Epilogue
OSSIAN LOCHS IS AS BEAUTIFUL as it is wild.
Almost twice the size of Kinloch and with higher walls, it is a truly majestic estate.
Much of it is windswept and craggy, but there are vast expanses of cultivated splendor, as well.
I help oversee the gardens and the orchards, and have a team of highly capable landholders who carry out their duties with talent and experience.
And Wilkie has grown into his role as laird with grace and tenacity.
His hotheaded nature has mellowed into one of determined and tireless leadership.
He seems to have the energy of ten men, and his troops respect not only the skills he willingly teaches, but also the lengths he goes to as he guides and trains each and every one of them.
There was some friction among the ranks at first, as there always is when a new leader enters the fray.
But such is Wilkie’s talent with the sword that any man who challenges him soon begs for mercy.
Among his top-ranked officers are Fergus, Ritchie and Ronan, all formidable—and staunchly loyal—warriors in their own right.
After a time, and with heartfelt respect, the warriors of the Stuart clan have pledged their allegiance to Wilkie’s leadership, down to the last man.
He rules as his brother does, and his father before him: with fairness and honor, with hard work, hard-won loyalties and genuine camaraderie.
Officially, we are Laird and Lady Stuart, but many of his higher-ranking men call him, as he allows, simply “Mackenzie.”
Wilkie’s scars map his body, and each day I tend to him and soothe him, and heal him with every remedy I know.
In the evenings, in the privacy of our own chambers, Wilkie continues to teach me to read and write.
In these sessions, I see a different side to my warrior husband: a knowledgeable, patient nobleman who has traveled and studied and considered larger ideas than I have ever had need to contemplate.
He seems to enjoy sharing this part of himself, and I, captivated, am a willing student, although I am easily distracted by the aspects of him I already adore, and the equally alluring newly discovered ones.
Often, my learning is cut short to attend to more urgent endeavors.
The Stuart clan seems to enjoy the newfound stability of our presence.
They grew weary of the skirmishes and upheaval that ruled their clan and their keep for many years, and they covet the new sense of peace and closure that pervades the mood at Ossian Lochs.
As I do. Their questions, as mine, have been laid to rest.
Many of my clanspeople are related to me by blood, and I have reveled in these new, fascinating connections. This shared history bonds us as surely as memories do.
I have finally found a place that feels like home.
Our lives are not without menace, as Laird Campbell continues to threaten us with his continued bids for leadership, but our army is strong and well-allied.
And my reappearance as King William’s child, officially bestowed Ossian Lochs by the king himself, has dulled the rebellion beyond Campbell’s own mind. Wilkie is ever watchful.
Ismay has just left me, and I am waiting for Wilkie in our private chambers. He has been acting cagey and excitable of late and says he has a surprise for me, which he will present tonight. I, too, have a surprise for him, but I’ll let him go first.
He arrives, and his presence fills the room and my heart riotously and completely, as it always does.
It is evening, just off dusk, and winter will soon give way to spring.
For all his ferocity and newfound poise, Wilkie is playful tonight.
He scoops me into his arms, and his kiss is full of exhilaration and devotion.
He sets me down, and I notice he is holding something in each of his hands. “’Tis time for your gifts,” he says.
“What’s the occasion? Why do you give me gifts?”
“’Tis my duty, as your faithful husband, to make all your dreams come true, every one,” he says.
“My dreams have already come true. You are my dream, husband.”
But he gets down onto one knee before me and gently grasps my left hand. He slides a ring onto my fourth finger and adjusts it. “Here is your first gift,” he says. “One you should have received several months ago, in fact, but it took me some time to have it fashioned just so.”
The ring is gold with a small sculpted rose at its center, and the rose has been encrusted with many tiny diamonds. I gasp at the elegance and the luxury of it. It catches shimmering light as I hold it up to admire. “So beautiful, warrior,” I whisper.
“And now for your other gift.”
“’Tis too much,” I protest, but he holds up a piece of cloth and turns me around. He places a blindfold over my eyes and gently ties it. I find myself smiling at his expectant, boyish behavior. He’s brimming with an unknowable anticipation.
He picks me up easily, carrying me in his powerful embrace.
I am being swept down the grand staircase of our manor and out-of-doors.
I feel the cool air of the almost-spring evening.
It will not be long now until the blossoms and the seeds begin to sprout, and I detect the scent of the earth beginning its renewal.
He continues to carry me, along a meandering path.
“Where do you take me, warrior?”
He sets me down and unties my blindfold.
We are in the gardens, in the midst of the pear orchard, where there’s a small clearing.
And in the clearing, now, is a small blond-wood cabin, lit from within so that cozy circles of welcoming soft light peek into the near-night.
On one side of the cabin is an open lean-to, with shelves and dirt-filled pots.
And there’s a freshly dug well to one side of it.
I am speechless, and Wilkie is grinning at my stunned silence.
He pulls me by the hand and leads me to the door of the cabin, which he opens, then closes behind us as he ushers us into the warmth.
Inside there is a bed, laid with furs, a small stone hearth, where a fire has been laid and burns brightly, and nothing more.
“Here is our retreat,” he says, “which we can retire to when we are in need of some peace and quiet. You can tend your seedlings by night, if you choose, and eat your pears under the light of the moon, when the mood strikes you.”
I am nearly overcome with love for this warrior husband of mine, who understands the deepest corners of my soul and has cast his light into all my darknesses.
I kiss him for a long time. I lightly stroke his hair and his face in a wordless plea for him to understand how very deeply he has captured my heart and all that I am.
I notice then my mother’s glass-jeweled pin, placed in the center of the small mantel of the fireplace, catching yellow light. I am aghast at the sight of it. “Warrior. My pin.”
“I had it retrieved for you.”
He picks me up and carefully places me on the bed.
He begins to unbutton the front of my dress—a new shell-buttoned light green creation of Ailie’s, who visited not a fortnight ago with her new fiancé, Magnus Munro.
My breasts are already fuller, and I wonder if Wilkie will guess my secret before I can tell him.
“I, too, have a surprise,” I whisper to him, and he’s suckling my nipples, playing them with his tongue.
“What surprise, lass?” he asks huskily.
“I had suspected it, and Ismay visited me today, and confirmed that it was true.”
He’s distracted and continues to pull with his mouth, sending warm channels of his passion deep into my body.
He is fondling me and murmuring soft words.
“I adore my wife. I worship you, my Roses. Your body is my haven. Your breasts are so very—” He stops, as my statement and his own discovery reveal a dawning realization.
He looks into my eyes, and the blue of them is brilliant and fierce, questioning.
“Aye,” I confirm. “A child. To be born at harvest-time.”
He sits up, removing his touch, as though afraid he might break me. “Child?” he whispers.
I laugh at his intense awe and pull him back to me. “Aye, warrior. Our child.”
And he is holding my face, looking into my eyes. “’Tis a miracle, lass.”
“Not such a miracle.” I smile. “Babies are born each day.”
“Not our baby, Roses,” he insists, charged and animated.
I am reminded again of his size and his energy as his heat surrounds me and seeps into me, infusing my body with the profound and warming glow of true happiness.
“’Tis the most miraculous thing on this earth,” he says.
“It will be the most cherished wee bairn who ever was born. With golden hair and green eyes.”
“Or with black hair and blue eyes,” I point out, still laughing lightly, relieved at his outrageous excitement; I had worried that he might be reticent, with our marriage barely four months past and our new home with so much work still to be done.
But then again, I’d reflected, he certainly hadn’t been reticent when it came to the act which might start a baby, not a once. “I had thought of a name,” I tell him.
“What name? ’Tis a bit early to be thinking names, nay?”
“There’s one that sprang to mind,” I say, “fairly insistently, too, as soon as I knew for certain.”
“What name is this?”
“Of course, if you don’t agree, we can—”
“Tell me.” Wilkie gets impatiently curious almost instantly when I keep any detail of my thoughts from him. I am teasing him, and he knows it, but still, he can’t abide this small distance.
“I mean, if there’s one that you prefer—”
“Roses,” he says sternly.
I am, as I have been so many times before, rocked by his beauty and by my own completeness when he’s near. My fingers smooth along the braid of his hair. “I thought...Mackenzie.”
Wilkie’s eyes glimmer at me. He appears to like this idea very much.
He kisses me and holds me until we are, again and always, as close as we can be.
Giving me everything he has to give.
* * * * *