A Laird for All Time

Duart Castle

The Isle of Mull, Scotland

October 2010

“There she is, lassie.”

Emmy gripped the edge of the window and stared at the panoramic view of the distant castle the driver’s finger pointed toward as the bus traveled the winding road along the eastern coastline of the Isle of Mull.  In the distance was the last destination on her ten-day UK vacation.  Starting naturally in London, she had taken in the sights
of Wales and Yorkshire,  before traveling from there on to Edinburgh and Glasgow.   The distant edifice was the last spectacle she had come so far to see:  Duart Castle - the ancestral home of the clan MacLean for hundreds of years.

Her guidebook told her the name Duart meant “Black Point” in Gaelic and, based on the view from the ferry as she had crossed the Sound of Mull that afternoon from mainland Scotland, she knew why it bore that name.  The castle did indeed sit on black earth that contrasted with the waters of the sound and the overcast sky behind it.  When she had first spotted the castle from the ferry on her arrival, the clouds had hung so low that they almost clung to the land between the water and the castle, nearly obscuring her view of it.  Now, as the bus approached Duart from the ferry terminus at Craignure, she could see its prominent outline jutting out from the crag against the skies beyond.   Dipping below the layer of cloud, the late afternoon sun lit the West-facing side as she neared, showing the wear of centuries on the face of the building.

Emmy’s guidebook also told her the clan MacLean had lived on this land since the 14
th
century, and had remained in that castle until they were forced to leave during the Jacobite rebellion, retreating to the Treshnish Isles.  After several years of military occupation, the castle had been gutted by fire in 1756, and Duart remained a ruin until it was bought back by the family in the mid-1800s and restored. 

Now the castle was a fine example of medieval architecture; glorious, wonderful…

And open to the public from April until October.   

What a vacation this had been so far!  After four years of brain-numbing undergraduate work, two years of medical school full of rotations through various medical specialties
, and four more years of harrowing residency with 48-hour shifts and zero personal life, it was long past time for Emmy to have a vacation.  If there was a person on earth who ever thought that doctors didn’t earn every penny of their billings, then that person was dead wrong. As a resident, Emmy had hung by her fingertips on the lowest rung of the ladder.  She was barely above those medical students rotating through the departments and just below the lab rats.  She had been the gopher, grunt and dumping ground for every job no one else wanted to do.

It had been four years since Emmy had even been on a date.  Not a single date!  She felt more sexless these days than one would think was humanly possible.  She had brought it on herself, though.  She had heard the tales, seen the proof and knew better than to encourage a relationship during her residency.  With all the long hours, overnights and demands associated with a medical residency, the future MDs had one of the highest divorce rates by occupation in the US.  They were only nudged from the top spot by naval submariners
, who spent up to six months at a time under water and out of contact. 

Like a submariner, Emmy certainly felt like she had been underwater for a long while now.  But, here and now, she had made time for herself. Though several of the other residents had invited her to join them on their vacations to the Virgin Islands
or Hawaii, Emmy had chosen to take her vacation alone.  Most of her friends couldn’t fathom why she wanted to ‘do’ the UK in the chill of fall, but Emmy was determined to enjoy her alone time to the fullest extent before starting her new career.

A little 
‘me’ time was her explanation; she had always been comfortable in her own company.

The bus shuddered to a stop outside the outer gates of the ancient castle
- the keep, Emmy had learned it was called, and she accepted the driver’s hand as the old man assisted her from the bus.

“Wow, Donell,” she addressed the old man who had thus far been chatty and informative on the short trip from Craignure. “It’s just as amazing as you said.” 

She was the only passenger today, most likely because it was the final day of the season. The castle would be closed from tomorrow. The weather was turning colder and most tourists were long gone from the area.  Donell had probably just been happy for someone to show up and wanted to make her feel welcome.  He had entertained her along the way with outrageous tales of the region’s past conflicts that he had surely embellished to make them more exciting. 

The brisk October breeze had Emmy clutching her short velvet blazer closed as she turned to the old castle.  The heavy cloud coverage did nothing to relieve the somber façade of the castle.  The walls were dark and starting to crumble.  It was showing its age, Emmy thought, but was magnificent nonetheless, appearing to grow from the rocky cliffs to tower five stories high at its hipped roofline.

“She’s a bonny lass, is Duart,” the old Scot commented with a thick brogue Emmy enjoyed.  Between his gravelly voice and the appearance of the clichéd old-timer, Emmy could easily to picture him at the local pub taking a pint or two.  His haggard, weathered features fell into more folds than a Shar Pei.  His dark eyes were so deeply recessed that Donell almost gave an impression of unfathomable age.  An ancient Scotsman in his battered cap and coat.  A bit clichéd but the perfect person for the tourists to sidle up to, to beg for a picture or two with him.

Swinging her large tote and smaller purse over her shoulder together, she glanced up at the castle.  Too bad the weather wasn’t cooperating, she thought; a bit of sunshine would probably do wonders for the old place.  Digging in her tote for her camera, she swung it up to take a picture.

Look at the old girl, Emmy thought, so beaten down with age
.
“I’ll bet it was really something a hundred years ago when it was restored,” she commented aloud.

“Restoration was
completed ‘bout 115 years ago,” Donell offered, leaning back against the fender of the shuttle with his arms crossed over his chest.  “Ye wouldnae ha’ wanted to see it then.” Donell said, leaning back against the fender of the shuttle with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“Why not?” Emmy asked absently as she took a few more shots.

“They were nae happy times, lassie.  Tragic, the old laird and his family.” The old man shook his head with a soft cluck of his tongue. 

“Really?”  She glanced back at the building with a sigh.  “What happened?”

“Family troubles mostly, bad luck.”

“Still, I would so love to have been there to see it at its shining moment.  How wonderful it would be…” her voice was wistful.

“Ye think so?”

Emmy nodded firmly.  “I know so!”

“Should be careful, lassie, what ye wish for.”

“Wishing for simpler times?  Where’s the harm in that?” she asked absentmindedly, taking several more shots of the castle.

“Ye think old days were simple times, lassie?”

“Of course they were!”

“Hmm…” Donell scratched his stubbled chin and considered her thoughtfully.  “Would ye care to take a wager on that then?”

“What do you mean?”

The sun came out from behind the clouds then and seemed to grow brighter, reflecting off the ancient stones and bringing dark spots to Emmy’s eyes.  She shut them tightly as a dizzying wave of déjà vu hit her, as if she had been here before.  As she looked back at the castle, the sun washed across the stone embattlements as if awakening the castle from a long sleep.  It seemed as if the years melted away from the building as the sun beamed across it, crumbling block smoothed, discolored stones became brighter. 
Well, that was weird.
 

“Did you see that?” she turned back to ask Donell, only to discover the driver had already left.  She hadn’t even heard him pull away!  She frowned, annoyed. When did he do that?  She had just been talking to him! She could only hope he would remember to come back and get her.

Studying the castle again, Emmy thought a little sunshine did
indeed do wonders for the castle.  Perhaps she had just imagined the aged appearance on her arrival as a reflection of the dreary weather.  After all, it had been rebuilt around the middle of the nineteenth century.  Right now, it looked almost new.  Funny, she would have thought in the 150 years since its reconstruction began, that the structure would have aged a bit more than this. 

Tucking her camera away, she approached the outer wall and laid a hand against the stones, absorbing the cold dampness.  Weird, she thought again as a new sound coming from the road caught her attention.  Shading her eyes, she watched a rider on horseback approach from the west at a fast pace.  Though the setting sun at his back shadowed the face of the rider, her jaw dropped unconsciously at the dramatic
image the man and horse made as they approached the castle.  The complete vision was like something out of a romance novel, or maybe a surreal shampoo commercial.  Dark hair rippled back from a strong, tanned face.  The wind pulled at the open collar of his shirt, exposing a tanned chest and muscular pecs. A kilt, no less, flapped against the long legs gripping the horse’s sides. 

Such a pure physical rush of lust swept over Emmy that she swore right then and there that she would never again go so long without a date, much less five years
of abstinence.

The horse came to a rearing halt not ten feet from her.  Startled, she leaped back out of harm’s way.  As the hooves landed on the ground, the rider swung himself to t
he ground and strode toward her.  Eyes blazing with heat and anger, he walked – no! actually
stomped
toward her – slapping off dust of his kilt as came.

Mel Gibson, Christopher Lambert, Adrian Paul – those movie highlanders had nothing on this man!  He was just that.  All man!  He wore his kilt
slung over an ivory shirt.  His thighs were bare and heavily muscled. He was taller than her 5’8” by nearly a head; broad shoulders, dark hair…the whole masculine package was simply overwhelming.  A god descended from the heavens.  Emmy knew she’d never seen such a vision in her life, and thought she was unlikely to again. 

She stumbled back several steps as he stalked forward.  He easily caught her by the shoulders nonetheless and glared down at her.  “Altachadh-beatha.” His deep brogue bit out the foreign words.

Partially terrified, largely enthralled, Emmy did the only thing that seemed appropriate.

She
fainted.

Finally willing her eyes to open, Emmy found herself laying on a large comfortable bed, the dark night broken only by a small oil lamp on the table next to her.  Resting in the darkness, she cringed at the humiliation of fainting in front of such a gorgeous guy. 
How impressive it must have looked!
she thought disparagingly. She would never go eight years without a vacation again!

Maybe it had all been
a hallucination.  A hallucination brought on by fatigue, stress and anxiety.  Yes, of course.  It was all brilliantly clear in retrospect.  She had just finished a horrific six-week rotation in psychiatry after all.  Six weeks at a mental hospital where God checked in daily, and Al Capone and Joan of Arc resided alive and well.  That simply hadn’t been her calling and this… This was just simple anxiety; stress brought on by nerves and lack of sleep. Perhaps she would prescribe herself some Paxil or Xanax…

Her internal conversation ended in a very verbal shriek as she rolled over and saw a man
…
the
man sitting quietly in a chair next to the bed.

“What the
…!” she sputtered as she literally jumped off the bed.  “Ohmigod, I thought I was imagining you!  Who are you?  What are you doing in here?”  The words tumbled one over the other incoherently. “Go! Leave before I call the Bobbies or whatever they are called up here!  You just can’t walk into my hotel room…” She stopped and looked around, registering her surroundings for the first time. “Wait - this isn’t my hotel room!  Where am I?  Who are you? Get out!”

A large male finger reached out
and nudged up her chin, effectively closing her mouth and stopping the rambling flow of words.

“
Charming, my dear. Is this the way we’re going to play it then?”  His accent was a thick and deep Sean Connery rumbling…and so very, very sexy that Emmy was utterly disarmed.  For a moment at least. A little shudder passed through her.  She shook the feeling off and tucked it away to examine later.

She shov
ed his hand away from her chin roughly, a move that clearly surprised him.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“Amusing,” he murmured. He leaned back in the chair and rubbed a forefinger absently across his full, appealing lower lip.  “Did ye nae think I would recognize ye, Heather love?”

“Obviously you’ve got the wrong
girl, Scotty.  My name is Emmy.”

“C
ould ye nae think of a more clever alias, my dear?  Not a terribly original variation of Emeline Heather.”

Emmy rolled her eyes
at his nonsensical words.  “Okay. Whatever.  Point remains you got the wrong girl.  Go back to the mother ship.”  Too bad that he was absolutely round the bend, she thought.  He honestly had to be the most incredibly appealing man she had ever laid eyes on. And that voice!  The voice alone sent little vibrations of lust along every nerve ending.

She rounded the bed to the safety of the opposite
side, attempting to create a barrier between them. Her blazer and scarf hung on the end of the bed. She snatched them up and slipped them back on.  “What time is it anyway?” Hurrying over to the door, she ran her hand over the wall next to it.  “And where is the damn light switch?”

“The what?” he asked.

“The switch?  Or do you call it something else?  Oh, hell, just turn on the damn lights, for crying out loud!” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

“Ye ha’
developed a most foul mouth while ye’ve been gone, my dear.”

Emmy threw her hands over her head
in frustration.  “I am not your dear
or
your Heather!”

“Did y
e think I would forget ye even if it has been ten years since ye left?”  That voice was doing things to her again.  Despite her apprehension, she felt every word with a quiver deep in her chest.  It was disconcerting to say the least since that warm melting feeling was completely at odds with her other reactions to him.  She needed to get away from here before she did something stupid.

“Left?  Read my lips
. I-have-never-been-to-Scotland-before.” She spoke slowly, enunciating each word while making a mouthing motion with her hand like a puppet.  “Never.  Comprende?  You got the wrong girl. I am Emmy MacKenzie.” She squared her shoulders.  “
Dr.
Emily MacKenzie.”

He stared at her in disbelief for a moment
, then to her surprise, burst out in laughter.  A heartfelt, rich laughter that would have been incredibly attractive in a man not quite so insane.

Disgusted
with him and herself, Emmy wrenched the door open and left the room, determined to find the castle’s caretaker – assuming she was even in the castle at all – and get that madman away from her.

Emmy
stalked down the hall and down a massive stone staircase that led to the floor below, noting with relief, the central hall she’d seen on Duart’s website.  The thought crossed her mind, however, that it looked even more authentic than it had seemed in the brochure or on the website.  She paused, uncertain. Where was the office?  Surely the caretaker would have some sort of office or desk.  A heavy oak door opened to her left and a tall, lean man in a dark suit entered the hall.  “Can I help ye, lassie?” he asked in a heavy burr.

“Thank goodness,” Emmy said
, rushing toward him.  “Are you the manager?  There is a strange man upstairs who was harassing me and I’d like to report him.”

“
A strange man, ye say?” The man looked utterly befuddled by her statement.  “Only the laird and his family are here in the castle, lassie.  Are ye sure ye’re nae mistaken?”

“
No! There really is someone up there!” she insisted and hissed, “He keeps insisting that I’m his wife!”

The man’s eyes
crinkled in amusement as they shifted up to the stairs behind her.  “It seems the lass is having a hard time remembering you, Connor.”

Emmy spun around to face the man
from her room above her on the landing, watching with an amused grin on his lips.  “It does seem to be the case, Ian.  Perhaps ye should reintroduce us.”

“Lassie, meet Lord Connor James Lachlan
MacLean the Second, Earl of Strathclyde, Laird of the Clan MacLean, Lord of Duart Castle and ye’ll be remembering, yer husband.”

“I am not
his wife!”

“Aye, ye
are!” both men replied in unison.

Connor MacLean stared down at his long-lost wife, momentarily enthralled by the woman before him, her beauty heightened by the high temper she was in.  Her hair was lighter than he remembered and her figure fuller in all the best places, but it was definitely she.  Nor was she the frigid young thing he recalled from ten years past.  Time had brought an assuredness to her manner and clearly enough self-confidence not to fear an argument or confrontation with him for she had actually slapped his hand away!  And her temper brought a high color to her cheeks that was unbelievably alluring.

He tamped down the beginnings of an arousal
trying to remember his anger and the humiliation she had dealt him all those years ago.  It should not matter that she had a fullness to her lips that begged him to forgive and forget and to take them with his own.  He could not forget who she was.

S
he paced the hall with unconcealed agitation.  Her stride was manly in the shockingly tight trousers she wore.  Strange that, for Heather had always been one for high fashion.

“Oh my God
,” she entreated again in a most sacrilegious way, “if you treat all your guests in this fashion, you’ll be out of business in no time!”  Rubbing her hands over her face, Emmy tried to remember what she had learned about dealing with the mentally unstable.  Damn, she never, ever wanted to go into that field, why would she retain any working knowledge on the subject?  That
laird
had her totally frazzled.

“
Connor, right? Okay, Connor, let’s compromise here,” she tried in a low soothing voice.  “I’d be willing to accept that I must bear a remarkable resemblance to your wife, if you will just for one tiny moment consider that I might just not be her.”

“I might ha’
considered that, if ye werenae here, now, exactly ten years from the day ye left.” Connor answered.  How long was she thinking she could continue this denial of her identity?  He wasn’t sure whether he should be angered or amused by her tenacity.

“Ten
years later you think you’d know me? Her?  Get real!  I could not see my own mother for ten years and not recognize her.  How can you be so sure?” she challenged.

A female squeal sounded from
a nearby doorway.  As Emmy turned, a young woman who was her absolute double, but for her chalk-white pallor and stunned expression, whispered, “Gracious” and fainted promptly into the other man’s arms.

Emmy’s shocked
eyes met Connor’s.  He descended the stairs pointing at the other woman.  “That’s how.”

Emmy followed the men into a nearby room as the one named Ian carried the woman over to a small sofa and laid her gently down.  Emmy stared in amazement.  She had always heard that everyone had a doppelgänger somewhere in the world.  Here was hers.  She could tell no physical difference between their two faces.  She almost wanted to reach out and touch her to make sure she was real. 
Weird.
  A shudder passed through her that she couldn’t identify… trepidation?  Fascination?  Fear?

The man called
Ian took a small vial from a maid who scurried in after them, and waved it under the woman’s nose until she started and began to revive.

When she
opened her eyes, the other woman examined Emmy suspiciously for a long moment before summoning a small smile as she struggled to sit up.  “Heather, we thought you’d never come back.  Where have you been all this time?”

Emmy sighed, unsure of where to go next in this tangled mess. 
“Listen, uh… ma’am, I’m afraid we have a bit of a misunderstanding in the works here…”

“Come, Heather, ye’re
nae going to pretend that ye dinnae recognize yer own twin, are ye?” the laird taunted as he helped the other woman into a sitting position.

“
Twin?” Emmy’s eyes locked with blue eyes that looked so much like her own and shivered.  The light brown hair was identical to her original color… before she had it highlighted, of course.  They could have been twins, that much was true, except the woman was obviously well along in her pregnancy, maybe the end of her second trimester.

When Emmy remained stiff, the other woman’s eyes
narrowed slightly.  “Oh, poor dear… you don’t remember, do you?  It’s me, Dorcas, your sister.”

Disarmed by the unusual name,
Emmy snorted in surprise.  “Really?  You’re kidding, right?  Dorcas?” Emmy couldn’t contain her amusement and chuckled out loud, drawing puzzled stares from the room’s occupants.  “Listen, Dorc… Dorc… I’m sorry, I can’t say it.  It’s just wrong.  Is there something else I can call you?”

Dorcas and the men continued to look puzzled, but the woman finally sighed.  “You may call me Dory, of course
… as you always have,” she added with a curious frown.  “What is it about my name you seem to find so amusing now, if I may ask?”

Emmy sat down on a nearby chair tucking one leg beneath as was her habit.  Slouching back in the seat, she waved her hand casually.  “You know?  Dork?”
She waited expectantly, but all three faces remained blank.  “I guess it’s an American thing.”  She shrugged.  “Let’s move on, shall we, and get back to the issues here.  This assumption that I am your sister,” she jabbed a finger in the laird’s direction, “and
his
wife.” 

The laird stepped forward
, pointing a finger right back at her and opening his mouth to speak when Dorcas… no, Dory, held a calm palm out and urged him to sit as well.  “Come, Ian and I were just going to pour some tea.  Join us.  We’ll work through this.”

Emmy
stared at the laird, Connor, who sat and stared back at her from beneath thick brows until, in short order, she found herself being handed a cup of hot tea.  She frowned down into the cup.  Hot tea.  Of course they drank tea in Great Britain, but like psychiatry, it just wasn’t her thing.  At least in the major cities she had managed to find a Starbucks or two.  She set the cup and saucer down on the table in front of her.

“That’s a
n interesting, ummm, ensemble you have on, Heather,” Dory observed with just a bit of an edge as she poured tea for the men.  Ian put his hand over his cup to stop her, and the men instead took glasses of some sort of liquor from an attending servant. “Is it the latest style in traveling apparel?” Dorcas poured her own cup and took a sip, analyzing Emmy over the rim.

Emmy looked down at
the ‘ensemble’ that she had recently bought just for this trip.  She wore a nice pair of dark wash skinny jeans tucked into knee-high black suede boots for warmth and comfort in the cool fall of Scotland.  Her white silk blouse was covered with a short, black velvet jacket and accessorized with a silver tasseled scarf. Maybe not as comfortable for travel as just jeans and a t-shirt, but that wasn’t what she was going for.  She hadn’t wanted to give the impression of a sloppy American tourist for the locals to poke fun at. “I think it was designed more for style than travel.  Don’t you like it?” she asked the room in general, only now noting the disconcerted and disapproving looks of the two men as they looked her over.  Emmy had long been considered and treated as a fairly attractive woman.  While she wasn’t exceedingly vain about her looks, Emmy certainly wasn’t accustomed to men looking at her as these two were… as if she were distasteful in some way.