Chapter 5 Shock and Awe
Lizzie had been mentally prepared for a boring slow drive with an – potentially senile – octogenarian to inspect an old pile of masonry, not for said drive to be with an absolutely gorgeous way-closer-to-her-own-age man towards a house which was still standing and was functional.
Not. Prepared. At all.
Good thing I put on the new jeans my mother forced me to buy, she mused, staring at her old trainers and wondering how much their grubbiness lessened the good aspect of her jeans.
While she glanced at herself disapprovingly, he grabbed her small suitcase and with a gallant gesture indicated the way down the road towards a brand-new silver car.
Convertible.
Well, everyone knows solicitors are loaded…
He stored her suitcase in the trunk and, like a perfect gentleman, jogged around quickly in time to open the passenger door for her. Lizzie stared at the leather seat, caught for a moment in the image of the type of woman (or she should say women, because a man like Brun MacLugh surely had women queuing up after him) would have been seated there.
A long queue of beautiful, sophisticated and well-dressed women.
In other words, the opposite of herself.
Why on Earth am I even thinking about this? She scolded herself and sat down, barely restraining a small wimp of pleasure at the smoothness of the seat. This man surely liked good things.
“Have you ever been to this part of Scotland, Ms Endell?” he asked, after setting himself behind the wheel and fastening his seatbelt. His smile fell, being replaced by a chagrined expression on his face, “Apologies, I should probably be addressing you as Lady Lochellen.”
She flinched and squealed, “Please don’t!” then seeing the crease between his brows, she explained, “What I mean is, please, just call me Lizzie.”
He considered her for a long moment, his blue eyes darkening slightly, and Lizzie swallowed hard, wondering whether she had said something bad.
“Only if you call me Brun, then,” he replied finally in a tone that mimicked hers, fixing his gaze ahead as he started the engine and manoeuvred into the street, “I am glad you arrived early: Loch Tay is rather beautiful at this time of the day and Glennloch has a privileged view of it.”
“I actually never been to the Highlands, despite the family roots,” she replied to his earlier question, fastening her own seatbelt and adjusting her glasses on her face, “I am looking forward to seeing Glennloch… Brun.”
His name rolled strangely on her tongue, as if it were a familiar name, like that of a cousin or a primary school best friend.
Or a first crush…
Is it possible to get jetlagged from a train trip?
They said nothing else while Brun deftly manoeuvred out of Aberfeldy, but as soon as they entered the motorway, his deep voice broke the silence.
“I understand that you have just finished medical school, Ms En… I mean, Lizzie. At… Oxford, right?” he glanced at her and she nodded shily, “Quite impressive.”
She felt heat creep up her cheeks, “To be honest I still don’t believe it myself. A friend of mine and I sent our applications to Oxford as a sort of a great joke and neither of us could believe our eyes when we received our acceptance letters.”
“Well, I’m not that surprised,” he declared confidently, “you do seem to be very smart.”
She felt her face on fire now, and lowered the window a little, wondering how could a man that she had just met have such effect on her.
Well, that could explain Prince Charming’s high success score in fairytales.
“Are you hot?” Brun asked, “I can turn on the air conditioner if you like–”
“No, it’s fine,” she cut him gently, “After an airplane, trains and buses, I much prefer the fresh air.”
He nodded with an understanding expression on his face and they said nothing for another few minutes while the car slid towards the nearly empty road.
Lizzie tried to focus on the landscape. It was a gorgeous sunny afternoon and the narrow road was flanked by luxurious greenery. There was much to be seen outside, yet somehow her eyes kept straying back to the man behind the wheel. She could not help admiring how well his thighs filled the trousers of his suit and the obvious strength of his hands. Brun could be a businessman, but she did not think he would shy away from manual labour.
Then somehow, she started picturing him performing some manual labour on her body…
She gasped, outraged at her own thoughts.
The air in the Highlands must be bloody thinner!
Brun glanced at her quizzically, and she coughed to hide her embarrassment, but he took her cough as a sign she wanted to make conversation.
“Have you already thought about what specialty you want to focus on?” he asked and she could not help but feel a little annoyed by his tone. He addressed her as if she were a little child, when he was not that much older than she was.
She bobbed her head trying to hide her unjustified irritation, “You may laugh, but I think I might stay in general practice. I sort of like the idea of setting a family practice in a small town like Aberfeldy, and actually take care of people in the community. You know, seeing people being born and watching them grow old.”
Brun turned his face towards her and his gaze darkened again, “I am not at all surprised. I think it suits you.”
His tone had been beyond weird, almost as if he had been expecting that answer from her, and this time there was no mistake in the deep emotions layering his voice. There was a note of sorrow that piqued her curiosity, and she felt her tongue actually itch with the will to ask what he meant by that, but it would be highly inappropriate for a person one met not twenty minutes before.
Shut yer yapper, Lizzie!
The car smoothly turned a sharp bend into a private road, and Lizzie’s gaze was attracted back to the landscape when the loch came into view.
“This is amazing!” she muttered in awe, feeling an odd sensation of familiarity in the scenery, as if she had lived there all her life.
I could have, had it not been that bizarre entailment. Imagine Dad as a Viscount!
She found the idea preposterous.
“I am glad that it pleases you,” he commented, and she looked at him askance. “Something wrong?” he asked noticing her frown.
Lizzie hesitated for a moment, biting her lower lip, but seeing his genuine interest, went ahead, “Please, don’t get me wrong, but you have a very strange way of speaking. I hope you don’t take all this Viscountess story too serious…”
Brun stared at her with such intensity that Lizzie swallowed hard, wondering whether she had offended him.
“I do take it very seriously,” he said cryptically and then his face relaxed into a lopsided grin, “But, yes, perhaps I am a little… old school. I’ll try to sound less puffed up.”
She giggled, “Thank you, it’s just… this whole title… stuff is still a little too surreal for me…”
“I completely understand, you don’t need to explain yourself,” then he pointed ahead, “Look, you can see Glennloch from here already.”
Lizzie turned her eyes in the direction he was pointing, and all blood drained away from her face.
That was definitely not a mouldy old cottage in the Highlands…
“Hell’s bloody bells! No one told me it was a bloody castle!”
To her chagrin, Brun roared with laughter.
If the view from the road had made Lizzie speechless, to actually stand in front of the three storey tall building was nothing short of surreal. Knowing that it came attached to a title, she had expected it to be a big house, but considering that it had no real owners for more than two hundred years, Lizzie had pictured Glennloch as a pile of crumbling ruins with perhaps some historic interest which she could donate to the local heritage society, once debts were settled and the paperwork was done.
Not a bloody castle, fully functional!
“Welcome to Glennloch, Lady Lochellen!” Brun declared regally, gesturing towards the main door where a man and a woman in their fifties were waiting for them.
“Jesus, Mary and the apostles!” Lizzie blasphemed heartily, sliding her hands under her glasses and rubbing her eyes, hoping that all that would disappear with a satisfying poof.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked, coming to stand by her side so fast she had barely seen him moving, “Is the manor not to your liking?”
She blinked at him a few times, reckoning that he was making fun of her, but Brun had his hands inside his trousers’ pockets and was studying her with genuine curiosity.
“Are you seriously asking this?” she cried, pointing at the manor, “I am twenty four! How much experience do you think I have in managing castles? I could barely manage to keep my side of the flat clean in college!”
The infuriating man threw his head back and laughed again. The sound was guttural, masculine, but carefree, and made a shiver run down Lizzie’s back.
If he had been able to generate enough sexual tension in her after a thirty minutes’ drive to make her want to climb the walls of the freaking castle in front of her, imagine if he–
Horrified, she halted her unruly – and wholly inappropriate – line of thoughts.
God, I need to get a boyfriend. Mental note: download a dating app or something and find a freaking boyfriend urgently. I haven’t been dating since–
That made her feel an unpleasant cold sensation.
Lizzie had had her crushes and school flings but had never been a potential beauty goddess like her mother. Quite the opposite really, therefore her sexual life had been slow to start and her first experience had not been her proudest moment.
After that, though she had had a couple of other occasional experiences and even a boyfriend for a couple of months, she was far from feeling secure in her own sexuality.
Very, very far.
“You don’t have to worry about this right now,” he moved one more step closer to her, snapping her from her gloomy musings, “I am here to help you navigate through everything at your own pace. I will be by your side for as long as you need me.”
It was a very solicitor-like phrase, but it caused her stomach to drop to her feet. Brun was a weird man, mature and with old-fashioned mannerisms, but she could not shake the feeling that that phrase was charged with hidden subtext.
What the hell is wrong with me? Maybe something I ate?
“Oh God…” she moaned again and he placed a gentle hand on the small of her back, urging her towards the door with an encouraging push. Lizzie felt like she was back to her first day in school, when she had clung to her mother’s hand not willing to go into class alone.
The middle-aged couple tilted their heads in greeting as they approached, offering her a pleasant smile. Lizzie liked them instantly and that comforting feeling eased a little the tension twisting her stomach into knots.
“Mr and Mrs Clisham, may I present you Lady Elizabeth Endell,” Brun introduced formally and then he turned to her with that serious expression on his face, “Mr and Mrs Clisham are the groundskeeper and housekeeper of Glennloch, Your Ladyship.”
Lizzie felt her entrails churn when he used her new title in that deep voice of his, but she grinned at the couple and offered her hand, “It is a pleasure to meet you both.”
“The pleasure is all ours, Your Ladyship,” Mr Clisham replied politely, shaking her hand genially, “Angus Clisham at your service.”
“I’d say Mr MacLugh!” Mrs Clisham exclaimed, looking at Lizzie analytically, “She is the very image of the last Viscountess Lochellen, is she not? Cannot deny she is an Endell, isn’t it, Angus?” she addressed her husband seeking confirmation, “Genetics is truly an amazing thing!”
Mr Clisham’s brown eyes widened and he gasped, flabbergasted “Why, Eileen, you’re very right! It is astonishing!”
Lizzie frowned and Mrs Clisham chuckled, patting her hand.
“Oh, you have never seen the portrait of course! Come along, Your Ladyship, and I will show you. It is on the way to where we will serve tea anyway,” Lizzie glanced over her shoulder at the car, but Mrs Clisham tugged her hand, “The boys will take care of your luggage.”
She threw a glance towards Brun, and he offered her an encouraging smile, thus Lizzie followed the housekeeper inside.
The interior of the manor was even more impressive than the outside, with two massive staircases leading up to the gallery and a chandelier as big as a boat hanging above them. Pieces of art from marble statues on granite pedestals to paintings on the walls added to the room’s elegance, and along the gallery’s balustrade, the coat of arms of all the eight Viscountesses Lochellen before her – still an odd thing for Lizzie to consider – hung proudly, as spotless as if they had just been put there.
However, none of the interior luxury and sophistication shocked her more than the humungous painting hanging between the staircases.
It was the portrait of a woman with black hair and green eyes, dressed in a beautiful dark blue gown embroidered with pearls. She was sitting with her hands folded over her lap, and behind her one could see the silhouette of Glennloch rising towards the sky.
The painting itself was a masterpiece, perfect down to the smallest details and clearly a few centuries old, but that was not what made all blood drain away from her face.
“Holy cow!” she whispered, “That’s… me!”
Mrs Clisham chuckled, a glint of amusement in her blue-gray eyes, “Well, Your Ladyship, I told you that! It is extraordinary, is it not?”
Slack-jawed, Lizzie nodded. The only difference between her ancestor and herself were the glasses and the clothes.
“But that is… That is impossible!” she muttered, frozen in place. She and the late Elizabeth Endell looked like identical twins. Lizzie had heard of children who strongly resembled a grandparent or even a great-grandparent at the same age, but there were over two hundred and fifty years between them. How many generations was that? Eight? Nine?
What could explain that freaky resemblance between them? Maybe some of her ancestors had married distant cousins? Would that be enough to explain that genetic mystery?
She heard the click of shoes and turned round, finding Brun standing behind her, his impressive height and built taking ownership of the whole entrance hall instantly.
He was definitely better suited to be the Lord of the Manor than she was.
Well, anyone really…
However, he was not looking at her or Mrs Clisham: his eyes were fixed on the portrait of Lizzie’s ancestor, studying the image as if he had personally known the late Viscountess.
“Remarkable is it not?” he sounded as if he were commenting on a sports match, but his face had acquired a slight pallor.
“Bloody mental would be my expression of choice, but yours is more polite, I suppose,” she turned her gaze back to the painting. If her father had not checked Brun’s story, she would be convinced it was some kind of prank.
Brun chuckled again, but this time there was less mirth in his laughter, “I apologise, I should have warned you about the portrait, but I was quite surprised myself at the resemblance when I saw you in Aberfeldy.”
He offered her one of his dazzling smiles, his blue eyes shining with their own light and Lizzie forgot all about his weird tone, reckoning that her first estimates had been wrong.
His smile was powerful enough to light up all the Highlands.
MrsClisham served tea with an impressive pile of food, and although Lizzie still felt a bit queasy after the long travel, the unhinging meeting with Brun (that is, the fact that he was not an octogenarian as she had expected him to be) and seeing her new property, she ate with good appetite, if nothing else at least not to offend the housekeeper, who was making every effort to make her feel welcome.
While they ate, Brun explained that despite the property size, they did not keep a large staff like in the olden days: they had two maids coming once a week to help Mrs Clisham with the basic chores in the current occupied part of the manor, and a gardener to assist Mr Clisham in caring for the grounds. Everything else was taken care by specialised companies who would clean windows, rugs, curtains and furniture, and perform annual maintenance of heating systems, plumbing, electricity and so on.
“There’s still a few good hours of daylight left,” Brun said, once the maid walked away with the tea tray, followed by Mrs Clisham, who left with the astonishing declaration that she was going to see to supper when Lizzie felt her stomach was about to burst after so much food, “If you are not too tired, would you like to inspect the property?” Brun asked, leaning forward on his chair and knitting his fingers between his knees.
Lizzie pressed her lips tightly not to guffaw, making a herculean effort to keep a straight face, picturing herself in a red riding outfit and a feathered hat atop a black horse reviewing a line of immaculately dressed staff.
How so very Downton Abbey of me!
Though she did feel rather knackered from the trip, she was still too worked up to even consider resting.
A bit of walking might help me unwind.
“Yes, sounds good,” she agreed, jumping to her feet.
Brun did not move, scanning her from head to toe, and for a moment Lizzie felt very self-conscious. Next to him in his impeccable suit, pristine white shirt and blue tie, she looked like a vagrant.
“I suppose you can stay as you are,” he said at the end of his evaluation, also standing up, but more elegantly. The movement of his body alone had such power that it made the whole atmosphere in the room become charged, “I’ll change into something more appropriate for a stroll and meet you here in ten minutes? Would that be accep–” he swallowed the word, looking down at the floor as if searching for the right way to express himself, “Would that be okay?”
Her brows shot up, “Do you livehere too?”
He smiled, amused by her surprise, “Forgive me, did I forget to mention that?”
Brun leaned against the door of his bedroom tugging at his tie. He freed his neck with a loud heave and tossed the piece over his armchair, closely followed by his jacket. Keeping his composure for the past two hours had been one of the greatest challenges of his five hundred years of life, and after everything he had lived through, that was certainly saying something.
When he stood in front of Lizzie at The Square in Aberfeldy he felt like a boy again, staring in awe at the majestic Triarell Endellys, who had been the closest thing to a goddess he could have imagined in his youth.
He remembered that day, more than four hundred years ago, as if it had been yesterday.
Triarell was donning a gown of green velvet that perfectly matched her eyes and her long black hair, simply decked with small diamond pins, hung loose down her back almost to her knees. She moved with the fluidity only the Fae possessed, as if she belonged to all moments in time. She had smiled at him, allowed him to kiss her hand, and from that moment Brun had sworn he would give his heart to no one else.
And for more than four centuries he had kept that vow, had been faithful to this love even after Triarell had ceased to exist.
How can fate be this cruel?
It was nothing short of torture to see Triarell’s face on another woman’s body, to see another woman bear her smile and move like Triarell did, to look at him with the same eyes. Even her voice was identical to Triarell’s–
Brun froze at this last thought, considering the implications of the existence of this doppelganger for the first time.
If Lizzie truly had Triarell’s voice, did that mean she had inherited her ancestor’s power too? After the Endellys’ lineage had been essentially broken, mixed with human mortal blood for nine generations, was that even possible?
No, Ryul, he does not, but he is a carrier.
A carrier, Fayla had proclaimed. If Lizzie was identical to Triarell in every way, would she carry her magic as well?
But if that were true, her magic should have manifested by now. Triarell’s son could wield his power almost as soon as he learned to speak. There would have been signs of Lizzie’s power, strange accidents, inexplicable phenomena, yet to his knowledge, nothing out of the ordinary had happened during her childhood.
Unless her power was dormant.
He did not have enough knowledge to answer those questions and those who had, were long gone. However, if memory served, Fayla had been keen on studying bloodlines. Perhaps there was something in her vault that could shed light in that conundrum.
That thought made him feel queasy. After the death of Triarell’s great-grandson, who had left behind another powerless human son, Brun had sealed the vault underneath Fayla’s manor, convinced that all was over, but now that Triarell seemed to be back to life…
Unbuttoning his shirt, Brun closed his eyes and shook his head as if to scatter that idea. Lizzie was not Triarell, and he ought not to lose sight of that fact.
Triarell was long dead and he could not make the mistake of forgetting that, for Lizzie’s sake and for his own.