Read Chapter 38: The Laird's Proposal

The castle had never felt so quiet. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as Hamish took her hand and turned away from the main corridor, leading her through the narrow passage that opened into the Eastern chamber. Eilidh knew every stone now—every crack restored, every panel of wood oiled and polished. She had mapped this room with her own hands, had scraped away centuries of grime to reveal Finella's name carved beneath the window ledge. But she had never seen it like this.

Sunset poured through the restored stained glass, laying a river of amber and rose across the stone floor. The air smelled of beeswax and old timber and something sweeter, like the heather that bloomed far below the castle walls. The strongbox sat closed on the desk where it belonged now, displayed behind a thin cord of velvet as part of the future museum. Finella's portrait had been returned to the gallery, but in this chamber her presence was stronger than paint.

Hamish stopped in the center of the room and turned to face her. His hands were steady, but she saw the pulse beating at his throat, quick and nervous.

“Do you remember the first time I brought you here?” he asked.

Eilidh laughed softly. “You brought me here to argue about a heating duct.”

“I brought you here to make you angry enough to stay.”

“That's a terrible strategy.”

“It worked.” He smiled, but the smile trembled at its edges. “I've walked this castle a thousand times. Every corridor, every stair. I know where the floorboards groan in the winter and which windows catch the sunrise in June. I know the name of every ghost that's supposed to haunt the battlements and the exact weight of the old portcullis chain.” He paused. “But I didn't know what it was like to love a place until I watched you love it.”

Eilidh's throat tightened. She opened her mouth, but no words came.

Hamish reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small box of worn leather. It was old, the hide darkened with age, but when he opened it, the ring inside shone like new fire. The band was silver, intricately worked with interlocking thistles and heather, and at its center sat a small cairngorm stone the color of whisky held up to light. A match to the ring from the strongbox, but made for her finger.

Eilidh felt the air leave her lungs.

“I didn't want to wait for the hearing,” Hamish said, his voice dropping low. “I didn't want to wait another day. I've spent six years of my life fighting to keep this castle from falling apart, and it took you to show me that I was fighting the wrong battle. It was never about the stone. It was about what the stone protects. About who belongs inside it.”

He dropped to one knee on the cold flagstones. The motion was so sudden, so unguarded, that Eilidh gasped.

“Eilidh Grant,” he said, and his voice cracked on her name, “our houses are one blood, but our hearts are one soul. I don't know what the law will say in six days. I don't know what histories will surface or what ghosts will speak. But I know that I want to wake up in this castle for the rest of my life with you beside me. I want to argue with you about heating ducts until we're both too old to climb the stairs.” He held up the box. “Will you marry me?”

The words hung in the warm air. The stained glass burned brighter, as if the sun itself had leaned closer to listen.

Eilidh looked down at the man kneeling before her—the laird who had once been her adversary, who had barked orders at her from scaffolding and dismissed her credentials with a curl of his lip. She remembered the first day she'd arrived, muddy-booted and determined, ready to fight for a commission that would make her career. She had not expected to fall in love with the mountain. She had not expected to fall in love with the man who lived on top of it.

She thought of her father's watch, ticking its last seconds in a drawer in Edinburgh. She thought of Morag's sharp eyes, watching her with skepticism and something that might have been hope. She thought of Finella's diary, the entry she'd opened by chance: *Love, not blood, makes a family.* The words had been waiting for her across four hundred years.

“Yes,” Eilidh said.

The word came out rough and small. Hamish blinked, as if he hadn't heard.

“Yes,” she said again, louder now, and she laughed as tears blurred her vision. “Yes, you daft man. Get up. Get up and put that ring on my finger before I come to my senses.”

He rose in one motion, crossing the space between them, and his hands shook as he slid the silver band onto her finger. It fit perfectly. Of course it did. He had measured it somehow—she didn't ask how, didn't want to know, didn't want that mystery solved. The silver was cool against her skin, then warmed quickly, like it had always been there.

She looked down at the ring, then up at his face. “How long did you have this made?”

“Three weeks ago,” he admitted. “I asked the jeweler in Inverness to match the one from the strongbox. She said it was the most romantic commission she'd had in twenty years of business. She cried.”

“Did you cry?”

He paused. “A little.”

Eilidh laughed, a bright sound that echoed off the old stone walls, and she threw her arms around his neck. He caught her, holding her tight against his chest, and she felt his heart hammering against her ribs. The laughter turned into something softer, something that tasted of salt and gratitude.

“I worried,” she whispered into his shoulder. “I worried that I loved you because of the history. Because of the names tangled up in ours. Because it was written somewhere that we were meant to find each other, and I couldn't tell if what I felt was real or just the weight of the past pulling us together.”

“And now?”

She pulled back to look at him, and she saw the fear in his eyes—the same fear she had carried for weeks. “Now I know it doesn't matter. Finella wrote that love, not blood, makes a family. But I think it's simpler than that.” She touched her chest. “Here. It doesn't matter why we're here. It matters that we are.”

Hamish pressed his forehead to hers. “I have loved you since the day you told me I was wrong about the joists in the west wing.”

“I was right about the joists.”

“You were.” He kissed her forehead. “You've been right about almost everything. It's insufferable.”

“Someone has to keep the laird humble.”

“The laird is very humble.”

“The laird is not.”

They kissed, and the castle held its silence around them, ancient and watchful. When they broke apart, Eilidh's hand drifted to the windowsill where she had first discovered Finella's initials carved beneath the painted plaster—a name hidden for centuries by men who didn't want her remembered.

She touched the warm stone, and for a moment, she felt it again. That warmth. That presence. Not threatening. Not cold. It curled around her shoulders like the low winter sun breaking over the ridge, and she knew, with a certainty that had nothing to do with evidence or archives, that Finella was there with them.

“Your ghost and mine are friends now,” Eilidh said softly.

Hamish followed her gaze to the empty corner of the room. “You think she's watching?”

“I know she is.”

“What do you think she'd say?”

Eilidh considered. The light through the stained glass deepened, the amber deepening to crimson as the sun sank lower. “I think she'd say it's about time. And then she'd tell me the ring is too modern and the stone should be larger.”

Hamish laughed. “Sounds like you two get along fine.”

“We do.” Eilidh turned back to him, her hand still warm on the stone, the ring glinting on her finger. “She approves. I can feel it.”

He took her face in his hands, cupping it gently like something precious, and looked at her with that gaze she had come to recognize—the one that stripped away all pretense and saw straight through to the core of her. “Then let's not keep her waiting. We have a castle to open, a trust to build, and a hearing in six days to win.”

“And a wedding to plan.”

“That too.” He grinned. “Though I reserve the right to veto any floral arrangements in the west wing. The light ruins them.”

“The light is beautiful in the west wing.”

“The light is beautiful everywhere when you're in it.”

Eilidh scoffed. “That was terrible.”

“Textbook romantic. You should be swooning.”

“I am swooning internally.”

“Good. That's all I ask for.”

She laughed again, and the sound filled the room, chased away the shadows that clung to the corners. The last light of sunset burned through the stained glass, casting a crown of colors over them both, and she felt Finella's presence settle like a satisfied sigh.

“We should go,” Hamish said. “Iain is making dinner, and he threatened to use the family recipe for haggis if we're late. I don't want to test whether he's bluffing.”

“He's definitely not bluffing. I saw the stomach in the fridge.”

“Then we hurry.”

He took her hand—the one with the ring—and led her out of the Eastern chamber. She looked back once, over her shoulder, at the empty room bathed in dying light. For a heartbeat, she could have sworn she saw a figure at the window, a woman in an old-fashioned dress with her hair loose down her back, watching them go.

But when she blinked, there was nothing there but the light.

Eilidh smiled, squeezed Hamish's hand, and walked into the future beside him.