Elaine Coffman - [Mackinnons 06]

Elaine
Coffman

Blush Sensuality Level: This is a suggestive romance
(love scenes are not graphic).

Mackinnons, Book Six

Fletcher Ramsay is a man in search
of his destiny. He travels to Scotland for revenge and his stolen title—the
Duke of Glengarry. He has prepared for this all his life and nothing will stand
between him and his goal.

Well, almost nothing. It seems it
is also Fletcher’s destiny to meet Cathleen Lindsay, a minister’s
granddaughter, and as pure as first fallen snow. At first, Cathleen resents
Fletcher’s intrusion into the lives of herself and her grandfather, for she
knows they are opposites in every possible way. But time is on Fletcher’s side,
and she begins to see the gentle soul behind the impassioned man seeking
revenge. But loving Fletcher can be dangerous, and Fletcher must risk all to
protect Cathleen and everything he believes in.

A
Blush®
historical romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Northern California, March 1878

The time was late. The house was still. The dream came to
him again, for the first time in ten years. Fletcher Ramsay slept fitfully,
consumed by a drowsy numbness, troubled by haunting dreams. A sudden gust of
wind blew into the room, wailing like a woman’s sorrow and sending a shower of
imaginary leaves skittering across the floor.

Out of the darkness and into his room a silent guest had
come, lingering in the hovering shades of night.

His eyes opened. Was he awake, or asleep? He couldn’t see a
thing, and yet he saw himself standing in an unknown place, upon a dark,
unfamiliar summit, looking down at a wild and churning sea. And all about him,
the world lay infinitely still.

It was night, nothing more than a shadow of darkness upon a
treeless moor, yet the crags were white as milk and the moon pale as cream.
Overhead, the stars hung thick in a black velvet night.

The wind carried the smell of a pungent sea and the haunting
lilt of bagpipes. He saw his homeland, a place of bleak heath and shaggy wood,
of high corries and stormy seas, and against a gleam of fading light, he saw
the ghostly spires of a castle rising in silhouette, infinitely gray,
infinitely silent, and calling out to him.

Lightning ripped the sky. A brilliant, blinding light
appeared before him, and something seemed to suspend time.

From the intense brightness a man came forth, dressed in
white and hovering just above the ground. His being shone, and his countenance
was one of immeasurable beauty.

Wait, Fletcher. The time is soon…

The wind died down, and the eerie moans of a voice hung in
the air, as dry and flint-like as the ancient syllables of a Gaelic chant,
before fading away. The vision dimmed, becoming no more than a pale vapor,
growing obscure, then disappearing completely. But like a faded flower whose
fragrance lingers, the memory stayed. Fletcher closed his eyes. The speaking
silence of the dream had passed, and at last his body slept.

But his mind could find no rest. His soul was awakened. His
spirit was ready.

It was now twenty-one years since the murder of his father,
Bruce Ramsay, the Duke of Glengarry. The year was 1878 and Fletcher Ramsay was
twenty-eight.

The time had come.

Northern California, June 1878

Fletcher stood on the cliffs where the great, swelling waves
of the Pacific crashed against the rocks below, churning the water and turning
it to foam. He was restless and on edge. He had been that way for three months
now, ever since the dream had come to him. He knew why he was restless and he
knew what the dream meant. He did not know what he was going to do about it.

He had always known that there would come a time when he
would go back, a time when he would avenge his father’s death and set
everything right. Recompense and restitution. They were two words he learned to
live with, two words that shaped his life.

His father had been murdered, his birthright had been stolen
from him. The time had come to take it back. He knew that, and yet the vision
confused him.

Wait, Fletcher. The time is soon…

“I thought I would find you here.”

Fletcher turned around and saw his mother, Maggie Mackinnon,
walking toward him, the wind whipping her hair and skirts about her. As she
drew even with him, she paused, looking out far over the water.

He saw the way she stared as if in a trance and knew that
she did not really see this place, but another. “This place has always reminded
you of Scotland, hasn’t it?”

“Aye. I ken that is because they are both places born of the
violence of the earth.” Maggie did not say more, but he knew her well enough to
know that something grave distressed her.

“What troubles you, Mother? What are you thinking?”

She turned toward him, a bittersweet look upon her face as
she lifted her hand and touched his cheek. “I was remembering.”

He gave her a smile. All that he was or ever hoped to be, he
owed to his mother. “And what were you remembering?”

She sighed. “A lot of things, things I ken you will find
silly…forgotten evenings when you used to walk with me here when you were just
a wee lad, your hand warm in mine, your pockets crammed with rocks and string,
and a snail shell or two.” She looked down and drew her shawl more tightly
around her shoulders, and he knew that she was fighting back the urge to cry.

“It’s too cold for you out here, Mother. Let me take you
back to the house.”

“No. I want to walk out here, Fletcher, along the cliffs
with you.”

“Why?”

“It seems appropriate somehow.”

“Appropriate?”

“Aye. Like you said, this place has always reminded me of
Scotland.”

“And that makes it appropriate?”

She nodded.

“For what?”

“For what I have to tell you.” He could almost hear the
heartache he saw in her eyes. She smoothed the collar of his jacket. “How like
your father you are, tall, with a slimness that is just now beginning to fill
out. You have his smile, his wit, his intelligence, his gentleness,” she smiled
sadly, “and that same stubborn streak.”

He had seen her in these moods before and understood how
hard it sometimes was for her to see her children grow up. “I know you’ll be
telling me next how my eyes are the same dark blue as my father’s.”

“Aye, but they have none of Bruce Ramsay’s teasing
lightness, for you were ever a serious lad, Fletcher.”

He was concerned now, for instead of her mood lightening,
she seemed to grow more melancholy. “You aren’t ill, are you, Mother?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Are you certain?”

“Aye.”

“Then what is it?”

She put her hand up, pushing his hair back from his eyes as
she had done so many times before. “Even the texture of your hair is the same.”

He nodded. “But lighter brown.”

“Aye, but not too much lighter.”

He smiled at her motherly ways. Taking her hand in his, he
turned it to kiss the palm, hoping to cast her somber thoughts away. “Always
the mother,” he said, reaching out to draw her shawl up over her shoulders. He
paused to stroke the soft wool, as he rubbed the fringe between his fingers. He
gave her a winsome smile. “I used to wonder why it was that your clothes always
felt different from anyone else’s in my hands.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Fletcher, how can I bear to
let you go?”

“Go?” He looked down into her face, his eyes searching hers
as if he could see the sadness there. “Mother, what’s wrong?”

“Let’s walk to the end of the trail,” she said, and took
Fletcher’s arm as she started up the well-worn path.

“You are greatly troubled,” he said.

“I received a letter from Scotland today.” She glanced at
him. “It was from my sister, Doroty. My brother, Ian, is dead.”

Fletcher drew up short. “Ian? My Uncle Ian is dead?”

“Aye,” Maggie said, “Ian Alexander Sinclair, the twelfth
Earl of Caithness, is dead, and you, my son, are now thirteenth. Thirteen. Not
exactly a good omen.”

But Fletcher wasn’t interested in omens right now. “What do
you mean I am the thirteenth?”

“You are now the Earl of Caithness, Fletcher.”

“But how? I’m not a Sinclair, Mother. I’m a Ramsay.”

“Aye, you are a Ramsay through and through, and proud as a
peacock about it, too. I ken hearing all of this seems strange to you since you
never knew my brother.”

“No, I never knew much about him.”

“He was a widower. He had no children. My two older brothers
have been dead a long time. There are none of us Sinclairs left now, save
myself and my sister, Doroty.”

“So the title passed to me?”

“You are the closest male heir.”

Fletcher was dumbfounded. “I had no idea. You never
mentioned the possibility.”

“I never gave it much thought. Ian was not that old. I
always thought he might one day remarry and have children. He did write that he
was quite interested in a young widow.”

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

Maggie smiled. “It is a rare thing indeed to see you
flustered and uncertain.”

“It is a rare thing for me to hear I’ve just inherited a
title.”

“I know the news is staggering to you,” she said. “Hout! It
is staggering to me as well.”

“Was there anything else in the letter?”

“You mean as to what happens now?”

“Yes. I…” He paused, turning to look at her, taking her
hands in his. “I have to go, Mother. It’s what I’ve always wanted. To return to
Scotland. You know that I must go, don’t you?”

“Aye, although those are the words I have dreaded hearing
for a good part of my life. My heart is crying out with unbearable grief, now.
I would have kept you young, Fletcher, and playing about my skirts if I could.”

“I know. But you’ve always known I wouldn’t stay here in
California. It was never right for me. Never.”

“Oh, Fletcher, how can I bear this?”

He heard the pain in her voice and knew how difficult this
was for her. She was not the kind of woman to control her children or interfere
in their lives. It was only her love for him—and her fear—that forced her to
try now.

“I have to go.”

“Aye, I’ve always known you would, just as I’ve always known
I would do everything I could to stop you. I fear for your life, Fletcher,
every bit as much as I did the day I left Scotland. Adair Ramsay may be an old
man now, but he is still formidable. Once he finds out you are in Scotland, he
will stop at nothing.”

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

“Aye,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “That’s what your
father said the day before they found his body on the cliffs.” Maggie’s lip
trembled as she studied her son’s face. “Is there nothing I can say, nothing I
can do that will keep you here?”

“No,” he said. “Nothing.”

“Well then, there is no more to be said. You will return to
Scotland, and my heart is breaking. I fear I may never see you again, Fletcher.
You, my firstborn.” Her voice broke.

“I would never allow anything to happen to sadden you. You
know that. Give me your blessing, Mother.”

“I have experienced much pain in my life, but none that has
cut so deeply as this. I want to give you my blessing, Fletcher, but I canna.
How can I bless something that will tear out my heart?”

He nodded. He understood that. After all, she was only being
the woman he had always loved and admired. It was her love for him that stirred
this protectiveness within her. She had lived with her fears, her feelings of
dread, since his father’s death.

In some ways it seemed like such a long time ago, but in
reality it had only been some twenty years ago that a man by the name of Adair
Ramsay had come into their lives and destroyed them—a greedy little man who had
tried to usurp the title, Duke of Glengarry, from Fletcher’s father, Bruce.

Protecting his title had cost Bruce Ramsay his life, and for
what? A few months after Bruce’s death, Adair Ramsay had laid claim to the
title again, and this time the courts in Edinburgh had awarded it to him. No
one had been able to prove that Adair had taken Bruce Ramsay’s life. But that
mattered little to Fletcher.

In his heart, he knew it was so.

His mother knew too, for she had told him often enough that
as long as he lived, he was a threat to what Adair Ramsay had taken.

Maggie put her hand on his arm. He turned toward her and saw
that she was crying.

How small she looked. How broken. It cut into the heart of
him that he was the one to do this to her. “Please don’t cry, Mother.”

“I canna help it. I canna let you go, Fletcher. I did not
invest so much of my life in you to have you throw it away. Adair is a very
dangerous man. If you go back, your life will be in grave, grave danger. Not
even the passing of twenty years has been able to erase the memory of those
horrible words he spoke to me that day so long ago, the day I left Glengarry
Castle for good.”

“What words? You never told me.”

“I had hoped to persuade you without having to tell you.”
She paused. “I will go to my grave remembering the way he said, ‘I would warn
you, madam, to rid yourself of any fancy notions of regaining the dukedom or
Glengarry Castle.’ I told him the warning was pointless, that my husband was
already dead, that the title could not pass to me.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said, ‘I speak of your son.’ When I accused him of
threatening me, he said, ‘I am merely giving you advice, madam. Leave things as
they are. If you set about stirring up a hornet’s nest, it might be you that
gets stung. You may have nothing to lose, but your son has.’”

Fletcher scoffed. “How could I lose something a second time?
He already had my title.”

“He said he wasn’t speaking of a title. And then he said,
‘Start digging around in all these ashes again, and I will see that you regret
it. There is no place you can go, no place you can hide that I won’t find you.
The lad takes after his father, would hate to see him follow in his
footsteps.’”

Fletcher felt a cold shudder pass over him. He put his arms
around her, and holding his mother close, he listened to the eaking sound of
her crying. “I could never bear to hear you cry,” he said, “and to think that I
am the cause of it.”

“It isn’t that you are the cause, it’s…”

“I know,” he said, handing her his handkerchief. “I know why
you left Scotland, why you found a place to hide halfway around the world. You
left everything you held dear in order to marry Adrian Mackinnon and bring my
sisters and me to California. You feared for my life and you took great
sacrifice and risk to protect me.”

“Aye, and it’s fear for your life that makes me want to keep
you here now.”

Fletcher put his arm over her shoulders as they strolled a
bit further.

“How many times have we walked along these cliffs, talking?”
she said softly. “And how many of those times have I worried that you would one
day grow up and leave?”

He looked at her.

“Aye, I’ve known since you were a lad and close to your
mother’s hip, but knowing doesna make it easy. Is there nothing I can do,
Fletcher, no reason I can give to turn you from this?”

“No. You can’t turn me away from my destiny.”

Maggie sighed in defeat. “That is the same thing Adrian
said.
Destiny
. How I hate that word. I want to scream and stomp my foot
every time I hear it, for I’d like nothing better than to crush all it means
beneath my heel.”

“Tell me you understand.”

She looked up and he knew that she could see the hope in his
eyes. He did not want to leave her like this, without her blessing. He knew the
understanding was there, for she was discerning enough to know that no man ever
escaped his destiny. Nor could he fault her for being mother enough to want to
try.

“Well then, if you must go, I can only pray that something
will change your thirst for vengeance. You canna live by the sword, Fletcher.”

Fletcher’s face hardened. He rammed his hands deep into his
pockets and looked out over the water. “Nothing can stop me.”

“You never know, Fletcher, what will happen.”

“I know nothing will sway me from two goals in life. I will
get my title back and I will destroy Adair Ramsay. I never told anyone this,
but I had a dream a long time ago, a dream that confirmed what I always knew.”

Wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand,
Maggie looked at him and waited.

“The dream came to me ten years ago, when I had just turned
eighteen, but even then I was already obsessed with going back to take back
what was rightfully mine. Adair Ramsay took more than just the title Duke of
Glengarry from me. He took my father’s life. It was only that dream that kept
me from going back before now.”

“A dream kept you from returning? I dinna understand.”

“I dreamed of a place very much like this one, a towering
summit where the waves crashed against the rocks below. A man that was all
goodness and light appeared and I could see that his face was one of celestial
beauty. He called my name, then put his hand on my shoulder and quoted from
Ecclesiastes: