Page 53 of The Texan Duke
At home, he’d done the same in his father’s office. He never entered the room without thinking of Graham. Every Monday, after he had gone through all of the bills and made the payments and instructions to his bank, he straightened the blotter, returned the pen to the place that Graham had always left it, making everything look the same as it had been the day he returned home.
Maybe in that way he kept his father alive.
He felt a curious affinity to the old man sitting on the hearth. Did he spend the winters alone, except for sporadic visits from Elsbeth and caring for the cattle? Was it a happy life or did he simply mark the hours until it was time for him to join his beloved Moira?
He sat silent as Elsbeth and Stuyvesant talked. Elsbeth asked the older man a dozen questions about the cattle, the weather, the upkeep of the cottage. As they conversed, he realized that she probably knew most of the answers or didn’t really need the information. But she was drawing the old man out, taking the time to listen to him. The simple kindness of her conversation made Connor like her even more.
He was sometimes impatient to be about his tasks, maybe more than he needed to be. Whatever he needed to accomplish could wait a few minutes, long enough for him to spare time to listen to others.
Would Elsbeth know that she’d served as an example and a lesson?
Finally, their tea was done, he was warmed, and the visit was over. He thanked Stuyvesant, stood aside while Elsbeth made her farewells. Once again, he helped her mount, but this time he asked, “You can do this on your own, can’t you?”
“I’ve never had anyone help me,” she said. “But it’s a nice change. I’m sure I look ungainly otherwise.”
“I doubt that,” he said.
She looked surprised at his comment, but didn’t say anything further.
As they rode away from the cottage, he glanced at her. “How long has his Moira been gone?”
“Ten years,” she said, confirming his earlier guess. “She’s buried in the chapel grounds at Bealadair.”
For several minutes they didn’t speak. To his surprise, they retraced their path, but at a fork in the road, she stopped and turned to him.
“Hans is only one of the crofters we have at Bealadair. He’s not one of the clan, exactly, but he’s considered part of the family. When you sell, is there a way to ensure that he’s protected? I think it would be terrible if he had to move at this stage of his life, don’t you?”
He nodded, wishing he could guarantee what she wanted. Perhaps there was a way that he could make provisions with the new owner to leave things as they were. Perhaps he could also ensure that Elsbeth always had a home at Bealadair.
Elsbeth’s future, he told himself, was none of his concern. How odd that it didn’t feel that way. Not at all.
Chapter 18
She really should limit her time with Connor. The American—the Texan—was proving to be entirely too charming.
When she’d turned to find him standing at the edge of the pasture watching, her stomach had leaped to her throat. He was such a sight with his hat and his strange coat. She’d nodded, continuing on with her inspection, but she’d paid as much attention to him as she did the cattle.
She’d seen handsome men before. More than a few of them had visited Bealadair over the years. None of them, however, had ever impressed her as much as Connor McCraight with his way of planting his feet in the earth, an almost-defiant stance. He wasn’t going to budge, she knew, in his determination to sell Bealadair. Just as she knew that the whole situation was rife with tragedy and angst.
She had to make him see that people depended on Bealadair for not only their sustenance but their reason for waking in the morning. The great house was more than a structure; it contained history and the story of a clan, tales of valor and heartbreak, as well as the dreams of so many more people than simply the Duke of Lothian.
Gavin had taught her that. He’d been so determined that his stewardship of Bealadair would be a wise one, that he’d leave a thriving estate for those who followed. In this case, Connor, who wanted nothing to do with it.
How did she change his mind?
She didn’t know. Perhaps if she just showed him how she felt, it might impact him in some way. She’d begin by taking him on her route.
If she hadn’t had to meet with the duchess she would have been farther along in her morning routine. She began at the stable. Mr. Condrey, the steward, would much rather occupy himself with the paperwork concerning the estate than deal with its people. Mr. Barton, the majordomo, considered it beneath him to have to deal with the stablemaster and his staff. The ghillie would much rather concern himself with the game on Bealadair land. He knew little about horses, but everything there was to know about a den of kits. That left her to ensure that Douglas had everything he needed.
After she left the stable, she began her Y-shaped path, visiting three pastures as she went. She veered to the right to visit Hans, who was located at the very top of the Y then back down and to the left side of the Y, where she normally visited two other crofters. Today she would do the same and introduce Connor to the people of Bealadair. It might be a good time to also take him to see Castle McCraight.
The fortress had been built, Gavin told her, in the seventh century. Overlooking Dornoch Firth, it commanded a perfect defensive position. No one had ever been able to conquer Castle McCraight.
The clan had given up the castle in the fourteenth century. The winds and the humidity along with age had reduced it to a few roofless walls and chunks of fallen stone. She often thought it had been allowed to erode because no one was left to care for it.
No doubt Bealadair would be the same if the new owner didn’t love it as much as all of the previous Dukes of Lothian.
Her heart felt heavy, almost as if she were filled with unshed tears. Everything Connor was doing, everything he planned, seemed like a betrayal of the man she’d come to think of as her second father. Gavin, however, would no doubt have been sanguine about the future. He had a pragmatic way of looking at the world. She could imagine his advice: Bealadair will survive and if it doesn’t, perhaps it was not meant to.
