Chapter Two #2
Dougal huffed a laugh. “I try not to. We just need good weather to finish this job. Whether she wants it or not, we will see it done with the support of the government.” Dougal turned to see Norrie MacNeill walking toward him. The girl had joined him again, though without the little boy.
Graceful, lovely, he saw only her. The rush of the sea was loud in his ears, and his heart beat quickened. He thought of the sea fairy and felt a deep and sudden longing.
Whoever this girl was, he told himself, she was real, and he needed to collect his wits.
He looked like a pirate, dark and wild, in shirtsleeves and vest and open collar, hands at his waist, a booted foot propped on the edge of a log on the beach.
He was all restrained power and assurance as he watched her walk down the beach beside her grandfather.
She felt his gaze bore into her and almost through her.
She had expected Dougal Stewart to be handsome and charming, as others said, but she was not prepared for the impact of his steady gaze or his compelling presence, even at a distance.
Now she only wanted to turn and run, not ready to face him. Better they should meet when she could be proper Lady Strathlin, holding her own against the persistent engineer.
But when her grandfather waved at him and took her arm, Meg walked forward.
Crossing the beach, she heard her name and saw her cousin, Fergus MacNeill, walking with her son, Sean along the upper beach.
She was glad Sean had obeyed when she told him to climb down from the headland.
Though she was his mother, there was a bit of distance there, for she did not see him often enough.
He knew she lived far away from the island and when he was older, he would go to live with her.
When she had inherited the title and fortune, a single mother of an infant, she had agreed with her island kinfolk’s opinion that it was best for Sean to spend his early years on Caransay.
Before Sean’s birth, her family had put it about that Meg had married a man from another island, a man of the sea who had vanished, and made it known that she did not discuss it.
Only Meg’s grandparents and great-grandmother knew the truth of Sean’s existence.
The story was easy enough for the isle’s community of fishermen and wives to understand.
Her inheritance was harder to hide, but she had the support of kin and friends in her good fortune.
Once she purchased the Caransay lease and brought benefit to her tenants and life on the isle, they recognized the importance of her new role, and knew she was doing the best she could for her son, the islanders, and others.
She was deeply grateful for the warm homecoming she felt each time she returned to Caransay.
And so her cousin Fergus and his wife Anna took the boy into their household. But just a year ago, Anna had died with the birth of a daughter. Left with two bairns to raise, Fergus moved in with his grandparents, also Norrie and Thora, so the children could have a family circle.
Now, watching her bonny golden-haired son run happily across the beach, Meg reminded herself that she could not follow, but must go meet the obstinate engineer, Dougal Stewart.
Sighing, she pushed back her hair, knowing she did not look her best, her hair wild and loose, her feet bare, her skirt above her ankles.
On Caransay, she stayed in the Great House—a grand residence on the other side of the island.
But in other ways, she reverted to the lifestyle she had always known, spent as much time as she could with her family and her son.
She loved the freedom here, loved dispensing with crinolines, stays, stockings, wide skirts, and snug shoes in favor of comfortable, practical clothing and simple shoes or bare feet. Caransay was the only place she could do that now.
“So will you tell the man you are the lady herself?” Norrie asked.
“That odious engineer? I will tell him nothing just now. He hates me,” she answered in the Gaelic she usually spoke while here. “I can hardly tell him I am Lady Strathlin when I look like this. I suppose I should invite him to tea at the Great House and tell him then.”
“Ha! The surprise will do him good. He is too serious, that lad.”
“I hoped my solicitors would find a way to stop his work project before I arrived on holiday. But they have not been able to do that.”
“Ach, solicitors, useless fellows. Look there.” Norrie gestured with his clay pipe.
“See those huts they put up. Those Lowland structures will not stand against a good rain. That is not the sort of house we need here. But we told them they were very good houses!” He chuckled.
“May their huts blow out to sea and carry the engineers with them!”
“Ach, Seanair. That is wicked!” But she laughed with him.
A glance toward a cluster of thatched-roof little cottages told her that they were hastily erected, not as solid as Hebridean stone houses with thick thatched roofs weighted with rope nets and stones.
“I never agreed to putting up a lighthouse out there, you know that, Seanair.”
“I know.” Norrie clamped his teeth over the pipe stem. “And the people wonder what you will do about it now that you are here.”
“I have already tried everything. He is a stubborn man.”
“Stubborn, wants his lighthouse, but he is not a bad fellow. I have spoken with him myself many times while you have been gone. I like the man, I do. It is the construction I do not like, for the harm it causes Sgeir Caran and the colonies of seabirds that settle on the rock each year.”
“The birds, the rock, the harm to our privacy, the threat to our legends—oh!” She stopped walking. Norrie frowned.
She stared at Dougal Stewart, who calmly waited for them. And she saw his face clearly for the first time.
“Oh!” she said again, as the beach seemed to tilt under her feet.
“What is it?” Norrie asked.
“I—nearly tripped. That’s all.”
She had expected to see a handsome man, a devilish, infuriating, obstinate man, the heir to a fortune, a builder of lighthouses. A persistent man whose work took real courage and daring.
She never expected to see the cad who had fathered her child and had broken her heart forever.
Stewart frowned at her, his gaze intense and penetrating. Did he recognize her? Oh God, she thought. Please, no.
Drawing closer, she was convinced this was the man she had met on that rock years ago.
She would never mistake that face or the lean, stern toughness of him, a rugged, masculine beauty.
The man she dreamed of—in dreams where she told him frankly what she thought about what he had done that night.
Yet a man she loved and could not forget.
Dark-brown hair fell in sun-streaked waves, framing a face with rounded cheekbones, a firm jaw, a dusting of dark beard; his brows were straight, his smooth skin tanned from sun and wind.
He wore a brown vest, dusty black trousers, and no coat; his shirt sleeves were rolled, and his open collar showed a strong, tanned throat. He stared as she approached.
Dear God, this was him, and no mistake. Meg touched the locket at her throat, and drew her plaid shawl over her hair to shadow her face as she approached him beside her grandfather.
He could not be allowed to recognize her. She could not bear it. Her legs quivered. She would be very foolish now to reveal that she was Lady Strathlin. She felt desperate to run away.
“Grandfather,” she said urgently. “Please do not tell him who I am. Not yet. We must all keep that secret until I decide what to do.”
“We can let it wait,” he replied.
Dougal Stewart stepped forward and held out his hand. “Mr. MacNeill! Good to see you, sir.” He smiled at Meg and nodded, his eyes inquisitive, narrowed, so keen on her.
She prayed he would not know her. In seven years she had changed, matured.
And he was still the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
Sun and years had etched intelligence and wisdom around his eyes and in the slight creases beside his mouth.
He had filled out, was larger, even more powerful.
His eyes, edged in sooty black lashes, were the muted gray-green of a stormy sea.
He waited for an introduction, smiling politely. Meg lifted her chin, feeling defensive. He had hurt her deeply once, and she must tread carefully, not let him know just yet.
But the urge to tell him, corner him, find out why he had done what he had done, filled her, pushed at her. She flared her nostrils, tightened her lips. He sent her a puzzled glance.
“Good day, Dougal Stewart.” Norrie spoke in English. “And Alan Clarke. This is my granddaughter, Margaret Fiona MacNeill. Lass, this is Mr. Stewart and Mr. Clarke.”
She offered a hand in silence as Stewart took her fingers. “Miss MacNeill, good to meet you.”
Touching him was a dreadful mistake. That ordinary contact shocked through her. Catching her breath, she met his penetrating gaze. He frowned. Did he recognize her?
She snatched her hand away, nodded to Clarke, and stepped back. Dougal Stewart turned to Norrie with a question about the mail runs to the Isle of Mull.
“Miss MacNeill, are you from Caransay?” Alan Clarke asked politely. He was a pleasant fellow, blond and blue-eyed, stockier and shorter than Stewart.
“Originally, aye, but I live elsewhere now. I come back to visit when I can.”
“It is a beautiful place,” Stewart said, having heard their exchange. She felt caught once more in his piercing gaze. Earlier she had wanted to flee—but now she wished for the courage to confront him. Slap him, give him her fierce thoughts on being betrayed. Not now, not here.
But suddenly, fiercely, she wanted him to know that she had felt betrayed, had felt angry toward him ever since that night, not knowing who he was or if she would ever see him again.
Now, certain of his identity, she was stunned.
How could he return to Caransay in this capacity, an engineer planning to destroy a legend by building on the very rock where he had once betrayed an island girl he did not even know?
Yet her heart conflicted with her sense of indignation. Sometimes she dreamed of him and yearned for him, wished for the return of that love, that bond. He had been protective and tender that stormy night, had wooed, won, loved her—and tricked her. He was only ordinary after all.
Temper rising fresh, she urgently wanted to tell him exactly who she was, and what had become of her after he left. But she had to wait, had to keep her identity secret from the engineer.
She must summon dignity and bide her time. The baroness would invite the engineer to the Great House to reveal the truth when the time was right.
“Mr. Stewart,” Norrie said then, “I heard you hired the MacLeod lad to take you over to the Isle of Mull in his wee boat. Just so you know, I sail to Tobermory on Mull once or twice a week when the weather allows. Next time you wish to go, I will take you and bring you back. No need to ask the lad, though he was glad to do it.”
“Thank you. I shall remember.” Stewart nodded.
Meg stood silent, quelling rising emotion. Sea foam lapped at her feet, cooling her body, cooling her ire. She had to think of her child and find the right moment.
Then she caught her breath. Would Dougal Stewart want to take his son away from the island, away from her and her kin, board him in a school as was common for young lads?
She wanted him to stay on the island where he was safe, away from her other life.
She could never allow him to be put in a school until he was ready—and she was ready.
Thinking that, she glared at Stewart. He returned a quizzical glance.
“Miss MacNeill, I must ask. Have we met before?”