Claimed by a Laird (2 page)

Men sucked.

“Between working double shifts at the hospital and
commuting, there’s not a whole lot of time to find a boyfriend,” she stated,
uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. “When did Helena want
to have dinner? I was thinking of heading to the castle for a tour before they
start setting up for the fair tomorrow.”

“Oh, about seven or so, I think.”

She nodded. “I was surprised to hear the fair wasn’t
starting tonight since it is the equinox.”

Ian shrugged. “Budget cuts, you know how it is. It’s gone
from a week-long affair to just three days. Made more sense to capture the
tourists over a long weekend rather than starting up mid-week.”

Anna grabbed her purse and green cardigan from where they
lay on the bar.

“Do you need a ride up the hill? I could take you on the
back of my motorbike,” Ian offered with a boyish grin.

She laughed. “Nah, I’ll be fine.”

The heavy, well-worn wooden door to the pub creaked as it
swung open. Ian and Anna turned as a tall, middle-aged man with dark, curly
hair crossed the threshold.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Ian said. “We’re closed at the moment.
Death in the family.”

The man’s eyes widened and his palm covered his heart. “Oh,
I am so very sorry. Please excuse my intrusion, but I am actually looking for
an Anna Campbell.” He moved toward them. “I have information indicating she
resides here.”

Ian and Anna exchanged surprised glances.

“Well, I’m an Anna Campbell.” Anna tilted her head in
curiosity. “I used to live here many years ago.”

“And she is the only Anna Campbell to reside here within my
memory,” Ian offered.

The man studied her for a moment, focusing intently upon her
eyes and hair. Finally nodding, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small,
white cardboard box. “My name is Neil Campbell. I am the curator of the Maree
Castle museum, which is a couple of hours northeast of here. We’ve had
something in our possession for some time now that was left to an Anna Campbell
at this address. It is from one Alec Campbell. Do you recognize the name at
all?”

Anna’s lashes flew up in shock. “My father?” she whispered
as a hopeful shiver passed through her.

He offered her a tight-lipped sympathetic smile. “I am
sorry, Miss Campbell, but I doubt that, seeing as how the Alec Campbell of
which I speak died in 1233.”

1233?

Her heart sank. She breathed deeply and shook her head,
determined to dislodge the tears threatening to form in her eyes. She was
annoyed the mere mention of her father’s name could dredge up so many emotions
after all these years. It just wasn’t possible that someone who died in 1233
would have left her anything. This guy surely had to be some sort of nut job.

“But how can that be, Mr. Campbell?” Ian draped a protective
arm around her shoulders. “Are you certain you have your facts straight?”

The man laughed good-naturedly. “Yes, I know how odd it
sounds and it has been a wee bit of a mystery for as long as anyone can
remember. The item has been passed down in the Campbell family for generations
and no one knows any longer about its origins. All we have is Alec Campbell’s
will dated to 1232, not long before he died. It clearly states someone is to
deliver this package to an Anna Campbell with curly red hair and greenish-blue
eyes at the public house in Fannich on September 22, 2012. You appear to be
exactly who I am looking for.” He held the box out to her.

Anna eyed it suspiciously for a few seconds before taking it
from him. “This doesn’t make sense.” She stared at the box in her palm. “How could
some guy eight hundred years ago have known about me or what I look like?”

Neil chuckled and nodded. “It’s a very good question and one
we have been attempting to answer for years. Honestly, I did not expect to
actually find anyone matching your description here today. Perhaps,
you
can
tell me how this could be?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. The only Alec Campbell I know of
was my dad and he disappeared a few months after I was born.”

“I am sorry for that, Miss Campbell,” Neil murmured
sympathetically, clasping his hands in front of him.

Anna studied the box, her stomach churning nervously. Her
hands shook as she gently laid it on the bar and pulled off the lid. Inside
rested a pendant with imperfectly wrought and tarnished but lovely silver
knotwork surrounding a polished amber quartz. Always a sucker for slightly
flawed antique jewelry, she immediately fell in love.

“A bit of an ugly thing, isn’t it?” Ian leaned over her
shoulder to peer at the pendant.

“Oh, no.” She gingerly picked it up. “I think it’s
beautiful.”

“It is a Scottish topaz,” Neil stated with a hint of pride
in his voice. “It’s native to this part of the Highlands. From what we can
tell, the pendant dates to the eleventh century. A mid-twentieth century
Campbell laird put it on that chain so that part is not original.”

“Can I put it on?” she asked, awestruck by how the facets of
the stone caught the sunlight filtering through the window.

Neil nodded. “Yes, for a little while it would be fine. But
I would recommend removing it to a safe place soon. The oils in your skin could
damage such an old piece.”

Anna unhooked the clasp and brought it to her neck to secure
it in back. A comforting warmth seeped from the pendant into her skin and she
stared down at it, admiring the golden honey stone.

Neil reached into his jacket and produced a paper and a pen.
“If you could show me some identification and then sign this form indicating
you are accepting the pendant, I would appreciate it.”

Anna fished her passport out of her purse and gave it to the
man while she quickly scanned the document to make sure she wasn’t signing
something she might later regret. Once the man accepted the proof of her
identity, she signed the document.

He turned to Ian. “Will you witness?”

Ian nodded and accepted the pen from Anna when she was
finished signing.

“Thank you.” Neil placed the paper and pen inside his
jacket. “If you ever have any questions or would like to tour the castle,
please do not hesitate to phone. We even have Alec Campbell’s will under glass,
if you would like to read the words for yourself. I know the staff and current
laird would love a chance to speak with you.”

Anna thanked him as a strange uneasiness settled into the
pit of her stomach. Something just didn’t seem right about all of this. The man
was so quick to hand over this antique to her, not even asking her to prove
some sort of lineal descent from the ancient Alec Campbell. Could this actually
be for real?

“Well, now isn’t that something,” Ian remarked as the door
to the pub closed behind the man. “Would you like me to phone the castle for
you? Maybe they will have some answers about how this could have even
happened.”

“Sure, maybe in the morning.” She brushed her worries aside
and glanced at the clock over the bar. “I’d better get up to the castle here,
though. The last tour starts in about thirty minutes.”

“You wanna take that off first? It’d be a shame to lose it.”
He pointed at the pendant.

Her first instinct was to say yes, but she enjoyed the
thought of wearing something so ancient. The Alec Campbell who died in 1233
couldn’t possibly have been her father, but perhaps he was an ancestor of hers.
It was silly, but this pendant might be the closest she would ever get to the
man who had stared so lovingly at her as a baby in that photo her grandmother
had given her. She needed to feel it against her heart for just a little while
longer.

Anna shook her head. “No, not just yet. Besides, maybe it’ll
be some sort of good-luck charm.” She flashed him a girlish smile as she
grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder.

Ian rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Just don’t go getting
yourself into trouble again, you hear? I am not above giving you the same
lecture your grandmother did.”

She laughed and reached up to plant a quick peck on her
uncle’s cheek. “See you at Helena’s.”

* * * * *

“And here is the dungeon, which each of you may look into,”
droned the castle tour guide. “However, only a few people will fit at a time
so, as we walk past, you may enter if you wish and then meet at the castle
kitchens.”

Anna glanced at the time on her cell phone before slipping
it back into her bag. In about three hours, she was due at her cousin’s house
for dinner and her stomach was already growling at the thought of a home-cooked
meal.

The tour guide turned toward her tour group and, with a
rehearsed faux-grand wave of her hand, motioned toward the dungeon. “In 1213,
the MacAirth laird, Galen of Glenverlochy, traded his life for that of his
younger brother, Geoffrey. He was imprisoned here for two days before his
escape. No one is entirely certain how he got away, but it is said he was aided
by a Campbell woman named Anna who was a cousin of the Graham laird, Archibald
‘The Brave’. The two later married.”

Anna’s eyebrows arched in surprise at hearing her name used
in reference to some real-life romantic heroine who had lived nearly eight
hundred years ago. Perhaps they were even related. She stifled a snort at the
thought.

Wait…eight hundred years?

She glanced back at the tour guide as she slid one fingertip
over the antique pendant lying against her chest and recalculated how many
years it had been since the necklace was willed to her. About eight hundred
years. A strange chill breezed across her neck and she shook her head to get
rid of it. Those dates were simply a coincidence. She breathed deeply to
reassure herself.

The mass of people shuffled along and, as if on an
elementary school field trip, Anna fell into line at the back as the tour group
filed toward the dungeon entrance. Try as she might, however, she couldn’t shake
the notion of some other, more daring and romantic Anna Campbell risking her
life to aid an unjustly imprisoned, honorable warrior. Surprisingly, her heart
skipped a beat at the thought.

She rolled her eyes in cynical exasperation. What was she,
anyway? Some silly, overly romantic eighteen-year-old girl?

Been there, done that, and had the annulment papers to prove
it.

She turned to survey the haunting ruins around her. The
former walls only stood a few feet high and what was once the floor of the
castle was now a nicely manicured lawn. The huge arch they had gone through in
order to enter the site, however, was still intact. The ruins appeared so
different in the light of day than they had at the fair a decade ago, almost as
if there were an inherent sadness in them that was hidden in the darkness.

That poor young man…

Anna’s eyes moistened as she recalled the picture of John
Gorham in the local paper the day after his body had been found in the ruins of
the castle. He hadn’t been much older than her and was on holiday with some
friends before returning to the university where he studied medicine. The
strange thing about the murder was that the only thing missing from his wallet
was his ID. All the cash and credit cards had been left behind.

When the police had come to her grandparents’ pub to speak
to Anna, telling her the young man’s ID had been used in gaining her marriage
license with James Gowrie, guilt had descended upon her as though she, herself,
had plunged the knife into John. They even showed her a copy of the marriage
license and she could barely believe her eyes—the name signed in the space
reserved for the groom’s signature was not James Gowrie, but John Gorham. She
knew then what must have happened, but no one could figure out why. Why would James
need to kill a man for his ID unless he was not who he said he was?

Anna scanned the decaying walls of the castle and was drawn
to the river that lay just beyond. Earlier, she had stood at the far wall,
marveling at the beauty of the crumbling moss-covered stones as they melded
into the rocky shore of the River Fisk. The gentle rapids flowed swiftly
beneath her, the water glistening as the sun’s rays bounced off every ripple.

“Hate to be stuck in there,” remarked a woman with a strong
Bostonian accent as she exited the chamber.

Her reverie broken, Anna glanced around and realized she was
the only one who hadn’t yet viewed the dungeon. A young couple from her tour
group shuffled out the door, leaving the antechamber empty. She stepped inside,
running her hand over the heavy, well-worn oak door that was propped open with
a beat-up rubber doorstop shoved unceremoniously underneath.

A small electric shock zipped through her fingertips and she
yanked them back. She threw the door an annoyed glare and shook her hand to rid
it of the strange sensation when a wave of dizziness hit. She grabbed the cool
stone wall and took several deep breaths, fervently hoping she hadn’t caught
some nasty bug she might pass onto Helena’s adorable twins at dinner.

As quickly as it had come on, the dizziness left. Once she
steadied herself, she scanned the small chamber. One window, looking out onto
the River Fisk, was opposite the door. The room was circular and in the center,
a smaller circular structure made of stacked stone stood about waist high. It
was open but a heavy iron grate covered the top to prevent anyone from falling
into the pit.

Or getting out.

Anna shook her head as she peered into the dim dungeon. She
shivered, hating to think about what else might have lived down there with the
poor unfortunate souls who were thrown into the pit.

Like the warlord who had once been imprisoned below and was
later rescued by the other Anna Campbell. The tour guide mentioned they had
married. She hated to admit it, after all she’d long ago given up the idea
romantic fantasies could actually happen, but the idea was quite appealing. It
might be nice to be whisked into another time if only to experience for just a
moment the kind of passion that must have existed between this guy and her namesake.