Chapter 14
Evan had meant to turn back toward Edinburgh.
That had been the plan. Put distance between himself and Niall’s estate, between himself and Ruby, between himself and anything that could tear open wounds he’d spent years cauterizing. He’d even taken the first turning that would lead him back to the main road.
But somewhere along the way, without quite realizing when the decision had been made, his feet had carried him off the path and deeper into the countryside.
The land rose gently here, the ground soft with pine needles and damp loam. He moved through it without thought, his body remembering what his mind tried not to. He knew where the roots lay hidden, where the ground dipped treacherously after rain.
After all, this had been his home.
His parents had once owned all of this land.
Forest, moor, pasture—stretching farther than a man could walk in a day.
Before lawyers and bitter rivalry had carved it up into neat, soulless parcels.
Before titles were contested and loyalties broken and brothers turned on one another like wounded animals.
Now he had no right to be here. This was Niall’s land now and he was nothing more than a trespasser, a shadow slipping through places that no longer knew him.
He slowed as the trees thickened, light dimming beneath the canopy. The air changed here, becoming cooler, damper. And then, abruptly, the forest opened.
A large stone building sat in a broad clearing ahead of him, as it had for as long as Evan could remember. But it was not the same. The roof had collapsed, beams rotted through and sagging like broken ribs. Bramble crawled up the walls, claiming the old stone inch by inch.
Evan stopped and stared. When he’d been a boy, this place—his family’s summer lodge—had seemed magical.
A refuge from lessons and expectations, from the weight of being a Campbell.
His mother had loved it here—had laughed more freely beneath these trees than anywhere else he could remember.
His father had been looser too, less lord and more man, teaching his sons to fish in the stream and hunt fossils along the riverbanks.
Memories surfaced. Five boys, muddy and sunburnt, racing each other through the trees until their lungs burned. Climbing trees. Building dens. Sleeping by the fire while the wind rattled the shutters and the world felt impossibly safe.
Evan swallowed hard and forced himself forward, boots crunching softly as he crossed the clearing. He laid a hand against the stone wall, rough beneath his palm.
In his youth the summer lodge had sat in the center of Campbell lands.
Now it sat on the border—in a no-man’s-land of neglected ground because no one wanted to claim it after the partition.
A building stranded between loyalties, left to rot because tending it would mean remembering what had been lost.
It was a fitting monument, really.
He moved past the lodge and deeper into the trees until a stone wall came into view.
The wall hadn’t been there when he was a boy.
Now, it cut brutally across the slope, a hard line drawn through what had once been open ground.
Beyond it, the land changed. The trees thinned, giving way to harsh, exposed fields dotted with a handful of crofts.
Smoke rose thinly from their chimneys. The soil looked poor, the buildings small and weather-beaten.
Evan stared out over that parcel of land, something sour and heavy pooling in his gut.
Shame, mostly.
He pressed his lips together, fighting the snarl that wanted to twist them. It wasn’t his fault. He’d never wanted any of this. Could he be blamed for walking away? For choosing a different life to one of bitter recriminations and obligations he never wanted?
This was not his responsibility. The people that lived beyond the wall were nothing to do with him.
But the excuses rang hollow.
He heard movement behind him. He spun, twin daggers appearing in his hands, blades flashing as he brought them up in a smooth, lethal arc—
—and stopped an inch from the throat of the man behind him.
A familiar voice spoke. “I see ye’ve not lost any of yer skill, brother.”
Evan’s breath punched out of him. He recognized the man before him. He was older, aye, but he’d recognize his youngest brother anywhere.
“Niall,” he breathed.
He seemed broader than Evan remembered, harder around the edges—but unmistakably Niall. The boy who had followed him everywhere, who had trusted him without question. The brother he had loved best, if he were honest.
Slowly, carefully, he lowered his knives. “Shite,” Evan muttered. “What are ye doing here?”
Niall’s mouth twitched. “I might ask ye the same.”
“I’m not here for trouble,” he said, sheathing his knives as though to prove the point. “In fact, I was just leaving.”
He strode away but Niall caught his sleeve, “Ye dinna have to do that.”
Evan froze, looking first at where Niall’s hand clasped his arm, then up at his face. Niall was watching him steadily and there was none of the anger on his younger brother’s face that Evan had expected to see.
“Ye dinna have to go,” Niall repeated softly. “Will ye not come up to the house? Will ye not come and meet my wife?”
His wife. Charlotte Douglas. Ruby’s cousin. The woman they’d been trying to reach all this time.
“Congratulations,” he muttered. “On yer marriage. I was...pleased... when I heard.”
Niall cocked his head. “I would have invited ye—if I had known where ye were.”
Evan blinked, surprised by this. “Ye...would?”
Niall nodded then gave a small, wry smile. “As it was, I was left with only Bryce.”
“Bryce?” Evan said, tugging his arm from Niall’s grip. “Ye mean our dear older brother Bryce? The man who caused all this? The man who swore he’d see all us thrown out on our ear?” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice, surprised by the strength of it after all these years.
“Aye, that Bryce.” Niall sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Much has changed, brother.”
Evan clamped his mouth shut, not trusting himself to speak. He was surprised how deep his anger ran, even after all this time. “How did ye find me?” he asked finally.
“A hunch,” Niall said with a shrug. “And memory.” He glanced back toward the ruined lodge. “I thought ye might come here.”
Evan’s jaw tightened. Of course. Niall had loved the summer lodge almost as fiercely as Evan had.
Neither spoke. The years stretched between them, heavy with things unsaid. Evan felt the odd, traitorous urge to step forward, to drag his brother into a crushing embrace, to pretend none of it had ever happened.
But the wall between them was too high. Built stone by stone from grief and betrayal and words that could never be taken back.
Niall stepped past him to the wall that marked the boundary of his land. He looked out over the crofts beyond. “They’ve not forgotten ye,” he said quietly, nodding towards the houses.
Evan snorted. “They should.”
“They’re still waiting for their laird to return.”
Evan laughed, short and bitter. “They’ll be waiting a long time.”
Niall turned to look at him. “Ye could come home.”
“This isnae home,” Evan snapped. “Not for me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isnae it? Father’s dead. Mother’s dead. The lands are carved up like a carcass. Half the folk here would spit at my feet if they knew I was standing on their soil.”
“And the other half would welcome ye back!” Niall snapped. “Because ye were their laird once. Or ye should have been.”
“I never wanted that,” Evan said, voice low and rough. “I never asked for it.”
Niall’s gaze softened, just a fraction. “I know.”
The anger that had flared between them guttered, leaving something raw behind. Evan scrubbed a hand over his face, suddenly exhausted.
“This was a mistake.”
“Was it? I’m not so sure. Come back with me. Just to the house. Meet my wife. Rest. Ye dinna have to decide anything now.”
Evan shook his head. Fear coiled in his gut—fear of what returning might stir, of old ghosts and old obligations. And fear, sharper still, of seeing Ruby again. Of what her eyes might demand of him if he stayed.
“I canna.”
“Canna? Or willnae?” Niall asked quietly. He gazed at Evan in that intense, unsettling way he had. “I had to make the choice to stop running,” he said quietly. “From the past. Perhaps ye need to make the same choice.”
Evan closed his eyes. Damn him. Damn his brother for still knowing how to reach him. He exhaled slowly, the fight draining out of him. “Ye always were a conniving bastard.”
Niall grinned. “I learned from the best.”
“All right. I’ll come. But just to meet Charlotte. Nothing else.”
With a last glance back at the wall and the land beyond, Evan turned and fell into step beside his brother, walking back towards both Niall’s home and Evan’s past.
RUBY SAT VERY STILL, hands clasped in her lap, and tried to convince her heart to slow down.
The sitting room was... cozy. That was the only word for it. A low, beamed ceiling, thick rugs layered across the floor, shelves crowded with books and odd little objects, and a roaring fire that threw out welcome heat.
After mud-slick roads and aching feet, after the constant edge of danger and the tight coil of fear that had lived beneath her ribs since the night she’d stepped through the arch, this domestic calm felt unreal.
Homely. Safe.
Which was absurd, really, given that she was several centuries from her own time.
She dragged her gaze away from the flames and looked at Charlie again, just to reassure herself she was real. Her cousin sat opposite her, curled into the corner of a chair with the ease of someone who belonged here, her hair loosely tied back and her expression relieved and worried all at once.
“I still can’t quite believe you’re here,” Charlie said quietly. “When I saw you on the road, I thought I’d gone mad.”
Ruby huffed out a shaky laugh. “Tell me about it.”