Chapter Twelve #3
“Aye, he’s just turned three. They say Ramsey Davidson, the young laird, refused to let him run as a two-year-old.
Knows his horses, he does. He doesn’t like to push them, and I agree.
” The vicar nodded before adding, “When I saw him, he was the most docile I’ve ever seen.
A temperament only a king could afford—and perhaps that is what Davidson has in mind.
They boast he’s the finest in Scotland. Mayhap in England or anywhere else. ”
“I didn’t know the Davidsons bred horses,” Ian said.
“For generations,” Vicar George assured him. “This stallion is out of—”
“Gealach.” The word had sprung into Lyssa’s mind unbidden and in her mother’s voice. She stopped, savoring the small memory.
“Yes, Gaelach, ‘the Moon,’ ” the vicar said approvingly.
“They say she was silver white and could run as if kelpies were chasing her.” He laughed at his own description.
“I heard that from John Islay, a local farmer who drinks more than he farms. I always fancied the image of kelpies chasing a horse.” Again, he had a chuckle.
“And is the stallion also white?”
“More a gray with black legs. Good-looking, solid racer,” the vicar answered.
Lyssa was elated. She leaned close to Ian, completely forgetting their earlier reserve. “My mother used to brag about Gaelach. She claimed the mare was the beginning of a dynasty—and now to learn she is.”
“Your mother?” the vicar prompted.
“She was Isobel Davidson, the old laird’s daughter.”
The clergyman frowned. “I’d not heard of her.”
“She left long ago, before I was born.”
“Still, you would think her name would have been mentioned.” The vicar shrugged. “Ah, well, the Davidsons are an odd lot. Ramsey Davidson doesn’t mix much with the locals. No offense, please.”
“None taken,” Lyssa answered and then she changed the subject to ask about the vicar’s wife and children. But she did not forget his verdict, especially when she and Ian finally reached the drive to Amleth Hall.
The drive was almost completely overgrown by hawthorn bushes, of all things. The woods were dense here when compared to the rest of the landscape. If they hadn’t been carefully looking for the drive, they would have passed right by it.
Ian glanced at her. “Are you ready?”
She nodded. “I believe so.”
He took her arm. The drive was really no more than wagon ruts with stone paving here and there. Lyssa grew uncertain. Something was in the air here, something she hadn’t anticipated. It was like a humming in her ears. And was it her imagination or did the air smell different?
She realized it must be the mist coming in off Loch Linnhe. Or was it?
Even the colors of the plants and trees seemed darker and more foreboding.
“Are you feeling well?” Ian’s voice startled her and she realized she was giving into some outlandish fancies.
“I’m fine. Just excited. I have waited a long time to meet these people.”
“Well, let us hope they make us welcome,” he said.
The drive was a good mile long. Just as she started to wonder if the house even existed, they came around a bend and there it was, Amleth Hall, its stone walls blackened with age.
Lyssa halted, stunned to be here at last. As if in blessing, the sun came out from behind a cloud and reflected off the glass window panes, giving the house an unworldly glow.
The chimneys, almost too numerous to count, were of all shapes and size.
Beyond the house stretched Loch Linnhe, the water so deep and cold it shimmered in the light.
Lyssa took in every nuance of this moment.
“Is it how you imagined it?” Ian asked.
“It’s better,” she whispered. “The house is exactly as my mother described it. Do you see the first-floor window on the far right?”
He nodded.
“That was her room. When she told her father she wanted to marry my father, she was confined to her room with a guard placed at the door. My father scaled those walls to reach her and then the two of them climbed the same way down to run away.”
“He climbed the wall for her?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not overly fond of heights, or crashing down to the ground.”
“She always said she was never more frightened in her life than she was that night climbing down the dark walls of Amleth Hall, but she loved my father and refused to live without him. They both made it down safely and escaped in a boat smaller than a dinghy my father had hidden by the loch.”
“And did they sail all the way to London?”
“Yes,” she told him proudly.
“Well, I hope we make good time, too,” he answered. “I have little more than a week to see you home safe. A boat may be quickest.”
Lyssa kept her own counsel, the romance of the moment destroyed, and she saw the house as it really was. The grounds were completely overgrown and scraggly. The windows were filthy and there was an unkempt air about the place, almost a sense of desertion.
Lyssa took a step forward, anxious. She could not have come all this way only to find no one here. For a horrible moment, she feared she would swoon. To have traveled this distance, to have defied her father and to have held fast to a belief in a place that might not exist—
Ian took her arm by the elbow. “Steady,” he said. “Don’t give up.”
At that moment, the narrow, paneled front door opened.