by Aileen Adams
“And when the lads arrived, they saw the men preparing for what appeared to be a war,” Jake mused. “I can imagine it was a surprise.”
“A shock, more like. Now, the lads were fools, there is no doubting that. But I believe they were misled.” Donnan looked from one of them to the other. “What of the ones locked away along with Fenella? Has anything been said of them?”
“There has been word of a few returning home,” Jake assured him. “It seems they escaped without harm.”
“Fenella will be glad to hear it. She was unhappy with me for not bringing the lot along with us.” Donnan paused. “I am glad to hear it, as well.”
It was not in his nature to express himself in such a manner, but he knew he would need to become better at it if there was a chance of happiness with Fenella. Time would tell how much easier it would become.
“I’m certain that every one of them would wish to thank ye for freeing them, and for killing the man who locked them away,” Phillip observed.
“I dinna think I have the energy to pay a call on every one of them.” Donnan chuckled, while in the back of his mind he hoped they would not take it into their heads to pay a call on him. He’d raised his hood that night, and that along with the darkness had shielded his face.
If they saw him in daylight, they would certainly wish they had never met him.
Time would tell how much easier it would be to trust people, as well.
Phillip and Jake certainly did not seem to mind his scar. In fact, no one in the household had so much as shown curiosity throughout the fortnight he and Fenella had been guests. He had come into contact with an entire household full of workers, along with many of the men who worked outside and around the manor house.
Jake must have warned them, he supposed.
He could almost forget about his face when everyone he passed in the corridor, out in the courtyard, along the way to the great hall to eat supper, treated him as they treated anyone else.
“Do ye think this is truly the end of the troubles with the Camerons?” he asked.
The brothers looked at each other, brows raised. “We shall see,” Phillip said with a shrug. “I am uncertain what life would be without the possible threat of a Cameron plot hanging over my head every day. It would be akin to finding out the sun will never rise again, I imagine.”
“One cousin or another will take control,” Jake predicted. “Would that they all kill one another off as they struggle among themselves.”
“Another laird would use the tumult as an opportunity to grasp more land for his clan,” Donnan suggested.
“I am not another laird,” Phillip informed him, not unkindly. “We have thrived with what we have—so much so that others want it for themselves. I will not tear my clan apart thanks to greed; that can be left to the likes of the Camerons and their ilk.”
With that, he grew even larger in Donnan’s esteem.
“Ye have a keen mind,” Jake observed. “I believe you’ll make a fine leader of Clan Ross.”
“I am not certain I ever imagined myself in such a position,” he admitted. “I always thought… I suppose I always imagined my father would live always, and I could do as I wished. That does not seem to be the case.”
“I have heard nothing of him, if it eases your mind at all,” Phillip murmured. “I would have received word by now if he had succumbed.”
“Thank ye, that does ease my mind.” Though he continued to worry, for what if a messenger was on the road at that very minute, carrying news of Clyde Ross’s death?
It would do no good to torment himself. He would simply have to find out when he arrived whether his father was still among the living.
Which reminded him of the last reason he’d wished to speak to the brothers that morning. “We had best be leaving ye now,” he reported with a sigh. “We have taken advantage of your generosity long enough, and I intend to do whatever I can to repay ye.”
“As we have already reminded ye and Fenella both, it is we who owed the two of ye.” Phillip smiled. “I consider the accounts even now. While ye could have returned to your home, ye came here to warn us and offer your sword in the fight. It isn’t every man who would do such a thing.”
“Just the same, there is only so much a man can take from another man,” Donnan insisted. “And I do wish to return to my father, if he is still alive. It would do him well to know the land would not be deserted on his death.”
“Ye do not believe your brother returned, then?” Jake asked. They had already spoken of him in vague terms after Donnan had observed how unlike he and Ewan were when compared to the Duncan brothers.
It was not easy for him to imagine working alongside his brother for something greater than themselves. Something lasting, as what the Duncans had built would last for generations.
“I canna imagine he would have,” Donnan sighed. “He returned to his friends, like as not. It would have been better if we had never seen him on the road.”
“Och, but then he would not have known ye lived,” Phillip observed. “I would wish to know that Jake had survived.”
While he was certain this was true, it did Donnan little good to know his younger brother was a common, vile thief on the side of a road. He may have already fallen at the hands of an armed man unwilling to part with his goods, and no one would ever be the wiser.
His brother might already lie dead somewhere, with no one to mourn him or even care for his body.
It would have been better had they never crossed paths. Ewan did not deserve to know his brother had survived.
“Are ye certain ye can make the journey?” Donnan placed a hand on Fenella’s leg, looking up to where she already sat in the saddle.
“I’ve told ye a hundred times, Donnan Ross. I am more than ready, and I feel stronger than I ever have.”
“Pardon me if I find it difficult to believe ye now, after what ye already told me when we know ye were terribly ill,” he grumbled as he mounted his horse.
“Ye will simply have to believe me,” she retorted with a scowl. “If I did not believe myself capable of riding, I would tell ye.”
This did not ease him at all, as she knew how he longed to be home. She had already proven how dishonest she was capable of being when it meant his wellbeing.
Fenella caught his eye and must have noted his scowl. “We must learn to trust each other,” she whispered. “I trust that ye feel strong enough to ride, and that your wound does not pain ye overmuch. I trust that if ye do feel too much pain, ye will stop and tell me of it.”
He would also need to learn to trust her, not only the rest of the world. It was enough to make him grit his teeth and in his madder moments wish for solitude once again.
Yet was it better to be alone? Lying there, looking at the stars, asking himself what his life might have been had he not gone to war?
“Very well, then,” he grunted as they started off. “I shall trust ye.”
She gasped, her eyelids fluttering in jest.
“If ye do that again, we shall have a problem,” he growled… even as he smiled inside, for while she somehow managed to rub all his rough edges with her quick-witted ways and her even quicker temper, she made him feel lighter and happier than he’d ever been.
A worthwhile trade-off, in his estimation.
The Grampians loomed behind them as they walked the horses away from Phillip Duncan’s manor house, a pack of Sarah’s tonics and tinctures tucked in behind Fenella, warnings, and admonitions still fresh in both their ears.
Before them, forests of pine and spruce as far as the eye could see, all set upon the background of a sky lightening as the sun rose.
They were going home.
29
The first thing Donnan noticed upon turning the bend in the road which came up just before the approach to his father’s land was the pair of men working on replacing stones in the waist-high wall which bordered it.
“What is this?” he muttered, casting a glance at Fenella,
who bit her lip as she frowned.
“Perhaps your father was able to take on a few workers after Da paid Ewan’s debt?” she suggested.
“How could he have done it before we returned?” Donnan asked. “Would he not wish to wait until I brought ye back safely?”
The apprehension which had eaten at his mind all morning, ever since they’d set out knowing they would reach Ross land by evening, now tied his stomach in knots. Fenella joined him in bringing the horses up to a trot.
“What goes on here?” he asked when he reached the men, then looked toward the house and all but fell from the saddle.
The workers cleared their throats, shifting from one foot to the other. Whether they knew who he was thanks to his scar or no, he clearly had a terrible effect on them.
Fenella saved all three of them. “Who are ye? Who asked ye to work on the wall?”
“Himself.” One of them pointed to the house.
“Clyde Ross?” Donnan breathed.
“Nay. Ewan Ross.”
Again, the world tilted. He could no longer linger there, asking questions. Fenella followed, the two of them galloping across the neat, thick grass which had been knee-high the last time Donnan saw it.
Two more men worked at replacing the fallen stones in the footbridge, and a trio of lads carried buckets from the barn. Milk sloshed from over the tops, splashing onto the ground.
If Donnan did not know better, he would have wagered himself in a dream. But Fenella looked just as awed as he as the two of them dismounted and went into the house through the open kitchen door.
She took his hand just before they stepped inside, and he could have kissed her for it.
Cook stood in front of the hearth, removing two loaves of bread which she nearly dropped to the floor at the sight of them. “You’ve returned!” she cried out, then burst into tears.
Donnan glanced around the kitchen, noticing a lass in the process of cutting potatoes. She turned her face away when their eyes met, but he could not bring himself to care, not when there was so much else to care about.
“What is this?” he demanded. “What has happened since I left?”
“So many things!” Cook stunned him then by embracing him, her tears dampening his tunic. She then turned her affection onto Fenella, who accepted the gesture with more grace than he was capable of at the moment.
“Such as? Out with it!”
Fenella smoothed things over, as she was wont to do. “This is quite a surprise. No one told us of these changes.”
“He came home!” Cook wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron, laughing and crying all at once. “He came home. And your father, Fenella, they’ve worked together to bring everything back.”
He could not believe it. “Ewan came home? What of my Da? Where is he?”
The older woman’s smile faded. “He is very unwell. Grievously so.”
“But he lives?” Donnan’s hands curled into fists as he came very near shaking the woman for taking so long to tell her tale.
“Aye, he lives!” she beamed.
He was out of the kitchen in a heartbeat, barreling through the house and up the stairs to his father’s bedchamber.
On first glance, it was clear that Cook did not overstate the man’s condition. He had withered even further since they last saw each other. He seemed little more than a bag of bones beneath the blankets, his gray-tufted head resting against a feather pillow.
The man sitting at his bedside jumped to his feet.
The two of them stared at each other for a moment before they embraced.
“Why did ye not tell me ye were going home?” Donnan asked, emotion all but overwhelming him as he pounded a hand against his brother’s back.
“I could not wait until morning,” Ewan explained, holding Donnan at arm’s length. “We had word of what ye did, how ye were wounded. I didna think to see ye so soon.”
“I didna think to see ye at all!” Donnan laughed, relieved and still confused by what he’d seen up to then. “What happened here? I never thought I would see such progress.”
They sat together at Clyde’s bedside, their father sleeping through this. Even with the man looking as though every breath could be his last, the fact that the three of them were together again was beyond Donnan’s wildest dreams.
“When I arrived, Da and I had words,” Ewan began, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, a rueful grin spreading over his face. “Nothing I did not deserve. I know this. There was time to think it all over as I rode here.”
He looked at their father, sighing. “We came to an understanding. I told him of seeing ye, then rode out to speak to Aleck Gordon. He saw to the settling of my debts, then offered additional assistance in bringing this place back to its former state.”
“Why would he do such a thing?” Donnan asked, both grateful and suspicious. He had never held Fenella’s father in anything but the highest regard, but no man offered something for nothing in return. Not a man as shrewd as he.
Ewan tried in vain not to grin.
“What are ye not telling me?” Donnan demanded.
“He offered it as a wedding gift to the pair of ye.”
“He what?” Donnan was out of his chair before the words were out of his mouth.
“Calm yourself, man,” Ewan hissed, pulling his brother into the chair once again. “I told him I had seen ye, and that ye seemed to be getting on well. He told me how well he’d always thought of ye, and how he’d wished in the last year or more that ye had survived the war. He had always thought of ye marrying Fenella.”
“He had?”
“Aye. I canna imagine why, of course.”
Donnan scowled. “Did he ever question what Fenella would think of this?”
“Even a father with no woman to open his eyes to certain things sees when his daughter is in love, and he knew she was always in love with ye. As did I. Are ye the only one who didna know?”
Donnan slapped him upside the head. “Enough of that.”
“I take it things went well for the two of ye?” Ewan asked.
Donnan heaved a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “She detests me. Has not spoken to me in a week or more. If she had not been afraid to ride alone, she would have abandoned me long ago.”
Ewan stared at him, mouth open.
He could pretend no longer. “I asked her to marry me, and she said she would.”
A small voice from the bed. “She did? Ye shall be wed?”
Donnan stood, leaning over his father. The man’s smile touched a place in his heart that not even Fenella could. “Aye, Da. We’re to be wed. If Aleck consents, of course. I wish to speak to him about it.”
“He will… consent.” Clyde’s thin hand patted his own. “It makes me very glad, my son. Very glad to see our clans united.”
Ewan joined them on the other side of the bed, and Clyde turned his head to gaze upon him.
“My sons. Together again. It does my heart good.”
He sounded so tired. It would be a blessing for him to have his rest, Donnan thought, though the idea of his father no longer living was still something he could scarcely accept. He had spent days considering the world without Clyde Ross in it and was still unable to imagine it.
He would have no choice soon. Very soon.
“We shall work together,” Ewan murmured, looking at Donnan as he spoke to their father. “We shall right the wrongs I did ye. Ye have my vow, Da.”
“And mine as well,” Donnan added. “We shall build what ye left for us, and the Ross name will carry on with my children.”
Clyde’s smile reminded Donnan of a happy child. A child without care, with nothing whatsoever to worry him.
He fell into a light slumber then, one which deepened as the day wound into the night. Frogs sang on the riverbank, grasshoppers chirped. Fenella waited in the kitchen with her father, who had come the moment he heard of their return.
Donnan could hear their voices downstairs, not clear enough to make out their words
, but the murmuring was pleasant when combined with the night noises from outside.
“And I wished to wait,” he whispered half to himself from his chair at his father’s bedside. “I told her we didna need to leave so soon, if she needed more time to regain her strength. Had we waited, I would not be here now.”
“She insisted, I suppose,” Ewan murmured.
“Aye. Of course, she did. She insists on quite a lot.”
“She shall make ye a good wife.”
“I believe she will. She is strong enough to take me as a husband, she is strong enough to make a good wife.”
“Ye are not the man ye believe ye are,” Ewan observed. “Ye see yourself as something dreadful, someone who would make a woman unhappy. Just as ye saw yourself as a coward, which ye were not. If what I heard of what took place with the Camerons is true—if half of it is true—ye are far braver than ye believed.”
“Thank ye for that.”
“And if ye are braver than ye believed, what else are ye that ye canna understand?” Ewan asked. “Ye are a better brother than I deserve, to be certain. Any other brother would have slit my throat on the road.”
“I dinna know if I would say that.”
“All right. Any other brother would have broken my arms.”
“Better,” Donnan smirked.
“Ye did not. Ye spoke to me, ye tried to make me understand what I had done, and what I needed to do to make up for it. No other man in the world could have spoken to me that way and made me understand, but ye did.”
He looked out the window, over Donnan’s shoulder. “It was not me, what I did on the road. With those men. Would that I had never met them. I needed to survive, and they needed another man in their group. It worked well at first. But I could not stop thinking about the people we left behind. Fenella said something about that, did she not?”