by Hilly Mason
Isla was nowhere near the brothel, so he decided to head to the Murrays’ estate, in case she had decided to visit with Golden.
Just as Jack turned a corner, someone came from behind and hit him with something hard at the back of his knee, sending him sprawling onto the ground. Groaning, his vision filmed up with pain, and a high pitched ringing shot through his ears. But eventually, after sitting and taking steadying breaths for a few minutes while kneeling on the ground, the ringing in his head finally subsided and he attempted to push himself back onto his feet.
It wasn’t late enough that the streets were empty, and he heard people nearby as they visited the late-night establishments. As Jack tried to stand, his right leg crumbled and he collapsed onto the ground again.
“Lord Craig?”
The astonished voice came from no other than Miss Lockheart. The young woman was with a gentleman, and they looked like they had been dressed for a night at the River Theater.
“Are you injured, Lord Craig?” she asked him, worry in her voice.
It would be an obvious lie if he were to say no, and he had promised Isla he would never lie again. “Yes, I am,” he said, with all the dignity he could muster. “Someone attacked me. Dunno who.” Had it been Mr. Murray? Was he taking his revenge out on him?
“Oh, no! I’ve heard of robbers on this street, but I never thought it would happen to someone I know!” Chloe glanced at her chaperone, obviously struggling to decide what to do.
“My mother can help you,” she finally said. “We can take you to her.”
Jack was about to refuse. Chloe must have sensed his hesitation.
“It will be fine,” she told him, kindly but firmly.
The man, who introduced himself as Johnny Bluthe, offered his shoulder for Jack to wrap his arm around, and very slowly they hobbled back down the road towards the Lockhearts’ home.
“Didn’t mean to ruin your night,” Jack mumbled.
“You did no such thing,” Chloe assured him. “Mama has been wanting to speak with you anyway.”
She did? That was the last thing Jack had expected of the family, but here was Chloe Lockheart, helping him when she could have left him in the gutters.
She helped him into the house. “Chloe, what on earth…” Mrs. Lockheart began, and then realized who they had carried in.
“Lord Craig?”
“Mrs. Lockheart,” Jack said in greeting, and then gritted his teeth as a new wave of pain seized his leg.
“What happened to you?”
“He was attacked, Mama,” Chloe explained. “Near the River Theater.”
“Bring him to the chaise. Help him lie down.” The older woman went for her medical bag as Chloe and Johnny set him down. Chloe took a pillow and propped Jack’s injured leg up.
“Your right leg is it, Lord Craig? Can you roll up your trousers for me?” Mrs. Lockheart inspected the injured area. “It’s a mighty bruise,” she told him. “But nothing too serious. Keep the weight off of it and you will mend. You’re lucky that whoever did this didn’t hit your knee directly otherwise it would take much longer to heal. I recommend you stay here for a day before walking on it again.”
“I can’t stay here,” Jack demanded, already sitting up.
But Mrs. Lockheart forced him gently back down onto the chaise. “You are not going anywhere,” she said firmly, reaching into her medicine bag for a dark blue bottle. “I’ll give you some laudanum to help with the pain.”
“No,” Jack said a bit harshly. “No thank you, Mrs. Lockheart,” he amended. “I’m fine without it.”
“I see.” Mrs. Lockheart put the cork back on the bottle and brought a chair over to sit next to him.
“Why are you helping me, after all that has happened?” Jack asked her.
The woman looked down at her hands. “I heard about Mrs. Murray’s confession… how Mr. Murray drugged you into believing that you killed my husband, when it was really he and that monster Mr. Townshend who were responsible for his death.” Mrs. Lockheart reached her hand out and clasp her fingers around his. “You’re always welcome here, Lord Craig.”
Jack forced a smile. “It’s all a mess, Mrs. Lockheart,” he told her truthfully. “Isla… I was supposed to find her.” He was beginning to regret ever leaving the brothel. What would she think if she had returned, only to find him gone?
“You need to rest tonight. This woman you speak of can wait until the morrow.”
But what if Isla did something rash before then? What if she decided to leave America without him knowing? He wouldn’t put it past her, mostly because they were a lot alike and he had almost done the same thing when he was under duress.
He watched as Mrs. Lockheart put the bottle of laudanum away in her bag. The pain in his knee was almost unbearable, and he was tempted to take the laudanum, but he wouldn’t. He never wanted to be under the effects of a drug or alcohol again. Not after what happened.
Mrs. Lockheart must have understood this. She gave him water instead of whiskey.
“You’re a good man, Lord Craig,” she told him. “Remember that.”
He woke up early the next morning. The sun was barely making its appearance above the buildings of the city when he remembered where he was. He cursed to himself. He hadn’t meant to sleep the night, only to rest just for a few hours. His leg still pained him, but it was duller in feeling and completely manageable. Jack sat up and slowly swung his legs to the ground. He tested his weight and knew immediately that there was no way he would be able to walk for any great length. His heart sunk.
“Good morning,” Mrs. Lockheart came in, carrying a tray of coffee and scones. She set it down on the table beside him.
“I need to get a carriage.”
“I will send for one,” she told him. “I hope you find her, Lord Craig.”
The carriage awaited him after breakfast. Mrs. Lockheart had given him a wooden crutch and helped him to the vehicle. As he settled into his seat he looked back at the family. He had a feeling he would never see them again, but a part of him was relieved that that particular chapter of his life was now over.
The streets were congested with the morning rush, and if he didn’t have a bum leg he would have walked the rest of the way to the Murrays’ estate, but he instead practiced his patience by breathing steadily in and out through his nose. He had a deep, sinking feeling that it was already too late. After all, why would Isla spend an entire day at the Murrays when it no longer meant anything to her? Would she even go there in the first place?
The estate was desolate when he arrived, but he was relieved to find Meredith by Golden’s cage. Seeing Golden still in her cage made him feel hopeful.
But when Meredith saw him, she shook his head. “It’s too late,” she told him. “She’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“She’s going back to her home in London.”
Jack let out a string of curses. “When did she leave?”
“Sometime last night.”
He turned to leave, but Meredith caught his sleeve. “Mr. Murray returned earlier,” she told him. “He didn’t know that Mrs. Murray had already been arrested.”
“What happened?”
“I called Baxter.” Meredith told him, her mouth flickering upward into a smile. “It’s over, Jack. All of it, is over. Those criminals are where they belong.”
“Thank God,” he murmured. Could it have been Mr. Murray who had attacked him last night? He supposed he would never find out, but it didn’t matter much to him. Meredith was wrong; it wasn’t over yet.
The carriage was still waiting for him after he had said goodbye to Meredith. “The harbor,” he told the driver, and the wheels churned the dirt down the road toward Philadelphia.
Once at the harbor he stumbled down towards the docks to the first packet ship he saw. “When is the next departing ship for England?” he asked the first sailor he saw.
“Next week, mate. Thursday I believe.”
Jack sank down o
nto his knees, his crutch clattering loudly beside him on the ground. The pain from his injury was dulled by the tugging ache of his heart.
“Hey, man. Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. Using his crutch as support, he pushed himself back up onto his feet. “I’ll take one ticket to London.”
Epilogue
Three months later
London, England
The moment Jack disembarked from the ship in London, he checked all the manifests he could get his hands on to make sure there hadn’t been any recent shipwrecks across the Atlantic. Thankfully, the only accident of late was a trading ship off the coast of Portugal. Well, the men who perished aboard that ship were probably not so thankful, but Jack didn’t want to dwell on that.
After learning that the St. Georges were at their estate in Chertsey, Jack journeyed to Ramsbury House. The St. Georges welcomed him in, but when he asked of Isla’s whereabouts they did not give him a complete answer, explaining that she was only resting.
Frustrated, Jack made to leave, but Lady St. George took him aside to speak with him.
“She told me that you left her in Philadelphia, without a word of your whereabouts.”
“I assure you that it was all a misunderstanding,” Jack insisted.
The woman nodded. “Yes, although she didn’t admit it to me, I could sense that’s what she was finally led to believe. It upset her greatly to have left you in America.”
“Just so that we’re clear,” Jack told her, “I’m not going to rest until I tell her how I feel about her. Then I’ll leave it up to her to decide what she wants to do.”
“She went up to Scotland,” Lady St. George told them, smiling slightly. “I suspect she is in Ciarach visiting with my sister-in-law and her family.”
Jack took the next carriage to Scotland the next day. He hadn’t been to the rugged country since his father found him and his brother at Cameron and grabbed them by the ear, dragging them back to their Berkshire estate. He rather liked the untamed country of the Highlands. It reminded him of Isla—but truth be told, everything reminded her of the woman lately.
Despite what he had said to Lady St. George, he had this romantic notion that Isla would run into his arms when he would finally find her. And what would he do if she actually didn’t want him in her life?
Well, he would respect her wishes, of course, no matter how badly it hurt.
The MacNevins were not prepared for his arrival at Castle Alban as Jack did not have the time to send them a letter. But they graciously invited them into their grand castle, which was littered with children and yapping dogs.
“Ye just missed her,” Lord Brodie MacNevin told him apologetically, prying a young toddler from Jack’s leg. “She left a few days ago.”
Jack wanted to drop his head onto the table. He was weary from traveling nonstop for nearly three long months, and he wanted an extended nap. Yet he knew he wouldn’t be able to take a proper rest until he found Isla.
“The Isle of Skye,” Lady Diana MacNevin told him.
It was as though Isla was playing a game of cat and mouse with him. “Of course,” he said under his breath.
The travel was hard on his still-healing knee. But seeing how Brodie MacNevin got around with only one leg, he hardly had room to complain. Still, he spent the night in the castle (after a long evening of playing with the younger MacNevin children, who never did seem to tire).
By early morning he was already making his way west. The land was too rugged to go by carriage, so he went instead by horseback; Brodie offered his own steed and he rode swiftly through the mountains for three days, spending the evening wrapped up in his cloak in whatever shelter he could find.
Once he reached the village, Kyle of Lochalsh, he took a ferry across the water towards the Isle of Skye.
And what then? Skye was not a tiny piece of land. Yet with the impression Isla made on people, she would hardly go unnoticed while she traveled. Someone must have seen her.
A few days later, Jack stumbled into a hotel in a small settlement called Sligachan. He stood in the doorway, waiting for his eyes to adjust before realizing he was the only patron in the establishment. There was an older man sitting behind the bar counter, reading a newspaper. He glanced up at Jack, as though surprised to have a visitor.
“Ye want a drink?” he was asked.
Jack shook his head.
“Why ye here, then? Ye want a room?”
Jack sat down in the chair closest to the man. “I want answers.”
This seemed to pique the man’s interest. He set down his newspaper and gave him a curious look.
“Oh, aye? And what are your questions?”
“Have you seen a red-headed woman travel through here recently? She is taller than yourself—taller than most men, really. She would have a scar just below her right eye, and a slightly crooked nose.”
“Aye, she’s been through here,” the man said, scratching the bridge of his own nose. “She came in here to ask where the fairy pools are.”
“Fairy pools?”
“Aye, follow Allt Dearg Mor and it’ll lead you to it,” the man waved vaguely towards the window. “About thirty miles.”
It took Jack a moment to realize the man was talking about the winding river that disappeared into a mountain range. He quickly thanked the man and left.
Brodie MacNevin’s horse waited for him outside. He mounted the stallion and took off towards the mountains, using the river to guide him along the way.
Yet, after hours of journeying, when he finally made it to what he believed were the fairy pools, Isla was nowhere in sight. Had I made it to the right place? he wondered as he gazed as the beauty of the multiple waterfalls spilling into the crystal clear pools. It seemed almost certain that Isla would be just out of reach for the rest of his life.
Jack turned to leave, but a flash of color caught his eye.
He found her now, her hair blazing under the sun as she sat by the water staring silently into its depths.
“Isla,” he whispered, not quite believing that what he saw was real. She didn’t know he was there; her head was still lowered, her hair covering her face like a veil. Was she finally talking to the fairies again? As he made his way in haste over to her, he tripped and fell.
“Jack?”
He looked up to see her standing, her face struggling between a frown and a smile.
“You’re real,” he spluttered.
“Ye blockheid,” she said fondly as she walked towards him. There were tears in her eyes. “What the hell happened to ye?”
“I had to come. I had to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“I love you.”
Her mouth curved upward into a smile. A few tears escaped from her eyes and trailed down her freckled cheeks. “Do ye now? I thought that you coming all this way was your way of saying ye despise me,” she said sarcastically. The mirth suddenly left her face. “I love ye too, Jack. God, I’m so glad to see ye again.” As she sat down beside him, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
She leaned into his chest. “What happened in Philadelphia?” she asked him softly. “What went wrong?”
“When you left the brothel, I went after you. I… I was injured along the way. Once I was able to get on my feet again you had already left.”
“I thought ye were done with me,” Isla admitted. “I was confused. I didna ken what else to do but run.”
“I understand, Isla. Honestly, I do.”
Isla nodded as she wiped away her tears. “I tried calling on the fairies today, for the first time since I left Scotland years ago,” she said, gazing out at the water. The tears in her eyes reflected the turquoise water of the fairy pools. “They haven’t answered. Perhaps they forgot about me.”
“Is that why you came back to Scotland?”
She shook her head. “When I returned to Scotland, I tried finding records of my parents in Edinburgh and again in Inverness, but found nothing. I suppose
it doesn’t matter. I’m realizing I don’t need to find out who my true family is. I already have my own family. Sophia, Diana... What more do I need?”
“What about me?” he dared to ask.
“Hmm? What about ye, Jack?” There was humor in her voice.
“I want you to marry me.”
His heart was beating loudly as her face broke out into a big grin. She leaned forward and gave him a big kiss on his lips. “Och, well. I heartily accept!”
They made love by the fairy pools, but the air quickly grew so chilled that even their body heat could not keep themselves warm. The village of Glenbrittle was only a few miles away, and Jack was looking forward to warmer accommodations while still making his affections known to his future wife.
“Shall we start our return home?” he asked her as they got dressed.
Isla smiled. “I already am home.”
Jack looked around, confused. “Oh, so you want to build a house here by the fairy pools, then?”
“No, Jack,” Isla said, smiling. “My home is with ye.” She put a hand on his heart.
Understanding flickered in Jack’s eyes. He took her hand in his and kissed it.