A Promise of Love (38 page)

“I love you, Alisdair.”

“Yes, I know,” he said harshly. “The last time you left me, you said the same. A simple goodbye would suffice.”

“Forgive me.”

His answer was a soft sigh. Still, he did not turn.

“When I was a little girl, all I wanted was to belong somewhere.” Her voice was a warm and gentle breeze blowing over his soul. He did not want to soften to it. He did not want his anger to melt, his hearing to be so acute he could sense the very hesitance of her speech. “All my life, I’ve been known as different, strange. Even my own father thought so.” She took one hesitant step toward him. He flinched at the sound of it. If she touched him, it would be too much.

“After Anthony died, I lived within myself, knowing that the world would never understand what happened, that God would never forgive me, that no one would ever look at me the way you did just now.”

The tears in her voice were too much to bear. He turned and wanted to shout at her to finish this death knell, but for the look on her face.

It was as if a sun dwelled in Judith, she was that luminous. The tears that fell down her cheeks flowed freely, but they were only a backdrop for her watery smile. Alisdair felt his heart clench at the sight, the rage and pain he’d felt transformed, as if by sorcery, into something cleaner, more pure, distilled of love and hope.

“I wish, with all my heart, that I could come to you without one stain on my soul. I wish I could offer myself to you without memories, without regrets.” She extended her hands to him, palms up. He could not help himself, he reached out for her.

“Did you hear nothing I said, Judith? None of us are pure.” He held her prisoner by the tips of her fingers; she held him captive by the look in her eyes.

“Please. Do not send me away, Alisdair.” In her eyes was hope, a tiny flicker of it. It was, he thought, enough to fan a flame.

“I could not bear it, Judith,” he said solemnly. It was as much a declaration as she needed.

He held out his arms and Judith walked into them, holding onto him as if he were the anchor she needed to keep from floating away.

CHAPTER 35

Malcolm MacLeod was not one to ask for the Almighty's intercession in his life. He much preferred to handle his affairs the way he wished to and call upon the stern God of his youth and endless days in Kirk only on special occasions. The death of his wife had been one of those rare times, as had been the morning of Culloden. The rest of the time, he and God had an arrangement. Malcolm would muddle through and God would leave him alone. Therefore, it was with great irritation that he finally called upon his Maker to protect him from one very determined English woman.

He sighed, tried to ignore the stench coming from his wool and water covered feet. He, Malcolm MacLeod, who'd been a reiver in his younger days, who'd stood on many a battlefield and not retched at the sight of blood, or gore, or streaming entrails, barely escaped gagging at the smell of washed virgin wool. Since daybreak, he'd been stomping around the large banded oak wash basin, while buckets of wool had been alternately thrown in and fished out of the yellowing water.

Called him up before the clan, Judith did. Asked him the question in front of twenty women. Told everyone they needed a braw, strong man, and wouldn't he fit the bill? Fell for it, he did.

"Och, Malcolm, have yerself a bit of bannocks, or yer frown will curdle yon wool," He knew the grate of that voice before he turned.

"Sara, what ails me willna be cured by food," he said, lowering his chin nearly to his chest. It was his pride that needed tending.

Sara's beady, pigeon-like eyes scanned him, following his line of sight. Clumps of wet wool adhered to his feet, and floated on top of the water. Occasionally, one of the village women would bring another bucket of warm, soapy water and carry away some of the wool. All in all, it was a sad chore for a warrior.

If Sara frowned, Malcolm could not tell. The woman's face was so permanently lined with a dour expression, as though she had smelled something foul in infancy and had carried the memory of the stench with her into old age.

"I've brought ye my boiled chicken dish, Malcolm," she said, gesturing to where a covered plate was placed on the rise of ground not far away. It was close enough that he could smell the odor of it, and once again, he felt the bile rise in his gullet. "No' that I had time mind ye, what wi' the work I've ta do," Sara continued, oblivious to the fact that Malcolm's complexion had whitened a little more.

"Thank ye, Sara," he said, smiling with effort. Sara's cooking was the worst in the glen, but none had the heart, or the courage, to mention it to her. Consequently, she spread her efforts towards all equally, and every one of the MacLeods had been faced with the dilemma of either eating it, or secretly burying her efforts. Malcolm was not so hungry that he thought it might be edible. Especially not after sniffing the air again.

"I made it wi' two potatoes, an' a bit o' greens. No time ta make a new batch of bread, but how a body's supposed ta do all Judith expects an' still have time ta be goodwife, I canna ken."

"I'm sure it will be tasty, Sara, an’ I thank ye for thinkin' of me."

"Hah! Was told ta feed ye," she said, scanning the hill where Judith's figure was visible. "Told me, she did, that the wool came first. Bossy bit of goods, she is. Still, she’s turned into a good wife, I ken."

The easiest way to rid herself of Sara's presence, Malcolm had discovered many years ago, was to simply agree to everything she said. Today, however, that gambit was not working. Sara remained firmly entrenched in front of him. Him, with his rolled up pants an’ his legs white an’ naked looking like they'd never appeared beneath a kilt. Him, with white clumps of wretched smelling wool sticking to his feet an’ the odor of Sara's cooking sticking in his craw. He nearly gagged again.

"She's the talk o' the glen," Sara said, stubbornly scowling up at the figure on the hill. "Stubborn, she is. Just like the laird. Never saw a body work like she does.” There was approval in the grumbling, as Malcolm well knew. Sara, who had been the first to condemn the ways of the lass, was now among her staunchest supporters.

Malcolm did not know on that day, more than two years ago, that he would marry his laird to a demon in dress. He wished the MacLeod would hurry back. She was becoming uncontrollable, she was. First, she had changed the run-rig system that the two men had labored over for many a night. Then she had set the sheep loose to cavort over the hills, explaining patiently that they would never fatten unless they were allowed to forage to their heart's content. Then she had worked with Alex, of all people, to train border puppies, and a sillier sight he'd never seen, but those damn dogs and their protective stance around the sheep.

Nor had she stopped there. And the MacLeod only gone a month.

She had ordered the old loom in the weaving shed chopped down and made into firewood, and bartered for two more looms. She had traveled from glen to glen with Meggie, visiting with the old women, inspecting looms that had never been torn down, studying old patterns that sat rotting on the frames, learning about different dyes made from lichen, the bark from the alder trees, bracken root and elderberry.

She was driving him daft, she was, what with all her questions, and those damn tears which seemed not to have stopped since the MacLeod had left, first for Inverness, and then England. Malcolm couldn't remember ever seeing a woman cry so much. Either she was crying, or she was angry, and the woman refused to cook when she was angry. Worse, she vented her rage on anyone nearby, which meant that he was the recipient of the brunt of it.

She'd nearly the temper of the MacLeod and the frowns to match.

The MacLeod wouldn’t have gone, if the English patrols hadn't swept wide by Tynan. The session with Colonel Harrison had its tense moments, but the English were satisfied with the outcome of their investigation. No one could dispute the sharp hoof marks on Bennett Henderson's chest. Malcolm also suspected that Colonel Harrison would not miss his captain overmuch. There were rumors of unexplained deaths of young women where he had patrolled, enough to wonder if the MacLeods were left alone by way of apology for Bennett Henderson.

Although Malcolm knew he would have to come to grips with the English domination of Scotland one day, he opted for the MacLeod's revenge - winning small battles with English merchants, which is one of the reasons the MacLeod had ridden away, only a month ago, leaving Malcolm in charge.

In charge? Hah!

It had taken her only one day to assume the role of laird.

Malcolm merely grunted, wishing that Sara would take the hint an’ leave. At the set, determined look on Sara’s face, he knew he was doomed to partake of the noon meal with his clanswoman, an’ be forced to listen to one complaint after another for hours.

He preferred wet wool.

Judith thought Malcolm’s normally taciturn features looked even more woebegone than earlier, but then, he was being romanced by Sara. She wondered if she dared tell the old Scot that Sara had designs on him. She smiled and thought not. Although Judith had a soft spot in her heart for the stubborn Scot, she thought it might do him good to be the object of a woman’s determined pursuit.

It might take his mind off the changes she was making in the glen.

It had been a steady alteration. At first, she had toiled along with the village women, harvesting their potatoes, using the fork to turn the mounds as another bent and extracted the root crop from the hard soil. Her hands had developed more blisters, but they were a honest sign of work and disturbed her not one bit.

She bent until she grew breathless, pulling the green leafy tops of the turnips, helping the women to store them in the special cellar Alisdair had devised.

Each morning, she donned her clean apron and met with the other women beside the village well. She neither complained nor explained her actions, until they began to accept her presence as they would one of their own. She worked until one day rolled into another. She did not see their sidelong glances, nor did she hear their muttered words, but when Meggie came and led her away to a soft spot on the moors, and brought her a tumbler of water, bathing her sweaty forehead with her own kerchief, she understood they had discovered her secret.

"Ye canna do this, Judith," Meggie said, with censure in her voice. "Ye'll hurt yersel.'“

"No, Meggie," she stubbornly replied, "I am one of you and I'll work like the rest of you. Janet did."

"Janet lost her babe because o' it, Judith," Meggie retorted. "An' probably died because o' it, too. Do ye wish the same?"

"This child is undoubtedly as stubborn as his father."

"O' her mother," Meggie responded.

Her working was infinitely preferable to sitting at Tynan and wondering what mysterious errand had taken Alisdair from home, only a few weeks after the thaws had begun.

She consented to leave the hardest work to the others, not bothering to tell Malcolm - who had stood in front of the door and would not let her leave until she promised - that she had accomplished her goal and that spending the time in the weaving hut was what she wanted anyway. Yet, her determination and constant presence among the women had broken down their reserve, brought them closer. At first, only Meggie joined her in the weaving. Then, Grizzelle appeared one day, followed by Sara. By the end of two weeks, most of the women of the clan were occupied with wool, in one form or another, and by the talk and laughter in the weaving hut, no one would have guessed that there had been dissension between Judith and the other women.

She began to realize what Alisdair’s sacrifice had meant to the lives of these people. If she was not loved by them yet, with the fierce love they reserved for their laird, at least she had finally been accepted, enough to be grumbled at by the older matrons and to be scolded by the younger ones. She listened to their advice and she heard their stories and she began to feel as if she were a new member of a large and loving family.

Judith had found acceptance in this strange land. First, from its laird, who had taken one look at her past and not fled in horror. Instead, he had surrounded her with his love, his humor, his strong arms. Then, the clan MacLeod had reached out to her. She didn't feel alone when she walked through the glen anymore, her smile was readily received and just as easily answered.

Although the clan structure of the Highlands was gradually and inexorably being swept aside due to the rule of the English and economic conditions, here it was still in force and Judith suspected it always would be, as long as there was a MacLeod at Tynan.

The crowded huts had been torn down and replaced with structures that boasted windows. Small, yes, but still, they let the light in, and were airy and comfortable due to the fact that the chimney smoke was now diverted into corner hearths.

Alisdair had arranged for a hospital of sorts to be devised. Their village numbered over three hundred people, now, and never a day passed that some injury or another was not reported.

The children were being educated by a young teacher hired from Edinburgh. Before his first class, however, Judith removed the birch and paddle from his collection of teaching implements and threatened him with being dismissed summarily from Tynan if he ever thought to use them.