The Secret Gift (5 page)

At the Ascot Races, one of those events he’d attended with his mother each year, Graeme had been leaning to tell the woman beside him the time, and the image of them, her face discreetly hidden beneath the deep brim of her hat, appeared in the tabloids the following week, under the headline

GRANSBOROUGH HEIR
ALREADY LOOKING FOR LADY RIGHT?

After that, young British women began “turning up” wherever Graeme went. In the park when he walked Murphy, when he’d been buying groceries at Mark’s and Spencer’s, he’d once been out with a group of business associates during which the meal had been constantly interrupted by the constant stream of drinks being bought for him by young women at the bar. That had been bad enough. The paparazzi, however, became positively rabid in their bid to get the latest snapshot of the heir to the dukedom of Gransborough, the young,
eligible,
thirty-six-year-old heir to a title that combined, among other things, prestige, wealth, history, a town house in London, and forty-five thousand acres of prime British real estate.

Graeme had eventually left London because of it, retreating to the ducal country seat. But that hadn’t deterred them. They’d simply followed him there, watching from behind the topiary or “happening upon” him in the local village.

So he’d left Durham and taken a flat in Hampstead Garden outside London. Eventually they’d found him there.

They’d found him in Surrey.

They’d found him in Edinburgh.

They’d found him on holiday in Spain.

Everywhere he turned, there were young, single women wanting him to cure them of their singleness—and with them, the paparazzi, hoping to catch him on celluloid with someone,
anyone
they could allude to a connection with.

Once, he’d been helping his housekeeper, a woman of fifty-two years who was married and had grandchildren, to bring in groceries. The image of them had appeared on the front page of
The Buzz
tabloid the following week, above the caption “Waltham Setting Up House With Mystery Woman.”

His own mother had called asking when the wedding was.

So when Graeme had learned from a colleague of the proposed sale of a remote Highland castle that had been standing vacant for the past three decades, he’d jumped on it.

Perched on a steep cliffside hundreds of feet above the North Sea, Castle Wrath stood at the very northwestern tip of the Scottish mainland. It was surrounded on three sides by the sea, on the other by miles and miles of empty, abandoned moorland. Except for the local village, there wasn’t a settlement for a dozen miles.

It was paradise.

Thus far, he’d managed to remain anonymous. He dressed casually, making himself as unassuming as possible whenever he had to go into the village for supplies. There they knew him only as Graeme Mackenzie, resident caretaker of the castle. Its new owner was officially the Countess of Abermuir, his mother, so that no record of the sale could be traced to him by the more diligent of the media watchdogs. When he needed to travel to London for his business as an architect, which he did sometimes weekly, he went by private jet or helicopter, which came to retrieve him at a remote spot on the estate. He’d been so very careful this time, doing everything humanly possible to keep himself concealed.

Or so he’d thought.

“Here you are, love. Have a sip of Miss Aggie’s tea. ’Twill chase that chill off straightaway.”

Libby smiled dimly at the woman, one of two spinster sisters who were the proprietors of the Crofter’s Cottage B and B. They were twins, they’d told her almost immediately upon her arrival, as if that hadn’t been obvious the first moment she’d seen them. They were virtually impossible to tell apart, with matching silver blond curls, lively pale eyes and parchment-like skin. Their eyes crinkled at the corners in exactly the same fashion, and their mouths made identical welcoming smiles. They even wore the same style of eyeglasses, round and wire-rimmed, and Libby couldn’t help but wonder if their prescriptions matched, too.

They called themselves simply Miss Aggie and Miss Maggie, and they had lived in the village, running the Crofter’s Cottage, for the past twenty years. Before that, they had lived in London, in a modest South Kensington Victorian flat where the most exciting thing that had happened had been the day they’d watched the carriage carrying Diana Spencer pass by as it had made its way to St. Paul’s Cathedral for a royal wedding. The soon-to-be princess, they’d told Libby gleefully, had even waved to them from inside the carriage.

Since they were twins and so very identical, when they had been girls, their mother had taken to dressing them in different colors in order to make it easier to tell them apart. Aggie was in yellow, and Maggie wore pale green. It was a custom they continued to the present day in their matching night robes and slippers.

Libby took the teacup Miss Aggie had offered and closed her fingers around it. It was the same flowery sort of cup her mother had always favored. She lifted it to her lips for a sip, relishing the warmth of it, a warmth, she only vaguely realized, that lingered long after she’d swallowed the brew down. It settled happily in the pit of her stomach and pulsed there.

She looked at Miss Aggie, who smiled.

“Oh, ’tis just a dash of the whiskey. Just a wee one, mind you.” She winked. “ ’Twill help you to sleep this night.”

Libby didn’t think she’d need any help to sleep. She was so exhausted she felt as if she’d just lived a full week’s time in a day. Her hair was flat and drooping over her eyes. Every muscle had constricted, and her body felt as if it might actually mutiny if she dared even think of getting out of the chair. Even her head seemed suddenly too heavy to lift. But her luggage still needed retrieving from the trunk of the Vauxhall Astra. And, oh, how she would dearly love a hot shower. Still, the whiskey was bringing a not-unpleasant glow to her very frazzled nerves.

Maybe just a few more minutes ...

She took another, healthier sip, and closed her eyes, letting the whiskey’s warmth ooze through her as the two sisters bustled about the room, plumping a pillow beneath her feet and draping a blanket over her. When Libby had arrived on their doorstep, wet from the rain and nearly numb from exhaustion, the sisters hadn’t once complained that she’d woken them at such a late hour. The cottage had been dark when she’d rolled into the drive, and she had sat there, with the rain dribbling down the windshield, reluctant to wake whoever awaited inside. But then a light had clicked on in an upstairs window, and a curtain had parted just slightly. A second later, every window in the cottage, it seemed, was awash with light, and the door was swinging open to show the two tiny figures waving her inside.

Within a quarter hour they had a fire rolling in the grate beside her,
tsk
ing over her tale of having gotten so utterly lost and shaking their heads in dismay over the unqualified Neanderthal who had threatened her with the shotgun.

“I cannot think of who it could have been,” wondered Aggie aloud. “They’re a simple folk in this village, fisherfolk and farmers mostly, but gentlemen the lot of them. There’s none would dare point a shotgun at a lady any more than he’d dare point it at himself. And to refuse to help you when you were so obviously lost—”

“Unless—” Maggie spoke up, her pin-curled head cocking to one side.

Aggie stared at her, reading her thoughts as twins often do.

“Aye, you’re right, Maggie, dear. Could be that Angus MacBean has been distilling that nasty brew of his again. Remember that time he got himself so drunk, he convinced himself he was a Jacobite back at Culloden? Ran around the hills in naught but his nightshirt ranting about Bonnie Prince Charlie and unrequited glory. Nearly got himself killed when he jumped into the loch.”

“Oh, ’tis true, ’tis true,” Maggie agreed. “Tell me, dear, what did the man look like?”

Libby tried, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of a single feature, until—

An image, gray eyes the color of storm, flashed through her mind.

“I—I don’t remember,” she mumbled.

“Was he tall or short?”

Tall ... very tall.

“Tall, I think. I don’t really remember.”

“Dark or light?”

“I didn’t notice ...”

“Old or young? Fat or thin? Clothed or wearing his nightshirt?”

Libby simply shook her head, closed her weary eyes. The whiskey was having a wonderful effect on her, making her feel as if every limb were happily aglow.

“Well, no matter,” Aggie said. “You’re here now with us, safe and well. ’Tis been some time since we’ve had an American come to stay, off the beaten path as we are up here in this village. Tell me, what is it that brings you to us, dear? Dear ... ?”

“Oh, the poor sweet lamb,” said Maggie to her sister. “She’s fallen off to sleep. We should wake her, so she can sleep in a proper bed.”

“No, let us leave her ’til the morn. I daresay she’ll be too tired to notice, and that couch is soft enough. We can talk with her again in the morning. Her story, whatever it is, will certainly keep till then.”

When Libby next awoke, the sun was shining on a new day.

She closed her eyes, blinked, filling her lungs with a long, deep breath that smelled of potpourri and baking, then reached for her eyeglasses. But they weren’t there, where she usually left them, tucked in her bedside tissue box. A moment later, it hit her.

Scotland.

It hadn’t been some crazy, terrible dream after all.

Libby sat up, looked around. Through the haze that was her myopic vision, she spied what appeared to be the rounded figure of a clock sitting on the table beside her head. Its face was a blur, but her glasses, which she didn’t even recall having removed the night before, were set beside it. She pushed them onto her nose and then picked up the clock, an older, windup model. She put it to her ear. Surely it couldn’t be ticking. It couldn’t really be noon.

Could it?

“Ah, good morning, child. Or should I say good afternoon?”

It was Miss Aggie, Libby remembered, coming that moment into the parlor, almost as if she’d been watching for Libby to wake. She was wearing a frock of pale yellow almost as sunny as the light coming through the curtained front window, her hair curling like a soft halo around her face. She looked fresh and cheery and endearingly lovely.

Libby, however, was still wearing the clothes she had worn the day before, and her hair was in an utter muddle around her utterly muddled head.

She pushed it back and out of her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, squinting her eyes, which still rebelled against the glare of the sunlight. “I seem to have fallen asleep in your parlor. I don’t usually sleep this late.”

“Oh, ’tis just the jet lag, dear. You’ve got to acclimate yourself to our time, you know. ’Twill take a few days, to be sure.”

“Tea, dear?”

The other sister, Miss Maggie, came into the room then, a vision of smiling pale green, tea tray securely in hand. A linen-wrapped basket of scones sat atop it with little accompanying pots of marmalade and jam. Just the sight of the tray made Libby’s stomach clench. She hadn’t eaten anything since the small snack she’d been given during the flight from London the afternoon before, and the granola bar she’d munched on while registering for the rental car. She took a scone from the basket. It was still warm. She didn’t even pause for jam but bit into it, and closed her eyes.

It was delicious, just as wonderful as the scones her mother had made all her childhood. Never, in all the places she’d traveled, had she ever found a scone that tasted quite like her mother’s. Until now.

Already she felt the tears threatening.

“Oh, dear. You don’t like the scones?”

“No.” Libby shook her head. “They are very good. It’s just that ...” She took a deep breath. “They remind me of my mother’s scones.”

At this, her tears won the fight. In fact, she couldn’t seem to stop them. First, the night before in front of a total stranger, and now this. Good God, what was wrong with her?

“Oh,” Aggie brightened. “Well, then, your mother must be a very good cook. Maggie’s scones are quite a prize, indeed.”

“My mother
was
a wonderful cook.” Libby struggled to take hold of her emotions. She sniffed loudly. “She passed away two weeks ago.”

“Oh, you poor sweet child.”

The two women surrounded her, enfolded her, alternately patting her on the hand,
tsk
ing, and passing her fresh tissues.

“I’m sorry,” Libby said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not usually this weepy.”

“ ’Tis obvious, dear,” Aggie said. “You’re overwrought. But you’ve come to the perfect place to recuperate. You’ll find this village is just lovely for that sort of thing.”

Libby nodded, collected her emotions. “It’s not the only reason I’ve come here, to this place. I believe my mother might have been born in this village.”

“Was she?”

“In this house?” Maggie added.

Libby shook her head. “I do not know where she lived. I’m not even sure she was from the village at all.”

She spent a quarter hour telling them her story, of the stone and the mysterious photograph. “So I have come here to try to find out if this man in the photo could be her family.”

“Oh! How exciting. What was her name, dear? We know everyone from the village. Perhaps we have heard of her family.”

“Her name was Matilde. Matilde Mackay.”

“Hmm ... well, there are certainly a number of Mackays.”

Aggie went to a desk and removed something from the top drawer. She handed a booklet to Libby, a directory, it seemed, of the village, its services, and its residents.

“I’m afraid you’ve your work cut out for you, love. Most every family in the village is a Mackay, married to a Mackay, or a cousin of a Mackay.”

And indeed they were. Libby paged through the booklet, scanning the columns of names. There were three Angus Mackays, five Donald Mackays, and nearly a dozen Robert Mackays among numerous others. “Surely they’re not all related?”

“Oh, goodness, no,” Maggie chuckled. “We’re not as backward as all that up here. As I understand it, there is the Mackay family, and then there is the Mackay clan. Back in history, those who were a part of the clan, that is, under the protection and rule of the chief, often took his name. Surnames are a relatively modern invention in Scotland, considering how far back the history of this country stretches. It all stems from affiliation to the clan, and the major clan about these parts was the Mackay. Smaller clans that joined forces with the greater clan over the centuries often changed their names, too, as a pledge of allegiance to the chief, so to speak, which is the reason some of the smaller clans vanished. The people themselves did not ‘vanish,’ they just changed their affiliation.”