Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
The spiral staircase to Campbell’s room winds upward into darkness, each step dimmer than the last.
My inner fire wavers, but I steel myself, elbows braced at my sides. He’s just a man—flesh and blood—and I will not be daunted.
More importantly, I will not spill his soup.
There’s only one door at the top. It’s ajar, and I’m grateful. I panicked about how exactly I’d go about knocking on one of the massive planks of wood that counts for a door around here. I stare at it, mustering my courage.
Fierce as the sun, her spirit not meek.
“I hear you breathing out there,” Campbell bellows from the other side. “Do you aim to feed me or grow roots?”
Muttering my apologies, I ease the door open with my hip.
He’s seated at a desk, lit from the side by archer’s slits, the sharp light catching every wrinkle. After spending so much time with the brawny Callum, the laird looks shrunken behind the massive furniture.
He was so brash when I first saw him, but maybe he only seems commanding when there are people around to command. Because now he just looks elderly and tired.
I can’t believe this was my mother’s husband.
His eyes narrow on me. “Well, chit? You’ve some of Aoife’s concoction for me? Best not taste as foul as the last one. Does me no good if the cure is worse than the malady.”
I mutter agreement, and he leans forward, glaring at me. “Speak up, lass. Or are ye dumb as well as slow?”
“Sorry.” I scamper forward and hold the bowl out to him. “Here you go.”
The moment he takes it from me, I turn to leave, but he stops me with a brisk, “Hold. Turn around. Let me see you.” When I don’t budge, he smacks his hand on the table. “Come. Turn, turn.”
My inner fire is seriously sputtering. I hold my breath. Turn to face him.
I expect to be met by anger—by the terrifying laird who’d threatened me with dungeons and beatings—but he looks uncertain instead. Confused.
“You’ll be wondering why I’ve let you roam free,” he begins.
Free? That’s the last word I’d use to describe this place. But I only nod.
“I wanted to toss you in the pit and be done with you. ’Twas Donag who begged me to reconsider.”
She did?
“Those MacGregors are an emotional bunch.” He clears his throat and spits on the floor.
“I ken you’re living with the woman. Some relative of yours?
” I automatically shake my head, but he peers hard at me, looking for some sign.
“Still claiming Campbell blood, are ye?” He waves a hand and says, “Let it pass. I’ve not the energy for discipline just now. ”
“Thank you?” I’m not sure what the protocol is when one is spared death by pit.
“She’s nae the only one who’s taken an interest in you. My son is fair captivated.” Campbell spits the words like they taste sour. “I’ve warned him off. But lads like Hamish always find a way to have what they want.” He shrugs. Like he’s discussing the weather.
“Hamish will lead this clan after I’m gone.
But the lad is eager to cut his teeth now.
He’d have me hunt MacGregors till the ends of the earth, but I’ll not risk Janet’s life.
” The old man disappears and the laird comes roaring back, his voice strong and resolute.
“Because I ken my wife is alive. I feel it. I’d feel her passing.
And you,” he says, aiming his vehemence at me, “you’ve been a sign.
” He studies me, eyes eagerly roving my face. “It’s remarkable.”
His expression goes distant, his manner careful, as if I’m a rare bird that might take flight any second. When he speaks again, his voice has dissolved back into that of the wavering old man. “Your face haunts me, girl.”
“My face?”
Instead, of answering, he reaches across his desk. With an exhausted sigh, he places a palm over a decorative box and slides it closer, opening it with quaking hands.
All manner of junky bits are in there—a length of ribbon, a button, scraps of paper. But the lock of hair is what catches my eye. Auburn, a shade deeper than mine, like leaves in October.
The same shade as my mother’s.
Goose bumps crawl up my skin, pulling it tight and cold. This conversation can only be headed one way, and it’s a dangerous one.
“Closer.” He waves his hand at me. “Come closer.”
He reaches in, and it’s not the hair he pulls from his box, but a piece of paper. It’s a charcoal drawing. Of Janet. She’s young—younger than I am now—and pretty. Innocently so.
My resentment wavers, unspooling into something unexpected. Seeing her like this—young, soft, uncertain—I realize Janet wasn’t always Janet. She had dreams once. Desires. Hopes that were stolen from her.
She may not have wanted this laird, but she’d wanted something, and I’ll bet it wasn’t a one-way trip to the future.
“You’ll recognize my Janet,” he says. “MacGregors stole her from me in the night. Those fools have always been their own worst enemies. Taking my bride added kindling to their own pyre.” His gaze flashes back to me, devouring me again.
“I was beginning to lose hope. But the heavens sent you, a red-haired angel to grant me faith.” His voice drops to a whisper, as if afraid the spirits themselves might hear.
“Because ohh, lass, the look of you. It’s uncanny.
You’re the very image of her.” His fingers twitch toward his relics—the lock of hair, the drawing—as if they might vanish if he doesn’t keep them close.
Holy wow. This man obviously doesn’t suspect I have anything to do with anything. And why would he? As far as he knows, I’m some random, maybe-daft girl who’s the same age as his missing wife.
I’m certainly not going to be the one to let him in on the truth.
“Thank you,” I say, and find the words are unexpectedly heartfelt. My mother was loved. Is loved. I’ve come to realize, she’s out of place in my world, not because she doesn’t care, but because it’s just not her world.
For years, I’ve thought of myself as my mother’s keeper. But here, faced with evidence of her youth, I’m a child again. Her child.
How shocking and terrifying it must’ve been, finding herself in such a different era. It’s been shocking and terrifying for me too, sure, but I’ve studied history. I’ve watched movies and gone to museums. I know enough to make the unfamiliar recognizable.
But traveling so far into the future? Airplanes, cell phones, televisions—to a girl born in 1603, they must’ve seemed like instruments of the devil.
I clear my throat, tight with emotions that run deeper and more complicated than I realized. “She’s beautiful,” I say, choosing my words carefully.
He notes my use of present tense and looks grateful. “Aye, she is. The bonniest.”
He wells up then, and his tears aren’t those of a powerful laird. As his eyes go red and rheumy, like a trick of the light, he’s revealed to me for what he is in his heart: a sad, old man.
“So you see”—his expression shutters again—“sentimentality and superstition are what spared you.” He turns to his bowl of broth. “Now then. I’m told to take this right away, and I’d rather not dine in front of a servant.”
I’m thrown by his abruptness, and it takes a second to understand I’m dismissed. When I do, I scurry from the room before he has a chance to change his mind.
I must have walked down those stairs and left the keep, but I don’t remember any of it. All I know is that I’m outside now. But I can still feel Campbell’s stare. Like he was looking at a ghost.
I need Callum.
I find him in a paddock, saddle training a new pony. It’s the same Highland breed as the others, but one whose size—not to mention the obvious dangling male bits—combine to make the creature look and act intimidating.
Callum spots me immediately, and his face breaks into a wide smile. “Rosie-love.” He winds the lead rope shorter and shorter, bringing the pony in from where he’d had him running circles. “You’re just in time for our break.”
“Are you sure?” I cast a skeptical look at what is a very angry looking ungelded pony. “You look busy.”
“Surer than sin.” Callum removes the rope from the animal’s halter and gives him a smack on the butt, sending him bolting and bucking circles in the paddock.
“D’you see what I’m up against? The lad is fair killing me.
” Callum smirks as he watches the display.
“I require a moment without his company or ’twill be horse stew in Donag’s pot tonight. ”
“Yuck.”
His head snaps up. “Yuck?” His eyes lock onto mine as he strides toward me with all-encompassing focus. “You say the strangest things, mo ghràidh.”
“Me? How about you? By the way, I found out when gorse blooms.” I give his chest a playful shove when he reaches me.
He laughs, hoisting himself over the fence in one fluid motion. “Gorse is always in bloom, Rosie-love.” He leans in, voice dropping low. “And it’s always a good time for kissing.” He dips down, trying to steal one.
But I duck away, looking around nervously. “We should be careful.”
The laird’s description of his son is fresh in my mind. He’ll find a way to have you one of these days. Hamish has a habit of slinking from the shadows at unexpected moments, and I’d like to avoid witnessing another alpha-male challenge.
Callum shuts his eyes and sucks in a long, slow breath. Once he’s gathered himself, he looks back down at me. “Though it pains me, you speak truly as always.”
Sparks flash in his eyes.
“But as always”—smooth as a hawk with its prey, he snatches my hand and sweeps us into a run—“I ken better.”
By the time we reach the barn, we’re both laughing and tripping over each other.
He swings me inside, and before I can blink, I’m pressed against the wall, and he’s kissing me.
This kiss doesn’t ramp up slowly like our first one.
This kiss is hard and deep, instantly shooting my pulse through the barn roof.
When he pulls away, he rests his forehead on mine as we both catch our breath.
“Wow,” I say.