“Pshaw.” Kit glared at the offending wrist that had been broken four or five times. She wasn’t the beauty queen type. She could ride a Thoroughbred bareback, but put her in a pair of strappy sandals and she’d get stuck in the mud. It wasn’t that she was clumsy. Just the opposite. Silly shoes couldn’t compete with her penchant for practical footwear. She lived on a farm for God’s sake.
B
efore entering the house, she ran the soles of her tall riding boots across the blunted top edge of the boot-scraper. Then she turned the brass doorknob and gave the heavy oak door pockmarked with Civil War bullet holes a quick shove. It opened on quiet hinges into an even quieter house.
The scent of lemon oil permeated the twenty-foot wide entrance hall. Even as a child, she’d loved the smell. The room cast the appearance of a museum with a vast collection of furniture from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Each piece darkened by countless waxings. Now that Sandy had read the proclamation, the cleaning staff could remove the black linen shrouds that draped the family portraits dotting the oak-paneled walls.
Kit dropped her helmet, crop, and muddy jacket on the rug, and then pulled off her boots, leaving everything piled by the door.
The letter.
S
he grabbed it from her jacket and stuffed the note inside her shirt pocket.
The side cabinet held a stack of sympathy cards. She blew out a long breath. People from all over the world sent condolences. Their thoughtful words tugged at her heart, but she couldn’t read them right now.
An official looking envelope from the Bank of San Francisco piqued her curiosity. It was incorrectly addressed to
Mrs. Kitherina MacKlenna.
She pried her nail beneath the sealed flap. Then the phone rang.
Elliott?
Avoiding him was impossible. He’d continue to call until she answered. She dropped the mail on the edge of the table and hurried down the hall.
On the second ring, she entered her father’s office. On the third, she plucked the receiver from the cradle. “MacKlenna Farm.”
“Do you have a cold or are you crying?” Elliott asked in a voice that held only a hint of his brogue.
She propped a hip on a corner of the mahogany desk. “I strained my vocal chords last night singing all of Scott’s favorite songs.
”
“Heard that squawking. Almost called the police.”
A faint smile eased the tension in her face. “You’re in rare form today.”
“I’ve been at a meeting with the board of directors.”
“Well, that explains it. Where are you now?”
“Driving through the main entrance. Stay put. We need to talk.” The line went dead.
“I need to talk to you, too,” she said, sassing the handset before dropping it into the charging cradle. The dang thing tumbled out and landed on the desk next to a Jenny Lind doll trunk. The bread-loaf-shaped trunk held that closed up for a long time smell that made her nose twitch. “Achoo.”
She smacked the lid closed and somehow pinged her finger on one of the brass nail heads that held a metal strap in place. Droplets of blood pooled beneath the tip of her nail. The injured digit automatically went to her mouth.
My accident prone morning finally drew blood.
She shoved off the desk and paced the room. When she heard the doorknocker, she veered into the hallway. The canvases were now uncovered.
Welcome back.
Just as she’d done since childhood, she patted each one, saying their names in a sing-song manner: Thomas I, Thomas II, Sean I, Jamilyn, Sean II, Sean III, Sean IV, Sean V. She usually kissed the portrait of her father, Sean VI, on the cheek, but not today.
At the ripe old age of five, Kit had decided she wanted her portrait to hang alongside Sean I’s twin sister, Jamilyn, who died while sailing to America. Kit didn’t want her great-great-great-great aunt to be the only woman in the MacKlenna Hall of Fame. So she drew a self-portrait, then nailed it to the wall with wood screws she found in her daddy’s toolbox. She’d never forget explaining to her pony that she couldn’t ride for a month because she damaged the wall. She patted the blemishes between the portraits, still visible to those who knew they were there. Punishments and tragedies had never diminished her ability to take it on the chin—until now.
Elliott was visible through the front door sidelight standing on the porch wearing a green Barbour jacket and khakis with the usual knife-edge press. His aviators were tucked into the collar of his polo shirt. A MacKlenna Farm ball cap covered all but the sides of his freshly barbered hair. She kicked her boots and muddy jacket aside and opened the door. “Why’d you knock?”
“Door was locked. Didn’t have a key.”
“Sorry. I must have done that when I came in.”
Her godfather crossed the threshold, favoring his right leg. His expression was solemn and severe. She knew the old injury to his calf was especially sensitive to the cold. He removed his cap. Then as he raked his fingers through the silver hair above his temples, he sniffed the air. “Cleaning day.”
“Sandy just read the proclamation.”
“It’s done then.”
Kit pointed over her shoulder. “Mom’s portrait is uncovered. All the shrouds are gone.”
He glanced at the portrait hanging over the mantel. An equal measure of sadness and anger registered on his face. “That’s Sean’s best work. It never should have been draped.”
“I had to follow MacKlenna tradition. Daddy would have come back and haunted me if I hadn’t. The last thing I need is another one of those see-through people.”
“Sean MacKlenna as a ghost. That’s an intriguing thought.” Elliott hung his jacket and cap on the hall tree. When he spied her coat and boots on the floor, he clucked his disapproval. “Let’s go into the office and you can tell me why you came off your horse this morning. That’s twice this week.”
She held her breath a moment waiting for the lecture.
“Your horse showed up at the barn without you. Scared the grooms and trainers. If a hot-walker hadn’t seen you cutting through the tree line, every alarm on the farm would have sounded.”
She twisted a corner of her shirttail that had come untucked when she fell the first time. “The ghost spooked me at the cemetery. Stormy planted his feet and I went over his shoulders. Then I had to walk home with a sore back, a bruised ego, and that handsome apparition shadowing me. Again.” She glanced out the sidelight to be sure the ghost wasn’t still hanging around. “Today he looked like a nineteenth-century lawyer all decked out in a double-breasted frock coat. What’s up with him anyway?”
“I’m sure your ghost didn’t intend for you to fall.”
She elbowed Elliott in the side. “Get your tongue out of your cheek. I never know whether you believe me or not.”
“I believe you. But if you fall and break your back again you might never get up.”
She rolled her tongue along the backside of her teeth to give it something to do instead of blurting out that she didn’t want Elliott or a ghost or anyone else hovering over her. She was a paramedic. The Lexington Fire Department trusted her. Wasn’t that proof enough she could take care of herself? “If you’re done with the lecture, tell me what the board of directors wanted?”
His face tightened. “It was a heated meeting. Hazy Mountain Stud wants to buy a controlling interest in Galahad. I don’t want to decrease the farm’s percentage of ownership in the stallion, but as CEO I only have one vote.”
“That means he’ll shuttle to the southern hemisphere every year. Daddy didn’t have a problem with that. I guess the board feels—”
Elliott reached over and patted her twice on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
She folded her arms, stiffened, then followed him down the hall. “If I had a dollar for every time Daddy told me not to worry, I’d have more millions than his estate.”
“And more Apple stock than me.”
“Haha,” she said, glowering at his back.
They entered the office. Elliott headed straight to the full-service wet bar located opposite a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. “I suppose it’s too early for scotch.”
As if on cue, the long case clock in the corner sounded the hour.
“Nine o’clock is a bit early for me, but you might want a drink to wash down what I’ve got to tell you.”
He poured a cup of coffee instead and pointed it toward the desk. “What’s with the trunk? I’ve never seen it before.”
She lifted the lid. Small leather pouches filled with diamonds, gold nuggets, and coins lay on top of a bloodstained lace shawl. “Jim Manning’s office called late yesterday. He wants a copy of the 1792 land grant for probate. No one could locate the original. I searched the desk this morning and bingo. It was with this trunk.”
“I didn’t know there was a drawer that big.”
“There’s a secret compartment. Daddy showed it to me when I was a kid.” She framed an imaginary headline with her hands. “Heir learns secret at age of ten.” Her shoulders sagged. “He said never to open it until I was the farm’s mistress. Now I am and I still felt guilty doing it.”
“Thanks to that MacKlenna brainwashing, you feel guilty about everything. So what’d you find in the treasure chest? Gold doubloons?”
“Sort of. And a journal. And a letter from Daddy.” Her voice teetered on the verge of cracking. “He said he found me on the doorstep when I was a baby.”
Elliott muttered, shifting uneasily on his bad leg. “We both—” He cleared his throat. “—found you asleep in a Moses basket.”
The heat of confusion burned through her. “You knew?”
A wistful expression deepened the fine lines on Elliott’s chiseled face. “Sean asked me never to tell you.”
“Don’t you think I had a right to know?”
Elliott stared into his coffee and pulled his lips into a tight seam.
She pointed her finger at him. “You know what’s in the trunk, don’t you?”
“Did he save the shawl?”
The confirmation in the form of a question stung her far beneath the skin.
“I thought you were hurt, but the blood was on the shawl, not you.” He set his cup on the desk and picked up the ruby brooch Kit had taken from the trunk earlier that morning. “This was pinned to your dress. I haven’t seen it since we found you. I didn’t search the basket. Sean said he would do that.”
“I found a book on Celtic jewelry in Daddy’s library. That’s a fourteenth-century brooch. The letter said it’s magical. Do you believe that?”
Elliott picked up a portrait miniature of a blond-haired, nineteenth-century man, studied the face, set the painting aside, and then ran a finger across the two-inch ruby set in delicate silver work.
“I’ve studied our folklore most of my life, Kitherina. I believe there’re forces in the universe we can’t see or understand. If Sean said this is magical, I have no reason not to believe him.” Elliott turned the brooch over and studied the back of the stone. “My grandfather used to say, ‘Some see darkness where others see only the absence of light.’”
She drew in a breath. “Meaning?”
He placed the brooch in her hand and curled her fingers around it. “Keep an open mind.”
“That’s what Daddy said in his letter
before
he said this thing took him back to 1852.”
Elliott’s face lost its color. “Where’s the letter?”
Kit pulled it from her pocket and nudged his arm. “Here.”
Lines formed between his eyebrows. “You made a paper airplane out of it?”
She glanced at the blister on her knuckle. “With sharp creases just like you taught me. Then I flew it into the fireplace. It crashed on its side or the whole thing would’ve caught on fire.” She walked over to the wet bar to grab a bottle of water. “My grief counselor would probably call it a form of disassociation. Burned my finger when I pulled it out.” Her finger hurt like hell. “Read it out loud? It might make more sense hearing it from you.”
Elliott smoothed out the folded letter and began with a quick throat-clear. “
Dear Kitherina, I’m writing this knowing you may never read it, but I can’t risk dying without telling you the truth of your birth. Please keep an open mind as you read.
“You were only a baby when I found you on the steps of the west portico, wrapped in a bloody lace shawl. At first, I thought you were bleeding, but you weren’t. You had a ruby brooch pinned to your dress and a portrait miniature clutched in your hand. Both the portrait’s gold frame and the shawl have a monogrammed M worked into their design.”
Elliott carried the letter and cup of coffee across the room and sat in a tufted, hunter green, velvet wing chair situated just so in front of the fireplace. He took a sip and continued. “Not long after your second birthday, I discovered whoever made the brooch had split the ruby and hinged the halves together. Engraved inside is a Celtic inscription:
Chan ann le tìm no àite a bhios sinn a' tomhais an gaol ach 's ann le neart anama.”
Elliott lowered his hand to his lap and she could tell he was thinking hard. Then he said, “‘Love is not measured by time or space. Love is measured by the power of the soul.’ At least that’s my best translation.”
Kit dropped onto the ottoman in front of him. “I wondered what it meant.”
He took another sip of coffee. “When I read those words out loud, I was instantly propelled toward amber light. I found myself in Independence, Missouri, in the spring of 1852. The city was a major jumping off point for those traveling the Oregon Trail. That year alone, there were over fifty thousand people heading west, so you can imagine the crowds in the city. Since I was there for several weeks, I painted portraits to earn money for room and board. I also painted from memory the face of the man in the portrait miniature and showed it to everyone I met. Although a few people thought he looked familiar, no one was able to identify him.
“When I decided to return home, I repeated the words. I had no way of knowing if the brooch would take me home, but neither did I understand why it had taken me to Independence to begin with, although I am thankful it did. The brooch is, however, your legacy, not mine.”