Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
AIDAN
Aidan thought about Morrigan every day that he was gone.
Over and over, he recalled their conversation, skirmishes, arguments, her rejections.
No, not rejections . . . evasions. Memories lingered of the night in the library, the day she looked after the bruise on his eye in the stairwell, the moment when he nearly kissed her.
He also could not forget how upset she’d been the last time they met at the top of the old tower .
. . when he asked her to speak to Wemys.
She told him she couldn’t. But at least she’d asked Isabella to speak to the scoundrel on her behalf.
Some kind of agreement had been reached.
He didn’t know the details. Still, the morning he and Sebastian left Dalmagavie, Aidan had the name he needed.
He owed her and was grateful for what she’d done.
Even as he continually mulled over all of that, Aidan tried to imagine what their relationship would be once he returned. Were they only friends? Had Morrigan thought about him at all while he was gone?
For him, the nine days away felt like nine weeks.
Nine months. But the weariness of travel lifted off Aidan’s shoulders the moment he laid eyes on her.
No tam, no coat, she wore a dark green dress and a ribbon of the same color binding her hair in the back.
The eve of Samhain was upon them, and the weather was unusually warm for the end of October.
She was standing in front of the kirk. A crowd of young people, most of them children, were gathered there, listening to storytellers. Near the market cross, a huge bonfire crackled and blazed, sending sparks high into the black night sky.
Samhain was the fire festival, celebrated here for as long as people lived in these Highlands.
The long nights of winter had a connection with the world of the dead, and the power and light of the fires were needed to drive back the darkness.
Two young lasses walked by him carrying their tumpshie lanterns—hollowed-out turnips with skull faces carved into them, illuminated from the inside with candles.
On the hilltops and the craggy ridges of the mountains around Dalmigavie, a string of huge bonfires burned, visible for miles.
To celebrate the end of the growing season, the village market cross was the center for crafting displays and games of skill and courting rituals for the young and unmarried.
But Aidan had no time or interest in any of this. He had eyes only for Morrigan.
He approached but said nothing to draw her attention. Two women by the fire were attempting to best each other in their storytelling performance. Morrigan’s hands were resting on the shoulders of Niall Campbell’s nieces. Aidan had met the children before.
One of the women was spinning slowly, crying out in a singsong voice. “Samhain is the night of the Great Sabbat for the witches. But tell no one, do ye hear?”
Nervous giggles could be heard from their audience, and Aidan moved closer to them. He halted a step or two away, where he could see and hear her and yet not intrude.
“On this night, the witches of the wood gather to celebrate their auld ways and cast their spells.”
A smile stretched across Morrigan’s face as the girls pushed closer against her skirts, trying to get away from the women weaving through the audience and pretending to reach for them.
“Look to the sky.”
All eyes turned upward to where the storyteller was pointing.
“They’re flying through the air.”
“Cover yer head, bairnies!”
“Look to the fields. Did ye see her?”
“There she goes! Quick as the wind, riding a black cat.”
The women went back and forth, calling out with cries and whispers. The children gasped every time something else was evoked.
“A witch on a raven. There, by the kirk tower. Did ye see her?”
Heads bobbed.
Another woman strode in from the shadows, and the storytellers backed away with a cowering bow to her. Her hair was grey, and she wore a simple black robe. Her eyes flashed in the light of the torches and the fire.
“I am a MacDonald of Glen Coe, we of the tragic folk. Have ye heard? We have a witch who abides in the cave by the twisted oak on the banks of our woeful river.”
Murmurs of awe rippled through the children.
“What’s her name?” Catriona wanted to know, feeling brave and inching away from the safety of Morrigan’s arm.
“Sidiethe.” She pointed a long, bony finger at the five-year-old. “Ye see her only when the sun has dipped behind the wooded hill or just ’afore the break of day. A water witch, she is, with skin so fair and locks of flaming red.”
Briana tugged on her sister’s red hair and giggled.
“Sidiethe wears a dress so white, it seems to glow and a cape the color of midnight.”
The child turned to Morrigan. “I want a white dress and a cape like that.”
She laughed and whispered something in her ear that made Catriona clap her hands.
The woman glided along the edge of the audience, her voice rising in pitch. “Our witch sits on the banks of our tumbling river, her long hair trailing in the passing waters, singing her mournful songs.”
“I like to sing,” Catriona shouted boldly.
The storyteller turned and cut through the crowd to her. Suddenly, she didn’t seem like an old storyteller, but the witch herself.
“Do ye ever hear weeping out yer window in the night?”
The child backed up and hid her face in Morrigan’s skirt.
“Sidiethe weeps by the waters ’afore someone dies. The night ’afore the great death at Glen Coe, the MacDonald clan chief heard her. He made his way to the icy river. There Sidiethe crouched, washing a bloody scarf, moaning and crying her heart out.”
The storyteller’s gaze was fixed on a far-off hill where a fire blazed. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body.
“When the MacDonald blinked his eye, she was gone. But her weeping echoed off the hills and down the glen.”
“Did someone die?” a child asked, her voice trembling.
“Aye,” the storyteller replied. “I’ll tell you all. It started with a letter and a far-off king . . .”
Aidan was familiar with the actual history.
South of Fort William, the Massacre of Glencoe took place about hundred thirty years ago.
After the end of a three-year Jacobite uprising, more than thirty people were killed by forces of the earl of Argyll, who was angry that the MacDonalds of Glen Coe had not been prompt in pledging allegiance with him to the new British monarch.
Morrigan took the girls’ hands and turned to lead them away. The story had suddenly become too serious for their young ears. Aidan decided that Morrigan probably knew the history too. The threesome nearly bumped into him.
“Mr. Grant.” Morrigan stopped short, startled.
“Miss Drummond.”
The smile on her face was the welcome Aidan had hoped for. She seemed happy and carefree and radiant. They exchanged a bow and curtsy.
“When did you get back?”
“This afternoon.”
“Was your trip successful?”
He didn’t want to talk about the chase that had taken him to Aberdeen, where it ended in futility.
Not now. He and Sebastian followed the trail of government agent Wemys had identified all the way to the port town, only to find out that he’d boarded a vessel for the Cape colony a fortnight earlier. So Aidan was back to where he started.
Right now, he only wanted the smile to remain on Morrigan’s face. He definitely didn’t want her to think that her attempt to help him had come to nothing.
“It was as expected,” he answered finally.
“How is your brother?”
“I tried to get rid of him on our travels. Unfortunately, the man couldn’t be cast off, no matter how hard I tried.
He’s . . .” Aidan glanced around at the boisterous groups of people moving hither and yon.
“Here somewhere. We may find him telling stories about us to his own audience of rapt listeners.”
“That would certainly be too frightening for small ears.” She bit her bottom lip and nodded toward the two girls, who were listening to every word he said.
“Miss Briana. Miss Catriona.” He bowed with a flourish to the children. “How lovely to see you. Is this your first Samhain celebration in the Highlands?”
The girls curtsied and nodded, beaming up at him.
“What have you seen so far?”
“The storytellers. But I didn’t really like that one.” Catriona pointed to the woman from Glen Coe.
“I heard some of what she was saying. I’ll need to bolt my door and shutter my window tonight.” He made a face, and the little girl nodded soberly.
“Morrigan is watching us while our mother walks with Mr. Gordon to get her fortune from a woman teller,” the older child announced.
This was news to the little one.
“Fort . . . teller?” Catriona asked. “What fort?”
“Not fort,” Briana responded, swinging around the front of Morrigan and looking at her sister as if she were a total embarrassment. She motioned with her arm. “Fortune. Teller. There is a fortune teller over by the kirk.”
“What does he do?” she persisted, craning her neck toward the church.
“He gives her money.” Hand on hip, the seven-year-old leaned into the face of her sister and drawled the word. “Fortune?”
Morrigan cocked an eyebrow at Aidan. These two took what they heard quite literally. The girls tugged on her hand, and the group started walking.
“May I join you?”
Morrigan’s nod was seconded by “Yes!” from each of the girls.
Delighted, he fell in beside them. Aidan’s gaze lingered on Morrigan’s face as she laughed at something one of them whispered to her.
She was happy, serene, obviously at home with these two.
All her reserve was gone. She was quite different from the woman he usually saw—tense, alert, constantly on her guard.
Aidan realized this was the first time he was witnessing a maternal side to her.