Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  “It helps, son,” MacKenzie said gently. “Let it go. Voicing it will make the worst of it disappear.”

  “Aye, lad,” Mercea urged gruffly. “Tell us what it keeping ye from wedding our Moira.”

  Chapter 38

  Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.

  - Saint Aurelius Augustine

  Vin fought back a feeling of panic at being put on the spot. They had left men behind. Perhaps even sealed the fate of some when they refused to break under interrogation. The pair probably could understand better than any other. Despite what they had told him, Vin just wasn’t certain he could talk about it, even if he wanted to. How could he possibly explain it? Especially to them?

  They sat in silence for a long while with Vin staring into the dancing flames, his mind a thousand miles away. There were no other sounds except the crackling of the fire before his voice broke softly. “I don’t know why they never just killed us. After Richard and Temple escaped, they brought the four of us back. They knew they didn’t have much time after that and had to move quickly, so they took us farther south and eventually to a village where most of the rebels were originally from. Near there were some old tombs. Even if someone had come looking for us and could have found the entrance, there were a maze of passageways in those ruins. Anyway, they felt with that escape they were running out of time before someone came looking for us, so they were determined to get their information quickly. And by quickly, I mean…” Vin swallowed unable to voice the thought.

  “They jumped straight into the worst of it, eh?” Mercea grumbled. “Why take time seeing what level a man will crack at if ye can go straight tae the worst. Bastards.” The old man spat into the fireplace, but MacKenzie was frozen and Vin knew he was thinking of Jason and his suffering.

  “Aye, they jumped straight to the worst of it. They wanted to know where Urabi was and quickly. But the damned truth of it was Urabi really had been exiled and set free, they just didn’t want to believe it. They were sure he was being held prisoner, was still in Egypt and they were determined to free their leader. Jenkins died that first week, they went at him so hard. They kept us all together in one room then. We were able to plot our escapes. There were a couple that first few months when all of us could walk at one time. Dewar was killed on the third attempt, I think.”

  Vin stared into the fir,e remembering those torturous months. “Whippings, hot pokers. Those bastards were masters of pain. Merciless.”

  “Let me see,” MacKenzie choked out.

  Vin met his eyes for a long while seeing the pain there, knowing that this man wasn’t only seeing Vin but wanting to know what his son had suffered. Pain burst in his heart seeing the old man grieve like that for his only son. He knew he shouldn’t do it but, standing up, Vin shrugged off his jacket before attacking the vest and shirt buttons with trembling hands. Pulling the shirt over his head, he lowered his arms to his sides.

  There were three longer and deeper scars across his abdomen, two gunshot wounds and several long triangular burns. Vin pointed these out and several on his arms and the palms of his hands. “Burns from the poker.” Two puckered circles near his shoulder were pointed out next. “When laying it to the skin didn’t work, they tried sticking it in instead. Vin kicked off his shoes and pulled off his stockings before showing them the burned bottoms of his feet. “That kept us from running away for a while.” Drawing a shuddering breath, Vin hesitated to turn around.

  “It’s all right, son. Show us,” Mercea said gruffly.

  “All that came after this didn’t work,” Vin turned and should them his back. He’d never seen it for himself, only felt it for years as the scars tightened then healed. He had a picture in his mind, however, that was very clear because he had seen Jason’s and Jenkin’s and Dewar’s. Pulling on his shirt, Vin sat back down and watched the old men watching him. They didn’t look disgusted or pitying so much as sad as they thought of Jason suffering the same.

  “Have ye ne’er shown those tae another?” Moira’s father asked softly.

  “Only Moira,” Vin answered. “Though in all truth I didn’t show them to her in as much as she saw them when she came to my room one night.” Vin winced at how the words sounded adding, “She had heard me…nightmares, you know? And had come to see what the noise was.”

  MacKenzie cleared his throat. “So ye couldnae crack because there was nothing tae tell. What happened next?”

  “After about nine months or maybe even a year, I think they realized they were never going to get anything out of us,” Vin went on. “There was some talk of ransom but they didn’t want that.”

  “Because then someone would know who had taken ye tae begin wi’,” Mercea guessed.

  “Aye, they didn’t want to have retribution rained down on them for taking officers hostage and for the same reason they couldn’t just let us go, knowing we would see their village sent to hell in flames.” Vin stared sightlessly into the fire, his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling between them. His chest ached remembering it all and he rubbed it absently as they sat in silence. “Why didn’t they just kill us? No one would have known. Instead, they kept us locked down there. Sometimes they forgot to feed us. We wallowed in our own filth. We were like animals, forgotten and abused. Killing would have been kinder.”

  “Then what happened?” Mercea prompted when Vin lapsed into silence once more.

  Vin remembered the day he saw the sun once more, not just a beam of light across the sand floor, but the sun itself beating down on him, blinding him with its intensity.

  “We escaped once more. It had been years probably at that point. They were so lax, I almost thought they wanted us to escape.” The feel of the hot sand between his toes, the sweat trickling down his back. His throat suddenly felt as parched as it had been that day and Vin’s voice grew rasping. “We should have gone at night, but we had tried that before. We went at dawn instead, it was so hot already. We stole two camels and ran like fools. No water, heading out into the desert like that was insanity. We were almost dead out there when we heard them coming so we went even faster. They shot me in the leg and it went through and into the camel I was on. It went down, I went down.”

  Vin swallowed unaware that tears were trickling down his cheeks. “Jason turned back to get me. No! No! I kept yelling at him. Keep going! Run! God damn you! Run!”

  Vin’s voice was hoarse with emotion and he hung his head. “Why didn’t he run?”

  Chapter 39

  A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling the past is to force open a crammed drawer. If you are searching for anything in particular you don't find it, but something falls out at the back that is often more interesting.

  - James M. Barrie

  “He wouldnae ha’ left ye anymore than ye would have left him, son.” Vin looked up to find both men in tears and finally felt his own running down his face. “Jason loved ye like a brother, son. He would ne’er ha’ left ye there alone.”

  “He had a chance to live!” The guilt was heavy in Vin’s voice. The pain of a years that had nothing to do with whips or knives. It was guilt that had ridden him in the year or more since then. It was where he still dwelt. His failure to keep up had killed Jason. He had killed Jason. In that moment life had suspended itself.

  “He came back to get me and they shot him, too. They dragged us back to that tomb and put us in chains for the first time. Chained us to opposite walls so we could not conspire any more but Jason got sick, infection, I think, from the gunshot wound. I could see it, I couldn’t help him. It took so long for him to die, he was in so much pain and I couldn’t do anything to help him. I couldn’t even finish him off myself to spare him the pain because I couldn’t reach him. All I could do if we both stretched our arms out was hold his hand. I held his hand for a month cursing myself for doing that to him, cursing him for not running when he had the chance. Cursing those bastards who held us for not even having enough mercy to kill him quickly.” Vin inhaled shakily. “They let h
im suffer. I let him suffer.”

  Vin wrapped his hand around his wrist feeling the scars that ringed it. He had broken his hand and would bear the scars for the rest of his life to forever remind him of his failure to pull free from the manacle that chained him to the wall. To pull free and spare his friend unbearable anguish and suffering.

  Mercea and MacKenzie shared a look noting the scars around Vin’s wrist and imagining accurately what had caused them.

  Vin’s voice went on now almost devoid of feeling as if every drop of emotion he possessed was completely drained from him. “I don’t even know how long I held his hand after he was dead. I don’t know how long they left him in there. Why didn’t they just kill me after that? What was one more dead body to them? The worst torture was losing Jason and being left alone.”

  Silence hung heavily in the room for a long while.

  “Ye’ve paid more than enough, son,” MacKenzie finally said haltingly. The picture Vin had drawn of his son’s death would probably haunt him for the rest of his life, but Vin’s suffering needed to end. He needed absolution, honest absolution. “Ye did what ye could for Jason. I’m sure yer presence gave him peace in his final hours. His death was never your fault. Ever.”

  “I left Jason behind because I failed him,” Vin whispered. “Richard said that sometimes the guilt in surviving it all is worse than any torture.”

  Sharing a look, the two older men nodded. It was the worst part. Leaving those men in Russian to die, never knowing what became of them, of their families. It was that shared guilt that kept them together for years. “Smart lad,” Mercea grumbled. “It still is the worst part. But the guilt will eat ye alive if ye let it, son. It already is. Let it go. No one blames ye for Jason’s death. We know ye would ha’ done anything tae save him, if ye could.”

  “Aye,” was all MacKenzie could offer.

  Vin went on, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry he died. I’m so sorry. It was my fault.”

  “It’s nae yer fault, son,” Mercea told him.

  Still Vin continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I wish Jason were the one who came back. I wish I could give you your son.”

  “Then marry my daughter and be my son,” MacKenzie choked out.

  Vin looked up at that, studying the man’s serious face. Over the disbelief, he felt a wave of affection wash over him. He’d been seventeen when his own father died, an impressionable time for a boy just becoming a man. MacKenzie had given him guidance and affection. The same as he had given his own son. Vin had come to love both old men for that, for providing him another man to look up to in his young life. They had come as close to giving him back a father than anyone could have hoped for. He wanted to be a son again, wanted to have a father to guide him through the mess his life had become.

  If he did as MacKenzie said, he could have Moira forever and gain that benefit as well. Suddenly Vin wanted to. To hell with the risks, but still his conscience denied him. “I cannot. Moira worshipped Jason. She would never forgive me if she knew. It’s my fault.”

  “Nay it isnae, Vin.” MacKenzie stood and offered a hand to Vin who, after hesitating a moment, allowed himself to be pulled up and into the old man’s embrace. “The only ones tae blame are the animals who kept ye all these years. No one could ever blame ye, especially Moira. She loves ye, son. Give her a chance. Give life a chance. Ye ha’ our forgiveness, nae that ye need it. What ye need is to forgi’ yerself.”

  Chapter 40

  Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future,

  concentrate the mind on the present moment.

  - Buddha

  Moira entered the drawing room hesitantly after talking with her father and grandfather. She imagined they had scolded Vin sternly for the events of the previous night. When they had come to her, both had been sad and tired looking. Pops had gone to lie down for a while whilst her father went for a walk in the park despite the cold weather. Vin must have put up a good fight to leave them both so despondent. Yet, they had insisted she give him one last chance to explain himself.

  She hadn’t wanted to. The finality of her conversation with Vin the previous night had rung the death toll on her last vestiges of optimism. There simply wasn’t enough fight left in her to try again much less listen to Vin’s explanation for it all.

  Instead, her mind had spent the better part of the night scrambling for alternatives. There was social ruin or a quick marriage. Her first impulse had been to ask Harry to marry her. He would have said ‘yes’, of course. He was nothing if not gallant, but Moira knew she could never subject him to a life without love, something he wanted in his life. Comfort and affection simply would not do. Her only remaining choice was to return to Old Klebreck Tower with her father and hide herself in the remote Highlands until the scandal died down. Then she might find some safe young man to marry her if only to provide the heir Papa so desperately wanted.

  Naturally, she wouldn’t tell Vin that. If she did, he might feel enough culpability to do the deed himself and she wouldn’t live with that hanging over her. She’d already seen the damage guilt it could do to a person. She would see him one last time as her father asked, but that would be it. Moira resolved to be as nonchalant about the whole thing as possible so Vin would never know how brutally he was breaking her heart.

  “Just wanted to let you know I’m leaving, Vin,” Moira said briskly into the dark room, finding Vin slouched back in a chair near the fireplace, the flames dancing over his face. He looked pensive. Sad. Yet so handsome it made her heartache. He hadn’t shaven again or even combed his shaggy locks, it seemed. She loved that he didn’t feel the need to turn himself out impeccably for every moment he spent in his home. She loved him.

  Refusing to let her heart soften, she went on. “Eve is taking me to London by the end of the week, before the scandal can reach that far. Harry has agreed to marry me quickly and quietly but does not want to do it here. I’m sure I don’t blame him. But I guess I’ll be getting my Season, right? As the Marchioness of Aylesbury even. Surely such a fine title will forgive much.”

  Vin almost groaned hearing her voice. That shot of excitement followed by dismay. The morning had taken a lot out of him already. After his confession, the three men had lingered in the parlor sipping their drinks in silence. Each lost to their own thoughts. Vin’s thoughts had been on Moira. He’d made his confession, but not to the person who it needed to be made to. Forgiveness of her father, as unbelievable as it was, did not translate to forgiveness from Moira. He would do as he must, just as he realized last night, if he were to gain it. “No, I’ll marry you,” Vin spoke into the gloom.

  “I just wanted to say good-bye,” Moira went on barely hearing the words.

  “I said I’ll marry you,” he repeated loudly, pulling himself upright and resting his elbows on his knees.

  “Well, I don’t need you to do me any favors, Vin. You’ve made your feelings – or lack of them – very clear on this matter.”

  “It isn’t a lack of feelings. Damn it, lovey, I want to marry you.” Vin said the words awkwardly as he had spoken since he returned home as if language were foreign, or in this case, the sentiment. He felt the urge to confess his newly identified love but first he needed to explain to her the reason his denial through the years, his feelings of brotherhood for Jason, and his determination not to betray that friendship.

  He needed to explain to her how living in the past had locked his mind there at the worst possible moment. How he lingered in a deathly tomb with Jason’s ghost keeping him from the reality before him. Vin wanted to tell her how he wanted to change all that, how he wanted to live in the present with her. To love her and embrace every moment he had with her because she was what mattered most in the world now. Not the past, but the present.

  And the future…but only a future with her.

  But none of those unfamiliar feelings could be put into eloquent words from a tangled mind. “I want you, lovey.”

  Moira shook her head wondering why now. Why di
d Vin feel like he had to be so chivalrous when his true feelings on the subject were already out in the open? “Well, I don’t want to want you. I haven’t since you returned, really. Everyone insisted that I give you a chance to realize you love me but it was just a fantasy. Harry cares for me, we get along famously and I know we’ll be happy together.”

  “You don’t love him.”

  “It seems that love has very little to do with it, Vin.”

  “But you want me for your husband.”

  “I just wanted you to love me, Vin, as I loved you.”

  “I-I…” Still the words stuck in his throat and Vin growled in frustration, running his fingers through his hair. It was not an easy matter to say the words when you never thought to speak them to a woman in your entire life. Women might have more patience with men if they understood the difficulty of the moment. “I want to marry you, lovey,” he tried again.

  “Your sacrifice is duly noted and declined. Thank you very much,” she thrust her chin out pertly.

  Vin fingers fisted in his hair. “Damn it, lovey. I am a stubborn ass. I know this. But you love me and by God you will marry me, do you understand? I want to marry you, but first there is something you must know. Something I’ve been holding back from you.”

  That caught Moira’s attention, rousing her curiosity. “What is it?”

  “It’s something I didn’t want to bring up with you,” Vin went on. “Something I never wanted you to know. I’ve tried to avoid it not only because it will upset you, but because I don’t want you to think poorly of me. When I tell you, you might not want to marry me. You may even hate me.”