A Promise of Love (13 page)

After Anne's death, he had led an almost monastic life, finally easing his urges in the silken body of a friendly woman in Inverness. Yet, he’d declined to take advantage of her presence during that last visit. Why?

He was not such a weakling that another person, let alone an Englishwoman with loch dark eyes and a too full lower lip, could make him lose control over his own emotions. She did not have that power over him.

Yet, why did he ache to shut her mouth when she spoke in that godawful accent - and not just with his hands? Why did he want to test out the swell of that bodice, to see if it was real or simply padding? Why, on God's earth, did he want to discover why her eyes darkened sometimes until they were almost black, and her gaze journeyed to some far off distant place where he suspected no one else could travel? Why, in the name of Scotland and all that was holy to him, did he have this strange feeling that he should ride to Inverness and remain there until their three month marriage was finished?

Alisdair determined, in that moment, that he would simply increase his pace. He would work harder than ever, and then this inconvenient curiosity and even more intransigent need of his would simply be buried beneath fatigue.

He stood at the doorway for a long time, his hand on the frame, his eyes on the bed. Judith slept heavily, her slight snores causing an amused grin to dance upon his mouth.

It would have been better if he had not seen her smile.

It would have been easier, if he had never heard her laughter.

CHAPTER 13

"You could use time away from all your chores. I'd not thought to see anyone match my zeal, but your industry tops even mine." Alisdair said the next morning. He smiled at the untouched bowl of porridge beside Judith. He could imagine the state of her stomach. Heather ale not only produced an unexpected kick, but it left a distinct longing for death the next day.

"I’ll not ask for mercy, MacLeod. It was my own foolishness that has my stomach in knots.” Judith stood and disposed of the contents of the bowl in the slops jar.

“Do you not ever allow yourself to play, Judith?”

She turned confused eyes to him.

“There is too much to be done and not enough time.”

“But chores will always be there and time will not.”

“Is this Alisdair MacLeod speaking? The man who rises at dawn and only rests at midnight?” Her smile was oddly crooked and totally mesmerizing. Yet, her eyes were filled with caution and there were shadows beneath them.

He wondered if she dreamed again last night, or had her indulgence in heather ale also gifted her with one night of forgetfulness? For weeks now, he’d heard the sounds of her crying, became as accustomed to it as he did the waves crashing to the shore outside his window.

Another question, unanswered.

He extended his hand, and she stared at it. Hard, callused, large, it was offered palm up, a wordless invitation to come to him. For long moments, her gaze shifted from his hand to his face, as if the study of both would offer insight into his actions. Finally, she stepped forward, her breath caught oddly in her chest, and placed her palm over his.

What she expected, she didn’t know, but it wasn’t that the MacLeod would suddenly smile at her, and loop her arm over his.

“We’ve a sun to catch, Granmere,” he said, his eyes never leaving Judith’s flushed face.

Sophie thought it an excellent sign. Alisdair was beginning to look at Judith with interest. He was a lonely man, for all his work and worry. He needed someone to talk to, someone who could help him share his burdens, bring a little laughter into his life, a little comfort.

There was still time.

Alisdair held her hand as they moved up the track to the top of the moor. It was a strange sensation, Judith thought, but one not altogether unpleasant. They were silent, each trapped within a bubble of thought and unspoken wishes, a comforting silence for all that it teemed with unvoiced yearnings. He led her onto the path to the left, to a place beyond the fields, one littered with large stones bathed bright by the morning sun. On the horizon, dark clouds rolled incessantly onward, a constant presence of rain, of warning, of promise.

Judith pulled her hand free, went to the largest stone, moving her fingers over strange markings carved into the surface.

"I could tell you were English if you spoke not a word," he said behind her.

"You touch a place none dare venture near," he said, smiling.

She stepped back, her hand still outstretched. Other than a few scrawled markings, unintelligible to her, there was nothing to indicate the purpose of the stone. She hoped, fervently, that she had not just touched an ancient tomb. Her face must have registered her horror, because he only laughed, and led her to another rock, carved smooth by the forces of nature, not man, and sat beside her, looking out onto the moor that swept down to the rolling white sea of sheep, and further to the track to Tynan.

"No," he said, alleviating her all too obvious fears. "'Tis not a sacred place, simply a mysterious one. We are a strange people, full of superstition. It is an unlucky spot. The villagers think that
Domhnull Dubh
emerges from the ground here, and those markings are his hoof prints."

"Who?" she asked, unable to repeat the strange syllables.

"
Domhnull Dubh
, Black Donald. The English call him the Devil, which is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, I think. Did you ever hang a horseshoe at home?" he asked, the question coming before she’d had time to tense at the mention of nationality.

"Yes, of course, for good luck." She glanced over at him, too bemused by the softness of his voice and his sudden, winsome smile to spoil the mood by questioning it.

"We do the same. Except of course, that the English hang it open side up. We don't care about its placement, but there's a reason for that, too. Would you like to hear the story?" His smile was boyish, filled with a charm she’d seen hints of before, but nothing like this windswept stranger whose gaze roamed the land before him with an odd blend of possessiveness and sadness.

She nodded.

"Once upon a time," he began, as if he were a father telling a bedtime story to his enraptured daughter, "Black Donald pulled a smith from his bed. He needed him to shoe his hoof, you see. The smith was frightened by Black Donald, but still angry that he had been awakened at midnight. So, when he drove the first nail in, he sank it deep, past the horn of Black Donald's hoof and into the fleshy part of his foot. Black Donald hopped about in great pain, furious at the smith, demanding that he finish the job properly, else he would visit great misfortune on him and his family.”

Judith’s head was bent, her hands were stilled. There was such an air of intensity about her that Alisdair knew she listened like a child, eager to grasp holes in the telling of his tale. He smiled and continued. “Well, with that threat, the smith realized he had better make a bargain with the devil. He refused to finish the work until Black Donald granted him a wish. That wish was, whenever the devil saw a horseshoe, whether it was sitting on the ground, or hanging, he would do no mischief. Black Donald, who was hopping around on one foot, reluctantly agreed. Before the smith finished the job, however, he first surrounded his entire house with horseshoes. And because of Black Donald’s bargain, the smith’s family was left alone. That’s why we don’t care how a horseshoe is hung, just that it’s there to prevent Black Donald from making mischief.”

Judith smiled. He wished she would smile again. It brought sunlight into her eyes and a hidden dimple to her cheek.

"I think it Pictish markings, myself," he said, motioning to the stone, "but none will ever know, I suspect."

"Pictish?"

"The Picts were an ancient people. They may well have been the first Scots. They did, at least, predate the Romans."

"I did not know the Romans occupied the Highlands."

"Oh, they did not occupy them," he said with a smile. "They, too, tried in vain to conquer us. It seems as though half the invaders in the world's history have attempted it and failed. At least, until the English came."

It was too good to be true, this easy companionship.

"No, Judith," he said softly, "do not get all stiff and rigid. I do not fault you for your birth. It is, after all, a fact that you could not help. I do, however, fault the English government and that pack of wolves let loose by Cumberland. I fault each and every one of those beasts."

Judith sat with the wind blowing her hair around her shoulders, her hands clenched tightly on her lap.

He liked her hair this way, strewn around her shoulders like a wild woman's, or a good Scots lass. He absently imprisoned one errant curl and rubbed the softness of it between his fingers, noting that the color was a rich brown with glinting red and gold highlights. "Your hair has a hundred colors in it, " he said, ignoring the fact that she was edging away from him more each moment. Shortly, he mused, she would fall off the rock and he supposed she would find some way to retreat from him then, too.

She pulled loose from his grasp, and patted her hair into some semblance of order. "It is not practical," she said shortly, frowning.

"Ah, that word." He smiled softly. "There is much duty attached to being practical. For example," he said, rising, and again extending a hand to her, "practicality demands that I not forget that I have work to do. While it is pleasant sunning on the rocks, I have duties and obligations."

"I, too," she admitted reluctantly, surprised at the sudden feeling of regret which poured over her. One small part wished she could find a way to keep him here for a little while longer. Another, saner part of her mind, welcomed the release from his presence. It was a paradox, those emotions, and they caused her to step away from him.

"Do you know," he said absently, "there is a story about the Picts and heather ale. Remind me to tell you some time, after you’ve recovered from it."

“Your heather ale is deceptive, MacLeod.” Her smile was wide, disclosing white, even teeth. It was a smile untinged by mockery, alight with mischief.

He wondered if she knew how pretty she was when she smiled.

They walked down past the milling sheep again, but before they parted, he stopped and grasped one of her hands. He held it, studying it, seeing the strength of it and the fine suppleness of her fingers. She pulled it from his grip before he could remark on its size and the fact that blisters were forming on her palm.

"I have not thanked you, Judith," he said softly, "for your efforts and your work. For caring." He smiled a little at her confused look.

“It made the time go by faster.”

"Ah, yes, time. We haven't much left, have we?" There was an intentness about his look, as if he gauged her words, her expression.

"A month." It ticked through her mind like a symphony of raindrops, one perfect sphere at a time. There was only a month left at this ramshackle old castle. How odd that each day seemed to remind her of something she would regret leaving behind. Oh, Sophie, of a certainty. Judith would never forget those sparkling blue eyes and that mouth always pursed in a laugh or a smile. She would miss this sweet lady who seemed to grow more fragile each passing hour.

A month, then, to savor the sunset over the cove, the sweet scent of pine wafting into her bedroom window at night. A month in which to learn to live without the burr of Malcolm's accent, or the soft breeze which billowed like a lover around Tynan.

"Twenty-eight days," Alisdair corrected softly. "I can count, also."

His voice seemed to lower when he spoke to her, as if that tone was reserved only for her. If anything was dangerous, it was the sound of that voice, skittering over her skin like the lightest touch of a feather.

In twenty-eight days, then, her mind would become hers once more, and she would not be lulled into thinking forbidden thoughts. No more silly games and sillier notions and childish dreams that should have died when she was a child.

No more thoughts of him, unbidden and dangerous.

Did he know how different he appeared even from his own kind? His clean shaven face was as out of place among these bearded highlanders as a cow among the sheep. And yet, it suited him, the same way his smile suited him. Judith had witnessed at least ten versions of them - the tender smile when he nuzzled Douglas's hair with his chin, the smile he gave to Granmere when she said something outrageous that quirked his humor, the grin he gave to Malcolm when the old Scot refused to back down and gave him measure for measure, the smile of accomplishment as he looked out over his crops, his land, his sheep. And the odd, almost tender smile Judith noted on more than one occasion, when she turned and found him studying her again.

Twenty-eight days, four weeks. No more wondering, at the end of those days, what life would have been like if she were different. No more pretending that the past had not happened, that she was untouched by it. No more wishing, in odd little moments, that it could have been different if they had met somewhere else, some earlier time. Perhaps they could have greeted each other in the way civil strangers do. Perhaps even become friends. That bond would have allowed her to ask him all the questions she so longed to ask, questions forbidden because of their intrinsically personal nature.