The Secret of the Glen Read online

  The Duke did not cry out, only his mouth opened almost ludicrously as the force of the blow sent him reeling backwards. Then there was the sound of his body rolling down the stairs.

  The Marquis laughed and shut the tower door again. For a moment Leona could hardly believe what she had seen.

  The horror of the claymore entering the Duke’s chest, the blood she could now see on the blade, the manner in which the old man had fallen down the stairs were all too incredible for her to believe it had all actually occurred.

  Then, as she put both hands up to her cheeks staring at the Marquis with terrified eyes, he pushed a heavy iron bolt at the top of the door into place.

  “Alone – with – pretty – Leona,” he said happily.

  Now there was a look in his eyes that frightened her more than any expression she had seen on his face before.

  She tried to think coherently, but it was impossible.

  She looked at the sword and the Duke’s blood on the tip of the blade and felt she must faint.

  “Throw away the sword, Euan – throw it – away!” she pleaded. “It is – ugly! Throw it away!”

  He seemed to understand what she was saying for after a moment he replied,

  “Ugly – too – ugly – for – pretty – Leona.”

  “Yes, that is right,” Leona answered. “Ugly!”

  It seemed that he wished to please her for he walked across the roof to stand looking over the battlements down into the courtyard below.

  Leona had not moved, but now she heard voices and she recognised one as being that of Dr. Bronson.

  “Come down, my Lord! I want to talk to you,” Dr. Bronson shouted. “It’s time for your breakfast. Come to me and we will have it together.”

  The Marquis was still looking down and now Leona moved over to the battlements.

  Below, a long way down, because the tower was high, she could see Dr. Bronson and with him were a number of servants including the Major Domo.

  She had hoped to see Lord Strathcairn, but he was not there.

  “Come down, my Lord! You know what you are doing is wrong. Come down!”

  Again Dr. Bronson was reasoning with his patient and Leona glanced at the Marquis to see if there was any response.

  She saw there was an almost mischievous smile on his thick lips as, leaning over the battlements, he threw the claymore directly at the doctor!

  Doctor Bronson moved just in time and the sword missed him by a hair’s breadth. As he jumped out of the way, the Marquis laughed a loud unrestrained laugh.

  “Dead! All – dead!” he chortled happily and moved towards Leona.

  She tried to escape him, but he caught her easily.

  Now once again he held her suffocatingly close, his arms entwined about her and it was impossible to move.

  “Leona – pretty – Leona!” he said in a thick voice. “Mine! Mine!”

  She anticipated what he was about to do and buried her face in his shoulder.

  But she could feel his mouth against her hair and the horror of it made her feel as if she must die from the terror which seemed to strike at her as effectively as any claymore.

  “Leona – pretty – Leona!” the Marquis was saying again.

  Now there was a rising excitement in his voice that was unmistakable and Leona felt as if the bear-like grip with which he enfolded her might break her ribs.

  He was nuzzling her hair and, because even his chin had a strength that was irresistible, he was pushing her head back from his shoulder and she felt his lips on her forehead.

  She screamed and as she did so she heard a voice behind them say,

  “Stop! Stop that immediately!”

  The voice was so commanding that the Marquis loosened his grip as he turned his head and Leona could now see Lord Strathcairn climbing over the battlement.

  She realised that he must have climbed up the outside of the tower.

  She was aware of the danger and that he had risked his life even as he stepped safely onto the roof to walk towards them.

  She felt the Marquis tense his muscles.

  She knew that he was about to spring on Lord Strathcaim, perhaps to hurl him, as he had hurled the claymore, from the top of the tower.

  “Be careful! Be careful!” she screamed.

  As if he too realised the danger, Lord Strathcairn pulled the skean dhu from the top of his stocking and, taking the dagger in his right hand, moved forward with the blade pointing at the Marquis.

  “Let her go!” he said commandingly and, astonishingly, the Marquis obeyed.

  Leona felt him take his arms from her. Then she saw that he was gazing at the naked blade of the skean dhu with something like terror in his eyes.

  “No – more – hurt,” he stammered with a sudden change in the tone of his voice. “Not – hurt – too – much – pain! Go – away!”

  Still pointing the blade at him, Lord Strathcairn moved slowly nearer and nearer until, with a convulsive movement, Leona could reach out and take his free hand. As she did so, the Marquis backed even further away, his eyes still held as if mesmerised by the sharp blade of the dagger glinting in the sunshine.

  He retreated step by step.

  Then, just as Lord Strathcairn realised what was happening and lowered the point of the skean dhu, the Marquis reached the side of the tower.

  He was bending backwards and was now standing at a place where the crenellation was low.

  His feet may have slipped or perhaps it was his huge ungainly body that unbalanced him, but whatever the reason, as Leona watched paralysed with horror, he fell backwards.

  His arms shot out and for a moment he seemed to be suspended like a great bird of prey against the sky. Then he vanished from sight.

  It was impossible to scream, impossible to breathe – she only knew that the world had gone dark –

  *

  Leona came back to consciousness to find herself being carried by arms, which gave her a sense of security and an inescapable happiness.

  For a moment she could remember nothing except that she was where she wanted to be.

  Then, as they reached the last step of the tower, she could see the walls of the corridor and hear the voices and footsteps hurrying up the stairs.

  “Brandy!” Lord Strathcairn ordered sharply above her head.

  Holding her against his chest, he carried her into the Duke’s room and set her down gently on the sofa.

  He would have taken his arms from her, but she clung to him.

  “It is all right, my darling,” he said. “It is all over now.”

  She murmured something incoherent and he went down on his knees beside the sofa to hold her against him so that she could hide her face.

  With his free hand he swept back her hair.

  “You are safe,” he reassured her.

  The servants must have brought the brandy he ordered, for now he held a glass to her lips.

  “Drink it, my precious,” he urged gently.

  As she did so, she remembered how the Duke had given her brandy the night before.

  She felt the fiery spirit reviving her and then asked hesitatingly,

  “Is the – Duke – dead?”

  Lord Strathcairn must have looked enquiringly at the Major Domo, who stood beside them as the man answered,

  “I’m afraid so, my Lord. Twas not only the wound in his chest, but His Grace also fell a long way down the stone stairs.”

  Leona tried to repress a feeling of relief.

  She could still see the almost ludicrous expression of astonishment on the old man’s face when his son struck at him. She wondered if ever again life could be normal and ordinary after such terrible things had occurred.

  As if he understood what she was feeling, Lord Strathcairn said,

  “Do you feel well enough for me to take you away from here? I have the idea you do not wish to stay.”

  “P-please – take me away – please!” Leona begged.

  He rose from the side of the s
ofa.

  “I am taking Miss Grenville back to Cairn Castle,” he said to the Major Domo. “I shall ride over the moor because it is quicker. Have everything she possesses packed and sent immediately by road.”

  “That’ll be done, my Lord.”

  There was no mistaking the respectful note in the Major Domo’s voice.

  Lord Strathcairn bent down and, picking Leona up in his arms, he carried her down the stairs into the big entrance hall.

  She shut her eyes not only because she wished never to see Ardness Castle again, but also for fear of what else she might see.

  Perhaps the Duke’s dead body or perhaps that of his son?

  Without speaking Lord Strathcairn set her on his horse that was waiting outside the front door and sprang up behind her as he had done the first day they met.

  They moved off, the Major Domo and the servants watching them leave in silence. Then, after they had proceeded down the drive, Lord Strathcairn turned towards the moors.

  It was only when Leona felt that the shadow of The Castle was no longer over them that she raised her head a little to look up at him.

  She could see the squareness of his chin and she thought, as she had done before, that there was a faint smile on his lips.

  They were moving slowly up the sharp incline and, when they had nearly reached the top, Leona asked,

  “How could you have – climbed the tower?”

  “I told you that I would protect you, even if it meant climbing into the sky or down into the bowels of the earth.” “You – might have – killed yourself.”

  “But I am safe and so, my darling one, are you.”

  There was silence until Leona said in a very small voice, “I was – coming to Cairn Castle this morning to ask you to – lend me enough money so that I – could go – home.” “Is that what you wish to do?”

  “There is – nothing else I – can do!”

  “I thought we might be married this evening.”

  He felt her stiffen in his arms and then she said hardly above a whisper,

  “The Duke – told me you had a – wife!”

  For a moment Lord Strathcairn did not reply. Then he asked,

  “You believed him?”

  “He – said you were – married to an – actress.”

  “I thought you loved me.”

  “I do!” Leona answered before she could stop herself. “I love you, but – ”

  Her voice died away.

  “But you were prepared to credit that I would say what I did to you, that I would hold you in my arms and kiss you, when I had no right to do so?”

  She drew in her breath.

  Something glorious and wonderful was sweeping away the frozen misery that had encompassed her heart.

  “It is – not true?” she questioned, her eyes raised to his.

  “I believed you trusted me.”

  “I wanted to – I longed to – but – but you never asked me to – marry you.”

  “I thought you understood that there was no other possibility in the world for either of us.”

  “Then – what the Duke said was – a lie!”

  “A lie, my darling,” Lord Strathcairn replied, “but, like many falsehoods, it had a slight foundation of truth about it, which I presume makes it excusable in the circumstances.”

  “I thought it was – true.”

  “I would have told you, if it had even crossed my mind that the past would rise to disturb you.”

  He paused to look down at her.

  “It did disturb you?”

  Her eyes looked into his beseechingly.

  “I thought – everything I had – believed in had been – smashed and – shattered,” she murmured.

  “I should have felt the same,” Lord Strathcairn said.

  “I wanted to – believe in your – love,” Leona said, “but the Duke was so – positive and I thought perhaps, as you had not asked me to – marry you – it was because you – could not do so.”

  “From the moment I saw you,” Lord Strathcairn replied, “I knew that you belonged to me and that I had been waiting for you. I would have told you that very first night when we dined together what you meant to me, but I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?” Leona questioned.

  He drew a deep breath.

  They had reached the top of the hill and now he pulled his horse to a standstill beside the Cairn and looked out over the moors ahead of them to where the loch lay golden in the sunshine with Cairn Castle rising above it.

  “When I was very young and still at Oxford,” he said quietly, “I fell in love, not with a play-actress, but with a concert singer who had a very beautiful voice. She was older than I was, but I believed she loved me. She told me she did and I brought her home to Cairn Castle.”

  Leona felt a pang of jealousy, but she waited, her eyes on Lord Strathcairn’s face as he went on,

  “I told my family and everyone that we were engaged and Isobel seemed delighted with my home and my people.”

  His lips tightened and Leona thought that there was a note of cynicism in his voice as he continued,

  “I was very young and very gullible. I found that, while Isobel might have married me, she found the gaiety and amusement of the South irresistible. She had no intention of settling down in an obscure Scottish castle with no audience except her husband.”

  Leona made a little movement, but she did not speak. She felt that there was nothing she could say.

  “I took her back to the world to which she belonged,” Lord Strathcairn went on. “But, because I was young and proud, I did not admit to anyone, not even to my father, that the engagement was broken off.”

  He looked down at Leona and smiled.

  “It now seems ridiculous and foolish that my pride could have hurt you, my precious one.”

  “But why did the Duke think that you were married?” Leona asked.

  “I think a great many people thought that. They imagined that I had married Isobel in the South, but that her profession prevented her from coming North. Because I would not admit the truth, I never denied the rumours that we were man and wife.”

  He gave a little laugh.

  “Perhaps I felt at the time that they protected me from being pursued as a bachelor. Whatever it was, I let the gossips have their way and now I am punished by knowing that entirely through such stupidity I hurt you.”

  “I meant – never to – see you – again,” Leona whispered.

  “Do you think I would have allowed you to escape me?” Lord Strathcairn enquired. “I was coming to Ardness Castle today to tell the Duke that I intended to marry you and, if he refused, to ask you to run away with me.’

  “You know I would have done so,” Leona breathed her eyes shining.

  Then she added a little doubtfully,

  “If it had been possible! I have a – feeling the Duke would have – prevented it somehow.”

  “That is something he cannot do now. We will be married this evening and then nothing and no one can ever come between us.”

  “You are quite certain you – want me?” Leona asked.

  He looked into her eyes and she felt a little quiver go through her because of the fire in his.

  Then his lips were on hers and she knew that once again he was arousing in her the ecstasy and the wonder she had felt when he first kissed her in the cave.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Leona vaguely heard people moving in the room and felt as if she came back to consciousness through layers and layers of soft cloud.

  Then with a start she realised that she was at Cairn Castle.

  She was safe and she was to marry Lord Strathcairn!

  The knowledge flooded over her like sunshine and she opened her eyes to see Mrs. McCray and the maids bringing in the bath to set it down in front of the fire.

  It seemed as if centuries of time had passed since the morning when they had arrived here.

  Only as Lord Strathcairn lifted her down from the horse�
��s back did she realise how tired she was.

  The fact that she had slept only for a short time the night before, the terror that had driven her to the cavern behind the cascade and the horror she had experienced when the Marquis carried her to the top of the tower had left her physically depleted.

  At the same time, in her exhaustion her brain kept questioning if the horror was really over and she need no longer be afraid.

  As if he understood what she was feeling, Lord Strathcairn had swept her up into his arms and carried her up the staircase, as he had done the first time she had come to Cairn Castle.

  “I want you to go to sleep, my darling,” he said gently. “I want you to remember nothing, to think of nothing, except that I love you!”

  He carried her into a bedroom and Mrs. McCray and Maggy had come running to help her undress.

  Almost before Leona’s head was on the pillow she was asleep.

  Now she knew she must have slept away all the hours of the day and, though she felt refreshed, she regretted that she had wasted so much time in sleeping when she might have been with Lord Strathcairn.

  Then she remembered!

  He had said they were to be married that evening and, at the thought of it, she sat up quickly in bed.

  “Ye’re awake, miss,” Mrs. McCray said in the warm tone that Leona remembered so well. “Your gowns have arrived and we’ve unpacked them. Maggy and Janet will bring them in when ye’ve bathed.”

  Maggy left the room and Mrs. McCray came nearer to the bed to say, “I’ve a message from the Laird for ye, miss.”

  “What is it?” Leona asked.

  “The Laird says that if ye dinna wish to be married in you gowns ye’ve brought with ye from Ardness, I was to suggest that ye might wish to see the weddin’ gowns that are kept here in The Castle.”

  “Wedding gowns?” Leona exclaimed.

  “Aye, miss,” Mrs. McCray replied. “It’s been the tradition for many generations that the weddin’ gown of every Chieftain’s wife should be preserved. There are a number of them kept in a special room where I care for them and see they’re not damaged by the moth.”

  Leona was still for a moment.

  She knew, now she thought of it, that she could not bear to marry Lord Strathcairn in a gown that had been paid for by the Duke.