The Legend of Lady MacLaoch (10 page)

The day was turning out overcast again and the short trail was sparsely populated, following the steely ocean’s edge, winding through cow pastures and over small hills.

I made my way up the tall hill that jutted over the beach, which offered a
360
-degree view of the shore below and the low-sloping, foggy mountains behind. The last little hill peaked and the white of the sand gleamed. If it weren’t so chilly, it would be just like an overcast day in some tropical paradise. The emerald-green of the pastures rolled down to meet the cream-colored sand, which spilled from the grass’s edge and into the ocean, revealing its true color—turquoise. Throw out a couple beach umbrellas and take its picture you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would guess this was Scotland.

But in person, it was all Scotland. The weather was a mirror of my mood, storm clouds threatening on the horizon and the wind blowing my curls around my face.

I remembered the MacLaoch chieftain’s words as I’d danced with him the night before. “That I am,” he had said when I’d finally understood his true role in the clan. Those three words confirming that I had treated a Scottish dignitary about as well as I had an incoming college freshman. If I ever wanted to learn anything more about an Iain Eliphlet Minory, I was going to have to kiss and make up with this clan and its chief, no matter how brutal their ancestors may have been.

Sitting in a protected rock outcropping overlooking the beach, I began mentally drafting an apology letter—I’d tell him in writing about myself, come clean on the true spelling of my ancestor’s last name, my research, and why I was doing it. Explain to him that it was just pure coincidence—that there was no relation that I knew of between the Minorys and my family name, Minary. I’d offer the possibility that they were brothers separated at birth, or cousins who were never invited to the same family reunions, or that this was just one of those freak coincidences, a strikingly similar name that differs by a single letter. I would elaborately and painstakingly explain the importance of a single letter difference.

Being in the open was soothing, and the tedious activity of mentally drafting and editing my letter distracted me long enough that exhaustion snuck in.

I hadn’t realized how tired I’d been until I jolted awake—no doubt my mind being alarmed that it’d allowed me to nap cradled in a rock outcropping, in a foreign country. Despite the stiffness that had settled in from my snoozing on rock and in the gentle drizzle, I felt better. Standing, I scrubbed my face to clear the remnants of fatigue.

Back along the trail, I decided that I would head to the B&B, write my letter, and mail it. I was not sure I’d be able to face the chieftain in person and speak my words of apology aloud—a detailed letter would be the best way.

I made it all the way back to the trailhead parking lot with my clear plan before it was sabotaged.

A list of situations I would have rather found in the parking lot: all the contents of my suitcase strewn about, an angry mob of Gypsies, another date with
Fletcher
, or all of that added together. Instead, I returned to find Ice Empress Eryka and her black Car of Doom.

Eryka’s face emerged over the frame of the open back door of an idling, tinted-window luxury car. She stepped one heeled shoe out of the car and looked me up and down. She was dressed as if she were headed off to work at a New York fashion magazine: second-skin pants, see-through white shirt (with black bra), and leather bomber jacket. Her hair was pulled back so tight I was surprised her lips didn’t blink.

Instinctively I thought of Kelly and looked around. Eryka didn’t seem
like she was dressed for a kidnapping, but I was taking no chances.

“A word with you,” she said, pink lips highly glossed so that they looked like plumped pastries. “What are you doing here?” The
w
s in her speech sounded like
v
s and, to my untrained ear, she spoke her words like she had a mouth full of marbles.

She held a cream-colored envelope in one hand. She stepped her other foot out of the car and slowly walked a circle around me in her four-inch pumps, somehow avoiding the multitude of potholes.

Feeling like that question was typical of the people associated with the MacLaochs, I spit out, a little more harshly than needed, “Why? Is this MacLaoch land too?”

“Ooh, tut-tut,” she said, coming to a stop in front of me and tapping my shoulder with the corner of the envelope. “No need to get upset. I was just asking vhy you are here, in this place, in Glentree.” She looked around us, gesturing with the envelope.

There was something about this Eryka woman that set my teeth on edge, something about the way she spoke to me. As if I were a dolt or a small child and she were someone I should look up to and respect—all I wanted to do was knock her off her teeter-totter shoes into the muddy pothole behind her. She and Kelly were of one mind, it seemed—they both wanted the same thing. What it was, I couldn’t put my finger on, but I knew for sure that anyone associated with Kelly was someone I wanted nothing to do with.

“Doing research.” I said, exercising some patience.

“Mmmm,” she said and dragged the envelope down my arm. “What kind of research?”

“Stop that.” I batted the envelope away, sending it fluttering onto the soggy ground.

Eryka looked at it, then back to me. “What kind of research?”

“Family research. And if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to it.” Patience thoroughly exercised, I walked off through the parking lot toward town.

The woman had me fired up for no apparent reason, other than her attitude and her association with Kelly. With everything that had happened yesterday, the day before that, and particularly last night, I was already nursing a sore mood and in no way ready to deal with her.

I heard Eryka’s car; it pulled up next to me. I watched my reflection disappear as the glossy window rolled down.

Eryka looked me up and down, again. “I don’t know what they see in you,” she said disdainfully.

I held my hands up, frustrated. “What? What do you want from me?”

She shrugged. “Nothing.” Then she nodded back toward the parking lot. “That letter? It’s for you.”

I stopped walking and watched as her car pulled away, the window rolling back up. I kept watching as the car picked up speed and disappeared around a corner before I went back to the parking lot and picked up the letter.

The envelope flap was embossed with the MacLaoch crest; the paper had gotten soggy from sitting on the ground and the adhesive gave no resistance as I lifted the flap and gingerly withdrew the wet contents.

While the ink had bled, making the once-black letters a purply-blue, the words were completely legible and their owner’s signature unmistakable.

Ms. Nicole Baker ~

I formally request your presence at Castle Laoch,

at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely yours,

RJD MacLaoch

My stomach did an acrobatic flip and I felt a mild case of anxiety come over me. This was regarding the night before, no doubt. It seemed that I would be hand delivering my apology letter after all.

CHAPTER 15

I
arrived at the castle in the late afternoon with my letter in hand.

The front entrance to the castle was much more open, welcoming, and grand than the back door I’d barged through the other day. The front entry hall opened directly onto the carpeted staircase and I immediately recognized the airy second floor from my prior, hasty departure. I made my way to the massive oak reception counter and the two women behind it.

“Hi,” I said, and paused, realizing I hadn’t thought about what I was going to say. If I told them, “Your clan chieftain asked me to stop by before I leave town,” they might think I was crazy. I assumed it would be like walking into the White House and saying the president had asked to see me.

“Hallo, ’ere to do a tour?” one of the two women said. She was an elderly woman in a cardigan with a Castle Laoch logo and a tartan skirt. Her partner at the desk was nearly identical.

“Not really, no,” I said. “This might be an odd request, but your clan chief, Mr. Rowan MacLaoch, asked me to stop by.”

Rather than the rebuff I expected, the taller woman said, “Oh, you must be the Ms. Baker he spoke of this morning. Yes, he is expecting you, though today he is at the administrative office down the road. I’ll ring him and let him know you’re here.”

“Would you like to tour the castle whilst you wait?” the second woman asked while the other used the phone in the small room behind them. “We’re closing in a bit, but you’d be welcome to roam. It could be a while before he gets home.”

“Ah. Thanks, I’ll do that,” I said, thinking it was odd that she referred to the castle as the chieftain’s home, as it seemed in a permanent state of being on display, and nowhere had I seen closed doors or personal affects.

I made a donation—larger than requested, hoping that a bit of that goodwill would come back to me—and set off toward the main floor.

The upper floor was divided in half by the grand staircase—to my right was the large, open sitting room the size of my apartment, and beyond it, the dark dungeon. My body gave an involuntarily shudder at the memory of the place, and I turned in the opposite direction.

I meandered through the rooms, reading the plaques and taking note of the history. The place had seen every generation of MacLaoch since they had arrived in town over eight hundred years before.

The last room was a large, circular one, its long, slatted windows letting in what light there was from the overcast day. In spite of the soft lighting, the room felt heavy. I was surrounded by artifacts, each one passed down through the clan and stored lovingly under glass. The ones I passed by the door dated from the early eleventh century. Ceremonial pewter quaiches, ram’s-horn brushes, and goblets were identified with neatly typed cards set in black velvet. Some cards described the history of the piece in detail, others simply said, “brush,
1500
AD,” or “silver tea set,
1650
AD.”

There was something about the room that drew me in. It felt as if another person were in the empty room with me—as if I were back in my dream, the woman in it gently guiding me toward something. I made my way slowly to the back of the room, scanning the glass cases, reading each card, seeing if I remembered anything.

I tried to rationalize my thoughts—I must simply be having déjà vu.

I reached the final case, and found what I had been subconsciously looking for under glass and perched on the top shelf—small and placed between two larger artifacts, a simple gold ring. The
exact
gold ring from my dream, its Celtic twists on the band interlacing the clan crests and Scottish thistle.

My breath caught in my chest and I just stared. And stared.

Oh my, oh my god.
The nicks and dings in the ring were where I remembered them. I put my hand to the glass, as if that simple action would cause the glass to give way, allowing me to hold the ring again. To place it on my finger and have it warm that place again.

Again?
No. It would be for the first time.

And the last,
I felt someone else say, yet I was completely alone.

The description style of the ring was different than those of the other artifacts in the room. I could see it in my mind’s eye, even as I read the words:

With this ring, I thee wed . . .

One (1) gold—solid—ring; imprinted/engraved with MacLaoch Clan Crest, interspersed .15mm with thistle over wedding knot; 4.5mm diameter; 2mm band width. This ring is assumed to be the wedding band of the fabled Lady MacLaoch of Castle Laoch of the early 13th century. According to the legend, Lady MacLaoch became betrothed against the wish of her clan to that of a sea-going man by the name Minory. It is assumed that after her return to Castle Laoch, following the death of her betrothed, Lady MacLaoch placed the ring in a copper box and interred it in the lower sea wall. It was discovered during the 19th-century refurbishment of the decrepit wall . . .

The sun sank deeper in the sky while I stood entranced by the ring. I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me, but I did feel the slow hum wake in my blood, telling me the current MacLaoch chieftain was standing right behind me. I looked up into the reflection of him watching me.

Without turning, I said softly, “This ring . . . ” That was all that I could manage. As if saying the words out loud would render something important impossible.

“Aye. What is it about the ring?” the chieftain said from behind me, his voice barely audible, the two of us still like ancient statues, both having trouble finding our words.

I continued to stare at him, and he at me. The soft hum dissipated into a feeling of warmth and familiarity—had we done this before? No, but he had come unbidden into my dream the night before. The man on the beach who had clasped me so lovingly—I knew who he was. He was standing directly behind me, and if the reflection on the glass did not deceive me, he knew it too. But how, I could not fathom.