by Nora Roberts
"I will hold him." Serena leaned over Brigham's body, as if to shield him. "And God help you if the knife slips." They built a fire and turned a blade in it until the tip glowed red. When Brigham surfaced, Gwen held a bowl of medicine heavily laced with poppies to his lips. Sweat poured down his face no matter how diligently Serena wiped his skin with a cool cloth.
"Sit with Maggie and Mother, Rena," Coll said quietly. "Let me hold him down."
"No. This is for me to do." She braced herself over Brigham, clasping her hands on his arms, then lifted her face to Parkins. "I know you will have to hurt him, but for mercy's sake, be quick."
The valet had stripped off his coat and rolled back his sleeves to reveal thin, spindly arms. Serena closed her eyes a moment. She was putting her love, her life, into the hands of a man who looked able to do no more than shine boots. Opening them again, she studied the valet's face. Steady. She had called him so herself. Loyal. More than loyal, she realized. As a man could love another, he loved Brigham. With a prayer, she nodded for Parkins to begin. And watched the knife cut into her husband's flesh. Even dazed by the drug, Brigham stiffened. Serena used all her strength to press him down even as she murmured to him, nonsense, endearments, promises. She watched the knife go deeper and ignored the rolling of her stomach. As the pain of the knife sliced through the swoon and the drug, Brigham began to fight. Coll tried to take Serena's place, but she snarled him away and summoned all her strength.
There was no sound in the cave but for Brigham's harsh breathing and the low crackle of the fire. But the air was charged with silent prayers, said with a unity that made them as strong as a novena. Serena watched her husband's blood stain the floor of the cave and his face go ashen. In her prayers, she begged to take some of his pain into herself and spare him.
"I've found it." Sweat streamed down Parkins's face as he probed for the ball. In his heart he prayed that his master would fault and escape the pain. But his thin hand was steady. Slowly, terrified of causing more damage, he began to guide the bullet out. "Keep him still, my lady."
"Get the damn thing out." She shot a furious look at Parkins as Brigham moaned and struggled under her confining hands. "He suffers." She watched, her breathing harsh and unsteady, as Parkins pried the small ball of metal from Brigham's flesh. Before Parkins could release the breath he had been holding, Gwen was taking over.
"We must stop the bleeding. He can't lose much more and live." Competently she began to pack the wound. "Mama, will you see to his arm and shoulder? They are less severe, but look ugly. Mrs. Drummond, my medicines." As Brigham went limp again, Serena leaned back. Her arms and back were trembling with the pressure. Carefully, mindful now of the child, she made herself relax. "How can I help?"
Gwen glanced up only briefly from her work. Serena's face was as pale as Brigham's. "By getting air. Please, leave this to me." With a nod, Serena rose and moved slowly to the mouth of the cave. It was nearly dusk again, she noted. How quickly the time had passed. And how strangely. A year before it had been Brigham, carrying a wounded Coll. Now it was Brigham who lay near death. The time between seemed like a dream, filled with love and passion, laughter and weeping.
She could see the hills going purple in the lowering light. The land, she thought. Would they now lose even that? They had fought, they had died. Coll had told her that their father's last words had been "It will not be for naught." But the man she loved lay wounded and the land they had fought for was no longer hers.
"Lady Ashburn?"
Blinking, Serena brought herself back. She was Lady Ashburn. She was a MacGregor. She laid a hand over her stomach as the child within kicked. A new life. A new hope. No, she thought, she would not say it had been for naught.
"Aye?"
"I thought you might enjoy a hot drink."
She turned, nearly smiling at the formal tone of Parkins's voice. He was wearing his coat again, and the perspiring, intense man who had removed a bullet might never have been. "Thank you, Parkins." She took the cup and let the liquid soothe her raw throat. "I would like to apologize for speaking to you as I did."
"Pray do not consider it, my lady. You were distraught."
Serena lifted her hand to her face as she was caught between tears and laughter. "Aye. Distraught. You have a steady hand, Parkins. A steady heart."
"I have always strived to, my lady."
She let out a long breath, swiping at her face with her knuckles. "Have you a handkerchief, as well?"
"Of course, Lady Ashburn." With a slight bow, Parkins offered one of sensible cloth.
"Parkins, you have served Lord Ashburn today, and you have also served me. There may be a time when you require a favor of me. You have only to ask."
"My service was given without condition, my lady."
"Aye." She took his hand, causing him to color a bit. "I know it. The boon is still yours when you need it." She offered him back the damp handkerchief. "I will go sit with my husband now."
The wind picked up and howled like a wild beast. It fought its way through the blanket over the cave opening and sent the flames of the low fire dancing. In its shrieks, Serena heard what her ancestors would have called the spirits of the hills. They laughed and moaned and mumbled. She felt no fear of them.
She watched Brigham through the night, unable to sleep even when Gwen pleaded with her. The fire burned through him, so hot at times Serena feared it would eat him alive. Sometimes he spoke, in rambling sporadic sentences that told her he was reliving the battle. Through his words, she saw more clearly than ever how complete the slaughter had been. Once he spoke to his grandmother, telling her despairingly of the dreams that had been shattered by the English guns.
He called for Serena, and would be soothed for a time by her murmurs and by her hand, cool on his brow. He would wake again, delirious, certain that the English had found her.
"I will sit with him, Serena." Fiona knelt beside her, laying a comforting arm over her shoulders. "You need rest, for yourself and your child."
"I cannot leave him, Mama." Serena wrung out a cool cloth and stroked it over Brigham's pale face. "I am easier here than I would be if I tried to sleep. Just looking at him helps somehow. Sometimes he opens his eyes and looks at me. He knows I'm with him."
"Then sleep here, for just a little while. Put your head in my lap as you did when you were a girl." With Fiona's gentle persuasion, Serena curled up on the floor of the cave. Reaching out, she covered Brigham's hand with her own.
"He is beautiful, is he not, Mama?"
With a little smile, Fiona stroked her daughter's hair. "Aye, he is beautiful."
"Our baby will look like him, with those fine gray eyes and strong mouth." She closed her eyes and listened to the fearless song of the wind. "I loved him, I think, almost from the first. I was afraid. That was foolish." Fiona continued to soothe and stroke as Serena's words grew slurred with sleep. "Love is often foolish."
"The child is moving," she murmured, smiling as she drifted off. "Brigham's child." Brigham's dreams were unrelenting. Sometimes he was back on the moor, trapped in the smoke and fury of battle. Men died agonizing deaths around him, some by his own hand. He could smell the blood and the acrid scent of gunpowder. He could hear the pipes and drums and the unrelenting boom of artillery.
Then he was limping through the hills, the fire in his side and the mist over his brain. He thought he smelt burning—wood and flesh—and heard screams echoing in his head.
Just when he knew he would scream himself from the sound of it, it stopped. Serena stood beside him, wearing a white dress that glittered over her skin, her hair falling like melted gold.
Sometimes when he opened his eyes he would see her, so clearly that he could make out the smudges of sleeplessness under her eyes. Then his weighted lids would close again and he would be pitched back onto the battlefield. For three days he drifted between consciousness and unconsciousness, often delirious. He knew nothing of the little world that had been conceived within the cave, or of
the comings and goings of its people. He heard voices, but had not the strength to understand or to answer. Once, when he floated to the surface, it was dark and he thought he heard a woman's quiet weeping. Another time, he heard the thin cry of a baby.
At the end of three days he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, a sleep as peaceful as death. Waking was something like being born, confusing, painful, helpless. The light burned his eyes, though it was dim in the rear of the cave. Weakly he shut them again and tried to orient himself with sounds and smells.
There was earth and smoke and, oddly, a smell of cooking food. There was also the sickly scent of poppies that spoke of sickness. He heard murmurs. With the patience of the weak he lay still until he began to make them out Coll. Gwen. Malcolm. Relief poured through him nearly as strongly as the delirium. If they were here and safe, so was Serena. He opened his eyes again, wincing at the light. He was gathering his strength to speak when he heard a rustle beside him. She was there, sitting with her knees curled up close, her back against a wall of rock. Her hair had fallen forward, almost curtaining her face. A wave of love all but drained him.
"Rena," he murmured, and reached to touch.
She woke immediately. Emotions raced across her face as she shifted close to run her hands over his face. It was cool, blessedly cool.
"Brigham." She lowered her lips to his. "You've come back to me."
There was so much to tell him, so much to hear. At first Brigham was only strong enough to stay awake for an hour at a time. The memory of the battle was clear, but that of the aftermath was, mercifully, a blur to him. There had been pain, a hotter, sharper one than the throbbing ache he felt now. He remembered being dragged and lifted and carried. There had been cool water poured down his burning throat. Once he remembered coming out of a half swoon when he and Coll had stumbled across six bodies. Gradually, at his insistence, the gaps were filled in. He listened grimly, his fury and disgust at Cumberland's atrocities offset only by the joy of having Serena and his unborn child close to him.
"This place won't be safe for long." Brigham sat braced against the wall of the cave, his face still pale in the dim light. It had been two days since he had come out of that fever. "We need to move as soon as possible, toward the coast."
"You're not strong enough." Serena kept his hand in hers. A part of her wanted to stay snug in the cave and forget there was a world outside.
In answer, he brought their joined hands to his lips. But his eyes were hard and focused. He would be damned if he would see her forced to give birth in a cave. "I think we could seek help from my kin on Skye." He looked at Gwen. "How soon will Maggie and the baby be fit enough to travel?"
"In a day or two, but you—"
"I'll be ready."
"You'll be ready when we say you are," Serena cut in.
A trace of the old arrogance flickered into his eyes. "You've grown tyrannical since I last saw you, madam." She smiled and touched her lips to his. "I have always been a tyrant, Sassenach. Rest now," she urged as she settled a blanket over him. "When your strength returns we shall go anywhere you choose."
His eyes became very intense, and her smile wavered. "I may hold you to that, Rena."
"Just rest." The weariness in his voice made her ache. He had left her a strong, seemingly invincible man. He had come back to her inches from death. She would not risk losing him to his own stubbornness. "Perhaps Coll and Malcolm will bring back meat." She lay beside him, stroking his brow as he drifted off, and wondering why her brothers tarried so long. They had seen the smoke from the ridge. Sprawled on their bellies, Coll and Malcolm looked down at Glenroe. The English had come again, bringing their fire and their hate. Already the crofts lay in ruins, their thatched roofs gone. MacGregor House was alight, and flames flickered out of broken windows.
"Damn them," Coll murmured over and over as he pounded a fist against the rock. "Damn them all."
"Why do they burn our houses?" Malcolm was ashamed of the tears and hastened to wipe them away. "What need is there to destroy our homes? The stables," he said suddenly, and would have risen up if Coll hadn't restrained him.
"They would have taken the horses, lad."
Malcolm pressed his face to the rock, caught between childish tears and a man's fury. "Will they go now, and leave us?" Coll remembered the carnage surrounding the battlefield.
"I think they will hunt the hills. We must get back to the cave."
Serena lay quietly, listening to the comforting domestic sounds. Young Ian was suckling again, and Maggie hummed to him. Mrs. Drummond and Parkins murmured over the preparation of a meal, easily, as if they were still gossiping in the kitchen. Near Maggie, Fiona worked with a spindle, peacefully spinning what would one day be made into a blanket for her grandchild. Gwen fussed with her jars and pots of medicine.
They were all together at last, together and safe. One day, when the English grew tired of raping Scotland and returned over the border, they would go back down to Glen-roe. She would make Brigham happy there somehow, make him forget the glittering life he had led in London. They would build a house of their own near the loch.
Smiling, Serena shifted away to let Brigham sleep. She had a passing thought to look out and see if she could spot her brothers returning, but even as she stood, she heard the sound of someone moving near the mouth of the cave. Words of greeting were on the tip of her tongue, but then she stopped. Neither Coll nor Malcolm would have a need to come so cautiously. With a hand that had gone suddenly cold, she reached for the pistol.
A shadow blocked out the light at the mouth of the cave. Then she saw with a sickening lurch of her heart the glint of metal and the telling red of the coat.
The soldier straightened, his sword raised, as he took quick stock of his find. Serena noted that his coat and his face were streaked with dirt and soot. There was a look of triumph in his eyes, and an unmistakable glint in them when he spotted Gwen. Without a word, and with no thought of mercy, he advanced on Parkins. Serena lifted the pistol and fired. He stumbled back, blank surprise showing in his face the instant before he crumpled to the ground. Thinking only of defending what was hers, Serena gripped the hilt of her grandfather's claymore. Another soldier broke in. Even as she raised the sword, she felt a hand close over hers. Brigham was beside her. The soldier, teeth bared, charged forward, leading with his bayonet. Another shot rang out, felling him. Parkins stood, his rail-thin body shielding Mrs. Drummond's, the pistol still smoking in his hand.
"Reload," Brigham ordered, thrusting Serena behind him as another dragoon pushed into the cave. The redcoat didn't advance, only stood stiffly for an instant before falling headfirst. There was an arrow quivering in his back. Breathing through his teeth, Brigham rushed out of the cave. There were two more. Coll was fighting one, sword to sword, as he maneuvered desperately to shield Malcolm with his body. The other dragoon advanced on the young boy, who held an empty bow as a useless defense.
With a shout, Brigham lunged. The pain exploded afresh in his side, almost blinding him. The dragoon swung around, but raised his sword again over Malcolm's head.
Serena fired the freshly loaded pistol from the mouth of the cave and sent a ball into his heart. It was over in minutes. Five dragoons lay dead, but the sanctuary of the cave was ended. They moved at dusk, heading west. Two of the horses the dragoons had tethered were Malcolm's own. They took shifts, riding, walking. When it was possible, they sheltered in mud huts or with the cattle. Highland hospitality was as it had always been. Through the people they met they learned of Cumberland, who was already known as the
Butcher. The persecution was unbearable, and the search for the Prince through the heather unrelenting. Houses were in ruin; cattle and horses and sheep had been driven off. The Highlanders, never rich, faced starvation. Still, they hid their Prince and any fugitive who asked for shelter.
Progress was slow, with each day bringing its own dangers. Thousands of troops had been engaged to find the Prince. It was June before they were able to
sail from the mainland to Skye, where they were taken in by the MacDonalds of Sleat
"It's as beautiful as she said it was," Brigham murmured as he stood with Serena on the lush green grass of a small slope and looked out at Uig Bay. "My grandmother told me how she ran through the grass as a girl and watched the boats."
"It is beautiful." The breeze was kind against her face. "Everything is beautiful now that we're all together and safe." For how long? Brigham wondered. There were troops here, as well. The sea was being patrolled. There were rumors that the Prince was near. If he was, the English would be on his heels. A way had to be devised for the Prince to return to France or Italy. But more personally, and more importantly, Serena and the child had to be kept safe.
He had thought of little else during the days of his recovery, during the nights they had traveled like outcasts through the hills of Scotland. He could not now return to England and give Serena what was rightfully hers as Lady Ashburn. Nor could he, though she had yet to accept it, return to Glenroe for years to come.
"Sit with me, Serena."
"Gladly." She laughed a little as he helped her settle what had become a cumbersome weight. "I shall never be able to face a cow again."
"You've never looked more beautiful."
"You lie." She grinned and turned her face for a kiss. "But the truth wouldn't earn you a kiss." With her head on his shoulder, she looked out at the bay. The sun scattered over it, edging the blue with gold, like a lady's ball gown. "It is beautiful here, Brig. I'm glad you had the chance to see the land where your grandmother grew up. That we had the chance to see it together." With a little sound of discomfort, she rested a hand on her stomach.
"Do you feel unwell?"
"No, better every day since we've come here." It was true, spiritually. She didn't want to tell him how poorly she had begun to feel physically. Only that morning the ache in her back, and the pressure, had nearly kept her in bed. "Your grandmother's people have been so kind to us."
"I know. I shall always be grateful to them, and all the others who gave us shelter." His eyes clouded as he looked down over the water.
"It is difficult to understand how they could give shelter so freely to an Englishman."
"How can you speak so?" There was genuine anger in her voice as she gripped his arm. "It was not your England that has murdered Scotland. It was, is, Cumberland and his thirst for blood, his need to destroy. It is he who has laid waste to the glens."
"And in London he is cheered like a hero."
"Listen to me." Her grip gentled as she reached for his hand. "There was a time I blamed all for the wrongs of a few. As you love me, don't do the same." With a smile, she moved his hand over her belly. "Our child carries English blood. I am proud of it" He brought her close a moment, just to hold her. "Again you humble me." They remained as they were, sitting close, clinging to the hope that had come even out of loss. "You know, if I am found here, what will happen to the MacDonalds?" It was cowardly, but she didn't want to think of it. "You will not be found."
"I cannot run forever, Rena, nor continue to endanger friend and stranger."
She plucked nervously at the turf. It was so green and smelled so sweet. "I know, but what choice do we have? The Prince is still hunted. I know you worry for him."
"I do, but I also worry for you and your child." When she started to reassure him, he gripped her hands. "I will never forget that last day in the cave, the way you were forced to defend me, to kill for me and your family."
"I did what needed to be done, what you would have done. All those months I felt useless because I could do nothing. That day, things changed. A woman might not join the rebellion on a battlefield, but a woman can protect what she loves."
"I will tell you in truth that I have never loved you more than I did that day, when you held a sword and a pistol in your hands." He kissed them, then looked steadily into her eyes. "Can you understand that I wanted to give you beauty, not a life of fear and running? I wanted to give you what was mine, but is mine no longer."
"Brigham—"
"No, wait. There is something I must ask you. You said you would go with me wherever I chose. Will you?" She felt a little pain ripple through her, but nodded. "Aye."
"Will you leave Scotland, Rena, and travel with me to the New World? I cannot give you all that I once promised, though we won't be poor. So many of the things I wanted for you will be left behind. You will be only Mrs. Langston, and the land and the people will be strange to you, to both of us. I know what I ask you to give up, but perhaps one day we can return."
"Ssh." Overcome, she wrapped her arms around him. "Don't you know I would ride into hell with you if you asked?"
"I don't ask you to ride into hell, but I know what I ask you and what promises I break."
"You promised only to love me, and to come back to me. You have done both." She shook her head before he could speak. "You must listen, and try to understand. The weeks I had with you at court were beautiful, but only because we were together. I have never needed such things, Brigham. The title means nothing to me, nor do the balls or the gowns. Only you." With a watery laugh, she pulled back.
"Every day at Holyrood I worried that I would make a mistake and embarrass you, that you would see you had made a grave error in judgment in taking me for Lady Ashburn."
"What nonsense is this?"
"I shall never be an easy aristocrat, Brigham. I was afraid you would ask me to go to France, to court." His eyes narrowed as he studied her. "Your life would be easier there, as it was in Edinburgh."
"And I would have to pretend to be a lady while I longed for my breeches and a fast ride."
"You would rather go to America with only a chest of gold and a dream?"
She framed his face with her hands. "England was yours and Scotland mine. We've lost them. Together we will make our own."
"I love you, Rena. More than my life."
"Brigham, the child—"
"Shall be happy. I swear it"
"Sooner than we think," she managed. At his expression, she managed another laugh, then winced. "Oh, I think he has my impatience. I need Gwen, Brigham, and Mother."
"But you said it would be a few weeks yet."
"It's not what I say." She held a hand over her belly as it hardened with a contraction. "It's what he says." She caught her breath, then giggled when he swept her awkwardly into his arms. "Brigham, there is no need. I'll break your back." At that moment she felt weightless. "Madam," he said with a trace of mockery. "Have a little faith."
Epilogue