Epilogue
Two months later, Aftyn was still insulted, but not surprised, that her father had not bothered to send for word about her, or to send men to demand her return.
But she was glad, too, that her new life with Jamie remained undisturbed.
They’d spent a blissful autumn at the Aerie, longer, Jamie told her, than he’d been in residence in years.
Since he’d returned from fostering, his father made a practice of sending him out on missions for the clan, or with fighting men to assist an ally such as the MacKyries.
He told her he appreciated the respite. And her.
Neve kept her informed. Her news about the happenings in the Keith keep arrived in a new letter every week.
She and Hamish were still newlyweds, spending all their time together, which made Aftyn happy for them both.
The laird still refused to follow their advice, so his wound still bothered him.
And less than a month after Jamie brought Aftyn to the Aerie, Neve wrote to say the men who beat Aftyn near to death had been found beaten and robbed, both dead.
She hadn’t provided any more information.
Braden wrote to her, too. Usually short missives saying he missed her and hoped she had found the happiness she deserved. His note around the same time provided no more details than Neve’s, which made Aftyn suspect Braden’s men made it look like highwaymen had done the deed.
She had discussed the news with Jamie. They both agreed that it was tempting to at least pay Keith a visit.
Aftyn could retrieve her belongings and her mother’s journal, which she’d left behind in the urgency of their escape, and spend time with the friends she’d left behind.
But her father was still laird, and they could find themselves being escorted into his dungeon—if not her, certainly Jamie.
So they opted to wait. Her brother would be laird eventually.
It seemed strange to look forward to the day he took over, for that would mean her father had died. She wondered if she would feel anything besides relief when that news came.
She wrote back to both of them, but sent hers addressed to Hamish at the abbey.
Her father treated her as if she had never existed, so keeping letters from her out of his hands seemed prudent.
He might not care to open correspondence he knew she’d sent, but not knowing how he’d use anything he gleaned from her letters, she refused to give him the opportunity.
So far, neither Neve nor Braden had complained the round-about delivery caused problems or delays.
Hamish still supported the abbey and visited every few days, since the new healer had yet to arrive, so her replies never waited long.
When she wrote to Neve, she included instructions for making new potions that she’d learned from Aileanna or one of the other healers in the clan.
She even noted some that might help her da.
None of the other healers had Jamie’s or his mother’s special talent, but they knew herb lore and shared freely with her.
“Ach, I see ye have a new preparation for Neve and Hamish,” Jamie said, leaning over her shoulder to glance at what she was writing. “The evening meal begins soon. Can ye finish that afterward?”
“I could,” she told him, reaching up with her free hand to grasp his where it rested on her shoulders.
“But I have other plans with my husband this evening.” She set aside the quill and covered the ink pot before turning to give him a smile that he could not misinterpret.
“If he’s no’ busy elsewhere, of course.”
“I think he can make himself available,” Jamie told her with a grin. “If what ye have planned is worth his time.”
His grin always breached her defenses, and he knew it. Not that he needed to convince her. “I believe he will agree that it is,” she said and stood, coming fully into his arms. “I love ye, Jamie Lathan. And I want ye.”
“Now? What about yer letter? Yer supper?”
Aftyn began unpinning and untying, enjoying the process of revealing her handsome husband’s body, saying, “They can wait.”
Jamie quickly divested himself of the clothes she’d loosened, then turned her around and unlaced her gown.
“I canna wait to see all of ye, my love,” he whispered in her ear as he slid the kirtle from her shoulders, then turned her and untied her chemise’s neckline.
“Each time I see ye, I want ye more than the last.”
“Then take me, Husband,” she told him as she stepped out the puddle of fabric at her feet and kicked off her slippers.
Jamie removed his boots, then pulled her against his hard chest. Aftyn’s blood heated as his hands roamed her body, then he picked her up and dropped her on the bed. “In my own good time, wife.”
Joy and anticipation filled her. Jamie was a remarkable lover. She supposed his ability to sense the response in her body to his touch made him as unerring at finding her pleasure as if she touched herself. They might miss the evening meal, but she wouldn’t mind.
“I ken what ye’re thinking, lass,” he told her between kisses. “And yes, I can feel yer blood heating, yer heart beating faster, the way ye want me and are ready for me. But that doesna mean I willna take my time and make ye wait.”
“I like it when ye make me wait.”
“I ken that, too.”
“It isna fair that I canna do the same, to ken how my touch makes ye feel.”
“Aye, ye can.” He took her hand and placed it on his chest. “Feel my heart, my love.”
She sighed in appreciation of the massive muscles covering his chest, then lowered her ear over his heart and listened.
The deep, slow beat speeded as she trailed her fingers down his chest to his belly.
She loved hearing it. It told her Jamie was strong and vital—and hers.
Then he lifted her hand to his face and she picked up her head to follow it with her gaze.
“I see the flush in yer skin, too,” she told him.
“And this?” He said, taking her hand and pulling it the rest of the way down his belly.
“Ach, aye. I ken what that means. Ye want me as much as I want ye.”
“More lass, even more.”
“Then take me, love.”
“Nay, no’ yet. Ye havena waited long enough. And I havena touched and tasted everything I yearn for.”
She leaned back on the pillows, lifting her arms over her head. “I’m waiting.”
A week later, a messenger arrived with two letters for Aftyn.
One each from Braden and Neve. She settled in the chamber she shared with Jamie at her writing desk and broke the seal on Braden’s missive.
She read only a few lines before jumping up and leaning out the window to see if Jamie was on the practice ground.
Braden’s news was too important to wait.
She spotted him and went back to the desk to open Neve’s note, which contained much the same news.
She dropped it, slipped Braden’s note into her skirt pocket, and made her way quickly out to the bailey and around to the practice field.
There, she waited for Jamie to notice her.
She dared not intrude when the men were fighting.
Any lapse in attention could cause someone to get hurt.
But in moments, he turned in such a way that he saw her, ended the mock battle he fought with one of the younger lads, and headed toward her.
“What’s amiss, Aftyn. Ye look as though ye have seen a ghost.”
“An apt description, husband.” She handed him Braden’s letter and waited with bated breath as he read it. “Ach, lass, yer da. I’m sorry.”
“Dinna be. He treated me as though I didna exist. I havena missed him since we came here and I willna start now.”
“Braden is now Laird Keith. The men who beat ye are dead. Ye can go back, if ye wish.”
“Just me, husband?”
“Nay, we. I meant only that ye will be safe there now.”
“Ye, too. My da woulda punished ye. But going back is something for us to think about and discuss. I no longer ken how I feel about it. And as far as we ken, Agatha is still there.”
“If we must, we’ll deal with her together.
Jamie put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer, but not too close. Sweat dripped from him. “Then we will ponder and make a decision together,” he told her as he walked her back toward the entrance to the keep.
“Neve sent a letter with the same news. She and Hamish are spending some of their time caring for their first patients in the abbey’s infirmary with a Brother Alfonso, the healer we wished at the fire had arrived early.
He came long after he was expected, but both Hamish and Neve seem quite taken with him.
Still, they appreciate the cures I learn here and send to them.
Perhaps the best thing I can do for Keith is to continue to do that. ”
“Ye have time to decide, lass. If nought else, we can visit so ye can see for yerself.”
“That might be useful. They are eager to discuss with us methods they are learning. But ye also have responsibilities here.”
“The Lathan laird can call upon many more than me. I would no’ be missed if we decided to return to support Braden.”
“He will acknowledge me as his sister,” Aftyn said. “I wouldna be a nobody anymore.”
“Ye never were. And now ye are my wife, and a healer in yer own right. Ye have learned much in the time we’ve been here.”
“Aye, but there’s so much more to learn.”
“There always will be. No matter how much we ken, we must continue to learn.”
“Ye are right, of course.”
“Go inside, Aftyn. I’m going to have a tub and some hot water from the kitchen sent up to our chamber.”
She looked him up and down, smiling. “I’ll be waiting.”
In their chamber with Aftyn, Jamie silently blessed Cook for always having a cauldron of water heating in the kitchen.
He waited until the tub filled to suit him, then thanked the lads carrying buckets, closed the door behind them and stripped out of his sweat-soaked clothes.
At least here, there would be no saucy wench offering to bathe him—other than his wife, of course.
Aftyn dipped her hand in the tub and shook her head. “Still too hot.”
He added cold water from a bucket left for that purpose then sank into the tub with a sigh. Aftyn liked him any way he came to her, but he knew she appreciated it when he washed after a long sparring session.
And Jamie liked making her happy. Even better, he liked the way she showed her appreciation.
This, however, might not be one of those times. The news from Keith changed everything there, and perhaps here, as well, for the two of them. They must weigh their many paths forward and decide.
Aftyn took her time with the cloth and handful of soap she rubbed in soothing circles across the top of his shoulders, then down his arms. Jamie closed his eyes and groaned at the pleasure of her touch, then opened them to catch her grinning at him.
“Peeking below the water again, are ye?” He loved teasing her, and that reminder never failed to elicit a lovely blush.
“Just appreciating my handsome husband. I do like all these muscles,” she added and ran the cloth down his throat and across his broad chest, “just not so much the sweat that comes from honing them.”
She didn’t stop there, but rolled up her sleeves, then dipped the soapy cloth down his belly, headed lower.
Jamie knew what she was up to and leaned back, giving her access to any part of his body that pleased her.
He would like to pull her in the tub with him, but she would shriek and elbow him in the ribs, then haul herself out and drip all over the floor until she stripped out of her sodden clothes.
He liked that part very much, but not the cold puddles her dripping dresses left on the floor.
He’d learned she enjoyed their play if he undressed her first.
Not today.
His mind had been on Braden’s news and the decisions that faced them, and he’d gotten into the tub without thinking about foreplay. She hadn’t seemed disappointed, so perhaps, the news distracted her, too. Still, she made him feel very loved with just her hand, a cloth, and a bit of soap.
When he was clean enough to suit her, he stood in the tub and let her dry what she could reach easily, which was most of him. Then she dropped that damp sheet and he stepped out onto it while she readied another for him to finish drying with.
It saddened him that Aftyn could not grieve her father’s passing, but he understood why.
She’d been ill-treated, and had no reason to love the man.
He hadn’t told Aftyn, but Braden had written to him a few weeks after they left that his men found her attackers and brought them in for punishment.
The Keith released them. Reading that, Jamie had crumpled Braden’s letter in his fist, then smoothed it out and read on.
Braden’s men caught and took care of them.
Jamie decided then that he’d let Braden tell Aftyn one day—preferably a long time from now.
He’d asked after her, and told Jamie their father never mentioned her, as though she had never existed.
Braden was shamed by that, and incensed, and wanted to be certain Aftyn was happy at Lathan.
Jamie had been glad to be able to reassure him that his sister was well and thriving.
He would have to write to Braden to congratulate him on his new position. And if they decided to return, even if only for a visit, Braden would deserve to know right away. Jamie had no doubt he’d give his sister a proper welcome.
Finally dry and wrapped in a soft wool robe, he asked her, “Do ye want to go back?”
She settled on a chair by the fire and regarded him. “Am I ready?”
“Do ye mean have ye learned all there is to learn here? Ye ken the answer to that. But consider that Brother Alfonso at the abbey infirmary probably learned many things where he came from that are unheard of here. Perhaps some time spent with him, or with Hamish and Neve, who are learning from him, would help slake your unending curiosity.” He smiled and bent down to kiss her, then took the chair opposite, letting the fire warm the dampness from his skin.
“I could work with them. So could ye. And perhaps I could teach Brother Alfonso a few things I have learned here, too,” she said, challenge sparking in her eyes.
“Have a care, lass. I dare no’ share what I can do with anyone there but ye.”
“I ken it. I will be yer greatest defender and keep ye safe.”
“Ye will keep me safe? That sounds like a husband’s job, no’ his wife’s.”
She laughed as he lunged for her, picked her up and carried her to their bed.
“But I am no’ just any wife,” she announced later, when she got her breath back. “And ye are no’ just any husband.”
Jamie kissed her softly, then looked deeply into her eyes. “Nay, my love, ye are no’. Ye are my wife. And forever isna long enough to show ye how much I love ye.”
Keep reading for a look at Book Two
in the Highland Talents Heritage series
Highland Memories