The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

by Joanne Bischof

  “And—and that one?” Meg removed her hand from his, pointing at the cross marking her own name. Jimmy drew closer to them.

  “Ian Campbell swore he would take you, alive or dead. Some of the villagers saw you go with the summer walkers and knew you lived…but they buried any hope Campbell had of you there in that grave. Said it was the only way to set you free. ’Twas you they rang the bell for that night.”

  Twenty-two hollow clangs of that bell, rolling over the hills and reaching her ears in the darkness that night. Never suspecting it was her own death they marked.

  Meg released a breath. “So this grave…is empty.”

  The hesitation was enough to tell her otherwise.

  She swallowed. “Tell me.”

  “Many were lost that day, Meg. Graeme was wounded. I took him to London. I knew he had friends, safety there—and when I came back, it was already done.” He hung his head. She waited. “‘Tis Mother Aila’s resting place,” he said.

  The air went out of Meg. She stepped forward, stooping before the headstone just as Mother Aila had kneeled before her that day. She traced the top edge of the marker slowly.

  “I know ’tis the family kirkyard,” Duncan began, regret in his voice.

  Meg shook her head. “‘Tis right she has a place here,” she said. “Family is more than blood.” All the wisdom and generosity the woman had poured into their lives. “I only wish she had her own stone. She deserves better.”

  Duncan clamped one of his wrists with the other hand, bowing his head in a show of respect.

  She stood, retreating to the gate. “There’s more you should know,” Duncan said. “Though Ian has proclaimed a high reward for anyone who will return to him his ‘wayward bride’ “—the words dripped with bitterness—“they have come to accept that she is gone.” He faced Meg now. “Even Graeme believed it.”

  “What? And you let him?” She pushed the gate open, threading numbly through mulching leaves toward the castle. Spiced air followed her tread, and so did Duncan, with an oddly uneven gait to his step. She stopped with the castle in view and faced him, awaiting an answer. Jimmy trailed warily behind.

  Pain swam in Duncan’s eyes. “I returned to try and bring news, let ye know he was safe. But the travelin’ folk had gone, and you with them. From the villagers, I learned ye were safe, and I’ve watched for ye ever since. I wrote to Graeme, but the letter was never delivered.”

  Jimmy was beside them now, appraising Duncan with a wary look. “And he’s in London, you say.”

  “Yes,” Duncan said. “But if we’re to catch him before he leaves, we must hurry.”

  “Where is he going? How did ye come to know?” Meg’s voice sounded too tight. Keen panic made her mind race. “Will he be back? I could write him, tell him I live. I’ll ask him to come back.”

  Duncan was shaking his head. “I had a letter from him a month past. Writing him now will take too long. And there are highwaymen on the stretches of road who steal the mail…too many ways for it to go missing and not enough time.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not enough time’?”

  A stroke of silence. “He’s bound for America, Meg.”

  America. The word hit her with the force of a boulder. Duncan continued. “He’s to stay long enough to see the governor of Edinburgh through an important political event in two weeks’ time. And then he’s to sail for the Carolinas to take on a position of leadership. They’re in need of good leaders who will not leave the people unprotected in times of attacks. Leaders who can represent the Scots people well, who know their tongue.”

  Was this what Graeme had been spared for? Survived such plunder, only to forge his way across the world and fight again? Her spirit sagged with the grief of losing him all over again. Opening her eyes once more to the warmth of the sun, she decided. “I will go.”

  Relief broke across Duncan’s face, lifting the corners of the mouth that always seemed chiseled into solemnity. She couldn’t help smiling in return. He glanced over his shoulder, where Jimmy waved an arm at him.

  “We’re goin’, too,” Jimmy said. “At least as far as the river Esk and Gretna Green. Hope ye ken what you’re signing on for, guidin’ a wild pack like us.”

  Duncan strode over and clapped Jimmy on the back. “Never did I see better travelin’ companions,” he said. “I’ll get my things and meet ye back at the camp.” Duncan dashed into the woods in the direction of his croft, a short jaunt from the castle. He ducked his tall, dark-haired form beneath a low-hanging branch and tossed a boyish dimpled grin back at Meg, one her heart caught with an odd jump.

  “Craicte,” Jimmy uttered, looking on. Meg laughed. Yes, Duncan was a bit crazy. “But I believe you are right to go, lass.”

  Meg spoke past the thickness in her throat. “D’ye think so? If I don’t get to Graeme in time, or if something happens on the way…”

  “But if you don’t miss him. If nothing happens on the way. There will always be reasons not to do something. The question is—is this what you were made to do?”

  His words stirred in her the memory of Mother Aila’s voice. She’d said something similar, and look what had happened. But could this be a second chance? To put one foot in front of another, all the way to London this time, until she brought peace, at last, to what was left of the clan?

  “If the answer is yes,”—Jimmy’s worn boots shuffled through the bracken until he faced her—“if this is what you were made to do, lass, then do it. Come what may.” He rested a hand on her shoulder. “Ye’re stronger than you think.”

  Jimmy was kind to say so. But even as Meg resisted it, her own battle cry came back to her. This one thing, I can do. A deep breath and she slipped her hand inside her dress pocket, where her last remaining scrap of tartan lay.

  Help me to hope, Lord. Help me to trust. Help me to—did she dare ask something that seemed so impossible? But God was in the habit of redeeming death, and a grave marker in the woods told her she had nothing to lose. Help me to find my brother.

  A sudden crack sounded. Meg’s eyes flew open. Crack—it sounded again, an ax head upon a tree, or something just as forceful.

  “Come,” Jimmy said and wove through a thicket of willows. Meg followed, feet carrying her over ground she knew so well she could have navigated these trees blindfolded. Men’s voices sounded now. Still Jimmy moved ahead, Meg letting her ear guide her into his quiet footsteps as she kept watch over her shoulder behind them. And when she looked ahead at last, her hand flew to her mouth to stop the wordless groan. For there, looming above them, a lone fortress yawned with want of life. Castle Cumberave.

  The urge to run burned in her muscles. To hide away from the betrayal this place held, looking down on her from those stone-framed windows like great, empty eyes.

  But the voices drew nearer, the cracking sound louder.

  And the urge to run from the castle grew stronger. Each force closed in on her. She was stuck. Caught fast in Campbell territory, a price on her very head.

  Chapter Five

  Here’s another,” a gruff voice said. “Mark it.”

  “Too young,” said a more robust voice. “They’ll be wantin’ thicker trunks for Inveraray.”

  Meg pressed her back against the cold stone wall of her former home. The overgrowth of the shrubs was a boon. She cast a furtive glance at the kitchen door to their left.

  The men spoke of Inveraray Castle—the seat of the Campbells. Suddenly she felt the price on her head as if it were a physical weight.

  The voice continued. “Such saplings wouldn’t stop a Jacobite from tumblin’ over his own feet, let alone stave off an attack.” A dry laugh. “Such as it might be, and long live the king.”

  Jimmy and Meg exchanged a look. Though the Tinkers—and Meg’s family, for that matter—did not much enter the politics around them, word was spreading of a second Jacobite rising against the monarch of the newly united Great Britain. With a king newly crowned on the throne—an outsider from Germany, of all things
—tensions were thicker than ever before, clans divided across the highlands.

  Jimmy grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the kitchen doorway, where a splintered door hung barely open on its hinges. He backed in, Meg following, fighting against the urge to get as far from this place as she could. Her sleeve caught a plank, the hinges groaning their protest. She froze.

  “What was that?” the older man said, all trace of humor gone.

  “Watch yerself,” the other said. “‘Twill be one of the MacNaughtons, come back to avenge them all.” His voice grew theatrical.

  Meg peeked outside at their kilt-clad forms, axes in hand—just in time to see the older man’s fist land a solid thwack against the younger’s arm. She pulled back, flattening herself against the cold wall behind her. Jimmy did the same. Footsteps thudded nearer and louder.

  She could not look away as a weathered wooden ax handle butted against the door. A loud groan of the hinges pierced the air—high and low, high and low as the door swung back and forth in response.

  “‘Tis a right shame,” the man said. “We could be livin’ here. Relations of himself the laird, watchin’ over the loch from its head. ‘Stead of seein’ it fall to pieces like this. If his hotheaded nephew would learn a thing or two—”

  “Stop yer gripin’,” the gravelly voice said. “We’ll be late to Campbelton if we’re not back with the boat soon. Come.”

  Meg felt ready to empty her stomach. But she took a deep breath. Mentally traced the plans of these men: south along the loch to Inveraray near their own castle, then farther still to the Irish Sea peninsula, where Campbelton perched on the edge of the loch as it turned into ocean.

  “Don’t worry, lass,” Jimmy whispered as the men’s footsteps receded into the forest. “We’ll take the high road. They’ll be on the water. We’ll not cross their path.”

  She nodded, easing herself away from the wall at last. She stood in the center of the room at the end of the thin shaft of light let in by the door and turned slowly around. Odd silhouettes within greeted her like lonely fossils. The stool she’d stood on as a girl was toppled in a corner, where once their cook’s arms had wrapped about Meg to guide her in stirring the soup. Meg had loved it down here. Always the comforting warmth of steam and spices. A stack of cobwebbed bowls, spoon still resting in the top one, seemed to greet the bride they’d been preparing a feast for when interrupted so suddenly and finally.

  What had once been her home was now one gaping tomb. She could not bear it.

  She pushed her way out into the morning daylight, the only trace of mist a few stray tendrils at her feet. Her feet carried her away from thoughts she could not revisit.

  “Wait, lass,” Jimmy said, gaining on her.

  She paused, catching her breath. She hadn’t meant to bolt. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.” He waved it off. Yet still she felt too close to the castle. “Should we help Duncan pack?” Any excuse to keep going. Jimmy gestured for her to lead on. Past the empty stables they went, down a hillside, up into Duncan’s thicket.

  But he was not there. And neither was his stone blackhouse. A hearth and chimney stood in the middle of the clearing, looking incomplete without a home around it. The earth was raked carefully, and a pot sat beside the open hearth.

  Jimmy stepped around the chimney and surveyed something intently. “A wonder he’d ever be willin’ to leave, with riches like these about him.” He motioned for Meg to come look.

  On the ground was a thin, uncovered bed of straw, the length of a man. A plank of wood next to it rested upon two rocks, where stood a single tin cup and a chipped plate that matched the bowls she’d seen back at the kitchen. A pile of rocks stood beyond the makeshift bed, a low wall of the same stone incomplete beside it. Someone was rebuilding.

  Had Duncan lived here, all this time? ’Twas no rougher than the bow tents she’d grown accustomed to, but the sight of the ruins heaped heaviness upon her heart. It looked so exposed, so solitary. And he, who could be playing his pipes in the finest castles. It did not make sense.

  All other small belongings appeared to have been carried away already, so she took hold of the tin cup with a thought of returning it.

  Back at the camp, walkers were tying the last of their things to the two horse carts they shared. Duncan stood on the edge of one, lashing a canvas down with a worn rope and looking quite at home among these wanderers. A rough-woven sack was strapped to his back, odd lumps shaping it. A wooden pipe—a drone, Meg recalled him telling her long ago, protruded from the top, slung over his shoulder like a musket.

  Mrs. MacGregor pushed her gray sleeves up and asked him about the journey. He pointed toward the road they’d be taking. As he hopped down to lift a sack from one of the men, they laughed, and Duncan clapped his shoulder.

  She felt so small. Undeserving of all that lay before her. The Tinkers changing their route for her. Duncan searching her out to bring news of her brother. Much more was at stake here than herself, and she must do better to remember that.

  He glanced up from his work beside the cart just then, catching her gaze. She held it fast, studying him. He straightened to his full height and held hers just as steadily, until it dropped to her hand at her side. To the cup.

  Meg closed the gap between them, holding the cup up by its handle. Her finger tapped a crooked dent on the side. “Yours, I think.”

  “Aye,” he said, not making eye contact. “Thank you.” He reached to accept it. But she did not let it go, even as his fingers wrapped about it and touched hers.

  “Duncan,” she began. “Have ye made camp there in the woods?”

  A fleeting pause. “Ye might say that.”

  “For how long?”

  He gently pulled the cup from her hand, tucking it into the cart, and pulled the rope so swiftly the threads of it released a light zip into the air.

  “I promised I’d watch for ye.” His only reply before he strode away.

  The cooling air stung Meg’s eyes as his meaning struck her. She ran to catch up. Nearly an entire day since they’d crossed paths, and she only now thought of what all this must have meant for him. To see her brother to safety so far away as London. To watch over the MacNaughton land when all others had forsaken it.

  She caught up to him, keeping stride as best she could with his long steps. Just as her legs worked double the pace of his to keep up, her thoughts tumbled, grasping for words good enough.

  “Thank you,” she said at last, breathless from nearly running to keep up.

  He looked upon her, an instant of shared understanding passing between them.

  “‘Tis nothing,” he said.

  “Nae,” Meg said. “‘Tis everything.”

  “Bag gasag an tur!” Jimmy shouted. The walkers clambered to their places in the caravan, and Duncan slowed his pace, looking to Meg for help.

  “What did he say? I fear I don’t know much of the Gypsy language.”

  Meg laughed. “Don’t let Thistle Jimmy hear ye call them that. Call them Tinkers. Pearl fishers. Summer walkers. Travelin’ folk. Ceàrdannan. But do not call them Gypsies. Quite another people, so he’ll tell ye.”

  “Understood,” Duncan said. “So then. In the tongue of the summer walkers.” He smiled, and it warmed her. “What did he say?” Meg had traveled with them long enough to learn much of the Beurla Reagaird—their secret language.

  The wagons clattered into motion. But Duncan stood still, awaiting Meg’s answer.

  “Put a match to the fire,” she said. Jimmy’s way of beginning every journey. And this time Meg knew more than ever—there was no going back.

  Chapter Six

  A river of deep green trees spilled down the hillside into Campbelton. The travelers, energized by the sight of it after a wearying two days’ journey, rushed to the hill’s curving edge as soon as the burgh came into sight.

  Duncan smiled at their chatter and exclamations over the smallish port below. By their wide-eyed looks, it might as well have been Glasgow itself. Over the miles,
he’d begun to see how these humble people of the road wore the dust of their travels like the robes of kings. How simple peasant garments cloaked their bodies, but souls afire with story and song and hard, hard work lived within. No wonder Meg felt such a fierce loyalty to them.

  He issued a warning about the boggy wetland beyond the short stone wall they stood along but knew it wasn’t needed. More than anyone else, they doubtless understood the danger of the spotty terrain, the hidden depths masquerading as shallow pools.

  Duncan set down his bag as the others rested. Three men huddled at the end of the wall, looking at a hand-drawn canvas map and making plans. Mrs. MacGregor unbundled a parcel of thick oatcakes, passing them to each person, including Duncan. Meg followed, dispensing handfuls of the blaeberries she and Kate had gathered along the way. She barely looked at him as her palm opened into his, but he dipped his head in thanks all the same.

  A satisfied hush settled as they ate and lingered. It was simple but heartening fare, and they’d all greet the town the merrier for it. And the more alert.

  With that thought, Duncan’s gaze sought out Meg again. She stood next to Kate, the sun of the afternoon crowning her dark hair. Kate pointed wildly—first to the fishermen’s white shanties dotting the waterfront below, then to the crisscrossing streets, and finally to the bustle of market in the center of it all.

  And then there was Meg. Smiling amiably at her friend, but Duncan did not miss the way her hands pressed to her stomach. Nor the way her gaze kept stealing to the swaying masts in the harbor, like foes she did not trust.

  Kate dashed off to speak with her mother, and Meg was left alone. Searching the horizon with such a longing look, as if her brother would come riding over the hills at any moment and spare her what she was about to do. She pulled something from a plain brown satchel. A small square of something—a scrap?—and fingered it as if it were her greatest treasure. He shielded his eyes against the sun and caught a faded snatch of plaid.