Gawain tossed a letter down upon the table. Shawna looked at her great-uncle, arching a brow. “Take a look, girl. It’s from America.”
Shawna picked up the letter and saw the American postal marks on it. She started to read, but Gawain’s hands landed suddenly on the desk, and her eyes were drawn to his. Blue, like her own. There was a startling resemblance among MacGinnis family members. Ink-black hair with an exceptional cobalt gloss and startling blue eyes marked them almost irrefutably as MacGinnises. Family members had, as well, high, cleanly-defined black brows and a way of lifting them that connected them all as kin.
“Read!” Gawain commanded, his “r” rolling especially deeply with his irritation.
She knew instantly, of course, that it was from Andrew Douglas. As she touched the letter, great waves of guilt seemed to wash over her. She had been in a sorry state herself the last time she had seen him, but she would never forget his pain at his brother’s death.
She quickly scanned the words on the paper, trying to keep her fingers from trembling. He had always reminded her a great deal of David. Although Andrew had definitely inherited certain features from his mother’s family, he still looked like a Douglas and had his father’s build. The brothers had been of the same height and muscle structure, both of them like lions, so powerfully built, so sleek, so agile. Capable of great courtesy—and great violence, she believed, if thwarted.
If known to have been betrayed.
Every word of this letter was polite and courteous. Andrew was coming to Craig Rock. He didn’t know how long he would be staying, nor exactly when he would be arriving. She wasn’t to make any changes in the management of the estates. She had done so well in his absence thus far. She was not to vacate the master’s chambers of Castle Rock, nor depart that residence for Castle MacGinnis. He had recently married again and was happy to be attended by his new wife and friends on his trip to his father’s ancestral home. “If you’ve kept up with newspaper accounts of events in America, you will be aware as well that my mother’s people are involved in disputes with the American government. As this makes my own plans rather complicated to say the least, and since I might have to leave Scotland at any time, I especially hope you will not be inconvenienced by my return. I am, at the moment, visiting as any traveler fromAmerica and beg you not to be put out by my arrival. I look forward to seeing you.”
Recalling that Andrew’s first wife, a Sioux woman, had perished from disease a couple of years ago, Shawna looked up at Gawain with a pleased smile. “He has married again. I’m so delighted.”
Gawain exploded with impatience. “Delighted? Why, in God’s name? Now he can produce little brown savages to come and make claim to the property here!”
“Douglas property has never been ours, though we prosper from it.”
“Douglas property should justly fall to you. Andrew Douglas—is he called Laird Hawk, I wonder?—has no dealings here. He’s American and half-savage to boot. He should have stayed with his mother’s kith and kin, his bows and arrows and buffalo! He should have lived and died on his savage plain, and the property should have rightly fallen to us.”
“Uncle, it is his property.”
“Aye—his property. But hundreds of years ago, my dear girl, before Robert the Bruce, Highlanders defied what would have been the rule of conquering English kings, and they kept these Highlands free by the sheer brutal force of their fighting power. Douglas and MacGinnis came together then, locked in wedlock, so it was said, and as it has always been, if the Douglas line should die out, then the property goes—by law—to the ancient Douglas kin. The MacGinneses.”
“Uncle Gawain, Laird Hawk Douglas seems to be quite alive and well in America.”
Gawain didn’t seem to hear her. “Trouble in America!” he muttered. “Aye, the Americans intend to decimate their redmen. Their newspapers talk continually of great confrontations. Andrew Douglas should be caught in such a confrontation before he gets a chance to breed!”
Shawna shook her head in amazement. “Uncle, he’s a young man who has probably taken a young bride, and I wouldn’t doubt that another generation of Douglases of Craig Rock might already be on the way.”
“Andrew Douglas is an American, but I have worked and breathed life into this land for all my years.”
“When the late Laird Douglas had his heart broken here and returned to America, I promised to care for his property in his absence—as your tradition would have it. But we also agreed to take on the additional work in order to create more wealth for the MacGinnis family,” Shawna said quietly. “And God knows, after the night of the Fire, we haven’t really the right?—”
Andrew slammed a fist on the table, staring at her. “You challenge an act of God, Shawna MacGinnis?”
“Did God suggest I lure David to the stables?” she asked softly.
She thought for a moment that her great-uncle was going to strike her, he looked at her so furiously.
“The Fire, girl,” he bit out, “was an act of God. And if you’d drag your whole family down to wallow in self-pity, then God should have taken you in that inferno as well!”
“I don’t believe that the Fire was an act of God,” she said determinedly.
“Are, you accusing me of setting the Fire? I tell you, girl, I did not!” Gawain declared, his eyes narrowed in fury. “And what is more, the authorities came, specialists all the way from Edinburgh—at the request of your Laird Hawk Douglas, if you’ll recall. No arson was proven, lass.”
“Then what did happen?”
Gawain planted his hands on the desk and stared into her eyes. “An act of God!” he said with firm fury.
She stared at her great-uncle, shaken by his vehemence. Gawain felt no remorse for David’s death, but at least she wasconvinced of his innocence as far as the Fire went. Perhaps he could put that night behind him. She had tried to do so but could not. It would haunt her until the day she died.
“Would it have been more convenient for you if I had died in the Fire as well?” she queried.
He exploded again with an oath of impatience. “Good God, lass, that you could accuse me so! But the night is past, and your kin live, and these miners live, and two hundred souls make their livings on these lands. If you want to be part and parcel of the future of Craig Rock, then you must get beyond the past. And live for the future.”
Shawna watched him and nodded slowly. She looked back at the letter on the desk once again. “I wonder why he is coming now.”