Love and the Clans Read online

  He thought that once again they were making it clear that he must be amused now he was at home and it seemed impossible for them to realise that he might prefer being alone with his mother.

  He wanted to concentrate on his fishing rather than to entertain friends in the neighbourhood and he had never thought that any of them were particularly likable.

  He disliked having unfledged young women thrust upon him, but he could see that Mary-Lee was certainly an attractive girl, but he felt certain that she was far too young for him to find he had anything in common with her.

  ‘Except of course,’ a voice inside him murmured almost as if it was speaking into his ear, ‘she is very rich.’

  He was well aware that was the reason the Countess had brought her over the moment she arrived and he was quite certain she had talked it over with his mother before he came home.

  It was obvious to him that they had both decided that he must take a rich wife and the sooner the better.

  *

  The Duke retired to his study which was also his very special library.

  There was another library in the Castle where the family collection of the ancient books of Scotland had been increased by generation after generation.

  But in his own study he kept the most up-to-date and modern books.

  He had them sent to him from Edinburgh as soon as they were published and it was a special extravagance that he would not give up however difficult the money situation might become.

  If he was not actually travelling, he could travel in his mind and he found that books which had recently been published about the Far East particularly appealed to him.

  When he closed his study door and sat down at his desk, he thought to himself that the next time he went away he would go further abroad than he had ever been before.

  ‘Otherwise,’ he mused, ‘I will find myself married sooner rather than later and then it will be impossible for me ever to explore the places I really want to see.’

  He longed to visit Nepal and, if possible, although he had been told over and over again it was somewhere he could never reach, he would love to go to Tibet.

  ‘If I wait much longer,’ he reflected, ‘it will be too late. Undoubtedly I will be trapped into marriage, however much I try to safeguard myself against it.’

  He had not been in his study long before the door opened and the Countess peeped in.

  “I thought you might be here, Alpin,” she blurted out, “and I do want to talk to you.”

  The Duke rose politely to his feet.

  He so wanted to be quiet and alone, but he could hardly be rude to his cousin.

  He knew, despite the fact she was always worrying him to get married, that she was extremely fond of him.

  “I really have some letters to write, Cousin Moira,” he said, “but of course I am delighted to see you again and it is so kind of you to spend so much time with my Mama. I am always afraid that when I am away she will be lonely and unhappy.”

  “She loves having you at home,” said the Countess. “At the same time when you do go away, it is a pity you cannot leave her grandchildren with her.”

  The Duke held up his hands.

  “Not that argument again!” he complained. “You know as well as I do there is plenty of time for me to have a hoard of tiresome children and I have no intention of marrying at the moment.”

  He spoke firmly as if to impress on his cousin once and for all that her matchmaking was doomed to failure.

  However, she merely laughed out loud and then sat down in a comfortable chair.

  “Now listen to me, Alpin – ”

  “Not if it is about marriage. That is a forbidden subject!”

  “Forbidden or not, Alpin, I have to inform you that Mary-Lee is one of the richest girls in America. As you know that is very different from saying she is one of the richest girls in England.”

  “I am not interested, Cousin Moira. I can see she is a pretty girl, but I feel almost old enough to be her father. Besides I have no intention at present of marrying anyone.”

  “Oh really, Alpin, must you be so difficult and so stupid about it?” the Countess reprimanded him.

  The Duke did not answer and after a moment she added,

  “You would be far happier with a young girl whom you could teach to love you as you want to be loved and who would listen adoringly to everything you said to her, than if you married some stuck-up young woman who is only too aware of her own attractions, especially when the chief amongst them is her moneybags.”

  “That may be your idea of a happy marriage, but it is not mine. Incidentally, Cousin Moira, I am sick to death of the whole subject and absolutely refuse to discuss it any further.”

  “It is all very well for you to talk like that. Have you realised that your Castle is falling down for want of repair, that the McBaren estate is sneered at by most of the other Scottish owners in the vicinity and now you yourself are deliberately soiling your proud family name by not doing your duty as one of the most important landowners in the whole of Scotland.

  “We all love you and want you to be happy, but, Alpin, you must realise that things cannot go on as they are at the moment.”

  “I really see nothing wrong with them,” the Duke retorted rather truculently. “We are not short of staff and I have not dismissed anyone who was here in my father’s time.”

  “You have not dismissed them, but they have either died or been too old to work for you. You know as well as I do that you are short of shepherds and your river watchers have dwindled until just about every river you possess is a happy hunting ground to the dreaded poachers. As I have said already, the Castle needs a hundred repaints to which you turn a blind eye.”

  The Duke rose and slowly walked across the room to the window.

  He stood looking out at the sea, thinking how fond he was of this particular view and how much the Castle meant to him.

  Yet how could he face himself if he married some girl entirely for her money?

  She would violate all the dreams he had secretly cherished throughout his life.

  And what was more – his own pride.

  It was impossible to explain to anyone, even his mother, that he had always believed that one day he would find someone whom he not only loved passionately, but respected and admired.

  He would let her rule with him the Kingdom which had been handed down to him over five hundred years.

  Everything had seemed to him a sacred trust ever since he was a small boy, when he had thought everything at home in Scotland was perfect and would never change with the years.

  Naturally he fully recognised that he needed money and a great deal of it.

  Money would pay for very many innovations and endless improvements could be introduced on the estate as on the richer estates in the Lowlands and in England.

  But somehow in the far North of Scotland it did not seem to matter so much, except when his contentment was intruded upon by his irritating relatives, like the Countess, continually nagging at him to marry money.

  It would certainly bring the estate back to the glory it once had with of course all the modern trappings which undoubtedly would be exceedingly expensive.

  The only way they suggested that money could be found was when it was attached to some rich woman who was desperate to become a Duchess.

  If they had told him quite frankly, he had nothing to offer except his title he would actually have respected them for it, but they always tried to make it sound as if the only reason he was marrying was for an heir.

  Somehow it cheapened everything.

  He had brushed them aside over the last five years when he had spent so much time travelling or in London.

  And he had indeed tried to believe that somehow things would change for the better and when he returned, he would find the need for money was not so urgent as it had seemed before he left.

  He knew after he had spoken to his employees this morning that matters were worse than he expect
ed.

  Once again he was confronted with endless debts that had to be paid and the unavoidable question was still how.

  Because he did not speak, the Countess regarded his back for a long time and then she tried to coax him,

  “Be sensible, Alpin. You know we all love you and you have so much to offer the world, but it is impossible to do so when one is completely naked. Wake up to reality and realise that here is a tremendous opportunity – ”

  The Duke did not answer her nor did he turn round.

  The Countess rambled on,

  “Mary-Lee is such a sweet girl and her family is one of the most respected and influential in New York. At the same time they are so very rich that I don’t think they even know themselves how much they possess.”

  She gave a little laugh before she added,

  “But of course every rich American today respects a title. And if you don’t snatch up Mary-Lee quickly, then undoubtedly there will be quite a number of my friends and acquaintances who are even more in need of the cash than you are!”

  The Duke moved from the window and walked to where his cousin was sitting.

  He stood looking at her for a moment or two and then he sat down beside her.

  “I suppose I should be grateful,” he said, “that you are interested enough in me as a man. I also like to believe you are fond of me regardless of my position as Head of the family.”

  “I have always loved you since you were a little boy, Alpin, but because you were an only child your father and mother naturally spoilt you and let you have your own way. I, as you know, was married off to David as soon as I was old enough to leave school because he was to inherit a title.”

  “Surely you loved him?” the Duke interposed.

  “I felt for him what I thought was love, having no experience of it in any way. On the whole we have been very happy and, as you know, David is a charming person and it would be difficult not to be fond of him.”

  She sighed for a moment and then went on,

  “Equally it was not the fairy tale love I am sure you are dreaming about.”

  “I had no idea, Cousin Moira. I always thought you and David had fallen in love at first sight and that yours was the ideal marriage all our relatives wanted to copy.”

  “And quite rightly so. We have been happy, but I am just telling you that is what you can find quite easily. It is really useless to go on hoping that the skies will open and some angel will drop into your arms and you feel you cannot live without her.”

  “Do you think that is what I am doing?” the Duke asked her with a twist to his lips.

  “Of course you are, my dear Alpin. You have had the chance in the last six or seven years of marrying quite a number of beautiful young women who would also have provided you with the wherewithal you so urgently need for the Castle.

  “In fact your mother and I were counting them up the other night and wondering why, like the Pharisee, you had passed by on the other side and left them to be snapped up by someone else.”

  The Duke did not answer and after a moment she added,

  “I do know the answer. You are looking for love. The real love you read about in books.”

  She looked round as she spoke and threw out her hand towards the shelves that covered the whole of one wall.

  “I have looked at some of these books and they all talk about a love a man finds once in a million years! You cannot expect to have everything in life, but that, Alpin, is exactly what you have been trying to find ever since you left school.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You are asking too much. You have your title, the Castle, the largest estate in the North of Scotland, and still you expect to find the love that may have inspired authors since man first began to write, but which is not practical in modern living and is seldom found by those who seek it – very very seldom if it comes to that.”

  “Yet it is something,” the Duke said slowly, “that everyone wants deep down in their hearts.”

  “Just as everyone wants to be a millionaire! But it only happens to a very few people. It is ridiculous for you to believe when you have so much that you can sit back and demand even more.”

  “Now you really are depressing me, Cousin Moira.”

  “No, I am not. I am trying to make you see sense. It is good sense for you to marry Mary-Lee whilst she is still bemused by your title and your Castle. After that you can make her, because she is so young, become exactly as you want her to be and that is where we will all help you.”

  The Duke reflected that the one thing he would not want was his relatives, even his mother, interfering with his wife, but he thought it would be inappropriate to say so aloud.

  He therefore sat back thinking that whilst he had never talked so frankly with his cousin before, he found it rather embarrassing to continue the conversation.

  “There is no need for you to hurry yourself over this,” she was saying. “But I want you to be really sensible for once and understand that the condition of everything around you cannot be neglected for ever.”

  The Duke wanted to argue, but she carried on,

  “The sooner you make up your mind that marriage is the only way out for you, the sooner you will realise that here is a tremendous opportunity that may not come again, in meeting and marrying the lovely Mary-Lee. She is not only a millionairess but a very sweet and charming girl and that, I can assure you, my dear Alpin, is true.”

  There was a long pause before the Duke responded,

  “I can only thank you for being so frank with me, and I will certainly consider everything you have said.”

  The Countess gave a cry of delight.

  “That is just what I wanted you to say. Oh, Alpin, do be sensible over this. Your mother is terrified that you will let such an opportunity pass. She knows better than I do how much money is wasted on the estate and how your debt at the bank is reaching unmanageable heights.”

  The Duke disliked discussing his private affairs, but she prattled on regardless,

  “Just as it is impossible for you to go on running up heavier bills every time you go off to London or travel abroad.”

  The Duke knew this was more or less true, but he had closed his eyes to it.

  He also disliked, although he found it hard to say so, that the Countess, who after all was only his cousin, should know so much about his bank balance.

  At the same time he was sensible enough to know that when his mother was alone in the Castle, it would be better that she talked to a relative than to someone who was just a friend.

  “Very well, Cousin Moira,” he said, “I will think over very seriously what you have said to me and, while I make no promises, I will certainly look further into the position we are in financially and what money is necessary for the estate itself.”

  “I feel sure you will be sensible, my dear Alpin.”

  She was gazing as she spoke at the very fine picture hanging over the fireplace.

  “Of course there are things to sell in the Castle as you well know, although it would be terrible if there was nothing left for your son when he inherits.

  “I remember your father almost crying when he had to part with the huge picture that used to hang in the hall. It had been there for over a hundred years, but the offer he received for it was so large he felt he could not refuse.”

  She gave a little laugh before she added,

  “I was very young at the time, but as it was taken down I remember he said, ‘if those damned Vikings had not carted away all our treasures when the Castle was first built, I would not have to sell this Van Dyck which breaks my heart’.

  “‘The Vikings are all dead, Uncle Donald,’ I said to him, ‘and a good thing too,’ your father replied. ‘May they rot in hell where they have undoubtedly taken the treasures they looted from this Castle’.”

  The Countess smiled before she finished,

  “I have always remembered those words and every time anyone has mentioned the Vikings, I
thought of them sitting on the glorious treasures they had carted away from the Castle, although I suspect what they valued far more than the gold goblets were the pretty village girls who were spirited away in their ships and were never seen again!”

  The Duke laughed as if he could not help it.

  “It’s all very well blaming the Vikings, but I think some of my ancestors were indeed spendthrifts and that, of course, is why you should think I have inherited everything bad from them.”

  “That is just not true. You are as handsome, Alpin dear, as all your family have been. I have always thought that the reason you are so tall and your eyes so blue is that you have Viking blood in you.”

  “Nonsense,” the Duke tried to protest.

  “Quite a lot of the Scots from this part of Scotland have the same characteristics and where else could they have come from except in the great ships that swept across the North Sea to invade us.”

  The Duke chuckled.

  “I have been told all this before, Cousin Moira, and it has always amused me. All right I am a Viking, and I reserve a Viking’s right of choosing the woman I want and stealing her away from her home and perhaps her country!”

  The Countess gave a cry and threw up her hands.

  “You are not suggesting that you might marry a foreigner?”

  “I thought that was what you were suggesting!”

  The Countess dropped her hand and exclaimed,

  “Of course I am. Except that I never think of the Americans as being foreigners. I was in fact thinking of those who speak a different language from ours like the Norwegians or Swedes, in addition the French with whom you spend so much of your time.”

  “Now you are making it even more difficult than it was when you started to preach to me, Cousin Moira.”

  His eyes were twinkling and he was only teasing.

  The Countess gave a cry.

  “I could not bear it if you brought home a French, German or Spanish wife. How could they be anything but alien up here in the Castle in the North of Scotland? The same would certainly apply to the Scandinavian countries, even though Princess Alexandra has proved to be a most charming and excellent wife for the Prince of Wales. But no one really thinks of her as a foreigner.”