Daniel Duncan MacGregor
From The Canon of Nora Wiki
| Daniel Duncan MacGregor | |
|---|---|
| No image available | |
| Overview | |
| Aliases | The MacGregor; The Old Man (affectionately) |
| Occupation | Financier; investor |
| First appearance | Playing the Odds |
| Appearances | |
| Series | The MacGregor Series |
| Books | Playing the Odds, Tempting Fate, All the Possibilities, One Man's Art, The MacGregor Brides, The Winning Hand, The MacGregor Grooms, The Perfect Neighbor |
| Relationships | |
| Romantic partner(s) | Anna Whitefield MacGregor |
| Family | Alan MacGregor (son), Caine MacGregor (son), Serena MacGregor Blade (daughter); eleven grandchildren |
| Friends/Allies | Myra Dittmeyer, Anna MacGregor |
[[Category:The MacGregor Series characters]]
Daniel Duncan MacGregor is a character in Nora Roberts' The MacGregor Series. The patriarch of the MacGregor clan, he is the connective tissue of the entire series — appearing in every book, engineering the romantic lives of his children and grandchildren, and commanding every room he enters well into his nineties.
Overview
Daniel MacGregor is a Scottish-American financier of enormous wealth and even more enormous personality. He built his fortune, built his castle, raised three exceptional children, and then spent the second half of his life ensuring they and their children married well. He does not consider this meddling. He considers it wisdom. His matchmaking record across eight novels is, by any measure, perfect.
Background
Daniel's Scottish Highland heritage is the bedrock of his identity. The MacGregor clan, he notes at every opportunity, is one of the few permitted to use the crown in their crest — evidence, in his view, of blood that is both noble and strong. He carried this pride with him to America and built it into every aspect of his life, including the great gray stone castle on the Massachusetts coast that he designed to his own specifications.
He made his fortune as a private investor and financier, working from home rather than an office. ("He didn't care for office buildings where men kept their thinking in little cubicles.") By the time his children were grown, his wealth was substantial enough that he could build a castle, maintain an empire, and still have time to meddle in everyone else's business.
He married Anna Whitefield, a thoracic surgeon, and the marriage has lasted nearly sixty years by the time of the later novels. He considers Anna the finest thing he ever did, which is the one area in which his boasting is entirely sincere.
Personality
Daniel is volcanic — loud, opinionated, sentimental beneath the thunder, and utterly incapable of restraint when he has identified something he wants. His voice carries a Scottish burr that never thinned with age. His laugh is enormous. His displeasure is equally so.
He is also, beneath all of it, perceptive. His matchmaking succeeds not because he is lucky but because he reads people accurately — identifying what they need, who could give it to them, and exactly how much pressure to apply. He mistakes stubbornness for strength and usually turns out to be right.
He has a complicated relationship with the Campbell name (his daughter-in-law Shelby's family), finding in it a satisfying target for mock outrage while clearly adoring every Campbell he has ever met. He considers the honorary Campbell grandchildren — Cybil and Matthew — to be his grandchildren in every way that matters, "though they be Campbells by name. Campbells, God help us, but good children they are despite it."
He takes his Scotch neat, keeps his cigars hidden in a hollowed-out copy of War and Peace in his tower office, and allows Anna to limit him to two drops of whiskey in his tea. Occasionally three.
Story Arc
Playing the Odds
Daniel first meets Justin Blade in a card game that lasts an hour and ends in a business partnership. He does not mention, at this meeting, that he has a daughter. He has identified Justin as a suitable match for Serena and begins his campaign accordingly. By the end of the book, Serena and Justin are engaged, and Daniel is triumphant.
Tempting Fate
With Serena settled, Daniel turns his attention to Caine. He approves strongly of Diana Blade — not least because she is Justin's sister, which satisfies his sense of symmetry — and engineers circumstances accordingly.
All the Possibilities
Alan's match proves more complicated. Shelby Campbell's resistance to politics, combined with Daniel's general feelings about the Campbell name, creates friction — but Daniel recognizes in Shelby exactly the kind of woman Alan needs. His campaign is successful, and he gains both a daughter-in-law and the endlessly satisfying grievance of a Campbell in the family.
One Man's Art
Grant Campbell is not technically Daniel's grandson, but Daniel claims him anyway. He approves of Gennie Grandeau, who holds her own against him from the first moment and earns his respect immediately. The weekend Grant brings Gennie to Hyannis Port is also the weekend Mac is born — a detail Daniel finds cosmically appropriate.
The MacGregor Brides, The MacGregor Grooms, The Winning Hand, The Perfect Neighbor
Daniel moves through the grandchildren's generation with the same systematic efficiency, identifying and pursuing matches for Laura, Gwen, Julia, D.C., Duncan, Ian, Mac, and Cybil in turn. His methods evolve — more phone calls, more strategic dinner invitations, more deliberate sharing of misleading information — but his success rate does not decline. By the time of The Perfect Neighbor, he has eleven grandchildren and is anticipating great-grandchildren with characteristic impatience.
Relationships
The great love of Daniel's life and the most effective check on his behavior. Anna allows him two drops of whiskey in his tea, monitors his cigar intake, and manages him with such a light touch that he rarely notices he's being managed. He would do anything for her, and she knows it, and neither of them ever mentions it directly.
Daniel's three children are all exceptional — which he will tell anyone who asks, and several people who didn't. His pride in them is bone-deep, though it expresses itself mostly as pressure to get married and produce grandchildren. He considers their lives incomplete until they have found the right person, and he considers himself the best judge of who that person is.
Anna's oldest friend and Daniel's willing co-conspirator in matchmaking schemes. Myra is as perceptive as Daniel and considerably more subtle. Their alliance across the grandchildren's generation is formidable.
Physical Description
Daniel is a large man — over six feet three inches tall and two hundred and twenty pounds. His hair, once red, has gone to silver, but his blue eyes remain vivid. He has the bearing of a Highland chief who wandered into the twentieth century and found it adequate.
Trivia
- Daniel's tower office doubles as his matchmaking command center. It contains, at minimum, a phone, a supply of Scotch, and the cigar-concealing copy of War and Peace.
- He named his eldest grandson Daniel Campbell MacGregor — passing his own first name forward as the family tradition demands.
- His first act upon meeting most of his future in-laws is to evaluate their suitability. He is rarely wrong.
- He considers the MacGregor clan's right to use the crown in their crest to be one of the most important facts about himself.
Quotes
- "Good blood. Strong stock." — Playing the Odds