The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

by Joanne Bischof

  Memories strung together in her mind like pearls on a string. The stairway where they’d nearly collided, where he’d thought her a scullery maid, and she’d thought him the kindest face she’d ever seen. The moment he’d stood in her father’s dining hall, playing “Keep Watch, Ye Lads and Lasses.” The moment he looked her in the eye in the carriage and confessed he’d lived on the forest floor, if only for the chance to keep that promised watch for her. His vow to reunite her with Graeme. His careful touch in Lud’s Church. The dance—when he’d sworn never to dance.

  Moments begun as absolutely ordinary, held close for so long, they’d been transformed, layer by layer like sand in a mussel, until they shone. Treasures.

  “‘Tis my own fault, Kate. If I’d opened my eyes to see the man before me all that time…But it is past. I will go to America. He will finally be free to play his pipes in all the land once more, for he vowed not to until Graeme and I were together again. And God be thanked, I will have the brother I’d never dreamed of seeing again on this earth.”

  Kate opened her mouth, but Meg shook her head. “Please, Kate.” She could manage no more words, her throat was so raw. “Keep care of him, if ye can.”

  Meg could tell that Kate was holding back a fiery lashing. She offered measured words instead. “He needs no care taken, Meg. Except what’s given from you. But I’ll look out for whatever I can.” She turned to go, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. “Until ye come to your senses, that is.”

  Meg closed her eyes, closed out the world around her with the only prayer she knew in that moment: This one thing, help me do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The night was large around Meg. And she was ever smaller among the growing throngs upon the riverbank. Meg stood sandwiched between Mrs. Bettredge and Kate, each of them searching for Duncan. It was so far from what she’d pictured. She’d imagined a park along a peaceful river, with children racing stick boats and picnickers awaiting the festivities. But here, at the starting point of what was to be the event of this monarch’s reign, the wide Thames loomed beyond a wall of people.

  Boats packed the river. From rowboats, to fishing boats, to merchant ships, to rafts piled high with roped-down barrels. Every vessel in all the kingdom, it seemed, had come out to meet their king. Never had they been in such close proximity to him, nor even dreamed of hearing a symphony in their lifetimes.

  Meg spotted an open bench beneath a tree, and before she could stop herself, she picked up her fine skirts and stood atop its seat.

  “Look!” A young woman in black-and-white servant’s garb jumped up and down. “Are those the musicians?” Two other girls dressed identically to the first stood on tiptoe. Meg followed their gazes and, indeed, saw a barge, the white-wigged musicians boarding with late-evening sun glinting off their brassy instruments.

  Meg wove through the masses and edged along the river’s bank, her fine slippers sticking in the mud.

  “Meg!” ’Twas Duncan’s voice.

  “Duncan?” She called out, searching.

  “Meg!” His voice was closer, his hand reaching through the crowd. She could not reach him, feet stuck in the mud. She pulled one foot free of its shoe, stepped on the toe of her other to release her second foot, and leaped, giving her a clean landing on the grassy portion of the bank. She was shoeless…but she could reach his hand.

  The moment their eyes met, Duncan froze. The same longing on his face that he’d worn on her wedding day. And she could not look away from him.

  “Duncan, the dress…”

  “Ach, Meg MacNaughton…” He stepped closer, keeping her hand within his. He leaned in close to her ear to be heard over the crowd. “Ye know, don’t ye, what ye are?”

  Meg tightened her grip.

  But in his next breath, Duncan was halted by the brassy tones of a trumpet herald. The crowd stilled, all eyes on the row of boats and the small procession of royally clad men and women.

  “On this seventeenth day of this seventh month of the year seventeen seventeen,” the herald began.

  “Quick,” Duncan said, leading her through the crowd. “This is your chance!”

  The herald continued, and Meg raced against his every word. Surely the end of his speech would signal the launch of the boats, the symphony…the future.

  “The famed composer George Frideric Handel, by commission of His Majesty King George the First, shall unveil for the first time, the symphony composed for the people of this kingdom.”

  At the back of the queue to board the boats, Duncan offered his arm. And as if he’d done so a thousand times, he escorted her into the royal procession, looking every bit the highland contingent. Chin raised in sure strength. Together they stepped forward, and all at once it was her turn.

  The herald paused significantly, and Meg could feel the crowd hanging on his words. “His Majesty presents to you…Water Music.”

  The musicians’ barge floated past these royal vessels to lead the way, jolly notes ascending into melody. It was regal and joyous, this floating symphony. But suddenly, all Meg could hear was her own heartbeat.

  They stood before an attendant clad in royal red. Duncan gave a bow. “Margaret MacNaughton,” he said. “Sister to the new Lord Proprietor to the Carolinas, Graeme MacNaughton.”

  Meg stood a little taller at the sound of her brother’s title. The man gestured to the boat on the right. Duncan stood beside her and—did she imagine it?—gave the slightest pull on her arm when he reached the place she must leave him. She halted. This was all wrong.

  “Duncan, I—”

  “Remember the starling.” Brief words, but their strength filled her. “Ye were made to fly, Meg. Go.”

  He stepped back. There she stood, alone.

  “If you please, my lady,” the attendant spoke. “The barge will embark shortly.” He gestured aboard, where ladies laughed and men in uniform strode about and somewhere among them her brother lived and breathed.

  But just as her foot made contact with the ornately carved black boat before her, she looked to her left.

  What she saw made her wish she had never turned her head. A single motion in a single instant and everything changed. There, on the deck of the boat to the left, stood Ian Campbell.

  “Fly.” Meg heard Duncan’s voice in her heart. The impossible choice would not wait: miss the chance to tell her brother that she lived, or let Ian Campbell rule their past. And worse, Duncan’s future.

  “Madame?” A man on board her brother’s boat offered her a white-gloved hand to help her.

  “I—” She looked at it, at him. She thrust her hand into her pocket before she could change her mind, gripping the warm bronze of the bottle. “I’m to journey on the other boat,”—she tipped her head slightly and managed a smile—“but I’m needin’ to get this to a gentleman aboard yours. Graeme MacNaughton. Please tell him to wait when we dock, before he goes in for the dinner.” She placed the bottle in his hand with a prayer that Graeme would see the tartan inside and wait for her when he disembarked. The attendant tipped his black three-cornered hat to her in agreement.

  In a blur, Meg boarded the smaller boat just as it pushed off and away into the river, floating with its current. She edged a cluster of courtiers, feeling horribly out of place. If she could disappear somehow—if this dress could magically become the true grass and heather of home and she could run barefoot across the land with no care in the world…

  But that land was not hers. There was only one thing to do.

  Meg craned her neck to see to the center of the boat. There was Ian Campbell, conversing beside an older man in matching tartan. They bowed in tandem to a man seated on a red velvet bench, and Meg’s stomach dropped. King George himself. She dodged behind the woman in front of her as the two Campbells turned, striding away from the king and joining another man on the far end of the barge. Meg followed.

  Within earshot now, she heard the older Campbell speaking. “Indeed, Governor. My nephew will be invaluable to you in that regard
. He is a strategist of the highest caliber….”

  The words twisted Meg’s heart. And before she could think, she was striding straight toward the men, the deck smooth beneath her hidden, unshod feet. What she planned to do when she got there, she had no idea.

  “That’s all very well,” the man they called “Governor” said. “For with regard to English and Scottish relations, we’ve much work ahead of us. Some of them still view us as savages, if you can believe such a thing.”

  “Savages,” Meg spoke. Her voice was calm. Glass over the tempest within. “Indeed, I cannot imagine why.” She looked at Ian, who turned uninterested eyes on her only for a moment. Not a flicker of recognition.

  “Ah—yes,” the governor said. “My apologies. I do not believe we’ve been introduced.” He looked about for a companion, someone to do things properly. But Meg was far beyond caring about etiquette.

  “Lady Margaret MacNaughton,” she said, curtsying deeply. When she arose, all three sets of eyes were on her. Including Ian Campbell’s, much more keenly now. “Formerly of Argyll.” The older Campbell seemed to scrutinize her, though there was an almost fatherly concern on his face. A face she’d seen sketched before—the laird himself.

  The governor spoke again. “George Hamilton, governor of Edinburgh Castle.” His brogue was light beneath his refined accent but accentuated when he spoke of their country. He bowed. “And these are—”

  “I’m acquainted with the Clan Campbell,” she said. “Very closely.” She looked the man in the eye who’d promised peace and turned around and robbed her of everything.

  “I did not mean to eavesdrop.” She addressed the governor again. “But it sounds as if you’ll be availing yourself of Ian Campbell’s services?”

  “Indeed,” the man said. “We’ve much at stake in Parliament just now and have need of a native liaison as the Scots law converses over these things, too.”

  “Yes,” Meg said, a surge of recollection giving her fresh energy. “You refer to the”—what had it been in the newspaper?—“the Transportation Act, I believe?”

  “You are acquainted with it,” the governor spoke.

  “Only just. I took special interest in the part about damage to property.”

  “Aye.” The man seemed to come to life at that. “The English have adopted strict consequences for arson, robbery, and the like. I think if the Scots will follow suit—”

  “Many would heartily agree.” Meg raised her brows and leveled Ian Campbell with a look. “Such plunder as takes place in the highlands.”

  “And how do you plan to help in such matters?” Duncan’s voice. Behind her.

  Meg turned, nearly knocking into him. How had he come to be here? She could have embraced him then and there, were it not for the company at hand. And the fierce look he directed at his cousin.

  The air between the four of them was full of unspoken things. The governor seemed too shrewd to carry on in such a way.

  “I…,” Ian spoke. This man, whom she’d approached with such trepidation on their wedding day, seemed suddenly weak to her. Nerves shooting his glance back and forth between his uncle and the governor. And finally to Meg, with a cold smile. “I think it would behoove some to include ‘breach of promise’ in that lot. There are many who have run from their commitments, after all.” The man dared insinuate Meg was at fault. She narrowed her eyes.

  Duncan’s arm pressed against Meg so that she felt the restraint he fairly trembled with.

  Meg settled her hand within his elbow, as if he’d merely offered it to her as a courtesy. As if there weren’t a universe of meaning in that one gesture.

  “Excellent thought,” she said. “So a man who had promised to wed a woman to join rival clans, for example. If he were to turn on that promise, and, say, plunder that clan instead. Ooh,” she breathed as if in sympathy, shaking her head. “What a penalty he’d be in for, then. Damage to property and breach of promise.”

  By now the governor had taken a step back, folded his hands, and seemed to be following along with creased brow almost as a judge.

  It was the laird who intervened, catching the invisible ammunition shooting back and forth between Meg and Ian. “Such a case would be a tragedy,” he said.

  Ian’s mouth opened in protest, but a single hand held up by the laird halted whatever words were on Ian’s tongue.

  The laird faced Duncan and Meg. Sorrow in his eyes. And something deeper, more fragile. Hope.

  “Such a case would find many at fault. Men in authority who should have planned differently,” he said, regret in his voice.

  Duncan dipped his head then looked at his uncle. “Men who acted rashly in the heat of their youth,” he replied.

  A silence laced them, during which Meg gripped Duncan’s arm tighter. The laird looked between them, understanding softening his face. And Ian stood like an agitated twig, shifting his weight and looking in the direction of the governor, who had silently excused himself, no doubt long since aware that they were not speaking in hypothetical wonderings.

  “In such a case,” the laird said, “the man who had unspeakably harmed an entire clan would pay. His uncle would see to finding him a position where he would be watched closely, and not allowed free access to his own plots and schemes. He would be under the watch of a governor, or his uncle himself. And”—he looked at Meg—“he would not be allowed to touch the land he had plundered.”

  The castle. The cobwebbed kitchen. The whole place groaning with emptiness. It had not been a waste, then—it had been preserved? Protected from Ian.

  The laird continued. “So that when the family returned, it would be awaiting them.” The man’s eyes, deep blue as the ocean and turned down at the outer corners in such a state of sadness, crinkled up ever so slightly.

  “Margaret MacNaughton,” he said. “I know it cannot undo what’s been done. But please. Take the seat of Cumberave as your own once again. ’Tis yours. Rightfully, lawfully yours. Please know I had no knowledge of what my nephew planned…and he has not left my side since that day. The Clan Campbell may be known for many things, but betrayal is not acceptable. Be free of him. Be free of us.” He looked to Duncan and then back at where her hand rested on his arm, Duncan’s other hand now covering it. “If ye care to, that is.” And with that, he turned, jerking his head at Ian, and the pair of them disappeared.

  Meg’s shoulders rose and fell in shallow breaths, the courage that she’d held to with every ounce of strength she had releasing her muscles so suddenly she thought she might collapse.

  Duncan pulled her closer to himself. “Now, lass,” he said. He lifted his finger to point, and Meg followed his gesture. “What do ye think of that?”

  The boat was docking. Lines of ladies and gentlemen were disembarking the royal barges and wending their way up a path toward a grand house for dinner at Chelsea. The symphony played on buoyantly. And there, at the end of the dock, was a sight that unleashed a thousand silent, happy tears.

  A man in red uniform, gripping the bronze bottle and tartan in one hand, shielding his eyes against the evening sun with the other, and intensely searching the barges.

  Their eyes met. Everything else about them faded into a world of silence, and all she could see was her brother. Desperate happiness breaking across his face. He clambered through the onslaught of the crowd, bumping haplessly into people as he went, for he would not take his eyes off her. Meg did the same until at last, at last—

  She collapsed into Graeme. Touching her own flesh and blood. Living impossible hope.

  “Thank you,” her prayer choked through sobs. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  One Month Later

  Golden wind of evening lifted tendrils of hair from Meg’s shoulders. She stood at the shore of the water that stretched between her and her love. Waves rippled, settling around her ankles. A gentle washing of her feet. And she watched for the man who’d watched for her for so very, very long.

  How different things were from
what they might have been. Looking at the long, narrow sea loch now—why, this could have been the entire Atlantic. This could have been another day in a lifetime without Duncan.

  But it wasn’t. It was home—and her wedding day.

  “Haste ye back, Duncan,” she’d whispered to him when she’d left him in London. He was to stay there with Graeme while arrangements were made to delay her brother’s voyage. Her heart had been full to overflowing…so different from the last time she’d begged him to hasten back.

  She’d left London with Kate and Mrs. Bettredge—“Fry London,” the older woman had said when Meg protested her offer to transport them, arguing that she’d only just returned to London. “There’s love in the air. Get me to Scotland!”

  And so the threesome had retraced their path. They made two stops while in London, at Meg’s request. First, a church. She brought the bottle, and she searched the scriptures for one last verse to inscribe. She etched the words upon her paper, wiping tears away as the scratch of the quill echoed in the soaring ceilings of the chapel: mourning into dancing…put off my sackcloth…girded me with gladness…

  A testament to what God had done. A message of continued hope, to pass the gift she’d been given on to the next person the bottle might deliver such news to. She dripped white wax from a candle, sealing topper to lid. Bless the next hearts to hold this, she prayed.

  And the second stop, a squat red-roofed building with white walls and dark trim, CURIOSITY SHOP lettered above the door. Inside, Meg gaped at scattered pieces of armor, rusty weapons, and dusty books, vases, and carved artifacts. Such a place deserved a story of its own, she thought. But it was the bagpipes in the corner that interested her. She proposed a trade to the proprietor: a bronze bottle of great personal worth, and probably great historical and monetary worth, or so she hoped. In trade for the set of pipes sold to him by a Scotsman days before.