Chapter 16
Kingsburgh House, home to Flora MacDonald and the man she married after she helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape, was only eight miles north of Portree, so since today was more about Skye’s historical past than its geology, Giselle decided to kick off Rocco’s education there.
Although, if she was honest, today would be for her benefit too, because she’d always been deeply moved by Flora MacDonald’s story, convinced there was more to it than the archives led people to believe.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see. Privately owned and in a state of disrepair, the house wasn’t the original one that had stood on that spot, but it was enough for Giselle.
‘I’ve heard of Bonnie Prince Charlie, but I don’t know the story,’ Rocco said, as they walked from the road through a stand of trees towards the dilapidated old house.
‘The “Skye Boat Song”.’
‘Aye, that’s the one. I won’t sing it for you again.’ He didn’t need to hear her pathetic warbling.
To her surprise, Rocco sang it instead. ‘Carry the lad who was born to be king, over the sea to Skye,’ he warbled, in a pleasing baritone.
‘You have a hidden talent, Mr Moore,’ she teased. ‘We’ll have you singing in the ceilidh next.’
‘The kaylee?’ he repeated.
‘It’s a Scottish social gathering, with dancing and music. You’d enjoy it. There’s a big one held every year after the Highland Games in Portree. It’s one of the highlights of the year.’ He wouldn’t be here to see it, though, and her mood plummeted.
Giselle pushed away from the gate, feeling despondent. ‘Let’s move on,’ she said. There was nothing more to see here. The truth be told, she didn’t know why she’d brought him here; Kingsburgh House was hardly a tourist attraction.
Their next destination was.
The Fairy Glen (Bail nan Cnoc in Gaelic, which meant Village in the Hills) was one of the most enchanting places Giselle had ever seen.
It was like the Quiraing in miniature. Formed over 100,000 years ago, the sandstone bedrock had been sculpted into small conical hills which were covered in grass and stunted twisted rowan trees.
Between the hillocks lay tranquil Highland pools.
It was well worth the short hike.
‘Are you sure this isn’t the set of a Lord of the Rings movie?’ Rocco asked, agog. ‘No wonder it’s called the Fairy Glen.’ He gave her a sideways look. ‘Not fairies, elves – like you.’
Giselle touched her silver hair self-consciously. She’d been compared to Galadriel before on account of it. ‘Are you suggesting I’ve got pointy ears?’
‘Not at all. You’ve got cute ears. Like little shells.’
‘Oh, purhleese,’ she drawled. ‘That’s so clichéd.’ Then, ‘Do you really think they’re cute?’ She’d always thought her ears were on the large side, so she tended to cover them with her hair.
Rocco stroked a strand aside and tucked it behind one of her ears. His touch electrified her.
‘Yes, I do.’
She bit her lip, and he let his hand fall.
Was he flirting with her? Because she was fairly sure that she had been flirting with him.
There was only one problem with flirting: what if he wanted to take it further?
The thought of making love to him filled her with such an intense longing, born of remembered emotion and desire, that she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist if he did.
‘Are there any stories of fairies or magic here?’ he asked, his attention on the landscape once more, forcing Giselle to gather her thoughts.
‘Not one. But it feels magical, doesn’t it? And that basalt tower might look like a castle, but it isn’t,’ she said, pointing to a rocky pinnacle of bare stone. ‘There’s a route to the top, if you want to give it a go, but I warn you, it’s a scramble.’
‘I think I’ll soak up the atmosphere from here, instead,’ he said. ‘I did enough clambering about on Saturday. My poor legs haven’t recovered yet.’
‘Soft living,’ she teased. ‘Too many hours sat behind a desk.’
‘You’re not wrong. Running on a treadmill isn’t the same as climbing mountains. I know which I prefer, though,’ he added, taking a deep breath of the fresh clean air.
‘A man after my own heart,’ she said without thinking, then wrinkled her nose. Stop flirting, she told herself. Nothing good will come of it.
‘I haven’t seen a single bit of Skye that I don’t love,’ he murmured. ‘Can we sit here for a moment? There’s no rush to get to the next place, is there?’
‘No rush,’ she agreed. ‘You’re never going to see Skye in a few days, so you may as well savour the bits you do get to see.’
Rocco lowered himself onto the grass, then lay back, his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.
Giselle sat next to him. Picking a long stem of feathery grass, she plucked the seeds one by one and cast them on the breeze. Then she picked another and delicately tickled him on the nose with it, sniggering as he batted it away, his eyes still closed.
She did it again, and this time she couldn’t help a snort of laughter.
Hastily, she dropped the stem of grass as he opened his eyes and sat up.
‘That wasn’t a bee, was it? That was you.’
Her expression innocent, she said, ‘What was me?’ She was playing with fire, she knew, but the lure of him was greater than the danger of being burnt. He’d be gone soon. It was unlikely they would ever meet again, so why not enjoy her time with him? And she wanted him so very badly.
Their faces were inches apart and he was looking at her with an intensity that stole her breath and made her heart race. The world slowed and stopped.
He brushed the same strand of hair from her face, his fingers lingering on her skin, and Giselle closed her eyes.
Their lips met, delicate, silk soft, weightless, a mere whisper of the tempest surging through her. It didn’t last. It couldn’t. Not here, not now. But it held a promise…
Giselle ended it, withdrawing slowly, breaking the connection. She was trembling (desire? need? fear?) and the blood was rushing through her veins, her breathing coming shallow and fast.
Rocco’s smoke-grey eyes were clouded and deep, and his murmured ‘Giselle’ sent a shiver through her very bones.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, the taste of him on her lips, the shape of him imprinted on her soul, and thought, Where do we go from here? She couldn’t decide whether to flee or take him to bed.
In the end, she did neither. There was nowhere to run, and she didn’t have the courage to suggest they went back to her place.
‘Are you OK?’ His voice was gentle.
Taking a breath, she let it out in a whoosh. ‘Aye. It was unexpected, that’s all.’
Lightly, he said, ‘It must be the Fairy Glen, working its magic.’
‘That must be it,’ she agreed, getting to her feet. ‘There should be warning signs.’ But the warning signs were already there, and the danger was that she might lose her heart.
Flora MacDonald’s grave was a short walk away from the Skye Museum of
Island Life, so it seemed rude not to pop in, especially since Rocco had
enjoyed the fossil museum so much. Or was he all museumed out, Giselle
wondered.
Apparently not. He seemed quite keen, especially when she informed him there was a takeaway snack shop onsite.
He didn’t even argue when she insisted on paying for the brioche and coffee they consumed while sitting on a bench in front of a converted shepherd’s hut, with views of green fields and turquoise sea.
The museum itself comprised seven stone and thatched former crofter cottages depicting everyday life on the island one hundred years ago.
One had even been inhabited up to 1957. Each croft depicted something different: one was kitted out as an actual house, and a mangle and spinning wheel made a reappearance, much to Rocco’s amusement.
There was also a weaver’s house, a smithy and a local shop, and everything was set out as though it were an actual village, and was surrounded by farm implements, small boats and carts.
Giselle and Rocco spent a considerable amount of time in each of the crofts, reading the information boards and learning about the tough lives the people lived and the hardships they endured in a demanding landscape.
‘There’s one thing that stands out above all others,’ Rocco said thoughtfully, as they entered the small gift shop full of books and guides, tartan, tweed and knitted gifts. ‘The sense of community. Everyone had to muck in and help the others.’
‘It’s a theme amongst islanders,’ Giselle replied.
‘One big family?’
‘Kind of.’
‘I’m beginning to get it,’ he said. ‘I think I’m beginning to get Skye.’
‘But you’re still going to sell the castle.’ It was a statement, not a question.
He shrugged helplessly. ‘Skye isn’t my home.’
Not wanting to talk about it anymore, she cast around for something else and caught sight of the cemetery. ‘Shall we go visit Flora MacDonald’s grave now?’ she suggested and pointed to the white spire-like monument visible in the distance.
Rocco readily agreed, and they set off up the hill. The gradient wasn’t steep, but even so, the elevation still gave them a glorious view. The cemetery was surrounded by a rough stone wall and they walked through the gate towards Flora’s grave.
‘Pretty nice for a final resting place,’ Rocco said. ‘So, she brought Bonnie Prince Charlie to Skye. Then what?’
‘Charles Stuart hid on Skye for several weeks before eventually boarding a ship to France. They never saw each other again. She was captured and imprisoned in London but released soon after. She married a MacDonald and lived in Kingsburgh House, and when she died, she was buried here.’
Her gravestone was a narrow white monolith, topped by a Celtic cross. Stone edging surrounded both it and a chunky stone casket. Whether she was interred inside it or buried beneath it, Giselle didn’t know. A plaque on the front of the monument read, ‘Preserver of Prince Charles Edward Stuart’.
‘She was a real heroine,’ Rocco said. ‘Is it her bravery that appeals to you, or her audacity in smuggling her prince to safety?’
‘Her prince,’ Giselle echoed softly. ‘I think she was in love.’
‘With Charles?’
‘If she did do it for love – and I don’t mean love of her country or her king, but love for him as a man – then it’s up there with the other great love stories like Anthony and Cleopatra, and Romeo and Juliet.
She loved him so much that she helped him escape, even though she probably knew she’d never see him again, and that it might even cost her her life. ’
‘Do you think she was happy in the end? That she found love again?’
‘In those days, love and marriage didn’t necessarily go hand in hand,’ Giselle replied wryly.
‘She mightn’t have had any say in the matter.
Single women, even ones of Flora’s fame, didn’t have it easy in the eighteenth century.
She lived in North Carolina in the Americas for a time, with her husband and sons, but at some point she left him and returned to Skye, where she died.
So maybe she didn’t find love again. Maybe she couldn’t forget her prince and came back to the place she felt closest to him.
They say she was buried in a shroud made out of a bedsheet that Bonnie Prince Charlie had slept in.
’ Giselle felt tears pricking the back of her eyes and she blinked them away, feeling foolish.
‘That’s beautiful, and sad,’ Rocco said. ‘I feel honoured to be here.’
‘As far as I know, there’s nothing in the archives to suggest she was in love with him. The consensus is that she was simply a staunch Jacobite supporter, which was why she acted the way she did.’
‘But you don’t believe that?’
Mutely, Giselle shook her head. She hoped Charles had felt the same way about Flora.
Giselle wanted to believe that life had conspired to keep them apart, and not that her love had been unrequited.
Giselle hoped one day she would experience the kind of love she believed Flora had felt for Charles Stuart, and she prayed her own personal prince would love her in return.
‘Claire informs me you’re coming back on Wednesday.’ Beverly’s voice rang out of the speaker on Rocco’s phone. ‘That’s good to know,’ she added, and he heard the admonishment.
She was miffed he hadn’t kept her updated, that she’d had to hear it from someone else.
‘Actually, I’ve changed my mind. Skye’s Highland Games take place on Wednesday and I’d like to be here for them.’
Beverly was silent. Had they been cut off, or had he actually managed to render his mother speechless? If so, it would be a first.
‘I wasn’t aware you had an interest in sport,’ she said eventually.
Rocco didn’t, but this was different. After he’d dropped Giselle off earlier (with a chaste peck on the cheek), he’d hurried back to the castle to look up what a Highland Games consisted of. He hadn’t told Giselle he was thinking of going to Skye’s games, but he hoped she would accompany him.
‘Highland Games are more tradition than sport,’ he replied.
‘So is cricket, but you’ve yet to show an interest in that. This is most unlike you, Rocco.’
‘Taking some time for myself? I suppose it is,’ he agreed mildly, refusing to let her get to him. His mother was the queen of manipulation.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine.’
‘So why do I feel there’s something you’re not telling me?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Is there a problem with probate?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’ He needed to start the ball rolling on that…
‘You would tell me, wouldn’t you? Don’t think that because your inheritance is a personal matter you can’t use the firm’s resources to deal with it. I still maintain you should let Claire handle it.’
‘It’s fine, Mother.’
‘If you call me Mother, I’ll definitely think something is wrong.’
‘I wish you’d stop worrying. There’s nothing to worry about.’
Beverly’s problem – or rather, his problem – was that she had a nose like a bloodhound and could sense when someone wasn’t being completely truthful with her.
Would Rocco still be on Skye if it wasn’t for Giselle?
Unlikely.
Would he be planning on going to the Highland Games?
Definitely not. It would never have crossed his mind. But by showing him some of the places she loved on the island, Giselle had made him appreciate it. Skye had got under his skin, and he was beginning to fall under its spell.
Just as Giselle had gotten under his skin. And he feared he might be a little in love with her, too.