Once Upon a Christmas Past

by Regan Walker

  “Davina says it’s sinful to war and kill in God’s name.”

  Andrew turned his pained expression away, perhaps agreeing with the assessment. He remained silent for a moment while his gaze settled on the flames in the hearth. “We cannot end the war, or the killing,” he finally said, “but we can choose not to become part of it again.”

  “I choose not to become part of it again by remaining here,” she told him.

  “We cannot return home without you. Doing so could mean our lives.”

  Leslie wiped her eyes. She was stronger than this, wasn’t she? If her family needed her, it was her duty to…Oh, but she couldn’t! She couldn’t leave Finn. She would never forget the pain and panic in his eyes in the Great Hall. She’d never seen him look so dark. How could she marry another man? How could she lie with someone else? What of her heart? Did her heart not matter?

  Her throat burned with cries she refused to release until she was alone. She was being given away in exchange for her family’s safety, but she still had her dignity.

  “We will remain here for a few more days. The Douglases are meeting us in Glenelg, but they won’t be arriving for another week, at least.”

  “No, Andrew.” Leslie said. The longer she stayed, the more difficult it would be to leave Finn behind. “If we’re going, then let us be off with haste. We will stay at an inn in Glenelg and await our escorts there. Make the arrangements. Do this for me and I will fight you no further on the matter.” She turned and left the room without waiting for her brothers to reply. What was left to say? She couldn’t make them stay here and she couldn’t let them be arrested for betraying their faith if the Douglases turned on them. Most of all though,, she had to keep those pistols away from Finn.

  Alone in the hall, she leaned her back against the wall and covered her face with her hands. How could her life have changed so drastically in one night? How could her hopes and her newly born dreams of a future be dashed so quickly? She wanted to fight back, to storm back inside the room and tell them they were fools to leave Camlochlin. That she wanted a new life, not a continuation of the old one. And that she was staying with Finn.

  But she cared about them too much to do it.

  “My passion.”

  She looked up over her fingers and then wished she hadn’t when she saw Finn standing just a few feet away, his hand reaching out toward hers. At the sight of her wretched discomposure, his already pained expression grew more somber.

  “I wish to have a word alone with yer brother.”

  “No!” she refused quickly.

  “No?” He moved closer but dropped his hand to his side.

  She didn’t want to look at him, to see his reaction to what she was about to tell him. She feared that if she did, she might crumble and give in to her own desires. But her gaze remained, as if her eyes had a mind of their own, taking in every nuance of his visage, his posture, his strong, tanned kneecaps beneath the hem of his plaid and burning them across the surface of her heart.

  “I am going back to Dumfries with my family, Finn. I must!” she cried out, holding up her palms to stop him when he leaped for her.

  “Nae, Leslie.” He pulled her into his arms and dragged his mouth against her ear. “I beg ye not to go. Ye’re the song in my heart. Silence me not.”

  Leslie called on help from the angels to keep her legs from giving out beneath her. Every nerve ending, every muscle, bone, and emotion that fashioned her quaked to shake her family loose from her shoulders and promise her life to him. But she couldn’t. She would never let him die for her, and she couldn’t let her family die because of her selfishness. She was their only hope of staying out of prison…or worse.

  She stifled a sob at the pounding of her heart pressed to his chest, and the reply of his against her.

  “I must go. I must.” And she had to go fast before she changed her mind and begged him to somehow save her. “Papers were signed for me, Finn. My brother cannot go back on his word without the risk of rebuttal.” When he opened his mouth to speak, she stopped him.

  “You don’t understand. If anyone comes against your family, you have a small army of very capable warriors at your back. Andrew will have no support in Dumfries, save for the Douglases.”

  “Nae,” he reminded her. “Rob has agreed to let ye all remain here under our protection. Yer brother doesn’t have to leave and put ye in danger.”

  “My mother wishes to return home. I cannot put her life at risk by returning without me. It’s not my will. But I must do what I can for my family. You would do no less.”

  “I would! Did ye not hear me before? I love ye, Leslie!” He clutched her by the arms and gave her a little shake, forcing her to look at him…right into his eyes. She stared, unblinking, mesmerized by what she saw in his gaze. No other man would ever look at her this way. As if she was as vital and as breathtaking as a midwinter sunrise. “I would do anything fer ye. I would leave Camlochlin, my kin, my quill, everything fer ye. Nothing matters to me but seeing yer face every day, hearing ye speak my name, whether ’tis to revile me or to entice me. I want to take ye to my bed. But more than that, I want to wake up beside ye the next day, and every day after that.

  “I will not let ye take another fer a husband…” He closed his eyes briefly, as if the image he’d conjured was too painful to consider. “I’ll go mad, Leslie.”

  She didn’t know how she was doing it, really. She teetered on the brink of a sorrow so complete she feared she would never get over it. But his words frightened her, so she managed to command control over her roiling emotions. She couldn’t stay and if Finn fought for her, her brothers might shoot him.

  “Och, lass.” He shook his head at her and swept his knuckles over her cheek. “I cannot bear the thought of ye in another man’s arms. Don’t go. Ye said ye returned my love.”

  She couldn’t look at him and turned away to sob. “I do.”

  “I’ll go to Dumfries, Leslie. I’ll put an end to this and—”

  Alan would kill him! “No!”She wedged her palms between them and pushed him away. “No, Finn. I don’t…I don’t want you to follow me. Let me go. Forget me, as I will try to forget you. We have no other choice.”

  She broke free of him and ran to her room. She didn’t stop until she bolted her door and fell onto her bed, finally releasing the pain threatening to consume her.

  Chapter 5

  Finn didn’t hear the voices of the men sitting around him in the chief’s private solar. He was barely aware of how he’d arrived in his chair, facing the hearth and the flames that mirrored the blood pulsing through his veins. He sucked in a deep breath of peat- and pine-scented air and did his absolute best to harness the dark, unfamiliar urges coursing through him. Urges to do things he’d never done, or thought of doing in the past. Like picking up a sword and cutting through a man. Mayhap two. And enjoying it. Or storming to Leslie’s room, kicking down the damn door, and taking possession of her, as he should have done months ago.

  Unfortunately, both desires had dire consequences. Whatever Leslie felt for him would die if he killed her brothers, or if he caused a war that her brothers couldn’t win. She was leaving him and he couldn’t do anything to stop it without causing some kind of harm to her kin.

  He didn’t know what to do and it was driving him mad.

  She was going to wed another.

  He ran his hand over his face. He couldn’t breathe. He shifted in his chair and looked toward the window. He needed to get out of the solar, out of the castle, and let the bracing bite of winter cool him. He needed a clear head to figure out how to keep Leslie with him.

  “I’m retiring,” he said, standing and turning for the door.

  “Finn.” Rob’s voice stopped him. “I’d have a word first.”

  Finn gave the door a longing look, then glanced over his shoulder at his chief. “I don’t wish to recall any part of this night by speaking of it.”

  “Brother,” Connor Grant, former captain in the English army,
drawled from a heavy, cushioned chair. “Sit down and hear what yer chief has to say, aye? We want to help ye.”

  “Ye can’t.” Finn paused and turned to give Rob the respect due to him. “Fergive me, friend. I just need a bit of fresh air.” He forced what he meant to be a smile, then turned back for the door and walked straight into Tristan.

  “Ye were going to ask fer her hand tonight.”

  Finn shrugged his shoulders and tried to step around him.

  “Don’t be ashamed of falling in love, lad,” Tristan said, coiling his arm around Finn’s neck and leading him back to his chair. “Every man is helpless against it. Look around ye. Is there one among our kin who let anything stand in the way of love? Robbie defied two armies and a king fer Davina. Connor fought and finally tamed the venomous snake who came against him.”

  “I didn’t tame yer sister,” Connor said, swinging his booted foot over the side of his chair. “She likes me to think I did so she can throw me off guard.”

  Sitting beside him, Colin, the youngest of the MacGregor brothers, laughed. “It does my heart good to hear ye admit such a thing.”

  “Aye,” Tristan laughed with him, bending slightly over his chair to touch the child in Colin’s lap. “We all admit that deep doun inside we’re ruled by our women. Some of us just fell a wee bit harder on our arses than others, don’t ye agree, Colin?”

  Aye, Finn thought, looking at his longtime friend. Colin was particularly stony, and harder to break than the rest. When he went, he went down twice as hard as the rest of them. The proof of it lay cradled in his arms, the same place wee Edmund MacGregor could be found before bed every night.

  Finn winked at the babe’s dreamy smile and watched while Tristan pressed a kiss to his nephew’s downy curls.

  “We know what ye’re going through right now, Finn,” Rob told him, pulling Finn’s attention back to him. “If there’s somethin’ to be done, we’ll do it. We’re behind ye in whatever ye decide.”

  In what manner? Finn wondered. By going to Glenelg with him and starting a war between Highlanders and Lowlanders? Or would they aid him in something more disreputable, like quietly assassinating the marquess in his bed? He would do his best to avoid either scenario for Leslie’s sake and the sake of her kin. He appreciated these men who stood by him but he didn’t want to lead them into battle. Even if they won (which he was certain they would) fighting always came with a cost he didn’t want his kin to pay.

  “Mayhap,” he offered, feeling a bit less dejected, “we could petition Brodie to woo Helen Harrison with a bit more of the aggression he shows to the cork in his pouch of whiskey. If Leslie’s mother wanted to stay—”

  Will shook his head, then slashed his fingers through his dark hair to clear it. “My faither’s too ornery to woo the last droplet of brew from his bag, never mind a woman.”

  “Our fathers are closer to him. They can persuade him to aid us,” Colin told him, then looked down again at his son in his arms. “’Tis a good start.”

  Chapter 6

  Leslie leaned her shoulder against the windowpane of the Red Kyeloe Inn and stared out at the snow-covered mountain ranges beyond the Narrows. Nestled somewhere within those behemoth structures was Camlochlin, primped and primed for the holidays, which would begin in a few days. She wondered if leaving Camlochlin in the night, without bidding anyone farewell, was the right thing to do. She’d had no choice. She couldn’t bear the thought of a long, drawn out good-bye with Finn…or any one of the MacGregors and Grants she had come to love. Finn would be hurt. Perhaps he would never forgive her. She wiped her eyes, swollen from crying herself to sleep. She’d had no choice.

  She imagined the children running through the cavernous halls, tying sprigs of evergreen and stockings to the hearths in the various halls. Much of the Highland Yuletide traditions were steeped in Viking lore and Leslie had been eager to hear the stories of Saint Nicholas. Isobel MacGregor had promised to teach her how to make black bun, a traditional Twelfth Night cake made with fruit, almonds, and spices. Mairi, Finn’s sister by marriage, had wanted her to help in the ceremonial burning of Cailleach, or Old Winter, when a piece of wood was carved into a face of an old woman and then burned.

  Traditions belonging to Finn’s family that she would never experience.

  She’d been gone from Camlochlin for three days and she missed it already. Most of all, though, she missed Finn. Oh, heaven help her, she missed him. It may have been only three days but each one presented a brand-new challenge, like trying to forget the way his melodious voice blended with the wind blowing in from the Cuillins, or how his eyes glittered like dewy grass on a summer morn when he set them on her.

  She thought it would be easier to leave quickly, but being away from him was worse than anything she’d experienced in the past. The passing of every moment became slower and duller than the one before it.

  She had both hoped—and feared—that he wouldn’t follow her, and both were realized. He hadn’t come. Part of her heart ached over it. Another part was thankful and prayed that for his own good, he would stay away.

  “Leslie?”

  “Hmmm?” She sighed, without turning to her brother.

  “The Douglases should arrive today. Once they arrive, we can proceed home.”

  “It’s beginning to snow.”

  Andrew’s silence proved that he still possessed enough of a heart to sense her misery and suffer a loss for words, knowing he was the cause of it.

  “Earlier,” he began tentatively after clearing his throat, “I saw you sharing pleasant conversation with a lady of your own age. It gladdened my heart to see you smile instead of languishing about as though the devil tore the soul from your body.”

  Her gaze settled on a large, crystallized flake dropping to the earth. He had.

  “Mother and I have been worried about you.” He moved across the foyer and came to stand with her by the window. “Since we left Skye, you’ve barely spoken a word. We feared you might hate us.”

  Why would she? For making her leave the man she’d fallen in love with, and on the night he was going to ask for her hand? For promising her to another man twice her age and whom she barely knew? Why would she languish about because her family had chosen to leave the most peacefully breathtaking safe haven any of them had ever known and drag her back to Dumfries and the painful memories of her father’s death?

  “I think the Douglases have finally arrived.” Andrew leaned down to get a better look out the window and the lone figure cantering over the hill on a stallion as white as the snow-peaked mountain tops. “Where are the rest of them? Surely, the marquess wasn’t fool enough to come alone.”

  It wasn’t the marquess. Leslie didn’t need to get a closer look. She knew who it was. Finn. It was Finn! There weren’t many people in Scotland or in England with hair almost as pale as the horse beneath him. He’d come for her. Oh! He’d come for her! For a mad instant she fought the urge to jump up and down with delight and relief, but she didn’t move. She barely breathed. Her brothers would never let him take her. The marquess was due to arrive any moment and if Alan didn’t shoot Finn, her betrothed surely would. She couldn’t let it happen.

  “Why, that’s…” Andrew narrowed his eyes to aid his vision. “Damnation! It’s Grant!” He pulled back and, straightening to his full height above her, glared at her as if she’d planned Finn’s arrival.

  His silent accusation angered her. She thought he knew her better than that. He should, after what she’d given up. “Do you truly think I would jeopardize his life or the lives of my family? If I had chosen him, would it not have been simpler for me to have remained behind with him in the first place? Use your head, Andrew. If he came here to fight, the others would be with him. He wanted to have word with you before we left, so I’m sure that is all he wants now.”

  “He wants you, Leslie. And if he—”

  “Whatever he says or does,” she interrupted, knowing she must say or do anything to help him stay alive, “when
the marquess leaves Glenelg, I will be with him. Let us do all to avoid bloodshed, I beg you.”

  When he nodded, she nearly passed out with relief. She looked outside again, but Finn was gone. Had the sighting been a dream? She wished she could speak to him first…revel in the sound of his voice, look into his playful, soothing gaze and forget her future…

  “You love him,” Andrew said.

  “What does that matter? I know what must be done.”

  Her brother remained silent for a moment and then kissed the top of her head. “Your family owes you a great debt.”

  The front door opened, saving her from having to speak without bursting into tears. Cold air and swirling snowflakes preceded a brown leather boot and then another entering the inn. She thought it must be Finn, but it wasn’t him. Where had he gone? She wanted to run outside and search for him.

  The figure stepping in from the cold swept back his hood and shook his dark hair from his eyes. He looked around with sharp pewter-colored eyes, surveying his surroundings, then turned to her and Andrew. His gaze, more powerful than she remembered as a young girl, lingered on her long enough to make her uncomfortable.

  “You’ve grown since last I saw you, Harrison,” he said to Andrew, finally moving on.

  “The years have been kind to you, my lord Douglas.”

  And they had. The marquess was still quite handsome. He was taller than most of the men exiting the inn behind him, slim yet solidly built.

  “Miss Harrison?” He asked before Andrew could make the introduction. When she nodded, what could have passed for smug satisfaction settled over his features and thickened his voice. “The sight of you makes me eager to get back to road, but I fear we must remain here one more day. I have business to attend first.”