Page 51 of A Recipe for Love
‘So it seems.’
‘Pah. The MacCellans ended up not having much choice. Terrified of the inheritance taxes landing on his daughter I think. Some of us cling on though.’
Adam suspected Sir Iain Macwillis, hereditary chieftain of the Clan Macwillis and current owner of most of Skye and a good sliver of the smaller isles as well, was doing rather more than clinging on. ‘It was good of you to come today.’
‘Well I liked your old man. And I thought someone should. There’s not so many of us around now. Did you hear that the McCullens’ new chief lives in Seattle of all places. Runs some company designing, what do you call it? Things for phones.’
‘Apps,’ Adam suggested.
‘That’s the badger!’ Macwillis nodded cheerfully. ‘Good to have you here though. Good to see the next generation keeping the place alive. You’re a good man, Lowbridge.’
Chapter Eight
As the last guests drifted away, Bella found her fiancée sitting on a bench at the edge of the courtyard. She slid into the space alongside him, leaning in towards his body. ‘How are you doing?’
He shrugged. ‘I keep thinking about what McKenzie said.’
‘The guy who wants to buy this place.’
‘Well not so much this place. More the land.’ Adam shook his head. ‘That wouldn’t be right. Splitting the land from the house. But…’ He closed his eyes.
‘But what?’
‘I know Grandmother isn’t having any of it, but McKenzie definitely reckoned Father was thinking about it.’
Bella wasn’t sure what all that meant for Adam. ‘He didn’t mention it to you.’
He shook his head. ‘But… honestly I hadn’t talked to him that much lately. Nothing happened… you know. I was busy and he was never big into phoning. And he wouldn’t go near social media so…’
‘So maybe he was thinking about it?’
‘Maybe. It doesn’t seem…’ He turned to Bella. ‘Are you OK to walk?’
‘Yep.’ She stuck out her foot. ‘Fully recovered.’
‘Then I want to show you something.’
She followed him out of the castle, but instead of turning to the road or down to the riverside, or jumping in the aged Land Rover, Adam turned the other way, across a field on the castle side of the river, and up a steep path. He paused here and there to take Bella’s hand and help her scramble up where the path all but vanished and they had to clamber over rocks. Eventually they came to a stop at the top of a high cliff. Bella spun around to get her bearings. She’d walked this way with Dipper before. It was already one of her favourite views around Lowbridge. The ever-changing blues and greys of the sky and the way the colours bounced off the water and deepened and intensified drew her here. Even so she didn’t quite know what she was looking out at. The lines between lake and sea and headland and island seemed to blur here, leaving Lowbridge sitting on its outcrop like a single solid thing in the middle of this space between the sea and the land.
Adam took her hand and pointed with his free arm towards the island opposite them. ‘That’s Raasay. Beyond that is Skye, and then Uist and then… well, America, no Canada I guess.’ He turned her around to look back towards the castle. ‘This inlet is Loch Abercross.’
‘I thought loch meant lake.’
‘It does. Kind of.’ Adam was suddenly energised, pointing out features as he described the landscape. ‘This is a sea loch. Abercross means at the mouth of the cross. It’s a bit anglicised but the river is the Crosan, so it’s at the mouth of the Crosan. And so originally this would have been Aber Crosan Castle. Like centuries ago, and there would have been a tiny settlement over here. Maybe a few fishermen, not much else, but then the story goes that the first baron fell in love with a girl from the village but her father was dead against it.’
Bella laughed. ‘Dead against a baron? Tough crowd.’
‘He had her engaged to a nice fisherman’s son from the next cottage along. But she loved the baron and he loved her, and he built the very first Low Bridge across the river so he could visit her even after she was forced to marry the fisherman’s son…’
‘Bastards.’
‘Quite. Even after she was forced to marry the fisherman, the baron would still creep into the village to see her, until one day her fisherman husband went out to sea and never came back.’
‘That’s convenient.’
‘Not for him.’
‘Fair point.’
