He had a wide face, with nice cheekbones. His nose was straight and didn’t look as though it had ever been broken, so not a brawler in his younger years, she decided. He had dark eyelashes that made his blue eyes quite striking, and she liked the way they lit up when he smiled.

Stuart was good-looking, she supposed, now that she’d had more time to consider it. His large hands held the steering wheel comfortably as he negotiated the rough dirt road and the small creek they’d just crossed. Everything about him was big. He was well over six feet tall and his physique reminded her of a rugby player, which she presumed he would have been during his university days. It was hard to tell how old he was, but if she had to guess she would say early to mid-thirties.

The track they were on eventually wound over the crest of a hill, and from there looked out across a wide valley surrounded by hills in the distance.

‘Rowan trees,’ she said with a small smile as she spotted more of the red-berried foliage, the only large type of vegetation growing across the bare hills and gullies.

‘You know about the rowan tree?’

‘Yes. Gran used to talk about them. She called them fairy trees. They protected against evil magic.’

‘This whole area would have been dotted with tenants’ homes, and earlier still there was a village just outside the castle. The rowan trees are all that remain where the houses would have stood.’

The fact these trees had managed to survive, like markers, after all this time was both sad and inspiring to Elle. In a way, they were like headstones—for the houses and lives once scattered along the landscape so long ago.

As Stuart drove them down the other side of the hill, she saw rocky outcrops on either side, where large boulders balanced on top of other rocks, and sheep lazily picked at the grass growing in and around them. Then as they came down onto the flat, she spotted it and felt her heart skip a beat.

Ahead of them was a stone wall, divided by an arch. This was the place.

EIGHTEEN

Eighteen

‘Is everything all right?’ Stuart asked.

Elle glanced at him and nodded, before opening her door and climbing out. She walked through the stone arch and immediately spotted a cluster of old graves.

‘I was imagining only two graves here,’ she said quietly as he walked up beside her.

‘It was used as a family burial site for a number of generations before the estates both eventually fell apart,’ he said. ‘There was even a small church here at one point, but it’s gone now.’

‘What happened to all the families?’

‘Wars, taxes.’ He shrugged. ‘Then after the uprising, over time a lot of Highlands families were cleared from the land.’