Gather the Stars

by Kimberly Cates

  Rachel turned her face into the sweet Highland wind and felt the familiar twinge she'd known whenever she thought of her mother. The greatest irony of all was that, while she could remember the aftermath of her mother's death, she could not remember her face.

  "Child, whatever is amiss?"

  Rachel started, wheeling to see Mama Fee bustling over, her lovely features creased with concern.

  What is amiss? I'm being held hostage by a madman who reads bedtime stories to children in between plotting treason and pretends that your son is alive so that the truth won't hurt you.... I'm going mad myself, because sometimes his insanity almost sucks me under, makes me believe...

  She pushed back the frenzied thoughts, groping for something else to say. "I chipped a plate. I'm sorry."

  The Scotswoman's eyes softened with understanding. "Come now, sweeting. I saw you and Gavin having a bit of a quarrel. It's quite natural, you know—what with your heart turning upside down with love a dozen times a day."

  Rachel sucked in a breath to blast Mama Fee with a denial. It had been agony to watch Mama Fee bustle about the past weeks, countless dreams of romance and bridal delights wreathing her face in remembered joy. Still, what could possibly be gained by speaking the truth now? It could serve only to upset the woman and make Rachel's own escape more difficult.

  Rachel searched for something to say, and in the end merely choked out, "He's the most wretched man alive! He infuriates me!"

  "Well, you can be making it up when you go to bed tonight, lovey. That'll be something to be looking forward to, won't it?" The old woman patted her hand. "I know Adam hasn't found the priest yet, and—well—what's happening beyond the door to your bedchamber isn't quite proper, but he's a tender heart in him, Gavin does. And I'm certain he takes care of you in his bed just as he would anywhere else. 'Tis a rare gentleness with women he has. Not all men do."

  Rachel clamped her teeth down on her lip, feeling as if she were going to explode—explode with frustration and anger and hopelessness. And with the unbearable weight of the images Mama Fee had painted: Gavin, inexpressibly tender, introducing his lady-love to the ways of passion; Gavin, sheltering her spirit the way he did the children and Mama Fee's; Gavin with his artist's hands and his poet's eyes, peeling away the innermost layers of her soul.

  The panic that had been building inside her pressed hard against her heart. She closed her eyes, trying to blot out the image of the Glen Lyon with that of Sir Dunstan Wells. A real hero. The embodiment of every dream she'd ever had. A man with fierce warrior's eyes that had seen the blood and death of battle but never turned away. A man to whom duty and honor and courage were life itself. She remembered the miniature he had given her when he'd ridden off to war—engraved with the inscription by Lovelace: I could not love thee, Dear, so much, Loved I not honor more.

  Her hands had trembled when she read the scrolled words; her heart had swelled with pride. It was as if he'd sprung from her fantasies and was repeating the lines, like an actor upon the stage.

  At that moment, she had believed that he was not only the best choice for her husband, but that maybe her father was right. He was a man she could understand, one with the same morals and goals she had been raised to believe in. In time, she would learn to love him....

  Why was it, then, that now when she closed her eyes, it wasn't a charging hero who filled that private darkness in her soul, but rather a man with tawny gold hair, and sorrows eons old haunting his eyes? A man with a smile that cherished everything, that understood the secret weaknesses in her spirit, her most deeply buried fears, and forgave them?

  "Rachel, child, you've been wool-gathering long enough." Fee touched her lightly on the arm. Rachel shook herself inwardly and found herself gazing into the woman's eyes—eyes that seemed more alive than they had been in all the time Rachel had been captive. "Come along. I've something to show you."

  Rachel wanted to go back into the cave, to bury her face in the mattress and scream. She wanted to bar the door, so that no one—not the children, not Mama Fee or Adam, and most especially not Gavin—could pry away at the walls she'd built around herself, walls made of reason and of duty, a thousand truths she'd once believed with her whole heart.

  She needed to escape the glen forever—to be free of the sweet madness the Glen Lyon had woven here.

  Today would be her best chance, what with everyone outside. She glanced over at Adam. He had forgone sharpening his blade and was getting up from his seat.

  "Have to go for a little ride," he said, casting a meaningful glance at Gavin. "There's a bit of plaid that I dropped."

  Gavin nodded. "I hope to God you find it."

  Fee paused, glancing over at them, perplexed. "Can't you wait to be fed first? I've got a lovely stew simmering."

  "It was a souvenir from a lady," Adam explained. "All this bother about love Gavin is stirring up is making me dashed sentimental. And besides, I want to take another look for that priest I promised I'd find. We'd best get Gavin and his lady wed before they provide us with another babe to feed."

  Rachel refused even to glare at the man—Adam had been taking far too much pleasure in tormenting her the past two weeks with tales of his search for the priest who was to supposedly marry them.

  But for once, Rachel was grateful for the ruse, if it would draw the sharp-eyed Adam far away. Gavin would be distracted by the children's demands, as he so often was. It should be easy enough to elude Mama Fee. Rachel felt a sharp jab of guilt. She had no other choice.

  "All right then, lad," Mama Fee scolded the strapping man. "But I'll keep a bit of stew bubbling for when you come back home. And if you bring back the priest, I'll make you one of those sweet cakes that you love."

  Adam bussed the old woman on the cheek, then swung astride his horse. "I'll do my best, Mama Fee, but you know how it is with men of God. When you're neck deep in sinning, they're swarming around you like bees about a split apple. But when you want one, they vanish into the very mist." With a light touch of his heels against his mount's barrel, he sent it cantering off over the rise.

  "If he's to find the priest, we've no time to waste," Mama Fee insisted. "Now come along, child. I want to show you my surprise."

  Rachel turned back to Mama Fee. "I'd love to see your surprise."

  The trunk was tucked on the far side of the clearing, not far from where two horses were tethered—one a wild black animal, whose eyes seemed to be searching for bones to crack every time they lighted on a human. The other mount was the one Rachel had decided to use for her own—a strong, steady bay. It was a blessing beyond belief that Adam had taken the other more acceptable mount. In the event that she did manage to escape, there could be no chance that Gavin could manage that man-killer of a horse, even if his ribs were still not giving him some bit of pain.

  Fiona knelt down beside the battered trunk. "I hid this before the Sassenachs burned the village. I couldn't let them take it, you see." It was the only time Rachel had heard the woman touch on the painful realities, the harsh truths of the war that had just been fought on Scottish soil.

  But despite the ugliness of her home being burned and the agonizing memories this recollection could trigger, Fiona's eyes glowed. She rummaged past baby clothes, displaying cherished gifts made by her sons' tiny hands and treasures given by her husband. Then, at last, she reached her goal—a carefully wrapped bundle at the bottom of the chest.

  Her velvety cheeks turned a lovely shade of rose as she folded back the wrapping, unveiling a lovely, old-fashioned gown. "When a mother bears seven sons, the pride, the joy is too great to hold. Healthy lads, with eyes clear and bright as mountain sky and bodies strong and willing. The only whisper of regret I felt was knowing that this wedding garb would never be worn again. It belonged to my mother, and to hers before her. My great-grandmother wove every thread on her loom, tied every bit of lace, set every stitch a dozen times, to make certain it was perfect for her only daughter. Then, she stitched my mama's name into the hem, h
ere, and a little verse her bridegroom chose to honor her with."

  With a very gentle hand, the old woman lifted the delicate hem, displaying the scrolled legend: Maire Chattan wed to Angus MacLean, 7th of May, the year of Our Lord 1698. I saw and loved. A little space beyond it was another line of stitching in a pale rose color. Fiona Mary MacLean wed to Gordon Fraser, this 20th day of April, 1714. The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.

  Despite everything—her need to escape, her confusion, the strange ache in her chest—Rachel couldn't keep her fingers from touching the beautiful garment, imagining the lovers who had pledged their lives, their hearts, their dreams to each other in those embroidered verses and solemn bridal vows. And she thought again, wistfully, of her own mother's gown, the one that had been destroyed after her death.

  "I cannot tell you the joy it gives me to pass this on to you," Fiona said, with tears in her voice.

  "No!" Rachel dropped the fold of the garment in horror. "You can't. It wouldn't be right."

  "You're wedding my boy. Who better should it go to?" Fee's face blossomed in a smile so wistful it broke Rachel's heart. "I tried to give it to my other sons' brides, but they always had treasures of their own to wear, from their families. Truth to tell, I felt awkward even offering. But now I know that the gown was meant for you. You'll look like an angel in it."

  Rachel froze, touched to the core at the gift that this woman offered, and so filled with guilt that she could never accept it.

  "Unless of course you don't like it." Fiona faltered. "I wouldn't want to force it on you if you want something fine of your own." The darting of hurt and uncertainty in Fee's eyes was more than Rachel could bear.

  "It's the loveliest thing I have ever seen," she said with stark despair, knowing that she would never wear the wondrous gown. This dream of Fiona's— that Rachel would wed Gavin Carstares—was as impossible as the dream that her son Timothy would come marching home.

  Yet Fiona gazed up at Rachel from her dream world, her smile all the more beautiful because of its fragility. "If you think it is lovely, then you shall have it when you wed my boy. And all my dreams—and all the dreams of my mother and my grandmother—will be yours from that day, stitched into the cloth."

  Fee laughed, the sound like a tinkling bell. "Gavin will have to begin poring over those books he's always blinding himself with, to search for love words to give you. It should be simple enough—'tis there for anyone with eyes to see."

  "What is there to see?"

  "He's in love with you, child."

  "Wh-what?" Rachel glanced over to Gavin, who was still amidst the children, little Catriona begging him to fashion a princess hat from scraps of cloth in the cave chamber.

  He smiled down at the child, that heart-melting dreamer's smile, his eyes wise and ancient, so knowing and gentle. She wondered what it would be like to have him look at her thus, with no shadows in his eyes.

  The thought was enough to feed the rising panic inside her, batter at her until her hands shook. She had to get away from him—away from his eyes, his touch, his pain—before she probed the emotions he raised up inside her, the confusion, the excruciating sensation of being stripped bare to the soul. Before she discovered...

  No! She shoved the thought away, as Gavin and the children disappeared inside the cave.

  Forcing a smile at Mama Fee, she said, "I'm going to ride out a bit. I need some time to think about— well, what you said about Gavin... loving me." She tripped over the words. "It's all so confusing."

  Mama Fee smiled, a childlike, trusting smile, yet one of an earth goddess, a mother of life watching another woman begin her journey. "Off you go. But I vow you've already found everything you need, child, here in this glen."

  "Please, don't tell him... tell him I've gone." Rachel couldn't look at her, her throat closing with a crushing sense of loss, of desperation. She all but ran to the horse. In a heartbeat, she was gone.

  She urged the beast through the tangled maze of stone that concealed the entrance to the Glen Lyon's clearing. She plunged down the narrow trail scribed in the sweep of cliff more forbidding than a hundred armed sentries. She fled into the hills, leaving a score of half-formed dreams behind her.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gavin sat on the edge of his cot, wads of silver gauze he had been attempting to fashion into a princess hat resting in his hands. The clamor of the children as they worked up bits of costume for their game seemed a thousand miles away. He felt as if he had taken a blow to the chest, the bands of tension that had made the past two weeks hell screwed tighter than ever inside him.

  Dealing with his wound had been bad enough. Concealing its seriousness from Adam's sharp eyes and Mama Fee's loving gaze had proved harder still—fighting through fever, mastering the tremors that had coursed through his body. But that torment had been made even worse by the fact that Rachel was constantly nearby, coiling tension tighter with the memory of a forbidden kiss, fraying his nerves with the shadow of an accidental embrace, opening up aching, gaping holes inside him that could never ever be filled.

  And if he hadn't already had to endure more than any sane man could stand, he'd had to endure that display of temper outside, had to listen to her royal highness, the general's daughter, flinging out judgments about the way he and Adam had chosen to handle Mama Fee's grief. Then she'd plunged on, spouting tales about Sir Dunstan's heroism until Gavin wanted to grab her by those slender arms and shake her until she saw sense. He'd wanted to take her far away from the Highlands and from the English knight who would one day destroy her.

  The need to save Rachel de Lacey was a tearing, biting thing that left him shaken to the center of his already battered soul. But she didn't want to be saved, Gavin reminded himself fiercely. She had her hero— a soldier with every decoration for bravery possible pinned to his chest, a man who was not a coward.

  Coward. Long-suppressed pain knifed again through Gavin. Never would he forget the look on Rachel's beautiful face when she had seen the scars on his back, the revulsion, the accusation, as if being in the same chamber with him might taint her somehow. Worse, far worse, was the slightest look of pity that had flickered in her eyes, as if events at Prestonpans had unmanned him.

  Bitterness welled up. God, Gavin thought he had dealt with the label that he'd been branded with the day of that fateful battle. He'd believed that he was able to dismiss charges of cowardice with wry, dark amusement. He'd never stooped to defend his actions or to hide the truth from anyone who asked. That scathing honesty was part of his punishment, his retribution against the dreamy-eyed fool he had been. He hadn't given a damn what anyone thought of him—it couldn't be more brutal than his opinion of himself. Why was it that Rachel de Lacey fired in him this need to spill out his private agony? Amidst the horror of that day, he had almost lost his soul. Why was it so vitally important that she understand?

  He laughed bitterly. How could the daughter of Lord General de Lacey understand the gut-crushing horror Gavin had felt, facing blood and treachery, wanton death and destruction? Men had screamed in agony as they died—and they were the lucky ones, their torment ended swiftly, unlike those who writhed on the ground, an arm, a leg blasted away by cannon fire. Death, that sweet release—to be reached only after an eternity of hellish suffering?

  No. If he spoke for a thousand years, he could never make Rachel understand, because if she dared understand, it would shatter everything she'd ever believed, would topple her general father from his pedestal, her betrothed from his bower of hero's laurels.

  Gavin's mouth set grimly. As if Dunstan wouldn't topple himself soon anyway. Would the man truly be wily enough, canny enough to hide the atrocities he'd committed from his bride? Wouldn't the shadows of the helpless he'd cut down cling to his sharp-edged features like some dank malaise? Wouldn't tales of the poison he had spread through the Highlands come back to haunt him when this madness faded, when the threat of rebellion was banished and sanity returned? When Englishmen realized once again that t
he Jacobites who had fought and died were their brothers, their cousins, their friends—men who were misguided, perhaps idealistic, but not vermin to be exterminated?

  Even if Rachel never discovered what her betrothed had done here in Scotland, there would be other wars. God curse the devils that prompted men to battle. Dunstan Wells would embrace them, glory in them. Someday, perhaps when Rachel was holding her own little son on her knee, she would discover the truth: men like Dunstan were greedy for that child's blood—worse still, for the child's very soul.

  The image of Rachel and her child at the mercy of a man like Sir Dunstan made a fist clench about Gavin's heart, but there was a good chance that Dunstan wouldn't hurt his own family. One of the most chilling ironies was that a man like Dunstan, who could slaughter other men's children, would be exceedingly loving to his own—tender when they ran to their papa with a scraped knee or a bee sting. But wouldn't that make it even more devastating when Rachel discovered the truth?

  Gavin grimaced, knotting a length of pink satin into the princess hat. Rachel's inevitable disillusionment wasn't his concern. She was his captive, his hostage, the tool he was using to get the children to safety. He couldn't save the whole world, no matter how much he wanted to.

  What could he do? Go to Rachel? List the atrocities Dunstan had committed? He recalled the disbelief on her face, her outrage at the children's game. What if he tried to tell her that Barna's grisly pretending was based in fact? She would jeer at Gavin, shout at him, refuse to believe—and in the end, she would leave the Glen Lyon's lair, run back to her life, her betrothed, to a place where Gavin could never defend her.

  "Don't worry." Gavin jumped at the soft child's voice, a small warm hand patting his. He looked down to see little Catriona nibbling on a plump pink lip. "You're looking fearful frustrated," she said in a small voice, wistfully eyeing the bits of silver and pink material as a new-fledged fairy might its first set of wings. "If it's too hard, you don't have to finish it."