She drew up the chair beside the bed, then leaned close. “Who, Papa?”
“The Black Scotsman.”
Fire raged inside her. “That bloody pirate!” she cried. “He is dead and I pray that he has burned in Hell these many years! I curse him as we have been cursed!”
A fit of coughing seized the earl. Maura held a glass of water to his lips and made him drink.
“It will do no good to curse him,” he rasped when he was able. “He is already cursed. By the old earl of McDonough,Randall O’Donnell himself, who saw his ship disappear into the night.” He began to wheeze again. “But you can save us, Maura. You are the one.”
A wave of despair broke over her. If only it were true. If only there were some way she could save them! But with every year that passed, a few more tenants moved away. Those who remained eked out a living.
Throughout the rest of the day and into the evening he railed. “Maura,” he whispered again and again. “You are the one. The only one who can save us. The only one who can save our people and our lands.”
For a time her father was quiet. Maura was dimly aware of Murdoch and Jen hovering behind her. She thought he was sleeping—a restful sleep, a healing sleep, she prayed. Just when hope unfurled in her breast, he coughed anew—it sounded like the scratching of winds across a field of straw bleached dry and brittle by the sun.
It was almost as if she could see him shrinking away before her very eyes. She tried to soothe his wild ramblings, but all at once he heaved himself up with a strength that astounded her. His eyes opened and fixed straight upon her.
“The Black Scotsman,” he whispered again. “Did you not hear me, child? He has returned. He is in Ireland. In Ireland, girl!”
He was hallucinating, surely, for nothing he said made any sense now.
“Papa—” She tried to press him back, but he reached out and seized the paper he’d been reading when he fell ill; Maura had tossed it aside, onto the bedside table. He thrust it into her hands, then collapsed back upon the pillows. “Read,” he commanded in as stout a voice as ever. “Read!”
As if guided by some force from above, her gaze homed in directly on the line that read:
Alec McBride, Duke of Gleneden, has arrived in Ireland for several weeks of angling. Prior to his return home to Scotland, Lord Preston, Baron of Killane, will play host to the duke for the last week of his visit. On Thursday, 10 June, Lord Preston will honor the duke with a masquerade ball to conclude his grace’s visit. One cannot help but wonder if the dashing Black Scotsman will capture the hearts of our Irish lasses as surely as he has captured many a heart in his homeland…
Stunned, Maura went very still. The paper slid from her hands onto the floor. A strange sensation seized hold of her.
“You see, Maura? You understand now, don’t you? The Black Scotsman has returned. He has returned!”
Maura shook her head. “Papa, this man…this duke…”
“I see it, Maura. I know it. Promise me you will find him.”
His breath grew heavy and labored. She almost hated herself for thinking it, but he had not long to live. She could almost see him slipping away.
Tears filled her eyes. “Stay, Papa. Stay.” It was a cry of outrage, a desperate plea, as if she could stop the inevitable.
There was a suffocating tightness in her chest, as if her heart was being chipped away, piece by piece. She battled to hold back tears. It was useless. A tear slid down her cheek, followed by another. She didn’t want to promise. She didn’t want to let go of him. She didn’t want to lose him.
She gripped his hands. He held tight—so tight it was as if lightning flashed inside her brain, her very blood—as if a current of some strange unknown energy passed from his body into hers.
It was believed by many that her father had the sight. It was true things often happened as he said they would. He often dismissed this belief in his usual, jovial way. Yet now Maura realized for the first time—and with an unswerving certainty—that it was the truth.
Some might have argued there was no reason to believe that this man whom the newspaper called the Black Scotsman could possibly be related to the pirate of yesteryear, the Black Scotsman who stole the Circle of Light. Yet, with an uncanny certainty, Maura felt the truth to the core of her being. This man, Alec McBride, Duke of Gleneden…carried the blood of his pirate ancestor, the Black Scotsman.
Her father cried out, “I see in your eyes that you feel it, too. That you understand. That you know it as I do. Oh, aye, girl, it was his ancestor who stole from us, stole everything. Go to him, Maura. Seek him out. Go to Lord Preston’s and find this Black Scotsman and follow him to his home—to his lands, for it is there you will find the Circle. Find it and bring it home, child. Take back what is ours. End this curse, that our lands and peoplewill again be blessed with good fortune. Promise me, Maura. Promise me you will find this man. Promise me you will find the Black Scotsman.”
Her throat was so raw she could barely speak. “Papa, I do not know—”
“You will find a way, my child. You are the one. The only one who can save us. I feel it here.” He thumped his heart. Tears filled his eyes.
Just as tears filled hers.
“Promise me, daughter. Promise me you will bring the Circle home, home where it belongs.”
Her voice was but a shred of sound. “I promise, Papa.”
