Epilogue
One month later, Colin received an apology from the Crown.
It arrived upon expensive parchment, beneath a royal seal large enough to suggest remorse might be measured in wax. Colin read it in his study while Elspeth stood at the window, pretending not to watch his face.
The Crown expressed its deepest regret for the delay in recognizing the full extent of Robert Munro’s crimes.
It acknowledged that Colin’s warnings had been justified, that the attacks against Clan MacKenzie had been deliberate, and that the deaths upon his lands might have been prevented had the matter been treated with greater urgency.
Robert’s surviving men had confessed. Sir Malcolm Douglas had given a complete account of the ruined chapel, Robert’s admission, and Elspeth’s abduction. The Crown formally cleared Clan MacKenzie of wrongdoing and promised compensation to the families who had suffered.
Colin reached the final line.
“Well?” Elspeth asked.
“They regret everything.”
“How fortunate. Dae they intend tae raise the dead through regret?”
“Nay.”
“Then it appears a limited resource.”
Colin folded the letter. There had been a time when royal acknowledgement would have mattered to him, not because he trusted the Crown’s judgment, but because his clan deserved to stand beyond suspicion.
Now the apology seemed small beside the graves upon his land. Still, it would protect the widows from whispers. It would prevent Robert’s allies from dressing murder as justice. It would ensure no accusation followed Elspeth merely because she survived. For that, Colin would tolerate royal regret.
He placed the letter beside the others.
“The Crown has also agreed tae recognize the new boundary patrols,” he said. “And the payment will go directly tae the families.”
“As it should.”
Elspeth remained near the window. She had been restless since morning. Colin saw it in the repeated smoothing of her skirts and the way her fingers found the edge of the curtain whenever hoofbeats entered the courtyard.
Their horses were ready below. So were twenty guards, two wagons, three servants, and enough provisions to survive either the journey south or a modest siege. Elspeth had called the escort excessive. Colin ignored her.
“We leave within the hour,” he informed her.
Her gaze turned to him at once. Hope entered her face so openly that Colin felt the familiar tightening beneath his ribs.
“Aye?”
“Aye.”
She crossed the room quickly and stopped before him. For one moment, he expected an argument. Elspeth often approached him with that particular speed when she had discovered a fresh objection to his authority.
Instead, she put her arms around him. Colin caught her instinctively. Her face pressed against his chest.
“Thank ye.”
He rested one hand against the back of her head. “I promised.”
“I ken.”
The words were muffled against his coat. Colin discovered that keeping promises to Elspeth was rarely simple. Most required guards, horses, careful planning, and the occasional threat against a man whose competence failed at an unfortunate moment. This one required only that he take her home.
Home.
The word no longer meant what it once had. For Elspeth, perhaps it never would again.
They reached Fraser lands six days later.
Elspeth became quieter with each mile. At first, she spoke of familiar hills, villages, and roads.
She pointed toward a distant church where she had once hidden from a governess and a field where she broke her wrist after insisting she could ride a horse no one else would approach.
By the final moments, she said very little. Colin rode beside her. He did not ask whether she was afraid. She was. He saw it in the careful set of her shoulders and the way she kept adjusting her gloves, though they already sat perfectly upon her hands.
The Fraser house appeared beyond a line of bare trees, its grey walls washed pale beneath the autumn sky. Smoke rose from the chimneys. Servants had gathered near the steps, summoned by the sight of MacKenzie banners upon the road.
Elspeth drew in a breath. Colin reached across the space between their horses and closed his hand around hers. She looked at him.
“Ye dinnae have tae enter alone,” he told her.
“I didnae expect ye would permit me tae.”
“Nay.”
Her mouth curved faintly. “There is me husband.”
Colin kept hold of her hand until they reached the steps. The great door opened. Lady Morven Fraser came out before the steward could announce them. Elspeth froze. Her mother looked thinner than Colin remembered. Her face remained pale, and she leaned upon a walking stick, but she was upright.
“Elspeth,” Lady Morven breathed.
Elspeth dismounted before Colin could reach her.
She nearly stumbled when her feet struck the ground, then gathered her skirts and ran.
Lady Morven opened her arms. They met halfway across the courtyard.
Elspeth clung to her mother with a sound Colin had never heard from her before: half sob and half broken laugh.
Lady Morven held her just as tightly, with one hand cradling the back of her daughter’s head. Colin looked away. Some moments belonged to those who had waited too long for them.
His men occupied themselves with the horses. Servants lowered their gazes. Even Breac, who insisted upon accompanying them, turned toward the wagons as though the straps required immediate inspection.
“I thought ye were hurt,” Elspeth said through tears. “He wouldnae tell me anything properly.”
“I am well.”
“Ye are using a stick.”
“Because I prefer it tae falling.”
Elspeth laughed, though tears still covered her face. Lady Morven drew back and examined her. Her hands moved over Elspeth’s cheeks, shoulders, and arms as if requiring proof that every part remained.
“When I saw ye had been taken…” Lady Morven’s voice failed.
“I am safe.”
“Aye.”
Lady Morven’s gaze moved beyond her daughter. It found Colin. There was gratitude there, but also memory: a cathedral, smoke, and the man who had taken Elspeth away while Morven remained behind. Colin accepted both.
He approached slowly. “Lady Morven.”
“Laird MacKenzie.”
Elspeth reached for him. Colin took her hand and came to stand beside her.
“Me husband saved me,” she said.
Lady Morven looked at their joined hands. Something softened in her face.
“So I was told.”
“He nearly got himself killed daeing it.”
“Elspeth,” he frowned.
“What?” she pouted. “It is true.”
Lady Morven’s mouth trembled toward a smile. Colin felt the strange discomfort of standing near two women who might unite against him with very little effort.
Then Thomas Fraser appeared in the doorway and the warmth left the courtyard. He had not changed. His clothes remained severe, his posture rigid, and his face as carefully emptied of feeling as the day he delivered his daughter to another man’s altar.
Elspeth’s fingers tightened around Colin’s. Thomas descended the steps.
“Laird MacKenzie.”
“Fraser.”
His gaze moved to Elspeth. Colin felt her prepare herself.
It was almost invisible: the slight lift of her chin, the straightening of her spine, the old defense returning before her father had spoken a word.
Thomas studied her bruises, now faded to pale shadows, and the scar near her ribs hidden beneath wool.
“Ye are well?” Elspeth blinked.
“Aye.”
“I heard Munro came near tae killing ye.”
“He did more than come near.”
Thomas’s mouth tightened. Colin expected criticism. Some cold remark about recklessness, danger, or the trouble her marriage had brought upon the family.
Instead, Thomas said, “I am glad ye are safe.”
Elspeth stared at him. The words seemed to surprise their speaker as much as anyone else. Thomas looked briefly toward the waiting servants, as though regretting the number of witnesses.
“When news arrived that ye had been taken,” he continued, “yer mother was greatly distressed.”
Lad Morven’s expression altered.
Thomas added, more stiffly, “As was I.”
Silence followed. It was not tenderness. Thomas Fraser seemed incapable of tenderness unless it had first been inspected for weakness and found politically harmless. But it was one degree warmer than anything Colin had expected.
Elspeth’s eyes shone. “Ye… were worried?”
Her father’s jaw moved once. “A man would have tae possess very little sense nae tae worry upon hearing his daughter had fallen intae the hands of a murderer.”
It was not an apology. It did not erase the letter, the altar, or every year in which Elspeth had been made to believe usefulness was the nearest thing she could earn to love. But Colin saw the words reach her not enough to heal, but enough to matter.
Thomas looked at Colin. “I understand ye offered yer own life fer hers.”
“Aye.”
“That was reckless.”
Elspeth made an offended sound.
Colin answered before she could. “Aye.”
Thomas studied him, then he inclined his head. It was not quite gratitude, but it came nearer than Colin expected the man to manage.
“Ye have me thanks.”
Colin returned the gesture. “She daesnae require thanks fer being protected.”
“Nay,” Thomas said. His gaze returned to his daughter. “Perhaps nae.”
Lady Morven stepped forward and took Elspeth’s other hand. “Come inside. Ye must be tired.”
“I am nae.”
“She is,” Colin said.
Elspeth glared at him. “I am perfectly capable of identifying me own exhaustion.”
“A skill ye rarely exercise.”
Lady Morven smiled openly this time. Thomas looked between them, faintly bewildered by a marriage in which disagreement did not immediately become cruelty. That, Colin thought, might be the most useful lesson Fraser received from their visit.
They remained for four days. Elspeth spent hours with her mother. They walked through the gardens when the weather permitted, sat beside the fire when it did not, and spoke behind closed doors about matters Colin did not ask to hear.
Thomas remained cold, but not entirely unchanged. He asked Elspeth’s opinion once during supper. He actually listened to the answer. The following morning, he ordered a carriage rather than assuming Lady Morven could manage the steps to the chapel.
They were small things, insufficient things. Yet Colin learned that a life sometimes altered through movements too slight to be noticed until one looked backward.
On the final morning, Lady Morven embraced Elspeth beside the carriage. “Ye will return?”
“Often,” Elspeth promised.
Colin stood near enough that the promise included him. Thomas approached after his wife. He did not embrace his daughter. He hesitated, then placed one hand briefly upon her shoulder.
“Travel safely.”
Elspeth covered his hand with hers. “We will.”
Thomas withdrew first. As the carriage left the courtyard, Elspeth watched the house until the trees concealed it. Colin rode beside her. After a time, she opened the carriage door and looked out at him.
“Will ye ride inside?”
“Nay.”
“It is beginning tae rain.”
“I have noticed.”
“Then come inside before yer pride develops a fever.”
Colin looked toward the road ahead. His men pretended not to listen.
He dismounted and handed his reins to Breac.
Inside the carriage, Elspeth shifted to make room.
Colin sat beside her, taking up considerably more space than the vehicle’s designers had sensibly allowed.
She rested her head upon his shoulder. For several miles, neither spoke.
Then she whispered, “he was worried.”
“Aye.”
“He may never say it again.”
“Likely nae.”
“I am nae certain it changes anything.”
“It daesnae have tae.”
Elspeth looked up at him. Colin brushed his thumb beneath her eye, catching the trace of a tear before it fell.
“Ye may take whatever comfort the words gave ye without fergiving what came before.”
She considered that. Then she nodded and returned her head to his shoulder.
Colin looked through the rain-streaked window.
They were travelling north, back to MacKenzie lands, back to a castle where Elspeth’s keys hung at her waist, where servants sought her decisions, and where the clan had begun speaking of its lady as though she had always belonged among them.
She had wanted to see her mother because part of her feared she had lost every claim to the place she came from. Instead, she found Lady Morven alive, Thomas fractionally human, and a road leading toward another home.
Elspeth slipped her hand into his. Colin closed his fingers around it. He once believed love gave enemies a weapon. Perhaps it did. But as the carriage carried them through the rain, Colin understood something Robert never had.
Love was not merely the place a man could be wounded. It was also the reason he survived the wound.
Elspeth turned her face toward him. “What are ye thinking?”
“That ye should rest.”
She frowned. “That isnae what ye were thinking.”
“It is now.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Marriage has made ye evasive.”
“Marriage has made me tired.”
“And happy?”
The question was lightly spoken. Her gaze was not.
Colin lifted her hand to his mouth.
“Aye,” he said.
Elspeth smiled. Outside, the rain softened over the road home.
But there’s more…
Their enemies are defeated, but one life-changing surprise still waits in Wester Ross. In the Extended Epilogue, return to see what future begins for Colin and Elspeth… and discover which laird is called to stand behind a mask next.