The Secret of the Glen by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782132158
Publisher: Barbara Cartland EBooks ltd
Published: 2013-02-11T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Every moment that took her nearer to Ardness Castle made Leona feel more and more apprehensive.

At the same time the glow of happiness within her heart made her feel that the whole world vibrated with joy.

‘I love him! I love him!’ she told herself intensely.

With a sudden sense of rapture, she raised her face towards the sky to thank God for having brought Lord Strathcairn into her life.

The wonder of his kiss and the ecstasy of knowing that he loved her made her feel braver than she would otherwise have felt, but at the same time she could not help feeling afraid of what lay ahead.

The Castle was grimmer and more threatening than ever as she crossed the bridge over the river and it loomed high above her. The windows seemed to be eyes looking at her with disapproval.

She was well aware that a feud between Clans was something that could be erased only by blood and even then the hatred would continue century after century, as violent and unrestrained as on the day when it was aroused. But this was not so much a feud between Clans as a personal enmity between two men.

She could imagine how incensed the Duke would have felt at having his actions challenged by somebody as young and, to his mind, as unimportant as Lord Strathcairn.

Yet, man-to-man, Leona thought that Lord Strathcairn shone with the light of an avenging angel, while the Duke was undoubtedly an ogre whom he should vanquish.

‘The Ogre’s Castle!’

The description came to her mind as she dismounted at the great iron-studded door and the grooms took her horse. She walked in to find the Major Domo waiting for her and she had the idea, although she may have imagined it, that he was looking at her in a disapproving manner.

‘What I do is not the business of the servants,’ she told herself proudly and she walked up the stairs with her head held high and her back very straight.

She was well aware that the fact that she had crossed the boundary would already be known in The Castle.

The stalkers would have reported it. The gillies on the river and the keepers on the moors would undoubtedly have watched her and the groom riding up the hill and disappearing when they reached the Cairn.

Such a bit of gossip would have run like wildfire through The Castle and perhaps by now it had even reached the chattering women in the fishing village.

It was easy to understand how fast such a piece of information could travel when one thought of how the Fiery Cross had gathered a Clan when their Chieftain needed them.

Her mother had explained to her how two burnt or burning sticks were tied with a strip of linen that was stained with blood and runners in relays passed the cross from hand to hand.

“One of the last occasions on which it was sent,” Mrs. Grenville said, “was when Lord Glenorchy, son of the Earl of Breadalbane, rallied his father’s people against the Jacobites in 1745.

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