Читать книгу No Desire Denied - Cara Summers - Страница 7

Prologue

Glen Loch, New York, summer 1812

ELEANOR CAMPBELL MACPHERSON sat in the gazebo that her late husband, Angus, had built for her and frowned at the sketch on her easel. This had always been her favorite place on the castle grounds to draw and to think. But today neither was going well. The story she was telling in the picture wasn’t completed and neither was her mission.

Since his death a year ago, Angus had been visiting her in dreams and sending her visions that were helping her to right an old wrong. But for the last two months, the dreams hadn’t been so clear. And she was anxious to finish. Wasn’t she?

Or was she afraid that, once she buried the last of the Stuart sapphires, Angus would be lost to her forever?

When the pain around her heart tightened at the thought, she set down her pencils and walked over to sit on the stone steps that led into the garden. She missed him so much, and there wasn’t anyplace on the castle grounds she could go that didn’t bring back memories.

The gazebo had originally been her idea. She and Angus had chosen the spot for it together, because it offered views of the lake, as well as the castle and the stone arch, both of which he’d built to fulfill his promises to her. Of course, Angus, impulsive as always, had designed the gazebo and started construction immediately. He’d used stones for the foundation and chosen the sturdiest of woods for the benches, the railing and the roof. It had been his gift to her on their first anniversary.

Looking out on everything that Angus had built for her and everything that they’d created together, she recalled that long-ago day when the castle had still been under construction and the gardens had been in their infancy. It was their anniversary, and they’d placed the last stones in the arch together, stones that Angus had brought with him to the New World when he’d stolen her away from her home in Scotland.

He’d built the arch in a clearing at the far end of the gardens, just before the land sloped sharply upward into the mountains. It was almost an exact replica of the stone arch that had stood for hundreds of years in the gardens of the Campbell estate in Scotland. According to the legend that her mother and two older sisters had told her, the stone arch had the power from ancient times to unite true lovers. All you had to do was kiss your lover beneath the arch, and that was it. A happy ever after was guaranteed.

Well, she’d certainly kissed Angus many times beneath it. And she’d never forget the night she’d met him there for the last time. Having been promised to another man, she’d snuck out of the ball celebrating the engagement. She had been wearing her fiancé’s gift to her—a sapphire necklace and earring set that had been bequeathed to his family for service to the Scottish court. Mary Stuart had worn the jewels at her coronation, and Eleanor’s husband-to-be had insisted that she wear them at the ball as a display of his love for her.

With a smile, Eleanor recalled how fast her heart had been beating when she’d raced through the gardens to say a final goodbye to Angus. There could be no future for them, because she had to honor the arrangement her parents had made. Plus Angus’s family and hers had been blood enemies for years. But before she could say a word, Angus had kissed her.

Even when she’d tried to say no, he hadn’t listened. Impatient, impetuous and irresistible, Angus had simply swept her away.

Exactly what she’d wanted him to do.

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.