Silence. Blissful, golden silence. Everything had happened so fast! If she’d only had a wee bit of time to consider all the possibilities. But she hadn’t, and not one man had disagreed with her plan. She needed time to think, to reassess, and thank heaven, for the first time since sailing from Lismore, Lottie was alone.
Well...not alone. But quiet.
She sank onto a chair, suddenly aware of the heaviness that pervaded every limb, exhaustion settling in. She crossed her arms on the table, lay her head down on them and closed her eyes...but visions of the day plagued her mind’s eye.
It was a catastrophe—there could be no other word that would adequately describe it. It had really begun a fortnight ago, in the early evening of Sankt Hans, the annual celebration of midsummer. The Livingstone clan had been preparing for a play, one written and produced by Duff. Duff fancied himself quite the actor, and he’d rallied a few members of the clan to join his theatrical troupe. There were six of them set to perform when they heard the warning horn from Old Donnie. He lived on the tip of the island just across the loch from Port Appin, and it was his job to sound the horn if anything or anyone should come to the island.
Everyone had frantically begun to gather up incriminating whisky jugs. “What of the play?” Duff had wailed unhappily.
It just so happened that Lottie’s horse, Stjerne, was still saddled from her participation in the pony races, and when she saw Norval and Bear Livingstone leap to their horses, she joined them. It was the way of things on Lismore—she was always in the thick of things.
She’d not been the least surprised to find Laird Campbell, his periwig tightly curled and overly powdered, skulking among the rabbits. It wasn’t his first attempt to find the stills. Naturally, Mr. Edwin MacColl, the chief of the clan who inhabited what the Livingstones considered to be the good side of their island, would accompany him.
Lottie had always liked Mr. MacColl as long as he stayed on his end of the island. He was a widower, his children grown and married with children of their own. He was older than Lottie’s father, but still had a broad chest and thick, snowy brows that slid up when he smiled wistfully at Lottie as he was wont to do.
But his visits to the north end had become all too frequent of late, and quite recently, he’d suggested to Bernt that Lottie might make him a good wife. “I’ve a nice house for her to keep, plenty of food for the table,” he’d suggested, apparently considering these two facts to be his better points of persuasion.
Lottie had not been surprised by the offer. Frankly, on an island where unmarried lassies were not plentiful, every man seemed to believe himself her perfect match, just as her mother had predicted, God rest her soul.
Her mother had warned Lottie of her allure to males. “You’re a beauty, lass, and men are drawn to beauty to their own detriment like moths to light, aye? You must no’ allow them to turn your head with bonny words and empty promises. You must be diligent in seeking the man who honors you for your heart and no’ your face, then, do you understand me? And beware your own father, lass—aye, he loves you, more than life, he does, but he’s easily persuaded by the promises of others.”
If her mother’s words hadn’t sufficiently cautioned her, Anders Iversen, her one and only lover, had driven her mother’s point home.
Anyway, when Lottie had discovered the laird sneaking about, she’d escorted him to her home and had winced when her father emerged from the house a bit crookedly, a signal that he’d had too much drink.
“Ah, Laird Campbell. Fàilte!” her father said with great congeniality. No matter what trouble, he was always a jolly, carefree man. Lottie had come off her horse and had started inside with the men, but the laird had turned abruptly and said, “If you would, Miss Livingstone, give the men an opportunity to speak plainly. This is no’ the sort of talk appropriate for your ears.”
Lottie had bristled and had opened her mouth to suggest that was for her and her father to determine, but her father had said, “Aye, of course, laird. Lottie, lass, go and...have a look at the celebration, aye?” he’d said, waving his hand rather dismissively at her as he’d seen the laird inside.
An interminable amount of time seemed to have passed before the laird and Mr. MacColl finally emerged from the house, bid her good day—Mr. MacColl with a sheepish smile—and had returned to their boat. Lottie, Duff and Mr. MacLean had gone to her father straightaway to hear the news.
Naturally, her father had been completely unruffled by the laird’s visit. “He came about the rents,” Lottie’s father informed them, then chuckled irreverently as he bent over and reached behind the sideboard and produced a flagon of whisky he’d hidden there.
“I said we donna have what’s owed, no’ yet, but, I says to him, this—” he paused and rapped his knuckles on his head “—is always about its work.”
“Diah,” Lottie groaned.
“And the laird, he said, well has it worked out precisely when the rents will be paid?” Her father laughed as he poured tots of whisky around for them all.
“And?” Lottie pressed him.
“I said we’d have them in a month.”
Lottie’s belly had sunk. A month was bloody well impossible.
Her father had waved his hand at her crestfallen expression. “Calm yourself, Lot. We’ll think of something. Anything will be a wee sight better than what Campbell suggested, aye?”
“What?” she asked. “What did he suggest, then?”
“Och, he believes I ought to consider MacColl’s offer to take my daughter to wife.”
Lottie had gasped. She’d felt a little faint.
“Well of course he did! I’ve the bonniest daughter in all the Highlands, I’ve heard it said more than once. Why, there’s no’ a lad on Lismore who’s no’ pined for her, eh, Robert?”
Mr. MacLean’s face had reddened at once and he’d turned his attention to his tot.
“But as I told the laird, while they’ve all pined for her, she pays none of them any heed at all, on account of her broken heart.”
“Fader!” Lottie exclaimed, and felt the heat of humiliation creeping into her neck. “My heart is no’ broken.”
“The laird insisted I ought to do as MacColl had offered, and give you over as his wife, and in exchange, MacColl would pay our rents and oversee the Livingstones and thereby solve a host of problems from one end of the island to the other.”
“That’s quite a lot of problems,” Duff mused.
“I feel rather ill,” Lottie had said, and had sunk onto the old settee.
“I am an admirer of Edwin MacColl, that I am,” her father had blithely continued. “He’s a right smart fellow, I’ve always said. But I’ve as good a plan as MacColl.” He’d downed his whisky.
The only problem was that when her father had a good plan, disaster almost always loomed. “What plan?” Lottie had asked weakly.
“I’m coming round to that,” he’d said, holding up his hand. “The laird was no’ yet done with me, no,” he’d continued as he poured more whisky for himself, clearly enjoying the retelling of his encounter. “He said I was bloody impractical.”
“He didna,” Mr. MacLean had said flatly, sounding quite offended in spite of the obvious truth in the laird’s statement.
“He mentioned the limestone kilns, and the flax weaving,” her father had said with an airy wave of his hand, as if dismissing those two disastrous endeavors that had each ended badly and at considerable cost to the Livingstones. Bernt Livingstone was a whimsical man, scattered in his thoughts, impractical, and was easily gulled into schemes that fleeced their coffers. Once, when Lottie was a girl, there had been some talk of a new chief.