Fiona Hood-Stewart - The Lost Dreams

And now Strathaird would be hers no longer.

Not that Brad had wanted the property—he’d done everything possible to get the estate’s entail voided in favor of her mother and herself, but the rule of law apparently trumped a generation of occupancy and dedication to the land.

And broke her heart.

Charlotte swallowed the lump in her throat. Even though she was grateful the estate would be in Brad’s capable hands, she didn’t think she could bear to witness the changes his tenure would inevitably bring.

And now he’d be coming with a bride.

His engagement had been a complete surprise, one she was still trying to fathom and accept. She should have known that one day it would happen. Not that she objected, of course—far from it; she planned to pull his leg royally at the wedding, then be the first to toast his good fortune. It just felt odd to think of her Brad tied permanently to another woman, when he’d always been there for her. Now, she supposed reluctantly, she’d have to learn to share his strength with someone else.

All at once, Brad’s image materialized before her. Not as he was now, but as he’d been that night in Chester Square all those years ago, when he’d taken her in his arms and she’d felt his lips on hers. It had been years since she’d given it any thought, ages since she’d remembered. So why now? she wondered, eyes still carefully pinned above the bed, tracing shadows on the wall, trying to make some sense of these irrational thoughts. It was so silly. For over a decade, they’d had nothing more than a close friendly relationship. Still, she sighed involuntarily. The fact remained that after Brad married Sylvia, things would never be quite the same again.

The loud beeping of a monitor brought her crashing back to earth. She blinked uneasily at the panel of lights to the right of the bed, knowing the nurses would be in soon to check the apparatus. She flexed her fingers nervously and got up, feeling frustrated and cramped, and paced the room, agitated as a caged cheetah. If only there was some way to tear herself away, reach beyond this restless, dark-edged world that hovered constantly. But that was wishful thinking. Like it or not, she was stuck in a deadly impasse, unable to relinquish the past and powerless to claim the future.

She tried desperately to breathe, to regain composure, and realized with shock that she was trembling. Every instinct rebelled. She refused to regress. But as she cast a final fleeting glance at the motionless figure in the hospital bed, she felt the familiar ache rising in her throat; fear gripped her and panic hit.

The chair toppled as she fled from her husband’s side. Scrambling on the linoleum floor, she grabed her purse with a new sense of urgency, flung open the door and hurtled into the corridor, unable to stand it a moment longer.

A peacock blue sea sparkled, gulls soared and a warm west wind, herding clouds like woolly sheep, announced rain. But that would only come later, Penelope MacLeod realized, peering out the window of her daughter’s new home. The brine-filled breeze caressed her hair as she shook the duster vigorously and watched, mind adrift, as specks of dust sank into the rose bed. That, too, needed a good weeding, she thought, straightening her back, stiff from hours of sweeping, scrubbing and polishing. Her lips curved and she looked about her, amused. If she’d realized just how much elbow grease it was going to take to get Rose Cottage into some semblance of livability, she might not have offered her services to Charlotte quite so readily. Yet, as she gazed across the fields stretching out toward Strathaird Castle and the familiar knot caught once more in her throat, she knew that Charlotte had done the right thing by moving out. It was time to move on, and easier to deal with the logistics of the transfer before Brad arrived.

She sighed, gazed at the stark walls and turrets of what had always been their home, and thought about past and future. So much had happened in the past few years, so many revelations, so many unexpected twists and turns of fate that had changed life forever. Who would have imagined that Charlotte would move from that fast-paced life she’d led within the ambit of the movie business and the house in Notting Hill, back to Skye and now to the tiny thatch cottage left her by Granny Flora? More amazing was that her daughter seemed perfectly content to live away from the hubbub that not long ago had been her lifeline, with her young daughter Genny.

How one’s children change, Penelope reflected, thinking back to the restless, long-legged filly Charlotte used to remind her of. Then, turning her back to the window, she tucked a stray strand of soft blond hair behind her ear and took a good look at her handiwork. The cottage sparkled and she felt pride in the job. Charlotte would come home tonight to a tidy new home, where Penelope hoped very much that she’d be happy. Perhaps this was another sign her daughter was finally beginning to move on from the guilt and self-doubt she’d lived with these last many years.

The first sign of progress had been Charlotte’s sudden determination to open a gallery in the village to exhibit the jewelry designs she created. It had come as a welcome surprise, a signal that she was learning to trust in herself again. Penelope sighed and looked about her again. At least the cottage was a world away from London and all the craziness that had been her daughter’s life before her husband’s accident. A far leap from the castle half a mile down the dirt road, too, she realized with a sigh and a smile.

But right now, the cottage was where Charlotte wanted and needed to be.

She picked up the duster, eyes flitting over the sienna-colored walls Charlotte had painted with loving care, a warm backdrop to the many picture frames, lamps and two voluminous sofas discovered on a rainy afternoon binge in the attic at Strathaird. The sofas had cleaned up rather nicely, she reckoned, tilting her head and casting a critical eye over them. Covered with Charlotte’s extravagant throws and cushions, they looked comfy and welcoming.

The raid on the attic had yielded a number of other treasures. An ancient Indian chest with brass fittings and ivory inlays, a relic of the Raj that must have belonged to Great-Uncle Dougal MacLeod, who’d married the daughter of a local maharajah, now served as a coffee table, decked with heavy beeswax candles, a splattering of art books and a couple of artsy ashtrays. Penelope shook her head in admiration, amazed at her daughter’s ability to create an atmosphere straight out of House & Garden with old attic remnants and personal flair. Where had her child inherited her vivid imagination? she wondered. Neither David, her late husband, nor she were particularly artistic. Yet Charlotte oozed originality and creative talent.

Penelope glanced doubtfully at the tiger skin—probably another of Great-Uncle Dougal’s trophies—staring up at her from the grate with wide questioning eyes. She frowned, wondering whether Genny would be upset by its presence in the house. It pained her to see how sensitive her granddaughter was, how small things touched her in unanticipated ways. She hesitated. Perhaps if they gave the animal a name they could all become friends, and Genny wouldn’t mind. Rudyard Kipling came to mind. That was it! They’d name the tiger Arun, and her possible distaste would be allayed.

Smiling, she moved to the mantelpiece and carefully straightened great-great-grandfather Hamish MacLeod’s freesia-filled silver christening mug, making sure it was dead in the center of the Chippendale mirror frame above. She glanced at the photos Charlotte had placed on either side. Her gaze hardened as it fell upon John Drummond’s handsome, devil-may-care face staring up with confident arrogance, the photo shot days before the stunt that had caused his accident. Why couldn’t he have just died? she asked herself bitterly, not for the first time. The thought was wrong, of course, but she didn’t give a damn. The man had nearly ruined her daughter’s life. Could she be blamed for wishing him dead and Charlotte free? Even now, as he lay passive in his hospital bed, he continued to wield power. Charlotte was neither a wife nor a widow. God knows she’d tried to persuade her to carry on with the divorce proceedings she’d finally had the courage to face up to on that fatal day of the accident. But it was useless. Despite all the abuse she’d suffered from him—or perhaps partly because of it—Charlotte refused to be swayed.