A Promise for Tomorrow

by Michele Paige Holmes

  “Aye. I read her words,” Collin said.

  “I’ll have to send a letter explaining when we get to Glasgow.”

  “A letter would be a good idea,” Collin said. “So she’ll know when to expect us.”

  I leaned back to better see his face.

  “Anna lives near London.”

  Collin shrugged. “Ships leave from England as well.”

  “We would have to cross the border.” With the price on his head— or Ian’s, as it were—we needed to avoid any confrontation with the English. “We wouldn’t be sailing with the others?”

  “Probably not,” Collin said. “If we are fortunate enough to enter England undetected, I shouldn’t want to risk another trip north. Alistair, Finlay, and Gordon are capable. They will do well enough without us for now.” He pulled me close again, his hand stroking the back of my head. “Besides, if we can sail across an ocean and traipse through the Colonies in search of my brother, a week or two to visit your sister seems more than fair.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Had I known the Highlands better or had any sense of direction, I might have realized that Collin led us northwest instead of south. We didn’t talk much that first afternoon of riding. I was too grief-stricken with Lydia’s loss, and Collin seemed much the same. We camped without a fire that night. Too exhausted to care about anything except sleep, we curled up together to keep from freezing.

  The second day we skirted a settlement, and only when I’d noted Collin’s continual craning, as if trying to spot something or someone in the crofts below, did I ask what it was and where we were.

  “The MacDonald land, or what used to be,” he said. “I thought you knew where we were going.”

  He hadn’t mentioned it, and I hadn’t asked, but I could not fault him for needing his own goodbyes. I puzzled further as we passed the keep and the buildings clustered around it and scattered beyond in the valley below, riding until the afternoon sun sparkled off a loch to our west.

  “Where are we going now?” I asked.

  “To the home of my ancestors. There is an old castle there that will provide us shelter for the night and where I do not think anyone will bother us. Even have the English arrived at the Campbells’, they’ll likely follow the main body south. Or, if they think to look for me on MacDonald land, it will be in the places we passed earlier.”

  I rested my head against Collin’s back and savored the sight of the peaceful loch and the ruin growing closer. It seemed familiar, though I was certain I’d never been here before.

  Perched on the edge of a bluff overlooking the water, the keep was still grand, though on one side the walls had been battered, exposing the castle’s innards to the elements. I sat up, studying it closer, thinking I should like to paint such a scene, when it occurred to me that I had painted it, years ago in England.

  “This place—” I leaned around Collin, noting the cornerstone detail was exactly as I had drawn it, as was the low stone wall that ran in front of the keep along the bluff. “One of the canvases I brought with me, the one the soldiers destroyed on our way to Scotland, it was this place. Do you remember?”

  “Aye.” Collin guided us beneath an arch and brought Ian’s horse to a stop in front of what must have been the main entrance. “I’ve wanted to show it to you since. This may be our only chance. Once we leave Scotland...” He shrugged.

  “We won’t ever be coming back.”

  “I don’t believe we will.” Collin slid from the horse, then helped me do the same. I turned from him, looking out at the water.

  “That’s Loch Linnhe. If you follow it long enough, it leads to the ocean.”

  “It’s beautiful.” I shrugged from my cloak, which smelled strongly of sweaty horse. It was warmer here, near the coast. Snow-capped mountains rose up far away, on the other side of the inlet lake, but here the sun warmed the earth and my back. It felt restorative. I crossed the narrow yard and walked along the wall, imagining the people who had once lived here and what might have happened to cause them to leave such a lovely place.

  After he’d seen to the horse, Collin joined me. We walked alongside each other for a time, without talking or touching. My mind was a jumble of mixed emotions, from all that had been hurled at me the past few days. I hadn’t had time to process any of them yet, from my reunion with Collin, to Brann’s knife at my throat, to losing Lydia.

  “You’re wearing the gown we handfast in.”

  “Yes.” I fingered the skirt, somewhat worse for wear after a day and a half on a horse, the incident at the kirkyard before, and being slept in. “It was the best I had for Hogmanay, and I haven’t had a chance to change since.” Clothing had been the least of my concerns as we’d prepared to leave. If I’d thought of it at all it had been to make sure that Lydia’s went with her.

  I brought a hand to my chest at the pang of sorrow accompanying that thought.

  “You look bonny in it,” Collin said. “And your hair, too, left unbound like that.”

  I touched the back of my head self-consciously, wondering if the last of the berries had finally blown away. “It is a tangled mess.”

  “You can tame it with this later.” Collin withdrew my mother’s silver brush and comb set from his sporran and held them out to me.

  “You brought those.” I found a smile of gratitude for him. “Thank you.” I touched his sleeve. I’d been too distracted and distraught to think of bringing much, practical or otherwise.

  “And these.” Collin tucked the brush and comb back in his pouch and withdrew my paintbrushes. “And this.” He pulled the carved horse free and set it in my hand. “Someday we’ll have another child to give this to.”

  “It should have gone with Lydia. She never had a chance to play with it.” A choked sob tore from my throat. I hadn’t cried since we left, but the tears came freely now, the first splashing on the horse’s perfectly carved mane.

  Collin took it from me and tucked it away again. “May I touch you?”

  I nodded, expecting the comforting weight of his hands on my shoulders as he had offered so many times before. Instead they found my waist and pulled me close.

  “I would give anything to take this hurt from you.” He bent his head close to mine and wept his own grief into my hair. We clung to each other, our embrace sustaining as nothing else might. The sounds of our weeping filled the vacant courtyard, and his tears wet my hands when at last I leaned back and held his face between them.

  “We will survive this. What I couldn’t have survived was if you’d never come back to me.” I reached up to kiss him, but his lips were already on mine, soft and slow and filled with tenderness. There was nothing passionate in the exchange, but I felt love flow from Collin to me, its power restoring, even in light of all that we had lost.

  “I love you, Katie MacDonald.” He held my face close to his heart.

  “And I love you, Collin Ian MacDonald. In whatever way you come to me.”

  He lifted me in his arms and started for the castle. “No evil spirits tonight. We’ve sacred work to do.”

  “Work?” I nestled my head against his shoulder.

  “Aye,” he said seriously. “Our bairn may not grow up in Scotland, but he can begin here, in the land of our ancestors.”

  * * *

  Before the first streaks of dawn pinked the sky I lay awake, nestled in Collin’s arms, my head on his chest, our skin touching. For a while, an hour or more perhaps, I remained content, relishing in luxuries too long denied us. We were safe and warm, well fed, and together. Loved. These things alone were all I needed, and I would have been perfectly happy to remain here forever, carving out a life for ourselves on this bit of land. But it was no longer Collin’s to claim. Like so many other things, he’d lost it because of his love for me.

  It seemed the price for his loyalty, for promises kept, climbed higher and higher. He’d suffered physically, with wounds that had nearly killed him and scars that would remain forever. His lands had been forfeit, a
child we loved taken from us, and soon Scotland would be lost to him forever. And the ultimate cost...

  His brother.

  Collin still slept soundly, but I found I could not. Wrapping one of the blankets around me, I slid from our snug cocoon and crossed the chill floor on bare feet. I stopped near the window, or where one had once been. I peered instead through the gaping hole in the stone wall, out to Loch Linnhe below, thinking of the sea beyond, the vast Atlantic we were shortly to cross.

  I felt slightly ill when I thought of the journey that awaited, as if the waves tossing the ship about were already making me seasick. It wasn’t only the actual crossing that worried me, but what awaited upon those foreign shores. We were leaving Brann and all the danger he presented behind, but we would be going toward the unknown. Where were we to live? How were we to find shelter, employment, food— for the entire company?

  And Ian... What were the chances that we might actually find him? And if we did, what would that mean? I could not imagine that an ocean voyage and months of interment and hard labor had done anything to soften his heart toward me.

  Yet find him we must. I feared Collin would never be whole if we did not.

  “Are you mad, woman?” Collin’s voice, still gruff from sleep, interrupted my worried thoughts. “You’ll catch your death of cold before we even set foot on that ship.”

  “I’m plenty warm,” I murmured, recalling the heat he’d ignited within me only a short while ago. A deep blush toasted my cheeks as the details of our intimacy played out in my mind.

  “You’ve not a stitch of clothes on,” Collin muttered, throwing aside the other quilts, revealing he was in very much the same condition. “Not so much as a stocking.”

  My blush deepened as I turned quickly away. Last night had been dark, but the light already filtering through the gaps in the stone illuminated our chamber quite well, even at this early hour. “This blanket covers me sufficiently.”

  “That’s what you think.” Dragging his own wrap with him, Collin stumbled toward me.

  “Careful,” I admonished. “You don’t want to pitch face first out the wall.”

  “No,” Collin agreed, his footing regained by the time he reached me. “Wasn’t what I had in mind when I said you were near to killing me.” He pulled me back against the solid wall of his bare chest, wrapping an arm securely around my middle. “See that you take care yourself. What is it that has so captured your attention this morning? I’ve been watching you stand here a good, long time.”

  “I didn’t realize how long it had been.” I lifted an ice-cold foot and rubbed it against the side of his leg. “I guess I am a bit cold.”

  “A bit?” Collin snorted. “You’re a regular block of ice.”

  “That’s not a very kind thing to say of your wife,” I scolded.

  “You didn’t let me finish.” Collin lowered his chin, nuzzling the blanket from my shoulder. “Beneath that frosty facade is a heart that beats the warmest blood you’ll ever find. Fire and ice, that’s what my Katie is.” He pressed his lips to my shoulder, then swept my hair aside to trail kisses along the back of my neck.

  I sighed blissfully. “I could stay here forever.”

  “Your feet would freeze.” Collin’s lips continued their progress to my other shoulder, pushing the blanket dangerously low. I clutched it to me, holding it firmly in place. I would freeze without it.

  “I didn’t mean here, in this spot. I meant here.” I swept one hand in front of me, indicating the land below. “I can see us out there in the yard, me chasing around after the chickens while you’re milking the coooo.” I dragged out the syllable, exaggerating the Scots’ pronunciation of cow, then felt a catch in my throat. “How can you not hate me for costing you all of this?” For the loss of your home and country, your father and now Ian?

  Collin paused his kisses. “I might, if you don’t come back to bed,” he teased.

  “I’m serious.” Tears filled my eyes. Would I never be done with crying?

  “You think I wasn’t?” He began pulling me away from the wall and back toward the bed we had made. “Besides, this old castle would be a bit drafty come winter, and far too big for just the two of us.”

  “We could have built a little house, right down there.” I pointed to an outcropping near the loch. “Or, if you’d been set on rebuilding this place, we would simply have had to fill it with children.”

  Collin placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me to him. “Children? You realize what’s required if you wish more than one bairn.” His brows arched in question, the one with the scar slightly askew.

  I smiled through my tears, suspecting where he was going with this. Cold as I was, the idea of crawling between the blankets with him again was more than appealing. “Generally, bairns come one at a time,” I reminded him. “No matter how much effort—”

  “Not always,” Collin said, a wicked glint in his eye. He swept me into his arms and carried me back toward the center of the room. “Don’t forget, I’m a twin.”

  Next from Michele Paige Holmes

  and

  Hearthfire Historical Romance

  The Promise of Home

  Chapter One

  Oxfordshire, England, February 1762

  Katie

  A footman waited just outside the carriage, his hand extended to welcome us into another world. It wasn’t the one we were ultimately headed for, an ocean away, but my brother-in-law’s estate in the Oxfordshire countryside.

  I accepted the outstretched hand and stepped from the carriage, vastly relieved to be free of its confines. We had rented one, only for today, Collin insisting that we arrive in style. His brother’s horse trailed behind it. Having a strong aversion to carriages, stemming from an incident in childhood, I would have preferred the horse.

  “Are you all right?” Collin stepped out beside me and studied my face, his own anxious.

  “Better now that we are out of that contraption.” I suppressed a shudder as the door was closed and the coachman drove away. The past two hours spent inside of it were the longest I had managed in a carriage, or one that had actual glass in the windows, at least. Months ago Collin had broken all of the glass out of his, so I might endure the ride from England to Scotland, where we had first made our home.

  We had endured much more than unpleasant travel in the months that followed. That we had both survived the first six months of our marriage was miraculous. What we had yet to survive, the adventures we were very shortly to face together, would require even more courage and faith. But I had learned that with Collin at my side I could do many things I would have otherwise believed impossible.

  He offered his arm, and I took it, holding the skirt of my new gown as we made our way up the drive to the wide, curved stairs leading to a set of overly high, ornately carved double doors.

  “They have eleven chimneys,” Collin whispered when we’d passed the last of the servants lining the walk.

  My eyes flickered upward. “Did you count?”

  “Aye. And those were the ones visible from here.”

  From what we could see, the main house formed a U, with the base being the front. In all probability there were more chimneys. I felt mildly curious to see the inside of such a grand estate but far more eager to see my sister Anna and little brother Timothy.

  Anna’s invitation to visit had arrived shortly before Collin and I left Scotland for good. As Anna and I had not been on the best of terms when we last were together, before her marriage last spring, I felt more than a little nervous to see her again.

  We reached the top of the steps, and two additional servants came forward to open the doors for us.

  “Christina!”

  Before they had finished, the doors pushed open, into their unsuspecting faces, and a boy came barreling through them, straight into my arms.

  “Timothy.” I dropped to hug him and found myself too low for a proper embrace. “You’ve grown,” I exclaimed, laughing as his small arms wrapped
around my neck.

  “I’ve missed you so, Christina,” he said, calling me again by my middle name, the one I had used growing up.

  “And I you.” I pulled back a little to better look at him. “My, but you’re handsome in this fancy coat and smart breeches.”

  His mouth turned down. “And lace like a girl. Look at this.” His chin jutted out, revealing the frilly collar at his throat. “I hate all these clothes Anna makes me wear.”

  “I know what you mean, lad.” Collin raised his own chin, showing off the cravat at his throat. “Such a lot of waste, all this fabric.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. He was the one who had insisted on not only the carriage but that we each purchase a new outfit for today’s visit.

  “Can’t have you looking like a pauper before your sister,” Collin had said. No matter that we were practically penniless, or soon would be, once we’d purchased our passage to the Colonies.

  Timothy smiled at Collin, and I sensed a fast friendship.

  “Come along, then.” Timothy took my hand and Collin’s too, practically dragging us into the house.

  I stepped into the grand foyer, resplendent with beautiful furniture, an elegant chandelier, and art. Oh, the art.

  When I would have stopped to admire each of the paintings, Timothy kept us moving, toward a room on the left, before the sweeping circular staircase.

  “Anna, they’re here! Christina is here.” Timothy’s shouting negated any need for a butler, but he made an appearance anyway, ushering us into a sitting room even more lavishly decorated than the foyer.

  I paused just inside, eyes locking on my sister’s across the room. She stood awkwardly, the bulge of her unborn child straining against the folds of her gown. I had known she was expecting but hadn’t realized there would be such a change in her so soon.

  “Oh, Anna. You look lovely.” I meant it with all my heart. The pregnancy seemed to have softened the planes of her face as well as rounding her body. She appeared gentler, more approachable than the last time we were together.