The Return of Black Douglas Read Online Free PDF Page A

Elisabeth say, “Sorry, I didn’t see that pothole.”
    “I needed to wake up.” Isobella looked around. “Are we almost there?”
    “Yes. I’m getting excited to see Douglas’s portrait, but I have my doubts about his being a ghost. You’ve always believed.”
    “I believed in ghosts when we were kids. Later, I knew it was impossible. Now, I don’t know. A lot of references in those old family documents attest to the fact that he appeared a time or two other than to our four—or was it five—times great-grandmother, Meleri Douglas.”
    “What century was that?”
    “Eighteenth. Back to your question, I think I want him to be a ghost. I had very strange feelings at St. Bride’s yesterday.”
    “Those documents might be based upon myth, rather than fact. In real life, there aren’t many happy endings. Prince Charming’s line died out a long time ago, if it ever existed. I wish I could be more like you, Izzy. You got all the dreamer genes. As for me, I’m a boring reality check. I think Scotland’s getting to me.”
    Isobella laughed. “Perhaps that’s why I was so moved when we visited St. Bride’s Kirk. The Black Douglas could be considered the romantic ideal, could he not?”
    “Tell me you aren’t going to fall for someone who has been dead for almost eight hundred years!”
    “I can’t. We might be related.”
    Later that afternoon, after visiting the first two castles on their list, they turned down a narrow, winding road in picturesque countryside and Isobella caught a glimpse of Beloyn Castle. It sat upon rock, as if it rose straight out of the ground. Part of the structure lay in ruins, for over the centuries the owners had never wanted to repair the damage, preferring to leave it as a reminder that the castle had been destroyed by King James. Now, it was a stalwart fortress, with its crow-stepped gable, baronial turrets, and unusual combination of aloofness and warmth.
    Isobella studied the massive walls of yellowing stone, with creeping ivy growing in a roofless tower and dangling from arrow slits. Her imagination ran rampant as she envisioned the walls covered with fine tapestries and silken arras and set with fine glass windows. Beneath those rudely cut stones, scattered among the gaunt ribs and splintered timbers of once-vaulted ceilings, lay the stories of great love, lavish feasts, and births and death, of betrayal, torture, mayhem, and murder. She was irresistibly drawn to this tangible link to the past, both romantic and tragic, for it was the home of her Douglas ancestors.
    She stretched lazily, for it was a warm, sunny day and the world around her was as splendid as any rendered by an artist’s brush. The sun shone down with an almost liquid brilliance that turned the trees in the distance into a shimmering of great shadows and light, just as it had for centuries. She was awed at the secrets and whisperings the trees could tell of great warriors and battle-weary knights who once rode beneath their noble branches or hid from the English in the shielding embrace of dense foliage.
    The road curved and she saw the white fence of a cottage, the tawny gold of a thatched roof, the glazed green of a chestnut tree, and the sparkling blue of the river against the rich brown tones of the road that curled before them. She caught the haunting sound of a bagpipe, the dull humming faint and melancholy. “I wonder who is playing.”
    Elisabeth slowed and turned onto the graveled parking area. “Playing what?”
    “The bagpipes.”
    “I don’t hear anything.”
    Isobella rolled down the window. “Hear them now?”
    “No.”
    Isobella shivered. “It’s freezing in here. Turn down the air.”
    “We didn’t rent a car with air conditioning.”
    Suddenly, Isobella felt very cold and very frightened.

Chapter 5
    Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe,
    And sometimes I think we’re not.
    In either case the idea is quite staggering.
    —Attributed to Sir Arthur C. Clarke