Chapter 29 #2
“Don’t listen to her!” Callum explodes, but his words barely make it out before the guard’s fist connects with his jaw.
The blow snaps his head sideways. Callum sways on his feet, blinking blood out of his eye.
He doesn’t fight back. Not anymore. A sick weight drops inside me, heavy as stone.
He’s already accepted this. Accepted death.
“Stop,” I beg, my voice breaking. “Please.”
Campbell’s glare pins me in place. “I don’t make mistakes.”
I take a sharp breath. Panic won’t save him. I need to be calm. Measured. I bow my chin, forcing my tone to careful submission. “With all due respect, sir, Callum is innocent. I was the one who wanted apples. Not him. I’m the one who ate them.”
“No.” Callum roars to life, thrashing against his restraints.
Hamish lunges from his chair. The guards tighten their grip, bracing. Hamish’s fist slams into Callum’s stomach. Hamish flexes his fingers, shaking out the sting. His grin obliterates all my reason.
“Don’t you dare touch him,” I snarl, stepping forward. “You’re nothing but a coward, Hamish. Call off your dogs, and let’s see how brave you are then.”
He stares at me, eyes flat and cold as a dead thing. Then he smiles, slow and sick. “I’ve a more amusing idea.” He tilts his head, considering. “Let’s see how brave you are when I gut your lover and decorate the ground with his entrails.”
A shriek splits the air as hands slam into my back. I stumble forward, catching myself on the table, then Donag is on me, clawing my hair, yanking my head back.
“Kill the wretched girl,” she screams. “Not Callum! She’s the reason Janet disappeared!”
Everyone freezes.
Except for Callum. He thrashes, shouting, raging, trying to get to me, and they beat him for it. A punch to the ribs. A knee to the gut. Another brutal cuff to the head.
“No, it’s me,” he chokes out. “I’m the one—”
I can’t take it. A scream rips out of me, raw and blood-curdling. “STOP!”
Silence fills the room.
Even Callum goes still.
I jerk my chin from Donag’s grasp, ignoring the burn of fingers still tangled in my hair, and force my gaze to the laird. My hands tremble, my body shakes.
This is it. The last thing I have.
“I told you I’m from far away,” I whisper. “And it’s true. My home is far away in place…and time. I don’t know how it can be, but I’m…I’m Janet’s daughter. I’m a Campbell.”
Men start hollering over me—lies, guilty bitch, MacGregor scum—but I don’t pay attention. I stare only at the Campbell, surprised by his steady assessing gaze on me.
“Enough,” he thunders. “Let her speak.”
I wrench free, and tears prick my eyes as more of my hair is left tangled in Donag’s fingers.
“Get up,” he orders me. “What have you to say about Janet?”
I quickly scrub at my face. “I don’t know how, but it’s true. I’m her daughter. I have proof.” Hands trembling, I reach under my bodice and pull the ring from around my neck, handing it to him. “This was my mother’s.”
Campbell angles it toward the firelight, going rigid with recognition. “My Janet’s betrothal ring.” He stares at me. “How did you get this?”
“The lass stole it,” Donag shouts. “She killed your Janet and took the ring off her body. She’s to blame for Janet’s disappearance.”
The room explodes again. Callum rages at Donag, while men rage at the laird, demanding my punishment.
“I’m her daughter,” I say, but my words are lost in the melee.
Campbell hushes the crowd, his nostrils flared and cheeks purple with rage.
I’m in it now. All I can do is speak the truth.
“Janet is alive. And I’m her daughter.” I repeat and raise my voice over the din, getting the words out as quickly and steadily as I can.
“My mother was—is—difficult. She likes to wander through the woods. She’ll disappear for hours at a time.
She hates currants. And carrots, too, except when they’re raw, then she can’t get enough.
She soaks her oats in sheep’s milk,” I add with a shudder, “unless the sheep is black, which she says invites bad luck.”
Some in the room are shouting that anyone could know these things, and yet a light gleams in the Campbell’s eyes. He’s not shutting me up, which means something about this is ringing true. I wrack my brain for every tidbit I can remember.
“She’s got the biggest sweet tooth,” I say, speeding up, “and will make these disgustingly sugary things she calls clootie dumplings and insists on eating them for breakfast. But she refuses to eat sausage, or bacon, or pork of any kind because she says she once saw a pig eat its own shit. She loves porridge, but only for lunch, and not if it’s overcooked.
And the thing is, she gets away with all of this.
You’d think the universe revolves around her.
She’s spoiled. So spoiled. She drives me nuts, but I’d never kill her.
She gave me this ring. Said it was a gift from her ‘lord.’ Her ‘beloved old bodach.’”
Everyone gasps in outrage as I stumble over that last word, but not the laird. He laughs, and it’s not just a regular laugh—it’s a deep, rolling boom erupting from deep in his belly.
Encouraged, I half smile, half cry as I finish, “I thought she was only looking out for herself. I didn’t know. How could I?” I peter out with one final, quiet thought. “How could I have imagined any of this?”
“How indeed. None knew her name for me.” His gaze goes distant, his voice the barest whisper repeating, “Bodach.”
Refocusing, Campbell stands, and I brace myself as he studies me. His expression is unreadable, like he might hug me or strangle me, and I wouldn’t know which until it happened.
“How?” he asks again. “You get to the heart of my Janet. Aye, mayhap you helped kidnap her, but how then would you ken the clootie dumplings? She was pampered, but proud. And the black sheep…och.” A half laugh escapes him.
“Not even the servants know of such things. Superstitious girl, but proud too. She’d not have told a soul. ”
He takes my chin in his hand and turns my head from side to side.
His touch is soft as he whispers, “You have the look of her. I recognized it from the first. You’re the same age as she, and yet I’d swear you were her child.
Were it not for your eyes, which favor—” He grunts, tossing away my chin like I’ve burned him.
I hear his unspoken thought: Gregor MacGregor.
“What witchcraft is this?” he demands.
Seeing her chance, Donag bursts forward. “Don’t trust her. She’s the witch. You shan’t suffer a witch to live.”
Callum’s gaze swings to Donag. “How could you say that? You who—” His voice breaks. Callum is nothing if not loyal. Steadfast and true. His voice cracks into a whisper as he finishes, “You, on whose shoulders this blame lies.”
Callum knows what he’s saying. It may be the truth, but the truth could put Donag to death.
And he did it for me.
I can’t help but steal a glance at Donag. I expect to find anger, but she’s as expressionless as a frozen pond. I’m fairly certain Callum just broke her heart. Broke both their hearts.
To protect me.
He doesn’t have to sacrifice Donag for me.
Donag who took him in when he had nobody.
She raised him. She loves him, simply wants to protect him.
There must be another way, but things are moving too quickly for me to think.
I shoot him a pleading, protesting look, but he stares back with cool resolve.
Callum wants to do more than merely protect me. He wants to tell the truth. To do what’s right.
“Dark sorcery in our very keep.” Hamish frowns with disgust as he turns his attention to me. “I knew you for a witch.”
I shrink back. “No…”
Callum told me the creative and horrific ways they punish someone suspected of witchcraft. Which makes it all the more astounding when he says in a voice clear and firm, “Rose is no witch. Donag is the only one with such power.”
Donag drops to her knees in front of the laird, suddenly obsequious. “I do it only to protect you, my liege.” She shuffles on her knees to get closer. “This girl is not of your blood. She was born of Gregor’s seed. Kill the child as you killed him. That is your true revenge.”
She dips her head, groveling. Which means she’s missed the glint in Campbell’s eye.
“So the lass speaks truly? Janet is her mother?” His questions are breathless, the sound of a desperately sad man craving a miracle. “My bride is alive?”
Donag’s head shoots up. Realizing her mistake, she starts to sputter a reply but Campbell lifts a hand to silence her.
He looks to me, his voice cracking as he says, “Explain.”
“Some magic pulled me here. I don’t understand it. I barely believe it. All I can think is, I must be here for a purpose. I think”—I meet Callum’s eye—“I think it’s for Callum. The universe brought me to him.”
Hamish snorts. “Nonsense. Are you truly going to listen—”
“Enough!” The old man seems to hold his breath, hope and pain warring on his face.
It’s an expression I know intimately. I’ve worn it my whole life. The Campbell laird expects Janet to disappoint him, but he’ll keep trying anyway. In that, he has more in common with me than anyone I’ve ever met.
I risk a step closer and take his hand. It’s cold, the skin paper thin.
“I think I’m here for you too, sir. Maybe the stars sent me here to put your heart at rest. My mother—your Janet—she didn’t leave because she wanted to.
She was taken against her will. Taken to a place far away, to the future.
It must’ve been terrifying for her.” A breathy laugh escapes me as a realization hits.
“I can’t imagine anyone but Janet could’ve survived it. ”
The laird chuckles. “Aye, the impertinent wee sass. She woke every day cheekier than the last. She might’ve slept, but never did she rest.” He scrubs a tear from his eye.
I’d assumed Janet was his trophy bride, but he genuinely knew her.
Loved her. The way he speaks her name, like a prayer.
Might my mother have cared about him in return?
She must’ve had some regard for the man.
Maybe not enough to seek his bed, but she certainly enjoyed the safety he gave her, the indulgences.
Like a cat in a sunbeam, she would’ve basked in his careful attention.
Maybe she hadn’t been the cold, selfish woman I’d grown up resenting. Maybe she’d been a girl, torn from everything she loved and thrust into a world that made no sense.
Her disdain for modern life takes on new meaning.
“She was so excited to take me to Scotland,” I tell him. “It took us a long time to save up. She was desperate to get back. She would’ve done anything to return to her home. To you.”
His eyes go distant as he says, “She was young when we wed. Folk warned too young. And I too old—more uncle than husband. ’Twas no surprise she sought a lover.
” His gaze sharpens, and he clutches my hands with trembling fingers.
“You’re not of my blood, lass. But if you’re Janet’s child—if you carry even a piece of her heart—then you’re of my clan. ”
I squeeze back, grateful for this strange and unexpected kinship. For both of us, Janet’s attention has been forever just out of reach. Ached for, yet continually denied.
Casting his voice around the room, Campbell declares, “Rose, child of Castle Dunrose, has my protection.”
Donag erupts. Gaelic hums from her in a low murmur, the language rhythmic and throaty, sounding an ominous drumbeat.
The laird spins on her, flashing from old man to lord master in an instant. “Haud yer wheesht! I spare your life, Donag MacGregor, for one reason: You alone have the power to return my Janet to me.”
Donag shuts up, but she looks pissed.
“Let go your rancor,” Campbell growls. “This is over.”
Hamish’s laugh, theatrical and nonchalant, cuts through the room. “Not completely over, I’m afraid. Or have you forgotten the reason we’re here? There is a thief among us.”
“I told you,” I snarl. “I’m the one who took your stupid apples.”
The laird is losing patience, but Hamish doesn’t seem to care. He approaches me, tsking. “Most of the apples were already picked. Those that remain grow only on the highest branches.”
“So?” I demand.
Hamish gives me a patronizing smile. “I can hardly believe that you, a girl in skirts and slippers, climbed the tree.”
I want to scream, I could have. I spent my childhood climbing trees. Gender has nothing to do with it. I hate that he has a point about the clothes—I barely made it up a ladder in this getup. I open my mouth, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation, but I take too long.
A menacing smile twitches Hamish’s lips. “As I thought. Callum is the guilty one. Clan law must be obeyed.”
Donag is screaming, but she sounds far away. My every sense—the entirety of my being—is focused only on Callum. He’s somber but resolved. He’s not fighting this, he’s accepting it. For me.
“No,” I shout, waiting for this to stop, for something to change, for people to come to their senses. I want to slow everything down. I can’t process it. This can’t be happening. “No, you have to let him go. I told you, the apples were for me.”
Clan law. And Hamish relished every gruesome detail when he told me how they punish thieves.
Hamish nods at the guards. They move, wrenching Callum’s arms behind his back.
“No!” I drop like a puppet with cut strings, crashing to my knees. “Please. You said I have your protection.” My voice is breaks. “It’s my fault.”
Hamish tilts his head, mock-thoughtful. “Your fault,” he muses. “But not your crime.”
I whip toward Campbell, desperate. “Please, we—”
“Nae.” The laird lets out a long sigh, heavy and final, then lifts his chin, decision made. His voice is leaden as he pronounces, “My son speaks truly. The law is, thieves must die.”