Trust your heart.
Moira spun around. “Who is there?” she demanded.
Trust your heart and let him in.
Gasping, she placed a hand over her stomach as her whole body grew warm. Not uncomfortably warm, but it accompanied a strange but pleasant tingling sensation. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s not possible.”
A faint aroma swirled through the air, and Moira closed her eyes and let a distant memory sharpen in her mind. Connor’s parents, stealing a moment to themselves by the large window overlooking the courtyard. There had been something so sweet in the way the laird had leaned over to kiss his wife, and the smile on her face, knowing that her husband loved her. Knowing that the one she loved was in her arms. He passed a small glass vial to her hand, and she’d opened it, lifted the vial to her nose, and giggled like a little girl. From her spot in the corner, Moira had been able to smell it as well. The faint aroma of orange and peach. Perfume that the laird had gotten for his wife.
The moment had struck Moira, and she realized that it’s what she wanted. Her own parents were cordial to each other, but there was no love between them. What Laird Sinclair and his wife had was rare, and Moira desperately wanted it.
You do have it.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she turned and threw open the door. “I can’t,” she muttered to herself. “I’m imagining things.”
Let him in. Your child deserves it. You deserve it.
“My bairn.” Freezing in the doorway, she closed her eyes and let the ghostly voice wash over her. She’d believed in love. She’d wanted it more than anything, and she had it, for a time, with Connor. If she truly shut herself away in this cottage, with her child, would she be teaching them that love wasn’t necessary? Love wasn’t worth it?
Turning, she walked back into the cottage and faced the ghosts. “I do love him,” she said, her voice quivering. “I love him desperately, but if I give in to that love, and he hurts me again, he rejects me again, how will I survive it?”
“Moira.”
This time, it wasn’t a ghostly voice speaking to her, but flesh and blood. Her husband. Slowly, she turned and stared at him. His eyes were bloodshot as though he hadn’t slept in days, and he hadn’t been able to shave. His hair was dirty and unkempt, but to her, he was beautiful.
“Ye are back.”
“I traveled back alone. My men are still a few more days behind. I wanted to travel quickly so I could give you the good news.”
“Ainsley?”
“Sentenced for treason. The king sent his guards for Covington as well for his role.”
“Ye didnae stay for the execution?”
“There was something far more important that I needed to see,” Connor said softly as he stepped inside. “Who were ye speaking to?”
“Ghosts,” she said honestly.
“Aye? And they made ye realize that ye love me?”
He’d overheard. “Connor…”
“I cannae promise that I willnae hurt ye, Moira. I intend to spend the rest of my life cherishing ye, God willing it will be a long one, and I tend to be thickheaded, but I will never reject ye again. I love ye, Moira, and I will do whatever it takes to make ye understand that. Even if it means letting ye stay here, away from me, while ye decide what ye want.”
“I’m pregnant.”
A small smile tugged on his face, and hope bloomed in her chest. “I know, my love. The healer told me. ’Tis why I hurried back. Nothing, not even vengeance, could keep me away from ye and our bairn.” He took a step toward her.
“I learned it days before Ainsley attacked. I was so scared that she had hurt it. I should have told ye, but I wasnae ready to leave yer arms.” Tears streamed down her face. “I do love ye, Connor, and I know that ye love me. I have been a stubborn fool, letting the past keep us both from happiness, but no more.”
Unable to stay away from him any longer, she raced into his arms and eagerly welcomed his kiss. There was a sweet heat to his kiss, an underlying hunger, but he was gentle as he held her. Pulling away, he dropped to his knees and pressed his head against her belly. “Our child,” he said in wonder.
“I want our child to have parents who love each other as much as your parents did,” she told him as she ran her hands through his hair. “That’s the realization that I came to. I don’t want to fight what I feel for you any longer.”
Stiffening suddenly, he pulled back and glanced around her body. The air shifted in the small cabin, and he stood, his face full of surprise. “Mother?” he asked. “Father?”
“Miriam really could speak to ghosts,” Moira laughed. “Unless we are all going mad.”
“They are saying goodbye. They are leaving.”
To see their son happy and moved on from those dark days is all they wanted.
Then they were gone, and a stillness settled in the air. Connor searched the room for a moment, but there was no anxiety on his face. Finally, he reached his hand out to hers, and she took it without hesitation.
“All those years ago, I asked ye to marry me,” he said quietly. “Happy birthday, Moira.”
“Oh, Connor, ’til this moment, it was the happiest of my life.”
They walked from the cottage—away from the fears that had ruled her for so long—and toward the future she’d always wanted.
Epilogue
Six years later
* * *
“Ye cannae defeat me for I am a great and mighty Sinclair!” the lass bellowed from the top of her lungs before she lunged from the large oak cabinet against the wall. With a roar of panic, Connor lunged for her and caught her just in time.
On the floor, her three-year-old brandished the small wooden toy sword. “I am a Sinclair too!” he declared.
“Aye, ye are both Sinclairs,” Connor said gruffly as he lowered his daughter to the floor. In the kitchen, he could hear a wail of determination from his other daughter, a wee lass of six months. Heaven help me if she grows up to be like her older sister! There would be no containing them!
“Papa, he is to be laird,” Maria said as she lowered her sword and blinked her crystal blue eyes at him. “I must prepare him.”
“I am certain that ye will do a fine job, but our first priority with Tyree is to get him to sleep through the night. Then we can prepare him to be laird.” Reaching down, he picked up his son, who was far more interested in smacking the sword against things rather than playing with his sister.
The past year had been a trying one. At five, Maria acted as though she were going on twenty and determined to take care of her siblings. In that, she reminded him of himself.
She also had the stubbornness of her mother and the wild streak of her aunt. She was a force to be reckoned with, but Connor wouldn’t have it any other way.
Tyree had been sleeping just fine until the third child entered the world, and now he was more content to watch over his baby sister than to get any sleep himself. The poor tyke was falling asleep right in the middle of dinner, but nothing they could say would get him to change his mind.
“Did I hear the victory cry of a Sinclair?” Moira asked as she carried the sleeping infant into the room. Maria immediately ran to her, and Moira dutifully bent down so her daughter could give her other daughter a sweet kiss on the cheek.
“I am teaching Tyree to be laird,” Maria announced, “and I am training to be a warrior!”
“Are ye now?” Moira raised her eyebrows and looked at Connor.
He just shrugged. “I could never make a lady out of Grace, and I wouldnae change her for anything. I have accepted my fate to be blessed with strong-willed women.”
“When do Alec and Cora arrive?”
“Ye had already gone to bed when the messenger arrived. They should be arriving any hour now.”
“Uncle Alec and Aunt Cora! And Duncan and Helena!” Maria shrieked and jumped up and down. She adored her cousins, and her excitement could not be contained which was why
they had to wait until now to tell her.
“Aye, so ’tis a bath and a dress for ye,” Moira said with a jerk of her head. “Go on. Bellamy is waiting for ye.”
“Aw,” Maria groaned, but she hurried up the steps to meet her terrible fate of looking the part of a lady. It wouldn’t last long. Within an hour, there would no doubt be a tear in her dress and dirt streaked along her face. Like her mother, she very much enjoyed gardening.
“Are ye certain that ye are up for this? No one will think poorly of ye if ye need rest,” Connor told her quietly. Shifting his son to his other arm, he leaned down to gently kiss his wife on the forehead and stare down at his daughter. She was a miracle for sure. Complications had arisen when Moira bore Tyree, and the healer was certain that Moira would not conceive again. When she did, he fretted the entire time, and while the labor went smoothly, she still seemed more drawn than usual.
He wanted her to rely on their nursemaid more, but Moira claimed she could not bear to be away from her kids for long.
Connor understood exactly what she meant.
“If I get tired, then I will not push myself,” she assured him. “But we have not seen Alec and Cora since Tyree’s birth, and I want to spend time with them.”
“Ye are the most wonderful wife that a man can ask for.”
“Aye,” she said mischievously as she looked up at him. “I am.”
“I have not been a good husband. I did not uphold my marriage vows.”
She first blinked in confusion, and then a small smile curved over her face. Their wedding had been years ago, but he still remembered it like yesterday. The defiant gleam in her eyes and the stubborn push of her shoulders.
The beautiful vision that she made, standing next to him, vowing to put her life into his hands.
“Aye. Ye vowed to leave me my own heart, and yet ye stole it anyway like a thief.”
“And I will never give it back. Ah, Moira, I love ye more now that I ever thought was possible, and in another five years, I will love ye even more. Ye have my heart just as I have yers.”
He leaned in for a tender kiss and a promise of what might await her tonight if she was not too tired, when a shriek of indignation sounded from above followed by the wails of an infant in Moira’s arms.
“Which daughter do ye want?” she asked in amusement.
Connor put Tyree down and reached out to take the bairn. “’Twill take a constitution stronger than mine to get Maria into a dress.”
“Next time?” Moira said suspiciously.
“Next time.” Glancing down, he winked at his son.
“I saw that.”
Extended Epilogue
His muscles ached as he swung the heavy sword again, but his opponent danced nimbly out of the way. Sweat dripped from his forehead, but Mungo refused to quit or give in. “Admit it, and we can stop this farce right now,” his opponent said before bringing the blade down. Quickly, he met it and deflected. Enough was enough, and he used his remaining strength to lunge, slash, and pin his opponent to the stone wall at the point of his sword.
“Were ye going easy on me?” Grace complained as she dropped her sword and groaned. Her skirts had twisted around her legs. The laird, Grace’s brother, was allowing her to train with a different guard every week, but only if she could do it in a dress. After what happened with the laird’s wife, he wanted his sister to be able to defend herself.
Not that it mattered. Grace had been training for years, and none of the warriors had the heart to deny her. In fact, she was quite good, but she was always fighting outside her weight class.
“Ye put up a good fight my dear, but I will never say the words that ye want me to admit,” Mungo chuckled as he bent down to pick up her weapon. Holding it out, he tested the balance. “Blacksmith made it lighter for ye? Makes sense. Ye were able to push a little longer today.”
“Aye, and if I can get him to make it even lighter, then I stand a chance. Why is it so hard for ye to admit that ye like her? Ye stare at her every time she is in the room, and then ye start to stutter like an idiot. She is a good woman, Mungo.”
“Aye,” Mungo admitted. “She is a good woman, but she is terrified of me. I said good morning to her yesterday, and she dropped all the laundry and had to take them back to be rewashed. She cursed at me the whole time that she picked them up.”
“That is not terror,” Grace laughed as she took her sword back and rolled her shoulders. She’d also worked up quite a sweat. “Ye infuriate her. That is the start of something. After all, Moira hated Connor in the beginning.”
“Nay, Moira loved Connor in the beginning. Then he messed it all up, and she married him anyway,” Mungo reminded her. It had been a few months since the treasonous actions of Ainsley, and the truth of the Sinclair deaths had finally come to light. During the first few months of their marriage, most of the clan, Mungo included, had not trusted Moira, but that was all behind them. She was thick with Connor’s child, and her smile lit up the room.
There was only one smile that Mungo thought was more beautiful, but try as he might, he could not get Brittania to turn that smile around to him. Every time they were together, he did something to upset her.
If he was smart, he’d stay away from the woman.
Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be all that smart when it came to her.
“I need to bathe and dress.” Grace sighed as she looked up at the sun. “The Hamiltons should be here by sunset.”
Moira’s uncle and Hamish, the new Hamilton laird, were arriving to work on a new alliance agreement. There was little fear that Hamish would demand more than Tyree had done as laird, so this visit was mostly a formality and a chance for Moira to see her uncle.
For some reason, Grace was annoyed with the visit, but that was usually the case when she was required to act in a political capacity. Although she no longer acted as mistress of the keep, she was still the unmarried sister of a laird. If Connor had the courage, he could marry Grace off in a political alliance.
Connor did not have the courage, and Mungo knew of no one who would marry Grace. She was a beauty, smart, courageous...but she had a problem when it came to obedience.
As in, she refused to be obedient.
“I will escort ye,” Mungo said. “I need to change into clan colors.”
As informal as the visit was, it was still a political association, and as head of the guard, he would do his duty.
When he escorted Grace to her chambers, there was someone waiting for her outside her door. Brittania’s eyes widened at the sight of him before she frowned and nodded her head. “Lady Grace, Moira has asked me to help ye get ready tonight.”
“Brittania, ye doonae call Moira ‘Lady Moira,’ so why must ye call me Lady Grace?” Grace sighed as she opened her door. “I see my bath is ready. Help Mungo with his, and I will be ready for ye afterward.”
Before Mungo could object, Grace swept in and closed the door.
“Please doonae listen to her,” Mungo said gently. It was completely inappropriate for her to help him with his bath when he could draw his own heated water.
“’Tis an order,” she said briskly. “I must.”
“Ye doonae…”
“Do ye want me to lose my job?” she snapped. “Sometimes I think that ye will not be happy unless I am back on the side of the road, selling flowers and wondering whether or not I will have a roof over my head.”
Stunned at the anger in her voice, he stared at her. “Brittania, ye couldnae lose yer position here. Moira loves ye too much, and I would never wish that on ye. I get the feeling that ye doonae like me vera much.”
“After what ye did to my cousin, is it any wonder?” When he continued to stare at her in confusion, she snorted and rolled her eyes. “Ye doonae even remember her, do ye? Her name was Cecily, and ye impregnated her and then refused to marry her!”
“Cecily?” he echoed. “Cecily is yer cousin? And she claimed that I did what to her?”
“There is no claim.
Had ye not been the head of the guard and the laird’s closest friend, then her parents would have demanded that ye do right by her, but ye are brash and arrogant knowing that yer position of power will save ye! Well, I know ye for who ye really are, and I willnae simper before ye. Do us both a favor, and leave me alone.” She paused and blew out her breath. “After I draw yer bathwater.”
Still reeling from the rage in her voice, and the lies spilling from her mouth—although Mungo could see that she believed them—he watched her stomp off.
Cecily. Now that was a name that he hadn’t thought of in almost two years. The pretty woman had seduced him one night when he was deep into his cups, but she’d married into another clan a month later, and he never thought of her again.
Had she been pregnant? The idea that he might have a child out there was staggering, and before he knew it, he was striding after the woman.
Brittania was so furious that she was near tears. To think that the man hadn’t even remembered poor Cecily! Even worse, when he looked at her, there was heat in his eyes, like he wanted her.
And her body responded to him in kind. Oh, the humiliation of it all. Hopefully, now that he knew who she was, he would leave her alone, and she wouldn’t have to worry that he would put her job in jeopardy out of spite.
She needed this position. Her parents were gone, and the man who’d sworn to marry her had married Cecily instead to care for her child and give him a father. At the time, Brittania had been heartbroken, but she’d understood it was necessary. She’d expected to find love again.
Then her aunt refused to take her in, and she was left homeless and selling flowers for money for food when Connor found her. She was no stranger to hard work, but she had no idea how to be a lady’s maid. Those were fancy positions in England, but Connor had insisted that Moira would need help when she moved to her cottage.
Except that Moira stayed in the keep, and they’d become friends. Brittania liked her job.
Highlands’ Forbidden Deeds Page 35
