Chapter Three
“I do not think we have met, Mr. Stewart,” replied Margaret MacNeill. Her voice was soft and melodic, her English perfect, with the soft, precise lilt of the native Gaelic speaker rather than broad Scots English. She seemed wary or troubled. Perhaps she was shy.
“Ah. I thought I had seen you somewhere before.” He smiled a little.
“I cannot think where,” she said primly, glancing away.
Dougal nodded, studying her. She was slim and neatly made beneath her plain garments, her feet sand-dusted, her clasped hands smooth and lovely.
If she gutted fish and worked with nets, like many Hebridean women, her hands did not show it.
Her thick golden curls were loosely pulled back with a leather tie, and her features were delicate, though he saw definite stubbornness in the set of her chin and her lush mouth.
But fair coloring and elegant bones were common in Hebrideans due to Viking ancestry, so it was said. Her grandfather had similar fair coloring with high cheekbones and vivid blue eyes.
In the late daylight, Margaret MacNeill’s eyes were a luminous aqua.
Dougal was reminded of a girl he had met and loved years ago whose eyes were the same extraordinary color, a sea-washed blue-green—he had glimpsed her at dawn just before he left the cave.
The eyes of a sea fairy, he thought whimsically. He had never discovered who she was.
But Miss MacNeill had the same eyes, and she otherwise resembled that gorgeous creature, the sea fairy he had dreamed was a girl.
A shock of recognition ran through him—a prickling on the skin, a clutch of certainty in the gut.
He had been muddled that long-ago night, thinking the girl he met was a magical being.
In the years since, he felt she must have been real, and he feared he would never see her again.
He had tried to find her, searching on every isle in the vicinity of Sgeir Caran. But he had never found a girl like the ethereal, lovely lass he had met on the rock.
Could she be the one? His heart thumped. Could she?
She gave no sign of recognition, a calm, cool, natural beauty who all but ignored him. Yet he noticed nervousness in the tight clasp of her hands, the tucked frown, the clench of her narrow toes in the sand.
Not sure, he turned to smile as Norrie MacNeill addressed his granddaughter. “Mr. Stewart is the chief of the lighthouse on the rock.”
“Resident engineer,” Dougal amended. “Assigned by the Northern Lighthouse Commission. We have permission to build on Sgeir Caran and to set up buildings for our needs on Caransay.”
“I see,” the girl said crisply.
She was not pleased to meet him, that was clear. He was aware that the islanders did not approve of the lighthouse plan, nor did the island’s owner, Lady Strathlin. Miss MacNeill echoed the sentiment of her kin and friends; surely that explained her scowling glances.
But—what if she was the girl from years back?
That girl would be unhappy to see him too, nor could he blame her.
She had left first, but as he sailed away with the men who’d come to get him, he’d noticed a boat pulling away—had it been Norrie’s boat, even back then?
Dougal had been in a haze still, thoughts blurry from a knock to the head, his comprehension of things not quite fixed.
Keeping his outward calm, he promised himself to speak with her alone soon.
What would he do if he discovered she was indeed that girl?
Beyond apology and explanation, what more could he do?
He had been a fool then. He had wanted to return immediately, but work duties had called back to the mainland for months. Later, he could not trace the lass.
Heart beating fast, thoughts distracting, he lost the thread of the conversation. Norrie cleared his throat.
“Mr. Stewart! I saw you and your men cutting into the hard place today,” Norrie said. “I heard the noise of your sledges and chisels when I went over the waves to draw in my nets.”
“The hard place?” Dougal asked.
“Sgeir Caran,” Margaret MacNeill explained. “My seanair, my grandfather, will not say the rock’s name aloud.”
“It is not good to speak it,” Norrie admitted. “No one should say it when directly on the sea. The hard place has a power that can pull you in so you would be lost.”
“Ah.” Dougal understood that more than Norrie could guess. “I will try to respect the local traditions.”
“If so, why would you build on the great rock,” the girl asked tartly, “when it is a place of legend and significance to the people of Caransay?”
“I am not aware of a legend about Sg—the hard place.”
“The hard place belongs to the each-uisge,” Norrie said. “The lord of the deep.”
“The ech-ooshka?” Dougal asked.
“Sea kelpie,” Margaret MacNeill explained. “A horse-like sea creature of great magical power who can take the form of a white horse in the waves and sometimes takes form of a man.”
“Aye, they say he comes to our great rock now and then to find himself a bride,” Norrie went on.
“The black rock is his place, you see. If he claims his bride, he will be good to the island. He will quiet the storms and summon more fish into our nets. He will bestow peace and good fortune on us. If he is displeased, he will raise great storms and the fish will flee our waters. His power and his wrath could destroy our lives and even sink Caransay into the waves.”
“That kelpie is no fellow to cross,” Dougal said, a smile quirking his lips.
“It is nothing to laugh at,” Margaret MacNeill snapped.
“Our tradition is to make sure the each-uisge is always pleased,” Norrie said.
“Do you bring him oatcakes and whisky as well as bonny brides?” Dougal meant it lightly, but saw the girl’s sudden scowl. Norrie chuckled, but stopped when she glared at him too.
“We have honored our traditions for centuries,” she said.
“I understand, Miss MacNeill.”
“Do you?” she asked sharply. “The kelpie will not want a lighthouse there.”
Dougal inclined his head. He knew that Hebrideans relied on age-old superstitions and rituals that created a sense of security and power in what could be a harsh and unpredictable environment. He saw the girl send a stern look to her grandfather and back to him again.
“Stewart, we know you have had some trouble with the lady,” Norrie MacNeill said. This remark earned him another pretty scowl from the granddaughter. Even anger could not chase the sweetness from that face, Dougal thought.
“Lady Strathlin? Aye, some trouble. I hear she has a house on Caransay. If she comes here, I definitely want to meet her.”
Silence followed as the old fisherman dragged on his pipe and clicked it between his teeth, and the girl gazed out to sea. She raised her chin, a gesture of truculence.
“She may not want to meet with you, sir,” she said.
“The lady who owns the isle is not here just now,” Norrie said.
“Not here,” the girl echoed.
“I will be on the island for a long while. When she visits again, I need to speak with her.”
“A long while?” the girl asked. Her voice had an odd tremor.
Dougal sent her a sharp glance. That nagging feeling that he had seen her before grew stronger. He had been back and forth to the island for weeks and had not seen this girl until today. Yet she seemed all too familiar.
“She stays up in the Great House,” Norrie said. “Sometimes no one sees her.”
“The Great House?” Dougal asked. The girl stood silent, the sea breeze filtering through her wild honeyed curls.
“Clachan Mor is her home on the other side of the island,” Norrie replied. “If the lady comes here, I can deliver your note to her.”
“I prefer to meet with her in person.”
“She does not like visitors,” the girl said.
“I am thinking you need her permission to use her beach and harbor,” Norrie said. He drew on his pipe. “And yet you go ahead and do it without asking.”
“I have no choice, sir,” Dougal said. “I work for the Lighthouse Commission, and the commission and the government have ordered this work to be done.”
“The lady does not like strangers on Caransay. But if we see her, we will tell her you are here.” Norrie pointed with his pipe toward the black rock out in the sea. “If you want to please the lady, find another rock for your tall light. She wants privacy for her island.”
“That rock is a dangerous place,” Margaret MacNeill said then. “There are wild storms and high waves out there.”
“I know, Miss MacNeill. I have been out there in all sorts of weather.” Dougal met her gaze. “So I know that a light is needed there to protect the ships that pass.”
Her aqua-blue gaze caught his, and he saw a flash of awareness. Then she looked away again, hastily, nervously. Those luscious lips trembled. She glanced back at him, then away.
Certainty slammed through him, clarifying the elusive feeling of familiarity.
Oh aye, he thought. You are the one. Now what do we do, my lass?
*
Restless, unable to sleep, Dougal left his small hut in the darkness to walk over the machair, the wildflower meadow that stretched over part of the island to the dunes.
Overhead, the sky had finally gone indigo—Hebridean summer skies could hold a lavender light nearly through the night.
The moon, high and pale, reflected in ripples on the sea as he strolled.
Deep in thought, he considered a stubborn problem.
Rectangular stone blocks, each weighing several tons, had to be precisely trimmed to fit the circular foundation cavity of the lighthouse.
He had drawn diagrams and devised measurements, but knew each block must be hand-shaped in situ to ensure a tight fit.
The figures he gave his masons had to be accurate.
Long walks often helped him think such things through.
Pausing to gaze out over the dark sea, his mind was as restless as the waves, not because he puzzled over granite blocks, but because Margaret MacNeill had invaded his dreams. He had startled awake from a dream of the girl in his arms, her embrace comforting, luscious, then passionate.