Chapter Nineteen
Moira’s face was stricken with what they had unveiled.
She had grown quite close to Fiona over their journey even though she’d never met the woman.
Errol could understand. The trials and tribulations the woman had gone through in her young life, depicted throughout the items they’d uncovered, was more than anyone should have to experience.
Multiple times, Moira had stated she did not want to read on to discover whatever tragic ending the family had met. Kenning they needed to continue hadn’t changed her mind.
But with that knowledge, neither of them could have guessed the horrors the family had endured.
He held her while she sobbed into his tunic, wetting the linen with her tears. Distraught for the endured tragedy of a woman she had never met. Her heart was huge and welcoming. Her capacity to love was unending.
Stroking her back with gentle swipes of his hand, Errol let Moira cry until she had no more tears and she pushed away from him, sniffling.
“She deserved so much more. They all did.”
“Aye.” He tipped her chin to him so he could look in her eyes. “’Tis why we are here. To right the wrongs that were done to them.” This time, when Errol said, he believed it. The journey wasn’t about the treasure. It was about fixing the past and mending the rift betwixt the clans.
She nodded. Biting her lip. “Thank ye.”
Confusion overcame him. “For what?”
“Letting me have a cry. I ken ’tis no’ something ye fancy—having a women cry all over ye.”
He drew her close and hugged her tightly. “Ye can cry on me any time ye need to, Lass.”
They sat that way for a long time. Both lost in their own thoughts.
Finally, Moira said, “I suppose we should go through the rest of the items in the chest. Mayhap we will learn the full story.”
He nodded, letting her pull away from him, even though every bone in his body screamed to pull her back against him.
She crawled over to the hole they had dug, not a care for the dirt that was staining her skirts as she did so.
Errol admired that about her. She wasn’t afraid to get dirty.
Reaching down into the chest, she pulled out an item wrapped in linen.
Unwinding the item from its covering, Moira revealed a dagger with a jewel encrusted handle.
The hilt was made of gold and looked more ceremonial than practical, though it would cause damage if the situation appraised itself.
But it looked more like a dagger one would wear during an official ceremony to show his station and standing within a clan.
At the size of the emerald and ruby on either side of the handle, whoever owned this dagger must have been wealthy. And important.
“’Tis beautiful,” Moira whispered, carefully lying it on its former linen covering and dug back into the chest with fervor.
She withdrew a small satchel, jingling it in the air afore looking inside. “It sounds like coins.”
Errol nodded in agreement.
She pulled the strings tied into a cinch and let the bag fall open. Silver and gold winked at them from the opening, and she set it to the side.
She reached in again and came back with two matching rings. “Do ye think these were Fiona and Thomas’s marital rings?”
It wasn’t common for both the husband and wife to wear a ring, but it looked like the two were a matched pair. “Could be.”
Squinting, Moira looked closer at the rings. “Each one is engraved with the same stag and lion creature we found earlier.”
“Then I would say they are definitely their marital rings.”
She peered down into the chest again. “This next item appears to be large.”
“Do ye need assistance retrieving it?” He asked, not wanting to overstep. This was still her quest and he wanted to ensure he didn’t trample over her boundaries.
Shaking her head, she reached down, biting her lip in concentration as she pulled and tugged at the object. After a few minutes, she brought the item out.
Both of them just stared at what had been uncovered. The bold meaning and strong symbolism behind it.
In Moira’s hands was a coat of arms. Half Hart, half MacLeod. It included the stag lion hybrid they had now become familiar with. The arms blended both of their clan’s coats of arms together perfectly.
True unison.
“’Tis amazing.” Moira said in awe and gestured to the coat of arms. “’Tis the proof we need to show our families that we were once one.” Her bright eyes, alit with newfound hope, clashed with his.
Errol nodded, if only it were that easy though. Their families would need much more to end the feuding. They would expect much more to erase the years and years of fighting. The lives lost. The men, women, and children injured in the name of a war that they didn’t ken the cause of.
Moira reached back into the chest. Also included inside were squares of the Hart and MacLeod plaids, sewn together to combine and create new colors for a united clan.
“All of these things can be used to show our families what we’ve discovered.
” Moira turned to Errol. “To show them that we can be together.” She looked at him timidly.
“If that is what ye want, of course. I understand if ’tis no’.
I have a way of scaring people away. I am too forward. To undisciplined. I dinnae listen—”
Errol captured her lips in his, cutting off her rambling and smiled against her mouth.
Her arms looped around his neck as she kissed him back with a sigh, her body relaxing into his.
It was the best feeling. One he had never experienced afore.
His reaction told him that what he and Moira were experiencing was real. That she was the one for him.
The only one.
“I will gladly accept yer undisciplined self, lass. Ne’er change. Whoe’er ’twas that told ye to change those things about yerself were daft. I wouldnae change a thing when it comes to ye.”
Her blue eyes rounded afore crinkling with her wide smile. His groin tightened. Lord above, he wanted this woman. He wanted to watch as her eyes blew wide with passion as he brought her to depths she never kenned existed.
But not here. He wouldnae disrespect her by taking her here on the dirty forest floor.
Nay, she deserved to have her body worshipped in a warm, soft bed.
But, later, after they had learned every inch of each other’s body, an evening spent under the stars, loving her long and slow in the way she deserved, would be divine.
“How is it that ye can understand me so, when my own family cannae?”
He shrugged. “I dinna ken. Mayhap they are worried about their own concerns. Yer brothers, well, that should be obvious. They’re men.”
“As are ye,” she countered.
“Aye. But I will swear on my life that yer brothers are not looking at ye the way I am. That would be sinful.”
Moira gasped, her cheeks flaming red. “Errol MacLeod!”
With a lift of his shoulders, he grinned. “I speak only the truth.” He dipped his head to the hole where the chest was. “Is there aught else in there?”
She peered into the hole and nodded. “A letter. Just as we expected.” She reached in and carefully withdrew the letter. Folded into a square and tied with twine. Gently, she tugged at the bow tying the bundle together and it fell away.
She clasped the letter to her chest, near her heart, and took a deep breath, sighing. “Are we ready for this? For certs, this is the last one. I cannae imagine there is aught else for us to discover.”
He nodded. “I believe ye are right.” He stood, holding out his hand for Moira to accept.
She looked up at him with question in her eyes.
“Let us go out into the clearing and let the sun warm our skin as ye read the letter.”
Her gaze dropped to the items she’d removed from the chest.
“Dinnae fash, lass. They will be here when we finish and return. There is no one else here.”
Biting her lip, she nodded, accepting his hand and he pulled her up.
Outside of the cool shade of the trees, the sun felt refreshing. Nourishing. Chasing away the darkness of the past.
Errol led her to the boulder that started their hollow quest and dropped to the ground, drawing Moira down to his side, his arm around her shoulders. His fingers drew slow circles against her arm as he waited for her to unfold the letter and start reading.