Susan Evans McCloud - The Heart and the Will

Susan Evans McCloud has published over fifty books in the LDS market. Her versatile works include biography, historical fiction, mystery, childrens books, and a volume of poetry. She also writes a column for the Mormon Times under the title of In Our Lovely Deseret, and is known for her screenplays, which include the award-wining John Bakers Last Race, and her scores of lyrics for the Young Women, and for various Church seminary programs. She is best known for her two much-loved hymns Lord, I Would Follow Thee and As Zions Youth In Latter-days.

Susan is active in the LDS Church, and currently serves as a ward Gospel Doctrine teacher, and as an ordinance worker in the Provo City Center Temple. She is the mother of six children, grandmother of ten, great grandmother of five.

1984 Bookcraft, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, at permissions@ deseretbook.com or PO Box 30178, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book Company.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-72388

ISBN 0-88494-551-0

eISBN 978-1-62973-877-2 (eBook)

First Printing, 1984

Lithographed in the United States of America

PUBLISHERS PRESS

Salt Lake City, Utah

All characters in this book

are fictitious, and any resemblance

to actual persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

Since the publication of Where the Heart Leads in October of 1979, I have received numerous requests for a sequel. Although my four succeeding novels, a children's book, and a biographical work have been introduced into the LDS market since then, this is the first opportunity I have had to meet those requests of my persistent and patient readers. I thank them for their loyalty and interest.

It has been a delight and a challenge to take up the threads of the Buchanan story, sort them, reweave them, reentangle them, reshape them again. Although this book continues their story, this book can stand squarely on its feet as a tale of its own, a tale whose substance and development are in no way dependent upon the original story. In this novel the characters take on new life, new depth, new dimension; but they are true to themselves in every way, and behave as they ought to behave, in accordance with the impact of personalities and circumstances upon them.

I would like to extend my thanks to those who have assisted me in this effort: Dr. Fred Buchanan and Betty MacRae for their information on Scottish facts and customs; Greg Seal for his continuing counsel on legal matters; Dr. Jack Johnson for his medical advice; Dan Briggs, gunsmith, for his recommendations and guidance concerning weapons; and Brian Patch, goldsmith, for his sensitive expertise.

The skies, though a weak sun was shining, were filling with snow. Swirls of small brittle flakes danced against the tall, leaded-glass windows. Andrew leaned close and placed his hand lightly on Hannah's shoulder. "Snow falling on your wedding day means happiness," he whispered. "You're promised a dollar for every flake that lights on you." There was laughter in his voice and his blue eyes sparkled.

This is a fairy-tale wedding, Hannah thought. Not like anything I'd ever anticipated; not like the pictures I used to draw for myself. She could hear from the long adjoining room the sound of the pipes, a sweet high wail that swirled through the air. "She's wooed and married and a'," the piper was playing. Nan smiled at the quaint, foreign phrase. "Wooed and married" so she was, and it all had been dreamlike, though at times overcast with a tinge of nightmare. And now, after all that had passed, she was really here in Scotland with Andrew beside her, living in a great house that was more like a castle, that fit into her fanciful girlhood dreams more than it seemed to fit into the world of the 1980s.

She was happy for these few quiet moments alone with Andrew to savor the event that had just taken place. They could not have been married in the large Church of Scotland kirk, though the banns had been called and properly posted. And since they were not yet baptized Mormons, the temple sealing would have to wait. The LDS bishop had suggested that the ceremony be performed at home, at Bieldmor. What more beautiful or romantic place? So Hannah Martin, twenty-one years old, of Nauvoo, Illinois, had stood in the great hall of her own new home while a Mormon bishop pronounced the words that made her belong to Andrew, and Andrew to her, words that opened to them a new world of promise and untried possibility.

Bieldmor House was the ancestral home built by the original Andrew Buchanan, whose skills and determination had carved a fortune. His pride and tenacity, his love for his lost son, the strange will he had concocted to keep the search for his son's seed alive, had all reached through time and distance to lift Hannah out of one life into another. Lined with tall oak trees, massive and gray and forbidding-looking, Bieldmor stood a gaunt sentinel in the sheltered valley, almost a mar on the landscape, not really in keeping with the pleasant, peaceful greens of meadow and trees and gardens. The house had been built as a symbol, a statement by a man who had grappled with life hand to hand and emerged the victor. It was not the gentle, white-columned home of men whom life had pampered for generations. And yetNan glanced over at Andrew. He surely was pampered, cushioned, and eased by the wealth that was his.

Will I ever be accepted as mistress of this house? Nan wondered. Andrew assured her she would, though his mother, Jessie, ruled here now. In time she must learn from Jessie how to run such a house.

Nan smiled up at Andrew and took his extended hand. Her thin satin slippers made no sound as they crossed cool marble floors, thin polished wood planks, and passed through the open doorway back into the Great Hall, which was flanked now with food and flowersroses, lady's fingers, golden gorse, and white heatherand bright with the tartans of many clans.

The hours flew by merrily. There were healths to be drunk, with the bottle passed "deasil" or sunwise, and dancing to the strains of piano, pipes, and fiddle, with Nan and Andrew leading off the first reel. Nan had carefully learned the country dances, which appeared to be simple, but often required quite fancy footwork. Though uncertain and a little awkward, she loved the dancing as the throb of the bagpipes ran through her veins. Each time she came around the circle and saw Andrew waiting she was struck anew by how handsome he was, how masculine he looked in his hose and tartan with lace at his throat and a plaid at his shoulder and the small skean dhu or dagger tucked into his sock.

There was much friendly laughing and jesting when the tall, red-haired piper came to claim his honor-a piece of the bride's garter to be tied about his pipes as a trophy! Nan loved the soft Scots speech and the gentle way the men treated her. How gallant the gentlemen were! Half a dozen escorted her to the table, refilled her glass with ginger ale, brought second helpings of breads and salads and steak pie, entertained her with boastful tales of their own clan's prowess. She loved their manner and the poignant tales they told her; it was with difficulty that Andrew pried her away.