‘Is that true?’
He closed his eyes, holding back tears. ‘No. When I couldn’t find you on the beach was much worse.’
He gathered her into his arms, burying his face in what remained of her hair and clutching her tightly against him as the memories of the footprints on sand came flooding back, turning his stomach to acid. He wanted to hold her like this for ever, never letting her out of his sight until he stopped trembling at the thought of her being taken from him. He was not sure that day would ever come.
‘I thought you had died, Maggie. I wanted to die myself.’
Marguerite wriggled and he feared she was trying to break away from him, but she only moved until she was able to slip her arms around his back.
‘You care that much?’ she asked.
‘More than I can say in your language. More than I can express in mine. If I said you could stay as long as I wished, you would never see France again.’
‘Then ask me.’
His pulse hammered, drowning out the distant pipes and drums. He asked not the question he wanted to, but the question that plagued him.
‘Why do you want to stay? You’ve made it clear you hate Scotland.’
‘Because there is nothing for me in France any more and everything for me here.’ She gave him the sweetest smile he had seen in many years.
He took her hand and pressed his lips over her knuckles.
‘I’m not an expressive man, Maggie. I love you so deeply it hurts. It terrifies me that I might fail to show you or tell you. That you might think even for a day that you do not command my heart.’
‘I know that. You chose me. You defended me. You kept me safe even though I made your life a trial. When I am in your arms I feel ecstasy I never imagined could exist. I don’t want to give that up. I love you.’
She stroked a finger down Ewan’s arm, igniting fires. To think he had suggested returning her to France. He did not want to contemplate what he would have done if she had agreed. He could suppress the question no longer.
‘Will you marry me?’
The smile that filled her eyes was all the answer he needed. He seized her by the hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Come quick. While there are still witnesses.’
Hand in hand they ran through the castle gate, stopping before the largest fire.
‘Clan Lochmore, listen to me. Before you all I make this vow.’ He pulled the ribbon from the pouch at his belt, took Marguerite’s hand in his and wrapped it around them both. He lifted their joined hands for all to see.
‘I will take this woman as my wife. To have and hold and love as long as I live.’
Amid cheers he kissed her.
‘If I am with child,’ she whispered. ‘If I do...’
He put a finger to her lips, determined not to let her dwell on dark possibilities in this gladdest of times. ‘Whatever happens I will be with you. Whatever the future holds for us, we’ll face together. Always.’
Epilogue
There was grey in Marguerite’s hair. Not many strands yet, but Ewan had noticed them as she sat before the window in the morning sun and brushed it loose from her night-time plait. He didn’t care. Ewan knew there was grey in his hair and beard, too.
Now, at sunset, it was more evident as they strolled arm in arm through the grounds of Lochmore Castle. Ewan wondered if she had noticed, but wisdom and long experience as a husband, and father to daughters, told him not to mention any faults. It was a balmy August evening with a sky of burnished bronze and copper stretching endlessly away over purple waves, warm enough that they needed no cloaks, and Ewan wanted nothing to disturb the peace of their evening walk.
‘Janie is getting larger by the day,’ Marguerite said. ‘But she’s doing well and seems cheerful. I don’t think she’ll suffer when the baby comes.’
‘Aye, Hamish picked well there,’ Ewan said. ‘Struan and Janet breed strong daughters.’
Their oldest son, Hamish, was recently married at twenty-six, almost the age now that Ewan had been when he had become Earl of Glenarris. A tall lad, Hamish had Ewan’s figure, but his mother’s eyes and temperament. Ewan felt a slight pang of sadness that old Hamish had never met the child named after him, but it passed. Ewan had no intention of dying yet, but knew that when his time came, Lochmore Castle, the lands and its tenants, would be in as capable hands under Hamish as it had proved to be under Ewan.
Marguerite put her hands on his shoulders. ‘We’ll have our first grandchild before Christmas. It scarcely seems possible!’
Her dark eyes gleamed with excitement. Their youngest child, Marie, was now eleven and considered herself too old to be babied. Marguerite would enjoy having young children to occupy her once more. Another generation of Lochmore children would sleep in the cradle Ewan had carved for Hamish. Childish voices and laughter would once again fill the courtyard and gardens where Hamish, Rory, Dominique, Margaret, Finlay and Marie had played in their younger days.
Ewan drew Marguerite close, kissing her deeply and thinking how lucky he was. She was still beautiful, with fine skin and a figure that was remarkably shapely after eight pregnancies. A little grey and lines at her eyes didn’t diminish the way Ewan’s heart leapt whenever she smiled at him. He’d sworn to love her every day and he had kept the vow with ease.
A loud expression of revulsion pulled them from the kiss. Margaret and Finlay, the twins, were walking through the new gateway from the beach path. They were fourteen years old and therefore acutely embarrassed to see their parents showing any sign of affection.
‘Get away with you.’ Ewan laughed. ‘I’m kissing your mother.’
‘Go tell Marie I shall be testing her on her scripture before bed,’ Marguerite told them. She flicked her hand in the direction of the house to dismiss them and reached for Ewan’s arm once more.
They continued their walk, intending to go through the new knot garden that Marguerite had designed and around the perimeter of the castle grounds on the route they always took, but thoughts of his father led Ewan to the old chapel. The heavy oak door had not been opened since Ewan had built a newer chapel ten years previously. Grass and weeds had grown high across the doorway. Ewan ground them down with the heel of his boot and tugged on the handle. It gave way with a creak and the door swung open with more ease than Ewan had expected.
Hand in hand, he and Marguerite made their way inside, coughing a little at the dust and musty smell they encountered. There was a puddle in one corner where a leak in the roof had sprung and birds nested in the eaves. Ewan ran his hand across the altar. It came away black with grime. Ewan hesitated at the top of the stairs before making his way down to the crypt. It was gloomy and the little daylight that followed him down the spiral struggled to gain ground in the shadows.
The wall Ewan had built to hide the desecrated tomb looked like it had always been there. Spiders had spun webs in the corners and dust had gathered along the edge of the stone floor. The plaster had faded and there were already a couple of large cracks in places. Anyone who didn’t know what lay behind it would never be able to guess there was anything there at all.
Ewan rested his palms and forehead against the cold plaster, wishing he could make his presence known to the woman lying alone for ever on the other side of the bricks. He heard footsteps on the stairs. Marguerite draw near. He was always acutely aware of her presence.
‘Did I fail him, Maggie?’ he asked. ‘Should I have searched harder or insisted Donald McCrieff told me where they’d taken him?’
Marguerite slipped her arms about Ewan’s waist. She leaned against his back, kissing him lightly behind the ear, and sent a shiver of lust through him.
‘Short of ransacking every building on McCrieff land and tearing them down brick by brick you did everything you could. Would Rory have wanted you to spend your life searching for him? Would either of them?’
He shook
his head slightly. Marguerite was right. Who would he have asked anyway? Malcolm McCrieff had been dead and buried seventeen years now. Donald had become Earl, but spent most of his time drunk, gambling and whoring by all accounts. Duncan had been tried as a spy and executed. Ewan doubted any McCrieff descendent would care about a missing Lochmore.
‘Were we wrong not to tell Hamish about this?’
‘So our son could spend his life wondering?’ Marguerite slipped around him, beneath his arm until she stood between him and the wall. She put her hands to his cheeks, pulling his head round so he was looking deep into her eyes. ‘No. You made the decision that you were going to live for the future, not dwell on the past. Don’t regret that now.’
Ewan looked into her eyes. In the shadows they were blacker than ever, her face white against the plaster. Ewan was struck by the memory of when he had first seen her and thought her to be a spirit, but as always she was alluring and loving and available. He had chosen saving her over finding Rory and he did not regret that for a moment. He wondered if Rory had loved his Ailsa as deeply as he loved Marguerite.
‘You’re right. Perhaps one day someone will find him and he’ll be at peace, but it won’t be us.’
He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. Marguerite pressed herself against him, bodies touching from hip to chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck. Ewan ran a finger lightly up her back, enjoying the way she wriggled beneath his touch. Even after almost thirty years of marriage he still found her irresistible.
Her deft fingers began teasing the points that attached his doublet to the top of his hose, running her fingers over the tips of the laces. Ewan felt mounting excitement beginning to grow within him. If her fingers worked their way beneath his clothing any further he would lose all control and he found himself longing for the past when he could roam around in brat and leine that could be pushed aside in a heartbeat.
‘Let’s go,’ he murmured, dipping his head closer to her ear to whisper in it. ‘It’s getting cold down here and I’m far too respectable to think of swiving my wife up against a wall under the gaze of my ancestors when we have a warm mattress inside.’
Marguerite’s eyes gleamed and she gave him a wide smile full of promise. She tugged one more point loose, then withdrew her hand from Ewan’s waist, brushing it over his chest.
‘Very well, my love. But I shall warn you, I’ve grown very cold down here and I will need a lot of warming up.’
Giggling like a pair of new lovers, they ran up the staircase, hands roving over each other. It was unseemly behaviour for a man past fifty, and their children would be mortified if they witnessed it, but Ewan didn’t care. They paused briefly to ensure the door to the chapel was firmly closed, then hurried back home.
They did not look back even once.
* * *
If you enjoyed this story
be sure to read the other books in
The Lochmore Legacy miniseries
His Convenient Highland Wedding
by Janice Preston
Unlaced by the Highland Duke
by Lara Temple
And don’t miss the final book
Secrets of a Highland Warrior
by Nicole Locke
Keep reading on for an excerpt from An Earl for the Shy Widow by Ann Lethbridge.
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An Earl for the Shy Widow
by Ann Lethbridge
Chapter One
September 1813
Autumn sunlight flooded into the tiny drawing room at Westram Cottage. Lady Petra strode to the window. Beneath a blue sky, a slight breeze stirred the leaves of a nearby oak tree and nodded the heads of the red roses along the path to the front door. A perfect afternoon for a ride, if one had a horse.
She sighed and wandered back to her chair. She picked up the embroidery she’d been working on a few moments before. A handkerchief for her brother Red, the Earl of Westram. So boring. She cast it aside and got up to straighten the portrait of her mother on the opposite wall.
‘Petra,’ her older sister, Lady Marguerite Saxby, said, ‘please stop pacing. You are making me dizzy.’
Remorseful, Petra spun around. ‘I am sorry. I did not mean to disturb you.’
Auburn haired and green eyed, Marguerite was seated at the table going through her correspondence. As usual, her luxuriant tresses were pinned back severely beneath her widow’s cap. Although she returned Petra’s smile, there was sadness in her eyes. Marguerite hadn’t looked anything but sad since she was widowed.
Did Petra have that same look? She strode to the glass over the mantel and peered at her reflection. Unlike her older siblings, she took after her mother with blonde hair and blue eyes. Did she also look sad?
She closed her eyes against her reflection, unwilling to admit to sadness. Yet perhaps she could acknowledge regret. After all, it was partly her fault that she and Harry had had such a blazing row.
She had been so happy for the first few months of her marriage. It had come as a painful shock to realise that Harry, already bored with his brand-new wife, was seeking his entertainments elsewhere. If she’d been a proper tonnish wife and simply ignored his infidelities, brushed it off as something every fashionable husband did, things would have turned out very differently. But it had hurt so much, she could not remain silent. And the more she complained, the worse he behaved until, during their last argument, she’d accused him of not loving her any more. He’d shouted back that he had never loved her and had only married her because his father insisted on it.
He’d said she was a stupid little girl who had ruined his life.
The pain had left her speechless.
The next thing she knew he had stormed off to fight the French. Worse yet was him taking her brother and her brother-in-law with him. Not only had Harry broken her heart, but her stupid naivety had cost her sisters their husbands.
She turned away from the glass.
‘Do you not have mending to do?’ Marguerite asked.
‘All done.’
‘What about the garden? Doesn’t it need attention?’
Petra shook her head. ‘Every time I pick up a shovel or pull a weed, Jeb leaps in to take over. Red seems to have given him very definite ideas about what a lady should or should not do. Honestly, I miss making hats.’
‘Make one for yourself,’ Marguerite suggested.
‘It is not the same. Besides, I have more hats than I need. I feel so useless.’
Earning an income from their fledgling millinery business had been thrilling, until their brother Red had put a stop to it. He had been horrified to discover his sisters were engaging in trade.
They still received some income from the hats Marguerite designed, but the manufacturing had been handed over to the new owner when they sold the business. Ladies of quality did not enter into the world of commerce.
Marguerite scanned the next letter in her pile. ‘Carrie sends her love and says the dog Avery bought her will have a litter of puppies at the end of November, and would we like one?’
‘How adorable. Tell her yes.’
Marguerite nodded. ‘It would be good for you to have company on your walks. A dog would be just the thing.’
Petra joined her at the table to read over her shoulder. ‘She does not say what sort of breed they are? Hopefully, not too large.’
‘I will ask her when I reply. You are right. We do not want anything too big.’ She set the letter aside and picked up the next one.
Petra wandered over to the sofa and glanced down at her fingers, rubbing the calluses she’d earned from their millinery efforts. They were already disappearing.
A great many things had changed in the past few months. Their widowed sister-in-law, Carrie, was married, and happily so, while Petra and Marguerite continued to go against their brother’s wishes and maintain their independence. Neither of them wanted to marry again. Once was enough for Petra, certainly. In her experience, men promised you the moon to get what they wanted, then did exactly as they pleased. She had been little more than a child with stars in her eyes when she married Harry. How hurt she had been to discover he’d only married her because his father had wanted the connection to nobility. She certainly wasn’t going to make that sort of mistake again.
Marguerite gasped, ‘The Thrumbys have sold the business.’
‘What?’ Petra hurried to look over Marguerite’s shoulder.
A Runaway Bride for the Highlander Page 24