Love Letters from Largs: Brodie and Celestina (Highlander Clan Grant Series Book 3) (16 page)

Brodie crouched down in front of the lad and rested his arms on his legs. “Lad, tell me you know where she is
, and I will buy you the biggest pastry in the land.”

Loki nodded his head before he rubbed his wee belly. “And a meat pie, too? It was hard work following that caravan until I f
igured out where they were headed.”

“Aye, two meat pies, you wee
trickster. Where is she?”

“At her father’s house in Lennox near Loch Lomond.
I heard the guards talking about it. And Ivarsson is still here in Ayr.”

Brodie picked Loki up and swung him up on his shoulders as they headed over to the
local baker in the middle of town. “Well done, lad. You make me proud to call you a Grant warrior. Now, where are those meat pies?”

Chapter Seventeen

Finding True Treasure

Celestina awoke with a scream and stumbled out of bed in the middle of the night. It was a moonless eve, and she could not make out anything in the chamber. As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she remembered her recent move to her father’s house in Lennox.
That’s right—the chamber in my dreams.
Turning around in a circle, she slowly oriented herself to her surroundings. She twirled around when a small sound echoed through the almost empty space, wondering why she had awakened in such a state. It had been another dream, but this one was so very different. There had been creatures in it, hadn’t there?

She closed her eyes, trying to
bring back parts of the dream. Something brushed across her ankle just then, and she shrieked, stumbling across the room and falling on the other side of the bed. She landed hard, but managed to break her fall with her hands. Her right hand smacked across a loose stone almost underneath the side table not far from the hearth. She settled herself on the floor, frightened and wary, and used her left hand to tug her gown around her ankles.

Once her eyes
had adjusted, she discovered she was indeed alone, and there were no critters scampering across the floor. The strange brushing sensation she’d felt must have been a holdover from her dream. She used her right hand to hoist herself into an upright position, but the floor moved. She fell back down in fright and yanked her hand in close to her body. Gingerly, she reached out to touch the stone again, only to discover that it had caved in on one side.

She reached above her and found a candle
, lighting it in the embers in the hearth. Setting it on the floor beside her, she pulled on the stone. It wasn’t anchored to the others at all, and it lifted. She peered underneath and found a small compartment with a box in it. Her hands trembled as she reached in and lifted the tin out before replacing the stone.

She stood and
carried the tin and the candle over to the larger table near the window. The box, covered in dust, appeared not to have been touched in years. What was inside? Gold? Nay, it was too light to be filled with coin. She opened the latch and removed the cover.

Letters.
A pile of letters sat carefully folded and meticulously kept. She fingered the top note and moved it to the side, opening it with care and unfolding it before flattening it on the table top.

Written from Largs,

My love, I fear
our letters have been discovered and I must get this to you quickly. My husband is enraged and has kept me under lock and key. We now live in Largs, but I do not know how to give you directions. Our daughter is safe, and such a beauty she is. How I wish you could see her. She has your blue eyes. I fear for her safety. I do not know how else to protect her other than to ask you to come and get us. Please hurry.

Know that I love you with all my heart and soul. We belong together. How sorry I am that we did not meet until after my marriage. I would have run away with you and given up everything just to be with you. Our love is eternal, and if for some reason I do not survive,
I will await you in heaven, where we will surely be together. Please promise me you will take care of our daughter. Care for our Celestina, our angel of life, given to us by the lord.

The letter tumbled from her hands and she covered her mouth in shock. Her mother had written this note. She picked it up again and reread it, wanting to be sure she hadn’t misunderstood anything. But each time she read the words, she arrived at the same conclusion. Her mother had loved another man, and that other man was her true father.

Baron Lunde was not her father!

Pieces fell together in her mind as tears slid down her cheeks. Slowly, her life started to make sense. All the beatings, the hate, the derision, and the punishments had been for one sole reason. And it
wasn’t
because she was a lass and the baron had wanted a lad. The reason he hated her was because she had come from the loins of another man. She understood everything now. He loathed her because she was a daily reminder of her mother’s infidelity. Her mother had loved another. Her hands covered her mouth to quiet her sobs.

But what had happened?
And who was her true father? The way her mother spoke of her in the note made it sound as if she had been just a babe when it was written. When her mother came to her in her dreams, it was in this room. Had they been locked in here together? And why hadn’t her real father come to rescue her and her mother both, just as she had asked him to do in the letter? If he had truly loved them, why hadn’t he come for them? However, since the letter sat in the box, it had clearly never been sent.

Celestina set th
e first note down and pulled out the next one. She chewed on her thumb as she flattened the letter on the table.

My darling daughter, Words cannot express how much I love you. You have been the light of my life in such a dreary world. I write these letters to you as I fear I may never see the day when you reach adulthood. Now you are almost three summers, and I fear for my life.

It is time to tell you my story, or our story,
such as it is. The baron, who is not your father, has been making threats to me, and I fear he may become so enraged he will take my life. If it happens, I suspect he will treat you the same way he treats me—as a prisoner to be kept locked in a room. I write these letters and hide them in the hopes that you will someday come upon them by chance.

I am Norwegian and my father had a great deal of coin. He traded me to
Walter Lunde because the baron had land my father wanted. I was a business exchange, just as so many marriages are, and I do not fault my father for arranging it. At first, our marriage progressed as usual. We were not a love match, but we got along and we seemed to like each other well enough. We lived in Ayr in a home I loved. We traveled to church and to local fairs. Walter liked to take me to see minstrels and such. Both of us so enjoyed being social with our neighbors. I had hoped to be carrying soon after we married, but alas, it was not meant to be.

One day, as we returned from a local fair, we were set upon by a group of renegades.
Somehow, they discovered the baron had a great deal of coin sewn inside his coat, so they beat both of us and stole all he had. Walter’s head had been bludgeoned in the attack and he almost died. I nursed him back to health, but his mind was never the same.

The sweet Baron Lunde turned into a bitter, angry man. I tried
as best I could to please him, but it was never enough. He started striking me without reason. I feared antagonizing him, so I stayed away whenever possible.

Here the letter ended, so Celestina reached in the box for the next page. She continued, immersed in her mother’s story:

One day, we traveled to a local fair in our cart because Walter enjoyed watching the games of strength exhibited by the Highlanders. We were both awed by the brawniness and strength of these men. They had trained so much and were fighting each other with the largest swords I have ever seen. One lad in particular seemed to single me out and stared at me often.

The baron
was not a happy man when he noticed this.

I did nothing to encourage the gentleman, but he could not take his eyes
off me. After we left, Walter stopped the cart near a copse of trees and pulled me into the woods to beat me. He called me nasty names and hit me until I could not move.

And
then he left me to die.

Two days later, I woke up in this Highlander’s keep, a healer at my side. The healer nursed me back to health and the Highlander,
Ranald MacLaren, visited my bedside often. What can I say except to admit that Ranald and I fell deeply in love and I planned to live with him. He and his clan tried to convince me I was free to find another since the baron had left me for dead, but Baron Lunde, being originally from England, had a stricter view of the marriage vows.

Word eventually reached
him that I had survived his beating and was carrying, and he came to the MacLaren keep in search of his wife. He brought the magistrate with him and forced me to return to his home.

I attempted to stay in touch with
Ranald, as I knew you to be his babe and not Baron Lunde’s. The fury on the baron’s face when he discovered he had been cuckolded was something I do not care to ever see again. Of course, he felt no guilt over beating me and leaving me to die. He moved us to Largs so that Ranald and I would have no chance of finding each other.

I gave birth to you in Largs
. I am doing my best to raise you with only a mother’s love, but I still hope that someday, Ranald will come to bring us home. The baron’s constant beatings make me weary, and I fear some day he will start on you.

Know that I love you with all my heart and I am so trying to find us a better life.

Your loving mother

Celestina set this letter down and thought about all she had read. Why had her true father never come for her? Honor drove everything the Highlanders did. If he was anything like Brodie, he would have rescued her mother, Baron Lunde be damned.

Atop the next two letters, sat a short note
.

My Celestina,

I leave you these last two letters as evidence of how much your parents loved you. If anything happens to me before you grow to adulthood, I want you to know there
were two people who love you very much and wanted nothing more than the opportunity to show you how important you were to both of us.

She picked up the next note with great hesitation. Almost afraid to read it, she forced herself to open the carefully folded edges and was surprised to see unfamiliar handwriting on the parchment.

My lady, this letter is to notify you that Ranald MacLaren has been gored by a boar. We do not expect him to live the night. He is asking for you and we are hoping you can find your way to the MacLaren keep to sit at his side. It may be the last chance you have to see him alive.

He had written
the enclosed letter for you in the event that anything should happen to him. I pass it on to you now, as he has requested in his last breaths.

Donald MacLaren, brother of Ranald

Another letter in a different handwriting sat underneath this one.

My love, My heart breaks every day as I think of you living away from the one place you belong—in my arms. Understand that my love for you has not diminished
in the slightest during our time apart. I applaud you for all you do to safekeep our bairn, and I look forward to the day when I can enfold both you and our beautiful daughter in my arms. Please know that I am doing everything in my power to come for you. I will love you forever. R

Added to the bottom of the note, she found the following.

Celestina, your father, Ranald MacLaren, had set out from his keep with several guards to come for us when this tragic event took place. When the baron learned of the accident, he moved me from Largs to Lennox at Moubrey Hall, in the hopes of preventing me from rushing to your father’s bedside.

My heart is broken in so many
pieces; I know not how to continue. Thank goodness for you, my Celestina. If not for you, I fear I could not go on after losing the love of my life.

I offer you these words of advice. If you ever have the chance to follow your heart and love the man of your dreams, do
so. It saddens me to see so many marriages based on reasons of money, land, power, and control.

Marry someone with whom you can share not just your love, but your dreams.
I do not regret meeting Ranald and bearing you as evidence of our love. My only regrets are that we were unable to enjoy our love in all its glory. I so wish such a love and such a life for you. Your loving mother.

So her father
had
come for them. Very confused at first, she reviewed the letters until she understood exactly what had happened. And the love she felt from and for both her parents was staggering.

In her dream, her mother had guided her to these letters. She had wanted her to understand true
love; she’d wanted to tell her something even more important. She
did
have value. Now she was sure of it. Celestina Lunde was part Norwegian and now she knew something else about herself. Her father was a Highlander, just like her husband. So that meant she was a Highlander twice over.

There was nothing she could ever do to make Baron Lunde happy. His constant
criticism had nothing to do with her—it was directed at her mother.

Celestina wiped the tears from her eyes and spent another hour reviewing the letters.
Once she had them memorized, she returned them to the tin, but keeping out only the last letter written from Largs, which she tucked close to her heart. She would never lose it and would read it frequently to remind herself of who she was.