beauty spreading out below.
Though the hills were misty and the sky was gray, from her high vantage point, she could see the loch below, where fog drifted over the water and nudged the rugged foothills.
“This place has a wild beauty even in poor conditions,” she said. “It would be spectacular in better weather.”
Patrick looked about, nodding. Although Fiona wanted to explore more, her brother seemed impatient to return to the hotel at Auchnashee, where he was staying. He seemed uneasy, she thought, frowning a little.
For several months, her youngest brother had been serving as an excise officer at the southern end of Loch Katrine, and so seemed constantly on the alert for trouble wherever he went. The work had made him more somber, but she hoped he would soon regain his inherently cheerful nature.
“Did you hear that?” Patrick called again, walking toward her.
“Just the wind.” She had heard something odd, but it did not worry her.
“Wind—or free traders on their way through the hills. Are you ready to go back now?” He stooped to pick up her canvas knapsack.
“Not quite. I found some excellent trilobites here today, and I am hoping there are more on this slope. And I want to make some sketches and notes before I go.” A cool updraft lifted the ribbons of her bonnet and danced the skirt of her gray woolen gown over the tops of her sturdy leather boots.
She brushed her gloved hands together, powdered with dirt and rock dust. The hillside was mostly rocks, earth, and scrub here, with a little spring green emerging among scraggly heather and gorse.
But a wintry nip in the next gust made her shiver slightly.
“This place is desolate, I know, but it is a perfect environment for finding trilobites and such.”
“It is fairly remote, which makes it appealing to smugglers moving kegs through these hills to the loch and then down the river. Fiona, I have said it before, but I do wish you were not staying alone in this glen. We have had too many reports of rogues in this area lately.”
“I agreed to teach here until summer, and I also intend to do my best to meet the conditions in Grandmother’s will while I am here. Well, some of them. I hope you can do that too, and William as well.”
“Grandmother Struan’s will is a bane for all of us, though it proved a boon for James, who did find his fairy bride—or close enough to satisfy the conditions of the will,” Patrick said.
“I hope you can find a way to do that, too. As for me and William, I cannot imagine finding fairies anywhere. Do consider returning to Edinburgh, Fiona. You know Lord Eldin would lend his barouche if you decide to leave. He is fond of you, though he dislikes most everyone else.”
“I do not want his charity or his barouche. I have promised to stay until summer with Mrs. MacIan, and I will keep my word.”
“From what I could tell, Mary MacIan can barely hear, talks endlessly, and drinks whisky like a man. Months of that could drive even you mad, sweet and amiable though you are.”
“I have not been sweet and amiable since I was three, but thank you. Mrs. MacIan is delightful and could use the company. Her grandson is the reverend, and he looks after her, but I am sure she will enjoy having someone in the house. And you know it is perfectly acceptable for Highland women to take a dram with the men or even on their own. I may even try it myself.”
He laughed outright. “Beware of picking up her odd spinsterish habits! Truly, she is not a fit companion for walking about the hills, and I know you are stubborn enough to do that on your own. And stubborn enough to stay, I see.”
“I did give my word.”
“Your devotion to your word is admirable. Just promise that you will not go wandering the hills alone. There are too many rascals in this godforsaken place.”
“An officer of the government suspects a smuggler around every corner.”
“Not without reason. I am only concerned for your welfare,” he added.
“As I am for yours. The work you do is far more dangerous than a little hillwalking. I know you were bored as a Signet clerk in the city and wanted this challenge. But pursuing smugglers is stressful work and risky. I worry about your welfare.”
“I like the adventure of it, I admit, and I am careful. This region is rife with smugglers, though. Keep that in mind and be cautious.” He frowned.
“The loch is ten miles or so from its southern tip to this little glen, and more families are running private stills along its shores than we could count.”
“Anyone can produce whisky, up to five hundred gallons. You said so.”
“A small family distillery is fine. But what they do with the excess is a problem.”
“Remember when we were small in Perthshire, and the home farm supplied the estate with whisky? Father very much liked their particular brew.”
She glanced away, reminded too keenly of their father, who had died along with their mother when the four children had all been young.
Twins Fiona and James, and siblings William and Patrick had been left to the care of their grandparents, Viscount and Lady Struan.
Fiona and James had then gone into the well-meaning but overbearing guardianship of Lady Rankin, their great-aunt, while the younger boys stayed with their grandparents.
Fiona still resided on Lady Rankin’s estate just outside of Edinburgh, though James had become Viscount Struan and had recently married.
Much as she loved Aunt Rankin, temporary teaching positions in the Highlands—like the school in Glen Kinloch—had become a welcome escape.
“Home distilleries are not the issue,” Patrick was saying.
“But most owners of Highland stills manufacture far more whisky than their allotted amount, and never report the quantity to the excise men. Thousands of gallons a year are smuggled for export, thus avoiding taxes imposed by the Crown. So the government sends out excise officers to track the free traders. It is an unpleasant business, Fiona, both the smuggling and the search for smugglers. I do not say so lightly.”
“I know. But free traders would hardly be interested in a glen teacher.”
“If she wanders the hills and happens to witness their actions, they will be very interested. I will watch over you as much as I can, but I cannot be here all the time. You must be prudent in your wanderings.”
“I will spend most of my days teaching in the glen, and I promise to be cautious whenever I go hillwalking. I will carry an umbrella as a weapon. How is that?” She drew herself to her full height, taller than most women, though not nearly as tall as her brother. “Truly, do not fret. I will be fine.”
Patrick twisted his mouth awry. “Very well. But I want to hear from you often. The mail runs out of the glen village once a week, so a letter can reach me at the southern end by the next day, with luck. One cannot always count on the mail couriers out here.”
“Reverend MacIan assures me the glen is quiet and safe, and most of the tenants are hardworking shepherds and drovers, the rest farming families. He says that smuggling occurs in other glens, but not in this one.”
“Does he indeed?” Patrick huffed skeptically. “Farmers raise barley crops and make whisky from that. Did he mention that hardworking Highland farmers and shepherds by day are free traders by night, loading their pack ponies and carrying loaded pistols through these pretty and peaceable hills?”
“He did not.” She walked up the slope, scanning the ground for interesting rock samples that might contain fossil imprints.
“Mrs. MacIan told me just today that they have a saying in this glen—‘When the laird is on the mountainside, it is wise to step aside.’”
“Perhaps the laird of Glen Kinloch is a disagreeable sort.”
“There is a notorious smuggler in these parts called the Laird,” Patrick went on, walking beside her.
“I thought the Laird was apprehended a few months ago. In Perthshire, I believe.”
“Ah, you must mean the Whisky Lairds, dubbed so by Sir Walter Scott, the ones brought down to Edinburgh after their arrest. They turned out to be very much more than mere whisky smugglers. Lords and such, I believe.”
“Oh yes! I recall hearing something about it. One of them was presented to the king when he visited Scotland last summer.”
“An interesting fellow,” Patrick said. “I had the privilege of meeting him myself—the smuggler, not the king. But he is not the peat-reek laird who runs up and down Loch Katrine making excise officers miserable. That is another man. An elusive scoundrel.”
“Do you mean the laird of Kinloch?”