My True Love

by Karen Ranney

  Amor vincit omnia. Love conquers all. But it doesn’t, does it? Audi alteram partem—there are two sides to every question. The journey had not been a total loss, perhaps. She’d added to her store of knowledge and learned a few words of Latin. Words that had been fed to her on a kiss the night they’d lain together the second time. The conversation of lovers. She closed her eyes.

  “If he’s what you want, I can persuade him to stay, Daughter. Dunniwerth’s dungeon hasn’t seen a visitor in a few years.” He came to her side, his look intent. “He’s there now, awaiting your answer.”

  She turned to him and placed her hand on his arm. “You cannot procure a husband for me as easily as you would a new wardrobe, Father.”

  “I’d much rather hear the screams of an Englishman than the twittering of a group of sewing women,” he said.

  For all his glower, he would do no such thing. Not unless she wished it. Then, Stephen’s fate would be dire, indeed. She patted his arm and shook her head. “Let him go, Father.”

  “Do you want him, Anne?”

  Did she want him? Did she want breath?

  The days would be bearable because he walked the earth. The nights endurable because he saw the same stars as she did.

  Want him? He had always been hers. Since the first vision. A moment when she’d watched him grieve and felt his loss. She told him once, the night before he’d surrendered. You have been in my sight all my life. She’d wept as the words were torn from her. But he’d not recognized the truth of them.

  He would go to war again, and each night she’d dread sleep because it might bring a vision of him. One in which he suffered. Or died. When that time came, what would she do? Weep into her pillow, or stare, sightless, at the ceiling? Would madness be the gift she was given for loving him and losing him?

  Perhaps it was only a matter of time until the children of Dunniwerth would point to her chamber window and speak in hushed tones of scraggly haired Anne, and her invisible lover, of her tears and moans. They would dare each other to call out to her and scream in delicious terror if she looked out the window to see their childish forms fleeing into the courtyard.

  Want him? It would be easier not to.

  She should wed someone with no ties to these past weeks. Not Ian, because looking at him would forever bring Stephen to mind. Nor a man with blue eyes, because they would be pale mirrors of a midnight shade. Nor a man with black hair with a habit of it falling to his brow.

  She would not marry a man with humor or honor or someone who kissed with full lips and whispered forbidden words in her ear. Deaf and dumb and blind, perhaps. A man of cruelty would suffice.

  A child or children would follow, and she would pray that they would all be girls with blond hair. Not a boy among them. Else she might whisper to him of a man she’d known once who wore gallantry as easily as a cloak, and garbed himself in honor like a cape. She might wish her child to emulate this man, to be as strong and fierce and brave. But she would coach him to be kinder, and more gentle. To love as easily as he hated. But more than all of that, she would teach him in the matter of constancy. He would pity as well as love, and have compassion for those who loved him in kind.

  Want him?

  Enough to die for it.

  He smiled with such an air of surprise as if he was startled by his own amusement. And he walked with great long strides upon the earth and stood taller than most men. The tailor who sewed his clothes bemoaned the size of his shoulders. Such odd things Anne knew about him.

  But she had not known that he commanded with such ease or so impatiently. Or rode with an effortless grace. His hands clenched when he was enraged, his eyes were capable of the iciest look. He could bear the unbearable without a moan. A formidable man. In his arms she’d learned the meaning of words she’d only heard. Felt them in her heart and in her body and in her mind. Perhaps even her soul. Passion. Desire. Longing. Love.

  She had seen the boy and had known the man. She had learned what people thought of him, and had become familiar with the person he truly was.

  Did she want him? Enough to die for him.

  But how easily he was leaving her. Choosing death over life with her, the decision made without regret or compunction or hesitation.

  She had become someone else in her quest for him. Yet, he did not even know that. The anger she’d buried these last few days blazed through her. At this moment, it didn’t matter if it was directed solely at Stephen or in equal parts to both of them. It warmed her blood, and made her voice steady. Resolute.

  “No, Father,” she said, her voice filled with quiet fury. “I don’t want him.”

  It was a difficult thing, Robert Sinclair thought, to care for another person. The room in which he stood was his oriel, a strange block of a room added on to Dunniwerth in the last hundred years. It was his eagle’s nest, Maggie had said often enough, and was fitted with glass he’d ordered from Edinburgh. It provided him a view of most of his land, including the loch on which Hannah had lived all these years. He was truly pleased at her happiness. It had been a long time coming.

  Maggie joined him, leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “She knows about Hannah.”

  “I suspected as much,” she said.

  He glanced down at her.

  “It was the way she looked at me, I think. When she and I hugged. Or perhaps the way she told me that she loved me. She has not often done so.”

  “Are you sorry she knows?”

  “No, she is my daughter. I could not love her more if she had been born to me.”

  He knew that. Of all the blessings in his life, Maggie’s love of his child had been the greatest. It had made the sadness bearable, the agreement they’d crafted among the three of them worthwhile.

  “She is so miserable, Robert.”

  “I suspect the man in the dungeon is the reason why.”

  “What will you do to him?”

  “I would like to turn him over to Argyll’s men, but I’m going to let him go, instead.”

  Her look prompted his smile. “Not my idea, Maggie, but Anne’s.”

  “What will happen to her now, Robert?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and it was something that angered him. He was a man who liked to be in control of his life. In this case, there was nothing he could do, and it didn’t set at all well with him.

  Chapter 30

  Anne did not want to be at Dunniwerth when Stephen left. She didn’t want to bid him farewell with grace and courage and watch as he rode away.

  Even now the regiment readied itself for its departure. She had stood at her chamber window and looked down into the courtyard. All the twelve men who’d seen her safely home. She did not trust herself to bid them farewell individually, so she’d contented herself with a wave, a smile.

  She was not given to tears, but he’d brought her to them often enough. He would not see them now. If they were to be shed, it would be in the privacy of her bed with the pillow pressed over her face.

  There were empty chambers at Dunniwerth. Rooms created for men-at-arms when the barracks overflowed, a few for important guests. She’d ask for one of those in exchange for the room she’d known from the time she was a child.

  A change of scene. As if he’d invaded her bed and she wanted no more memories to assail her. In truth that’s exactly what it had felt like. He had been her nightly companion long before she’d physically hungered for him.

  What would nights be like now?

  The thought brought heat to her face and regret to her mind. Not that she had loved him or lain with him. She was not the first woman to have done so outside of marriage. But that her memory was so strong. She might wish to be senile or simple, the better to forget.

  She would forget. If she worked hard enough at it, she would.

  But now she found herself at the shoreline. There was one boat tied there. The other would be at the island. She got into the boat, touched the rowan wood for luck, and began to row.

/>   Halfway to the island, she had to stop rowing because she was crying too hard. She bowed her head, let the tears come. The only witness to her tears were the fish and the turtles. Long moments later, she swiped the backs of her hands against her cheeks and continued across the loch.

  This time Stephen didn’t hear the clink of the keys. He was involved in his thoughts. Not those of a spider’s web, but introspection of a deeper nature.

  When Robert Sinclair entered the cell, he glanced up at him with a great deal of disinterest. Or so he wished it to appear. He had no intention of remaining a prisoner. Not of Sinclair and certainly not of the Covenanters.

  The only drawback to this plan was the fact that in order to escape he might have to injure Anne’s father. Unless the man saw reason.

  “I promised my daughter you’d have your freedom,” he said.

  Stephen only raised one eyebrow at that surprising announcement. It effectively rendered the last quarter hour of his planning useless.

  “Your men are waiting for you in the courtyard. I’ll give you safe passage to the edge of my land. Then you’re no longer my concern.”

  “Very generous of you, Sinclair.”

  “I love my daughter, Englishman. I’ll not go back on my promise.”

  Stephen stood, brushed himself off with an unhurried movement.

  “Where is Anne, Sinclair?”

  “She doesn’t wish to see you. So you can say your farewells to me and I’ll bid her good-bye for you.”

  “I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” Stephen said, genuine amusement curving his lips in a smile. “Where is she?”

  “A place where you’ll not find her.” He stepped back, allowed Stephen to leave the cell. The air was no better here, but perhaps it smelled sweeter because he was free.

  He mounted the sloping steps after Sinclair. Even now he was not quite sure there was not a trap involved. It was too easy.

  “Ian will ride with you. You know him well, I believe.”

  Stephen didn’t comment. He entered the courtyard. Faeren stood saddled and ready for him. His horse eyed a groom with such ferocity that Stephen wondered how many nips he’d taken from the boy’s shoulder.

  The twelve men who had followed him to Dunniwerth were arrayed in the courtyard. Twelve men who had no relatives at Lange on Terne to worry about or who had set aside their own concerns for seeing him safely here.

  He and his regiment were bound, all of them, by bonds not easily understood.

  He was going to offer them a choice.

  He turned and faced Sinclair. His right hand flexed in case he needed to reach either his sword or his pistol.

  “Where is Anne?”

  “My daughter isn’t here, Englishman.” There was a small smile on Robert Sinclair’s lips.

  “Where is she?”

  “Somewhere you’ll not find her.”

  “Where?” He took one step toward the laird of Dunniwerth.

  “You’re hard of hearing?”

  “I’m not leaving until I see her, Sinclair.”

  “Are you as stubborn as my daughter, Englishman?”

  “Even more so.”

  The two men eyed each other.

  “Then you’ll find her at the island,” Robert Sinclair said. “But,” he said, his grin coming out like the sun from behind a cloud, “I hope you can swim, because she’s taken the boat.”

  Anne walked to the edge of the clearing, sat down on a stump of a tree.

  The afternoon was overcast. A dreary day to match her mood. The forest behind her was alive with sounds. Squirrels rustled through the layers of dead leaves; the birds relayed a melody of sound and warning. A breeze soughed through the treetops, clicking the branches together, creating a whispering melody of new leaves.

  The cottage sat as it always had, a plump mushroom upon the landscape. Over the years it had had its share of visitors. Girls in search of their fortunes. Women to procure a syrup for a cough. Everyone at Dunniwerth had known Hannah, even though she rarely ventured from the island. She had been Hannah’s most frequent visitor. Here she’d learned to craft the fragrant candles from the honeycombs of bees. She’d dried flowers and cut onions, strung garlic, and a hundred other chores.

  “Hannah, look!”

  The excitement she felt was like no other. She was ten years old and had crafted her first basket of reeds. It stood on its flat bottom just like the one Hannah had made. Although it had taken her weeks instead of days, her fingers not having the flexibility and dexterity of her friend’s, the squat bellied basket looked as well made as any she’d seen at the fair.

  “You are truly a maker of fine baskets, Anne.”

  “Truly?”

  “Your skill is enormous. I shall hire you myself.”

  “Can I take it home, Hannah? I promise I shall return it. But I want Father to see.”

  “Indeed, he should. Take it home and give it to him if you wish, Anne. He would prize it, I’m sure.”

  “You do not mind?”

  A cool hand cupped her cheek. “Of course not. There will be other days and other baskets.”

  The woman she’d known had been as motherly to her as Maggie. She’d truly been blessed to have both of them. But there were signs all along, and she’d known, even as a child, that things were not as they should have been.

  “Hannah, why do you look so sad sometimes, as if you want to cry?”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. If you want to cry, I’ll not tell. Sometimes I cry, too.”

  “What do you cry about?”

  “Pretty things. Sometimes something is so beautiful I cannot help but cry. Ian says that only girls do something so silly.”

  “Ian is a silly boy. Pay no heed to him.”

  “All the girls seem to. He has grown to be very tall.”

  “Do you think him handsome?”

  “No. He is still a bully.”

  “One day he will be grown, and I’m sure be a nicer man.”

  “Or one like Hamish who struts just like the cock in the henhouse. Why are you smiling?”

  “It was just, perhaps, that I was not prepared for your description of Hamish. The years pass so swiftly.”

  There had been laughter here and a sharing of joy, but had it been enough for Hannah? Would it be enough for her? How odd that mother and daughter had both fallen desperately in love with men who were not destined to stay with them.

  She did not have the nature for such sacrifice. She could not see herself staring wistfully off into the distance and wishing things were different. She would prefer to be more like Juliana. To declare herself a leper in order to be with her husband. To choose exile rather than loneliness.

  Four hundred years separated her from Juliana. Title, birth, language, time, life itself stood between them. Yet the words she had written were timeless, and the message oddly the same as Anne’s thoughts.

  Had Juliana ever been angry with Sebastian? She had evidently rejected his concept of honor. It would have demanded of him that he leave her, his home, in order to do what he thought was right.

  God protect her from men of honor.

  Juliana, at least, had had courage. She had not relied upon Sebastian to change his mind or return to her. All Anne had done was hide on an island and feel sorry for herself.

  Shame was as unpalatable a dish as cowardice.

  She stood, brushed off her hands, tidied her hair, and straightened her dress. There were things that needed to be said, truths that needed to be spoken before Stephen left Dunniwerth.

  She turned and he was there. Not the Stephen she’d known, solemn and somber and only occasionally lit with amusement. This man was the embodiment of exasperation. A storm cloud walking. He was dressed in white shirt and black breeches. He was as sober in his dress as his expression, seeming to study her as the silence between them increased.

  He was also dripping wet.

  “Did you swim the loch?” she asked in amazement.

  “Given that th
ere was no boat, yes.”

  He wore no boots. Stephen was always dressed more soberly than his companions, but she’d never seen him looking like this.

  “It cannot be good for your arm.”

  “I doubt a day spent in a dungeon is considered good treatment, either,” he said amicably. “You didn’t tell me I was entering a hotbed of Covenanters,” he said pleasantly. She distrusted that tone of voice. It was at odds with the look on his face.

  His irritation did little to cool her own.

  “Your men will be expecting you,” she said, turning away from him.

  “No doubt,” he said. “After a while they will either stable their horses or leave for England. It is, after all, their choice.”

  She turned and stared at him.

  “Perhaps I’ll tell the king that I was captured,” he continued. He came closer with each step. She had the oddest feeling she was being stalked. “Or perhaps,” he said, smiling, “I’ll simply decline to participate in his war.”

  Too many questions tumbled through her mind. The main one his reason for following her to the island. To blame her for the day he’d spent in Dunniwerth’s dungeons? Fine, she was culpable. Her father had taken it upon himself to imprison an Englishman he’d thought responsible for her disappearance. But she had not known. In fact, the moment she’d entered the red-brick walls of her home, she’d done everything she could not to think of him. The result had been a dismal failure. When she’d learned what her father had done, she’d ensured that he’d been released as quickly as possible.

  “Did you mean what you say, Stephen? About not going to war?” She held her breath for his reply.

  “Perhaps,” he said. And that was all. One word.

  Did he expect her to beg? If she spoke at this moment, the words might well be tinged with tears, droplets clinging to the tail and to the spire of each one.

  “One would think you did not care, Anne,” he said, touching her nose with his fingertip. “Except that you’ve been crying.”

  “A mistake,” she said irritably. “I’ll not be like Hannah. Pining away for you.”

  “Did I ask that of you?” He smiled then, a soft smile that scraped at the edge of her temper.