Free A Scottish Love by Karen Ranney Page A

to the other side of the room. Fergus swore, then swiftly apologized. Neither Helen nor she looked in his direction. He would just have to manage. If he asked for her help, she’d be at his side the next second. However, the creak of the pulley indicated that he was managing quite well.
    “Damn heavy, Shona,” he said, before apologizing for his language again.
    She looked up at the lowering chandelier.
    For months, worry had filled every moment, but for a few short minutes, it was pushed aside by regret. And, perhaps, grief as she stared at the cobwebs that swept from the corners to tenuously perch on the chandeliers, and then draped from shield to claymore to dirk. A message that the past was dead, given a dust shroud, and decorated by industrious spiders.
    Helen’s stomach growled, the sound embarrassingly loud in the silence. When she excused herself to go and fill the buckets, Shona turned to her brother.
    “I’ll have food here by this afternoon,” she said.
    The villagers of Invergaire would be more than happy to assist them, since all their ancestors had been clan members. But she wasn’t about to go door to door, explaining their plight. The shame of even having that thought was painful.
    We’re poor. We’re beyond poor. We’re destitute, and we’ve nothing but Gairloch.
    Hardly words she’d utter aloud.
    The minister, however, had been a friend of her parents. In addition to officiating at her parents’ funeral, he’d married her in the church at Invergaire. This afternoon, she would travel the short distance to Invergaire and beg, because begging was what it would be.
    Helen should never have asked Gordon for help. He’d aid Fergus, perhaps, but she couldn’t even be sure of that. Not once in the six months since they’d returned from India had he written.
    And have my letters returned?
    She wouldn’t have done that. A still, small voice whispered that she might have. She had no reason when it came to Gordon.
    The black dress she was wearing was one of her oldest, so she wasn’t concerned about its welfare. She used one of the longer rags to bind her hair. After Helen returned from filling up the two buckets, she did the same.
    The chandelier, an elaborate ring of interlocking circles, held sconces for two dozen thick pillared candles. In the last century, glass shields had been placed around the candles so that the hapless visitors standing under the chandelier wouldn’t be showered with hot wax.
    She’d thought to bring a knife from the kitchen and it was the first tool she used, scraping off dried puddles at the base of the candles.
    “Are there any more candles in the pantry?” she asked, turning toward Fergus, who was tying off the rope now that the chandelier had been lowered.
    “Is that my new task?” he asked.
    “That, and making sure the stove is lit,” she said, smiling.
    He only nodded and left the room, leaving her and Helen to their chore.
    By the time he returned, they’d finished scraping and polishing. The iron would never be attractive, being a dull gray cast, but the glass shields sparkled.
    “We’ve only got three candles,” Fergus said.
    With the remaining five, they would provide some illumination. Perhaps the Americans would see the dimness of the Clan Hall as atmospheric. A true Scottish castle, complete with shadows and hints of other times.
    Raising the chandelier took more time and effort, but once again, she refused to assist Fergus. Nor did he call for help. Instead, she and Helen made quick work of dusting the rest of the furniture, and what weapons they could reach.
    Please, God, let the Americans purchase Gairloch.
    The last task remaining in the Clan Hall was to sweep and mop the floor. Helen swept while she went into the kitchen. The well was located in the corner of the kitchen, topped by a surround of bricks a foot high. She knelt, filled the buckets, and heated some water in one of the large pots hanging over the table. After the buckets were filled