little.
"John Blackburn, you are a genius! Are you ready to go down the hill, or would you rather rest here until I get back?"
"I'll wait. It was a long walk up that hill, and I'd like to make some sketches here. Where are you going?"
"I intend to convince Sir Scrooge to loan me more than just a shovel!" Hitching up her skirts, she hurried along the incline.
Chapter 8
Earth and rock sundered open, spitting debris into a blue sky as the blast shivered through the heather. Standing two hundred yards away, Aedan felt the vibration. He had witnessed countless explosions as a civil engineer, but this time the world—his very being—seemed to tilt. Swift as a shadow, a foreboding rushed through him and faded.
Just a routine blast, he told himself, a safe and necessary phase in the construction of the parliamentary road under his supervision. His contract with the Commission for the Department of Roads and Highways required the timely completion of this Highland project, and he was determined to honor that commitment.
Since the highway cut through the edge of the property where he was laird and baronet, he felt uneasy ordering permanent alterations in the land. Still, he agreed with the merits of improvements across Scotland, and he would do his part to help bring those benefits about.
Underfoot, the wide road was topped with a tightly packed layer of crushed stone that stretched south over the fells toward Glasgow. Northward, the road met a line of hills that crossed the moorland for miles. Marked by wooden stakes, a rough earthen path zigzagged up the incline of Cairn Drishan.
For two years Aedan and his crew had inched this gravel-packed route along the Highland Boundary Line, through rough terrain and unpredictable weather. Only seven weeks remained before the queen's visit to Dundrennan, when the government expected the new route to be completed. But the recent delay posed by the discovery of stone walls on Cairn Drishan had halted work on the vital hill section of the road.
He glanced toward Cairn Drishan, over a mile away but easily visible as part of a curving chain of hills. The rounded top sat slightly askew, like a tilted hat. Notches halfway up one heathery slope marked the road cuts, and a deep gouge indicated the site of the ruined wall.
Christina Blackburn was up there now, he thought, examining those stones. The very thought of her made his heart beat a little faster, he realized with a frown. She was so lush and spirited behind her gentle, bookish exterior that he felt all the more fascinated by her. He wanted to see her again soon, wanted to learn more about her, be with her—
No, he cautioned himself. It would have been far better for Dundrennan and its laird if the museum antiquarian had turned out to be an old fusspot after all.
He fervently hoped that the wall would prove to be recent and unremarkable enough to allow his work to continue as planned. An alternate route was plausible, but more complicated to execute.
As the explosion's thunder gradually subsided, Aedan felt the wind, warm and dusty, though still fragrant with heather. He stepped out from behind the protection of a roadside boulder and saw members of his work crew doing the same near the side of the road. One of them, a young blond man, approached Aedan.
"A touch of black powder reduced that cluster of boulders and saved days of hard labor," Aedan said. "Well done, Rob."
"Thank you, sir." His assistant engineer, Robert Campbell, smiled. Rob looked more like a towheaded schoolboy than the most promising student in Rankine's classes in modern principles of engineering at Glasgow University, Aedan thought. "I know your plan calls for grading by hand digging whenever possible to preserve the landscape, Sir Aedan, but once again we found more rock than anticipated."
"Blasting was the best solution." Aedan brushed earth dust from his shirtsleeves and dark brown linen vest. "You placed the charges cautiously, and kept the damage to a
"John Blackburn, you are a genius! Are you ready to go down the hill, or would you rather rest here until I get back?"
"I'll wait. It was a long walk up that hill, and I'd like to make some sketches here. Where are you going?"
"I intend to convince Sir Scrooge to loan me more than just a shovel!" Hitching up her skirts, she hurried along the incline.
Chapter 8
Earth and rock sundered open, spitting debris into a blue sky as the blast shivered through the heather. Standing two hundred yards away, Aedan felt the vibration. He had witnessed countless explosions as a civil engineer, but this time the world—his very being—seemed to tilt. Swift as a shadow, a foreboding rushed through him and faded.
Just a routine blast, he told himself, a safe and necessary phase in the construction of the parliamentary road under his supervision. His contract with the Commission for the Department of Roads and Highways required the timely completion of this Highland project, and he was determined to honor that commitment.
Since the highway cut through the edge of the property where he was laird and baronet, he felt uneasy ordering permanent alterations in the land. Still, he agreed with the merits of improvements across Scotland, and he would do his part to help bring those benefits about.
Underfoot, the wide road was topped with a tightly packed layer of crushed stone that stretched south over the fells toward Glasgow. Northward, the road met a line of hills that crossed the moorland for miles. Marked by wooden stakes, a rough earthen path zigzagged up the incline of Cairn Drishan.
For two years Aedan and his crew had inched this gravel-packed route along the Highland Boundary Line, through rough terrain and unpredictable weather. Only seven weeks remained before the queen's visit to Dundrennan, when the government expected the new route to be completed. But the recent delay posed by the discovery of stone walls on Cairn Drishan had halted work on the vital hill section of the road.
He glanced toward Cairn Drishan, over a mile away but easily visible as part of a curving chain of hills. The rounded top sat slightly askew, like a tilted hat. Notches halfway up one heathery slope marked the road cuts, and a deep gouge indicated the site of the ruined wall.
Christina Blackburn was up there now, he thought, examining those stones. The very thought of her made his heart beat a little faster, he realized with a frown. She was so lush and spirited behind her gentle, bookish exterior that he felt all the more fascinated by her. He wanted to see her again soon, wanted to learn more about her, be with her—
No, he cautioned himself. It would have been far better for Dundrennan and its laird if the museum antiquarian had turned out to be an old fusspot after all.
He fervently hoped that the wall would prove to be recent and unremarkable enough to allow his work to continue as planned. An alternate route was plausible, but more complicated to execute.
As the explosion's thunder gradually subsided, Aedan felt the wind, warm and dusty, though still fragrant with heather. He stepped out from behind the protection of a roadside boulder and saw members of his work crew doing the same near the side of the road. One of them, a young blond man, approached Aedan.
"A touch of black powder reduced that cluster of boulders and saved days of hard labor," Aedan said. "Well done, Rob."
"Thank you, sir." His assistant engineer, Robert Campbell, smiled. Rob looked more like a towheaded schoolboy than the most promising student in Rankine's classes in modern principles of engineering at Glasgow University, Aedan thought. "I know your plan calls for grading by hand digging whenever possible to preserve the landscape, Sir Aedan, but once again we found more rock than anticipated."
"Blasting was the best solution." Aedan brushed earth dust from his shirtsleeves and dark brown linen vest. "You placed the charges cautiously, and kept the damage to a
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