by Nichole Van
“Exactly.” Aster’s gaze had turned soft.
“Aster’s right,” Rose chimed in. “You were willing to endure the snubs and disdain of our neighbors because you knew that the alternative was Dahlia’s unhappiness. And we all loved Dahlia enough to want her to be happy, even at personal cost to ourselves. Please allow us to choose the same for you.”
The sincerity in her sisters’ voices set Violet to crying again.
“Violet,” Aster said, eyes frightfully serious. “We’ve already lost one sister to a marriage that Father deemed unacceptable. We will not lose a second sister to grief over a marriage that was abandoned for duty’s sake.”
“And you need to stop worrying about us,” Rose said. “Aster and I will manage. We are nothing if not resourceful.”
Violet swiped at her cheeks. “You darling dears, you are too good to me. But I cannot allow you to sacrifice—”
“Bah!” Rose waved a careless hand. “It’s hardly a sacrifice! I will not be forced to marry an elderly, respectable man. It’s more of a relief, I tell you.”
“Yes!” Aster agreed. “And if you will not take our word for it, I am fully prepared to ruin myself.”
“Aster Meredith Kerr!” Violet gasped.
“I am.” Aster’s face was resolute. “Have you seen the new blacksmith in the village?!”
“Oh, he is delicious!” Rose enthused.
“No! Neither of you are allowed to ruin your reputations!” Violet all but shouted.
“Well, then, you will simply have to marry your Mr. Campbell to ensure it.” Aster pretended to inspect her fingernails. “I cannot be held accountable for my actions otherwise. It’s my choice, after all.”
“Besides, I think you are perhaps being a smidgen melodramatic, Violet,” Rose said. “There is every reason to believe that marrying Mr. Campbell will not harm us. Well, at least, not in the long run. Mr. Campbell has wealthy, powerful friends. He is talented and his star is rising. There are those who will see your marrying him as wildly unorthodox—”
Aster coughed, though it sounded suspiciously like, “Lady Graham.”
“—but none of us wish to associate with those people anyway,” Rose continued.
“True!” Aster agreed. “Can you imagine if Lord and Lady Hadley decided to take us into their circle?”
“Wouldn’t that be delightful?” Rose clasped her hands.
“But what about Father?” Violet said. “He will be so angry and cold, just like he was with Dahlia—”
“Let me deal with my brother,” Uncle Joshua returned. “I think I can help him understand what’s at stake here. I often think my brother’s negative reaction to Dahlia’s choices and death had little to do with anger and more to do with mismanaged grief. Some people allow grief to soften and grow their heart. But for others, grief calcifies it into bedrock. David alone must be the one to chip away at the stone around his heart. But we are here to help him. He loves you all. I know he does. And I think, in time, he will come around. In the meantime, my mind is already pondering solutions to help Violet and Ewan on their way.”
“Uncle, Aster, Rose, I . . .” Violet’s voice faded off. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll go after Mr. Campbell.”
“Go after him?” Violet frowned.
“Yes! He needs that,” Rose said, voice very matter-of-fact.
“Pardon? He left me. Why should I go haring after him?”
“I have to agree with Rose on this, child,” Sir Joshua said. “I have often sensed that Ewan is used to doing and giving for everyone else but is rarely on the receiving end himself. He has, quite literally at times, spent his life fighting for others. But has anyone ever truly chosen, and fought, for him?”
Ewan’s parting words rolled over Violet:
I will always choose you. Even the parts of ye that must adhere tae duty . . . the part that includes not choosing me.
Was this her answer? That she needed to choose Ewan? Publicly and thoroughly?
Her uncle paused, gaze pensive.
Then, he pushed out of his chair and wandered toward the left side of the great hall.
“Ewan will likely be upset with me for doing this, but I think you need to see this, child.”
Violet followed her uncle.
Sir Joshua tugged at a cloth draped atop a frame in the corner. The cloth covered what was likely an enormous canvas, at least eight feet high.
The cloth fell.
Violet gasped.
She stared at herself, draped in the shimmery aqua-blue gown she had chosen for her official portrait.
She stood in the middle of the canvas. A desk rested against a flowing drape on one side. A vast landscape opened on the other.
The sunlight peeked through clouds behind, rimming her head in a halo of light and casting a shadow of glowing armor around her. Scales sat on her desk, resting beside an orb of justice.
Ewan had painted her like Joan of Arc, the champion of her people.
Moreover, he had littered the painting with all the things she could do and be. Ledgers were stacked on the floor. Farmers worked the field behind her. But there were also children’s toys in one corner and a basket of unfinished embroidery.
Most importantly, however, she held a sword in her hand. An honest-to-goodness claymore, the tip resting on the ground by her feet, its blade unsheathed and gleaming silver.
The message to her was achingly clear—
You can be anything you wish. The power is in your own hands.
How could she still have any tears left to shed?
And yet, her eyes pricked and stung, the paint blurring into a hazy mass of color.
How profound . . . to understand how he perceived her.
Everyone else saw her as a thing to defend. A land to be won and conquered. Lord Graham had wanted to wield a sword on her behalf.
But not Ewan.
No . . .
He had no desire to mold her into his own making. He felt no need to fight her battles for her.
He did not see her as someone requiring protection.
Instead, he was the friend who pointed out the sword in her own hand—
A champion in her own right. A crusading knight.
Any part of Violet that did not already love Ewan Campbell crumbled.
She adored this man.
And she knew what decision she would make with blinding clarity.
She would pursue and marry him.
Everything else was so much dross.
Uncle Joshua was right, after all. Life was long. Hardship was guaranteed. But she had been granted the gift to choose who would be at her side.
And she chose Ewan.
She was going to go after him. She was going to fight for him.
Ewan Campbell would know how treasured and adored he was.
But first, she had two things she had to do.
27
It seemed fitting to arrive on a dreich day.
Ewan looked for the poetic in things, and this one was impossible to ignore.
The clouds hung low over Loch Carron, sending the rain dribbling down in a fine mist. He had left the small inn hours earlier, choosing to walk the last few miles. He pulled the top section of his great kilt over his head, wrapping the whole around him like a hooded cloak, wearing the kilt as his ancestors had on this very road for generations before him.
How odd. He left this place nearly nine years ago, but it might as well have been yesterday.
The journey had been long. He had known that it would be, which was why it had taken so many years to reach this point again. It wasn’t simply the literal distance—which had taken nearly eight days on horseback to traverse the mountainous terrain—but the emotional backtracking in time.
Every mile farther from Violet had exponentially amplified the gap between them. How could he think that a poor lad from this backwater corner of the world could ever aspire to a life as the consort of someone like Lady Kildrum?
In the harsh light of reality, it appeared laughable.
Once west of Inverness, English was heard less and less. He had easily sunk back into speaking Scots Gaelic, his first language.
And now, as he rounded the final bend before reaching his family’s original blackhouse, it was almost as if he had never left.
The whole of Loch Carron extended before him, the endless peaks of Wester Ross dotting the horizon. The water echoed the stormy gray of the sky.
And there sat the blackhouse, on its small rise, overlooking the whole.
The building had not been repaired. The burned roof timbers were long gone, leaving just the foundation stones. Blackhouses were dismal places, and the ongoing Highland Clearances ensured that the population was diminishing. Who would want to inhabit it?
Time had begun to cover the blackened stones with moss and creeping vines, but the walls still stood about five feet tall.
He stooped under the small door lintel, bending nearly in half to enter. The central hearth was no longer visible. But if he half-closed his eyes, he could envision his parents’ box bed in one corner and the built-in stone shelves along one wall. He could hear the pigs and sheep snuffling through the single wall that divided the living quarters from the stable. He could remember the sense of comfort and belonging.
How much had that one fire destroyed?
Ewan sank back, resting against the damp moss that dotted the walls. He would begin his search for Mhairi in earnest tomorrow.
But today, he had needed to come here. To weep his grief, to mourn that which had been lost.
He worried if he didn’t greit today that he would act rashly if and when he discovered Mhairi. That his choler would run too high, and all his pain would spew from him in a flurry of fists directed at those around her. He had already altered his sister’s life enough, as it was. He did not wish to cause her further harm.
But if her life were as miserable as he suspected it to be, he would have to extricate her somehow. Spirit her to Aberdeen and away from her cruel husband.
What would Violet think of that? Of Ewan turning his sister fugitive?
He ran a hand over his face, wiping away the damp there. Tears or rain? Did it matter?
He swallowed back the ache in his throat when thinking about Violet.
The golden sound of her laugh.
The fiery hunger in her kiss.
The kindness of her heart.
The clever turn of her mind.
He would never relinquish the memory of her. She had thoroughly ruined him for any other woman.
Ewan wasn’t sure what caught his attention.
Some vague sound?
A sense of awareness?
A tingling prickle down his spine?
He pushed upright and pivoted around, looking over the foundation stones.
All the air whooshed from his lungs.
He blinked.
But no, she was still there.
Violet.
His Violet.
Standing in front of the house in a rain-soaked red cloak, wet tendrils of hair clinging to her cheeks, the blue-green of her eyes vibrant.
All of her a brilliant slash of color against the gray sky.
Violet drank in the sight of him.
At last! She and Uncle Joshua had caught up with Ewan.
His broad shoulders were tucked into a long length of Jamie’s tartan, the end wrapped over his head, red hair peeking out.
She recognized the house from his destroyed painting.
It felt dramatic somehow, to meet him here. That the aftermath of a second life-altering fire would lead them both to ruins of the first.
“Lass,” he whispered. His eyes darted past her, likely seeing Uncle Joshua who had held back to give them some privacy. “Why . . . I mean, how . . .”
Ewan was already ducking through the low doorway, coming toward her as he spoke.
Violet rushed to meet him, shamelessly wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his broad chest. He enveloped her, the warmth of him utterly surrounding her.
“You’re here,” he murmured against her hair. “How are ye here?”
Violet hiccupped and swallowed, trying to stem her tears, but it was no use. She pressed her face into the wool of his kilt, releasing a tidal wave of amassed emotion.
He said nothing, merely pressed his face into the top of her head and kissed her hair, holding her steady through the storm.
When she finally felt equal to talking once more, she pulled back and looked up at him through blurry eyes.
He brushed her wet hair from her face, smoothing it back over her ears.
“I made a d-decision,” she hiccupped. “I finally made a very crucial d-decision.”
“Ah, mo chriodhe.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “That is wonderful.”
Violet swallowed and took in a deep breath, attempting to steady her voice. Her next words were so vitally important.
“I have spent years trying to choose a set of actions or a goal or something that would guide me.” She looked up into his eyes. “But I’ve realized that sometimes that isn’t what a future is. Sometimes the future is simply a person.”
“Violet—” His voice broke.
“You are my future—my best and last and only decision. I choose you.”
A sort of pained wonder flashed across his face.
“But, lass—”
“Hush.” She pressed a kiss to his mouth. “My sisters are supportive. I shall have to tell you of our plans there. But I have come all this way to tell you this.”
She paused, waiting until he opened his eyes to meet hers.
“You are enough,” she whispered. “I love you. I love you exactly as you are. You are worth love. No—” She hiccupped. “—you are worth traveling for days on end through hostile country on horseback. You are worth stinging remarks and callous comments. You are worth my father’s disappointment and my neighbors’ misguided scorn. A life with you is worth everything. B-because without you, my dearest heart—” She licked a tear from her lip. “Without you, life simply is not worth living.”
With a choking sob, he kissed her. A ravenous thing that pulled her tight against him, enveloping her in the strength of his arms.
“You wonderful, incredible lass,” he gasped against her mouth. “I dinnae deserve such regard—”
“You worry that love isn’t enough, but I disagree.” She framed his face with her hands. “Life is so uncertain. It could go all pear-shaped, like it did with Dahlia. But it could just as likely be brilliant. Dahlia understood this. And now I do, too. I am absolutely willing to chance it because a life with you is worth any risk. Because with you at my side, I will be home.”
28
Ewan passed the next twenty-four hours as if in a daze.
Violet had come.
She had braved the elements, crossed the entire country through hostile terrain, to reach him. Sir Joshua, as well. The older painter had sent his completed Battle of Granicus to London in the care of several trusted footmen and chosen instead to accompany Violet here.
But if the smile and murmured, “Well done,” Sir Joshua had given him were any indication, the older painter had no regrets.
“’Tis rather bizarre to think that we are still on the Isle of Great Britain,” Violet said over dinner after listening to Ewan laugh with the innkeep in Gaelic.
They were tucked into the tiny inn in New Kelso on the shores of Loch Carron, eating in the equally small dining room. The inn did not see many travelers and only had two rooms to accommodate them, but Ewan and Sir Joshua readily shared one of the bedchambers.
She continued, “I haven’t heard a word of English that was not spoken directly to me. It all feels quite foreign.”
“Aye, lass. Most here speak Gaelic natively.” Ewan nodded. “I ken it is partially why the English have always vilified the Highlands. We dinnae speak their language, and as such, we must be foreigners. Never mind that Scots were
living here long before the Anglos and Saxons arrived down south. They invaded our lands, not the other way around.” He paused and dared a glance at Sir Joshua, “No offense tae present company.”
“None taken, my boy. I feel honored to see where you began life. I hope we can spare a week or two to sketch the landscape. Once we find Mhairi, of course.”
Ewan nodded, his throat tight.
After leaving the old blackhouse, they had walked an extra mile to a wee cluster of houses where McDoughal’s cousin lived. Ewan figured it was the best place to start.
Unfortunately, McDoughal’s cousin was not at home. The house sat dark and silent. Ewan peered through the windows, trying to ascertain if the cousin even lived there any longer.
An elderly neighbor strolled over to the fence, curious—or, more likely, suspicious—as to why three fancy Sassenach, as he called them, would be on the banks of Loch Carron.
One good look at Ewan had changed all that.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Old Mr. Logan doffed his cap, rounding the stone wall with a wide grin. “If it isnae wee Eòghann Caimbeul.”
Before long, Ewan was surrounded by old friends, everyone eager to shake his hand or hug him tight.
“We thought ye dead,” Mr. Vass said.
“Or conscripted into the army.” Mrs. Bruce shook her head.
“Or forced tae work for some dreadful lord.” Mr. Gillies rolled his eyes.
Ewan quickly set them to rights, sketching his life since leaving the area.
“Have ye heard word of Mhairi?” he asked, throat tight.
“Aye.” Mrs. Bruce pursed her lips. “McDoughal died some six or seven years ago.”
“Och, it was only five years ago,” Mr. Vass countered.
“Nae, I recall well. It were at least six.” Mrs. Bruce and Mr. Vass continued to go back and forth, arguing with one another in a way that Ewan remembered well.
All the while, Ewan’s brain hummed with emotion, a tangled knot of colorful threads he struggled to untie. Relief that Mhairi had escaped her marriage with McDoughal’s death. But terror that she had been cast out into the world five (or six or seven) years ago with Ewan none the wiser.