Chapter Twenty
Camden had never known panic to taste so bitter.
By the time he reached the village, sweat clung cold to his skin despite the brisk air.
His head still throbbed where he’d been struck, each pulse reminding him of the hours lost, of Moyra’s manipulation, of Anne walking into something she should never have seen.
He had gone first to her cottage, had knocked until his knuckles were raw, then opened the door to find it empty.
The hearth was warm but unattended, her shawl missing, no sign she meant to return soon.
He stood there a moment, heart pounding in his ears, imagining her hurt, confused, and believing the worst. Not that he could blame her after what she’d seen.
It was not far to her brother’s blacksmith shop, so he decided that perhaps Anne had gone there. It was best to tell Gowan everything regardless of Anne being there or not.
The clang of hammer on iron rang sharp as he approached, sparks bursting against the dim interior. The scent of hot metal and coal smoke filled his lungs as he stepped inside.
Gowan looked up from his work, brows drawing together immediately.
“Camden,” he greeted, wiping sweat from his brow. “What brings ye?” He stopped eyebrows rising. Camden must have looked half-ruined. Hair in disarray, face pale beneath grime, eyes shadowed with strain.
“I must speak with ye…about Anne,” Camden said, voice tight.
Gowan set down his hammer slowly. “Is something wrong with Anne?”
The question twisted through Camden’s chest. “No…I dinnae ken.”
That was enough to stiffen the blacksmith’s posture. He stepped closer, arms folding across his broad chest. “Explain.”
Camden told him. He didn’t pretty it. Didn’t soften it.
The boy’s message. The trap. Waking to find Moyra with him.
Her threats. Her admission that Anne had been lured to the shack.
The realization that Anne had come. That she might have seen him in that state.
That she had fled before he could reach her.
When he finished, silence hung thick as forge smoke.
Gowan’s jaw tightened.
“So,” he said slowly, “ye expect me to believe ye were stripped naked, placed in a bed beside Moyra, and are innocent of all wrongdoing?”
The skepticism cut clean and sharp. Camden met his gaze, too exhausted to argue with pride. “I expect nothing,” he said hoarsely. “Only that ye ken I love yer sister. I was to speak with ye this morning of courting her properly. I would never betray her trust.”
Gowan’s expression remained guarded.
Camden’s composure faltered. He dragged a hand through his hair, voice cracking with raw urgency.
“I have searched for her. She is hurt because of me. I should have protected her from this… from Moyra… from all of it. For too long I have allowed Moyra to remain close because I didnae wish to hurt her feelings. It was my mistake.”
He swallowed hard, eyes burning. “If ye believe me guilty, say so. Strike me if it eases ye. But I beg ye help me find Anne. Let me set things straight before she closes her heart to me forever.”
The forge crackled behind them.
Gowan studied him long and hard. Slowly, some of the hardness left his eyes. “I have known ye many years, Camden,” he said at last. “And I have never seen ye look so undone.”
Camden exhaled, tension easing from his shoulders.
“I cannae say I like the sound of any of this. But neither do I think ye a man who would toy with my sister’s heart.”
Relief flickered, fragile and brief.
Gowan continued, firm again but not hostile. “Anne will listen to me where she might not listen to ye just now.”
He reached for his coat. “I believe to ken where she would go at a time like this. I will speak with her.”
Camden nodded, gratitude and fear warring in his chest. “Thank ye.”
Gowan paused before leaving, fixing him with a steady look. “If ye speak true, and I believe ye do, then we will see this set right. I cannae say if my sister will be willing to believe ye. That will be up to her.”
Then he stepped past Camden into the fading daylight, heading toward the mill.
Camden remained behind for a moment, shoulders sagging. His hope was thin, but alive, and he clung to it with everything he had left.
Camden left Gowan’s shop with a heaviness in his chest that no words of reason could lighten.
The conversation had been civil enough, Gowan had agreed to speak with Anne, yet hope felt fragile, thin as frost on morning grass. Camden knew too well how deeply trust could be wounded. Once broken, it rarely returned whole.
And if Anne believed what she had seen. He drew a slow breath that did nothing to steady him. He could not go back to the apothecary. The walls would press too close. Brae’s questions would weigh too much. He needed space, distance from watchful eyes and sympathetic glances.
Without truly deciding, his steps carried him toward the forest.
The village sounds faded behind him: hammering metal, laughter, livestock calls. Soon there was only the hush of wind moving through leaves and the soft give of earth beneath his boots. The familiar scent of pine and damp soil filled his lungs, grounding yet hollow all at once.
This path again.
He let out a humorless breath. “A fine place for foolish men,” he muttered.
The deeper he walked, the dimmer the light grew, filtered through tangled branches overhead.
Moss brushed his fingertips when he passed too near tree trunks, cool and damp against his skin.
Somewhere distant, a crow called, harsh and lonely.
At last Camden stopped in a small clearing, exhaustion overtaking purpose. He dragged a hand over his face and sank onto a fallen log. The wood felt rough beneath his palms, grounding him in the present when his thoughts threatened to drift.
Anne’s smile. Her laughter. The quiet trust in her eyes when he spoke of love.
He swallowed hard. “I have ruined it,” he murmured to the empty air.
He had been given a chance, rare and precious, and through no intention of his own, it had slipped beyond reach. The ache of it settled deep in his bones.
For a long while he simply sat, listening to the forest breathe.
Then something shifted.
At first he thought it a trick of his tired eyes, a faint glow threading between the trees. Soft. Pale. Unnatural.
Again. The glow.
Camden frowned and straightened, pulse stirring.
The light brightened, flickering like moonlight caught in water. Drawn despite himself, he rose and moved toward it, boots quiet against moss and fallen leaves. The air seemed cooler here, tinged with something electric that prickled across his skin.
Nestled among the roots of an ancient tree lay the stone.
Its surface shimmered with a gentle, steady radiance, veins of light pulsing faintly beneath its smooth exterior. It was the same stone he had encountered before. The one that stirred strange thoughts and deeper longings within him.
The glow reflected across his hands as he crouched near it.
For a moment he simply watched it.
Then he exhaled shakily.
“I have no wish worth asking now,” he confessed quietly. “Not one that would mend what I have broken.”
Yet the stone’s light seemed to intensify, as if responding. Inviting. Urging.
Camden hesitated, torn between skepticism and the pull he could not fully explain. He closed his eyes, the memory of Anne’s tearful face rising sharp behind them.
“If there is power within ye…” he whispered, voice low with aching sincerity, “…let her ken the truth. Let her heart find peace, whether it leads her back to me or away. Help me.”
The clearing fell utterly still.
And the stone glowed brighter.