A Promise of Love

by Karen Ranney

  “There is that, of course,” he said, laughing at her slitted look, “ but there is also the promise of sunshine for an hour or two. Shall we loll about like earls and pretend to have pots of gold?”

  She had thought Alisdair capable of charm before, but she had never been the recipient of it for a whole day. It was pure enchantment, this time out of adulthood, a day imbued with the sheer joy of being a child, not a lonely one, but one granted a companion of the heart. It was a time taken selfishly, a moment she stole from reality to enjoy, to savor in the future much like Granmere took out her jewels and relived a memory.

  Judith saw the man behind the responsibilities, the man whose laughter sparked an answering smile on her face, who told stories of kelpies and brownies, and who attempted, to her utter befuddlement, to teach her Gaelic.

  He began with a toast, which sounded as unintelligible as an ancient foreign tongue.

  "No, no," he said, laughing and reaching out one hand to form her mouth into the right shape, "it's na h-uile la gu math duit, a charaid!"

  "It's no use, Alisdair, my mouth won't go that way!"

  They were seated at the end of the promontory, the trees at their back, their legs stretched out before them casually, as if a sheer drop did not exist only inches from their feet. She wiggled her cold toes, luxuriating in the unexpected freedom of being without shoes despite the chill. If Alisdair watched from time to time to ensure their paradise was not intruded upon by English soldiers, it was a vigilance of which she was ignorant.

  "I don't even understand what it means," she said.

  "May all," he said, interspersing the translation with swift kisses to her pursed lips, "your days...be good...my friend!”

  “All right," he said, finally resigned to the fact that at Gaelic, she was a failure. "Then we'll teach you how to talk like a Scot."

  "You don't talk like a Scot, MacLeod." She frowned at him, but her fierce look was softened by her smile.

  "A gangin' fit will ay get somethin, gin it's naethin' but a thorn or a broken tae," he said, in a perfect imitation of Malcolm.

  "A fit will get you something, even if it's nothing but a thorn or a broken toe, but what's gangin'?"

  "Loosely translated, to go, as in gang yer ain gait - go your own way. So, a selfish fit will get you something."

  "Oh," she said, still smiling, "I'll try to remember that when next you throw a tantrum."

  "I'd prefer you'd remember this one," he said. "It's ill wark takin' the breeks frae aff a Heilandman."

  "True words, MacLeod," she said, and tilted her nose into the air.

  "What about - a blate cat maks a prood moose? Him that hes a muckle nose thinks ilka yin speaks o't, or wha wad sup kail wi' the deil wants a lang-shaftit spune?"

  "Enough," she cried, holding her hands up to stop him. “I'm impressed, you sound as proficient as Malcolm. No, no," she said, reconsidering as he lunged at her, intending to tickle her again as he had awakened her this morning. "You're much, much better than Malcolm! You're the greatest sounding Scot in the entire world. Please, Alisdair, stop!"

  He let her go when her laughter echoed down the long drop to the sea. He pulled her into his arms and they sat watching the blue-gray ocean waves in perfect peace.

  "Alisdair," she said softly, “tell me about your family." It was a brave thing she asked of him. He’d never spoken of his lost kin. All of her information about them had either come from Granmere, or from Malcolm.

  He did not answer and it was only when she turned and glanced over her shoulder at him that he spoke.

  "There was only Ian and myself," he said finally. His eyes were fixed on the expanse of ocean, as if it mirrored his past. "I think my father would have wanted more children, but Louise was not about to do anything that would mar her looks," he said sardonically.

  "What was your father like?" She squirmed back against his chest and he held her there, his chin resting on the top of her head.

  "Father?" He thought for a moment. "He was forever laughing, although looking back, I realize he had little to scorn about his life. He had everything he could have wanted, a beautiful French wife, two sons, a heritage of land as far as you could see and adequate funds to procure anything he might wish for.”

  Not like his son, she thought, who had inherited a ruined castle, a decimated clan and empty coffers, but who still found the ability to smile and to laugh.

  What was Alisdair’s early life like, when Tynan gleamed with the richness of wealth? Guests would arrive for week long parties, torches lighting their way, the iron rimmed wheels of their lacquered carriages announcing their presence before Tynan’s bronzed doors. The women would wear taffeta and silk, stiff panniers and kid leather slippers, while their male companions would be attired in kilt and jacket, jabot and lace. Had young Alisdair peered from the battlements with his brother to spy the arrival of those carriages? Did he have a favorite pet who stood by his side, mouth open in tongue drooling ecstasy, his young master's hand softly rubbing the special spot between his ears. Did he and Ian play as boys upon this very place where they sat? Did he read a favored book here, or dream of being a physician?

  There was so much Judith did not know about this husband of hers. She found she wanted to know everything.

  "Ian was my father’s favorite, I think," Alisdair continued, with no rancor in his voice, "and when I see my father, I see Ian, too in my mind."

  "And your brother? Were you close?"

  He thought of Ian, how looking at him would serve as a mirror, alike in features, although Ian's hair was as blonde as his own was black. How, despite the fact they were separated by two years, they had been close until adulthood, until only debate and divisiveness marked their meetings.

  "He was my best friend, I think, until I went away to study.” He did not mention how his brother drank to excess, that he loved every woman who crossed his path, that he espoused rebellion with a single minded fervor he’d otherwise spent chasing those women. "Granmere used to say that he would never make old bones. Maybe he knew it, so he lived each hour with a full measure of minutes." His smile was tipped in sadness.

  "You miss him, don't you?"

  "Aye," he said, softly. "I regret the fact that we had not settled our quarrel. It is difficult remembering that our last words were those of anger. He was zealous about the rebellion, I was against it. He loved and admired the Prince, I had little liking for him. It seemed as though we were forever at each other's throats. Even that last morning."

  "And what of your mother, Alisdair? Why do you never speak of her?"

  She was excessively curious, he thought, with a smile. "The lovely Louise? Ah, now there's a different story." The overindulged and cosseted daughter of a duke believed she had married beneath her. Silk was fine enough to touch her white skin, but soft kisses from her child were too rough. His mother had demanded music from violins, but had banished the pagan, whorled sound of the pipes. She had looked around at the majesty of the land that belonged to her and denied it the same way she repudiated the love of a second son who so resembled her husband and not her own blond looks and blue eyes. With her son’s and her husband’s fall at Culloden, Louise had assumed the mantle of grieving wife and mother only until she could flee Scotland for a safer place. A week following Culloden, she had been far from Tynan, sparing no thought to the clan who had protected her with their own lives.

  "You do not wish to speak of her, do you?"

  He sighed. She always cut to the quick, he thought, with a touch of humor.

  "It is not that I do not wish to, Judith, it's that I do not know how to. How do I explain my mother? She insisted upon speaking French, although my father did not wish it spoken. She spent wild sums of money, and gave elaborate parties both here and in Edinburgh."

  "Did it displease your father?"

  He thought back to his earliest memories. "No, as I said, he was a happy man."

  "Then perhaps it was she who made him happy."

  He considere
d her statement.

  "It does not matter, she soon got over his death. She never spoke of him after that day and God knows did not allow much time to elapse between his burial and her departure for France." His words were tinged with bitterness.

  "Perhaps," Judith said, wishing that his mood had not changed, "it was because she could not bear it. Maybe her grief was such that it would have torn her apart to remain here, and live with memories."

  "Perhaps." He nuzzled her hair with his chin. "You are too compassionate, sometimes, Judith. I don’t think Louise a worthy object of it."

  "She is your mother, Alisdair," she said softly. "And therefore extremely worthy." He smiled, and kissed her quickly.

  "What were you like as a little boy?"

  "Oh, so now it is my turn?"

  "Of course, did you think yourself spared? I can picture you as a scamp," she said, turning and smiling at him. At this moment, Alisdair thought, she looked as young as a child herself, her eyes aglow with happiness. He wished he could freeze this moment, so that she would always look this way, her lips curved, her glorious eyes sparkling, her face softened into joy.

  "Did you get into trouble and refuse to obey? Did you kiss all of the little girls and make them dream of you?"

  "Every single one. I was the only boy to go off to school and have my own entourage of playmates following me, weeping into their bonnets and crying at their nurses' knees."

  "I can believe it."

  "Of course," he said, looking offended. "And I was the best of children. I obeyed everyone, listened to my elders, ate my porridge and everything else put before me, I must admit."

  "You have grown into a lovely man."

  "Lovely? Woman, you make me sound like a flower. I would have you call me handsome, brave, stalwart, dashing, debonair, but not lovely, I beg of you."

  "No, lovely," she said in the tones of one who has decreed it and it will be so, "I've decided. From now on, it's Alisdair, the lovely!"

  This time, he tickled her until she admitted that she might have been wrong about calling him lovely, and yes, yes, yes, he was all of those things he'd said.

  He showed her his favorite hiding place when he was a little boy, the cave which was overgrown by brush and only reached through low tide. She shook her head emphatically when he asked her, with a wiggle of his eyebrows, if she wanted to explore it.

  They walked on a beach strewn with boulders the size of the massive blocks of Tynan. They played, like children, in the surf only to stop and race to the top of the hill, breathless.

  He showed her the tree he had marked as a little boy and the spot where he had killed his first deer, although, even now, he looked a bit shamefaced about the action.

  "I did not like it much," he admitted, "especially the blooding, when they touched me on both cheeks with the deer's blood. I tried to be manly, although I never acquired a taste for hunting. I have, however, acquired a taste for something else," he leered, abruptly changing the tenor of the conversation.

  He reached for her, as she giggled and then flushed as his hands stroked across her bodice and he whispered provocative suggestions into her ear.

  "Shall we return to our room, our bed?" he asked softly.

  "Is that all you can think about?" she protested, backing away from him.

  “No, but it occupies a fair share of my mind,” he admitted with a smile. “But it is your fault, after all.”

  “How do you see that?”

  “If you weren’t so responsive, Judith, and so hot in my arms, I could a wait a few hours.” There it was, that flush he’d teased into life.

  He scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a lamb and followed the track away from the village.

  He suspected he would like this woman when she emerged from her self-imposed restraint, but he had not expected to be captivated by her. He’d felt compassion and pity for her, a curious understanding and an aching desire. How odd that he reveled in simply being with her. He knew when she entered a room, because the very air seemed to shimmer with her presence. He felt her pain when others spoke of children and he remembered the look in her eyes when Douglas was passed around to be cuddled. He knew by her scowl when she was in a fierce temper, or when she was hurt and hiding it. He’d seen the laughter in her eyes and wanted to replicate it every day of his life. And the blush which started at her toes and tipped her nose pink, he wanted to summon it forth, also.

  He set her down inside an abandoned crofter's hut, one of those built into the side of the craggy hill, half its structure shale and stone. It was pitch dark and smelled of animals; the only light was from the chimney hole and from the open sky peering in between the gaps in the thatch. The only furniture was one sagging cot, wedged into a corner.

  Alisdair closed the warped door as much as it could be shut, but anyone walking by could easily see the interior. As a trysting place, it was barely adequate. Still, when he spun her around and pulled her into his arms, suddenly neither the damp, dark smell, the sounds of mice, nor the lack of privacy disturbed either of them.

  He gently placed both large hands on either side of her head, raised her face with his thumbs beneath her chin. Even in this dim light, her face looked luminous. Her eyes sparkled with remembered laughter, her lips curved sweetly. He bent his head and with his tongue traced the outline of her smile. She leaned closer to him, her hands on his arms. He deepened the kiss suddenly, mated his tongue with hers, coaxing a bemused response, a slight, hesitant moan emerging from her lips.

  She extended her arms around his neck, as if suddenly needing a support. His hands slid up from her waist, pressed tightly, possessively against the sides of her breasts until they were pushed up against the wool of her bodice.

  Judith heard the rumble of thunder and discounted it. There was always rain in the Highlands. Alisdair kissed her closed eyelids, swept down the fine line of her nose. His fingers slid through her hair, his fingertips pressed into her scalp, and although the touch was domineering, fierce, it was yet curiously gentle. She leaned into him, her hands braced against his chest, feeling the hardness of his muscles, the radiant warmth of his skin. It was quiet joy she felt now, not fear.

  The first drops of rain didn’t disturb her. Nothing mattered at this moment, but the taste of Alisdair’s lips and the sweet, heady wonder of the hard strength of his body pressed against her. How odd that the fear she had felt for so long at the thought of a man’s touch had mellowed to a sweet, piercing anticipation.

  The rain continued, not in a soft, gentle patter like English rain, but sheets of gray, transforming the path outside the hut into a muddy trench. It saturated the thatch roof, cascaded down one side of rock, a waterfall created from man’s interference and nature’s complicity. The hut, abandoned for its habit of flooding, became a wet cave redolent with the odor of dung and fur.

  Alisdair pressed his thigh against the softness between Judith’s thighs, rotating, sliding, until she moved against him, willing to go where he led.

  The chimney hole served as a funnel for the sheets of water that instantly flooded the hard packed earthen floor of the cottage.

  Alisdair was aware of the penetrating rain but was too bemused by eager lips, by the warm, wet cavern of Judith’s mouth and the budding passion of her response to him. Although cloth denied him passage, his memory recalled the feel of her, hot, wet, willing. Still, the insistence of the irritation managed to penetrate the fog of desire. Judith stirred, the annoying sensation of being drenched by the downpour slowly penetrating the ardor of his embrace.

  They separated, finally, and looked at each other.

  She took a step backwards, and nearly fell in the ankle high water. He reached out an arm to steady her, pulling her back into his arms. She leaned her forehead against his sodden shirt and began to laugh weakly. His rumbling laughter echoed hers.

  "Perhaps, I have not chosen a suitable spot for trysting," he admitted wryly, the uncomfortable fit of wet trousers gloving his arousal remind
ing him of his loss of control.

  She only giggled.

  "Although, it could be worse, I suppose."

  That set her off again.

  "How?" she asked finally, leaning against him, not bothering to brush the tears of mirth from her eyes. She was so wet, it did not matter.

  "Well," he said, considering, "it could be winter."

  She howled.

  "Or," he whispered, "we could be naked."

  She looked at him suspiciously, the laughter in her eyes softening her glance. She took one step back, stumbling on the wet length of her skirts. She fell backwards, barely missing the wooden frame of the sagging cot.

  She did not, however, avoid the mud.

  His laughter shook the walls of the cottage with as much ferocity as the storm itself. He knelt beside her, oblivious to his own state, and raised her up. She was coated with mud, a slippery, oozing mass of clinging odor. He sniffed her and began laughing again.

  The coarse wool of her dress itched and the weight of her skirts, along with the sucking mud beneath her feet conspired to make every movement difficult. She brushed his hands away and attempted to stand, but he only pulled her down beside him.

  On her next attempt to rise, he merely held onto the collar of her dress, and the old wool separated easily. So did the chemise. The sight of her, coated with mud, and spitting mad did not encourage his laughter, it diffused it.

  He rose and clasped her wetly against him. His mouth searched hers, felt its mutinous contours, softened them, gentled them, until she forget her anger and allowed them to fall open under his onslaught.

  He stepped away long enough to pull off his sodden shirt and fling it to the floor. Bits of leaves and grass fell through the gaps in the roof and stuck to his skin. His trousers left nothing to the imagination, especially since the bulge there seemed to enlarge as she stared.

  Her rain slicked breasts slid against his chest and the mat of his hair heightened the sensation. Judith moaned against his mouth; he encompassed the sound with his lips.

  Rain splattered on her shoulders and dripped relentlessly down her skin. Alisdair bent and licked each droplet that fell from her puckered nipples and felt her response in the sudden arching of her back. He stood apart, disregarding her muffled protest and stripped off his remaining clothes. He flung them into the corner, not noticing when they floated among the debris of the flooded hut.