Just the memory had her heart beating fast again.
That had only been the beginning of their story. Eleanor swept her gaze from the stone arch over the lush gardens to the castle and then back again. Angus had delivered on all of his promises. Her husband and lover of fifty years believed in building things that lasted—a marriage, a home, a family. Because of Angus’s story-spinning talent, the legendary power of the replicated stone arch had taken root and spread. Their own three sons had married beneath the stones. Angus invited anyone to tap into the power of the legend, and many Glen Loch locals had taken advantage of his generosity.
Leaning back against a pillar, Eleanor closed her eyes, and let the scent of the flowers and hum of the insects help her find the inner peace the garden always brought her. She’d never once regretted her decision to leave everything behind in Scotland and come here to New York with Angus. In fact, it was the best decision she’d ever made. She had only one regret—on the night she’d run away with Angus, she’d taken the Stuart sapphires with her.
With her eyes still closed, she slipped a hand into her pocket and closed her fingers around the soft leather pouch that held the sapphire necklace that Mary Stuart wore at her coronation. Everything had happened so fast that long-ago night; once Angus had kissed her, she’d forgotten all about the sapphires. Only when it was too late had her conscience begun to trouble her. Any attempt to contact her family or return the jewels would have increased the chances that she and Angus would be found.
Her sons and her daughters-in-law believed the jewels had been her dowry, no doubt because she’d worn them in the formal portrait that hung in the main parlor of the castle. But they hadn’t been her dowry. A man who’d loved her had given her the jewels, and she’d betrayed both his love and his trust. That made her worse than a thief.
Angus had always known about her troubled conscience, and he’d promised on his deathbed that he would help her right the old wrong. That was why he was visiting her now. The initial visions he’d sent to her had been so clear. In one, she’d seen a young woman with reddish-gold curls discovering a single earring in the stone arch. Eleanor had taken it as a sign to hide the first earring there. In the dreams that had followed, she’d seen a woman with long dark hair finding an earring in the old caves in the cliff face. So that’s where Eleanor had hidden the second one.
But in her latest dreams, all she could see for sure were the blue stones of the necklace glowing so brightly that the features and surroundings of the young woman holding them were blurred. All Eleanor knew was that she had long blond hair, and she looked vaguely familiar.
A gull cried out over the lake, and squirrels chattered in nearby trees. Ignoring both, Eleanor kept her eyes closed and focused on bringing the girl’s image into her mind again. This time it wasn’t so blurry. She suddenly realized why the young woman had looked so familiar. She looked similar to how Eleanor herself had looked when she’d had that portrait painted.
As recognition slipped into her mind, she heard Angus’s voice.
Her name is Nell, and like her sisters, she believes in the legendary power of the stones enough to put all her dreams and goals in them. She’s a storyteller, like you. You’ll know where to bury the necklace, Ellie. And you’ll know how to make sure that she finds it. If you trust me, Ellie, the Stuart sapphires will at last find their way home.
He’d never left it up to her before. But he was trusting her, similar to how he’d asked her to trust him all those years ago, when they’d run away together.
Suddenly Eleanor knew exactly what to do so that the girl she was picturing would find the necklace and make everything right. Eleanor fetched her sketchbook from the easel and began to draw.
1
Washington, D.C., present day
“I LOVED YOUR BOOK.”
Those words were music to any writer’s ears, and Nell MacPherson never tired of hearing them. She beamed a smile at the little girl standing in front of her table. “I’m so glad you did.”
She took the copy of It’s All Good the little girl held out to her and opened it to the title page. Her reading and signing at Pages, the bookstore—down the street from her sister Piper’s Georgetown apartment—had run overtime. At one point, the line had spilled out into the street. The store’s manager was thrilled, but Piper—who’d taken an extended morning break to attend—had glanced at her watch twice in the past fifteen minutes. She probably needed to head back to the office.
“What’s your name?” Nell asked the little girl.
“Lissa. But I wish it was Ellie like the character in your book. Mommy says I look like her, but you do, too.”
Lissa was right on both counts, Nell thought. They both had Eleanor Campbell MacPherson’s long blond hair and blue eyes.
“Mommy and I did some research. You’re Ellie’s great-great-great...” Lissa trailed off to glance up at her mother. “I forgot how many greats.”
“Way too many,” Nell said as she autographed the book. “I always say I’m Ellie and Angus’s several-times-great-granddaughter.”
“Did Ellie really draw all the pretty pictures for your story?”
“Yes. She was a talented artist. Every one of the illustrations came from her sketchbooks.”
“And you live in her castle in New York,” Lissa said.
“I grew up there, and I’m going back for a while to finish up another book.” That hadn’t been her original plan. The federal grant had given her a taste of what it was like to be totally independent, allowing her to travel across the country giving writing workshops to young children in inner city schools. For someone who’d been hovered over by a loving and overprotective family all her life, the past year had been a heady experience—one that she intended to build on.
But her sisters’ recent adventures on the castle grounds—leading to the discovery of part of Eleanor Campbell’s long-missing dowry—had caused Nell to question her plan of finding an apartment in New York City and finishing her second book there. Each of her siblings had discovered one of Eleanor’s sapphire earrings. So wasn’t it Nell’s turn to find the necklace? Not that anyone in her family had suggested it. They had assumed she was returning home to settle in and take the teaching job that nearby Huntleigh College had offered her. But a week ago an anonymous letter had been delivered to her while she was teaching her last set of workshops in Louisville. The sender had used those exact words: It’s your turn. Nell had known then that she had to return to the castle and find the rest of Eleanor’s sapphires.
“Are you going to fall in love and kiss him beneath the stone arch that Angus built for Ellie?”
Nell reined in her thoughts.
“Lissa.” The pretty woman standing behind the little girl put a hand on her shoulder and sent Nell an apologetic smile. “Thank Ms. MacPherson for signing your book.”
“Thank you, Ms. MacPherson.”
“Thank you for coming today, Lissa.” Nell leaned a little closer. “Lots of people have kissed their true loves beneath that stone arch. My eldest sister, Adair, has recently become engaged to a man she kissed there. Cam Sutherland, a CIA agent. He’s very handsome. And my aunt Vi is going to marry Cam’s boss.” Then she pointed to Piper who was standing near the door. “See that pretty woman over there?”
Lissa nodded.
“That’s my other sister, Piper. She’s a defense attorney here in D.C., and she just kissed her true love, FBI agent Duncan Sutherland, beneath the stone arch two weeks ago.”
Lissa’s eyes went wide. “And now they’ll all live happily ever after, right?”
“That’s the plan. In the meantime, my sister Adair and my aunt Vi are turning Castle MacPherson into a very popular place to fall