PERSONAL VENDETTA Margaret Mayo When Holly learned of the deaths of the grandparents she had loved so dearly, she bitterly regretted having allowed her mother to prevent her from seeing them more over the last few years. Returning to the beautiful Scottish village where she had spent blissful summer holidays with them brought back such happy memories - but one frightening one too. She remembered how threatening the old laird had seemed that day so long ago . . . And now she was confronted with his son, Calum McEwen, who appeared even more ruthless! CHAPTER ONE HOLLY had the strangest feeling that she was being watched. A peculiar sensation caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stiffen, yet when she turned there was no one to be seen; nothing except woodland and rolling hills sloping down to the expanse of shiny blue water. Nowhere on earth, she was sure, could you find a place so peaceful and serene. The silence hurt your ears. She recalled as a child thinking that it was like living in a big glass dome and that if she threw a brick hard enough and high enough it would burst the bubble and she would hear the noise of traffic and of people. Her summer holidays here had been a taste of freedom after being in prison. She could run and shout and do whatever she liked without fear of being a nuisance. There was no comparison between this sleepy Scottish glen and her home town of Walsall in the heart of the industrial Midlands. But never had she felt she was being spied upon, of unseeing eyes watching her every move, of being— resented, a stranger not welcome in this private place. 'Holly Burns, you're being fanciful,' she told herself sternly. 'Simply because you've not been back for ten years there's no reason to feel that you're an intruder. You've as much right here as anyone, and don't you forget it.' She firmed her shoulders and took a deep breath of air filled with the smell of heather and peat, of pine and sheer clean freshness, and trod again the winding path along the glen to Braeside. Very nearly she felt glad that her car had run out of petrol, otherwise she would have missed this first real taste and smell of the Scottish Highlands. On the other hand she would not have experienced this sensation of being unwelcome. She had been so eager to reach her destination, so sure she would have enough petrol to take her these last miles that she had sailed past the last filling station, intending to fill up at Invercray in the morning. Her little car stood now at the entrance to Glen Shilda, its flame red paintwork just visible through an avenue of lime and sweet chestnut, the colour totally at variance with the muted greens and purples of her surroundings. Away to her left stretched a dyke and she followed the line of it up the hillside with her eye, remembering how her grandfather had told her that a dyker's skill lay in the knowledge of the laws of gravity, using the strength of overlapping joints and the natural fit and grip of rough rocks without the use of mortar. This particular dyke denoted the boundary of her grandparents' property and it meant that round the next bend she would come upon the cottage. A movement caught her eye and for a brief second a horse and rider were silhouetted against the skyline. They had been standing unseen against the wall, but now were distinctly visible and although they were too far away for her to see whether the rider was looking in her direction, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was the person who had been watching her progress—and whoever he was, he did not want her here. It was a man, she knew instinctively. No woman would sit so tall in the saddle, or control that magnificent animal so easily. Knowing she was being observed gave Holly an odd feeling and she could not rid from her mind the unease this unknown person caused. As she stood the horse galloped along the ridge, the rider at one with the beast, the drumming of hooves now disturbing the silence that was so much a part of this glen. Holly watched until they disappeared from view then trudged the last few yards to her grandparents' cottage—no—her cottage! It was hers now, she kept forgetting that. It would be strange going inside without seeing them. Her mother hated this place. On her one and only visit prior to their marriage, before electricity came to the glen and there was no hot water unless you boiled a kettle or a saucepan on the fire, she had declared it uncivilised, and shuddered in distaste every time it was mentioned. Consequently, when it came to school holidays, Holly's father brought her to his parents' cottage, but because it meant leaving her mother alone, never stayed more than a day himself. She was only nine when he was killed in an accident at the factory where he worked, and Holly's mother refused to let her visit her grandparents again. She complained that she was always wild and uncontrollable after these holidays, and that it was in her own interests that she stay away. Naturally her grandparents were upset, and never forgave their daughter-in-law for depriving them of seeing her. They wrote to Holly at Christmas and on her birthday, sending presents and home made sweets, but still Holly was never allowed to go. When her mother remarried, Holly resented the man who took her father's place, and this feeling grew to hatred when he sided with her mother about the visits to Scotland. Over the years, though, her memories of both her grandparents and their tiny but comfortable cottage faded, and when her mother passed on the news that they had died she was saddened but not devastated, accepting it as inevitable; ashamed, though, that she had not taken the trouble to visit them once she was old enough to lead a life of her own. Perhaps if it had not been for Steve she might have done. But she had never wanted to leave him, always afraid that he might fall for someone else during her absence. Steve had not wanted her to come now. 'It can be settled through the solicitor,' he had argued. 'What's the point in going all that way when you're going to sell?' 'I want to see it again,' she said stubbornly, pouting her full lips and flashing her green eyes. It had been a surprise, discovering they had left it to her, although it should not have been since she was their only blood relative. But ten years was a long time. She had grown from a child to a woman and they, poor dears, had been denied the pleasure of seeing her grow up. 'If you wait until my holidays,' he said, 'I will come with you.' But Holly did not want to wait. It was true she had no intention of holding on to the cottage, but it would be nice to have a few keepsakes to remind her of her grandparents. Thinking of Steve made her hasten her footsteps, effectively taking her mind off the unknown horse rider, and within seconds she could see the tiny cottage. It was almost hidden behind a protective shield of colourful shrubs and trees and so vivid were her recollections that she almost expected to see a curl of smoke from the chimney and her grandmother waiting on the doorstep to welcome her. Instead it stood cold and still and much smaller than she remembered. The windows were dull instead of sparkling as they always had in Granny's day. The garden untended, as though Grandad had not given it too much attention before he died. But she was forgetting they were old. Granny was forty when her father was born. They had given up hope of having children. They would be over eighty now. They had had a good life, saddened only by the death of their son and their daughter-in-law's refusal to let them see their one and only grandchild. Holly suddenly realised it was almost dark. It had taken her longer than she expected to get here and dusk had fallen so quickly it had taken her by surprise. She searched in her bag for the key that she had stopped at the solicitor's in Glasgow to collect, frowning in annoyance when it would not fit. She cursed them for giving her the wrong one, then looking more closely at the lock realised that it was new and shiny. Someone had changed it! Unbidden came to mind a picture of the horse and rider, then she dismissed this as mere fantasy. She had no reason to believe that he should do this to her. Perhaps her grandfather had changed the lock before he died and the solicitor had unfortunately got hold of the wrong key? There could be any number of solutions and none of them need concern the man on the horse. She went round to the kitchen door pushing back rambling roses that had started to take over, but the key did not fit here either, and she stood for a moment debating what to do next. Had she not been so stupid as to run out of petrol she could have gone on into Invercray and found lodgings there, now she had no choice but to break a window and get in that way. She knew there were no other houses in the glen, only the castle far away at the other end. It was not really a castle. It was a very large house belonging to the McEwens who had sold her grandfather this cottage and piece of land. The old Laird had come to Braeside once when she was there and he had had a row with her grandfather and she had felt the ground rumble, so deep and loud was his voice. He had a red face, penetrating black eyes and a bristling white moustache and she had never forgotten that day. She still felt slightly in awe of the McEwen family, and would certainly never dream of going to them for help. It was amazing how guilty she felt, breaking a window in her own cottage. She felt like a criminal as she raised the brick, looking furtively over her shoulder in case anyone was watching. The windows were so tiny that she had to break some of the framework before she had a hole big enough to climb in, not that it was hard work because the timber was old and rotten and whoever bought the place would need to replace it anyway. In effect she was doing them a favour, because tomorrow she would get a man out here to put in a new frame and find her a key for the lock. Inside it was dark and cold and when she tried the light switches nothing happened, which wasn't surprising because with no one living here the electricity would be turned off. She glanced about her in what little light there was left and her vague memories of gleaming brass and fresh cut flowers, of bread toasted before an open fire, eaten with the butter running down her chin, were soon dissipated. Nothing was so cheerless as a house that had stood empty, she discovered. She was tired and hungry and did not know what it was she had expected but it was certainly not this. She should have known when she got up late this morning that nothing would go right. A puncture on the motorway had not helped. The day had been a disaster before she reached here. But Holly was not one to let things get her down and before long she had a fire burning in the grate and a kettle of water singing on the edge of the hob. She thanked her grandmother for not getting rid of her black-leaded fireplace. She pinned a sheet of brown paper over the broken window and drew the curtains across it, and found candles in a drawer which she stood in saucers and lit. She drank black coffee and ate biscuits and cold rice pudding out of a tin, and she filled a hot water bottle and put it in the bed she had slept in as a child. The sheets were clean and smooth and she had no qualms at all about sleeping in them. It was a novelty going to bed by candlelight, watching her grotesque shadow on the wall as she undressed and pulled on her nightie, then sliding between cool sheets with their single patch of warmth where the bottle had lain. She blew out the candle and lay in the darkness, completely unafraid in this house that had been her grandparents', which had been her father's home when he was a boy, and now belonged to her. Even though she had been away all these years there was a familiarity about it, it closed about her and protected her, and she would be a little bit sad when it was sold. Not that there was any chance of her changing her mind. There was simply no point in keeping it when she would never live here. Steve, she hoped, would soon ask her to marry him, and he would not move here where there was no work. Besides, the money would come in very useful setting them up with a house of their own. They would have a better start than most. Something new and modern on an estate, that was what Steve wanted, and because she loved him it was what she wanted too. Reaching out she pulled back the curtains and silver moonlight flooded the tiny room with its rag rugs and patchwork quilt, both lovingly made by Granny whose hands had never been still. An owl hooted but it was the only sound and very soon she fell asleep. Holly was awakened by the sound of someone turning a key downstairs. It was daylight and the sun was quite high in the sky, but she had no idea what time it was. She sat up and listened then slipped out of bed and shrugged into a well- worn housecoat, belting it as she tiptoed down the enclosed stairs. She had left the door at the bottom open and across the room could see a pair of black leather booted legs, and lean powerful thighs clad in black jodhpurs. The feet stood slightly apart and whoever he was he was waiting for her. Holly's heart pitter-pattered inside her breast and her mouth felt dry, her palms moist, and she knew instinctively that it was the man who had watched her arrival from the brow of the hill. With each step she descended she could see more of him, narrow hips and the skirt of a dark tweed riding jacket; a crop sprung like a bow between lean, tanned, long-fingered hands, a broad chest with a thin black roll-necked sweater fitting snugly beneath the immaculate coat. The firm thrust of jaw, the aggression in the set of the chin, made Holly slow down and stop before she saw the whole of his face. She sensed that here was an adversary. She might not know him, and he certainly did not know her, but that did not stop him from resenting her presence. The atmosphere in that tiny room was such that she felt she could cut it with a knife. It would choke her to walk into it, to face up to this man who was here for a reason known only to himself. That whip in his hand, she got the impression that he would like to use it on her, that he would derive much pleasure out of seeing her at his feet begging for mercy. Yet he had said nothing. He had done nothing. As yet he was a faceless person and she was a prey only to her own over-fertile imagination. She ran a hand through the short curls of her auburn hair and realised that she was trembling. Then she took herself to task for being stupid. She was in her own cottage. She, if anyone, was boss here. It was this man who was in the wrong. She took a deep breath, lifted her chin and stepped down the last two stairs. She opened her mouth to ask who the devil he thought he was entering her cottage, but the words died on her lips when she looked into a pair of the coldest, unfriendliest dark eyes she had ever seen. Her mouth remained open as she took in the uncompromising face that topped that powerful body. His lips thinned in a straight grim line, a hawk-like nose was bridged by strong brows over those piercing eyes. Thick, shining black hair waved about a well shaped head. He looked sinister and menacing and Holly involuntarily stepped back a pace, clutching her dressing gown tightly across her breast, feeling somehow naked and defenceless against this hostile stranger. Later she wondered why she had let him speak first, but at that moment her mouth felt dry and contracted and in the long silence when they weighed each other up, which lasted seconds but felt like minutes, she could not have spoken had she tried. 'You do realise that breaking and entering is a very serious offence?' His deep- timbred voice filled the room, bouncing off the low-beamed ceiling and sending tiny quivers down Holly's spine. But his autocratic manner put her immediately on the defensive, determined not to let this man, whoever he was, get the better of her. He was at least twelve inches taller than herself, six foot three or four, she ventured to guess, and the fact that she had to look up made her even more ill-disposed toward him.