by L. L. Muir
He put as much passion into that kiss as he had the last, and she chided herself for not questioning him before, when he’d been so passionate about the battle he’d been describing. Of course he’d been there. He knew the face of Barrel because he’d seen it in real life.
She’d forgotten to breathe again and felt the dizziness creep up on her. She broke the kiss and gulped some fast deep breaths, believing he wouldn’t stop kissing her until the witch dragged him out of the house.
Soni cleared her throat. “Dougal, for pity’s sake. Give the lass more than just a kiss to remember ye by. Have ye a token of some sort?”
Dougal straightened and pecked her lips one last time before he opened the pouch hanging in front of his kilt and felt inside. He glanced at Soni with a look of devastation.
The witch rolled her eyes. “In the work shed, perhaps?”
“Oh!” he barked. “Come with me!” He dragged Hannah out of the kitchen, across the rear driveway, and into the shed.
The open door allowed in plenty of light, but it took a second or two for her eyes to adjust. She watched as he approached a tarp covering something at the base of the steps that led to her loft. The frames were propped against the wall to her left, so it couldn’t be them. And whatever was under the tarp was bigger than all those put together.
“What is it?”
“I hope ye like it, lass. It is in dire need of smoothing and sanding, but I had to put it all together for fear Soni would arrive before I could polish it.”
He sucked in his lower lip, grabbed the middle of the tarp, and lifted it.
Hannah stepped forward to see it better. She knew it in a heartbeat. “Auld Chair!”
Dougal smiled from ear to ear. “Of course, it will need white paint as well, but I built it as close to the wee painting as I could. I finished it bit by bit, each time I brought a box from the attic. I put it here, by the stairs, in case I was taken away before I could show ye.”
She threw herself into his arms again and squeezed just as hard as she could. “There has to be some way to keep you. Please don’t go.”
He set her on her feet and took a hold of her face, then furiously kissed every inch of it. “I am sorry, love. I’d like nothing more than to stay with ye, and grow old with ye, and watch the paint on Auld Chair age and wear away. But I made a promise and I will keep it. I’m a Cameron, after all.”
“And a MacSorlie,” she whispered, trying to stay brave, trying not to cry, and failing epically.
“Aye, lass. And a MacSorlie.” Soni stepped inside and Dougal touched the sash of plaid over his chest and looked at her, asking some silent question.
“Go ahead, Dougal. I can give ye but a moment more.”
He shook his head. “It would be selfish, surely. I should let her live her life as if I’d never been here.”
Hannah grabbed his hands. “What are you talking about?”
“He wishes to give ye his name,” Soni said. She wiped a tear from her cheek. “But he will not be back, Hannah. So tell him yea or nay.”
She smiled up at her handsome Highlander. There was no use deliberating. Her mind had been pushed aside and her heart was ruling her now. She nodded. “Yes.”
Silently, she prayed they would wake up on the red couch again, all of it a dream—he’d be just a regular guy, mortal and staying that way—even if it meant no painting in her attic waiting to change her life.
Dougal kissed her briefly, grasped her left hand in his left, then wound the long end of his sash around their entwined hands. She grinned at him while he recited something long and poetic-sounding in Gaelic. The way he spoke, with his eyes searching hers, and the emotion in his voice, she could almost guess what he was saying.
When he fell silent again, he unwrapped their hands and kissed her tenderly.
“Forgive me, lass. There are no papers, no license, aye?”
She shrugged. I’ll change my name. When I wake up tomorrow and convince myself that all of this really happened, I’ll have my name changed. But to what? MacSorlie, or Cameron?
“Mrs. Dougal Cameron. And tomorrow, when ye wake, ye’ll have the proof of the painting, aye?”
She nodded.
He stepped back and she whimpered.
“Hannah?”
She swallowed hard. “What?”
“Dinna leave that painting out for Donny or Zilla to find, aye?”
“I won’t.”
He took another step back and she thought her heart was going to explode. Inside, all her voices were screaming at her not to let go of his hands.
“First thing tomorrow, love, ye start looking for that dog.”
Love. The word was like a small metal arrow shot into her chest.
“Dog. Got it.”
“And friends, lass. Ye need to find some friends. I’ll not have my wife be lonely, aye?”
“Friends. Okay.” He stepped back again, and she followed.
He shook his head. “Where I go, lass, ye canna come. At least not for a great long while.” He pulled his hands from her grasp. “But I’ll come back for ye when it’s time, Hannah Cameron. So dinna forget my face.”
“Never.”
Soni stepped up and took Dougal’s arm. “Perhaps ye should hurry to the house, Hannah. Get yer phone and I’ll take yer picture together.”
Dougal nodded. “A grand idea.”
Hannah took one long look at him through a sheen of tears, then did as they suggested. Like a robot, she walked to the house, found her phone on the kitchen counter, and walked quickly back to the shed.
The only thing waiting for her was Auld Chair, sitting in a beam of light from the doorway. But she’d known. She’d known.
Without thinking, she went to the workbench, found a rough piece of sandpaper, and knelt down in front of the greatest gift anyone had ever given her. Her heart.
The chair, the house, love. He’d handed them to her, insisting that her soul, her art, was not enough to sustain life. She needed heart too.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The wink from Soni told Dougal there was no time for picture-taking. But sending the lass on an errand seemed the least painful way of leaving her. There would be no clinging, no greetin’. Just silent, stoic hearts breaking like so much glass inside a delicate frame.
And she’d known. She’d known.
His heart was still heavy as a cannon ball when his feet met the smooth cobblestones of an unfamiliar castle. A dark loch shifted beneath a gray Scottish sky on the far side of the outer wall. The distant shore was hidden in a thick mist. They might have been anywhere.
Soni stood beside him, waiting patiently.
“What do we here, lass?”
She took a deep breath. When her gaze met his, anticipation and fear looked back at him. “I’ll tell ye the honest truth, Dougal. Ye’re the first I’ve ever brought here. The first to ever come this far.”
“And where is here?” Did she require something more heroic from him than leaving Hannah behind?
Soni nodded toward a tower door. “Go, Dougal. And see. And, coward that I am, I shall wait here.”
It bothered him to see his confident lass so nervous. But it seemed there would be no relief for her unless he did as she’d bidden. If there be some sort of dragon inside, metaphoric or otherwise, he would deal with it, so he could exact his revenge while he still had a taste for it.
Thanks to Hannah, he’d nearly forgotten his purpose. But the painting had rekindled his wrath, his need for justice. If slaying dragons would balance those scales again, so be it.
As he neared the door, his hands moved naturally to where his weapons had once been, and he found his hands filled with the familiar hilt of sword and dagger. The weight of his small targe told him the shield was also there, at his back, if he should need it.
Like gifts from Greek gods.
“Thank ye,” he whispered to his wee witch, though she was far too distant to hear him.
The tower held a spiral staircase. The steps
leading up were barred by a heavy chain draped across the opening. Rust and moss in the links promised none had trespassed there for a great while. So he turned to his left and descended.
The triangular steps were far too small for his long feet, so he had to step sideways. Since this exposed his vulnerable side, he swung the targe from his back and covered his left arm with it. With his right hand, he pulled his sword free, and armed thusly, he proceeded. An opening appeared, but since it opened onto a wide stone balcony overlooking the loch, he continued down another two full turns.
Torches lit a generous room with arched ceilings. Nothing stirred but the flames. Darkened archways led off in three directions. More torches lit a fourth and the narrow hallway beyond. With stealthy steps, he followed it for ten feet before it turned to the right.
The next walkway had a wall of stone on his left, and on his right, a low handrail of wrought iron. He peered over the edge and sensed…something…far below.
A cold shiver ran down his spine and into his stomach. He wanted to retch, he was that sickened by whatever awaited.
Suddenly, a thick green mist billowed around him like smoke from a noxious fire. And though he covered his mouth with his sleeve, he had no trouble breathing.
Green mist. Witch’s mist. It was there to protect him. Once again, he whispered his thanks to Soni and continued.
The walkway turned to the right again. The handrail remained constant, the path sloped downward. He turned twice more until he suddenly emerged into the center of the large, twenty foot square created by the walkways. A single torch burned against the wall to his right.
He braced himself for an attack by the demon, or whatever monster lived there. But again, nothing came.
Four iron gates lined the wall to the left with dark cells behind. Dougal faced them, sword raised. At the sound of his boot pivoting against the stone floor, something shifted in the darkness.
A pretty face moved into the light. “Oh, thank heavens you’ve come!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
No amount of preparation could have readied Dougal for the sight of that face, so there was no need to blame Soni for not warning him. No matter how many times he’d imagined this meeting, there was something undeniably shocking about coming face to face with royalty.
Yes. He knew that face. It haunted the inside of the Great Visitor’s Center on the grounds of Culloden, and though few of the 79 ventured inside, Dougal had. Many times. And in spite of his name, and the portraits, it was still a surprise to see just how bonny was Bonnie Prince Charlie.
The centuries and the bitterness made no matter. Dougal’s sword arm swept to the side and he bowed. “Yer Majesty.”
The prince moved up next to the bars, his uniform no different than the glimpse Dougal had seen of it on display. He was taken aback by the size of him—not much bigger than Soni.
“And you are?”
Dougal inclined his head. “Dougal Cameron, of the MacSorlies, Yer Grace.”
The prince’s face lightened with relief. “Of course! Clan Cameron has come to my rescue yet again. Now…” He stepped back from the gate. “Let us leave this place.”
Dougal took a step and stopped. He’d nearly forgotten his reasons for coming. And he certainly wasn’t interested in freeing the prince if someone ordained his soul should be imprisoned there.
But he didn’t look like a spirit at all.
“Beg pardon, Yer Highness.”
The man grunted with impatience. “Can’t your questions wait until we’re above ground at least?” He waved at the bars before him. “Have you a key?”
The inflection to his speech surprised Dougal. Granted, the man hadn’t been raised on an island in the Orkneys, but still, he expected to feel some fraction of kinship with his leader. As it was, he might as well have been Louis XV, the King of France. In any case, the sound of his French accent served to dissolve any lingering intimidation.
“I haven’t a key. And I have no intention of releasing ye.”
Charlie’s white gloves gripped the bars. “But you must. Something is amiss, I say. My captors cannot know who I am, surely. Go to them. Tell them. I cannot be left here in the darkness, abandoned like some—”
“Like some wounded soldier on the field? With his leader fleeing before the fight has ended? Left to stand in the face of artillery fire, blown to pieces because that same leader refused to give the order to charge?”
Charlie’s nose went up in the air and the white gloves fell away. “Guard! Guard!”
“What’s that, Charlie? Ye’re calling yer enemy to capture yer rescuer?” Dougal shook his head and tisked. “Another betrayal, Yer Highness? Know ye no shame?” He glanced over at the large hole in the floor, in what looked to be a fireplace. But he knew what it was. And Charlie would know too. So he pointed. “Perhaps a little while in the oubliette might help ye repent, aye?”
The man shrank back even farther. “Guard! Au secours!”
Slow footsteps echoed around the square, growing louder but no faster. Dougal raised his sword before him and waited. Truly, there was not much he feared. He’d agreed to move on to the next life as soon as his meeting with Charlie was over. And he’d suffered death once before. A bit of mortal pain didn’t frighten him.
He was no fool, however, and prepared for the worst. If Hanoverians, or their spirits, overran the place, it only meant a bit of sport before Soni collected him again.
Tap…tap…tap.
The prince whimpered. A dark form paused at the top of the last length of walkway and peered over the rail. “You called, Your Highness?”
Scottish? English? It was difficult to say.
Dougal realized his protective green mist had disappeared. He was on his own against this one.
The man made his way down the ramp and into the room and nodded at Dougal. “Cameron?”
“Aye.”
The man nodded. “Are you finished with him yet?”
Dougal grinned at the prince. “No’ quite.”
“Would you like the key?”
Dougal considered it, then shook his head.
“All right then. I’m not far.” The dark man never looked at the prisoner and strode back up the ramps. When the prince protested, he only laughed. The green mist rose and swirled around the room again, faster now, as if impatient to be gone. Dougal had no idea why it stayed, but it was a comfort.
With no other alternative, Charles Stuart turned his petition to Dougal.
“Cameron, please. Help me. You believed in me once. You fought to put the Stuarts back on the throne where we belonged. Won’t you fight for me now? Mm?”
Dougal scoffed. “I died for ye once. Gave ye my blood. I’ll give ye no more.”
Full of bitterness, his stomach turned, and he longed to purge it from his body, from his heart. Besides, his Hannah resided there, and bitterness had no place with her.
“I’m no’ ashamed of my loyalty,” he continued, “nor my passion for the cause. I am dead certain most of my comrades in arms, both dead and undead, still believe our cause was just. We believed the Stuart line belonged on the throne. But after so many years, watching so many soldiers fall, in all manner of wars, it is my conviction that a drop of royal blood is worth no more than a drop of mine.
If ye’d been as keen to protect my life as I was to protect yers, perhaps ye would have been more particular about the site of the battle. Ye would have made certain we had ground beneath our feet for the Highland Charge. Ye wouldn’t have allowed that wild goose chase, the night before, when we were already cold and hungry and bone-weary.”
The prince had retreated to the rear of his cell. Nothing was visible but his wide eyes.
“But yer biggest sin of all, against all of us, was to order us to turn tail and retreat from England, on the word of one man. One man, damn ye!”
Dougal spit in the prince’s direction.
“We died for a cause. But we also died for a fool. And I’ll not waste another moment on
ye. I pity ye, Charles Stuart. May God have mercy on yer soul.”
And with that, Dougal left the prince and the dungeon behind. And as he climbed the ramps that led up out of the bowels of despair, he felt the long-borne burden of vengeance fall away from him.
The green mist faded into nothing as he approached the dark man standing at the top of the walkway. The fellow was dressed in such dark clothing he might have been standing in that same spot when Dougal descended.
“I’m finished with him,” he said.
The dark man nodded.
Dougal lingered. “How long will ye keep him here?”
“No telling,” the other man said. “Many others intend to come.”
Dougal grinned. “If ye wouldna mind, I think the prince would like to know it. It will give him much to think on while he waits, I reckon.”
The dark man smiled to one side. “As ye wish.”
Dougal nodded and stepped to the archway and the short hallway beyond, but a hand stopped him.
“You did well, Cameron.”
“I did?”
“Aye. Your kindness to Charles Stuart will speak well for you, I believe.” He released Dougal’s arm. “Godspeed.”
His mind reeling, Dougal wandered down the hallway, through the large room of torches, and started up the spiral staircase. Had he been kind? He’d been more respectful than he’d planned to be, but that was all. And only a moment before, he’d suggested the jailer strike a bit of unkind anticipation into the prince’s heart.
Why did the man believe Dougal had shown the prince a kindness?
“May God have mercy on yer soul.”
Soni beamed at him from across a stretch of rain-soaked cobblestones, pleased with her quick wit, throwing his own words back at him. It had to have been those words, and his pity, that may have seemed kind. But it no longer signified. It only mattered that it was over.
When he reached her side, Soni’s cheeks were as wet as the cobbles, but he doubted it was from the fine Scottish weather. “Ye’ve done well, my friend,” she said, then rose on her toes to kiss his cheek.