Epilogue
One Year Later
The low, golden light of the setting sun spilled through the window of the solar, painting the stone floor in deep, amber hues as dusk settled over the Highlands.
Sorcha sat in the chair by the hearth, though no fire burned in it today, her bare feet tucked beneath her and her growing belly resting against her thighs like a small hill she had learned to carry.
Her carving knife moved slowly, carefully, peeling thin curls of wood from the block in her hands. The shape was still rough, still finding itself beneath her fingers, but she could feel what it wanted to become.
A small horse, like the one she had carved for Rowan what felt like a lifetime ago, but smaller. Sweeter. Meant for smaller hands.
“Ma.”
She looked up.
Elspeth stood in the doorway, with Mr. Turtle clutched against her chest and her dark curls falling across her face in a tangled mess that no amount of brushing could tame.
“How many times must I tell ye?” Sorcha smiled and set her knife down on the small table beside her. “I am nae a ma. The baby isnae even here yet.”
“Ma.” Elspeth crossed the room with the determination of a general marching to war and climbed onto the chair beside Sorcha, wedging herself into the small space between Sorcha’s hip and the armrest. “Morag says ye are me ma now because ye married Da and ye are havin’ a baby and ye will live here forever and ever. ”
“Morag said all of that, didnae she?”
“Aye.” Elspeth nodded solemnly, her grey eyes wide and serious. “She said it very loudly. Da told her to stop shoutin’, but she said she would shout if she wanted to because she had been waitin’ for this day for years and she wouldnae let him ruin it with his growlin’.”
Sorcha laughed, and the sound of it surprised her. It was light and easy, nothing like the careful, measured laughter she had used in those first weeks at MacLaren Castle, when every word she spoke felt like a performance and every smile felt like a mask.
“Yer da does a lot of growlin’,” Sorcha said.
“He does.” Elspeth leaned her head against Sorcha’s shoulder, and her small hand came to rest on Sorcha’s belly, pressing gently. “Is the baby awake?”
“I think so. I felt a kick this morning. A very strong one.”
“Like Da?”
“Exactly like Da.”
Elspeth’s face broke into a grin, before she pressed her cheek against Sorcha’s belly and spoke in a loud whisper, “Hello, baby. I am yer sister. Me name is Lady Elspeth MacLaren, and I am very important. When ye come out, I will teach ye everythin’ ye need to ken.
I will teach ye about Mr. Turtle and about the pond and about how to hide from Morag when she wants ye to take a bath. ”
Sorcha smoothed her hand over Elspeth’s tangled curls and felt something swell in her chest, something warm and full and almost painful in its sweetness.
This is me family. These are me people. This is where I belong.
“I cannae believe ye are lettin’ her call ye Ma already.”
Sorcha looked up.
Rowan stood in the doorway, with his arms crossed over his chest and his shoulder leaning against the frame. His dark hair was loose around his face, still damp from working in the fields, and his shirt was untucked and streaked with dirt.
He looked nothing like the fearsome Laird who had ridden into Sinclair Castle on that grey morning, demanding his bride.
He looked like home.
“She started it,” Sorcha said. “I had nothin’ to do with it.”
“I am sure ye didnae.” Rowan pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room, his boots soft on the stone floor. He stopped beside the chair and looked down at them, his grey eyes flicking from Sorcha’s face to Elspeth’s tangled curls to the small wooden horse in Sorcha’s lap. “What is that?”
“A toy. For the baby.”
“Ye are makin’ toys already? The baby isnae even born yet.”
“I am prepared.” Sorcha lifted her chin, pretending to be offended. “Unlike some people, who wait until the last moment to do everything.”
Rowan’s mouth twitched. “I am very prepared.”
“Ye forgot about our wedding night. Twice.”
“I didnae forget about it. I was… delayed.”
“By a fire, I ken. Ye tell me that every time I mention it.”
“Because it is true.”
Sorcha laughed again, and Rowan’s eyes softened in that way they had been softening more and more over the past months, the way that still made her heart skip a beat and her breath catch.
“Da.” Elspeth pulled away from Sorcha’s belly and looked up at her father with her most serious expression. “Sorcha says the baby kicked this morning. I felt it. It was very strong. Like ye.”
Rowan raised his eyebrows. “Like me?”
“Aye. Very strong and very handsome.”
“Did Sorcha tell ye to say that?”
“Nay.” Elspeth shook her head vigorously, her curls bouncing. “I thought of it meself. I am very clever.”
“Ye are very clever,” Rowan agreed. He reached down and scooped her off the chair, settling her on his hip like she weighed nothing at all. “And ye are also very heavy. What has Morag been feedin’ ye?”
“Cakes. She says I need to grow big and strong so I can protect the baby from wolves.”
“What wolves?”
“The ones in the stories. The ones that eat little children who daenae eat their porridge.”
Rowan looked at Sorcha over the top of Elspeth’s head, and his expression was caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “Morag has been tellin’ her stories again.”
“I heard.” Sorcha set her carving down and reached for the shawl draped over the back of the chair. “Somethin’ about a wolf and a little girl with a red cloak.”
“Aye. Elspeth has been havin’ nightmares.”
“I havenae been havin’ nightmares.” Elspeth crossed her arms and pouted. “I have been havin’ adventures. With wolves. And I always win because I am very brave and I have Mr. Turtle.”
“Mr. Turtle is very fierce,” Sorcha said.
“The fiercest.”
Rowan set Elspeth down and ruffled her hair. “Go find Morag. Tell her we will be down for supper soon.”
“But Da—”
“Go.”
Elspeth heaved the heavy sigh of a child who was asked to do something terribly inconvenient and trudged toward the door, Mr. Turtle still clutched against her chest. She paused at the threshold and looked back at Sorcha.
“Ma?”
“Aye?”
“I love ye.” The words came out fast, almost shy, and then she was gone, her small feet pattering down the corridor before Sorcha could respond.
Sorcha pressed her hand to her chest, where her heart was beating too fast and too full.
“She has been sayin’ that a lot lately,” Rowan noted.
“I ken.”
“Does it bother ye?”
“Nay.” Sorcha looked up at him, tears stinging her eyes, but she did not blink them away. “It makes me happy. Happier than I ever thought I could be.”
Rowan held her gaze for a long moment, then he reached for her hand and gently pulled her to her feet. His arms came around her waist, careful of her belly, and he pressed his forehead against hers.
“Ye are cryin’,” he murmured.
“I am nae cryin’.”
“Ye are. I can feel the tears on me face.”
“That is the rain.”
“It’s nae rainin’.”
“Then it’s sweat.”
“Sorcha.”
She laughed and pulled back just enough to look at his face. The scar on his cheek, the grey of his eyes, the lines around his mouth that had softened over the months they had been together. She reached up and traced the scar with her fingertip, the way she had done a hundred times before.
“I love ye,” she said. “I love ye, and I love Elspeth, and I love this baby, and I love this castle, and I love Morag even though she is terrifyin’, and I love Flora even though she talks too much, and I love—”
Rowan kissed her.
It was soft and slow and nothing like the desperate, hungry kisses of their first months together.
“I love ye too,” he murmured against her mouth. “Now, stop cryin’ and let us go down. Elspeth will have found Morag by now, and she has been demandin' a spin all afternoon. I cannae do it without ye there to watch.”
“Ye want me to watch ye spin Elspeth?”
“I want ye to watch me be a faither.” He took her hand and led her toward the door. “I am very good at it.”
“I ken. I have seen ye.”
“Then ye ken why I need an audience.”
Sorcha laughed and let him pull her down the corridor, through the Great Hall, and out into the courtyard where the cool evening breeze brushed her face, and the world felt new.
Elspeth was already waiting for them, jumping up and down with impatience as she skipped back from the kitchens. “I told Morag! Now spin me, Da! Finally! I thought ye would never come!”
“I was busy.”
“Ye were kissing Ma. I saw ye.”
Rowan looked at Sorcha, his expression caught somewhere between embarrassment and pride. “She saw us.”
“I told ye she sees everythin’.”
“She does.” Rowan scooped Elspeth up and settled her on his shoulders, her small hands clutching his hair for balance. “Hold on, wee one.”
He took off across the grass, running faster than Sorcha would have thought possible with a child on his shoulders. Elspeth’s shrieks of laughter echoed off the stone walls and drifted up toward the sky.
Sorcha lowered herself onto the bench near the garden, the one Rowan had built for her when her belly had grown too big for her to sit comfortably on the ground, and watched them.
Rowan ran and spun and chased, his laughter ringing out free and unguarded, the sound of a man who had finally stopped being afraid. Elspeth clung to his hair and screamed with joy, her small body bouncing with every step he took.
This is what I almost lost. This is what I fought for. This is what I will spend the rest of me life protecting.
Rowan caught her watching and slowed, his chest heaving, his hair falling across his forehead. He crossed the grass toward her, Elspeth still perched on his shoulders, and stopped in front of the bench.
“Ye are starin’,” he said.
“I am admirin’.”
“Same thing.”
“It isnae.” Sorcha reached up and brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. “Ye are beautiful when ye laugh.”
Rowan’s eyes darkened, and she saw the heat there, the same heat that had been there since the first moment they met. “We will continue this conversation later.”
“I am countin’ on it.”
Elspeth tugged on his hair. “Da, spin me again.”
“I need to rest.”
“Da.”
“Elspeth.”
“Da.”
Rowan sighed and lifted Elspeth off his shoulders, spinning her around once before setting her on the ground. “Go find Morag.”
“But Da…”
“Go.”
Elspeth ran off toward the castle, her small figure disappearing through the doors.
Rowan lowered himself onto the bench beside Sorcha. His arm came around her shoulders, and she leaned into him, her head resting against his chest.
“I am tired,” he said.
“Ye just spent an hour runnin’ in circles.”
“An hour and a half.”
“Even worse.”
He laughed, and she felt the vibration of it in his chest. Sorcha closed her eyes and listened to his heart beat beneath her ear.
“Sorcha.”
“Aye?”
“Thank ye.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “For what?”
“For stayin’.” His voice was soft, barely a whisper. “For choosin’ me.”
“Ye always deserved one.” She reached up and cupped his cheek in her palm. “Ye just didnae ken it.”
He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her palm, and she felt the warmth of it spread through her like honey.
“I love ye,” he said.
“I love ye too.”
They sat there in the fading light, her belly heavy with their child, his arm warm around her shoulders, and watched the sun set over the castle that had become their home.
Sorcha smiled, because she had never been happier.
The End?