The Secret Gift (36 page)

*

Libby was sitting at one end of a long table in the center of the village hall when Graeme, his mother, and the duke came striding in. A number of the villagers were sitting along each side of the table, filling out paperwork and asking questions of Libby and a man who was undoubtedly her attorney. When Graeme came to stand at the foot of the table, voices quieted. All eyes turned to him at once.

“Libby, can I speak to you, please?”

When she looked up at him, he could tell she’d been crying. Her eyes, those eyes he’d come to love, were red and puffy and utterly forlorn. The expression on her face tore through him like a shot. He didn’t even wait for her reply.

“Libby, it isn’t true.”

“Oh. So, you’re not really a nobleman?”

“No, that much is true. I am a marquess, my mother is a countess, and my uncle is indeed a duke. I will eventually inherit both of their titles.”

She frowned at him, shaking her head. “Why would you have me believe you were a caretaker?”

“I can’t expect you to understand any of this, but in the beginning, I didn’t think it would cause any harm. I wanted you to know me as me, just Graeme Mackenzie. Not as a bloody marquess, or the heir of a duke. I was looking for anonymity and came to the castle to escape the attention of the press, who were hounding me daily. When my brother and then my father both died, I became heir to two noble titles. It was something I never expected, and something I wasn’t prepared to have to live with, but it was a responsibility I had to assume, like it or not. It is my duty to my family. I knew that I was going to have to return to that life someday, but I just wanted to hang on to the last bit of privacy I had remaining a little longer.”

He looked at her. She was listening. Thank God, she was listening.

“As for Amaranthe, yes, I had told my mother and my uncle that I would marry for the sake of the title. To be honest, when I agreed to it, I didn’t care who I ended up with for a bride. That was before I met you.”

Graeme came around the table, knelt beside Libby’s chair. “After I met you, after I
fell in love with you,
I knew I couldn’t take just anyone for my wife. I knew there was only one person I would want to spend the rest of my life with. In fact, I told this to my mother and my uncle just a few days ago. I told my uncle I had no intention of marrying Amaranthe, or anyone else, for that matter. But I still had one more thing to take care of. I had to tell you the truth of who I was. And I was going to tell you everything last night at the
ceilidh,
but then Lady Venetia came in, the time wasn’t right, and well, then I was called to London this morning. I didn’t want to just blurt it out on my way out the door. I wanted to make sure to do it properly. I brought my mother and my uncle back with me from London now because I wanted them to be with us when I told you the truth and when I asked you if you would consent to be my wife.”

Libby looked at him. “What did you say?”

Graeme reached inside his coat pocket and took out a box, the distinct sort of silk-covered box that came only from a jeweler. He took a deep breath, opened the box, took out a ring from inside. It was a beautiful square-cut diamond, surrounded by smaller round diamonds on each side.

“Libby, this ring was my mother’s ring, and her mother’s ring before her. It has been in our family for generations. I brought it back from London with me to give to you.”

He took her hand, felt it tremble in his. He prayed that tremble meant she would say yes. “I would like to ask you to accept this ring from me, and do me the honor of being my wife.”

Libby looked at him. “But you’re a duke.”

Graeme nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“And I’m just an antique bookseller. I live in a studio walk-up on the Upper West Side.”

“Even if that was all there is to you, it wouldn’t matter. But, Libby, you’re so much more than that. Look around you. Look at what you’ve come to mean to the people of this village. Look at what you’re doing right now to help them.”

The others sitting around the table nodded in agreement.

“And dinna forget, lass,” said Gil, who had been standing behind her. “You are a Mackay. Your ancestors were great Scottish clan chiefs. Your namesake, Lady Isabella, was herself the daughter of a duke and carried the blood of an English king. You carry that same blood, lass.”

“But none of that matters more than what you mean to me.” Graeme looked into Libby’s eyes. “I may have a title attached to my name, but before you came into my life, I was incomplete, like a forgotten piece of a puzzle. When I’m with you, that is not longer true. You fulfill me, Libby Hutchinson. When I’m with you, the puzzle just fits. No one else, no daughter of an earl, no royal princess, could do that. Only you. I want only to be the same to you, if you’ll just say yes.”

Libby knew just what he meant. She’d known that same lost, detached feeling as well, until she’d felt she was drowning in it. But Graeme had been the one to throw her a lifeline, pulling her back from that dark abyss.

She looked deeply into his eyes. Graeme held his breath, waited until she answered a softly tearful, “Yes, Graeme. I will marry you.”

The entire hall broke out in a resounding cheer.

Graeme scarcely heard them. He took Libby into his arms and kissed her with all the love he felt for her in his heart.

He was still kissing her moments later when Angus MacLeith suddenly appeared in the hall.

“Ehm, excuse me ... Libby?”

Graeme groaned. “Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got the very worst timing, PC MacLeith?”

Libby eased from Graeme’s embrace. “Angus?”

“Libby, there was an accident. Last night. A car drove off the A839 into a gorge just outside the village of Tunga.” He paused, looking at her. “It was Lady Venetia’s car. Her body has just been recovered.”

Libby stared at him, trying to grasp what it was he was telling her. “You’re saying she’s ... she’s dead?”

Angus nodded.

It felt as if the very ground suddenly shifted beneath her feet.

She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

She didn’t feel anything, except a profound sense of loss, and the sting of regret that she had never been able to bridge the gap that had stood between them. Perhaps, however, she never would have.

“It was to have been expected.”

Ian M’Cuick came forward. “You remember when I told you the legends surrounding the Mackay stone, lass? You remember when I told you how, like a person’s heart, the stone can never be taken, that it must only be given? Every other time throughout history, whenever the stone was taken unlawfully, misfortune befell the person responsible. It has been this way for centuries and has continued now into the very present.”

The other villagers murmured in agreement.

Libby looked at him, at Old Gil, at the other villagers. “So are you saying this happened to Lady Venetia because she took the stone from me?”

Angus answered her. “Ehm ... I don’t know about all that, but I do know that this was found lying on the verge of the road at the point where Lady Venetia’s car went over.” He shook his head in a way that indicated his bewilderment. “It was lying with its chain in a perfect circle. Lady’s Venetia’s handbag, the same bag in which I’m quite certain I remember seeing her deposit the stone earlier last night, was lying on the floor of the car, unopened.”

Angus held out the stone ... to Libby. “I think everyone here will agree, there is only one person who should have this.”

Before nearly the whole of the village who had adopted her as one of their own, and with the man she loved at her side, Libby took the stone and slipped the chain over her head.

Years later, there was some disagreement about what exactly had happened that October night. Some said the stone sparked like a flint to a fire. Others said it had flashed, as if within its mystical crystal it had captured a bolt of lightning. The colors they’d all seen had ranged from blue to red to green and even gold. Some had heard a sound. Others had heard only the sigh of the Highland wind.

But one thing they all were able to agree on was that after having been missing for more than three decades, the Mackay stone had indeed finally come home ...

... and it had brought with it a new Mackay lady, to the laird who held her heart.

The Village of Wrath, Scotland

It was a perfect day for a wedding.

That April morning dawned to a brilliant sunrise that defied the television weather predictions, brushing an artist’s palette of pinks, reds, and oranges across an uncommonly peaceful North Sea.

All throughout the day, the groom’s mother had been nervous, worrying that the ceremony, which was to be held outdoors on the shore of the bay and in the ruins of the old church, would have to be moved indoors. The bride, however, would hear none of it. She knew in her heart that nothing would ever dare to spoil this long-awaited day.

She wore a gown of the palest ivory silk that was sleek and simple in its design, its only adornment the crystal stone that hung over the modest bodice, and the sash made of the tartan of the Mackays which draped across from shoulder to waist. A piper stood on the high bluff and dusk was falling as the bride walked along the candlelit pathway that led to the church’s altar.

Standing, waiting for her in his kilt and tailored black coat, the groom found himself sucking in his breath.

She was a true vision.

It was a ceremony much like another which had been performed some three decades earlier. Only this time, instead of nesting birds for witnesses, the entire village was there. When the minister declared them man and wife, the whole assembly let out a cheer. The piper played, hugs and kisses were exchanged, and the villagers started back up the hill toward the blazing lights of the castle where the celebration would continue on into the night.

The bride and her groom, however, lingered behind.

Holding Graeme’s hand, Libby bent to place her bride’s bouquet before the new granite headstone that bore her mother’s name.

The decision to have her mother brought back to Scotland, back to take her final rest at her
home,
had been a simple one. There had been a special service months earlier, where various people from the village had shared their memories of Matilde. She’d been laid to rest beside the granite obelisk that bore the name of Fraser Mackay, marking the final resting place of Libby’s father. Though he had been Matilde’s husband only in name during her lifetime, Libby was determined that they would spend their eternity together.

“These are for you, Mom,” Libby whispered, blinking back the tears that had begun pooling in her eyes.

And as she stood again, with the wind rushing in off the sea, Libby would have sworn she heard her mother’s whispered sigh as the scent of her lavender drifted by.