A Promise for Tomorrow

by Michele Paige Holmes

  “You might if you tried,” Ian said quietly. “Collin believed you’d extraordinary abilities to see both the past and future but that you were afraid to use them, that you did not trust yourself.”

  “The last time I did—” I broke off, unable to finish.

  “The last time,” Ian prompted.

  I shook my head. “The last time,” I amended. “There will be no more seeing the future or recalling the past.” I’d managed that fairly well over the past few days, shutting out any thought of how or why I’d come to be here and what had come before. Hard work was the antidote for nights haunted by the past. Being too tired to even remove my clothing— as I had been last night— made falling asleep easy. Existing in a state of numb exhaustion was better than the alternative of suffering with feelings so deep they caused every breath to hurt.

  “It is unfortunate you refuse to access your gift. It could be helpful.”

  “For what? Discovering the whereabouts of my elusive dowry?”

  Ian shook his head. “No. For finding your elusive Campbell laird and his followers.” He made no move to return his chair to its previous location but instead leaned forward, taking my hand in his.

  I tensed. We’d not touched since the night of our handfast. Ian had not even stayed in this room the past three nights, having taken his turn at the watch rotation. I had to admit he was fair in that, at least, and in the sharing of the workload that was suddenly ours. In spite of hands that were still healing, and his many other injuries, he’d been busy with everything from shearing sheep to unloading sacks of grain. I’d not spoken to him in days but had seen him frequently, not only giving orders but working alongside those he gave them to.

  “This will never do.” His thumb passed over my red, chafed skin.

  “It’s from washing the wool.” Five hours plunged repeatedly in tubs of warm, dirty water had done my hand no favors. I tugged it away with a vain hope that its roughness repulsed him enough to leave me alone.

  Ian frowned his displeasure, then stood and left the room without speaking another word. The door closed behind him, and I collapsed against the back of the chair and only then realized I was trembling again. This would never do. I could not spend my life in constant fear of my husband’s brother. Which was how I still regarded Ian. Not as the man I’d handfast to, not as the one who’d appointed himself leader of both his MacDonald clan and my Campbells. He was just Ian, Collin’s pirate brother, willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted.

  He won’t have me. Such brave determination was easy enough with him gone from the room. But I knew that I could only refuse him for so long before there were consequences, either to myself or others. With these troubled thoughts swirling around in my mind and the hypnotizing firelight making my eyelids heavy, I curled up in the chair and drifted off into a restless sleep.

  * * *

  “She’s a bonny little lass.” Ian held a bundle out to me, and I took it eagerly, staring down into the tiny, precious face of an infant not an hour old.

  “You’ll be a fine mother to her,” Ian said as I shook my head in confusion and held the child closer to my breast, covered only by a sleeping gown. I glanced up and saw that I was seated in bed, with Ian leaning over me, an almost tender expression on his face.

  A single candle sputtered in an otherwise dark room. It was the middle of the night.

  I glanced at the child again, eyes closed, faint lashes lying serenely against pale cheeks. A dainty nose and perfectly rounded chin. How did this happen? Will he allow the child to live? I remembered promising myself that Ian would not touch me, that I would evade him as long as possible. And now, I’d not only broken my vows to Collin but had born his brother’s child as well?

  “Give me your hand, Katie,” Ian said.

  “No.” I shrank from him. “You’ll not harm her.”

  “I’m trying to help.” Ian’s tone held the exasperation I was becoming familiar with. I looked up and gasped at his face so close to mine. He sat in the chair before me and held my hand in his as he rubbed something onto it.

  I tried to pull away as I looked around the room to the still-made bed, illuminated in the firelight. There was no infant anywhere. “Where is she?”

  “Who?” Ian continued working over my hand.

  My baby. She’d been in my arms a moment ago, and I had been in bed wearing a nightgown. But now— I was still in my day clothes, seated in a chair as I had been only this evening. Ian had looked different as well when he handed me the child. His hair had grown back, not to its full, glorious length, but a shaggy mop of dark had swept low across his brow the way Collin’s used to. Had I been dreaming of Collin?

  Had I been dreaming at all? Everything had seemed so real. I remembered the smell of the baby, the soft feel of her skin.

  Ian paused his ministrations to search my face. “Are you well, Katherine?”

  “I fear I am not.” Perhaps if he believed me ill, he would leave me alone tonight. I met his one-eyed gaze and remembered that a moment ago, when he’d stood at the bedside and handed me the infant, he’d also worn the eye patch.

  Not a dream of Collin then.

  Disappointment, followed swiftly by fear, wrapped around my heart. I could not have Ian’s child.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded, tugging at my hand once more.

  “The lanolin will help your skin.” He began rubbing a small mound of the greasy substance over each of my knuckles. “Ironically, it comes from sheep’s wool. Not much of it is set aside for lanolin,” Ian explained. “It requires boiling the wool for several hours, after which it’s no good for spinning. But a few of the women have been making it. Its healing properties are many.”

  “Mmm.” It was soothing my hand. For just a moment I allowed myself to close my eyes and enjoy the comfort of feeling cared for. I remembered Collin’s hands on my shoulders at the inn the second night after we were married. The way he’d torn his carriage apart so I could ride in it without being afraid. How he’d held me close after Malcom’s attack. I missed that comfort and feeling of security. I missed him.

  Ian is a poor substitute. Once more I reminded myself of his crimes and forced my eyes open, letting his touch cease placating, in light of the face before me. Ian’s heart was as scarred as his face, and I would do well to remember that. He released my hand, and I drew it almost shyly back to my lap.

  Wounds heal. Scars remain. They changed a person’s appearance, but could they change a man himself? I didn’t want to consider that. But I couldn’t deny that my hand felt better already. Ian’s touch had been gentle, his act caring.

  “What about your hands?” I heard myself asking. Before I’d thought through what I was doing, I reached for the one he’d held mine with. I turned it over and began unwrapping the bandages. Beneath the last layer I found the same red, raw skin I had seen the night of our handfast. It had continued to heal but would never be as it once was.

  “This must hurt you terribly.”

  He shrugged. “Not as much as before.”

  “Will lanolin help them as well?”

  Ian shook his head. “I don’t think so. Alistair’s wife has been treating them with vinegar and linseed oil. Best to keep to her methods, I should think.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, relieved that I would not need to rub his hand as he had done mine. I released him, sorry that I had touched him at all.

  “Repulsive, are they not? Like the rest of me?” There was a sadness to his voice as he stared down at his hands. “Little wonder you avoid me.” A fleeting smile curved his lips, then vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. His eye fixed on me, a long-pained look of yearning.

  Occasionally over the past weeks I had sensed within him tender emotion and, each time, been surprised at the depth of it. The afternoon before our handfast, when I had refused marriage to him, Ian had been hurt by my rejection. He was feeling that again now. It was as plainly written on his face as if he had spoken the words to me direc
tly.

  Confusion must have been evident on mine. If I had found Collin a difficult man to decipher, Ian was impossible— a complete mystery. He is a pirate— cruel, cunning, ruthless in the pursuit of the treasure he seeks. I could no longer convince myself this was entirely the truth. He might be all of those things, but he was others as well. At the moment he seemed merely broken.

  Desperate for my acceptance and approval. At the very least.

  “It is not a man’s appearance, but his actions that make his measure— make him desirable.” I added the last with hesitation, not wanting to give him false hope. I wasn’t certain there was anything Ian could do that would make me desire him. In those moments I had felt a connection with him, a breaking down of the barriers between us, I had been thinking of Collin. Always.

  The sad smile reappeared just as briefly. “Do you know that it is impossible for you to lie? It is all right to say you find me hideous. I read it in your expression every time you do chance a look at me. It is as if you are hoping to see something else and are disappointed each time.”

  I swallowed with difficulty, unsettled that he had read me so well, and surprisingly guilt-ridden that I was hurting him. “Your voice reminds me of Collin. Sometimes I forget...”

  “It would be best if you could.”

  I gave a tight nod, the familiar sting of tears threatening. “I know.”

  “We have now been handfast almost as long as you were married to him.”

  “Yes.” I paused, gaining control once again, calling back my tears. I suppose I was making progress. “That doesn’t seem to make it easier. It was different with Collin, as if our hearts had known each other all those years between.”

  There was a subtle shifting, of both Ian’s body as he leaned back, settling more fully into the chair, and of our conversation. We had both admitted to vulnerable points and were well aware the other could use those against us, inflicting even more pain than we felt at present.

  Ian unrolled his shirtsleeves, tugging them down to cover the worst of his scarred arms and hands, then began unwrapping his other hand. It was the same routine he followed every night, and for the first time I realized that it was meant to spare me from seeing any more of his burned flesh than necessary.

  “Mary says the skin must be allowed to breathe. If not, I would keep my hands hidden from you.”

  “You can’t wear bandages forever.”

  He shrugged. “They are still necessary. While we heal.”

  His inclusion of we intrigued and concerned me. Did he hope that I might someday be able to both overlook his scars and to forget my affection for Collin?

  Ian was watching me again. “As a book left open, to the very line. And I thought you were the one who was able to read minds.”

  “I hardly ever know what you are thinking,” I admitted.

  “Well—” His mouth twisted in a grimace as one of the bandages stuck. “Some of us are very good at hiding things.”

  A warning? That I was not to trust him?

  “You never finished telling me what happened to your hands,” I reminded him.

  “They became rather busy that night you first asked, didn’t they?” His teasing was suggestive, as if he had done something other than hold me wrapped tight in a warm quilt while I succumbed to grief.

  “Tell me,” I said, refusing to acknowledge his inference. I settled more comfortably into my own chair, expecting a story.

  “There was a fire. Set purposely by the English.” His mouth twisted once more as he flexed his stiff fingers. “It’s no wonder some of the Scottish lairds have taken to the same tactic. Learned it from the English. If there is something or someone you don’t like, just set fire to it.”

  “What didn’t the English want, in this instance?”

  “A Scotsman telling them what to do. They intended him to give them his horse. He felt to keep it himself. The dragoons don’t take kindly to being told no. They took the animal anyway then set fire to the man’s barn.”

  “That’s horrible. How can people be so cruel— so wicked?”

  “They don’t see us as people. Because we are not like them we are somehow less. Little better than vermin, I’ve heard them say.”

  “That is so terribly wrong.” It was this treatment of the Scots that my English father had opposed and lost his commission for. The treatment I had both witnessed and received from the English myself since coming to Scotland made me want to take up his cause.

  “How did you become involved? Was it a MacDonald barn and horse?”

  Ian shook his head. “Not even on our land. Before the tinder was struck the soldiers threw a man into the building. There was some commotion, a woman shouting that he wasn’t dead and the soldiers restraining her. The fire was started, and they did not wait around to admire their work but moved off, taking the woman with them.”

  “And you— went in after the man?” I remembered the heat blazing from the fire at Edan’s house, and how I had not been able to stand being anywhere close. What kind of courage had it required for Ian to step inside that barn?

  “What else was I to do?” He shrugged. “A burning beam had fallen across his chest. I tried to lift it. Another fell and struck my head and eye.” His hand brushed the patch. “That is all I remember of my adventures with fire. I awoke in the farmhouse with my hands and eye bandaged. The farmer had rescued me.”

  “I am glad of it,” I declared.

  “Are you?” Ian sounded skeptical. Little wonder, given our past discord.

  “Yes,” I said quietly. I was still wary of him, still mourning Collin, still uncertain about many things. But at this moment I felt strangely grateful for his companionship.

  I watched— with a mixture of disgust and sympathy— as Ian worked at stretching his hands. “They’re wont to curl if I don’t do this,” he explained as he painstakingly straightened each finger, one at a time.

  Our chairs were still quite close, and I had the impulsive thought to help him, that my touch might be less torturous than his own. I leaned forward and held my hands out, palms up.

  It took him a few seconds to notice. Then he raised his head slowly, his eye meeting mine.

  “I’ll be gentle.” Trust me.

  After a moment’s hesitation Ian scooted to the edge of his chair and placed his hand in mine. His trembled slightly, and I felt his fear— not that I would hurt him physically, but that I would find touching him too abhorrent after all. More than anything, he feared my rejection.

  Who is the open book now?

  I began with his thumb, running my own along its creased flesh, slowly pushing down to straighten it. “Thank you for telling me what happened to you.”

  “Someday I should like to tell you more of what transpired before I came here.”

  “More of Collin?” I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear.

  “Aye.” Ian’s eye closed, and he leaned his head back. “When the time is right I will tell you about Collin.”

  “I will hold you to that promise.” I’d not push him for more tonight. I wanted to know and felt I must out of respect to Collin and for my own peace, but I was loath to disrupt the tranquility that had settled over us. There was nothing the least romantic in our contact, yet we were touching. And speaking civilly to one another— a significant improvement over our initial, raging standoffs.

  I moved onto his index finger, unbending it slowly, massaging the muscle beneath the taut skin. His hands had repulsed me the night of our vows, still blistered as they had been. The skin felt closer to normal now, though fragile, and it seemed the scarring was here to stay.

  Ian gave a sudden shudder, and I stopped, afraid I was hurting him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. From you, it is a kind of sweet torture.”

  I didn’t like what he implied, but neither could I bring myself to stop helping him. My own injuries had been both real and severe enough that I understood what it was to suffer. I continued bending and stretching his hand, one
finger at a time, then moved onto his palm, pressing my own flat against his to hold it in place.

  “Tada gan iarracht,” he whispered. The scar on his head bulged with tension, though with his hair growing back, it was already not as visible as it had been.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing done without effort.” Ian let out a breath of relief when I released his hand.

  “Not so fast,” I said, as he started to pull away. “What about your wrist and arm?” I took the edge of his sleeve to pull it back.

  “Not tonight.” He drew away swiftly. “You have done enough. I thank you for your kindness.”

  “I am sorry if I hurt you.” Perhaps I hadn’t been as gentle as I’d thought.

  “You did well,” Ian hurried to assure me. “Truly.” His smile was more an unconvincing grimace. “And your arm?” he asked, nodding to it. “How does it fare?”

  “Better. Mary has been tending it as well.” Carefully, I straightened it, and showed him my hand could open and close. “She says it was a clean break and should heal fully.”

  “Enough for you to paint again?”

  “Perhaps. I suppose I shall try when the splint comes off.” I didn’t want to think of that now. I had painted the future before without even realizing it. What was to keep me from doing the same, was I to pick up a brush again? And if I did, what would I see?

  I’d been afraid of doing harm to anyone else with my visions, and tonight I realized a new fear. If to see the future meant to know what kind of man Ian really was and what he intended for us, I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to know.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The following days became a repeat of the same pattern. I hauled and washed the wool and took it to those who did the carding. At last, after weeks of work, the wool was ready for spinning. The Campbell women in our group taught me how, and I took my turn alternately on one of the two big wheels in the sunny upstairs solar adjacent to what had been my grandfather’s rooms. Eight of us labored there, using hand spinners when it wasn’t our turn with the wheel. I’d never done any sort of work like this before but found it satisfying. It was the nearest to creating I’d done since leaving England.