One Man's Love (25 page)

L
eitis stared at the scene, her mind still reeling. There he stood, the Butcher of Inverness, Ian, holding a cat tenderly in his arms.

The woman beside him wore a tricorne hat not unlike the officers at Fort William. Attached to it was a long black lace veil. Her ebony dress declared her a widow and boasted a fitted bodice, tight sleeves, and a skirt split to reveal a black underskirt. Even though she was wearing deep mourning, she was smiling brightly.

Leitis shook her head as if to empty it of all the contradictions she faced. She walked back into Gilmuir’s courtyard, resisting the urge to limp. Her foot ached from where she’d kicked Ian.

Entering the archway, she walked into the clan hall. Sunlight bathed the interior, even as shadows
clung to the corners. She stood in the middle of the once-impressive room, staring up at the clear blue of the sky. One night the Butcher—no, Ian—had done the same, desperate with confusion. Or burdened with his secrets?

In places the floor had been demolished and the stone ribs of the foundation could be seen. She had the feeling that her life was like Gilmuir in that the core of her was being revealed.

He had once warned her of being too like Cumberland. Had she truly been so blinded by hatred?

The English were not the only ones responsible for what had happened to her country, to Gilmuir. The Scots leaders held their share of responsibility. So did every man who left for battle with the thought of rebellion in his heart and every woman who watched them go with pride.

They had not considered what could happen if they lost. They had wanted something so fiercely that they refused to think of the alternative.

Just as she had.

She had not wanted Ian to be the colonel, so she had pretended it wasn’t so. She’d ignored her intuition and even her intelligence.

How had she fooled herself so completely? By ignoring all the signs. All along she’d been reminded of someone by the way he walked, by his bearing. She’d thought it was Marcus, or had that been simply another pretense she’d offered herself?

She walked through the archway; the path dappled by sunlight, and entered the priory.

How strange that this place had never seemed filled with ghosts. The only spirits lingering here were those still alive.

Are you faint of heart? Afraid of horses or shadows or the wind blowing through your hair?

What had the past years been like for him? Had he been as conflicted as she felt now? A Scots mother, an English father. The Scots would hate him; the English would suspect him.

She went to one of the middle arches, staring out over the loch and beyond. A land she loved. But a country is more than the earth and the hills, the lake and the forests. It is the people that make it alive. Men of great deeds and petty tyrannies. Women of courage and selfishness. People frail and strong, brave and fearful. Not gods, not saints, only people.

And the colonel of the regiment? A person as well. A man wedded to his duty until the obligation proved too onerous. Wasn’t that what had happened to her own country? The people had accepted what they could until the breaking point. Good or ill, wise or foolish, they had rebelled.

As had Ian.

Alec summoned Lieutenant Castleton to his side.

“Do we have two available chambers for the countess and my brother, Castleton?” he asked.

The other man’s expression could only be construed as worried, but then he was a conscientious soldier, one who hated to disappoint him.

“There are no empty chambers, sir. But we could clear out the ordnance rooms, move the gunpowder.”

“Then see that it’s done,” he said.

The lieutenant raised his arm, motioning to Armstrong. The other man glanced over at him, then wisely smoothed his face of its momentary irritation.

David occupied himself by talking to his cat, tapping gently on the sides of the basket.

“I don’t remember him being this way,” Alec said carefully in an aside to Patricia.

“He was a child when you left. Others grew, he didn’t,” she said simply.

“There are those who would have chosen to keep him hidden,” he said, voicing a truth that she surely knew. It was easier to keep a dotty aunt, a deformed child, a senile father locked away. Society pretended that it was perfect. David would banish that notion with his very presence. Only the very rich or the ennobled were allowed to be eccentric or different.

“Yes,” she said, agreeing. “But then they would never have had the joy I have.” She looked at her son. “David loves with his whole heart and never looks at life as evil or sad or lonely.”

“I remember that about you,” he said smiling. “You were always very protective of those you loved. My father was very fortunate.”

“You’re very like him,” she said, studying him. “I’d never realized it before.”

David was smiling brightly, greeting each of the soldiers who passed him. Inappropriate behavior, perhaps, for a young man, but not for a child.

“We didn’t quarrel,” he said absently, watching David. “We simply lost interest in each other.”

“I think your presence was difficult for him. He loved your mother so very much.”

“And seeing me brought her back?” he asked skeptically, glancing at her.

“No. It only emphasized the futility of longing for her,” she said surprisingly. “Without you around, he could pretend. That she was away for the summer, perhaps. Or visiting relatives in France. A place from which she could return. I think it’s why he distanced himself from me as well,” she added.

“Then he was foolish,” Alec said. “It’s not often that a man has two remarkable women in his life.”

The sound of a rider approaching captured his attention. Harrison drew up, a look of concern on his face. He dismounted quickly, approached the group, and nodded in wordless apology for disturbing him.

“Sir, Major Sedgewick is approaching,” Harrison said, his face creased with worry. “I saw him on my way back.”

“It was too good to last, Harrison,” Alec said, annoyed at the major’s appearance. He resigned himself to Sedgewick’s presence at Fort William for a few days before he could send him out on another patrol.

“That’s not all, sir,” Harrison said. “It looks as if General Wescott is accompanying him. And quite a large force of men, Colonel.”

Alec stepped away from his stepmother, a dozen thoughts flying through his head.

His routine letters to Wescott kept the general informed of the status of Fort William. There was more than one reason why the general would be accompanying Sedgewick, but he couldn’t afford to ignore the most dangerous one.

“Everything that could associate me with the Raven needs to be destroyed, Harrison. And anything that can link you to my activities,” he said, concerned for the other man’s welfare.

Harrison nodded. “What are you going to do, Colonel?” he asked, worried.

“Get to Leitis,” Alec said quickly.

“I
knew I would find you here,” he said, his voice low and somber.

She turned, slowly, to see him standing in the doorway leading to the archway. “It felt right to come to the place where it all began.”

He smiled. “I think it began in the glen,” he said, “with the sight of you running so fast your feet seemed to fly over the grass. And the cloud of your hair behind you.”

“That soon?”

“From the beginning,” he said, striding forward until he stood close to her. He reached out his hand and wrapped his finger around a lock of her hair. “It looks as bright as fire in the sun. Like that faraway time.”

He dropped his hand, his smile evaporating. “General Wescott will be arriving soon. Before he gets here, I want you to leave.”

She frowned, confused.

“Why should his arrival concern me?”

“Because it’s possible that I will be arrested,” he said, “and either you will be turned over to Sedgewick’s care or imprisoned also.”

“Do they know about the Raven?” she asked, shocked.

He shrugged, a gesture meant to be nonchalant, she was sure. But it failed at convincing her that he was calm about the possibility of being arrested. His jaw was too squared; a muscle in it twitched with tension. His hands, resting at his sides, were clenched into fists. “If not now, I’m sure they’ll find out soon enough.”

“If he doesn’t know, then what is the danger?” she asked, confused.

“I’ve performed more than one act of insurrection, Leitis,” he said, his lips curving in a crooked smile that was absolutely charming. “There is Inverness, for one. And Sedgewick has never forgiven me for saving the village.”

“Why did you?” she asked, discounting the answer he’d first given her. Something to the effect of it being easier to save the village than to rebuild it.

“Because the people of Gilmuir lived there,” he said, reaching out and tucking an errant tendril of her hair behind her ear before letting his hand drop. “Because it was your home.”

“If it had been any other place, would you have done the same?”

“I like to think I would,” he said. “But I might not have,” he added, the words stark in their honesty. “I
can’t say what I might have done, Leitis. I can only be accountable for those actions I’ve committed.”

He glanced up at the ceiling, still mostly intact, even after the English bombardment.

“I served my country as well as I could,” he said. “The Scots would think me a traitor for it, while the English will consider my ruse as Raven equally treasonous.”

She wasn’t certain what was real or imaginary at this moment. The Butcher of Inverness was no longer a man to be feared for his cruelty. The colonel was a rebel whose self-imposed mission was to protect the Scots. Ian was Alec, and they were both the man she loved.

“Whatever my faults, however they’re measured, regardless of who judges me, I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you, Leitis.”

“The only way you’ve hurt me is by being English,” she said honestly.

His glance was gently chiding. “I cannot change that for you, Leitis. Did you never think that it would have been easier for me to love a woman who didn’t see me as her enemy? One who wasn’t stubborn and heedless?” he added.

“Who watched her tongue?” she asked, moving away from him. She faced the loch, but heard him come to stand behind her. “Who didn’t take you to task?”

“Or didn’t weep when she was touched too much for words,” he said softly.

“Or love you in a cave,” she said quietly. A proper and virtuous woman would have felt shame in uttering that truth. Wanton as she was, she couldn’t help but flush at the memory of her abandon.

He reached out and gently turned her in his arms.

“You see,” he said earnestly, “I’ve no choice in loving you. You’ve been in my heart since I was a boy and I cannot pry you loose.”

She stepped away. “I accept that you’re not the Butcher I thought you, but I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that you’ve taken up arms against my country. Am I to forgive that with such ease?”

“Your countrymen did the same, Leitis,” he said. “There are some things that cannot be wiped clean, Leitis, however much we wish it. I spent years hating the Scots because they had killed my mother.”

“General Wade’s troops were responsible,” she said, confused.

“I didn’t know that at the time,” he answered. “I didn’t know any different until you told me.”

“Yet it didn’t stop you from saving the men in Inverness,” she said slowly.

“The men were kept naked, cold, and starving. It was difficult to see them as Scots, and easier to see them as people who needed help. I would truly have been a monster if I had ignored their plight. Besides, Leitis, sometimes you have to stop hating.”

She folded her hands in front of her, tipped her head back, and looked steadily at him. Ribbons of sunlight streaming in through the arches bathed his face. He returned her look, unmasked, his face handsome and strong, his eyes direct and unflinching. He stood before her naked in spirit. Revealed as who he was, not as she had thought him to be. Not a monster, nor a rebel, but a man of contradictions and frailties, a man who had earned both her respect and her love.

Her sigh felt tinged with tears. Inside her chest was this great hollow place that echoed the sound of her fast-beating heart. “I tried not to love you,” she confessed. “I told myself that it would be safer not to. For
a time I even believed it; but then, I seem to be adept at delusions.”

Slowly, giving her time to pull away, he bent and kissed her, a soft and hesitant kiss like the one he’d once given her as a boy. She placed her hand on his cheek, her palm abraded by the afternoon growth of his beard.

She pulled her hand away, looked at the X-shaped scar. Slowly, he placed his hand over hers. A meeting of scars, a meeting of minds. And hearts, she admitted.

She shook her head, confused, uncertain, overwhelmed. Love, she discovered in that moment, existed whether or not it was convenient or proper. And love flourished in unexpected places like the harebells she loved, strong and hardy, growing in rocky fissures or deep soil.

“I’m a poor Scot,” she admitted, “to concede so quickly to an Englishman. But I do,” she said. “I love you, Colonel or Raven, Ian or Alec.”

“Perhaps you can console yourself with the thought that you brought me to my knees.”

She pulled back and smiled at him. His own smile faded as he looked at her.

“I once thought that if I could stare long enough into your eyes,” he confessed, “I could see your soul.”

“Can you?” she asked, entranced by his words.

“I see your heart,” he softly said. “And your courage. You will need it for what might come.”

The sense of dread she began to feel was so overpowering that it made her stomach lurch.

“You must leave now, Leitis,” he said softly.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, biting back her fear.

“At this moment? I’m going to return to Fort William,” he said.

She didn’t fool herself that the general would be compassionate or kind or even understanding. The English would punish Alec for his actions; he had done more than disobey Cumberland’s orders. He had dared to feel kindness.

“You might be hanged,” she said.

His fingers dusted a path from the lobe of her ear to her chin. The expression on his face was intent, as if he memorized the look of her, this moment, for all the time to come. “I sincerely hope not,” he said. “I’ve plans for my life.”

“Don’t make me leave you,” she said, blinking back tears. “Please.”

He shook his head slowly. “Don’t you know that they can’t hurt me unless they hurt you? I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you. I’ll come when I can. I promise you that.”

“I’ve heard those promises before,” she said, pulling away from him. “‘I’ll return, Leitis. I’ll be safe enough. There’s nothing to worry about. It will be an adventure, Leitis, and you’ll be sick with envy to hear of it.’ I’ve heard it all,” she said fiercely. “From my father and Fergus and James and Marcus.”

“I swear on all that’s holy to the MacRaes that I’ll come when I can, Leitis.”

He bent and kissed her sweetly, and she allowed her eyes to flutter shut, captured between grief and delight in that moment.

Please, keep him safe.
She had not prayed in so long that it felt uncomfortable to do so. In those months after Culloden she had felt no great accord with the Almighty. She had, instead, experienced only anger. This prayer was different, unselfish.
Keep him safe,
not because I love him, but because he deserves to be saved.

Again he kissed her, and for the length of the kiss she forgot about English troops, divided loyalties, and even danger.

Patricia waited patiently in the courtyard, David beside her softly crooning to his cat. The vista was spectacular, pulling from her a reluctant admiration. The deep azure of the sea and the brilliant hue of a storm-free sky were a backdrop for the green rolling hills to either side of Fort William. Even the sharp peaks in the distance, all jutting angles and black and gray shale, could not spoil the scenery. It was not calm in the way an English landscape often was, but it was quiescent at the moment. There was no rain, no bristling wind, and even the waves on the water seemed tranquil.

The warm breeze was a gentle brush against her cheek. Nature’s caress, as if it approved of her presence here.

She glanced over at the ruin of Gilmuir. Moira’s childhood home. The place where she’d died. She’d expected to feel a host of emotions on viewing this place. Instead, she felt only sadness for the other woman. No envy, no anger.

“My lady?”

The young man Alec had summoned stood there waiting patiently. Castleton, that was his name.

He stood stiffly at attention, then inclined his head. Almost, she thought, as if he couldn’t quite decide whether to bow or salute her.

She smiled to ease him.

“The chambers are ready, Your Ladyship,” he said, his expression earnest. “If you would accompany me.” He extended his arm.

The thundering approach of what looked to be a hundred troops drowned out his next words. A column of men, riding in pairs, galloped over the narrow strip of earth that joined the island to the meadow, their horses’ hooves throwing up clods of earth and chunks of grass.

They slowed to a canter between the two structures before filing into the courtyard. Between the sound of the horses and the orders being shouted, the enclosed space was suddenly a scene of pandemonium.

She stepped back from one particularly intrusive horse that appeared determined to eat the top of her hat. She almost batted at him with her reticule before his rider turned him away.

The troops parted soundlessly and an imposing-looking man of rugged features rode through them. His horse was white, his saddle dotted with silver medallions. Was he the leader of this rude group?

He glanced in her direction before looking away. Then, in a thoroughly affronting manner, he slowly glanced at her again. A scrutiny, she thought irately, that took in the tips of her black shoes to the top of her silk hat and spared little in between, including the curve of her bodice. The fact that she was in mourning did not seem to matter to him at all.

She drew herself up and frowned at him, her mouth pursed in a moue of disapproval. The insufferable man simply smiled at her, a most rapacious gesture that made her want to hit him with her reticule as well.

He dismounted with ease, giving orders to the men around him as he did so. One particular man appeared as interested in her presence as the general, but he soon tired of his inspection of her and sought out another soldier.

The general, however, was not finished with his effrontery.

He strode to where she stood, unaffected by her glare. His bow was as slow and as arrogant as his look.

“Madam,” he said, “I never expected to see a woman of your beauty in this desolate place.”

She blinked at him, surprised. She hadn’t been called a beauty since before her marriage to Gerald. But that fact did not soften her toward him. In fact, she should be even more insulted. Her appearance was not a topic of conversation, especially from a stranger.

“Allow me to present General Wescott to you, Countess,” Castleton said as if he’d heard her thoughts.

“Countess?” The odious general looked surprised.

“General,” Castleton continued, “the Countess of Sherbourne.”

“A relation to Alec Landers?” the general asked. “His wife?”

She was determined that this man would not startle her further.

“Of course I am not his wife,” she said annoyed. “I am his mother. His stepmother.”

“Which accounts for the disparity in age, my lady,” he said, bowing once more. “You are still too young to be his stepmother. Did your husband pluck you from the cradle?”

Was there no end to his temerity?

“I am a widow, sir,” she said frostily. “A fact that you would soon glean if you directed your attention at the shade of my attire and nothing else.”

“A fact to my advantage,” he said equally as coolly. But there was a twinkle in his hazel eyes. “I am a widower, my lady.”

She simply stared at him for a moment, flummoxed.

“I am a very recent widow, sir,” she said finally, frowning at him.

He reached out and took her gloved hand, bowed over it, and in the manner of the French kissed the air above the back of it. “My condolences, my lady,” he said smoothly, his voice entirely too intimate. So, too, was the warmth of his hand. Her palm felt singed even through her gloves.

“Will you take refreshments with me?” he asked, that irritating twinkle back in his eyes. “I will endeavor to make you forget my earlier boorishness.”

She jerked her hand back. “Certainly not,” she said, annoyed.

“Will you partake of the evening meal with me, then?”

“Are there no boundaries to your effrontery, sir?”

He smiled, an expression, she was certain, that had been practiced many times. It was effective, rendering his rugged face almost boyish. For a moment they simply stared at each other, until she remembered her true reason for being here.