Page 5 of To Wed an Heiress
Fortunately, she’d heard that expression before and knew it meant something along the lines of whatever happens will happen.
She grabbed the valise and her reticule, left the coachman, and started walking across the grass. Once she rounded a small hill she stopped, staring. She’d thought that Mr. Caitheart lived in one of those cottages they’d passed ever since leaving Inverness. The white walls and the thatched roofs were exceedingly picturesque, but the homes weren’t very large.
Mr. Caitheart, however, lived in a castle. They’d seen one or two of those, as well, but they’d been ruins, stark against the horizon.
This castle stretched out before her, an immense fortress of salmon-colored brick built on a promontory jutting into the loch.
Surrounded on three sides by water and a narrow bit of land, the castle featured a tower at least four stories high. The curtain wall at the farthest point of the castle, close to the knoll that began to taper up toward the glen, was damaged in places but mainly intact.
The castle stretched between the tower and the wall. Part of the original roof looked to have fallen in because it was now clad in unfinished timber. Something so obviously old that was still in use seemed almost magical, but then the land on which she walked was settled long before her own country was discovered.
The road down to the castle led to a bridge over a gushing river. She crossed it, grateful for the iron railings on both sides.
The castle had a second tower, but the structure had collapsed, leaving only waist-high rounded walls. The road curved in a circle in front of it, no doubt for carriages to turn around.
The closest she’d ever come to being in a castle was a house in upstate New York owned by a friend of her father. He’d claimed that most of the bricks had been taken from an ancient fortress in Ireland and that the house had been built to replicate that castle. There was no resemblance between that luxurious home and this place.
There was no door inside the ruined tower. Instead, it led to a space that looked to have once been an anteroom. It was dark, the sunlight only penetrating a few feet. The smell of damp brick mixed with dust assaulted her nose. That could have come from the stone floor that looked as if it had never been swept. A few more feet in was a bronze-colored metal door with a tarnished brass ring hanging by a rope down the middle of it.
She pulled on it and heard the distant peal of a bell.
Chapter Three
Lennox frowned at the sound of the bell and dismissed it a second later. He knew who it was, the arrogant American who’d called him insane. She wasn’t the first. Nor would she be the last.
People didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Nor did he waste any time attempting to explain it to them. He corresponded with a few men on the matter, but otherwise it was simply easier to keep his experiments to himself.
He focused his attention on the young woman in front of him, grateful that his housekeeper was at the market. Otherwise, Irene would have been fussing at him for placing Miss Gallagher on her kitchen table.
The woman’s hair was the sort of red that reminded him of autumn leaves just before they fell to the ground. Her bright green eyes were the shade of the grass in the glen and her pink cheeks brought to mind a child’s delight in winter snow.
She’d been silent during his palpitation of her arm. The only sign that she was in pain was when she bit her lip. Otherwise, she occupied herself by staring at Connor.
Connor was tall, towering over Lennox by a head. But, then, Connor towered over most people. He was known for two things: his height and being a peacemaker. Connor disliked conflict of any sort.
He’d been with Lennox for four years, ever since being hired from the nearby village. Some of Lennox’s inventions had sold, which meant that he’d been able to cobble together enough money to purchase the supplies he needed, do a few repairs to the castle, buy some creature comforts, and pay a salary of sorts to Connor and Irene.
Connor reminded him, strangely enough, of a swan. Despite his height he moved gracefully, his hands performing a ballet as he reached for the exact part he needed or tightened a screw. He glided through his tasks with a tranquility despite any obstacles he faced. Except that he had acted differently ever since seeing Miss Gallagher, witnessed by the fact that he refused to leave her side.
Connor had steadfastly stood beside the table, holding Miss Gallagher’s free hand. To offer support, he had said. From the moment they’d seen each other, it was as if they were meeting once again after having been apart.
Lennox had never seen anything like it, but he knew, from the expression on Connor’s face, that there was no way the other man would leave the kitchen.
The bell rang again. Lennox ignored it and finished tying off the bandage that would keep Miss Gallagher’s arm straight until it healed.
“Would you like some tea?” Connor asked as Lennox helped her sit up. “Lennox has a tincture that can help with the pain,” he added. “It tastes bad, but you might not be able to tell in a strong cup of tea.”
Connor had never been so solicitous, but then they didn’t often have female visitors. Other than Irene’s sister, of course, but both women were in their fifties.
Lennox hoped Miss Gallagher declined. Now that he’d splinted her arm, the faster she left, the better. She was a stranger on her way somewhere, not someone Connor would ever see again.
“I’ve offered our carriage to their coachman,” he said to Connor. “Would you mind going along and bringing it back after they’ve gotten to their destination?”
He had a few Clydesdales, working horses that he’d purchased from a friend. They weren’t as well matched as Mr. McAdams’s pair, but they would do the job.
Lennox didn’t know if he was doing a favor for Connor or making the situation worse. Despite the fact that Connor and the maid had an instant rapport, he doubted anything could come of it. She was a visitor to Scotland with nothing to root her here.
He put up his supplies, turning his back on the couple deliberately. If they wanted to gaze soulfully into each other’s eyes, he didn’t have to see it.
