Chapter 2
TWO
The Legend of the Lover’s Leap, found in Heather Balhennie’s copy of Scottish Mythical History
Huntingtower Castle, like many castles, has a past full of daring deeds and drama. Today, the castle looks like a single building, but it originally consisted of two fine tower houses which stood about three metres apart.
It’s said that centuries ago, Dorothea, the daughter of the Earl of Gowrie, fell in love with a servant in the castle. One night, she tiptoed out of her bed in one of the two buildings for a clandestine tryst in the adjacent tower, where the servants slept.
Dorothea’s canny mother suspected that something was going on and made her way to the servants’ room. When Dorothea heard her mother’s footsteps coming up the stairs, she had to get back to her room quickly. There was only one escape route available…
Desperate Dorothea found her way onto the roof and successfully made a jump of around two and a half metres between the two towers. Her suspicious mother, having to go back the long way, found her moments later, safely tucked up in her own bed.
It’s said that Dorothea and her lover eloped and were married the very next day, living happily ever after. The gap between a battlement and nearby tower is still known as the ‘Maiden’s Leap’ or the ‘Lover’s Leap’ in castle parlance, named after Dorothea’s daring bravery.
Heather had always loved myths and fairy tales.
Growing up in Scotland, she and her sisters were almost unable to escape their mythical heritage, such as the tales Angus would tell them in winter about the Cailleach Beira, the Scottish hag goddess who was known as the Queen of Winter.
Angus would tell them stories about how the Beira made all the mountains in Scotland when she strode across the land and accidentally dropped rocks from her wicker basket.
But, of all the stories that she had heard in her life and all the myths that were woven through the fabric of her Celtic heritage, it was the romance stories that always warmed Heather’s heart; it was the stories of fated lovers and love at first sight that she held dear.
The story of the Lover’s Leap had always been one of her favourites.
For so many nights, after reading the story, Heather had stared at her ceiling, imagining being Dorothea.
Imagining having fallen in love with a mysterious visitor to her father’s castle, and being so desperate to see him, to kiss him and dissolve into the bliss of their fated union, that she had jumped between the towers, heedless of the danger.
The other Balhennie sisters had always eye-rolled Heather and her obsession with love stories and for her generally romantic nature: she believed wholeheartedly in happy ever afters, sunset walks by the loch, flowers and chocolates.
Even as a child, Heather had played weddings with her dolls, even though some of her sisters, particularly Primrose and Violet, had never wanted to play, and if they had, would ruin the wedding by making their dolls run away, threaten to cut their hair or colour in their faces blue so that they could be warriors instead.
Nevertheless, Heather persisted. She didn’t need anyone’s permission to believe in love and romance.
‘When I met Matty on Orkney, I felt like the sun had come out from behind a cloud.’
Heather had met Matty on a hiking holiday.
She vividly remembered coming home at the end of the week away, glowing with excitement, and telling her mum all about Matty.
She’d found her mother with her feet up in the lounge, doing some embroidery.
It was rare to see Catriona sit down, but she’d been making an effort to relax more in the past year and ‘take some personal time’, inspired by her therapist.
‘That’s very romantic, my darling.’ Catriona had looked up from her cross-stitch – a sampler with a verse of Robert Burns’s poetry on it, surrounded by thistles – and smiled indulgently at her daughter. ‘But you’ve always been a romantic. Tell me about him.’
Heather had sat down on the sofa next to her mother and laid her head back on the seat. She stared dreamily at the ceiling.
‘We were walking across the causeway to the Brough of Birsay. It’s an island with ruins and a lighthouse, and you have to be careful on the causeway because it’s covered with seaweed,’ she began.
‘It’s only walkable at low tide. Anyway, I guess I slipped a bit and he caught my hand gently, to stop me falling. ’
‘That sounds like… what do you girls call it? A meet-cute.’ Catriona chuckled. ‘Very sweet of him.’
‘Yes. And I looked up and met his eyes, and… a sort of shiver went through me.’
‘Oh, Heather.’ Catriona shook her head and returned to her cross-stitch.
‘It was a sign. The sun lighting him up. Like he was an angel,’ Heather continued, dreamily. ‘I think he’s the one.’
‘You think that this boy you met on holiday is “The One”?’ Catriona looked up. ‘What do your sisters say?’
‘I messaged everyone earlier, on the way back. Primmy and Vi said he’s love bombing me.’
‘What’s love bombing? It sounds very violent.’ Catriona looked over the top of her glasses at Heather.
‘It’s sort of a manipulative thing – when you heap love and attention onto a person in the early days of a relationship, but then do bad things.
Maybe just leave them suddenly out of the blue, or it develops into domestic abuse.
It’s horrible.’ Heather frowned. ‘Obviously, he’s not doing that. Nor am I.’
‘Sounds very much like something that Primmy and Vi would think.’ Catriona rolled her eyes. ‘However, I have to say that I agree with the sentiment. It’s very early days. Be careful.’
‘I am being careful.’ Heather had frowned.
‘Fine. I’m sure you are.’ Catriona had sighed. ‘What does he look like? Handsome, I suppose?’
‘Very. Like an old-timey film star,’ Heather gushed. ‘He’s tall, athletic and fit. He has these amazing cheekbones and blue eyes; masses of thick, dark auburn hair. Like a Scottish Cary Grant or James Stewart.’
‘I see.’
‘His voice is just amazing. It’s sort of…
deep and sonorous, well spoken, comforting,’ Heather continued enthusiastically.
‘And this is the best part: he founded an environmental charity with a friend. He qualified in law, protecting the environment is his passion. Can you believe it?’ Heather squealed.
‘Oh, my. I think you’re in trouble, eh?’ Catriona patted her daughter’s hand. ‘That’s very you. What with your work at the animal charity. A perfect fit, it would seem!’
‘Honestly, Mum – I felt like a woman in a movie who’s cast a spell to manifest her perfect lover, and then seen him walk through the door the next day. I think he’s The One.’
‘Darling. Listen to me.’ Catriona had taken Heather’s hand that night. ‘You don’t know this boy. You’ve only just met him. You need to know someone for at least a couple of years before saying that.’ Heather had shaken her head.
‘I love him, Mum. I know he’s The One,’ she insisted.
‘Darling, the older I get, the more I think that The One doesn’t exist.’
‘That’s not fair, Mum. You have Dad. How can you say that you don’t believe in The One? Isn’t Dad your One?’
‘I’m not rubbishing love, or The One, my darling.
But what I’m saying is, your father and I have made a conscious decision to be together.
We make that decision every day. We’ve been there for each other through thick and thin.
He’s my One, yes, but only because we worked at it.
Only because I choose him every day. You don’t know who The One is until you wake up, twenty years after agreeing to be together, after six children, after heartbreak, after your house almost falls down, and find him still there, still ready to love you,’ Catriona said, her eyes on her daughter’s.
Heather couldn’t exactly argue with that, but it didn’t tally up with the delicious fire that had been ignited in her heart. She was ready to leap, like Dorothea. She was ready to be chosen, forever, like all the princesses in all the fairy stories Angus had read to them as children.
Six months after they met, Matty had proposed. And when he did, Catriona and Angus and everyone else had been happy for Heather, but Catriona had taken her aside.
‘Darling, I just want to say, huge congratulations, but I just want to urge a little bit of caution… maybe have a longish engagement and get to know each other a little more. You’re still in the honeymoon phase.
You haven’t seen what he does when something bad happens, and it will.
Something bad is always lining up to happen in life, my lovely girl.
’ Catriona had bitten her lip, choosing her words carefully.
‘I love him, Mum. I want to marry him,’ Heather had said, simply. ‘Please be happy for me.’
‘I am happy, sweetheart. But we don’t know much about him. We haven’t even met his family!’
‘I don’t think they’re that close,’ Heather replied. ‘That’s why it’s so nice that he has us.’
‘Okay… But please don’t marry this boy without knowing what he does when the bad things happen. Because if you do, you could wake up one morning in a year or two’s time and realise that you married a cruel man or an angry man, or worse, and then you’re stuck.’ Catriona had warned her.
But Heather couldn’t listen. The dream was unfolding in front of her; a wedding at the castle, her handsome lawyer knight who cared so much about the world that he had begun an environmental charity with a friend.
A man like that would never hurt her.
A man like that will hold me as I leap.
Matty will never let me fall.