Scot On the Moors #8
“There are a hundred things wrong with this plan.” Callum took another step away from her, as if he needed to have distance in order to think clearly. She felt the same. It was hard to think rationally when he was so close. Their kiss still fueling her blood.
“That’s true. But you wouldn’t need to stay if we didn’t suit. Could you not visit for a short time? Could we not try?”
His tongue found the corner of his mouth—the sign he was concentrating, working, thinking.
Virginia bit her lip. The birds lifted out of the trees as one, as if startled by something enormous—and the poetic part of her, the part that had not lost its hope in charm and romance—thought that the birds felt what they could have between them.
That the enormity of their past, their future, their hopes, and their love could coalesce and surprise the animals that surrounded them.
“How long are ye here for?”
Her entire body trembled, no longer strong. “A fortnight.”
“I’ll stay with ye then. When ye leave, we’ll revisit the topic. I’ll go to Scotland and finish up my affairs. Then, if we both think it right, I’ll move to the States.”
“You’ll stay here? With me?” Virginia asked, not bothering to mask her shock.
“Aye. I won’t stay in yer room; don’t look so scandalized.” He laughed.
“I mean, you held up the carriage. Aren’t you scared of being arrested?”
He looked at her as if she were insane, and for a minute, she felt that way. “The driver didna see my face. They’ve known me here for years. This cottage, for instance, is open for the likes of me and my kin. It’s not like it was all those years ago. I dinna think anyone will try to behead me.”
“But—” And then she stopped protesting. She wanted him with her, and he knew the area better than she did. “Then you’ll help me back to the inn?”
He bowed, as if they were just now getting to know one another. “Of course.”
*
The fortnight passed in the blink of an eye.
The villagers accepted the story of a highwayman, of Callum’s rescue of the carriage and of Virginia.
While there was some worry for Virginia’s virtue, she showed off her tiny purse pistol and the townspeople agreed that American women could take care of themselves, and perhaps it was the highwayman that ought to be scared from now on.
Callum carried her tripod and plates out to the abbey every day, and Virginia—who relished being Ginny once again—took photographs for her father.
She was often distracted by her Highlander, lurking behind her.
They did nothing more scandalous than kiss during their stay in Yorkshire.
It was as chaste as one could expect, both not wanting to ruin any chance of a future between them.
But there was never a moment of doubt in her mind.
Callum needed to be her husband. He was already bound to her in ways she could not express.
She was sure that the land had bound them; the faeries that lurked about had tied them together, sound as any sailor’s knot.
It had felt so private a thing—their togetherness—until one night at the Coachman’s Inn during dinner.
“’Ave ye no’ noticed, MacLeod?” one of the villagers, an older man who went by a horrific nickname of Bags, asked. “Tha’ howling’s gone. ’Tis strange, no?”
This is what Callum told Virginia he had said, since Virginia had a terrible time deciphering the thick Yorkshire accent.
But it was agreed that the wind had settled some—not entirely, to be sure—but some, since they arrived back at the Coachman.
Theories abounded as to what might have occurred: The sea had calmed a certain amount, which took the wind under control.
Or maybe, the lovers had finally found each other out on the moors, and despite the objections of centuries, whatever had plagued them was finally finished.
Virginia liked that version the best. There was a certainty in her, a kind that rarely showed in her questioning heart.
She was certain that the lovers were now together and content.
And she looked daily to Callum’s breast, where a bulge could be discerned, likely from his inside pocket, where his clan’s brooch sat.
But was it the brooch being returned that made the wind calmer?
Or was it the feeling of utter devotion that she felt when she looked upon his face?
Which of them had been the lid, and which of them the pot?
Was it the spirits who had found their rest, or that Callum and Virginia had found their way back to one another?
When Virginia looked into Callum’s blue, blue eyes, she wondered why anyone would question such a thing.
For surely, love, when found, was so profound and rare that it didn’t matter which of the couples instigated a change of the weather.
It was that weather could be influenced by love at all.
It was that two entities—living or dead—could find their person.
That they were linked, through this world and the next, despite all the reasons they might be kept apart.
And there was no one to keep them apart any longer.
The End