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As his uncle and her father stood waiting on his words, Alan understood that less experienced searchers might not consider the signs he’d seen as easily found. Even without finding her body, for the strength and flow of the river might have carried that miles and miles down through the glen, he was certain of his findings.
‘My Lord MacMillan,’ he said quietly, holding out the ribbon he’d found, ‘I fear that your daughter is dead.’
If Alan had expectations of an emotional display or even a few kind words expressed over the loss of a beloved daughter, they did not come to fruition. If anything, the hard man turned harder still with an iciness in his gaze that had nothing to do with the chill weather around them. At his uncle’s nod, the chieftain followed him away from their gathered men to a place a short distance from the tents. Although they turned and left quickly, it was not so quick that Alan missed the knowing smile on his uncle’s face.
Gilbert Cameron was not displeased by this death.
Once more it would seem that his uncle would be the one benefitting by a young woman’s death. As he waited on his uncle’s orders, he offered up a quick prayer that this lass, like the ones before her, was in a better place than she would be as Gilbert’s wife.
Chapter Two (#u4ba1be2e-826f-55a5-9d56-b6ebdf077d0c)
Two weeks later—near Glenfinnan
Weariness and cold unlike anything she’d ever experienced sank into her bones and her soul. She’d followed Padruig for days and days, into the dark storm and away from her father. She had followed him across lochs and around them. Followed his unrelenting steps towards freedom.
And now she watched as some villagers buried him in the ground.
Sorcha had held on to hope, even in the terrible days after her mother’s passing. Even when her father had forced her to accept the betrothal to the ruthless and brutal Cameron chieftain. Her mother had sworn there was a way to escape it, but now, at her weakest moment in the last two months, Sorcha was not able to find the strength to cling to that hope.
Tears she’d held in for so long threatened to spill and yet she could not allow the weakness to gain control over her. Sorcha knew that holding in her fears until she was safely at her destination was the only way she would survive. The burial completed, she nodded to those watching. They thought he was her father. She would not cry over her father, but they did not know that.
‘What will ye do now, lass?’ the miller’s wife asked as she stood by the grave. ‘Do ye hiv kith or kin nearby?’
‘Nay,’ she whispered as she shook her head. ‘My mother’s kin is out on Skye.’ Padruig had revealed her mother’s plan to her within hours of their escape from Ballachulish and it included fleeing to her mother’s sister on Skye—and life in a convent. But she must not reveal that to anyone.
‘Is that where ye were journeying to when he passed, then?’ the woman asked. The concern lacing her tone and words removed some of the chill on Sorcha’s heart. Coming from a stranger, it surprised her.
‘Aye.’
‘This road is the way there, so if ye bide awhile ye might find someone travelling there and go wi’ them.’ The woman, Coira, nodded and smiled. ‘Ye wouldna want to travel on alone, lass.’
Sorcha shook her head and shrugged. She must decide how to proceed, but right now, it seemed any decision was not within her power to make. She needed to rest and clear her thoughts before taking another step towards...anywhere.
‘Is there a place where I could stay here? Or nearby? I have some coins and could pay.’ That did not include the fortune sewn into the hem and lining of her gown. She knew better than to reveal that kind of wealth to anyone, be they beneficent strangers or kin.
‘Och!’ Coira said, sliding her arm under and around Sorcha’s then. ‘Ye can stay wi’ us, lass. There’s always a place to sleep and a crust of bread to share with someone in need.’
‘Your husband will not mind?’ she asked. That husband had helped bury Padruig when Sorcha had discovered him dead this morn. ‘He and the others have helped so much already.’
‘Nay, Darach is kind-hearted under that gruff manner. Something about ye touched him, lass. Our first daughter would have been yer age now and I think he sees her in ye,’ Coira admitted. So many bairns died too soon and theirs had been one. Her own mother had lost six bairns during carrying and their first years, so Sorcha understood the loss.
Sorcha followed the woman away from the graveyard to a small cottage that sat next to the millhouse there on the stream. Coira opened the door and bade her enter. Peat burned there in a hearth built into the one wall and she appreciated the warmth it gave off. Too many days on the road, exposed to the Highland winds and rain, had left her cold and damp. She moved to stand nearer to it and watched as the woman retrieved a pot from over the fire and poured some of its contents into a cup.
‘Here now, lass,’ she said. ‘This will warm ye. Have ye eaten yet?’
‘My thanks.’ Sorcha accepted the cup and sipped the warm brew within. It was hot enough to spread the warmth through her and sweet, too. ‘I did eat something.’ She put the cup on the table there. ‘I should get my bags and bring the horses here.’
As she turned, she lost her balance and swayed. Coira grabbed hold of her and guided her to a stool. Pushing her hair from her face, Sorcha fell hard on to it.
‘Dinna fash, lass,’ Coira said, bringing the cup to her. ‘Drink and take a bit to rest.’ The woman walked to the door and called out to someone. ‘Kennan! Fetch the lass’s horse and bags. See to them!’
‘Kennan?’ she asked, drinking down the last of the cup.
‘Our son, the youngest,’ Coira said, never pausing in her work as she moved from one task to another in the cottage. Folding this, pouring that, and so on. ‘So, was yer father ailing for long?’
For a moment, Sorcha was confused, thinking of her true father instead of the man who’d been her mother’s servant for decades. Then she shook her head. ‘Nay, not ailing at all.’
She thought on the last days of their journey and realised Padruig had been tired. He’d complained of his arm and shoulder paining him yesterday and laughed about being an old man to ease her concern. Then last night before they slept, he mentioned that his stomach was unsettled. But those things could have been anything and she’d not connected them with an illness. The journey had been long and filled with tension and fear over being found and returned to her father. Her own stomach had been unsettled for days. Her arms ached from hours of controlling her horse on unfamiliar paths.
‘Well, lass, sometimes the Almighty is being merciful to take someone quickly. ’Tis still quite a shock.’
Sorcha murmured some reply, unable to think of what to tell this woman who clearly only wanted to help her and offer her some measure of comfort over losing her father.
* * *
As the next hours passed, Sorcha realised that she’d never spent this much time with the common people who lived their lives outside her world of comfort and wealth.
Other than those who served them within Castle Sween, Sorcha never had much to do with people who did not live in the keep. Nor had she seen how they lived. Oh, she’d seen and passed cottages in the village before, but had not spent any real time there, observing their tasks and speaking like this. Her father had forbidden all but the most casual of conversations or visits, deeming them beneath the dignity of his daughter.
She watched as the others in the family arrived back after their chores and duties and greeted each other warmly. Though she’d done nothing to help, their hospitality was freely offered and gladly accepted. Coira brushed off any gratitude she tried to express. Soon, it was the darkest part of the night and Sorcha lay awake, considering her plight and the possibilities before her.
* * *
The next dawn found her still awake and with no firm plan of what to do. For now, she could remain here but that could not last for long. It would not take long before her inexperience at working or seeing to herself became apparent even to those people who were not looking too closely.
Sorcha walked along the river, trying to sort out her thoughts when the question occurred to her. When Coira came out to hang wet garments to dry, she approached and tried to help, following the woman’s example. After twisting and then shaking out a few pieces of clothing, she asked her questions.
‘How far are we from Skye?’ she began. ‘How many days to reach there?’
Coira paused in her work, placing her hands on her hips and staring off to the west as though she could see it from where she stood now.
‘’Twould take about three days to reach the shore. Then, across to the island and to your destination.’ She turned and looked at Sorcha. ‘Where on Skye do ye go?’
‘Nigh to Portree.’
‘Then add another day, and two if a storm blows in off the sea.’
Sorcha then thought on her other choice. Rather than rushing to the refuge of a convent, her mother had mentioned another cousin who’d married into the Mackintoshes. Mayhap she should go there and seek counsel about her choices?
‘Do you know far it is to the village of the Mackintosh clan?’
‘In Glenlui? Near Loch Arkaig?’ Sorcha nodded. There were other Mackintoshes further north, for they were a large clan with many septs, but that was the one she needed to find. ‘Not too far. Two days up the glen. Longer if ye go back out the way ye came in.’
She could not go back the other way. Padruig had explained that the Cameron lands sat between them and both the MacPhersons to the northeast and the Mackintoshes to the northwest. They had quickly, and with care, made their way around the Cameron lands to avoid any chance of her capture. Disguised as a merchant travelling with his daughter had shielded her from much scrutiny. The other factor that protected her was that no one knew The MacMillan’s daughter or, if they did, they did not expect to see her here or now.
‘Does anyone travel there?’ she asked. ‘My mother always spoke of her cousin who married a Mackintosh of Glenlui.’ She needed an escort, for truly there was no way for her to make it there alone. Although Sorcha might be tired and heartbroken and losing hope, she was not so lacking in wits to try such a thing. ‘I could hire them. Or exchange their escort for my father’s horse.’
She saw the interest spark in Coira’s gaze. Sorcha knew the importance of a horse, even if this one was a bit old and worn.
‘Aye, I may ken someone,’ Coira said.
* * *
Someone, indeed, for three days later, Sorcha bid farewell to the helpful people here and to Coira and rode north following Coira and Darach’s eldest son Tomas. The woman had promised to have the priest say prayers over Padruig when next he passed through the village and that gave Sorcha some comfort knowing his soul would be blessed even if he’d not been shriven before his death. He’d been a good man, a faithful servant to her mother and a brave friend to help her escape, knowing his fate if they’d been captured.
* * *
Just over a week after Padruig’s death, two months after her mother’s and three weeks after her own, Sorcha arrived in Glenlui and stood before the cottage of her mother’s cousin, Clara MacPherson, wife to James Mackintosh. After watching Tomas ride out of the village towards the glen, Sorcha knocked on the door and found Clara tending to her bairns inside.
At first, before Sorcha even had a chance to speak, Clara stared and blinked at her. Then she shook her head and examined her from head to toes before canting her head and shaking it once more.
‘For a moment, I thought ’twas my mother’s cousin Erca standing before me.’ Clara studied her closely and laughed. ‘You have her hair colouring and the shape of her face, but that chin is certainly not hers. Those eyes are a bit of both, are they not?’ It took but a moment more for her expression to grow guarded. ‘Why are you here, lass? Where is your mother?’
So, word had not spread yet? Out through the MacMillans to the MacNeills and MacPhersons? The Camerons surely knew it. Sorcha drew in a breath and tried to speak, but the words came not. The tears she’d somehow managed to control did though, breaking free and pouring down her face. Clara, bless her, did not need the words to understand. She drew Sorcha into her embrace and rocked with her, all the time murmuring words of sympathy and comfort.
‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘We can speak of her and the reason why you are standing at my door.’
It took some time to calm the torrent of tears once it had begun. Sorcha sat in a chair in the corner while Clara made some tea and tended her three bairns. Wee Jamie, Wee Clara and Robbie clung to their mother’s skirts, peeping at her from time to time as Clara gathered them together and led them into the chamber off this one for a nap.
This cottage was bigger than Coira’s, having three rooms that Sorcha could see. Clara’d taken the bairns into one of those and Sorcha listened to the soft words of love and comfort between Clara and her children as they went off to sleep. Memories of her mother’s voice, soothing and loving, echoed over her then. As her words did in that moment.
Honour. Loyalty. Courage.
Sorcha swallowed against the sense of loss and emptiness and searched for the courage she’d always sworn to her mother she would demonstrate. Sipping the fragrant brew, she let the warmth wash over and through her. She’d survived her father. She’d survived her mad flight into the night and the journey to this place. With several deep breaths in and released, Sorcha gained control over herself then and by the time Clara joined her there, she was ready to speak about her mother and her own future.
‘When did she pass?’ Clara asked. ‘I have not seen her since I was a lass, when she lived at Cluny Castle.’
‘She passed two months ago,’ Sorcha said. ‘She had been ill for some time.’ Sorcha frowned then. ‘So my mother was your mother’s cousin? I thought she was yours.’ Her mother had spoken of Clara in the last weeks of her life and Sorcha had thought their connection was closer.
‘Aye, our mothers were cousins and your mother stood as godmother to me,’ Clara explained. ‘Though your mother often spoke of you in her letters to mine, we never had the chance to meet you.’ Clara stood then and brought the pot of tea closer to fill her cup once more.
‘And your mother? Does she yet live?’ Sorcha asked. She had too little knowledge of her distant kin and needed to know it.
‘Nay,’ Clara said with a slight shake of her head. ‘She passed some years ago. Just after I married James and moved here.’ Clara smiled then. ‘I came to visit my brother here and met James. I never left.’
‘Ah, so your brother lives here as well?’ Sorcha asked. She’d had so few kin in Knap, mostly her father’s, and no siblings to call her own. How might it have been if she’d had brothers or sisters?
‘There was trouble here—the clan split in two as Brodie battled his cousin,’ Clara explained. ‘Conall died in the fighting. But his widow still lives here.’ Clara drank down the rest of her tea and put the cup down on the table. ‘I could spend hours telling you the Mackintosh and MacPherson clan histories and lay out all our relatives on either side,’ she began. ‘But that would simply give you more time to avoid telling me the truth, lass. How did you come to be standing at my door, more than a hundred miles away from your home?’
Sorcha saw the strength of will in Clara’s gaze. There was no way to avoid it any longer. Truth be told, the sooner she had things arranged, the better she would feel. On the last part of this journey, she had accepted that the convent on Skye would be the best place for her. Other than embroidery and prayer, she had few skills to offer as a man’s wife. The jewellery and coins she carried would make the perfect offering to allow her entrance—no one would recognise them or her.
‘I am journeying to a convent on Skye to seek refuge there.’ It sounded reasonable when spoken calmly in spite of the pounding beat of her heart and the tightness in her throat. She clasped her hands together on her lap to keep them from trembling as she revealed the next bit. ‘My father believes me dead, so he will not be an impediment.’
Her words met sheer and utter silence. Clara’s gaze did not falter even then and Sorcha thought she might have stopped breathing. Then her cousin’s lips moved but no sounds came forth.
‘’Twas my mother’s plan, truly,’ Sorcha added. ‘To protect me from him.’ She shrugged. ‘And I have no skills or talents to offer for my keep anywhere else.’ Just the few days spent with Coira and Darach proved how ill prepared she was for a life outside that of a noblewoman.
Clara shook herself free from the hold that the shocking news had caused and stood. After checking on the bairns in the other room and pulling the door closed, she crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. Her intense stare worried Sorcha.
‘Tell me the rest of it, Sorcha. We must have our plan in place before the bairns wake and James comes home.’ Now it was Sorcha’s turn to be surprised. ‘I think that Saraid fits you well as a name. Saraid MacPherson, my cousin whose betrothed died and who has come to visit with me for a wee while.’
Whatever she had expected, this was not it. Her cousin listened to her explanation and did not take long to come up with a story, a whole life in truth, and all before the three children woke. By the time James, the village blacksmith, arrived at the cottage, Sorcha allowed herself to hope that she was on the right path.
And she doubted not that if she needed guidance Clara would be the one giving it now.
Chapter Three (#u4ba1be2e-826f-55a5-9d56-b6ebdf077d0c)
Alan noticed her first when he entered Brodie’s hall.
She stood near to James and Clara, but not with them. It was almost as though she was trying to stay out of sight. She nodded if they spoke to her, came closer when they beckoned and then crept ever so slowly back away. She seemed to prefer the shadows over the light.
He strode past her and the others and climbed the steps up to the chieftain’s table. Waiting for Brodie’s nod, he glanced once more over to the corner and noticed she yet remained there.
‘You know that is not necessary,’ Brodie called out to him. ‘Come. Sit. Eat.’
‘I would not wish to abuse my welcome here,’ he said, the sarcasm coming easily between him and the mighty Brodie Macintosh.
It was always good to have one of the most powerful men in the Highlands beholden to you twice over. No matter his uncle’s demeanour or behaviour, Alan Cameron would be welcome here at Drumlui Keep and any place that Brodie controlled. He knew it and mayhap that was why this place felt more like home than Achnacarry or Tor did.
Servants served him from platters and filled his cup with a fine red wine. He nodded to several there in greeting, knowing he would speak with them later. The meal was pleasant, the company more so, but his gaze kept returning to...her.
It was not that she was a spectacular beauty that drew his eye. It was not that he recognised her, for indeed he did not. So, what did draw him to her?
‘I see you have noticed our newest guest there,’ his cousin Arabella whispered to him while Brodie’s attention turned elsewhere. At first, he was tempted to deny it. Why bother when his cousin was right?
‘Aye. Who is she?’ he asked.
‘Clara’s cousin, recently widowed,’ Arabella explained. ‘Staying with James and Clara and helping her with the bairns.’
As Alan watched, the woman under discussion lifted her head and smiled. Though it was too far for it to be for him, he smiled as though remembering her. He could not help himself. He reached for his cup and drank deeply from it, swallowing the rest of the wine down. He could not see the colour of her eyes nor hear the tone of her voice, but the need to know both of those things and more about her nearly forced him to his feet. Only the soft chuckle from Arabella brought him under control.
‘She is lovely, is she not?’
‘Other than Clara’s cousin, what do you know about her?’ He tried to say the words calmly—hell, he even tried to convince himself it mattered not. The feeling in his gut and the way it was hard to take a breath said otherwise. What the hell was happening here?
‘She is called Saraid MacPherson. That is all I know. Clara brought her here to make her known to Brodie and me a few days ago,’ she said. ‘Why do you not speak to her yourself, Cousin?’ Arabella gave him a puzzling smile before nodding in the direction of the woman. ‘She is, after all, a widow.’
His body understood what Arabella was saying even if he was tempted to scoff at the remark. A widow had certain freedoms that a married or unmarried woman did not. Good God, what had his expression been to give Arabella the idea that he wanted this woman? But then, Arabella never needed a reason to meddle in his life. For the last several years, she’d taken it upon herself to seek out a possible match for him.
Like Fia...
He cleared his throat and turned to face her then.
‘There is no need for this, Bella,’ he said softly. ‘I know you wish me well, but there truly is no reason for you to be involved.’ Tears glimmered there in her eyes and Alan felt her concern. ‘Surely you understand that our uncle expects to dictate that choice and not allow me that choice by chance.’
The change in her demeanour was so quick and clear that it even drew Brodie’s attention. The chieftain stiffened in his chair and slid his hand over to cover his wife’s where it lay between them on the table. A quick frowning glance at Alan, then one filled with concern at Arabella was followed by a tense silence.
‘All is well, Brodie,’ she said quietly, stroking his hand until he nodded and turned back to the conversation he’d been having before he’d sensed her discomfort. Once more looking at Alan, she nodded. ‘All will be well, Alan. I think things will work out, somehow, regardless of what Gilbert Cameron wants or how he acts.’
