Out of the Mist by Joann Ross

Author:Joann Ross [Ross, JoAnn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, General
ISBN: 9780743476027
Google: RcW_nWpbjZcC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2003-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Scotland, 1819

Major Campbell of Bragleen was dead. He'd been piped to his heavenly reward only hours earlier during a drenching rain, and now stories of his exploits—many true, equally as many exaggerated—were being exchanged by clan members in the drawing room. Wanting a bit of privacy to read the letter the major's solicitor had given him, General Duncan Campbell of Lochnell, trustee of the major's estate, escaped to the library.

The letter was brief and to the point, directing the general to a locked chest that had been sitting in the corner of the room beside the statue of The Bruce for as long as the general had been visiting Bragleen House.

Unfortunately, the note didn't mention where he would find the key. Fortunately, all the moist sea air and rain had rusted the lock, making it relatively easy to pry open with a letter opener.

"Bloody hell." The general didn't need to read the papers in the chest to know what he was looking at. The silver Brooch of Lorn, with its crystal center surrounded by pearls, was not just a vivid part of Scottish history, taught in every classroom across the country. It was part of his own Campbell clan's history as well, having supposedly disappeared after it had been taken in a raid on Gylen Castle two centuries ago.

The general's knees were shaking and his hands trembling as he poured a glass of the major's single malt Oban whisky. The whisky warmed his mouth and burned his throat, leaving behind a hint of peat and the taste of the sea from the salt water used in the distilling.

After tossing back the first glass, he poured a second, and sat down in the big leather chair behind the desk. Whisky in one hand, the brooch, which seemed to be warming his palm, in the other, he pondered his options beneath the unblinking marble eyes of the stag heads hung on the walls by previous Campbells. The gale blowing in from the icy Atlantic moaned down the chimney like a funeral dirge by a chorus of lost souls, and turned the rain to sleet that slashed wickedly at the tall leaded windows.

A pale white moon had risen high in the night sky and the whisky was a great deal lower in the decanter by the time the general made his decision. There was only one honorable thing to do and the general was, indeed, an honorable man. He'd return the treasure to its rightful owner: clan chief of the MacDougalls.

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