Highland Valentine

by C. A. Szarek

They were taking his Juliette away.

  It wasn’t against her will.

  ‘I’m leaving, Hugh.’ The horrid sentence reverberated in his mind, making him freeze all over again. He swallowed, but it helped naught.

  Hugh closed his eye when he heard the thump thump of what could only be his Aunt Mab’s cane, and the shuffling of her uneven gait.

  Juliette had left the door to the laird’s quarters open when she’d departed.

  “Hugh MacDonald!” The shout made him flinch, but he didn’t move away from the window.

  He tried to ignore his meddlesome aunt, and watched the cart rock with Duncan MacLeod’s added weight. The man had indeed taken a seat next to Juliette. He clenched his jaw.

  Duncan took the reins, and even though he couldn’t hear anything from his position, Hugh imagined the shout for the horses to dart forward at the moment they did so.

  “Hugh MacDonald!”

  “Doona ye mean, ‘my laird?’” he asked, trying to keep his voice dry. He’d failed. It’d come out a pained crack, betraying how he was feeling. He didn’t turn to the woman who’d raised him.

  “Nay. I doona!” She slammed her cane to the floor with a bang that echoed.

  “Weeel, I am tha laird.”

  “Ye are a foolish, foolish lad!”

  He sighed and dragged his hand down his face.

  The bailey was empty now. As empty as his heart and soul.

  She’s really gone. You drove her away, Hugh MacDonald.

  Guilt and pain swirled low until it jumped up for a bite, and a lump strangled his throat. He remained at the window, looking out. He couldn’t deal with himself, let alone Mab. Hugh wished her away, but knew better.

  When he’d girded his loins and faced his aunt, he tried to avoid the scowl on her lined face, but her dark eyes speared right through him. That renewed his pain, somehow.

  “What. Are. Ye. Doin’?” Mab said the words slowly, each one gaining volume. She panted, she was so angry. Her thin shoulders shook and her face was crimson, the bright color splotching her cheekbones up to her ears. Her salt and pepper hair was plaited, the thick rope swaying with her tremors. Even her dark skirt shook where it rested above the floor.

  At least he’d come by his MacDonald temper naturally.

  “Sit down, a’ fore ye hurt yerself,” Hugh admonished.

  His aunt narrowed her eyes and brandished her cane like a sword. “Doona ye try ta order me ‘round.” With a speed that belied her uneven legs, she crossed the room and smacked his thigh with the staff he’d taken such care to carve for her.

  “Ow!” He rubbed his leg as she readied for another strike. Hugh dodged, but she advanced on him with an agility she shouldn’t be capable of.

  “Tell me why yer lass has left Armadale.”

  “My marriage isna yer concern.” He held his hands up in surrender, then thought better of it. If she hit his bollocks, he’d double over, and he’d just left them unguarded. Wouldn’t put it past her, either.

  “Yer marriage? ‘Tis verra much my concern when tha lass carryin’ tha MacDonald heir flees her husband wit’ou’ warnin’!”

  He stilled and sucked in a breath as anguish spread across his chest all over again.

  Juliette really left me.

  It hurt to breathe. His heart cantered and he wanted to clutch something, but didn’t want to show weakness, even in front of Mab.

  She studied his face, and lowered her cane to the stone floor. “Ah, jus’ hit ye, did it?”

  “What?” he croaked.

  “Ye’ve gone as white as a ghostie.”

  He swallowed and his knees wobbled.

  His aunt’s countenance lost some of its ire. “Sit, laddie.”

  Hugh should be mad it wasn’t his idea, but if he didn’t obey he was going to fall on his arse; in his current attire of a MacDonald plaid, he’d likely bare something Mab had no need to see.

  The bed creaked as it protested his weight and he fought the urge to cradle his head and crush his eyes shut. “‘Tis my fault.” He winced at the obvious pain in his voice.

  Mab snorted. She stood before him, her hands layered on the round knob at the top of her cane. She shook her head, then narrowed her eyes. “I didna think any fault lay wit’ tha’ sweet lass ye wed.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “Wha’ did ye do, lad?” This was softer.

  Emotion stung his eyes. Hugh refused to cry. “I canna lose her.” This was even more anguished than what he’d managed to say before.

  “Ye allowed her ta leave ye.”

  He shook his head. “Nay. ‘Tisna wha’ I’m meanin’.”

  “Then…wha’?”

  Hugh cleared his throat and reached for the right words. The ones he could never say to his wife. He’d tried a few times, especially when Juliette had demanded he talk to her, but he never had been able to. When she’d cried, he’d plan his own demise. He averted his gaze from his aunt. “I…I…canna lose her…like Brenna.”

  The name he never said. The wife he never thought about. The bairn who’d never got a chance to be. His son.

  Mab’s sigh drew his eyes back to her face. His aunt’s bottom lip trembled and she reached for him.

  He couldn’t deny her, so Hugh wrapped his much larger hand around her gnarled one. He helped her take a seat next to him on the high bed.

  “Oh, lad.”

  Misery washed over him. Her sympathy made him wish she was still shouting. Or hitting his legs with her cane. Maybe even his head. Should he volunteer his bollocks after all?

  He studied his boots and suppressed the shudder in his chest. Hugh tried to square his shoulders, but couldn’t. He didn’t shake Mab off when she squeezed his forearm.

  “Lad. Look a’ me.”

  He didn’t want to, but damn him, he wouldn’t say that.

  “Hugh.”

  Sucking in air, he finally mustered the guts to meet her eyes. Words wouldn’t cooperate, but he managed not to weep like a lass as she regarded him.

  “Did ye tell sweet Juliette of yer fears?”

  Shame and guilt mixed with his agony. “Nay,” he croaked.

  His aunt blew out a breath and shook her head, making her thick braid dance. “Why no’?”

  Hugh didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

  “Juliette isna of our time, lad, she—”

  “I’ve ruined everythin’.”

  His aunt tugged his wrist until he looked at her again. “Nay, ye didna. Ye can go ta her. Speak wit’ yer wife, lad. Ye love each other an’ are abou’ ta have a bairn. Together.”

  Quivers raced down his spine. That was what he couldn’t deal with. Week by week, month by month, Juliette’s waistline had expanded, revealing the seed he’d planted inside her. Reminding him her passing could be within sight. The bigger her belly got, the closer the impending birth. The closer he was to losing her. He’d not even thought of the bairn.

  Hugh couldn’t admit that to Aunt Mab. She was more excited about his child than he’d seen her in a long time. Happy.

  Along with his wife, they’d already prepared the long-unused nursery. A room he couldn’t even stomach entering. Not a place for men, anyway.

  “I didna birth ye, bu’ ye know yer like my own, Hugh MacDonald. I raised ye up, alongside my brother. I never wed because ye needed me. I’ve never asked ye fer anathin.”

  He frowned; didn’t want to spare her a glance, but when he did, his mouth wobbled at the emotion in her eyes, on her face.

  She was still pretty, but his aunt had been stunning back in her day, and many a man had sought her hand. His father had always left it up to her, and she’d turned down all her suitors.

  Because she’d not wanted to leave him?

  Hugh’s mother had died days after his birth. Mab was the only mother he’d ever known, and he loved her. Had he ever told her so?

  His father had died when he was one and twenty. His aunt had been there for him then, too. Barely a man, but already a widower, then a laird to
o young for the sudden responsibilities thrust upon him.

  He’d promised his da on his deathbed he’d marry again and provide a MacDonald heir. A vow he’d never intended to fulfill…until Juliette.

  Hugh hadn’t acknowledged that his aunt had hung her hopes on his gorgeous wife, too.

  Guilt wasn’t something he needed more of, but it lodged in his gullet, threatening to close it off. He couldn’t have spoken a word if he’d had a sword to his back.

  “Tha’ lass is yer match, my lad. Doona let her go. I tol’ ye this a ’fore ye wed, bu’ now I implore ye, doona lose her. Doona lose yer bairn. I’ve never seen ye as happy as I have this past year. I love ye, lad. I love tha’ lass, and I doona wan’ ta lose either of ye. Or tha’ bairn.”

  He gave in to the urge to close his eyes, and his breath came in short bursts he had to concentrate on to get any air into his lungs. His head spun. “Aunt Mab—”

  “Juliette has tol’ me of many wondrous things,” she said, yanking him from the chaos in his head.

  Their gazes collided and held.

  “She needs ye, lad. She left a world we canna even imagine. Fer ye. Ta be wit’ ye. An’ now she gives ye a bairn. An heir, for ye and the clan.”

  “Wondrous things?”

  His aunt nodded and swallowed. Her grip on his arm tightened.

  “Wha’ if…” Hugh took a breath to steady his words. “What if…she asks tha Fae Princess ta take her back ta tha future?”

  Mab’s dark gaze pinned him. “Ye better hie ta Dunvegan so tha’ doesna happen.”

  Chapter Three

  The further the bumpy cart got from the gates of Armadale, the more Jules hurt. Her heart skipped on its way to overdrive, her stomach knotted, and her baby was swimming on the inside, as if he or she was just as distraught.

  Her head fell into her cupped hands and she tugged her hair. “What am I doing?” Take me back was on the tip of her tongue, but Claire squeezed her shoulder.

  “What you have to.”

  She couldn’t look at her sister, who rode in the back of the cart. Her gaze inadvertently met her brother-in-law’s and Jules wanted to wince at the kindness and concern in his very blue eyes.

  Her sister had told her a few letters ago; Duncan had needed some convincing to agree to this. He’d probably ranted and raved about taking a man’s wife from him—not to mention the former clan-enemy thing they had going for them.

  “The first day will be the hardest, but then it’ll get easier,” Claire said.

  Bullshit.

  Jules wouldn’t get over this for a long long time, if ever. Couldn’t imagine not seeing her husband every day, even if he had been an asshole for months.

  She didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t try. She rocked against the back of the bench seat, resting her hands on her tummy and willing the baby—and herself—to calm.

  “It’ll be okay, Jules.”

  She ignored her sister’s words, and the second look Duncan shot her. Couldn’t look at either of them, so she studied the terrain.

  The ground was covered in dark browns smattered with white. The snow had stopped for now, but the sea still crashed against the loamy shore. It went in and out of view as the wagon followed the ups and downs of the hilly roadway, but she could hear it well enough. The water thundered, like her pulse.

  Constant. Violent. Angry. Accusatory.

  The wind was frigid, even smelled frozen and promised sleet, yet it had little to do with the shivers that wracked her frame.

  Her favorite time on Skye was the spring, when everything was green and bright, and the heather was the pretty bluish-purple that reminded her of Texas bluebonnets and home. The bitterness of a Scottish Hebrides winter was something to get used to. Made what she knew from North Texas pale in comparison. Too bad it was pretty spot on with her feelings today.

  Guilt jumped up and latched on—her despair was something she’d brought on herself, wasn’t it?

  No.

  Hugh didn’t want their child, so that would never work for Jules. He loved her, but he had to love their baby, too. Or she couldn’t stay.

  In any scenario.

  Agony made her double over on the seat.

  “Jules? Are you okay?”

  She crushed her eyes shut as reality washed over her. She’d left her husband. A sob consumed her throat and pushed its way out. Her vision blurred.

  “Jules? Jules, talk to me! Duncan, stop!” Claire said.

  “No, no. Don’t stop. I’m… Just… Let’s get to Dunvegan. It’s cold.”

  Her brother-in-law grunted as he encouraged the horses to pick up their former pace. He’d already slowed them at his wife’s shout. If he was irritated, he hid it well, but she wouldn’t blame him if he was. She’d put him in a position he didn’t wholly agree with. He’d only acquiesced because he loved her sister.

  Yeah, ‘cause I need another man upset with me.

  Her sister reached forward, rubbing her back. “Of course you’re not okay,” Claire murmured. “Just…you’re not going into labor or anything, are you?”

  Jules managed a snort. “No, I have a few weeks left.”

  “Good. A cart’s no place to have a baby.”

  She smirked and turned on the bench to face her sister. “1676 is no place to have a baby.”

  Claire echoed her smirk. “I did it in 1673. You’ll be fine. I’m about to do it again.”

  “You are?”

  Her sister’s expression turned sheepish. “Aye. It’s not a secret, but with everything going on with you and Hugh, I didn’t want to bot—”

  “Claire! I’m always up for good news!” Jules was able to smile genuinely and awkwardly hugged her sister, the back of the bench seat between them. “Congrats, baby sis!”

  Duncan was grinning when she spared him a glance. “Alana says ‘tis another lad.”

  Claire sighed over dramatically.

  She found herself laughing. It felt good not to be mired down in despair, even if it likely wouldn’t last.

  “I want a girl,” her sister mumbled.

  Duncan chuckled. “Then, mò gradh, we shall have ta make ‘nother. I always try ta give my wife wha’ she wants.”

  Claire blushed, and Jules shook her head. How her sister could be embarrassed after four years of marriage and a three-year-old son was beyond her. But she was adorable, her green eyes bright.

  “Thanks for coming to get me, you guys.” She breathed through the sadness re-descending and tried to fight it off.

  The couple fell silent, but her brother-in-law nodded.

  She shouldn’t be envious that Duncan was happy Claire was pregnant again, and could joke about future children, instead of rejecting the one they’d made with love. She needed a distraction. “So, how pregnant are you? Alana told you with magic what the baby is?”

  Relief danced across her sister’s pretty face. She nodded. “Aye, with magic. She can do the same for you, if you want. About four months.”

  Conversation faded in and out as they rode toward the MacLeod stronghold, and for the most part Jules was able to ban her husband from her thoughts. She looked forward to seeing her sister’s family, especially her nephew, Lachlan, as well as the other kids.

  Duncan’s brother, Alex, had two, thirteen-year-old Angus, and two-year-old Alexandria, whom everyone called Lexi, due to Claire’s tendency to nickname people. Duncan’s sister Janet had a little boy who was almost one, Liam. All four of the children had dark hair—despite all of them having one fair-haired parent—and looked more like siblings than cousins.

  She couldn’t help but think about her own baby. With Jules’ luck, her son or daughter would be the spitting image of Hugh. Somehow that hurt all over again.

  “C’mon, Jules. We’re here.” Claire’s voice was low, and broke into her painful musings.

  She should thank her sister.

  “If we’re lucky, Mairi already has lunch ready.”

  Jules nodded and let Duncan help her down from th
e cart. She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have much of an appetite.

  ****

  The next morning came too soon. Agony and tears took her over when Jules woke up in a bed that wasn’t her own.

  She’d really done it.

  I left Hugh.

  It hadn’t been some horrible nightmare.

  Like him, she’d been married once before. But leaving her cheating bastard of an ex-husband hadn’t been a regret, it’d been justified. She’d cried, of course, but Jules had gotten over him even before the divorce was final. Hadn’t looked back.

  Until Hugh.

  Leaving her second husband—the love of her life—was different.

  Claire burst into the guestroom she’d been given yesterday after midday meal. Her sister had a tray of food; the scent fresh bread teased her nose and perked Jules’ senses awake. She set the full trencher on what passed for a desk, not far from the bed, and bustled to the heavy drapes.

  Light bathed the room, bringing it to life as if it too, had just woken. Unfortunately, spotlighting this room just made her more miserable.

  This room was the one she’d agreed to marry Hugh in. On this bed, she’d given herself to him to seal the promise. She should’ve asked her sister to put her in a different guestroom.

  She wiped her face and prayed Claire wouldn’t notice she’d been crying.

  Clan MacLeod had welcomed her back, like they had when she’d arrived last year, but she could only take so much of their concern. Alex, Duncan’s twin and the Laird MacLeod, had told her she could stay as long as she needed, which had just put her into her thousandth fit of tears.

  She’d eaten supper with only her sister in this room, but the rest of Claire’s wonderful loving family hovered like they always did. The last thing Jules needed right now was to be smothered, but she did smile when one of Duncan’s cousins, Cormac, threatened to beat Hugh up for her; she only had to say aye, the big man had vowed.

  Her tummy growled as the food wafted further into the room, and her baby did what felt like a backflip. She sat up in the borrowed bed, and her bladder stood up and shouted, hello.

  “Gooooood mornin’!” Her sister grinned. She’d been in seventeenth century Scotland for four years, so Claire’s accent had gone from modern-day Texan to Scottish lass—or really, something that fluctuated in between.