“I know. It’s just—I’m surprised.”
“I’m glad to know that the Macphersons think I look like a MacNeil, but not Jennet MacNeil.”
“Aye, that’s something, although I don’t know how no one’s recognized you yet. Jennet, I—” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I look a good bit different now.”
“You’ve more color to you and your hair is a mite lighter, but other than that—lass, you look exactly the same. Who have you met since you arrived?”
She read the truth in his gaze and had to swallow a wince. Good God, I was truly deluding myself, wasn’t I? “I’ve only seen the Macphersons, Lindsee, and some people on the docks in Castlebay.”
“’Tis a matter of time, then.” He hesitated. “Are you planning to stay? Jennet, you . . . you didn’t return to take Barra, did you?”
“Of course not.”
He looked relieved.
Too relieved, in fact, so she added, “Unless, of course, I find that you’ve been mucking things up.” She crossed her arms. “What have you been doing since I left, Jaimie MacNeil?”
He flushed, awkwardly moving the papers on the desk, as if to arrange them in some order he wasn’t sure would work. “I’ve been doing as you asked.”
“Balderdash.” She walked to the desk where he stood and ran her hand along the glossy surface. “How is it that Kisimul burned until she fell in upon herself, and yet all of my father’s valuable furniture made it safely here, to your lovely new study?”
His gaze flickered, roving here and there, but never meeting hers. “There was a ship nearby, so we loaded what we could and—”
“Pah! Don’t lie to me, you miserable fool!”
He shifted from foot to foot, looking far too much like the boy she’d left behind.
“And where did this fire begin?” Anger snapped through her veins like a living thing.
“I-it started in the kitchen house and then spread to the Addition. I-I don’t know what began it; probably a hot coal that rolled out of the fire and—”
She slapped her hand upon the desk, and he jumped. “You bloody fool, this desk was in the top of the Watch Tower! Had the fire begun in the kitchen, no one could have gotten into the Watch Tower, for the doors are beside one another!”
Sweat beaded Jaimie’s brow, and he gaped at her. “Jennet, don’t— Please, you have to believe, it wasn’t my idea to burn Kisimul, but Father said—”
“Damn you to hell, Jaimie MacNeil!” She was yelling and no longer cared. “I knew you burned the castle on purpose! I can’t believe you’d— Kisimul was— And now she’s gone!” Her voice caught on the last word and tears blurred her eyes. She ripped off her spectacles and began wiping them with her sleeve, her lips quivering. “She stood on Castle Bay for centuries, and with one thoughtless act, you wiped her away as if she were nothing but—”
“No, no! That’s not how it was! I was desperate! You—you were gone and you’d taken so little that it looked as if I’d— Good God, I was afraid to sleep, for people were so angry and saying—” He opened and closed his mouth as if he’d run out of words.
The sheer panic in his voice gave her anger pause. “You thought they’d come for you? Who?”
“The people of Barra. They loved you. Jennet, your plan sounded so wonderful—we both thought it would work—but as soon as you’d left, people began to ask after you, and when I told them you’d left on your own will, they looked at me as if— It was horrible. The servants were muttering and someone threw a rock into my bedchamber window and shattered the glass and someone else left a bloody rabbit’s head outside my door—” He shuddered. “Thank God Father came back before I was murdered. He’d heard how people thought I’d killed you in your sleep and tossed you into the bay—”
“Bah! No one who knew you would ever think you capable of murder.”
“But no one really knew me.”
“You grew up on this isle! You stayed with us every summer for years—”
“And because of that, when you left, people saw me as an usurper, a snake hidden in the bosom of the family!”
“No one said that to you.”
“Oh, but they did. Mrs. MacJamison.”
“The housekeeper?”
“Aye. She passed last year, but she never spoke to me again after you left. She was certain I’d harmed you. And she was only one of many.” He spread his hands wide. “Jennet, I’m not saying ’tis your fault, for God knows I agreed to that mad plan. But I’m not you. The people of Barra don’t love me the way they love you. I’m not as talkative and people don’t react the same way. I tend to keep to myself. Father said my shyness made me look even more guilty.”
She blinked at him, thoughts slowly settling into line. By Ra, her plan—her lovely, perfect plan—had been a disaster. “But . . . I left documents saying you were the new heir, that I relinquished all rights to Barra.”
“Documents that you wrote and signed yourself, without a single witness . . . except me.” He shook his head, looking like a confused bear. “No one believed me. After a few weeks facing everyone’s suspicions, I began to doubt myself.”
She closed her eyes and sank into the chair opposite the desk, her knees as weak as butter. “Which would make it all look even more damning.”
He shuddered. “They kept looking at me, hating me. I feared someone would kill me in retaliation.” He rubbed his forehead. “It was horrible. There was nothing I could say to fix things.”
She sighed, suddenly so tired that she could barely keep upright. “I never once thought that people would assume I’d been murdered. I told everyone I wished to leave. Kept maps upon the walls of my bedchambers. I was constantly announcing my intention to leave. It never occurred to me, not once, in all of those weeks of planning, that they’d assume something different.” She rested her elbows on her knees and dropped her head into her hands. “Ah, the follies of youth! I was so naïve.”
“Both of us were. I thought it the greatest plan I’d ever heard. We both got what we wanted. You got your freedom and I got Elspeth.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “It seemed so simple.”
“Yes, it did. But I was hated, Jennet. Hated. I still am, to some extent, as there are those that still doubt. Not everyone, mind you, but enough.” A flicker of a smile touched his worn face. “When you left, they at first thought I’d locked you in the castle. Then the rumors began that I was attempting to starve you to death.”
“Pssht. Even your father couldn’t keep me confined to the dungeons of my own castle.”
“I’m sorry for that. He wished us to marry, and you were so adamant.”
“Och, I used to play in that dungeon; it held no fear for me.” She grinned. “I’d been escaping from it since I was three when you and Lindsee would lock me in it when we were playing Roman soldiers.”
“She didn’t play that game for long.” He wrinkled his nose. “She’s a prissy woman, is Lindsee. I’m still shocked she agreed to explore the cave with us.”
“She would go only once.”
“Aye. As I said—prissy. She grew worse after she married MacDonald.”
“She was a good friend to us. Isn’t she still?”
He hesitated and then shrugged. “I see her often enough.” He smiled sadly. “Ah, times, they’ve changed, haven’t they?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” They were quiet a bit as they each thought of their past. Jane finally bestirred herself. “How did David finally calm the suspicions that you’d murdered me in my bed?”
“He staged a grand return banquet for you and hired a servant girl from the mainland to come wrapped in a cloak. She pretended to faint as she got off the ship, and he carried her to your bedchamber and then declared that she—or rather, you—had smallpox. That kept everyone away.”
“David is a very intelligent man.”
“He went to great lengths to convince everyone it was you and that he and I were bo
th devastated at your illness. He even brought a specialist from Oban to visit you. The servant girl played your part until we staged the fire. It wasn’t until the people of Barra saw the bones in the ruins that they believed you dead.” He gave her a wry smile. “You’re a hard woman to kill, Jennet MacNeil, even in imagination. You ride like a Gypsy, swim like a fish, shoot a pistol like a highwayman, sail a boat like a pirate—you were almost a legend in the minds of the people of Barra. It would take something spectacular to bring such a woman to the earth, so . . . it was Kisimul or nothing.”
“I should be flattered, I suppose.” She cocked a brow. “Where did you get the bones?”
“Father shot a deer.” Jaimie shrugged. “We put the bones in the fire.”
“And the servant girl?”
“She left with a pocket full of gold, determined to make her way in America. We’ve not seen her since.”
“What a mess I left behind. I had no idea. Still . . . Jaimie, I don’t mean to complain, for I can tell you were in a difficult spot, but couldn’t you have burned something other than Kisimul?”
“What? A crofter’s hut? Something you’d have easily escaped? Somewhere the laird’s daughter would have never been? The people here see Kisimul as you. We had no choice. And burning the castle worked. We had a grand memorial ceremony and people came from all of the islands when we placed the bones in your tomb.”
A laugh bubbled to her lips. “I have a tomb?”
“Of course. A lovely one overlooking Barra Sound.”
“I suppose I should thank you for that.”
“No, no. It was the least I could do. Jennet, I’m sorry things didn’t turn out the way we’d hoped.” He raked a hand through his hair. “We were young and foolish. I was fourteen and you were sixteen and neither of us knew of the ways of the world, of how powerful suspicion could be.”
She adjusted her spectacles on her nose and chuckled sadly. “I thought I had it all planned out. That you would be left to rule in my stead while I could finally be free to see the world. Instead, I locked you into my own fate, sealed with good intentions, but with poor planning. I’m sorry, Jaimie. I would have never have left you in such a predicament if—”
“You tried your best. We both did. I thought of that as the days went by. It was a difficult time, but eventually things came about. The day I turned fifteen, I asked Elspeth to marry me.”
“And she did.”
“We have four children. She’s—” He shook his head, sadness flickering over his face. “She’s as beautiful now as the day we married.”
“And your father?”
Jaimie gave a rueful grimace that held a hint of anger. “No one can do anything with Father. You, more than anyone, know how that is.”
“Yes, I do. Tell me, you didn’t happen to save the good whiskey from the stores at Kisimul, did you?”
“Of course we did.” Jaimie rose and turned to a small table that was tucked beside the window where a crystal decanter sat. “We saved everything from the castle, even all of the papers your father was so fond of poring over.”
“He thought of himself as the keeper of Barra’s history.”
Jaimie poured two glasses of amber liquid, then paused and added a double measure to one glass. He brought the taller glass to Jane.
At her amused glance, he chuckled and took the seat opposite hers. “You’ve always handled your whiskey better than any man I knew.”
She took a fortifying sip, the whiskey warming her at once. “I’m so glad you saved it.”
“Jennet, Kisimul isn’t gone for good. It can be rebuilt. Father says the stone is all there. We’d have to replace the large beams, float them here from the mainland, but it could be done.”
“You’ve thought of it.”
“Yes, and once our finances come about, I will rebuild her.”
Jane looked around the comfortable room, enjoying the warmth of the fireplace. “This is a lovely house.”
He glanced about with an indifferent gaze. “It’s what Elspeth wanted.”
“You love her.”
“She is the only reason I agreed to your mad plan to begin with. I never wanted this.” He waved at the desk covered with paper. “But she wouldn’t have had me if I’d come to her empty-handed. She wouldn’t even talk to me until I became the MacNeil of Barra. God knows I don’t want it, although Elspeth . . .” He grimaced and took a gulp of his whiskey. “She lives and breathes playing lady of the manor, taking soup and jellies to the poor, sitting in the front pew in church. It means so much to her. But the people of Barra don’t like her, and she knows it. How can they when they look at her and all they think of is you?”
“Perhaps, with time, they’ll see her differently.”
“It’s been fourteen years, Jennet. I love Elspeth, but she’s not a warm sort of woman. She doesn’t encourage trust the way you do. She’ll never be accepted here, though I’d never tell her that. I’ve tried to get her to move, to sell this house and find a smaller one, to make a more pleasant life for us. Somewhere she will be accepted. But every time I say something, she and Father band together, and that’s that.”
“She and your father? They’ve made friends, then.”
“Father doesn’t have friends, just allies.”
Jane silently agreed; there was no more ambitious man than David MacNeil. “He reminds me of some of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt who thought that if they’d just declare themselves the center of the universe, that would make it so.” At Jaimie’s confused expression, she sighed. “Never mind. So your father and Elspeth keep you tied here, though you’re not happy.”
“I hate it here. We’ve never been able to escape your death. It cast a long shadow, cousin. So long that I know I’ll never outlive it.”
Jane didn’t know what to say, so she took another sip of the whiskey. Her cousin looked so sad, almost lost. It was a good thing she’d come home, for there was work to be done. As the whiskey warmed her, she began thinking through the possible ways she could help her cousin.
Jaimie stared glumly over his glass at the papers on his desk. “I had no idea how much work it would be, administering to the people of Barra and collecting the rents and paying taxes and— Good God, how did you do it all? You were in charge of everything for a year before you left, and it never seemed to take you half the time it takes me.”
“I trained at my father’s knee. I suppose I was a fool to think that you, who had only my inexpert tutelage to guide you, could administer the isle the way he did.” She swirled the whiskey in her glass. “What a mull I made of things.”
“We’ve both fallen short in many ways. Elspeth—” He stared into his glass. “It pains me to say this, but she never loved me. She married me for the title. It was enough at the time, just to have her. But now . . .” His gaze clouded over, his lips quivering.
“You love her still.”
“So much. But it is not enough. She and I will never be what I had hoped.” He was silent a moment, but then his gaze turned to Jane. “When I first saw you, I feared that you’d come to take it all back. And maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”
She sputtered on her whiskey. “What? No, no. Jaimie, I’ll make sure things are set to rights before I leave, but I can’t stay here. Not after all I’ve done and seen.” She leaned forward and said in an earnest tone, “Jaimie, I’ve spent the last fourteen years traveling the world and having amazing adventures. I’ve helped discover ancient societies, spoken to kings and queens from other lands, and held jewels that once rested upon the brow of a pharaoh. While I love Barra and always will, this isn’t the life for me.”
He looked disappointed, but managed a smile. “It never was, was it?”
“I think even my father was beginning to realize that, before he died.” She reached over and took Jaimie’s hand. “Do you hate Barra so much? It’s a beautiful island and the people are wonderful.”
“I don’t hate Barra, Jennet. I hate what my life’s become here. I alway
s thought Elspeth would come to love me once we were married and had children, but that never happened.” He looked utterly beaten. “She abides me, no more.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gave her hand a squeeze and then released it and picked up his glass. “It’s my own fault for thinking childish dreams could become reality if I wished hard enough.”
“We all do that at some point.”
“Yes. Maybe it’s time I stopped.” He nodded toward the papers on his desk. “There are other issues, too. There’s Father and the finances and what we’ll do about the necessary repairs on the crofters’ huts and, oh, a million things that I’m not equipped to handle.”
The sadness in his voice made Jane sigh. “I’m sorry, but . . . what would you do if you weren’t the laird?”
“I don’t know. Just . . . not this.” He managed a faint smile. “Ignore me. I’m just speaking like a madman.”
“Jaimie, this is your life now. Somehow, I don’t think you really want it to all go away.”
“No. No, I don’t. I just wish things were different.” Jaimie blew out his breath in a sigh. “This is my life, such as it is.”
“You have options. If you don’t wish to live here, then talk to Elspeth, convince her to move with you somewhere new. Start over there. You can appoint an estate manager and Elspeth can still be the lady of the manor and—”
“You don’t understand. It’s not that easy.”
“Then explain to me what’s really happening here. Why you don’t follow your heart? I can’t help you if you don’t explain things.”
“Help me? Is that what you want to do?”
“Yes.”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “You always were a meddlesome brat.”
“I still am, I’m afraid.”
“So I see. Even though you were only sixteen the day you left—”
“My birthday.”
“Yes, it was. After you left, I never once worried about you. I knew you’d find your way.”
She grinned. “And I did. It helped that I took Mother’s jewels with me.”
“You sold them all?”
“Every one. I don’t miss them a bit, either. They weren’t family heirlooms, like the desk there, or the pennant. They were gifts of love from my father and they’ve more than paid their value in the adventures they gave me. The things I’ve seen . . . you realize how small you are when you stand in the dust of a lost civilization. And I’ve stood in many such piles of dust.”