Chapter Six #2
“My grandfather collected an excellent library.” She stopped, saying too much again.
He lifted a brow. “Your seanair has a library?”
“Not Norrie. My maternal grandfather.”
“I see.” He turned more pages. “Gannets, puffins, storm petrels…and eagles. I did not know there were so many birds on Sgeir Caran until I came here again.”
Again. She looked out to sea. “Birds, aye. And on the island, an abundance of wildlife, plants, seaweed too. There are several varieties of kelp here.”
“Kelp. Interesting.” He closed the book.
“Kelp is essential to the island’s wellbeing. It is gathered and dried for potash and exported to the mainland and elsewhere. It is used in manufacturing glass.” She spoke too fast, wanting to rush past a mention of birds. She recalled the note she had sent him about protecting the seabirds.
“It provides a solid income on some islands, I know. I have some investments in the kelp industry, and in herring, too. Silver darlings bring a good income too,” he explained. “Nicely done, Miss MacNeill.” He handed the book to her.
“Every page is impressive. Will you begin another? Perhaps study birds—on the rock?”
She felt her cheeks burn. “I may do that. We—we all love the birds here. The wildlife and plant life on the island and the reef are precious, Mr. Stewart. Caransay is beautiful and idyllic. It is partly why we do not want a lighthouse so close by.”
“Lady Strathlin agrees with you. No doubt she would love your wildlife journals.”
“No doubt.” Meg gave him a sidelong glance. He was too close to guessing. She would have to tell him, but could not bear it now. “You said you had to go. I assume you have work to do.”
“I should go, aye. That lad is too far out,” he said suddenly.
Looking toward Sean, still splashing and jumping in the water, she shaded her eyes with her hand. “Sean! Come back toward the shore!”
“He’s an adventurous lad, that one.”
“Too much so. Too likely to go swimming or climbing without a thought for safety.”
He smiled. “He is young yet. But you keep close watch over him. Does he live on the island, or with you? I saw him with your grandparents—before you arrived, I think.”
She felt struck to the heart. “He likes it here. I want him to have—family, at least while he is so young.” Stepping away, she walked through a thin wash of water. Stewart went with her, his boots sinking hard prints beside her bare feet.
Seagulls dipped and fluttered overhead, and the long flow and pull of the waves was soothing. Even though she should be wary, she felt relaxed in his company. She could have strolled along the beach forever, surrounded by peace, with him.
“I was a daredevil child, like Sean,” he mused, watching the boy splash in the shallows. “My parents did their best to keep me from getting hurt.” He chuckled.
“You are still a daredevil to put up lighthouses in dangerous locations.”
“There is that,” he admitted. He laughed again, a deep, easy rumble.
“Your parents would have been proud of you,” she ventured. “It is dangerous work.”
A frown puckered his brow. “They never knew what I came to do. They would have worried about the risks, but I think they would be pleased that I do satisfying work.”
“Satisfying?”
“What I do helps people. And that helps me, in its way. As for danger, that comes with it.” A breeze fingered through his thick, wavy hair. “Including taking on dangerous baronesses.”
“You are notorious on Caransay for that, sir.”
“So I gather. I know you would like to see me leave, Miss MacNeill, for several reasons. But I will not be dissuaded from this. I have one quality that is both a virtue and a curse.”
“What is that?” She stopped.
He stopped too, gazing down at her. “I never give up.” His green eyes turned hard as Venetian glass. “I suggest you explain that to your baroness. And think on it yourself.”
“Me?” Her voice wavered.
He leaned down. “Shall we discuss it here and now, or shall we wait for privacy?”
Heart slamming, his nearness sending a wave of longing and wariness through her, she held his gaze. “We will wait.”
“Very well.” He looked at the leather journal in her hands. “That is admirable work, Miss MacNeill. You could consider publishing your drawings one day. A guide to the beauty of the isles.”
“I doubt anyone would be interested.”
“On the contrary, Scotland is very popular with tourists. People are curious to know more about every part of it.”
“This is just a hobby.” She sighed, wanting to be honest with him in something. She had dreamed of publishing her journals someday, but she did not think them worthy enough. “Well,” she said, “I did think they might make a handsome set of books someday.” She shrugged.
“‘A Hebridean Journal, by M. MacNeill,’” he suggested.
“A silly dream.”
He touched her arm. A gentle thrill slipped through her. “Do not give up on that dream.”
She took the journal, her fingers brushing his. “Thank you.”
He smiled, warm with mischief and—affection, in a way. “My uncle wrote books—poetry, mostly. Romantic, lofty stuff, legends and tragedies, much beating of breasts and angst. Perhaps you have heard of him. Sir Hugh MacBride.”
“I have read everything he wrote! How marvelous to have such genius in your family.”
“Did your island school stretch to overblown romantic poetry?”
“We learned English and all subjects in the village school. We had math, reading, writing—including good and bad poetry.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And as a small girl, I spent winters on the mainland at my grandfather’s house. He hired tutors for me. Literature, languages, sciences, and more mathematics than I cared to learn. I had music and drawing lessons, too.”
“A mainland education as well. Impressive.”
“I am not the fishwife you may think me, Mr. Stewart,” she ended crisply.
He smiled, small and rueful. “I beg your pardon. I, too, had a tutor. I loved maths and sciences, and thought the rest rather deadly. I studied alongside my three sisters and our cousins.”
“Three sisters!”
“My cousins and I got into some scrapes, perhaps to counter all the femininity around us.” He grinned. “We made towers and fortresses out of books in the library. It did not earn approval.”
A laugh bubbled up. “Now you still make towers!”
“I do.” He looked chagrined. “And earn some disapproval.”
“What about another island? Guga is nearby. Put your lighthouse on another sea rock.”
“Sgeir Caran is the best suited for the placement as well as the construction.”
“Commissioners and engineers do not consider traditions and legends or what all that means to these islanders.”
“The legends are holding back progress. Should more people drown out there to save old traditions?” As he pointed toward the water, she saw the hot spark of his temper suddenly.
“Tell your baroness the lighthouse will go up. If she wishes to discuss it, it must be in person. No more letters. I have had enough of her lawyers and their tricks.”
“Tricks!” Meg leaned forward. “She would not trick anyone.”
“Her solicitors are pulling every angle they can, but they do not seem to understand. Come here.” He took her arm, firm and insistent.
A fire of awareness exploded through her at his touch.
He drew her toward the slope of a hill covered in purple heather.
She glanced back to be sure her grandmothers were watching Sean, who skipped out of the water to kneel on the sand.
At the top of the hill, he stopped, and she looked out with him at an expansive view of the sea. Stewart pointed toward a low wedge-shaped rocky isle.
“Look there, Miss MacNeill. What do you see?”
“Another great rock, and the Isle of Guga in the distance just past it. Guga bears the scars of your quarry work still raw there. But it would be a good place for a lighthouse.”
“What else?”
She looked. “Nothing else.”
“Precisely. Our huts are gone.”
“Ah.” She remembered that one of his letters had detailed losing those shelters to storms.
“The huts we built there were taken down by gales.”
“Perhaps it was a sign for you to stop the work.”
“I do not give up, Miss MacNeill,” he reminded her. “Guga is an inhospitable rock amid a thorny patch of half-submerged rocks. My men took too many risks due to the weather and the treacherous seascape out there.”
“Sgeir Caran is just a rock like Guga. Not—hospitable either.” Well, but for the little cave that proved a fine shelter one stormy night, she thought wryly.
He paused, and she sensed he had the same thought. “It is—more accessible,” he finally said. “We can build on it, and the visibility for passing ships is good. And though Lady Strathlin and her lawyers do not agree, the Lighthouse Commission has approved the work. This lighthouse goes up.”
“Then why meet with the baroness? You no longer want her permission. You have gone past her in that.”
“I want her cooperation. And we will need more stone, which can be quarried from Caransay’s hills for quality and convenience.”
“Quarry on Caransay? You cannot!”
“By government writ, I can. But I want Lady Strathlin’s approval. Caransay stone is good granite, and it can also bring more work to the men of this island.”
“They do not need the work. They have fishing and kelp industries. And the baroness helps the people of this island. She would insist that Caransay must not be ravaged or defaced. Its beauty has been undisturbed until now.”
“With every project, I make certain my crews respect the integrity of the land. Modernization is not an evil force, Miss MacNeill.”
“If improvement threatens to destroy eons of Nature’s fine work, there is evil in it. I suggest you consider abandoning your project here.”
“You are a fitting mouthpiece for the lady.”
“I must get back to Sean.” She whirled to walk down the slope, while he followed. The boy ran toward them.
“Did you see me in the water? I was swimming!” Sean puffed his chest proudly.
“You must never do that alone, you know that!” Meg spoke more sternly than she meant.
“Your mother is right, young sir,” Stewart said. “Never go out alone. But if you like, I can teach you how to swim the foam, as they say in the old songs. You would be safer.”
“No!” Meg said, alarmed suddenly. She touched Sean’s hair. “No.”
Stewart frowned. “He needs that skill, living on an island. I am glad to help.”
Fear went through her like a warning bell. “You do not need to teach him. I will do it. We will do it. Good day, Mr. Stewart. Come, Sean. We must get back.” She took the boy’s hand.
“Mr. Stooar!” Sean turned as he was tugged along. “I will see you again, aye?”
“I hope so, Master Sean,” he replied cordially.
Meg swept Sean along with her to join Thora and Elga, who sat with Anna a good length away. Meg glanced back to see Stewart strolling in the opposite direction.
I never give up, he had said.
Well, neither would she.