Ghosts of Culloden Moor 29 - Rory (Jones) by L.L. Muir

Author:L.L. Muir [Muir, L.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-03-27T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rory walked beside Lilly across the ragged, unkempt McCallum land, through the stretch of newly cultivated ground where Lilly’s grandfather had once pastured his sheep, and onto what had been his parent’s property; his childhood home. ’Twould have been Rory’s birthright, until uncle Jascol tried to make sure he’d no’ live long enough to claim it.

So dark and overwhelming was Rory’s sense of foreboding at stepping onto the home-place again, it stole his breath and weakened his knees. He glanced at Lilly, hoping she hadn’t seen the sweat he’d no’ be able to explain on such a cold day. If she’d noticed, she gave no indication as she strode purposefully forward with her papers clutched tightly to her chest and her ever-present determination visible on her bonny face.

“Do you think he’ll see us without a big blow-up like we had earlier?” Lilly asked, ducking her head against the loose bits of soil swirling on the wind.

“I’d no’ wager on it.” Rory’s voice was tight, even to his own ears. Coming here was a mistake, but there’d been no deterring her. She was stubborn; this lass he’d come to care so much for, in so short a time. Lilly could frustrate the hide off a mule. And, he conceded, capture the heart of a forsaken ghost.

“I fear ye’ll no’ budge the stone heart of Simon Kintray,” he added. “ ’Tis the soul of a troll, the man possesses, and there’ll be no reasonin’ wi’ him.”

“You can’t know that for sure.” Lilly frowned up at him. “In the face of our claims, he may have rechecked his own deeds and realized his mistake.”

Rory shook his head in wonder. Och, but the woman was obstinate! “Try as ye might, ye canna wish it so, lassie. ’Tis a fight ye have on yer hands, and this,” he waived his hand to indicate their intent to trespass on Kintray land, “is like pokin’ yer dirk into a fresh wound.”

But it was his own wounds that he really feared reopening. Nearly three centuries had not half-healed them.

The Kintray house soon loomed before them. When ’twas the Patterson home, though tiny and sparse in worldly goods, love had filled the stone walls almost to bursting. But that love had died along with Rory’s parents, and Jascol’s meanness drove away all hope of its return. Only bitterness and despair had remained within the walls when Rory was last there, along with Jascol’s growing family, who had resented the crumbs Rory’s extra mouth cost them.

He hardly recognized the place now. ’Twas evident some of the Kintray descendants had, here and there over the years, added on or made improvements to the square stone house Rory had known. Oddly placed juts of timber and stone protruded like ruptures in the wall. The low, haphazard roof made the house appear to huddle on the ground in disgrace. Or mayhap ’twas its history that tainted and shamed it.

“How odd.” Lilly’s confused gaze bounced from house to barn, and back.

“Aye,” Rory agreed. “Odd indeed.

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