The Laird (2 page)

Her doubts only multiplied as she studied the chipped stenciling on the lofty plaster and beamed ceiling. Could she keep herself warm, let alone keep a castle in a decent state of repair, on a
maintenance
?

“Mr. Silverstein, how long has the castle been empty?”

“’Tis never been empty, Miss Pudding.” He scowled as he waved toward a God-awful mix of contemporary and period furnishings. “Oh! You mean to ask how long have we gone without an heir?”

“Yes.”

“Two months.”

“Ah, yet it seems like just yesterday,” she murmured, sniffing the acrid stench of cigar smoke. She ran a hesitant finger along a filthy window sash.  Linda, her best friend and the Director of Housekeeping at the St. Regis-New York, would have a heart attack. “Could we open a window or two to air the place out?”

“Certainly.”

It still didn’t seem possible.
She
owned a castle—-actually, it was little more than a medieval fortification occupying most of the landmass of a dinky isle off Scotland’s Highland coast, but a rose by any other name...

Her
, an orphan raised by—-no, dragged up within—-the Big Apple’s foster-care system.

And what could she, would she do with it?

According to Silverstein, she had to reside in Blackstone for six months to lay claim to her inheritance. After that, she could return to her job in convention services at the St. Regis, using the castle only as a retreat, or she could reside here permanently. The decision would be hers. But no matter, after a six-month residence, her inheritance would be secure and would pass on to her descendants. Not that she had any hopes of having any.

More than a decade had passed since she’d exposed herself to the hope of being loved, and she couldn’t imagine a set of circumstances that could ever prompt her to do so again.

It hadn’t taken her long to discover most men liked their women pretty and compliant. She was neither.

Having only a high school education, she’d started her career path as a waitress. While watching prettier women seemingly rise without effort, she’d clawed her way, rung by rung, up three different hotel development ladders to become an assistant director. She didn’t resent the pretty women. She envied them. They didn’t have to work harder, be quicker and brighter, to get noticed.

Too, if the mirror hadn’t made her plainness obvious to her, a frank foster mother had. She’d been only twelve when the woman she’d tried so hard to please—-to be loved by—-had told her, “You’ll never be pretty, so you’d best learn to use make-up. Then, there’s an outside possibility someone might consider you attractive.”

She shook off the memory. It really didn’t matter anymore. She, Katherine Elizabeth MacDougall Pudding, was an heiress. She now owned a tiny island and its broken down castle. The very thought took her breath away.

“Let me show you to your rooms before we tour the rest,” Silverstein suggested as he gathered her bags.

“By all means, but I’ll take that.” She snatched her prized tote from Silverstein’s hands and gave the surprised man an apologetic smile. Heiress or not, she still couldn’t bring herself to trust the tote’s contents to another. What if he dropped or misplaced it?  The nearest cosmetics counter sat in Glasgow, a good four hour train’s ride away, for God’s sake.

“
Humph!
” His anger forgotten, Duncan watched Silverstein and the stranger make their way up the stairs. He’d been relieved to his marrow to find it wasn’t Silverstein’s wife he’d seen in the boat, but who is this? He followed, listening to their conversation.

Ah!
So this is the new heir.

He glanced at her left hand and his heart nearly stopped. Why had he not been told? A young,
unattached
female hadn’t taken control of Blackstone in centuries. The last, a beautiful but viperous titian, had nearly been the end of him. But what if this one...

He scowled watching the woman’s lithe form lean precariously to the left as she struggled to carry her heavy bag around the tight curves of the stairway. Why in hell hadn’t Silverstein offered to carry it for her? Had chivalry died with his generation?

Duncan stayed just steps behind her. He couldn’t have her toppling and dying of a broken neck before he could assess the possibilities.

When the woman made it to the fourth floor landing without mishap, he sighed in relief.

“This is the solar,” Silverstein told the woman as he stepped over the threshold, “the master bedroom of the castle. Our previous heir, Robert Sheffield, preferred less spacious quarters and slept in the east wing on the second floor.”

Duncan grunted at his solicitor’s blatant lie. He’d come into this very room shortly after Sheffield had arrived and found the bloody bastard trying to fondle the then ten-year-old Will Frasier’s jewels. Furious with Sheffield, Duncan had frightened the piss out of both his heir and the poor boy. His next inclination had been to pitch the old blighter headlong down the steps, but having accumulated enough blood on his hands for one lifetime, he’d contented himself with terrorizing Sheffield for the next two decades. The old fop hadn’t so much as dared look at another lad or venture above the second floor landing during the entirety of his residence.

“I hope you find it to your liking,” Silverstein continued. “’Tis quite extraordinary. The tapestries on either side of the bed were produced in the late seventeenth century by one of your predecessors, Lady Katherine Stewart MacDougall. The bed is original to the castle. ‘Tis over-sized because Duncan Angus MacDougall, the first Laird of Blackstone, was a huge man. Supposedly, he stood six and one half feet tall, much like Robert the Bruce.”

Duncan snorted. There was no
supposedly
about it. He did stand six and one-half feet tall and weighed seventeen stone, if anyone cared to know. And Tom knew better than to compare him to the Bruce.
Hummph!

Waving around the room, Silverstein concluded, “And the windows, Miss Pudding, offer a spectacular three hundred and sixty-degree view.”

Pudding?
Which one of his cousin’s mangy descendants had had the audacity to rut with a Sassenach--an Englishman? Matters had definitely deteriorated further than he’d surmised.

“It’s lovely,” Miss Pudding murmured running a hand over the hunt scene carved into his headboard. She then gently pressed the mattress. “But please call me Beth.”

“Beth it is, but don’t be distressed if most about call you
my lady
.”

“Oh?”

Silverstein smiled. “The honorarium comes with the castle. We tend to keep to the old ways as much as possible here. Within the next day or so, most from Drasmoor will be out to welcome ye.”

“Ah.” She wandered to the open window. Staring out, she murmured, “It’s still so difficult to believe, Mr. Silverstein. That all this...,” her hand fluttered, encompassing the room and the view, “could be
mine
in just six months’ time. For so many years, I’ve not had so much as a pot to--”

Hearing her voice crack then falter, Duncan moved closer to the now silent woman staring out his window. He studied her face as she tried unsuccessfully to blink away tears. What caused her to weep? From her silent shaking carriage, he suspected she wasna a woman who cried easily and he hoped for her sake that it wasn’t too often.  ‘Twas not a pretty sight.

She’d bitten her bottom lip to the point of scarlet and strange black streaks now stained the flat planes of her cheeks. When she shivered, he felt heat radiate off her and instinctively stepped closer, only to be bathed in a strange scent, an exotic mix of sweet and soft. He fought the unaccountable urge to reach out and touch her. How curious.

“Shall we tour the rest of your domain now?” Silverstein asked from across the solar, “And please call me Tom. There’s no point in our standing on ceremony. We’re likely to have a long, complex relationship.”

Duncan frowned at the comment, but the woman, Beth, silently nodded as she hastily brushed her tears away. She heaved a huge sigh and faced his solicitor, this time with a smile.

“I’d love to see the rest of my
home
.”

When she put the emphasis on the word
home
, Duncan Angus MacDougall grinned for the first time in decades.

~#~

Alone and hungry, Beth wandered into the bowels of her keep to the kitchen.

Here, at least, she wouldn’t have to worry about contracting some nasty disease. Someone had taken the time to scour the large whitewashed room to a high shine. Even the battered tin pots above the hearth glowed.

There were no wall-mounted cabinets in the basement kitchen; just an enormous center table surrounded by stools, an ancient, multi-drawer spice chest and a few old appliances. The cavernous room’s only charm came by way of a six-foot high by eight-foot wide fireplace, complete with wrought iron hooks, a boar-sized roasting spit, angle irons and four separate side ovens. As she ran a hand over the embossed lions on one of the cast iron doors, she could almost smell fresh bread baking. Her stomach growled.

Given Beth’s inexperience with operating a boat, Mr. Silverstein had thoughtfully arranged for a week’s worth of fresh food to be laid in. She examined the unfamiliar labels on the canned goods and sniffed the fruit and breads on the table before opening the squat refrigerator to find a quart of fresh milk—-its thick cream filling the top two inches of the bottle, a half dozen brown eggs, two chops and butter. Too tired to make anything elaborate, she snatched two eggs from their cardboard container.

She scrambled the eggs then noticed a five-gallon glass container of yellow liquid fueled the stove. Shrugging at the oddity, she turned a porcelain knob and waited for a familiar click-click-click. When nothing happen she immediately flipped off the knob and stared at the white enameled, cast iron contraption. Even her fifth floor walkup’s stove had an electric ignition. Now what?

Matches. After a three-minute hunt, she struck one and held it near a burner as she turned the appropriate knob. Nothing happened. She tried three more times before huffing in exasperation and dumping her eggs down the drain.

Toast and an apple, then.

She found an ancient toaster, but it took awhile before she could get its sides to flop open. “I could starve to death at this rate,” she muttered, dropping two slices of bread into it and shoving the toaster’s odd shaped plug into the wall outlet.

“
Oh, shit!
”

She jumped back as a shower of fluorescent sparks spewed from the wall socket. The fireworks continued as ribbons of acrid smoke oozed out of the toaster.

“God damn it!” She yanked the toaster’s cord from the wall. When the sparks abruptly ceased, she heaved a sigh and heard a masculine chuckle. Startled, she spun around.

Seeing no one, she lowered her hands and released her breath. “Next, you’ll be seeing ghosts,” she chided, feeling foolish.

She was, after all, a city chick, well used to the wail of sirens, screeching tires, and things that go bump in the night. She shouldn’t be jumping, heart in her throat, because sparks flew and an errant wind whipping around outside decided to come down the roasting pit’s flue.

She turned her attention back to the toaster. It felt cool. Gingerly, she touched the socket. Finding no heat, she thanked God for small favors, grabbed two apples from the table and shut off the light. Whatever caused the problem could wait for daylight.

T
otally incredulous, Beth stared at the electrician Tom Silverstein had sent to solve her kitchen’s wiring problem.

“Am I understanding you correctly, Mr. MacBride? All the wiring is made of
aluminum?
”

The electrician nodded. “Aye, all of it. ‘Twas commonly used at the turn of the century. The twentieth, I’m meanin’. ‘Tis all gonna have to be replaced. ‘Tis dangerous, ye ken?”

She
kenned
all right, feeling lucky she still had eyebrows.

She’d already discovered the plumbing in the keep was shaky at best, knocking and banging as she tried to purge the rarely used pipes. She’d concluded from the amount of rust and the thick scum lining the east wing’s claw footed tub, her predecessor had only bathed when the seasons changed.

She heaved a resigned sigh. “How much will it cost to replace the wiring in just the main living areas?” She didn’t want to know or even speculate on how much fixing
all
the wiring would cost. She’d have to take care of the rest the same way she paid off her credit cards. A bit at a time. Right now, she simply wanted to use a hair dryer, leave a hall light on at night, and make toast without burning the place to the ground.

She took comfort where she could. The electrician wouldn’t be knocking any holes in her newly acquired walls. The wiring ran in tubing along the stone floors, walls, and plaster ceilings.

“Dinna worry about the cost, my lady. I’ll work up an estimate and send it to Mr. Silverstein in a day or two. I’m sure we men can come to a meeting of the minds.”

After a broken night’s sleep and a hard morning of cleaning, Beth had little patience for a patronizing pat on the head.

She’d already found water-damaged paneling, six windows with broken panes, more that wouldn’t open, and she’d only examined half the keep. She shuddered to think what else lay in wait. She’d be dead broke in a month at the rate things were going, “maintenance” or no.

And this was
her
keep, damn it. Not Tom Silverstein’s.

“Mr. MacBride, I’ll be the one to approve or reject your estimate, so please send it to me. Meanwhile, is there anything I should do to keep from setting this place ablaze?”

He made a thick “
humphing
” sound at the back of his throat and puffed out his chest. “Aye. Dinna plug anything else in. And dinna leave any lamps on when ye go to sleep. Wouldna do to have ye wake and find yerself and the castle afire, now would it?”

“Ah.” She wanted to cuff his surly ears.