‘Whatever you have to say, it is too late now,’ Ailsa said flatly.
Gazing helplessly into her daughter’s eyes, the same violet shade as her own, Lady Munro felt despair wash over her. ‘You don’t understand. I wanted to see you—to tell you—I want to put things right.’ She tried to smile encouragingly.
‘Put things right! Nobody can put things right. Nothing will be right ever again.’
Looking closely at her daughter, Christina Munro noticed for the first time the tightly drawn look of her, her eyes huge in the chalk-white face. ‘You look as if you have seen a ghost.’
‘I have,’ Ailsa replied. ‘And it is a spectre that will haunt me to the end of my days.’
Christina felt as if the little blood she had was icing over. ‘Morna. You have spoken—she has told you.’ She clutched at her daughter’s arm. ‘It’s not what you think. What your father did—it’s not the whole story. If you would let me explain, Ailsa …’
‘How can you? What can you possibly say to change the fact that my father is also Alasdhair’s?’ Ailsa said hysterically. ‘I presume you knew that, Mother? I presume that is what was at the bottom of your hating Alasdhair so much? My father’s exercising of his feudal rights!’
‘Ailsa, it’s not—’
‘To hell with the laird and his sins,’ Alasdhair snapped. ‘I’m sick of hearing about him. What about the sins of omission?’ he said furiously, turning on Lady Munro. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t understand why you just didn’t—before we… . Dear God, woman, have you any idea what this has done to us? To your own daughter?’
Lady Munro clasped her hands together to stop them shaking. She cleared her throat and forced herself to look at her daughter. Her Ailsa. Her lovely Ailsa. ‘It doesn’t mean what you think it means.’
‘What? What the hell else do you think it could mean?’ Alasdhair said disgustedly. ‘Unless you are saying that my mother somehow got it wrong and mistook the man who planted his seed in her.’
‘No, I’m not saying that.’
‘Then what, Mother? What are you saying?’
Lady Munro threw back her head, meeting her daughter’s gaze full on. ‘Alasdhair might be Lord Munro’s child, Ailsa, but you are not.’
It seemed for a moment as if the world stopped. The air resonated with tension. Alasdhair and Ailsa were incapable of speech, too terrified to believe, too scared to even move in case the spell was broken and it proved another devilish twist in the nightmare that had befallen them.
‘It’s true.’ Lady Munro broke the silence, her voice shaking.
‘But why? Who? How?’ Ailsa’s voice shook pathetically. ‘I don’t understand. Why did you not tell me? Why, all these years, did you lead me to believe—why?’
‘Oh, Ailsa, why would I? There were all the reasons in the world not to tell you.’
‘But …’ Ailsa clutched at her head, that was reeling.
With an immense effort of will, Alasdhair took charge. ‘Not here. We need to—not here. We’ll go back to my mother’s cottage.’
‘Morna Ross won’t want me in her house.’
‘If what you say is true, she will welcome you with open arms.’
‘I promise you,’ Lady Munro said fervently, ‘I promise you it is true. You are no kin of my daughter.’
The look that passed between Ailsa and Alasdhair contained a tiny flicker of hope, like a candle flame trying valiantly to burn in a draught. They looked and they hoped and then they looked away, for fear of tempting fate. As the three of them made their way to the cottage, the white clouds of the morning, which seemed now so very long ago, gave way to a watery blue sky bearing a weak sun.
Morna Ross was waiting for them on the doorstep, her arms folded tight across her chest. ‘Well, well, as I live and breathe. To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?’
‘Mother,’ Alasdhair said, ushering Morna into the cottage, ‘Lady Munro has some extraordinary news which may put all to rights. Let us go inside.’
They did so. Morna and Christina Munro took stock of each other across the table, like old adversaries trying to ready themselves for a battle neither relished, but would die rather than default from.
Ailsa and Alasdhair sat side by side so that every nuance of expression was felt rather than seen. Though they did not touch, their bodies harkened towards one another, pulled by some unseen force, like a magnet pulls the point of a compass north. They waited with bated breath for Lady Munro’s explanation to release them, still fearing that by some chance her words had been misinterpreted, condemning them utterly.
Lady Munro sat ramrod straight in her seat, her long thin fingers plucking at the lace of her delicately embroidered handkerchief. ‘I never wanted anything else but your happiness,’ she said suddenly, turning towards her daughter. ‘I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. It’s all I ever wanted.’
‘Then help me now, Mother, please,’ Ailsa begged her, ‘because the only thing that will make me happy is being with Alasdhair.’
Christina Munro nodded. A piece of lace came away from the fine lawn cotton handkerchief with a little tearing sound. ‘Yes. Yes, I see that now. I’m only sorry it took me so long.’ She nodded again. Silence stretched taut as a sail in a head wind. She closed her eyes as the past, a country from which self-preservation had prevented her setting foot, beckoned like a forgotten continent, the contours of the landscape familiar, the surroundings changed. Christina took a deep breath and opened her eyes. ‘I loved my first husband,’ she said, her gaze focused only on Ailsa. ‘I was devastated when he died,’ she continued in a harsh tone. ‘We had not been long married, and I was young, not even eighteen, with my first-born bairn, Rory, still in swaddling.’ She began to rock in her chair, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. ‘You see, Ailsa, I can say his name well enough. I just find it—experience has taught me it is better not to. When you cannot heal a wound, it is better not to pick at it.’
She hesitated briefly before continuing. ‘I was a widow just a few months before the clan married me on to the Munro. My boy was not a year when they tore him from my arms. I didn’t know, you see. They didn’t tell me that it was part of the nuptial agreement. Rory was the heir to Heronsay, the Macleods wanted him under their wing, and my new husband did not want a Macleod cuckoo in the Munro nest. But I didn’t know any of that.’
Rocking. Rocking. Rocking. Ailsa stared at her mother as if she had never seen her before. She seemed to have aged these last few days, not in her looks, but in her carriage. The straight-backed rigidity in which she had been sitting was gone. She was curled into herself now, struggling to hold herself together. She looked pitiable. She had never looked pitiable before.
The rocking slowed, but did not quite stop. Lady Munro’s fingers ripped at the lace. ‘It broke my heart to leave Rory in Heronsay. On our wedding night the laird promised me that when I gave him his own son he would let me have my first born to live with us. I thought he meant it.’ Her lip curled. ‘But when I gave him Calumn he just laughed at me. When I’d had a second child, he said, one more than I’d given the Macleod. So I let him back into my bed and endured his attentions though I knew him for a liar, because what else could I do?’
Lady Munro turned briefly to Morna. ‘When it is our children’s well-being at stake, we will endure much.’
Morna gave a half-shrug of assent, but said nothing.
‘I tried, but to no avail,’ Lady Munro continued,
‘and after four years I was nigh on giving up hope. I did not really believe he would grant me Rory anyway. You won’t believe me—why should you after the way I’ve treated you?—’ she said to Ailsa, ‘but what I really wanted was a daughter of my own.’
She paused again, and Ailsa was astonished to see a blush steal over her mother’s cheek. ‘Go on,’ she said, wondering what on earth was coming next.
‘I wouldn’t have thought of it had not circumstances conspired,’ Lady Munro said, her words coming out in
a rush now, anxious as she was to have the shameful part of the tale over with. ‘The laird was away from Errin Mhor on clan business. He’d been gone nearly two months, visiting cousins in the Hebrides. Neil Murray was an old flame of mine. When Rory’s father died, he asked for my hand, but though he was of good family and I liked him very well, he had not the wealth nor the lands of the Laird of Errin Mhor, so his offer was rejected.’
This confession was so far from what Ailsa had expected that her mouth fell open in astonishment. She made to speak, but Alasdhair’s hand on her arm stopped her. ‘Wait,’ he mouthed, afraid that were Lady Munro interrupted she would falter.
‘He called at Errin Mhor with a message for my husband,’ Lady Munro said, her blush now apparent to all. ‘He stayed seven days and nights, and we—I—he came to my bed on every one of them.
I was lonely, and I was desperate, and Neil showed me kindness, which my husband had never done, and he reminded me of better times. I know that is no excuse. By the time he left Errin Mhor I suspected I might be carrying his child. By the time my husband returned, three weeks later, my suspicions had been confirmed. I know it was wrong to deceive him, no matter that he had deceived me, but that is what I did. I made sure he had no reason to doubt me, and I was lucky, for no one questioned you being supposedly a few weeks early, Ailsa, for Calumn was an early baby, too. I was lucky, and I was careful. No one knew, not even Neil. Until today, this has been my secret.’
‘Are you sure?’ Ailsa asked urgently, leaning forwards in her seat. ‘Are you absolutely positive, there can be no doubt of my true father?’
‘No doubt at all, I promise you. I am quite certain of my dates, but there is something else, if you need further proof. Look at your hands.’
Ailsa spread her fingers on the table in front of her. ‘What am I looking for?’
‘See.’ Lady Munro did the same. ‘The middle finger and the fourth—in most people they are different sizes, but yours are the same length. It is a quirk Neil told me of, all his family have it.’
Frowning, Ailsa examined her hands, surprised to find that her mother spoke the truth, more surprised to find that she herself had never noticed it before. ‘Is it really so unusual?’
Lady Munro nodded. Alasdhair and Morna, both examining their own hands now, nodded too. ‘It’s true,’ Morna said, looking at Ailsa’s hands now with interest, ‘I’ve never seen that before.’
‘So I am definitely not a Munro,’ Ailsa said slowly.
‘No,’ Lady Munro answered, her voice tight.
Morna spoke for the first time, her voice tinged with something akin to admiration. ‘You cuckolded the laird in his own nest.’
‘Aye, I did.’ Lady Munro said, meeting Morna’s gaze firmly, still as stone, even her fingers at peace. Each word seemed drawn from her like a sharp stone, so painfully that there could be no doubting the truth of them. ‘When I found him with you that night, I was furious that he could do so easily and thoughtlessly what had cost me dear. It was not your fault, I know that, but I did not see it that way at the time. If it is any consolation at all, you should know that he punished me, too, for the shame of having discovered him. What I did to you was done to me in return and your son took my son’s place at the castle.’
‘It is hardly the same,’ Morna said heavily.
‘I do not make any claim that it is,’ Christina agreed. ‘Nor do I claim that I committed no sin. I only want to explain. And it is not your forgiveness I came here to seek anyway but my daughter’s.’ She looked over at Ailsa again, her eyes now clearly damp with unshed tears. ‘I loved you all the more for who you were, Ailsa, and who you were not, but the laird must always come first, you see, so I took care never to allow him to see what I felt for you. But you were right. There has been time, more than enough time since, for me to change things between us, and I have not. I’ve been afraid to, for the damage I’ve inflicted has been too terrible to contemplate. I’ve always loved you, Ailsa, even though I’ve never shown it. I came here to tell you that whatever you want from your life, it has my blessing. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?’
‘Màthair!’ Careless of her tears, Ailsa got to her feet and knelt at her mother’s feet, wrapping her arms around her knees and putting her head on her lap. ‘I have never been so happy in my life to hear that the man I thought my father is not. For it means I can have what my heart desires above all, which is to be with Alasdhair. I can forgive you anything for that.’
Hesitantly, Christina touched her daughter’s soft curls. ‘All I ever wanted to do was to keep you safe. I thought no one else could do that but me. I was wrong and I’m sorry. If marriage to Alasdhair Ross is what you want, then it’s what I want, too.’
Alasdhair lifted Ailsa to her feet and hugged her so close she could not breathe, though for neither was it close enough. ‘Do you swear that what you have told us is the truth?’ he said, looking sternly at Lady Munro. ‘I swear.’
That it should be the one woman in the world who had done the most to keep them apart who now demolished what had seemed an insurmountable barrier to their happiness was an irony, but, like Ailsa at present, he did not much care about anything other than the fact that it meant they could be together. ‘Thank you,’ he said to Lady Munro. ‘I take it, then, that your daughter has your blessing?’
‘With all my heart,’ Lady Munro said.
Morna, too, got to her feet now. ‘Well,’ she said, fixing Lady Munro with a stern stare, ‘I don’t pretend to forgive you, but I do feel sorry for you, Christina Munro, and since it looks like we are to be kin through marriage, I will do my best to overlook the worst of your sins.’
Lady Munro got to her feet ‘It’s late, you’ll be wanting some time alone, and I’m suddenly very tired so, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll return to the inn and rest.’
Ailsa slipped out from under Alasdhair’s arm to give her mother a tentative kiss on the cheek, and was rewarded with a painfully fierce embrace before her mother dashed her hand over her eyes and fled the room.
‘I’d better go after her,’ Morna said, ‘make sure she’s all right. It’s been quite a day for all of us. Quite a day and no mistake.’
Alone at last, Alasdhair put his hand around Ailsa’s shoulders and guided her out of the cottage towards the shores of the loch. It was almost dark, but there was a full moon, glowing hazy through the remnants of the grey mizzle cloud. He turned her towards him, his hands cupping her face, drinking deep of her beloved countenance. For long moments they gazed at each other, violet eyes on bitter chocolate, the horror of the last few hours easing gradually away as the glowing light of their love suffused their bodies.
‘I love you,’ Alasdhair said huskily, his lips so close that they brushed hers. ‘I love you. I love you. I love you. I will never, ever tire of saying it, nor will I ever cease to be grateful that I can.’
‘I love you too, Alasdhair,’ Ailsa whispered, ‘more every moment that passes.’
He pulled her closer. Her soft curves pressed and moulded themselves into his hard form. She smelled of sunshine and sea and Ailsa. Alasdhair closed his eyes and drank her in, relief giving way to desire as the horrors of the day began to fade.
He kissed her then, finally, a kiss that emptied his heart into her, wrapping her tight in the balm of his love, binding them together in a way that left them in no doubt that they were two halves of one. It was a kiss that seemed they had been waiting a lifetime for. A proclamation and a promise.
‘I love you, Alasdhair, I love you so much.’ Ailsa took his hand and rubbed it against her cheek. ‘This is our clean slate, isn’t it? You don’t mind that I’m not who you thought I was?’
He laughed. ‘No. You’re exactly who I thought you were. I’m only worried that you’ll mind the same about me.’
‘You’re you, exactly who I thought you were. Isn’t it funny—you came all the way from Virginia to find answers and you weren’t even asking the right questions.’
‘There’s o
nly one question in my mind, and that’s how soon can we be married?’
‘Soon. As soon as we can call the banns.’ Ailsa sighed with contentment and nestled closer into Alasdhair’s comforting embrace. ‘I can’t believe it’s really happening.’
‘And you promise me you’ve no regrets, Ailsa? You mean it when you say that leaving here, returning with me to Virginia, is what you really want?’
‘You are what I really want. If I can have you, nothing else matters.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. ‘I want a new world, not this old one.’
‘Then the New World you shall have. What of your name?’
Ailsa frowned. ‘I don’t know. Calumn must be told the truth, it would not be fair to hide it from him, but I doubt very much that he’ll want it known. As far as I am concerned, my name will be Ross and that’s all that matters to me.’
Alasdhair kissed her again, lingeringly this time, and sweetly, savouring the fullness of her lips, his hands caressing the sweet contours of her body. ‘Then if my mother is happy to keep her secret, and yours is too, there is no need to proclaim the truth to the world—are we agreed?’
‘Yes,’ Ailsa said, pulling his head back towards her. ‘And now can we stop talking about mothers, please?’
He pulled her closer. ‘Let’s stop talking all together,’ he whispered. Then he kissed her. And he kissed her again. And he did not stop kissing her until she lay glowing and sated beneath him.
Chapter Eleven
They were to be married under their baptised names. After much heart-searching, both Morna and Christina had agreed that the truth should be kept under wraps, provided Calumn was also in agreement.
Alasdhair had insisted on telling him himself, rightly judging that Calumn would prefer to hear the unvarnished facts rather than to have to listen to the competing emotional reactions of two women.
Calumn listened with a growing look of astonishment on his face, but when the tale was finally told, he shook his head in resignation. ‘My father took the precaution of unburdening himself of much of his wrongdoing before he died,’ he said with a grimace. ‘His religion does not require confession, but he chose to burden me, his eldest son, with the worst of his sins, just in case the question of reparation came up. Canny to the end, the old goat. You’ve no idea,’ he said with a wry grin, ‘the cess pit of a black soul he was carrying around inside him, but I did not think even he capable of this. I expect he thought forcing himself on your mother and fathering you were duties rather than sins. I’m sorry, Alasdhair.’
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