Chapter 21
TWO WEEKS PASSED slowly.
Eleanor felt like her old self by the third day and joined in all the activities at the castle that Rory required for their joint celebrations.
Fenella stayed on with Huey, but Hubert returned to their farm.
Keir’s oldest sister, Elsie, arrived to help.
They sewed dresses, weeded the May gardens, practiced weaving flowers into each other’s hair, and consulted daily with the cook on what scrumptious dishes might be served for the wedding feast.
Logan and Jack found ways to corner Hannah.
Eleanor teased her friend that perhaps there might be a third couple standing before guests to unite in holy matrimony.
Hannah always blushed and swore she’d rather run off with the stable boy than be bound to a lad as mischievous as either young McKelvey.
By the end of the second week Eleanor climbed to the castle’s southern turret with Fenella, Rory, and Elsie.
The sisters had stories about the tower—how their mother brought them up here to watch for their father’s return, how they played with rag dolls while their little brothers tossed rocks from the windows, aiming at imaginary attackers.
“Remember how Keir threw a stone—he always had his pockets full of them—at a pair of ravens?”
Elsie rested her arms on the opening facing due south.
Fenella nodded and Rory said, “I don’t remember that.”
“Ye don’t? He hit one of the birds and knocked it out of the sky.
It plummeted to the ground and landed next to the rock that killed it.
Ye both started crying and mother let Keir race down the steps to see to it.”
Fenella smiled at Eleanor.
“He was always very caring.
Ye’re marryin’ a man with a good heart, Eleanor.
I nivver saw him throw a stone at a livin’ creature again.”
She laughed.
“But Logan and Jack sure did.
They wanted to be like Keir.”
She turned to gaze out the northern window.
“I think Logan and Jack are competin’ fer yer friend, especially now that I told Logan the truth aboot Pascoe.
Hannah will have her hands full whichever one she chooses.”
Eleanor was speechless.
She’d given little thought to Hannah’s future, assuming she’d stay on at Castle Caladh, not as a servant, but as a dear friend.
Perhaps her remark about the stable boy was to hide her feelings for one, or maybe both, of the younger McKelvey men.
Fenella broke through her thoughts with another startling observation.
“Have ye noticed the other lovers in the castle?”
She wiggled her brows at Eleanor and then at her sisters.
Rory and Elsie seemed to know what she meant and looked meaningfully at Eleanor.
Eleanor frowned and waited.
“Our father,”
she paused, “is acourtin’ yer mother.
I’ve seen ’em in the garden and by the pond and out walkin’ in the heathers.
Have ye nay noticed their smiles at dinner?”
Rory put an arm around Eleanor’s shoulders.
“Ye may be lady of the castle someday, but yer mother shall rule here before the summer ends.
’Tis me prediction.”
“Aye,”
Fenella and Elsie both agreed.
This new idea fell on Eleanor’s heart with joyful satisfaction.
Would there be no end to this happiness? And when Keir returned … oh, how she looked forward to that bliss.
“Ha!”
Fenella’s shout made all heads turn.
Rory dropped her arm from Eleanor then crowded close next to Fenella.
“There’s a rider. See?”
She stuck a pointing finger out the southern opening aimed at the farthest, highest hill.
“’Tis but a speck o’ green on a larger speck o’ brown, but Keir promised me he’d come this day, this hour, and to have ye here in the tower awaitin’.”
She moved to the side to let her older sister see.
“I believe ye’re right, Fenella.”
Elsie sighed.
“Just like when we were kids.
Fenella always spotted father first.”
“Is it really Keir?”
Eleanor pressed against the stones to lean out.
“If it is,”
Fenella laughed, “Copper should start to gallop of his own accord.
Aye, look again.
They’re movin’ faster.
Go down now, Eleanor.
Ye can meet him there, see? At the wild cherry tree.”
Eleanor glanced at the three expectant faces, freckled and blushing and bright.
The sisters began to shoo her toward the steps.
What was she waiting for? She had missed Keir terribly.
That face, those kisses, his arms, his words of love …
She took the steps as fast as she dared, clutching her skirts up out of the way, watching out for the pebbly debris that might trip her up.
At last she reached the bottom, out of breath, but steady.
She lifted her head and tried to settle her breathing in order to walk as calmly as she could toward the cherry tree.
Halfway there she could see for herself that the horse cantering across the field was indeed the copper-colored gelding she’d ridden on with Keir.
She craned her neck to look up and behind her at the top of the turret.
Three red-haired womenfolk stared and waved, then moved out of sight.
She imagined them coming down the steps slowly to give her a bit of privacy to greet their brother.
She realized then how they’d accepted her. At last she had a family. A complete family.
The horse and rider were closer yet.
She reached the cherry tree and leaned her back against it, her eyes not wavering from the rider.
Copper jumped a border hedge and Keir’s dark hair fluttered back from his forehead, his kilt flapped up and down on the horse’s rump.
Eleanor put a hand to the brooch on her dress and pressed it protectively against her madly beating heart.
She pressed her lids closed for a mere second, but when she opened them, Keir was somehow much closer.
He slowed the horse, stared at her with a smile that must have lifted her off the ground.
She no longer felt the earth beneath her feet.
Copper neighed as Keir jumped down.
He dropped the reins and let the horse continue its way toward the stable.
He strode quickly toward Eleanor and she melted into his embrace.
There was no one else in the world.
***
KEIR MCKELVEY, FUTURE Laird of Castle Caladh, had dropped the reins and marched himself to the side of the woman he loved.
How he’d missed her.
She’d been his every thought morning till night for the fourteen days he’d been away.
But he’d accomplished all he set out to do.
He pulled her to him, not at all worried that he might hurt her.
He knew she was healed, trusted that his sister had watched for him, and assumed that she’d just managed to tread the seventy-five steps up and then down the turret.
If she was strong enough for that she could bear how tightly he meant to enfold her in his arms.
“Eleanor … my love,”
he barely breathed out the words before their lips touched.
Her bonnet slipped back and he ran his fingers up into her silky hair and let them get tangled there.
He heard her purring moans, felt her soft hands along his new beard and the skin of his neck.
The sweet taste of her mouth was all he thought of as he multiplied the kisses.
His sixth sense told him someone was approaching.
He didn’t want to stop kissing Eleanor, but the sound of a male clearing his throat finally broke through to his consciousness.
“Son,”
Laird McKelvey began, “if ye’ll allow me a moment of yer time.
I have somethin’ of an important nature to discuss with ye.”
Keir released a rather red-faced Eleanor, kept one arm around her, and faced his father.
“Aye, father.
Ye can say whatsoever ye please wi’ me intended at me side.”
He smiled broadly and put his other hand on his hip near his sword handle, but resting on his sporran.
Laird McKelvey grumbled in his throat again and nodded at Eleanor, his own cheeks darkening and his hands nervously moving in a way Keir had never seen before.
“’Tis a conundrum, ye see.”
His eyes sparkled and he focused more on Eleanor.
“I love yer mother, lass, and we intend to marry.”
He switched his gaze quickly to Keir’s face and hurried on with voice and hands.
“We’ll nay intrude upon yer blessed day.
’Tis enough fer two couples to wed Sunday next.
But we wish to claim some happiness fer ourselves and so we will.
At summer’s end, when the crops’ll be aburstin’ for pickin’ and we host the Highland games …”
his face nearly split with a smile “ye git what I’m suggestin’, aye? We’ll be needin’ yer presence at the castle … and so …?”
Keir’s face knotted into disbelief and then acceptance.
He glanced at Eleanor who was clutching at her brooch and grinning ear to ear, her cheeks still pinkish.
He looked back at his father’s keenly animated face, now aflame with emotion.
“Aye, father, I ken yer meanin’.
Me wife and I will be yer witnesses, by me oath.”
He released his hold on Eleanor and lunged for his father, grasping him in a bear hug like he used to do as a young lad.
***
THE BUZZ AND bustle among the servants at Castle Caladh was matched by the flurry of activities and excitement by the McKelvey clan in the final week before the double weddings of Rory and Keir.
Each had a pair of sisters or brothers to help or hinder the preparations.
Fenella and Elsie were great helps, hovering over Rory and also Eleanor, whose mother was less occupied with Eleanor’s feverish plans than preoccupied with her own new love interest: the Laird himself.
Hannah was strangely absent for hours at a time, concurrent with either Logan’s or Jack’s absences.
Eleanor was too busy to question Hannah, assuming she was looking after Huey or watching Colin, and never suspecting that Hannah was enjoying not one, but two fledgling romances.
It was enough for her comfort to know Hannah was somewhere in the castle.
She meant to discuss Hannah’s future with Keir, but so many other subjects took precedence—her future role, his plans for the lands, the clan’s obligations—that she assumed the topic would resolve itself at some point after they were married.
Eleanor spent most of Keir’s first day back wandering the gardens with him, then it was back to sewing and myriad other preparatory obligations.
The following days they had only the hour before and after dinner to be alone.
Rory’s young man, Rennie Carlyle, showed up with great regularity.
Eleanor learned he lived with Elsie and her husband, Charles.
He was Charles’s hard-working and amiable brother, and had quickly and not-so-innocently wooed Rory during her many visits with Elsie.
Charles and Rennie came the day before the wedding, as did several friends and relatives who’d traveled great distances.
The castle was filling up and by mid-afternoon Keir had grown weary of it all.
He searched out Eleanor.
“Come with me.”
He held out a hand and she rose from the divan where she’d been working on something.
“Och, I’ll lend ye some boots.
It’s a ways we’ll be walkin’ and the grasses are wet from last night’s shower.”
She followed him out of the room.
He helped her into a pair of tackety boots, then, to her surprise, led her down what she thought of as the dungeon stairs, directly to the room she’d been held in by Luxbury’s men several weeks before.
“Why are we in the wine cellar?”
she asked, noting the table and chairs weren’t where they’d been before.
On the table sat a bulging sack.
“Ah, ye ken its original use, do ye?”
“Rory told me.”
“I suppose she bent yer ear as well about the ghosts and secrets.”
Eleanor touched the back of the chair she’d once sat in.
“Nothing about ghosts.”
She looked around at the walls.
“But she did say there was a secret.
A secret tunnel for escaping.
I thought I might have to use it.”
Keir frowned.
“Ye were always safe, El.
I would have slain Luxbury and all his men if I’d had to.”
He moved toward one wall. “Here.”
He pressed his foot against a stone, then pushed his hands against the wall as if he could move it.
And he did.
He turned to give Eleanor a satisfied look.
“Are ye scairt o’ the dark, me darlin’?”
“Not if I’m with you.”
She blushed.
“I’d light a torch, but the tunnel snuffs the flames and ’tis more frightnin’ to go from God’s light to the devil’s dark heart than to start our journey blind.”
He walked to her, picked up the sack, and took Eleanor’s hand.
“Come along.
I’ve a weddin’ present fer ye.
I’m hopin’ it’ll be the perfect gift.”
Eleanor frowned, but trusted Keir, and followed along.
For the first twenty feet of the tunnel, she could see her feet and Keir beside her, then they turned a corner, and the darkness enveloped her.
He tightened his grip on her hand and told her to keep her other hand out to feel for the rough stone walls.
The ground was even and felt more like the carpeted library than the well-packed dirt it undoubtedly was.
“Is it far?”
she asked.
“Do ye remember how the hill rises behind the castle and that there’s a hedge that curves to the south?”
“I do.”
“We’re walkin’ underneath the hill now, headin’ fer the cliff.
We’ll come out among the boulders, walk along the other side of the brae, and then take a path to … well, ye’ll see soon enough.”
Before long Eleanor’s eyes adjusted to the dark, then suddenly she could determine shadowy shapes ahead.
Keir’s grip loosened.
“Almost there.”
Twenty feet more and two turns and Keir warned her to duck down.
They walked into sunlight as if out of a low cave opening, one that, upon looking back at it, she never would have discovered.
“’Twas an escape route planned by me great-great-great grandfather.
Me brothers and me sisters learnt of it by accident and used to hide in this end, nivver suspectin’ it led all the way home.”
His laugh was pure delight to Eleanor’s ears.
“Now, on to another of me favorite spots.
’Tis one me siblin’s havnae found.”
He switched the sack to his other hand and put his arm around her.
They walked along a muddy gully and Eleanor was glad for the borrowed boots.
“How much farther?”
she asked after fifteen minutes of walking.
“Into these woods here,”
Keir assured her, “and then we’ll come upon a hidden hollow.
I’ve nivver shown another human this spot.
Not even Copper kens the way here.”
He let go of her to wave a hand toward a conical marker of stones.
“I set the stones as a lad to mark the entrance.
Ye’ll have to duck beneath the evergreens.”
He reached for the lowest branch and lifted it.
Eleanor bent low and stooped to go under his arm and the branch.
“It’s like a green, living cave,”
Eleanor breathed out the words in awe.
Once inside she could stand with enough room for Keir beside her.
He set the sack against the trunk.
It was gloomy within the tree’s skirts, but not dismal.
The dusky interior let several shafts of golden light through, enough to see each other’s face and the expectant emotions there.
“Ye’re shakin’, Eleanor.”
Keir bowed his head closer.
“Are ye afraid I’ll take ye here, upon the pine needles?”
He put his arms around her and pulled her to him.
She rested her head on his chest and he put his cheek against her hair.
“Ah, Eleanor, me secret princess.
I brought ye here fer one thing only.”
He kissed the top of her head and put his hands on her shoulders.
Pushing her just far enough back to look her in the eyes, he said, “I love ye, lass.
I mean only to show ye how great me love is.
I told ye I’d see that Luxbury nivver pursued ye again.
The man doesnae walk the earth on this side of the ocean.
Ye nivver have to fear him again.”
He blinked a few times.
“And I learnt from Hannah of yer beatin’s by the lord of Ingledew.
That man is payin’ fer those crimes under the authority of Judge Horace Sylvan, me friend.”
“But …”
Eleanor screwed her brows together in a question, “but wasn’t Sylvan the one who paid for two men to kill me?”
“Aye, that was the first plan.
But all is straightened out now.”
He bent to retrieve the sack.
“I spent five of the days I was gone from ye to search out the church ye were baptized in.
I only saw yer parchment but a moment before ye threw it in the fire.
I dinnae remember it all and so I went from parish to parish until—”
He drew out a rolled scroll.
“I found the original.
Did ye ken they made one fer yer mother and another to hold in the church’s register? I paid a bribe to the clergyman’s maid, and a fair price to a scribe to make a copy.”
He unrolled the paper.
“Here’s yer certificate again, Eleanor.
All the names are as they were.”
Heads together, they read the artful inscriptions, the names, the date, the clergyman’s signature.
Eleanor touched her father’s name and a beam of light sneaking through the branches lit it up.
She looked up at Keir.
The first thank you was more breath than word.
“Thank you.
Oh, Keir, thank you.
I can think of no better gift.
How did you know I’d want this.”
“I saw yer face.
I felt yer sorrow.
Yer mother’s too.
She was wounded to her soul to lose both yer birth paper and her marriage parchment.”
He pulled out another scroll.
“I found hers as well.
Once I straightened things with Sylvan there was no need to hide your identity and so …”
“Another copy? Oh, Keir, that’s … that’s … I cannot express it.”
“Eleanor … I must confess … the church has the copies.
’Tis a stolen original ye have in yer hand.
I’ve already asked forgiveness.
The Lord is a forgiving God.”
She flung her arms around him.
***
ELEANOR HUGGED RORY tightly, so grateful to be sharing this day with her.
They, along with the sisters, and Hannah and Mary, were gathered in Rory’s bedroom finishing their dressing rituals.
From Rory’s window they’d been looking down every few minutes to see how the crowd of guests was growing, but now the noise from below diminished and the sounds of a hired piper replaced them.
The sisters sang the Gaelic words to the tune while the three English-born women listened and smiled, everyone still doing last minute details—tying shoes, tucking petals in their hair, or lacing tight-fitting bodices.
Mary nudged Eleanor and whispered, “I wish it was yer father who could walk ye through the guests or better yet, down the aisle of a church.”
“I never thought much about it,”
Eleanor whispered back, “so I won’t be missing it.
It seems fitting that Laird McKelvey will walk Rory down and then come back for me.”
The singing stopped and the piper’s tune was a bit more solemn, though the high notes of the flute seemed happy.
“It makes me think of fairies,”
Hannah said.
“Oh,”
Elsie clapped her hands, “’tis the stone-passin’ tune.”
“Stone passing?”
Hannah looked up from fussing with the wreath-like crown of purple heather on Eleanor’s head.
Rory turned, careful not to disturb her own laurel of rare white heather.
“’Tis an auld custom.
The folks below are givin’ their good wishes and blessin’s onto the stones.
We’ll place our hands on them when we say our vows.”
Hannah declared Eleanor ready and stepped back to admire her work.
“You are both beautiful brides,”
Mary beamed at them.
“We should go down now,”
Fenella said.
“I hear the first drones of the bag-pipes warming up.”
***
KEIR SCOLDED JACK and Logan when he saw the look in their eyes.
“Och, ye’ll nay be thinkin’ of yer tricks.”
Jack’s face scrunched up.
“But we kept the McDoons from comin’ and doin’ the blackenin’ on ye.
Ye must let us do the shootin’.”
“Ye’ll nay do it durin’ the vows.
Ye’ll give me bride a fright.
The English ways are different.
Eleanor dinnae ken aboot the feet washin’ or the blackenin of the bride and groom.
Though she’ll see it when comes yer turn.”
“The piper stopped.”
Logan gave his brother a rather hard cuff on the arm.
“The evil spirits are chased away.
Ye’ll have guid luck now, brother.”
Keir huffed.
“’Tis luck, to be sure, to find a woman like El, to love her and have her love ye back.
Ye two should be so lucky.”
A strange, vaguely hostile look passed between Logan and Jack.
Keir nodded to the other group of men.
Rennie, his brother and another friend, nodded back.
Rennie stepped forward, his groomsmen on either side of him, and started walking behind the first bag-piper up through the guests.
The McKelveys watched.
Also watching from the side was Laird McKelvey.
He strode over to his sons and embraced Keir, patted him heartily on the back without a word, then went into the castle.
He reemerged a moment later with his daughters.
The married girls went first and Rory clung to her father’s arm, but kept her eyes fixed on Rennie, now standing under a floral canopy.
Once the first wedding party was settled in their places, Keir said, “’Tis our turn, lads.”
He took a deep breath and touched the plaid draped over his left shoulder, pinned in place with Eleanor’s wedding gift to him: her brooch.
Logan and Jack fell in behind a second bag-piper and Keir followed.
***
ELEANOR PRESSED HER hands to her ears.
“Why are they so loud?”
Her mother laughed.
“Ye get used to it.
Are bagpipes still banned in England?”
Eleanor and Hannah nodded together.
The castle door opened and the skirl of the pipes was louder yet.
Laird McKelvey slipped in, his expression a confusing mix of pride, love, and sorrow.
“Are ye ready, lass? Me sons are under the arch.”
“She’s ready,”
Mary said.
She handed Eleanor a bouquet and took Hannah’s arm.
They went out and Eleanor put her arm in the Laird’s.
He patted it, looked down at his kilt then at her dress, and complimented her.
“Ye’re a bonnie lass, Eleanor, and ye wear the McKelvey colors well.
’Twill be an honor to call ye daughter.”
Eleanor’s tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth.
She swallowed hard.
“Thank you.”
Her lashes fluttered and she teared up.
Blinking fast, she walked out with him and immediately saw a mass of unfamiliar faces staring at her.
But up front stood the most important people in her life.
They began to walk over a trail of crushed petals.
She heard her name in hushed whispers despite the overwhelming and distinctive sounds of the bagpipes.
She recognized Colin’s voice and little Huey and then there was one voice she had to force her eyes off Keir to look for.
She gasped and smiled.
Another gift from Keir, she thought, as she saw the round, plump face of Cook from Ingledew smiling back at her.
Halfway down the aisle time seemed to slow.
The bagpipes faded and all she heard was her own heartbeat.
All she saw was Keir’s face.
***
KEIR NEARLY DROPPED the blessing stone the last guest passed to him.
It was one from the cairn he’d made at his mother’s grave, where he’d gone early this morning.
He thought reciting their promises holding this particular rock would firmly set their vows in stone and not just metaphorically.
There she was.
The woman he loved.
He knew she was coming forward on his father’s arm, but he only saw her.
Looking more beautiful than ever.
Wearing McKelvey tartan colors.
The most Scottish dress he’d ever seen on a woman.
Her hair like a flower garden.
Her cheeks aglow.
Her eyes sparkling.
His own eyes went blurry.
He blinked hard, felt the warm tears trail down his face.
“Eleanor,”
he whispered.
He took her hand from his father’s arm, barely acknowledging the Laird’s presence.
The bagpipes finished with a diminishing hum, leaving the silence broken only by the sound of Keir whispering, “I love you.”
They stood facing one another under the arch of flowers as Rennie and Rory swore their oaths.
When it was Keir and Eleanor’s turn, he held the stone out in one hand and she placed both of hers on it.
He covered them with his right hand and they made their pledges.
The ceremony was blessed by the religious officiate and deemed completed.
***
ELEANOR KNEW HER mother had helped make a bridescake and she knew its significance and to expect someone to break it over her head.
It would mean a fruitful marriage if it broke into small pieces.
What she didn’t expect was the roar of the crowd upon the ending of the ceremony or the blasts of gunfire from several pistols.
She saw Elsie appear at Rory’s side and in the same instant Fenella came to Eleanor.
Both sisters had shortbread cakes in their hands and broke them in unison over the brides’ heads.
Crumbs caught in her hair and flowers, fell to her shoulders, and scattered to the ground in a hundred tiny pieces.
She looked down and laughed.
Keir also laughed, caught her in his arms, and kissed her with abandon.
The guests cheered.
Several rushed forward to elbow each other for a lucky crumb.
“They’ll nay miss us at the feast,”
Keir said in her ear, “and I intend to indulge in some houghmagandie with me new wife.”
He scooped her into his arms, carried her through the shouting crowd and into the castle.
He took the stone steps two at a time, passed her room, and carried her into his.
The suite was filled with vases of flowers, trays of food, and enough water and wine to last the wedding week.
He set her gently on the bed then barred the door.
THE END