Once Upon a Highland Autumn (25 page)

For the first time since he’d inherited the title, Megan made him feel as if he was worthy after all—worthy of attention, of conversation, and of kissing. Had any other woman ever kissed him the way she had, freely, without expectation of reward? Megan was the first honest person he’d met in a very long time. But then, he reminded himself, she didn’t want him as a husband, any more than he wanted her as a wife. Still . . .

He paused on the edge of the glen and looked out at the soft light that fell over the hills, the loch, the old castle. He felt for an instant that he belonged here, or wanted to belong here at least. He
wished
he belonged here, with Megan. But she’d given her heart to someone else, and her future was decided, and there was no place for Kit when the year and a day came to an end. How would they part when the year was done—with a kiss? He groaned and walked up the hill to the cottage.

Inside, he lit a lamp, and took out Nathaniel’s journal. He needed something else to think about besides kissing Megan McNabb.

Glen Dorian, April 16, 1746

“R
uairidh’s gone,” Mairi said to Connor, hurrying up the hill toward him as he spoke with a clansman in the dawn light.

Connor’s eyes darkened he gripped her shoulders. “Did he go with Iain to Nairn, to join the prince?”

Mairi felt tears sting her eyes, and her belly tightened with fear. “How could he have? No, Ruairidh was here last night. Iain left yesterday morning, long before.”

“I might as well tell you that Donal and Alain have gone as well, laird, against your orders,” the clansman said, his face grim. “And there are others, too. They have kin among the MacIntoshes of Moy, and they left to join them. They want to fight for Charlie Stuart. Word has come that they’re gathering at Culloden Moor.”

“Connor, Ruairidh’s just a child!” Mairi cried. “He’s too young to go to war. We have to do something!”

Connor muttered under his breath, and she saw the worry in his eyes, the way he looked anxiously around the glen. “I’ll go after him, find him before anything happens—the others, too, if I can persuade them to come back. How long ago did Ruairidh go?”

Mairi wrung her hands. “I don’t know—Sometime in the night. His bed was empty this morning, his pack gone.” She began to cry again.

He wiped away her tears with the pad of his thumb. “I’ll find him,
Mo chroi
.” He put his hand to her cheek. “You stay here and take care of things, hmm?”

She closed her hand on his for a moment, and gave him a watery smile. “Will you take food with you?”

He nodded. “Ruairidh will be hungry. You can pack it while I get my horse ready, but hurry.”

He led her back down the hill to the castle, and the clansman followed. “Is there anything I can do, laird?” he asked, and Mairi watched Connor nod, his face grim.

“Keep watch while I’m gone, Fionn,” he said. “Help Mairi keep everyone safe.”

Mairi followed him down the hill toward the castle, felt the icy wind cut through her woolen gown and her plaid shawl and chill her very bones, and feared what would come of this day.

M
egan changed her gown three times the next morning, trying to find something that was alluring, yet not too alluring, and pretty, yet sober. She settled on a green muslin walking dress with long sleeves and ribbon trim. Her heart thumped at the prospect of seeing Kit again.

It thumped a little less when he didn’t come out of the cottage to meet her.

It stopped dead in her chest and fell into the pit of her stomach when she realized he wasn’t in the cottage, or standing on the shore of the loch, or coming over the edge of the glen. He wasn’t here. She stared at the castle, and wondered if he was inside, busy, and if he’d really mind if she crossed the causeway to find him. She wasn’t prying—she simply wished to bid him a good day, to look in his eyes, and see if the kiss had affected him as much as it had her. That’s all—nothing more.

She would sit and wait for him, she decided. She went into the cottage and sat down at the table, and stared across the surface of the wood. The minutes ticked slowly past, and still Kit didn’t return. Megan sighed and paced the floor—bare earth, carefully swept—had Kit swept it? The bed was made, too, after a fashion. It made her smile that he hadn’t done any better than she had with that task. She glanced at the shelf, noted the cup and plate and pot, and paused. There was a stack of books there, and she took the top one down to look at it.

A piece of paper fluttered loose and fell to her feet like the first yellow leaf of autumn as she opened the cover. She bent to retrieve it. It was a letter—but who would be writing to Kit here? Perhaps one of the hopefully ladies had penned a billet-doux to tell him of her love, to plead with him to kiss
her
. Megan’s lips rippled. He wasn’t allowed to kiss anyone else, not for a year and a day. The idea pleased her somehow. She glanced at the letter. She’d never received a love letter, not even from Eachann.

She frowned. The letter wasn’t addressed to Kit. It was addressed to someone named Connor MacIntosh at the Inverness Gaol. The hair on the back of her neck rose. “Now why would you have this?” she wondered aloud, asking the air. Had he found it in the old castle, where it had lain lost and forgotten for over seventy years? Curious, Megan opened the worn folds and sat down to read it.

Glen Dorian, April 16, 1746

M
airi MacIntosh stared out the window of her bedroom, looking out across the glen to the road that ran through the gap between two hills—the road that would bring Connor and Ruairidh back safely. It was almost dark, and her heart was lodged in her throat, fearing the worst. She tried to concentrate on her sewing—a tiny shirt for the baby she carried, a baby that not even Connor knew about yet. She would tell him tonight, when everyone was home and safe and life was normal again. The fine linen dropped from her nerveless fingers as a horse and rider burst through the pass.

Connor!
She put a hand to her heart, felt it pounding against her ribs. But the horse was black, not Connor’s dun-colored garron. She saw a red coat, and a cry of fear escaped her lips, but as the rider drew closer still, she saw the flutter of MacIntosh plaid flying out behind like a sail in the wind. There were two people on the horse.

She picked up her skirts and rushed down the stairs, not knowing what to do first. The folk in the hall stared at her, dread in their eyes. “Morag, set the table,” she called. “Annie, heat some water.”

She threw open the door and hurried into the courtyard as Nathaniel Linwood pulled his foaming horse to a stop. She read bad news in his eyes before he even spoke. She curled a hand against her belly, felt her knees weaken, feared the worst. She leaned against the wall, and forced herself to look at the body in the saddle behind him.

“Ruairidh!” she cried, rushing forward to catch her brother as he tumbled off the horse, exhausted. Tears and dirt smeared his face, and there was blood on his shirt. He began crying anew when he saw her, throwing himself into her arms.

“He’s not hurt,” Nathaniel said, as she looked at her brother in horror, rubbed at the blood and dirt on his face “He’s just frightened.”

“They took Connor,” the boy sobbed, and Mairi met Nathaniel’s eyes. He nodded.

Mairi felt the sky fall on her, suck the breath from her lungs, and she stared up at him, unable to speak.

“I’m sorry. I could not stop it. If I’d tried, they’d have taken the boy as well. They took him off with some other prisoners. He’ll be in Inverness Gaol. I’ll go and get him, bring him home.”

“They fell on him with swords,” Ruairidh said. “He was bleeding. They were all bleeding.”

She looked at her brother, saw the fear in his eyes. In the span of hours, he’d aged a decade beyond his thirteen years.

Nathaniel wheeled his horse, and made ready to go. She caught his bridle, and the horse’s eyes rolled in fear. “Wait,” she said, “I’ll come with you, tell them—” But he shook his head.

“The rebels lost the battle, Mairi. It was quick and brutal, a rout. It’s no place for you now.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes, and she read weariness in every line of his body. “I’ll bring him back, I swear it.”

She stepped back. She had no choice. She stood silently, feeling fear curl through her limbs like smoke, chill her to the bone. Nathaniel gazed at her for an instant longer as if he wished to say something, but looked away, let his eyes flick over Ruairidh, and closed his mouth. He set his spurs to his horse and was gone.

M
egan could scarcely see the path that led through the glen beyond the blur of angry tears. She had no idea where she was going—anywhere away from the glen, and the castle, and
him
. It didn’t matter.

She heard a shout, and hands caught her shoulders, stopping her.

“Hold on, lass, where are you off to in such a tearing hurry? You nearly ran me over!” Duncan MacIntosh said, letting her go, righting himself with the help of his stick—the very stick Megan and Kit had leaped over at their handfasting. “Och, no wonder you didn’t see me. You’ve been crying.”

“I most certainly have not!” Megan said, swiping at her cheeks.

“Yes you have. There have been enough tears shed in this glen if you ask me. In truth, there never used to be a loch here at all until—”

“I’m not in the mood for a tale today,” Megan interrupted.

“Ah, there’s been a lover’s quarrel has there? I’ve all the time in the world to hear your tale instead, and it’s a lovely day, though it’s sure to rain later.”

“There isn’t a cloud in the sky,” Megan said, glancing up.

“I rely on my bones to tell me when bad weather is coming. You wait and see. There’s going to be a fearsome storm.”

“There will indeed,” Megan murmured, and Duncan’s white brows flew skyward.

“We’re not talking about the weather now, are we? Tell me, what’s your braw Sassenach done?”

“Do you know why he’s here?” Megan demanded.

Duncan rubbed his chin. “Well, I know he’s bought Glen Dorian, and he’s handfasted with you, and all in just three short weeks of arriving. ’Tis a captivating place right enough—”

“There’s a treasure!” she said.

He gave her a sweet-eyed look. “Of course there is. It’s a very likely thing to happen when two young people fall in love. I trust you’ll be staying together then—you have my congratulations.”

Megan’s jaw dropped. “You think that I’m—Oh, no, I’m certainly not with child!”

“Yet,” the old man teased, winking at her.

“Ever,”
she said fiercely. “He had an old letter, written by Mairi to her husband, Connor, after the battle. It mentions a treasure that’s hidden in Glen Dorian Castle.
That’s
why Lord Rossington is here.”

The old man’s eyes sharpened. “A letter?”

“She entrusted it to someone named Linwood to deliver, and he kept it—
he kept it!”

Duncan frowned and held up a gnarled hand. “Now don’t work yourself into a lather, lass. Nathaniel Linwood was a good man as I recall him.” He moved over to sit on the boulder, and patted the other half of the makeshift bench. “Sit down, lass, and I’ll tell you what I know. My old bones don’t keep me upright the way they used to.” He took out his pipe and put it into his mouth, unlit, and pondered the hills and the heather for a long moment. “I’ve lived here in Glen Dorian all my life. I was born here, in the castle itself, and I daresay I’ll die here when the time comes, and that won’t be long now.”

“Were you here when Mairi lived?” Megan asked.

“Aye, of course I was. My father was Connor MacIntosh’s
seannachaidh
, and his father served Connor’s father before him, and so on. I was raised to be the next MacIntosh tradition bearer, but the line will end with me.” He pointed at her with the stem of his pipe. “It is my sacred duty, as you know, to see the old tales are told, and passed on. Now what did the letter say?”

She told him, and watched as his eyes filled with sadness.

“I daresay she wrote the letter in the days after Culloden. Connor left here the day of the battle to find his brother—the Ruairidh she mentions. He was Mairi’s wee brother in truth, but Connor made the lad his brother as well when he married her. Ruairidh had been forbidden to set foot out of the glen, but he ran off to see the great battle, thinking it would be an adventure. He wanted to see Charlie Stuart in the flesh, watch the clansmen rout the English, send them south with their tails a ’twixt their legs. He said later that there were a number of boys there that day, all hiding in the heather on the edge of the moor, watching the men gather. Young Archie Fraser was only nine, there to watch his father, the chief of the Frasers, lead his men out. Archie told the tale often, for it was the last time he saw his father’s face. If the chief had known the boy was there, he would have thrashed him and sent him home to his mother where he belonged. As it was, the lad wished for the rest of his life he hadn’t been at Culloden Moor that day. He saw things no boy should see, including his father’s death, and Connor’s wee brother Ruairidh was right beside him.”

“Did Connor find him and bring him home?” she asked.

“Aye, he found him, but he wasn’t the one to bring Ruairidh back to Glen Dorian. The battle had ended, and the clans had lost. Those who still lived fled from the field, including the lads who’d been hiding in the heather. Ruairidh got caught in the retreat. He saw Connor, all right, but just as a soldier in a red coat slashed him across the back with his saber. He watched the laird fall to his knees, bloodied, but alive. It was then that Ruairidh himself was snatched up by a soldier.”

Megan gasped, and he shot her a look. “Aye, and you’d be even more surprised to know it was Captain Nathaniel Linwood who caught him up. Do you recognize the name? He’s your own Rossington’s ancestor, lass. I knew it when he gave me his name at the handfasting. He’s come back so the tale can end at last. Captain Linwood saved Ruairidh MacIntosh’s life that day, and after, too.”