Page 54 of A Dash of Scot
“We must count our blessings that we found out when we did.” Poppy sent up a silent prayer of thanks.
“Indeed.” Mama sank onto one of the chairs. “I’m so disappointed, though. I had high hopes that she would make a match.”
“She might yet. The colonel seems to fancy her.”
“Aye, but I’m not so certain your sister fancies the colonel.”
Poppy nodded. “Time will tell.”
“Mmm.”
The following morning, Anise did not come to breakfast, and Poppy and her mother seemed resigned to allowing her a day to feel better.
At tea, when Dougal and the colonel arrived, she still refused to come down. Not even the biscuits Dougal brought could entice her, nor the stack of new books the colonel brought for them to read.
After an hour, when it was apparent she would not be making an appearance, the colonel begged his leave, and Dougal offered to go on a walk with Poppy, who claimed she needed fresh air.
“How is your sister?” he asked when they were out of earshot of the cottage.
“Mourning.”
“Sir John has that effect on people.”
“So it seems. They hardly knew one another, so I’m not sure she so much mourns him as a person as she mourns the life she dreamed she’d have. Moving to Skerray has been an adjustment for us all, but it’s been hardest on Anise.”
“How are ye faring?” Dougal searched her face when she gazed at him, and his concern warmed her heart.
Poppy flashed him a smile. “Better than my sister. But I prefer the outdoors like this. I find peace in it, and she’d rather find peace at a party or lady’s luncheon.”
“This new life must be hard for her then.”
“I believe it is.”
“What is the life ye dream of having?” Dougal asked.
Poppy opened her mouth, thinking she had an answer, but then closed it again, her gaze on the rippling water over the cliff’s edge they walked along. “I thought I used to know what I wanted. Now I’m not so sure.”
“What did ye used to want?”
They came to an outcropping of rocks, and Poppy perched on one, Dougal beside her.
“I used to want a life very much like what we had. A townhouse in Edinburgh, another in London. Country houses in the north of England and the Highlands of Scotland. Traveling from one place to another with an endless calendar of fun.”
“Sounds amusing,” he smiled.
“It is, to a degree. But then we came here, and life is slower, simpler, calmer. And,” she gestured toward the sea, “there is this incredible view I never knew I wanted to sit and stare at for hours.”
“And your desire for what ye want in life has changed.”
She nodded. “I still don’t know what that looks like, but perhaps something in between.”
“Castle Varrich sits on a coastal cliff.” She could tell he was trying to entice her by his expression.
“Does it?” She cocked her head to the side, a small smile on her lips.
“Aye, over the Kyle of Tongue. With a view of the mountains, Ben Loyal and Ben Hope.”
Poppy sighed, imagining what it would be like to wake up to a view like that every morning. “I like the sounds of those mountains. Loyal and Hope, the things that bring us peace.”
