Epilogue
From his perch high atop the hill, Aidan spotted Brianna down in the garden below. He nodded toward her and turned to his man with a smile, slipping the small pouch that he’d delivered into his pocket for safekeeping. When he looked to the sky, he realized mid-morning was nearly gone and made haste for the stables. After allowing Merri to cool down after her exercise, he gave her a few extra pats, then scanned the property for his wife, catching sight of her, basket in hand as she left the garden.
He smiled again, taking note of the trail of wee ones that followed in her wake. Not any of theirs yet , though their valiant efforts had borne fruit, and she was indeed expecting. In addition to the children who tagged along behind her, Brianna was followed by a few ‘pets’ as well, even a…Aidan tilted his head to the side to confirm, aye, a goose he was sure he hadn’t seen before. Shaking his head affectionately, he wa tched as she made her way to the keep, smiling and nodding to all she passed, spreading good cheer. She still hadn’t seen him yet, and Aidan watched as Brianna stopped before the doors, and pressed her hand to the symbol. Their symbol. Then, she disappeared inside, and he stood there like a fool, beholding naught but the keep doors, just completely enamored. Whether he was simply caught in her allure, or if this was another marking of her surely more than a wee bit of O’Roarke magic, he cared naught.
By the time he’d washed up and entered the keep himself, Aidan found only warm smiles and an air of happiness that permeated their entire home, and truthfully the entirety of the Pembrooke estate. The past months, it had felt as if Pembrooke had been sprinkled with fairy dust as a result of their union, the sanctified one.
Aye, they’d indeed visited Dunhill Proper and had done so the very morning after he and his brethren had returned to Seagrave to the revelation that was hidden in Brianna’s satchel.
Their ridiculously large riding party might have resembled an army, but it was a journey filled with laughter and joy. Brianna’s delight when they’d arrived at the halfway-point cottage was infectious, and while they’d planned to have the women stay within the small dwelling for the night while he and his brethren slept beneath the stars, their wives had other ideas. After the children drifted off to sleep inside, the women slipped out to join them, to everyone’s pleasure. Aidan was thrilled to be able to pull Brianna close and hold her throughout the night, sleeping on a makeshift bed as they’d done back in the early days of coming to know one another.
They crossed onto O’Roarke land the next morning, and though the border was invisible, it was as if some part of Brianna recognized it. Right away, her expression changed, she sat up straighter, more alert, and when she’d turned to look at him, her entire being appeared alight and overwhelmed at the same time.
“Breea?” he’d asked, momentarily filled with concern, but she shook her head, sending her soft curls dancing, and smiled.
“I feel them,” she said, “all of them, Aidan—I’m home.”
He understood, but still, she reached out for his hand and looked at him softly.
“I don’t mean that you and Pembrooke aren’t my home…” she trailed off and he took the opportunity to stave her need to excuse it.
“I know precisely what you mean, and that you feel this, sense this, is a gift.”
“May I?” She’d asked, motioning with her hand, indicating her wish to ride ahead, to be with the land. When he nodded, she added, “You should come with me.”
Aye, that he did, and what began as a steady and joyous canter in celebration of her homecoming, became something else entirely. He could hardly explain it with words, but he swore he felt her essence twine with the land and take root, and as Merri opened her gait, his stallion followed suit, racing across the meadow behind her in a full-on gallop. Aidan stayed a few paces behind, watching as Brianna’s hair twisted beautifully in the wind behind her.
At Dunhill Proper, Brianna quickly turned down Maggie and Callum’s offer to stay in the apartment that had once belonged to Fergus and Isabeau and later Dar and Celeste, and instead expressed her wish to stay in the chamber beside Aunt Cateline, to be close to her while they were here. Aidan hadn’t a care where they stayed, as long as he was able to gather her in his arms at night and wake with her in the morn. Even better were the afternoons when they took advantage of the children’s naptimes and absconded to the room alone, though, in those hours sleep was not involved in the least.
In the days that followed, Brianna gave him a tour of her home as she knew it. Though of course, he knew Dunhill well, to see it from her eyes was indeed an experience all its own. He would never forget her joy when Callum and Maggie, and even Aunt Cateline showed his wife treasures she’d never seen with her own eyes but had only read about. Her face, when she entered the ‘informal’ dining hall for the first time, running her hands along the drapery and admiring the spray of roses that dotted the tableware, a favorite of Maggie’s was truly a gift.
If he were pressed, however, Aidan would have to say that her discovery of the letterboxes sitting atop the mantel where they would remain for centuries was the most precious of them all. Her eyes wide, head shaking, she’d walked over to look more closely, and when she gasped and turned to him, she said, “I can create a finish, to help preserve them.” She ran back to him, grasping his tunic, “Aidan! What if I am the one who preserved them in the first place, so they’d still be there in the future for Celeste?” He hoped she didn’t require an answer, for it seemed self-explanatory. He merely raised a brow and gave her an encouraging look, and she chuckled. “Right.”
Aye, right.
Father Michael married them that first evening, and when Aidan stood upon the chapel steps dressed in his wedding finery, Brianna making her way across the courtyard in a gown that was already being touted as a family heirloom, the rightness that swept through him was beyond compare. They exchanged vows and rings, and though their marriage was now sanctified, in truth, their connection had been solidified weeks ago. Each of his brethren was there save Ronan, who they had not heard from since parting in Ayr, which was unlike him, and of course, Dar.
Back at the keep, they’d all made their way into Callum’s study, waiting impatiently for the ink to dry as if they were in a race against time to ensure that their history would repeat itself. Aidan wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d all held their breath as Callum removed the stone from the wall. It was an act he and his brethren had performed many times in the past, but it felt more significant this time. Once the compartment inside was revealed, Aidan and Brianna together placed the page torn from the family bible within. After the stone was set in place again, a round of sighs sounded throughout the room, and chuckles too, when Gwen suggested that if ever there was a time for a brandy, this was it and that she only wished she could partake.
Now, settled into Pembrooke and their lives together, Aidan could hardly believe all that it had taken to get them there. Shaken from his reverie, he stepped from the entryway into the parlor where Brianna was setting fresh flowers in a vase on the table. When she turned and saw him there, he wasn’t sure who was happier to see the other, and neither did he care, his arms opened a scant second before she threw herself against him with a thud, and he chuckled, wrapping her tightly in his embrace, her growing belly between them.
His hands whisked through her hair and he tilted her head to kiss her, smiling as she hummed. When he pulled back, she leaned forward again. “More please,” she whispered, coming up on tiptoes to nudge his lips. He obliged of course, and although he’d made slow, sweet love to her only hours ago, he sensed he might be doing so again. Posthaste. Then, he remembered.
“Wait, love.” He chuckled at her pout. “I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket and handed her the small silk pouch from within.
“What is it?” she asked. When he failed to answer immediately, she began to probe. “Is it fragile? Glass?” She gently shook it, “A baby rattle?”
He laughed and pulled her into his arms, then laughed all the more as she hugged him with one arm while peering at the gift with the other.
She looked up at him contritely and said, “Sorry,” then made to toss the package aside.
“Nay!” he said, reaching out.
“Oooh, I knew it!” she shrieked gleefully, rubbing his chest with her free hand. “Is it porcelain? Crystal? A?—”
“Why don’t you open it and see for yourself.”
She made a face, but saw to the ribbon and then carefully shook the contents of the small pouch into her hand.
“Oh, Aidan.” Her intake of breath was so slight as she looked at the figurine, one to add to her growing collection, and then she cast her eyes at him.
Aye. The look he strived for each and every day, and there it was.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, the crystal bear with a wolf cub cradled in its arms sitting atop her palm.
“So are you.”
“It’s sapphire,” she said of the little wolf and the one color she’d yet to acquire.
“Like your eyes.”
She placed it carefully on the shelf with the rest of her collection of crystal baubles, then looked back. “It’s magical.”
“Like your love,” he said, meaning it deeply.
She gave him a dreamy look, then startled, her eyes widening as she reached for his hands, firmly pressing them to her belly. Locking her eyes with his, they waited together, sharing his smile when their babe kicked, as they’d known would happen.
Then he pressed his forehead to hers and breathed the words he could never say enough: “You are everything to me.”
Start reading The Prophecy to find out how it all began, and what happens when Gwen comes face to face with her destiny. The first installment of the Highland Lairds of the Crest series is available now on all storefronts.