He led her back down the stairs at the far end of the platform, into a large, high-ceiling room that appeared
dwarfed by the four huge, copper stills. “Once it’s fermented, the wash goes into the wash stills—that’s the pair in the front—then into the spirit stills. Those are the smaller stills in the back. The middle portion of that second distilling goes into the cask; the rest is re-distilled.”
“It’s all very neat, isn’t it?” said Gemma, gazing up at the graceful copper swan necks.
“Aye, if by that you mean tidy. The treacly residue from the kilns is mixed with the leftover barley to make animal feed—many distilleries used to have prize-winning cattle herds. But then the Scots have always had to be frugal. And patient. There’s a good deal of waiting involved in the making of a good malt whisky.”
“You’ll be no stranger to that, then,” said Gemma, thinking of Hazel.
Donald gazed at her a moment, as if considering his reply, but said merely, “Let me show you the warehouse.”
They crossed the lawn to a stone building with high windows, and Donald unlocked the door. “There are two more buildings behind this one, actually, but this is the original.”
Gemma beheld a long aisle lined with rows of casks above an earthen floor, and the air held a heady perfume.
“Oh, what a lovely smell,” she said, closing her eyes and inhaling again. There were notes of oak and alcohol, along with more subtle scents she couldn’t identify.
“Up to thirty percent of the contents evaporate over the life of a cask. It’s called the angels’ share. Hazel loved this—she said she could never enter a warehouse without being instantly transported to her childhood.”
Gemma jumped at the opening he’d given her. “Donald, look. I know you and Hazel have a history; she told me a bit of it last night. But do you realize what she’s
risking by seeing you? Her marriage, her child, a lovely home—”
“Aye, I know that. But if she were happy, she’d nae have come—”
“She’s confused, and you’re taking advantage of that—”
“Gemma, Hazel belongs here,” he broke in, shaking his head. “It’s that brought her back, as much as any feeling for me.”
“If that’s true,” Gemma countered stubbornly, “why has she never talked about it? She’s hardly mentioned Scotland in all the time I’ve known her.”
“Because it would have been like opening the lid on bloody Pandora’s box—all that longing—”
“And now you’ve let it out.”
“Aye.”
They stared at each other, stalemated. After a moment, Gemma said, “It will pass, if you’ll let her go.”
“And that’s what you’d want for your friend, to be half alive? Half the person she was meant to be?”
“I-It’s you who doesn’t know her as she really is.”
Memories of all the cozy times spent in Hazel’s kitchen came back to Gemma with a rush, and she felt the sting of tears behind her eyelids. Hazel had been the calm anchor in a turbulent world, and only now did Gemma realize how much that had meant to her.
“It’s yourself you’ll be thinking of,” said Donald, with unexpected acuity. “Not that I can blame you, but that’s hardly fair, now, is it?”
Unwilling to admit he’d come so near the mark, Gemma changed tack. “Donald, if Hazel was willing to see you at Innesfree, why did she refuse to come here?”
He looked away from her, gazing at the tiered casks as if they might provide an answer. At last, he sighed and
said, “It was here we told my father we meant to marry.
He would nae hear of it. He told her never to set foot on Benvulin land again. And—” He hesitated again.
“And what?” prompted Gemma.
“And he said he would cast me out if she did.”
Chapter Five
There’s a surplus of bachelors in oor little glen, A’ specimens grand o’ eligible men.
—anonymous
Carnmore, November
“Catarrh,” pronounced Nurse Baird as she sat back from examining her patient. The rash flushing Charles Urquhart’s fair skin indicated a particularly virulent fever, and a single look at his throat had confirmed her worst suspicions.
“He’ll be all right, then?” Livvy Urquhart asked, relief flooding her voice.
“It’s a powerful infection, Livvy—you’ll know that,”
cautioned the nurse. And the poor man was already weakened from his ordeal in the snow. Well, she would do what she could, as it would be days before the doctor could get there from Tomintoul.
Why was it, Nurse Baird wondered, that birth, death, and illness always chose to coincide with the worst conditions?—If that were the Lord’s will, she’d have given him credit for more sense.
At the height of the storm, she’d been helping Mrs. Stu-art give birth to her ninth, and that on the heels of easing the passage of old Granny Sharp at the opposite end of the village. She had just got back to her own fireside and her cat, Sootie, when Kenny Baxter had come hammering at her door with the news that Mr. Charles was taken ill.
Charles Urquhart had been a scrawny bairn when she’d delivered him nigh on forty years ago, in a snowstorm as fierce as this one, but he had survived. Perhaps he would show the same fortitude now.
She added crushed willow bark and wild garlic to the pot of hot water Livvy had brought her, then set the con-coction aside to steep. At least Olivia Urquhart was a sensible woman, and fortunate in possessing some medical training from her physician father. By Livvy’s directive, the room was clean and tolerably warm, and Charles had been well covered and fed warming drinks to soothe his throat.
But if Livvy Urquhart was sensible and competent, she was also much too beautiful for the hard life of the Braes.
A hothouse flower, Nurse had thought when Charles first brought her to Carnmore, with her dark curls and fair skin. Nor had Livvy faded—if anything, she had become lovelier. It was as if the births of her children and the death of her little daughter had both tempered and refined her. A rose on a steel stem, that’s how Nurse thought of her.
She wished she had the same confidence in Charles.
He’d been delicate from a lad, with a drive that pushed him past the limits of his constitution.
Now, studying Will, Nurse thought she saw signs of the same delicacy. The boy had grown too fast, so that the skin seemed stretched too tightly over the sharp angles of his bones, and high spots of color flared in his cheeks. He
was vulnerable, she thought as she filtered the herbal brew into a cup. This infection could be highly conta-gious—she would do well to watch the boy as well as treat the father.
Early that morning, Callum had watched Donald and the dark-haired woman emerge from the woods and wend their way along the meadow path towards the river.
Through his binoculars, he could see Donald speaking urgently, and the woman shaking her head, as if she were not convinced by his arguments. As they reached the river, someone else came out of the copse, a slender woman with a long, boyish stride. Her hair, the color of copper beech leaves, was pulled away from her face, revealing strong bones and a slightly upturned nose.