The Making of a Highlander (Midnight in Scotland #1) - Elisa Braden Page 0,15

a goodly number, and they glinted with new glass. The garden around the house’s ground floor had been cleared of brambles and castoff fieldstone. Instead, it now had a shorn lawn, low hedges, and several old pines.

She wondered if Huxley had made similarly impressive progress on the interior. Smoke rose from one of the chimneys, so the place hadn’t killed him yet.

Good. She liked the man, though he was addled to accept Angus’s wager. Stay in the glen through a Highland winter, only to be humiliated in front of the entire village before losing his land entirely? He must enjoy suffering.

By the time she arrived at the castle’s heavy oak door, her nose was numb and her teeth were grinding against a chatter. She lifted the iron knocker and pounded it seven times.

No answer.

Seven more times. “Huxley!” she bellowed, glaring up at three stories of gray stone and fanciful pointed arches. “Ye’ve a visitor!”

Nothing.

Damn the man, she would have liked to warm herself by the fire before mucking about amidst the dead. “Dawdling Englishman,” she muttered, making her way toward the pine woods beyond the garden, where the old churchyard lay. “Cannae even drag yer arse out of bed to answer the bluidy door.”

Past the main stand of trees flanking the castle, a weed-choked clearing dotted with decrepit stone markers and birch saplings surrounded the skeleton of the old church. Two high walls still stood, but everything else was rubble. Every spring, the ruins filled up with ferns and moss. Birds nested in the crannies and took flight whenever someone drew near. She’d always felt the place had a bit of magic in it. But as autumn wore into winter, it just felt frozen.

Shaking off a shiver, she hugged herself tighter and trudged over MacDonnell gravestones toward the oldest part of the churchyard. Behind an ancient fence, near the base of one of the walls, a rusted iron gate lay propped awkwardly where it had fallen when the hinges failed.

This was where Finlay had been buried. Near the gate. On the northwest corner of the ruined church. No marker. No signs that his bones lay beneath the soil. She only knew because he’d shown her the spot years ago when she’d asked where he’d been laid to rest. Finlay hadn’t liked to visit here. He preferred not to dwell on his past.

Frozen grass rustled as she crouched beside the gate. Rusted iron groaned and stung her hands as she wrenched it away from the ground. Heaving it aside until it flopped flat, she cursed again. “Blasted, sodding thing,” she muttered, yanking at the weeds that covered Fin’s grave. Once the ground was cleared, she withdrew the small wooden carving from inside her plaid. It was supposed to be a thistle. It looked like a mushroom.

Sighing, she withdrew the note Mrs. MacBean had given her. She skimmed it silently before rolling her eyes. “Daft rubbish,” she muttered.

But this was for Finlay. So, she ignored all good sense and read the words aloud. “Spirit who lieth in hollow ground …” She frowned. “Hallowed ground, not hollow ground, ye daft auld woman.”

She started again. “Spirit who lieth in hallowed ground, come forth to the ring where my offering may be found.” She squinted at the paper. Glanced around. “Ye didnae mention any ring, ye daft auld woman,” she grumbled. Losing patience, she rose to gather a few stones, then arranged them in a circle. Kneeling, she tried again.

“Spirit who lieth in hallowed ground, come forth to the ring where my offering may be found. For, as the seed I plant doth grow …” She examined the carving in her hand. “Now, I suppose ye want me to bury the thing, ye daft auld woman.”

Her fingers stung as she clawed the frozen dirt. Finally, she dropped the mushroom-thistle into the shallow hole, scraped the dirt back into place, and read Mrs. MacBean’s rhyming blather. “Spirit who lieth in hallowed ground, come forth to the ring where my offering may be found. For, as the seed I plant doth grow, a bridge betwixt realms I do sow.”

She waited. Held her breath in a moment of foolish hope. But nothing happened.

Not a breeze. Not a tickle of her palm or a wee spark between her ribs.

Her fingers hurt from weeding and wrenching and digging. Her knees were wet and numb from kneeling. She’d likely have stains to