The Storyteller: A Highland Romance (Ghosts of Culloden Moor Book 45)

by TERRI BRISBIN

  Chapter Ten

  A woman wearing a long black coat stood there staring at them. Had she been following them? Had she witnessed that kiss? As the woman approached them now, Fee saw that she was only a teenager. And it was not a coat she wore as much as a cloak that almost touched the ground as she walked.

  “Storyteller?” the girl said to Struan. “Was I right?”

  For some reason, the girl seemed to glow. A faint green glimmer seemed to ebb and flow around her. Fee rubbed her eyes to try to clear them. The glow remained, and actually it grew stronger with each step closer.

  “Aye, Soni,” he said. He glanced over at Fee and nodded. “I think my stories gave her ease from her pain.”

  “Not yer stories, Struan,” Soni said.

  “My story.” Struan seemed shaken by that admission as much as he had by the confession of his change of heart.

  “Wait, she told you that when?” Fee looked from one to the other and realized who this girl must be. “This is the powerful person you said sent you here?”

  “Aye, Fiona. I sent him to ye, lass.” This girl spoke with the same burr in her voice as Struan.

  “Soni is a Muir witch.”

  Fee wanted to scoff but how could she with all she’d seen and heard so far?

  “And now what?” she asked. “You take him back? Make him a ghost again?” Something she’d not felt in a long time rose within her, making her voice a bit sharp.

  Anger.

  “You sent him here to save me and now you will make him die?” This was her worst nightmare all over again. Another person would die because of her. “You taunted him with this short time as a man again and will tear it all away from him. Because of me?”

  “Fiona,” he said as he took a step to her side. “I already died, lass. This just ends it all.”

  “Say yer farewells, Storyteller,” Soni said softly, never answering Fee’s questions. “’Tis time to go.”

  Fee went into his embrace without a second thought. And the kiss, well, she didn’t think about that either. He wrapped her in his arms and she felt his warmth and strength surround her. She could stay here forever … Too soon the kiss and the embrace were done and he let her go.

  “Remember, ye are worth living, Fiona Masters. Do not make the mistake I did and realize it too late,” he whispered.

  “Struan, I …” She could not say anything to him, but … “Thank you.”

  “Yer welcome, lass.” He leaned in for one more too-quick, too-quickly-done kiss and stepped away from her.

  Her personal Christmas Carol experience was over and the ghost sent to give her time to examine her conscience and her path was leaving. He’d taken a few paces toward the girl when she called out to him.

  “Struan, you never told me what number you were.” It was a small thing but she knew it would bother her later when she remembered these last twenty hours and thirty minutes with him. “What number are you?”

  “Seven, lass. I was the seventh to rise from the moor the day after the battle.”

  The green glow brightened with every step he took toward the girl. As Fee watched, Soni reached out to Struan.

  “No.” Fee shook her head and took one step and then another. “No!” she called out just before Soni touched him. The girl looked at her.

  “It is not fair, Soni. He has seen to all the others for two hundred and fifty …”

  “Two hundred sixty-nine years, six months and twenty-three days,” Struan said. Fee could not help but smile at the way he imitated her counting of the days since her accident.

  “He has helped them, telling stories, ignoring his own pain, to see to theirs,” she said. “Shouldn’t someone take care of him for a change?”

  “And ye? Ye are offering to have a care for him when ye canna even see to yer own needs?” Soni asked. “I dinna think ye can, Fiona Masters.”

  The girl was right. She could barely live on her own. She could not drive herself and had not worked in more than three years. She had no right to interfere with whatever was happening here.

  Then, she met his eyes and saw there a glimmer of something that looked like hope and she knew the path she must take.

  “I will try.” She stood up to her full height and nodded. “I will try.”

  “What say ye, Struan Cameron? Do ye wish to stay here or do ye wish to seek the revenge ye were promised?” Soni asked.

  “’Twould seem the lass wants me to stay, Soni. Ye sent me here to stop her from ending her life and I did that.” Struan’s gaze did not waver or break from hers then. He nodded. “I would stay, if ‘twas possible. Aye, I would.”

  Just when Fee thought it might work out as she wanted, Soni shook her head.

  “What about making the one responsible for all the losses ye and the others suffered pay the cost of his ambitions?”

  “I chose to leave my family and follow the prince, Soni. I chose to fight for him. We are each responsible for our own actions and choices. Not the prince.”

  The girl smiled then at Struan and nodded. Clearly his words had been what she’d wanted to hear. But the smile left her face when Soni faced Fee.

  “There must be a sacrifice made to earn his life,” Soni said.

  “I will pay the cost.”

  “Fiona, nay!” he shouted at her as he strode to her side. “Soni, the lass doesna understand the way of things with yer powers.” He took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “Do not do this, Fiona. Ye have given up so much.”

  “I accept,” Soni said. She raised her hands and the green glow became so bright it was painful. It spread out from the girl and surrounded her, eating up the air and ground between them. Fee raised a hand to shield her eyes from it.

  “Soni, I beg ye,” Struan shouted.

  His words had no affect on the girl’s actions, for her power burst forth so strongly that even Fee could feel it. She was tempted to back away but Struan grabbed her.

  Be happy, Struan. Do not stop telling yer stories.

  Fee did not hear the words, but they echoed through her thoughts in the girl’s voice. Staring into the green, she tried to find Soni.

  Fear not, Fiona Masters. Ye have but to sacrifice yer guilt to keep him. Love will heal yer wounds and his.

  The winds rose and swirled about the girl and then, an instant later, she was gone. Fee stood there, trying to comprehend what had just happened. The expression on Struan’s face told her that he was just as shocked as she was.

  “Why did ye do that? What did she ask of ye, lass?” he asked.

  “You didn’t hear her?” He shook his head. “She said I had to give up my guilt.” She left out the rest, that was something for another day.

  “Can ye do that, Fiona? Are ye ready?”

  “I can if you will, Struan.”

  For a moment, they stood there as the possibilities spread out before them. Fee could begin to feel hope unfurl within her heart, hope for him, for her, for them. Hope for all that could be.

  “I am ready, lass.”

  For the first time in three years, two months, one week and four days, Fee looked forward to life. To what would happen the next day and the next and the next.

  “I am, too, Struan,” she said, holding out her hand.

  He took hold of hers and, in that instant, Fee felt like he would never let her go. And she was fine with that.

  Epilogue

  September 2018

  Culloden Battlefield

  Drummossie Moor, Scotland

  Struan didn’t want to stop in the Visitors’ Center, so Fee followed him outside to the edge of the moor. Watching him as he approached the place where he’d spent two hundred sixty-nine years, six months and twenty-three days of purgatory, she was struck by his enthusiasm and anticipation. This trip had taken almost three more years to make happen and now she found herself holding her breath as they took one step and another toward the area where the battle occurred.


  “Am I walking too quickly, lass?” he asked, stopping there and looking at her.

  “No, Struan, I can keep up with you.”

  It was true … she could.

  Once she’d decided to live, and with his love and help and support, Fee had improved physically and mentally. They’d found doctors and therapists and counselors and all sorts of treatments that had indeed worked to improve her overall health and her endurance and relieve her pain.

  But, in spite of her improvement, he waited and took her hand and walked at her pace up the hill on the small paved path that led onto the battlefield. Fee noticed that he looked around and listened as they made their way, passing other tourists who snapped photos as they listened to their audio tour guides.

  Struan had no interest in any of that.

  “Do you feel anything, Struan?” she asked. They’d discussed this so many times—about what to expect and what he might hear or see—but now that they were there, in the place of his death, she was as nervous as he seemed to be.

  “Nothing. Not a wisp of movement or sound.”

  “You said they might be gone by now? If Soni was sending everyone off, they might not be here.” His expression fell then as he took in the reality that they might be. “Wait. Where did you all gather? What spot here is where she called you all together?”

  “Up on the field, near where the cairn is,” he said, nodding across the moor to the stone monument. “Can ye—”

  “Yes, Struan. I can.”

  This time, she had to concentrate on walking because he did walk faster. She couldn’t blame him, though. They reached the tall, stone cairn marking the center of the battlefield.

  “’Twas different then. Over the centuries, so many changes occurred. I canna remember when this was placed here, but they marked the graves along that path then, too. Well, they guessed about many of them.”

  “Tell me of the battle, Struan.” He released her hand and took a few paces away. “If you would?”

  “Aye, lass,” he said as he turned around, trying to get his bearings. “It looks so different to me now. For so long, it all appeared in shades of grey and mist. Now, to see the heather and the gorse on the moor and the sunshine as it moves across the fields, it is so different.”

  He guided her to a small bench there on the side of the path and then pointed off in the distance to a row of flags. She’d gone online and studied up on all the information she could find about the battle and the field and yet, as he started to tell it, she remembered none of it.

  “The government forces lined up where the red flags are and the Jacobites over there where the blue one lie.”

  His voice grew stronger as he told her about marching the night before in an attempt at a sneak attack on Cumberland’s forces nearer to Nairn. She found herself drawn into the story, though this one was not a tale, but true and far more precise than even the ones told by the trained guides or docents here. It was not that they didn’t try to be accurate—they did. But he had lived and died it and knew details of the attempts to place the Stuarts back on the throne that modern-day historians could only dream about.

  It was not long before others gathered around them, listening to him tell the story of that fateful battle and the men who’d fought in it. And yet, each word he spoke seemed to only be for her. His gaze moved from hers out to the fields and flags and the roads nearby and the cottage and back to her, never realizing that others, strangers, listened, too.

  She lost track of time and simply focused on his voice. One of the things she enjoyed most about their time together was the nights when he would read aloud to her. It was those hours that led her to suggest he should narrate audiobooks. Struan had thought her mad, especially when she told him about the thousands of books that had been converted to recordings. And how a deep, Scottish-accented voice like his could be very popular.

  He’d laughed then and he laughed when he was offered his first book to read. Now, he continued to do it when their schedule allowed him the time for it.

  The polite applause broke into her reverie and she watched as he blushed at their response. Unaware of his audience during the whole of his tale, Struan nodded and thanked them. More than a few of those watching approached him with questions and it was some time before they were alone there once more.

  “So, that was the whole of it then?” she asked, standing when he reached out to her. He gathered her close, with his arm around her shoulders, and they stood in the chilly morning air together.

  “Aye, the whole thing told in order and told the way it all happened.”

  “Do you think any of them heard it? Do you think they know what happened to you?”

  “Nay, lass. I think them all gone by now.”

  She turned into his embrace and reached up to his face. “I am sorry that we could not get here sooner. I wish we’d been here in time.”

  “I do as well, Fiona.”

  Even the vast amount of money and assets she held in the companies her parents had built were not enough to sort through the legal matters that happened when a previously non-existent person needed all the papers and documents to prove their identity and origin. It had taken until just two months ago to provide him with a British passport and birth certificate so he could travel outside the US and so that they could marry … legally. And the process of procuring those documents had not been accomplished easily … and maybe not have even been completely within legal bounds. But, her money did smooth over much of that.

  He let out a slow breath then. “I kenned that Soni had a plan. Even for someone as young as she, she seemed to follow a pattern in what she did.”

  “And you have no idea where she is from or where she lives?”

  “Nay. I fear not.”

  “And now?”

  “I would like to walk a bit,” he said, glancing out over the moor that had been his prison for so long. “Will ye join me?”

  “You go on. I will head back to the Visitors’ Center and wait for you there.”

  She gave no excuse for that, for she understood what he needed. His green eyes glimmered with unshed tears as he nodded and walked off. He needed to be alone there. He needed his chance to say farewell to this hallowed place before he could truly move on.

  So, Fee made her way down the path, taking her time and not looking back at him. He would find his way to her when he was ready. She’d nearly reached the entrance to the center when he grabbed her from behind and kissed her neck.

  “Thank ye for that. I love ye, lass.”

  “I love you, Storyteller. Are you ready to go?”

  “It will take us about two hours of driving to reach Achnacarry,” he whispered in her ear. “If we drive along Loch Ness, ye might see the monster that lives there.”

  “Is that another story of yours?”

  “Nay, not mine, but I amna above using someone else’s good story when I need to, lass.”

  Fee laughed then as they made their way to the rented car and began the next part of their journey south to the Cameron Clan lands where he’d been born. As he spoke yet again of his grandmother’s penchant for marrying a number of men and shooting her husbands as they irritated her, Fee prayed that he would be able to tell tales of their lives soon.

  And even if they all began with the story of how she shot him the first moment they met, she knew that their story would end in happily-ever-after.

  Please Enjoy this excerpt from

  A Traitor’s Heart

  from BRANDYWINE BRIDES: A Blackwood Legacy Anthology

  1721

  Finlan Blackwood has survived fighting on the losing side of the Jacobite Rising, but finds himself transported to Pennsylvania in the Colonies to serve out his sentence for treason. Five years and he’ll be free to seek out his family in the south and to regain his life. But when the widow Elizabeth Graham find herself at the mercy of an unscrupulous nobleman, Finn must decide if he should follow his family or follow his t
raitorous heart.

  Prologue

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  July, 1716

  Fin shielded his eyes against the midday, midsummer sun and stared out over the gathered crowd. Some there, he noticed, stared back at him, openly inspecting and evaluating him much like a piece of horseflesh or beast of burden.

  Which, in truth, he now was.

  He shuffled along the raised platform, until the line of men before and after him stopped. They were called forward one at a time and each man called out his name and occupation. When the man in charge pointed at him, Fin took a step forward as he fought the urge to run and the need for sustenance. His knees shook when he moved too quickly and his voice quivered like a wee bairn when he could speak.

  “Finlan Blackwood,” he said. The words came out as a squeak so he swallowed hard against the dryness of his mouth and spoke louder this time. “Finlan Blackwood.”

  “What skills have you?” the man asked. “Were you trained for an occupation, boy?”

  ‘Twas a hard thing, to concentrate on what the man said, with all the people staring and the sun beating down on him. He’d never gone this long eating and drinking so little. Even the months in the prison before his transportation had not been as terrible as the journey on this ship across the Atlantic Ocean to this hot, humid place.

  “Skills, boy?” the man yelled a bit louder and pushed at his shoulder with a wooden cudgel.

  “My da is … was a blacksmith,” he answered, sorrow and exhaustion filling his voice and tightening his throat. “He trained me.” His father and the rest of his family were dead or gone now. The only kith or kin he had were scattered along the coastal colonies, transported for their crime of treason against the English Crown and sold, as he would be, into indenture.

  “A blacksmith!” the man called out. “A man.…–” he began. “A boy with skills and much potential to the right buyer!” The seller poked and prodded him again, but he met with flaccid skin and little muscle.

  The man’s words blurred as the next five years of his life were offered into bonded servitude. No matter the glowing words or points the man made, no one seemed interested. Then, when the man lowered the price, the cost of his transportation to the Colony plus the ship owner’s fees, a tall man stepped forward. The man’s garb and tall hat marked him a Quaker. A few minutes of quiet discussion led to Fin being directed down the steps and to a table. Sooner than he would have thought possible, he went from convict and traitor to bought-and-paid-for servant. An “X” marked the place on the contract where he had to sign his agreement to the terms.