Chapter 42
They entered their home with their arms wrapped about each other.
It was a humble place, but made beautiful by the multitude of wildflowers they’d picked, blooms tenacious enough to brave the late autumn wind that whipped against the crags of the shoreline.
Lavender, pink, and white blossoms twined along the rafters, and their sweet, fresh scents mingled with the rich sea air that permeated their life on the island.
Though James and Magda had been joined long ago in a handfasting blessed by Brother Lonan, the wedding ceremony they’d just held was a formal acknowledgment of their union. A few friends and family had come to give witness, and they crowded now into the cottage’s main living area.
Of those who couldn’t attend, they’d gotten news.
MacColla still fought in the western Highlands, eager to avenge his father, seemingly unable to rest until he witnessed the total destruction of the Campbell clan.
Ewen Cameron had relayed his family’s regrets, but had sent with Napier a gift from his library, a bound copy of the poems of Lucan, whom he knew to be one of James’s favorite authors.
And James had been heartbroken to hear that the fine young Jamie Ogilvy had been captured after their escape from Selkirk, and was still imprisoned in the Tolbooth.
James thought too of all those who’d fallen, and drank a toast to Colonel Sibbald, noting that, though the old man would’ve appreciated the gesture, he’d likely have preferred whisky to the wine in James’s hand.
Everyone had news, and some even had gossip about James himself to share.
Speculation over his fate raged through Scotland.
Apparently there were some who believed he’d been hanged in secret for Cromwell’s personal entertainment, while others had him off gallivanting across France.
It all amused him, so long as it kept their eyes away from his and Magda’s hideaway.
All were dressed for the day in their finest. Napier wore a quilted waistcoat in olive green that set off the canary yellow of Margaret’s dress.
His eyes kept straying to the line of satin bows that ran from between her breasts down the front of the gown’s tight stomacher, and the two of them seemed to think that their stolen touches went unseen.
Tom Sydserf was a grand figure in a doublet of navy velvet. He also wore buff-colored britches, tucked into fashionable wide-cuffed boots new enough to creak with each step.
James was overjoyed to see Will Rollo again, having only recently learned of his fate.
He’d come the day before, still recovering, but alive and strong.
Napier had received word that Rollo would attend the ceremony, but he’d kept his impending arrival secret, and the shock and elation of it had overwhelmed James.
Though the bandage across Rollo’s chest meant he could only wear his coat slung about his shoulders, his stoic face cut as handsome a profile as ever.
“I’d like to raise my glass.” Tom’s voice boomed over the chatter, and the room fell silent.
“Aye, a toast,” Napier agreed. For the first time that evening, he stepped from his wife’s side. “To the health and honor of the happy couple. If years ago you’d told us this day would come, we’d have doubted you.”
“Aye,” Margaret interrupted. “I never thought to meet a woman so capable of captivating my brother.”
“Though I dare say he chose one from much farther afield than France,” Tom mused into his wine glass.
Magda watched Margaret overhear his comment, and saw the renewed speculation that sparked in her eyes.
She gave her sister-in-law an enigmatic wink, then had to laugh at herself acting so like her husband.
Soon she’d tell Margaret of her true origins, and she greatly looked forward to shocking her with the news.
They toasted for some time, but when the talk turned ribald, James pulled his wife out onto a modest flagstone terrace along the side of their cottage.
The sun had long set and the moon outshone the stars that night, casting bright, silvery light in a shimmering line that connected Magda and James to the land at their feet and the waves beyond.
“I look at you and cannot believe my fortune.” James stepped back and held her hands in his, admiring Magda in her dress.
It was a gown of ivory satin with a straight bodice, simple but elegant.
James had instructed his sister to spare no expense, and gold thread was embroidered at the neckline and along armbands above the elbow.
Magda wore an arisaid over top, in matching ivory wool and lined with silk, tied at her waist by a thin leather cord with coral beading at the tips.
The ceremony had been smaller than he would’ve wished— James would have pledged his vows to her in front of all the world if he could have—but he took her at her word that the intimate celebration was all she ever could have wanted.
“Are you certain a life sequestered with me is what you desire ? ” Fear for their safety had led them to one of the more secluded Hebridean isles.
He longed to have his library, to hear musical performances, and to drink fine wines, but the simplicity they enjoyed seemed to thrill Magda.
Seeing her run barefoot along the beach, her hair flowing loose and her laugh rising in the air, had made this self-enforced exile worthwhile.
“You deserve a life rich with the sights and sounds of the world.” Concern etched his brow. “And yet I find that my days of travel, roaming from royal courts to tangled wilderness, seem to have come to a close.”
“James.” Magda beamed, shaking her head in disbelief. “This is exactly what I want. Your roaming was just about the death of me. I love our new life, and I want to stay just here. I want to raise our children just here.”
He placed his hand on her swollen belly. “How is it the Fates smile upon me so? You, hen, make me the happiest man alive. And I’ve a gift for you. Aye,” he said, seeing the protest begin to furrow her face. “I’ll not be refused. A husband has the right to give a gift to his bonny bride.”
“But I didn’t get you anything.”
“Oh, but you already have.” He took out a small rectangular parcel.
It was wrapped in a bit of flannel, and had just fit in his sporran.
James placed it in her palm and, holding his hand atop hers, said, “You’ve chosen to stay here with me.
I can think of no greater gift than your very self.
But this”—James looked down at their hands clasped around his gift to her—"this is my way of saying that I do not take lightly what you offer. I know all that you’ve sacrificed.
You lost your brother long before we met, and in choosing to stay by me, you’ve now lost your future as well.
A chaotic world it seems to me,” James said with a small laugh, “but nonetheless magnificent for all its wonders.”
"I don’t miss it, James. That world—”
“You may not miss it now, but the day might come when you do. I just want you to understand that I appreciate all that you’ve sacrificed. I will spend my days trying to be a man equal to it.”
He squeezed her hand and let it go, and the bit of flannel parted to reveal the gift beneath.
It was a miniature portrait, done in oil on a small, square panel of wood.
A young man bearing Magda’s wide forehead, her aristocratic nose, and her full mouth.
But it was his bright red hair that made him the image of Peter. The brother she’d lost.
Her tears came in a rush. The image was tiny, but somehow it was precisely those hair-thin brushstrokes, and the way they picked out the fine details yet omitted the broad ones, that made the portrait such an uncanny representation of her brother.
It was a shock to see his face again, but it filled her.
James clearly understood her feelings for her brother and the profundity of her loss.
Holding this tiny image that James had commissioned to honor Peter’s memory gave her a feeling of completion.
She mourned her brother, and it was James’s recognition of the depth of those feelings that let her feel she could finally move on.
“Is it a good likeness?” he asked tenderly.
“Yes . . . I can’t believe it. How did you . . . ?”
“Our fine Brother Lonan. I told him what you’ve said about Peter.”
Magda smiled to hear her brother’s name on her husband’s lips.
“That you were a pair, but he with his bright ginger hair.”
“You remembered.”
“Of course I did, hen. You have me bewitched. I hang on your every word.” His tone was more serious than playful. “Or do you not know it yet?”
“Thank you, James.” She held the portrait to her breast. “I’ll treasure this.”
“As I’ll treasure you, Magda.” He cupped her cheek in his hand.
“And, if you ever tire of me, well, you can see this wee painting as acknowledgment of your freedom. I know it’s different for lasses where you came from, and I will try to make you my equal in every way, but you will always have this portrait, and the promise of the power Lonan assures me it wields. ”
“But I could never leave you.” She leaned into James, savoring the reassuring solidity of him. Magda had come to know the hard feel of his body and his smell of musk and spices that she knew like her own self. “I know that now.”
“And I will spend my every day trying to make myself worthy of that pledge, hen.” He kissed her brow, then skimmed his lips gently down to take her mouth in a slow kiss. “Now, wife, shall we? Our party awaits.”
Magda just smiled as James brushed the last of her tears from her cheeks. Everyone turned to them as they entered, and the open joy on their faces told her she was home.