“I know that yer still here for a few days more, after me faither’s birthday celebrations, Delilah,” Marcus said, abruptly breaking a comfortable silence that had fallen between them. “But, I was wonderin’—if ye find the thought agreeable—whether I might write to ye after yer have returned to England?”
It was only the fading light and the fact that she was following behind Marcus that stopped Delilah from betraying yet another blush. Inside her chest, her heart flickered against her ribs like a trapped bird. With some effort to keep her voice from betraying too obviously her joy, she said, “I would like that very much, Marcus.”
A new silence opened up between them, a silence that seemed to fill with the myriad things that Delilah wanted suddenly to say to the tall, attractive Scotsman. Her eyes lingered on the wide, strong shoulders, on the dark hair that flew free and untamed, like shreds of shadow, in the breeze blowing across the heath.
For the very first time in her young life, the word ‘marriage’ started drifting around the edges of her thoughts.
“Yes,” she said. “I would like that very much indeed.”
* * *
They made it back to the MacConnair’s castle just in time to change and make their way down to the great banquet hall.
The hall itself was festooned with heather and other wild flowers—vetch, gorse, and marsh marigold, to name but a few—and in pride of place, sitting in the middle of the table on which the platters and bowls of food sat, was the doe that Marcus had brought down with his bow and arrow that morning, roasted to perfection on a spit.
Marcus sat on his father’s left side, whilst his mother sat on the Laird’s right. At the head table—reserved for family, close friends and guests of honor—the Glimouth family also sat.
Marcus smiled and exchanged pleasantries with all the guests that made their way past the head table to convey their best wishes to Laird MacConnair on his birthday, shaking hands with many of the MacConnair family’s old friends and allies.
However, whenever he wasn’t chatting animatedly with this person or that, he found that his eyes were drawn to his right, down the table, to where young Delilah sat.
Is it wishful thinkin’, he caught himself pondering, more than once, or dae her eyes keep flittin’ this way, as mine stray to her?
His gaze darted with the speed of a swallow once more to the blonde young woman at the other end of the table.
And, a couple chairs along, Griselda smiled knowingly at her venison.
3
The rest of the Glimouth family’s extended trip to the Highlands seemed to pass in a haze of happiness for Delilah. She spent the week or so after the Laird’s birthday celebrations either walking the countryside with her father, exploring the gardens, watching the dramatic sunsets with her mother, or, ideally, being taken riding further and further afield by Marcus.
Often, she thought about the host of other young men that she’d been introduced to over the past year or so—some of them very rich and from extremely notable English families—and how they compared to the loud, sure Marcus. She sometimes saw the Scotsman from her bedchamber window, galloping across the meadowland with the dew and mud flying from his horse’s hooves. His long hair trailed behind him and that infectious smile would be wide on his striking face.
She really could not recall, now, what she had used to find so glamorous and impressive about those other young men wrapped in silks and finery.
It is the difference between something that is pretty and shiny and useless, and something that is plain and practical.
As all good things must, the Earl of Glimouth’s holiday eventually came to an end. As the carriage, and its armed party of riders, moved slowly away from the castle, Delilah felt a longing starting to rise in her chest. She cast one last look out of the carriage window and saw the figures of Callum and Griselda waving as the Earl’s procession began their journey back across the border to England.
How can I feel like this? How can I miss that which I haven’t even left yet? And where is Marcus? He should be here to see me—us—off, surely?
She looked at her hands, in the same way that she had done as a child.
“Why are you sitting like that, darling?” Lady Glimouth asked her.
“What do you mean?” Delilah said.
“You always used to fiddle with your hands like that when you were a little girl. When you were feeling guilty about having done something wrong, as I recall. You haven’t been up to no good, have you?”
“No. I just…”
Do I feel guilty?
She craned her head around in a thoroughly unladylike fashion to look up the road again.
And there, sitting in the road, on the back of a huge black stallion that gleamed like onyx in the morning sun, was Marcus. As the carriage rounded a bend, the handsome Highlander raised his hand in farewell.
A warm jolt of energy spread through Delilah’s breast, flooding all the way to the ends of her fingers and toes. She smiled secretly to herself.
I will see you again soon, she promised silently.
* * *
Marcus had found it very odd that after Delilah, her family, and their escort had travelled out of sight, he found himself already composing his first letter to her in his head. He’d turned the black stallion away, intending to take the animal on a run to the stream that he’d taken Delilah to, when he happened to catch the eye of his mother. Griselda had given him one of her long, penetrative looks. A look that he and his father had come to recognize as meaning that the woman knew quite accurately what was playing out in their hearts, almost as if their feelings were written in woad across their foreheads.
Over the following three months, he and Delilah exchanged almost weekly letters. This kept the MacConnair and Glimouth messengers more than a little busy, and it quickly became known to the inhabitants of the lands on either side of the border that there was an understanding of a sort between the two young people.
They had started off reminiscing about Delilah’s visit—she writing how much she had enjoyed it, he telling her all the other places he wished he’d been able to take her. Within weeks, though, the talk in the letters had turned to the expectations and dreams that the two of them had for the future and Marcus found himself committing to paper the hope that his future might include seeing Delilah again.
The surge of joy that he had felt when, after five anxious days, he had received her reply saying that she, too, hoped that they could spend some more time together, had convinced him more than anything that what he felt for her was something that he had never felt for anyone before.
From that point on, the letters had taken on a very romantic turn, and Marcus had burned with impatience for Delilah’s replies.
And so, slowly, a young love blossomed across the border.
Then, in the third month since Delilah and her family had left, Marcus’s father sent for his son on a cold and blustery autumn morning.
On entering the Laird’s study, Marcus found Callum closeted with three of his most trusted military advisors. All four men were grim-faced, stern eyes glinting in the light of the fire burning in the stone hearth.
“Lad,” his father greeted him, clasping him by the shoulders.
“Faither,” Marcus replied, bowing his head respectfully.
“Lord kens, I love ye, lad,” Laird MacConnair said, “and I wish heartily that I needn’t call ye here, but times bein’ as they are, I’ve nae much choice in the matter.”
Marcus said nothing, just stood with a straight back and watched his father with a steady eye. The dour advisors were standing quiet in the corner.
“It’s war, lad,” the Laird said eventually. “As we feared. The skirmishes have escalated. The clans are bein’ gathered to face the English, and the lairds are sendin’ out their representatives to command their warriors.” He gave a deep sigh. “It’s time for ye to stand for the house o’ MacConnair, Marcus. Ye ken my meanin’?”
“Aye, I ken well e
nough, Faither.”
“Good. I want ye to take that friend o’ yours along with ye. Havin’ Finley watchin’ yer back will bring some measure o’ reassurance to yer mother and I.”
“Very good, Faither. When would ye have me leave?”
“I’m havin’ the fightin’ men gathered from across the land. I want ye to be ready tae ride at the break o’ day.”
* * *
Dearest Delilah,
I write tae ye even as I pack my bag and don my great plaid tae walk out the door and face whatever enemy lies in wait for me out there. Tae think that the call tae arms should come so quickly and so decisively is somethin’ that I had not considered, and so I apologize fer me letter bein’ so rushed.
The thought that I will shortly be riskin’ my life to defend my homeland against men that hail from yer side of the border is strange tae me. That the contestation of an invisible line, drawn on a map somewhere, should make men kill each other is a notion that I find very hard tae grasp. It strikes me especially odd when I consider that the person I think most highly of in this world is now, technically, an enemy.
I have tae ride now, but I will write ye as soon as I caen. Only God knows what awaits me, but know this: that yers shall be the first face I see when I rise in the mornin’, and the last I see as I close me eyes at night.
Forever yers,
Marcus
Delilah clutched the letter to her. It had been a year since she had received it. She knew the words by heart, but still she was not tired of looking them over. It was more the fact that the words had been penned by Marcus’s own hand, that the ink she ran her fingertips over had stained his fingers, too.
She had scribbled out a hasty reply to this letter of Marcus’s. Had blotted the expensive paper in her rush to catch the errand rider before he disappeared to wherever it was messengers went when they were not carrying messages. It had been a simple missive, comprised of a mere three words:
I will wait.
The messenger had been surprised to be accosted by the young lady of the estate in the courtyard, breathless and holding her reply in her hands. He had slipped the letter into his leather satchel and taken to the road, assuring her that he would wait only to eat and get himself a fresh horse from the stables.
And a year had trickled past with all the speed of spilled treacle. A year in which Delilah made the final transition from her waning childhood into life as a young noblewoman. Not once, through those long twelve months, did she wake without the worry of what might, at that very moment, be happening to Marcus.
Despite the fact that the Earl of Glimouth’s sizeable estate lay on the very border of northwestern England, no sign of any warlike activity was seen in the area. The Earl mustered some men as part of his obligation to the Crown, of course, and sent away caravans of supplies when called upon by His Majesty to do so, but there was no fighting along that particular stretch of land.
She sent three other letters over the next two years, despite the fact that she had nowhere to address them but to the MacConnair clan’s castle, and despite the fact that she received not a single answer. Gradually, Delilah’s heart began to come to terms with the fact that Marcus might not have survived his part in the war.
One afternoon, she was sitting in one of the rose gardens, attempting to read a book of poetry that her father had sent away to York for, when her mother hurried up to her.
“Is everything all right, Mother?” she asked, setting the little book aside.
“Yes, yes, my dear,” Lady Glimouth said. “Quite all right, thank you.”
Delilah loved her mother, had always loved her, but, as she had flowered into the young woman she had now become, she realized that her mother was a woman of very reserved emotions. Many a time Delilah had been on the cusp of confiding her love for Marcus to her, but always she had resisted at the last. She knew that her mother would not understand, would not approve in the slightest.
“I came to find you, Delilah, to tell you that your father has, only a moment ago, received word that the war between the English and the Scots is over!”
Delilah’s mouth fell open.
“I know!” Lady Glimouth said, her eyes shining with excitement. “You realize what this means, of course?”
Delilah knew what it meant to her, but was unsure as to whether it would mean the same to her mother.
“It means that the roads will be safe to travel once more,” her mother said. She sat herself down on the stone bench next to her daughter and stroked Delilah’s long, golden hair. “Just think, we’ll be able to go to York—down to London—without having to worry about vile Scottish brigands waylaying the carriage.” She sighed with happiness.
“Yes,” Delilah managed to say. “Yes. That’s—that is excellent news. Mother, would you please excuse me?”
Lady Glimouth blinked. “Of course, darling. Are you sure that everything is all right?”
“Yes,” Delilah said. Her mind was whirling, trying to figure out what this meant with regards to her finding out what had happened to Marcus. “Yes. I just—I need to write a letter.”
Delilah composed a letter that evening and sent it away with a messenger at first light. She waited on tenterhooks for almost a whole week, but received no reply.
“Please, God,” she muttered, striding back and forth in the courtyard one evening when an errand rider had failed to show yet again. “Please, don’t let anything have happened to him.”
With increasing desperation and lack of care as to the propriety of her behavior, she sent three more letters away in the six weeks after peace had been declared.
Finally, just when she was considering asking her father to be allowed to take the carriage and journey to the MacConnair clan’s castle so that she could have her mind put at ease, one way or another, a messenger dressed in the kilt and bonnet of the Highlands arrived at the estate, bearing a letter for the Earl.
Delilah could not understand why the letter would be addressed to her father. Yes, he had seemed out of sorts during the three years in which the war had been waged between the two countries, and he’d missed being able to return to see his old friend, the Laird, but surely that letter had been meant for her?
Unless… Unless that letter is from Marcus asking my father for… My goodness, could that be it? Could he be asking my father for my hand?
Just the idea that her father might be mulling over, at that very moment, whether or not he would allow his only daughter to marry the son of his Scottish neighbor, sent shivers running down her spine.
But then the excitement faded. Her wild imagination was reined in by the cold hand of reality.
What if it’s from Laird MacConnair telling my father that he has lost his son in the fighting? What if it’s an invitation to Marcus’s funeral? Many men die in war. The good fall just as easily as the evil.
“My lady?”
Delilah was jerked from her reverie by the voice of a footman.
“Yes?”
“His lordship has requested your company down by the pond, my lady.”
“Now?”
“Yes, my lady. As soon as you are able.”
“Thank you.”
Delilah found her father down at the ornamental pond, tossing crumbs from the heel of a loaf to the ducks that called the mere their home. He did not look steeped in gloom, as one would expect a man who’d just received bitter news. On the contrary, he seemed in fine spirits. What was more, he was not alone. Delilah’s mother stood next to him, her hair tied up under a fetching blue gable hood.
“You wanted to see me, Father?” Delilah said as she approached.
The Earl turned, smiling. “That’s right, my dear. Your mother and I have just received a rather marvelous letter from my friend Callum Malloch. You remember him, don’t you? He is the laird of—”
“Yes,” Delilah blurted out, unintentionally cutting her father off. “Yes, I remember him. I remember his lovely home.”
Lady Glimouth raised her
eyebrows as if she would scold her daughter, but her father got there before her.
“Excellent, I’m glad you remember. Well, he has sent me a letter concerning his son, Marcus.”
Delilah’s heart seemed to contract inside her chest.
“He lives, then?” she asked, trying to keep her tone even.
“Indeed, yes.”
It was all Delilah could do not to raise her hands to the heavens and cry out in delight.
“That is gratifying to hear,” she said. “He was nothing but a gentleman to me when we visited.”
“Yes, yes,” her father said, “a fine young chap, I do not doubt. As I was saying, it is of him that the letter is concerned.”
The Earl of Glimouth beamed at his daughter and waved the letter in front of her.
“The three of us have been invited to visit the MacConnair’s castle.”
Delilah’s breath caught.
To discuss… what?
“To celebrate the betrothal of Marcus and a fine and upstanding young woman from one of the neighboring clans!”
The world seemed to flicker and dim around Delilah. The birdsong faded from the air, the splashing of the hungry ducks dying away to be replaced by a dull buzzing. The color seemed to leech out of her surroundings.
“Delilah? Delilah?” her mother said, recalling her from whatever hellish place she had just visited.
“Sorry, what was that, Mother?” she said through lips gone suddenly numb.
“I said, isn’t it wonderful that love should blossom out of the ashes of war? Won’t it be nice to celebrate the joining of two hearts when so much has been torn apart these past three years?”
Delilah felt winded, felt as if she had just been clubbed over the head.
She forced a smile that must’ve been more like a grimace, onto her face.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “how perfectly splendid.”
“Are you all right, dear?” her mother asked her. “You’ve gone quite pale.”
The Highlander's Captured Bride (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Page 29
