Page 87 of Sweet Home Highlander
The vein.
His workers were cheering about the discovery, made just the day before, of a gigantic deposit of topaz in the tunnels. As if the veins they’d just found hadn’t been reward enough, now it looked as if this deposit would be enough to keep the mines in business for a decade to come.
The men and women had reason for their joy.
And though Niall smiled back and accepted the acknowledgment that he’d led them to this discovery, he couldn’t muster the energy to feel anything more than mild excitement. He wanted his mines to be productive, and his laborers to have work, and thus for Tarbendale and Maclaren to reap the benefits. But joy? As Niall made his way through the crowd, out of the tower house, he couldn’t feel an ounce of it landing anywhere inside of him to stick.
As he had for weeks now, Niall felt a hollow sensation within him. Not the pain of an aching loss, as he’d felt in the days after Aisla’s departure. Or the anger, that had come after. No, now it was more of an emptiness. A restless kind of existence. He worked. He slept. He ate. He worked again. And so on and so forth.
It would pass, he knew. In time, he’d feel…something. He hoped.
“Ye dunnae look like ye’ve just found the largest lode of cairngorm Scotland’s ever seen,” a pleasant voice said, drawing his eyes up from where he’d had them hitched to the ground as he walked.
Makenna sat atop her horse, smiling at him with an amused and knowing expression.
“I didnae find it,” Niall replied as he glanced back toward the tower house. “They did. I dunnae ken why they’re cheering for me.”
“Because ye’re their laird, and they wouldnae have found it at all if it werenae for ye, opening this mine up and digging new tunnels,” his sister answered. “Ye’re just as responsible for this windfall as they are.”
Niall exhaled, wishing she’d cease her praise. “’Tis work. Plain and simple.”
It wasn’t like before, when Niall had been breaking himself at the mines to prove that he could make a success of it. A success ofhimself. He had nothing to prove to anyone now. Aisla had come home to Tarbendale, she’d seen his improvements and successes with her own eyes, and now she was gone again. And his life was strangely empty.
“If that’s how ye feel,” Makenna started to say, still looking down at him from her horse.
“’Tis.”
She let out a long sigh, and when she said nothing more, Niall finished washing up and turned to her. “Is there some reason ye’ve come to see me?”
His sister sat a bit taller in her saddle, peering down her nose at him like an unimpressed queen. “Aye. Mother would like ye to come to sup tonight. Father’s feeling better.”
Niall felt the weight of her relief settle inside of him. He’d ridden to Maclaren at least once a week to sit with his father. The duke’s health was on the mend for now, and the old warrior had yet to give up. However, soon, the time would come. Niall wasn’t prepared for it in the least.
“I’ll come,” he told Makenna with a decisive nod.
“Good,” she said, holding her horse steady as the mount grew restless. She didn’t leave, though.
“Is there something else?” Niall asked.
“I received a letter,” she answered, uncharacteristically quiet. “From Newcastle in England.”
He paused in rolling down his sleeves, covered in dust and silt, and felt the reply of his heart, thudding in his chest. “Aisla?”
“She’s staying for a time with Lord Leclerc’s grandfather. A marquess,” she answered. “She sounds…content.”
Niall went to his own horse and rubbed its blaze, avoiding Makenna’s stare. “Good. She deserves to be happy.”
He swung up into the saddle.
“I did no’ say she was happy. I said she sounded content.”
“What the difference?” Niall asked, becoming annoyed. Not with Makenna, but with the topic at hand.
“’Tis the difference between water and wine, ye ken.”
He peered at her, propping a brow. “I prefer water.”
“Ye’re a bloody dunderheid!”
