A Heart of Stone Read online

  He laughed and they walked inside together.

  It was just as she had remembered it, perhaps just a little more austere and lacking in the feminine touch her mother had always given it.

  They went up the stairs to the drawing room which as usual in Scotland was on the first floor.

  Tea was waiting for her by the fireside and she poured out a cup for her brother.

  “Now tell me what is happening?” she asked him. “The way you wrote made me very apprehensive in case something terrible has overcome you.”

  “Nothing bad,” he replied, “but I need your help.”

  “Of course I will do anything I can, Ewen.”

  She nearly added that it had better be something very important as her uncle was annoyed that she should be leaving him when he had not yet finished his book.

  Now, as she was waiting for her brother to speak, she was aware that he was looking a little strange.

  It was as if he found it difficult to tell her what was on his mind.

  “Come on, Ewen,” she urged, “what is the secret? Are you to be married or something equally dramatic?”

  “No, nothing like that and I have no intention of getting married or of producing an heir until I have set my people back in the place they are entitled to.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked.

  “I mean to make the McKyles as significant as they surely were in my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s day. That, as you know, was before we were humiliated by the Earl of Glenfile.”

  Vanora sighed.

  “Oh, not that old story again, Ewen! I am sick and tired of hearing how he beat us up. If you ask my opinion, I think he had good reason to do so. From what I heard, the McKyles were stealing his sheep!”

  “I don’t know who you have been listening to,” her brother said sharply, “but that is a lie that I am determined to rebut. Now the first thing I want back is our Stone.”

  Vanora stared at him.

  “Our Stone!” she exclaimed.

  She had heard the story so often, but had never thought it of any great consequence.

  When the MacFiles had defeated the McKyles, the Earl had taken away from them the Stone the Chieftain of the Clan was always seated on to be proclaimed Chieftain.

  The McKyles had adopted the old custom set by the ‘Stone of Scone’ on which all the Scottish Kings were crowned until it was removed to Westminster Abbey by Edward I.

  During her researches for her uncle, Vanora had been interested in the stories about the Stone of Scone.

  She had learned that in accordance with the custom of his ancestors, the King of Scotland was not crowned at the beginning of his reign and he was later ‘set upon the Stone’ which was at Scone.

  The Stone was alleged to have accompanied the Scots on their mythical journeying and it had a great appeal to them with their inborn fey and vivid imagination.

  The old Stone of Scone foretold that ‘wherever the Stone should rest a King of Scots would reign.’

  After the stories about the Stone and the very strong feelings the Scots had for it, she found one aspect rather disappointing.

  It was to learn that the Stone in Westminster Abbey was of a coarse-grained sandstone, fitted at each side with iron staples and rings for carrying it, although these might have been added by Edward I.

  The McKyle Stone, that had been with the Clan all down the centuries, was of marble.

  It was not very deep, but was wide enough to be set on the chair on which the Chieftain sat when he received the loyal allegiance of his people.

  One by one the members of the Clan approached him dressed in his great finery as Chieftain. They knelt before him and kissed the ring on his left hand and then they swore obedience to him in life and in death.

  Vanora thought it sad that she had not been present when Ewen had taken his father’s place.

  It was obvious, she now remembered, that it had been impossible for him to sit on the Stone as the Earl of Glenfile had taken it away when he defeated the McKyles.

  “In future,” he had said spitefully, “your Chieftain will never again have the authority you have given him, as he cannot accept it sitting on the Stone which is his throne. So he will not have the blessing of other Chieftains as he has lost what is, to all intents and purposes, his crown.”

  Vanora had always thought it was unkind of him to rub in so unpleasantly the fact that he had been victorious.

  But what was done was done and surely it was no use Ewen thinking now that he could take it back.

  As if he followed her thoughts, Ewen said,

  “Do you think I am not aware when I go amongst other Chieftains that they are sniggering at me because I lost the Stone that gave my ancestors the esteem they were held in all over Scotland?”

  “Surely they have stopped thinking about it after so many years,” Vanora said. “Besides most Chieftains don’t have a Stone or anything like it.”

  “Which is why they are not as important as we were before Glenfile stole it from us.”

  The way Ewen spoke told her all too clearly that the Stone meant as much to him as it had to their father.

  Her mother had always told her how bitterly her father had resented the Earl stealing the Stone from them.

  Aloud Vanora said,

  “It has gone, Ewen, and there is nothing we can do to take it back. It would most certainly be a mistake to challenge the new Earl in any way.”

  She had learned when she was in England that the old Earl was dead and that his son, Viscount File, was now the tenth Earl of Glenfile.

  She had been interested as he was their neighbour and she had learned from the newspapers that he had been educated in Edinburgh and had then gone on to Oxford.

  Since he had grown up, much of his time had been spent in England.

  He had joined up with the Regiment of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, but, when the war with the French was over, he was not sent abroad.

  Vanora had seen his name in The Court Circular, which reported all the smart balls and Receptions given by the King and the fashionable hostesses in London.

  Then when he had come into his father’s title, there was a certain amount written about him in the newspapers.

  It seemed, she thought, rather unnecessary, but, if Ewen was determined to beg the new Earl to return the Stone, nothing would stop him.

  “What are you going to do,” she asked, “if the Earl refuses to give you back the Stone when you ask for it?”

  Her brother stared at her.

  “You don’t really think,” he said, “that I intend to go down on my knees and ask the Earl to snub me, as he would undoubtedly do?”

  Vanora looked surprised.

  “So, if you are not going to ask him for the Stone, how do you intend to get it back?”

  “That is where you come in, Vanora.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “That is why I have brought you back here, my dear sister, to tell you what I want you to do.”

  Vanora looked at him apprehensively.

  She knew that her brother had always had a very strong will. In fact her mother had often said that it was impossible to restrain him from doing what he wanted.

  There was a determination about him that was good in a Clan Chieftain, but it did not, Vanora mused, make him easy to live with.

  If Ewen wanted something, he demanded it and it was very difficult to refuse him.

  “What I have already done,” Ewen said, “is to send particulars of you to his Lordship.”

  “Particulars of me! What have you done that for?”

  “I discovered that they are looking for a librarian and are intending to advertise for one in the newspapers.”

  “A librarian? You cannot be suggesting – ”

  “That is just what I am suggesting,” he interrupted. “But you will not go to their castle as Vanora McKyle, because in the first place the Earl would not have you and, in the secon
d, I have no wish for anyone to know what we are doing.”

  “Are you seriously proposing that I should become a librarian to the Earl? For what reason?

  “That is the first sensible thing you have said so far,” her brother replied. “The reason, my dear sister, is obvious. You will find and bring back here the Stone of the McKyles and it will once more be in our possession.”

  Vanora drew in her breath.

  “But I could not do it,” she retorted. “I have no intention of stealing anything from anyone.”

  “It is not stealing, it is taking back what belongs to us in the first place. No one could ever pretend for a second that the Stone, which has been in the possession of the McKyles for four hundred years could belong to the MacFiles or was stolen unlawfully, in fact it was a criminal offence.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Vanora insisted. “If I bring it back for you, provided I am not caught and imprisoned as a thief, you will have behaved no better than the Earl did in the first place in taking it from us.”

  Ewen’s lips tightened.

  “I have every intention of taking what is mine. It is something I need myself and wish to leave it for my heirs so that they will use it and in turn the next generations will do so into infinity.”

  “That sounds very like you,” Vanora said. “At the same time it is something I cannot do for you. I am sorry Ewen, but you have brought me back here under false pretences.”

  There was silence before her brother asserted,

  “You will do what I tell you, because I am your Chieftain. If you refuse, I will exile you from the Clan.”

  Vanora stared at him.

  She could not believe what she had just heard.

  She had once, seven years ago, seen a man exiled from the Clan after her father had warned him again and again to behave himself.

  Then he had been found raping a woman who was too weak to resist him and she was the wife of another Clansman.

  He had been exiled in front of the whole Clan and Vanora would never forget the look of despair on his face even though he was debauched. He had turned and walked away, knowing he had to leave McKyle land before dark.

  She had not understood at the time exactly what the man had done and she was too young and innocent to be informed. But she had felt worried for him, although she knew that what he had done must have been very wrong.

  She realised that she just could not face it if Ewen carried out his threat to banish her publicly.

  “You are trying to intimidate me,” she said, “and I refuse to be intimidated.”

  “You must obey me, Vanora, and I am not speaking lightly when say that, if you don’t, I shall punish you.”

  “How can I possibly do what you ask, Ewen?”

  “It will be quite simple and, of course, I shall help you in every possible way.”

  She did not speak and he went on,

  “So you will go to Killdona Castle tomorrow. The Earl has already received all your particulars and a strong recommendation of how experienced you are as a librarian, signed by your uncle.”

  “How could you have that?” Vanora asked.

  “I fortunately have letters from our uncle and so I was able to copy his signature quite easily,” Ewen replied. “And I think you will be quite impressed by what he says about you. After all he has always praised you in every letter he has written to me and found you indispensable.”

  That was true and Vanora could not deny it.

  Then she asked,

  “If, purely because I cannot help it, I apply for this position and get it, what am I to do?”

  “You will find out first where the Stone is kept. I have a suspicion that it is on show, so that visitors can see how clever the late Earl was in defeating our people and humiliating them.”

  There was a note in his voice that told her only too clearly how much this affected him.

  She wanted to scream that she could not do such a thing and if necessary she would go down on her knees to beg Ewen not to make her do it.

  Yet she knew quite well that it was useless and he was not going to listen to anything she said.

  Having made up his mind, as he had done all his life, he would surely get his own way.

  Quickly, because it was the first thing that came into her head, she said,

  “Will the Earl not think it strange that someone from this Clan, who he knows hates him, is applying for a position at Killdona Castle?”

  Ewen gave a laugh that had no humour in it.

  “Surely you don’t think me as stupid as all that? Of course you will not go as yourself. You will go as a young woman from England, who has friends in Scotland with whom she is staying.”

  He paused before he went on,

  “When she saw the advertisement in the newspaper, she thought it might be more interesting than the work she was doing at the moment.”

  Vanora did not reply and he went on proudly,

  “I have covered my tracks very carefully, or rather your tracks. I wrote to the Earl from a hotel in Edinburgh when I was there a week or so ago. I managed to erase a few words you had written on your uncle’s writing paper when you had sent me a book. So your reference is on Lord Blairmond’s writing paper and signed by him.”

  Vanora did not know what to say. She only knew that every instinct in her body cried out at having to act out such a deception.

  How could she do anything so difficult as to steal back the Stone of the McKiles?

  She could not, however, pretend not to realise how much it meant to her brother, just as it had to her father.

  It was a treasure they revered and to them it was more precious than anything else they owned.

  “If I do this,” she said after what seemed a long and poignant silence, “how can I take it away from Killdona Castle?”

  “I promise you that I have thought out every danger and every trap that you might fall into by mistake. Once you are inside The Castle, I will have a man pick up any information you may wish to send me from a place on the edge of the garden.”

  Vanora gave a little shiver as it all seemed to her very frightening.

  “Maybe his Lordship will not engage me – ”

  She knew as she spoke that it was something she was praying would happen.

  Her brother smiled a little unpleasantly.

  “He has already asked you to go for an interview tomorrow afternoon.”

  “If he did not send the letter here, where did he send it?” Vanora quizzed him.

  “You are supposed to be staying with some friends of mine, the Rosses,” Ewen replied. “As you know, they are not of our Clan, but they have always lived in the house on the side of the hill.”

  “Have you told them what I am doing?”

  “No, of course not,” he said scornfully. “I am not as stupid as that. I have only told them that there will be a letter addressed to Miss Bruce who is staying with us, but did not wish the Earl to be aware of it, knowing the feud between us.”

  Vanora could not help thinking it was rather clever of him, but she had no intention of saying so.

  She merely rose and walked to the window.

  She gazed out at the garden sloping down through the trees to the river and there was also a wonderful view of the hills rising on the other side of the Strath.

  It all seemed so beautiful and so peaceful and she could hardly imagine how she could have possibly stepped into what seemed to her a hornet’s nest.

  Her brother drew a letter from his pocket.

  “This is from his Lordship’s secretary. He thanks you for your letter and says his Lordship will be pleased to see you at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What am I to say to him?” Vanora asked.

  “Very little,” her brother replied. “I have already given him a most graphic account of your experience in London and your uncle has written effusively as to how clever you are and how brilliantly you have attended to his library.”

  “As
the Earl has just come into the title,” Vanora suggested in a last desperate effort to save herself, “surely it would be worthwhile to ask him first if he would let bygones be bygones. He might easily give you back the Stone without all this fuss and commotion about it.”

  “And if he refuses, as doubtless he would, we would never have another chance like this. He would be suspicious of anyone who attempted to gain access to his castle, however well-disguised.”

  He walked towards her before he added,

  “And I am certain that, like his father, he wants to keep the McKyles crushed under his feet and admitting his supremacy.”

  Vanora heard the bitterness in her brother’s voice ring out like the sharpness of a knife.

  She realised then that there was nothing more she could do to save herself.

  She must do as he demanded or run away.

  But, even as she thought about it, she knew how difficult it would be to leave without him being aware of it.

  She had actually asked the Captain of the ship that had brought her from Edinburgh how often he put into Aulaypool and he had replied that he would be coming back in a week’s time.

  ‘I can hardly walk out without being caught and brought back,’ Vanora thought.

  As if Ewen knew what she was thinking, he said,

  “Cheer up, Vanora, you are quite intelligent enough to do this for me without hurting yourself or anyone else. After all you are a McKyle and you don’t enjoy knowing that the MacFiles are laughing at us and our discomfort?”

  His voice sharpened as he added,

  “They are very well aware that we are still suffering from the battle that we fought and lost so many years ago.”

  “Does it really affect the Clan?” she asked.

  “Of course it does. You know them as well as I do. They want to hold their heads high and they want to be, if not superior to, then at least the equal of every other Clan in Scotland.”

  He threw up his hands as he declared,

  “But here on their doorstep are their conquerors and I cannot imagine that any McKyle sees a MacFile without feeling embarrassed and humiliated by him.

  There was nothing more Vanora could say. She knew that it was what her brother believed, even though it all seemed a little far-fetched.