Lady Eilean

Chapter 16

A violent storm raged outside. Lightning illuminated the landscape with brief, bright bursts of brilliance. Thunder ricocheted through the battlements and made the castle walls tremble. I sat in my father's study with the windows open. Raindrops crashed through the open window and shattered into a mist on the desk. Fine droplets blew onto my cheeks. It was late, well past midnight. The fire was only a pile of glowing, dancing embers in the hearth. I sat motionless, watching the coals. In my hand, my cheek was bony.

I had never considered my father's study a refuge. He had always been too loud, too commanding. The space held no fond memories. In another life, back when I had food in my belly and laughter in my throat, the room had been used for discipline. But of late, I had been drawn here. Hoping inspiration would find me, that it sat tucked away in his ledgers and account books. Praying that in the scribbles and scrap papers were the answers I sought.

The year had been too rainy and too cold. The crops failed a second time. Every day I cursed myself for my stupidity, my ignorance. If I had shown more gumption as a child, more backbone, Ellesmure would thrive. I could only enable it to fail. Two years of toil and I had only succeeded in assisting with mending. My fine silk gowns had long been worn out and cut up to assist in other needs, like washing windows and scouring dishes. Now I wore rough but serviceable homespun wool. Mending and patching up clothing for the castle had become my full-time occupation. Looking down at my threadbare clothes, I was glad that there was something I could do to support the people left behind in my charge. But day by day they looked at me with increasingly desperate eyes. Every day there was a line of supplicants in the great hall. They begged for food, for medicine, for help. I couldn't grant a single wish. There was no money, no men, no surplus. The servants helped as much as they could, spared as much as we were able, but it was obvious that we were in dire straits. We needed help. Soon.

I sighed and ruminated on a plan that had become a feverish obsession to me in the past few weeks. It would have to work. There was no other option. Stormway needed saving, Ellesmure needed saving. I needed saving. My only option was to turn over control of the Island and marry someone who knew what they were doing. Another Laird, certainly, would take pity on us?

A sick feeling churned in my stomach at the thought of matrimony. At the amount of help we — the largest Island — would need. My senses revolted at standing aside so a strange man, another family, could take possessions of these lands. A castle and people that had been in the MacLeod line for centuries. I was desperate. And despite my hopes, I knew there wasn't another Island large enough or rich enough to save us. But the Mainland Lords that had sided with my father's campaign...

No, it was untenable. I wanted more than a savior. I wanted a partner, an equal. Someone who could guide me but also instruct. Someone who would lead Ellesmure back to prosperity. Who would see the Island as their own. A man who would renounce his own claims and ambitions. Who was courageous or stupid enough to let me, a MacLeod, maintain Stormway's seat.

I snorted at my thoughts. They were the delusions of a starving idiot. Pride, the only possession left to me after my family's abandonment, was my only comfort. With their departure they unyoked me. I savored my independence, the freedom of my hours — toilsome and harrowing though they were. I could endure shabby dresses and blistered palms, so long as it meant I would never be controlled again. The metamorphosis from lady to destitute laborer had been hard, the lessons difficult. Yet it was all too easy to surrender my once luxurious life for one governed by my own will and determination.

Besides, I was not absolutely sure of the legality of my situation. As the only remaining MacLeod, I was presumably Laird of Stormway. But could a lady be a Laird? Could a Laird rule without fealty? With the men gone, who would bend the knee? And if I was Laird, would the title remain after matrimony? Or would I be forced to my husband's home? Abandoning Ellesmure and its citizens to a worse fate?