Bride of Dunloch (Highland Loyalties) (17 page)

She followed Tearlach as he led the gelding through the forest along an overgrown trail. As it wended its way through the pines, the ground rose beneath them, slowly but steadily.

“Where are we going?” she inquired after they’d covered some distance.

“A special place, my Lady. I used to take wee Connall and the rest of the MacGillivray lads this way when they were boys. It gave them a sense of what was theirs ... what
was
theirs,” he repeated sadly, more to himself than to her.

When they reached their destination, Tearlach’s words became clear. The sloping forest floor finally levelled at the edge of the trees, and she stared, wide-eyed, at the sight before her. He had led them to a plateau that overlooked the broad expanse of Dunloch land. Far in the distance she could see the castle, and to the west of it the village.

Somewhere in that village, she thought, Margaret MacGillivray watched over her small son, and had no idea her husband had been retrieved and would receive a proper burial.

“Tearlach, it’s perfect,” she whispered reverently, surveying the majesty before her.

“Aye,” he agreed. “Connall would have liked to know this were his final resting place.”

“He does,” she said, glancing sideways at him. “I am certain—he is watching. Now, you know what to do from here? Scrape out a grave, and when you are finished, return to the village. Take the gelding with you, and fetch Margaret and young Connall and bring them here this afternoon. I must show my face about the castle, but send word when you are ready. I shall bring a surprise with me when I return here.”

“Aye, Baroness.” Tearlach’s interest was evident as he looked at her, but he did not enquire about her intentions.

Jane hurried back to Dunloch, running in places where the uneven ground would allow. Having made the trip to the hut through the wild hills so often, she was growing rather accustomed to the rough, craggy and, in some places, treacherous ground.

Once in her chamber, she changed into a finer dress, one more appropriate to her station. Then dashing from the room, she scurried off to make her obligatory appearance in the solar.

She greeted the ladies seated within warmly, if a little breathlessly, when she arrived. She was heartily delighted to see the dowager baroness among their numbers, seated in her usual chair closest to the fire with a thick wool quilt spread over her lap. The lady did look quite well—all things considered.

But as Jane sat and listened to the ladies’ chatter—which now seemed to her rather inane and tiresome—she found herself distracted. Her hands fidgeted with the hems of her sleeves, her toes tapped impatiently, and every now and then her eyes darted to the door in anticipation of Tearlach’s message.

“Are you alright, my Lady?” inquired one of the more popular ladies of the group.

Jane stilled her bouncing knees. “Yes, thank you. I apologize; I am unaccustomed to such fine company and am nervous.”

The ladies laughed appreciatively at her obvious flattery and continued on with their twittering. From across the circle, she caught Lady D’Aubrey’s eye. The lady regarded her quizzically, her expression concerned. Guilt crept over her conscience at deceiving the kind old woman, but before the feeling had a chance to warm her cheeks and give her away, a knock at the door to the solar interrupted the conversation.

“Excuse me, Ladies,” said a voice, “but the widow MacGillivray is asking for the Baroness D’Aubrey.”

Jane turned in her seat to see a young ghillie shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“Which widow might that be?” scoffed one of the ladies.

Outrage bubbled up in her breast at the cruel sentiment, and she repressed an urge to cross the room and slap the woman across the cheek. Glancing at the dowager baroness, Jane saw that she, too, pressed her lips together in displeasure.

“It be the widow Margaret,” the boy explained, obviously stung by the heartless words of the English woman.

“Yes, I shall come directly,” Jane answered, hopping up from her seat.

She quickly crossed the room to kiss Lady D’Aubrey on the cheek, eager to escape the ladies’ company. But when she bent down, the dowager caught her hand.

“You’ll come visit me this evening, yes?” she murmured in a low voice so she would not be heard by the others.

Jane nodded her assent, and the old lady gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. The rest of the ladies in the group stood and offered her a courtesy as she left the room.

The occurrence with the lady’s callous words had upset her, and Lady D’Aubrey’s intuition at her agitation had put her on edge. But Jane forced both worries from her mind as she made her way back to the hut to collect Robbie. She was far too anxious over revealing to him and to Margaret what she had orchestrated with Tearlach’s help.
 
And as if God Himself condoned her actions, a rare break in the clouds allowed a ray of afternoon sunshine to filter down to the land below, setting the emerald hills off as if they were truly bejewelled.

Robbie smiled brightly as she burst through the door of the hut. He looked significantly better, and was sitting by the fire with the blanket wrapped around his broad shoulders. She smiled at the half-eaten oatcake he held in his hand, happy that his appetite was improving.

“I were not expecting ye till nightfall,” he said.

“I can leave and come back later if you’d prefer,” she quipped.

Robbie chuckled. “Dinna be daft.”

He reached his arm to her, and when she came to him and knelt at his side he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close, kissing her warmly in welcome. His moist lips on hers liquefied her mind along with her limbs, and she had to concentrate on the reason she’d come to him this day if she wanted to make it out of the hut and to the plateau at all.

“Robbie, I need you to come with me. I have something I’d like to show you.”

Robbie raised his eyebrows enquiringly. “What might that be now?”

“It’s a surprise. Can you walk? You shall need to walk to get there.”

He studied her a moment longer. “I have half a mind to ask ye if ye’d decided to betray me to the English after all.”

“I swear I would not,” she gasped.

“I was only jesting,” he laughed at her horrified expression. “I figure if ye were bent on betraying me to the English, ye’d have just brought them here.”

“What are you like?” she admonished playfully, shaking her head as she helped him to stand.

The journey to the plateau was long and arduous, for although Robbie could in fact walk, his wound had not yet healed entirely and the constant motion caused him pain. Jane assisted him as best she could, keeping herself tucked firmly under his arm to take some of his weight. As they progressed, Robbie quickly guessed where she was taking him.

“D’ye ken this place as well?” he enquired.

“I did not know of it at first,” she admitted. “I had some help finding it.”

“By whom?”

“You’ll see.”

When at last they broke through the trees, Robbie immediately spotted the freshly dug grave ringed with stones and the cloaked body laid carefully beside.

“Jane, what is this?” he demanded warily, his voice breaking with both emotion and fear.

She opened her mouth to answer him, but a rustling in the trees to their right silenced her.

“Get back,” Robbie ordered. He pulled his sgian-dubh from his kilt hose and, ushering her behind him for her protection, he aimed the blade in the direction of the sound.

“No, Robbie, it’s okay, it’s—” she tried to assure him, but he would not listen.

The rustling sound grew closer and closer, and Robbie shifted his stance, preparing to attack or defend depending on what the situation called for. Jane said nothing, both amused and touched by his determination to be her protector.

At last, Tearlach broke through to the plateau, leading the gelding atop which Margret was seated with little Connall. When they laid eyes on Robbie their jaws dropped, and they simultaneously uttered exclamations of shock.

“Master Rob?” gasped Tearlach.

“Robbie!” breathed Margaret.

Tearlach hastened to help Margaret and the little boy down off the gelding, and the pair of them rushed forwards to embrace Robbie. Jane stepped back to allow the tearful reunion, and when a bewildered young Connall came to her side, clutching a simple, wooden toy in his little fist, she put her arm around the boy’s shoulder. Watching the emotional meeting of the three MacGillivrays, Jane shed a few tears of her own.

“We heard ye hadna been found among the dead,” Tearlach sobbed, leaning back and clasping his face between his large hands. He looked Robbie up and down like a father would his son.

“I very nearly was,” Robbie answered, swiping at his moist cheeks with the back of his hand. “But I was saved by an angel. Jane’s spent countless hours bringing me back to health.”

He gazed warmly at her as he spoke, and she blushed humbly when Margaret and Tearlach turned their astonished eyes to her. But then, Margaret’s eyes alighted on the covered body at the side of the grave. She gasped, and her shaking hand rose to her throat.

“Is ... is that my Connall?” she asked. More tears brimmed at her eyelids and her voice trembled.

Robbie’s eyes widened as he turned to peer at the covered figure again with fresh sight.

“How did ye do it Tearlach?” he asked. “They’d had a guard.”

“Aye,” agreed Margaret. “We were forbidden from claiming the dead.”

“Well, that there were the baroness, too,” he informed them. “It were she who came to me wi’ the idea that she would distract the guard while I fetched Connall from the valley.”

“
Ye
did this, Jane?” Robbie said, turning his eyes to her.

The peculiar mix of awe and tenderness with which he regarded her tugged at her heart.

“It really wasn’t much,” she mumbled, uncomfortable under their gazes of gratitude and admiration.

“No’ much?” Robbie argued. “It were braver than any of the remaining MacGillivrays.”

She shrugged, falling silent as Margaret stepped forward. Bending to her knees awkwardly from the weight of her belly, she took Connall’s hand in her own. Jane’s heart ached as she watched the woman cry quietly for her love. Young Connall gripped her leg harder, upset by his mother’s weeping, and Jane squeezed his small shoulder reassuringly. After a moment, Robbie moved forward, urging Margaret to stand again. When she did, she turned her face into Robbie’s shoulder and wept fiercely.

From the side of the grave, Tearlach spoke. Jane did not understand the words, for they were in Gaelic, but their meaning was clear. They were words of reverence. Of loss and grief. And of love—love of a wife, of a cousin, of a clansman. Love for the land that was rightfully theirs.

Jane watched on, an outsider, as the three MacGillivray survivors said their farewells to one of their own. Then, Tearlach fell silent. After a few moments, she stepped to Robbie’s side.

“I must return to the castle,” she murmured. “Will you be alright to get back to the hut on your own?”

“Aye,” he nodded. “Please come back to me tonight.”

Both Margaret and Tearlach passed looks between themselves, but remained silent. Jane untangled herself from young Connall’s embrace and directed the boy to join his mother. Approaching her side, he stood solemnly at the side of his father’s grave. A heart wrenching sob escaped Margaret’s lips as the little boy laid his small, wooden toy atop the cloaked breast.

Turning away from the sorrowful farewell, Jane left the plateau, left the three highlanders to their long overdue time of mourning.

Chapter 13

“You certainly are distracted this evening,” Lady D’Aubrey noted that night as she and Jane sat alone together in the dowager’s private apartments.

“Hmmm?” Jane uttered. She glanced up from the spot on the floor at which she’d been staring blindly to find Lady D’Aubrey staring at her inquisitively.

The lady chuckled, her eyes warm. “You did not eat much at the meal, either. Are you well?”

“Oh, yes, I am well,” Jane sighed. “And I am certain it is not what you are thinking.”

“You are astute,” Lady D’Aubrey laughed. “But I know it cannot be that. It would be too early to tell. There is something that is occupying you, though.”

Jane sighed, chewing on her bottom lip. “You are right.”

“But you do not wish to tell me.”

“No,” she disagreed. “I rather think that I
do
wish to tell you, but fear that to do so would be unwise.”

The old baroness studied Jane, sensing something in the words she did not say.

“Then perhaps it is best you say nothing. I would advise you, young Jane, to be wary of whom you do trust with your secrets. As much as I would like you to trust me, I fear I cannot promise you of it. Oh, do not take my words to mean that I intend on betraying whatever confidences you may place in my trust, for I do not. What I mean is that in these Scottish Highlands, loyalties can turn as fast as the weather. Be it your husband, your maid, or whatever friends you may make, you’d be best to withhold your trust as often as possible, and offer it only when it is absolutely necessary. I would hate to think of a sweet girl such as you suffering an unthinkable fate because she was too trusting and naive.”