Yesterday's Promise

by Michele Paige Holmes

  “No.” Quite well. Only swoony and infatuated, and feeling guilty about both. It was like I’d snuck into a ball I wasn’t supposed to be at and the music was sweeping me away on a cloud of forbidden euphoria. Or I’d stolen the most scrumptious confection imaginable from London’s most famous bakery. I held the cake in my hands, already having committed a crime by taking it, yet not having enjoyed that first delicious bite. I anticipated it and basked in the heavenly aroma, almost desperate for the flavor that was to come.

  Yet with each of these scenarios, there was wrongdoing. I’d done the forbidden, and there would be a consequence to my actions. That wasn’t the case here, was it? I told myself that I’d done nothing wrong by lying in my husband’s arms all night. Nor was there anything wrong with wanting him to kiss me.

  But last night Collin had almost made it sound as if there was, and that worried and confused me. I might have overcome my embarrassment, but I couldn’t overcome the possibility that he might be displeased if he knew my thoughts. Or that somehow they were wrong.

  * * *

  Whether he realized it or not, Collin’s intention to tutor me on the history of the Campbells, and particularly on how our passed-down gift of sight affected them, proved the perfect distraction from my morning discomfort. He kept our pace slow and spoke continuously as we rode, going over everything from my genealogy, so far as he knew it, to things the Campbell leaders had foretold and how those had, in turn, impacted their choices.

  “You actually believe my grandfather saw the uprising and knew the outcome before it happened?” I asked shortly into Collin’s explanation as to why the Campbells had sided with the English during the Jacobite rebellion of ’45. Being aware of danger to oneself was one thing; predicting the outcome of a war seemed another entirely.

  “You don’t?” Collin asked. “Even after what happened to you yesterday?”

  “That was different. I saw two groups of people— Brann and his followers, and those at our camp with the MacDonalds and Campbells.” That had been more than enough to crowd my mind with dialogues to keep straight, facial expressions to judge, locations to remember. It had been like being in two places at once, with multiple conversations going on around me, each filled with details I’d been expected to recall. “I can’t imagine how one could see more than that— the battles, the commanders and men on both sides... to know the dates and locations.”

  “Yet he did,” Collin said patiently. “I admit to being skeptical at first as well. But many a night I sat with your grandfather while he told me every detail of the uprising from its earliest inception to the final outcome. I wasn’t truly convinced until the night he sat down with me and recalled a meeting my father had led. It was like being with him again, as Liam Campbell literally said, word for word, what my father had that night. After that, I could not doubt that your grandfather spoke the truth and his gift was real.”

  “What a terrible burden for him.” I couldn’t imagine the pain that must have accompanied those visions or the weight my grandfather had to have felt, knowing what was in store for Scotland. “If he knew so much, why didn’t he do more to stop the uprising? Or why didn’t he fight for Scotland instead of fighting against many of the other clans?”

  “Good questions, and some I asked him myself,” Collin said. “Think on it a minute. If you knew that, no matter what you did, Scotland was to lose the war, what would you have done?”

  “Gone somewhere else to live.” I suggested the first thing that came to mind.

  “Perhaps, if you had only yourself to think of, that would have been a viable solution.” Collin said. “But what if you loved your country fiercely? Even more than that, what if you loved your people, and you had a great many depending upon you for their well-being and survival? Would you choose to send men, your own kin, to their deaths for a hopeless cause? Or would you do everything you could to keep them and your entire clan safe? Would you side with those you knew would win and do what you must to preserve your land and livestock and crops beyond the years of the rebellion?”

  I didn’t answer, and Collin didn’t seem to expect me to. The truth of his words settled over me, this heritage I hadn’t known of and still didn’t necessarily want to claim, mine whether I wished it or not. My grandfather had done the best he could in the dangerous times he’d lived in. I must do the same.

  “We aren’t at war now and, God willing, won’t be again,” I said. “So I don’t understand what good my gift— limited as it seems to be— will do anyone, other than perhaps the two of us, in keeping us clear of Brann and Ian.”

  “It will show us what must be done with your clan. It will show us not only how to avoid Brann, but how to be rid of him as well.” Collin’s faith in me was unnerving.

  “And you’re wrong,” he continued. “We are at war. Only this time, the war isn’t between England and Scotland or even between clans. It’s between Brann and those like him, and the rest of your kin and other Highlanders whose families have lived on this land for centuries. The fight is very real— families fighting for their homes, the ability to provide for themselves, their very lives.”

  My head was starting to hurt again, though I wasn’t having any visions at the moment. Dread and worry over what was to come, what it seemed Collin and others expected me to accomplish, sent tension through every part of my body.

  “What if my visions aren’t so precise as Grandfather’s? What if I miss something?” I’d missed several things already.

  “Liam’s visions weren’t always detailed,” Collin said. “In some instances he knew everything; in others, only vague outlines. For example, he knew Ian MacDonald’s son was to come live with him. But he didn’t know which of us would be given into his care.”

  “You mean I could have been stuck with Ian?” I shuddered.

  Behind me Collin shrugged. “He might have been a different man if he had spent the years with your grandfather that I did. And I might have been as he is now, had I been abused.”

  I leaned back into Collin and felt his hand tighten around my waist. “I don’t believe you could ever be as he is. You were inherently good before coming to my grandfather. His guidance perhaps improved upon that, but you were already well on your way to becoming the man you are.”

  “Sure about that, are you?” There was teasing in Collin’s voice.

  “Oh yes,” I declared. “I remember everything of our time together now.”

  “Really? You remember that I made you muck out a horse’s stall every day for a month straight, all for the promise of one ride, if the animal became mine?”

  “An entire month for one ride?” I exclaimed. “That hardly seems fair.”

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Collin said. “But you’d been behaving poorly again, a right little tart, and I wanted to show your grandfather that you weren’t completely hopeless. More than that, I wanted to show you who was in charge— and it wasn’t you any longer.” Collin pinched my side, and I jumped and swatted his hand away.

  “Hmph,” I said, sounding particularly Scottish. “It seems like it should have been my horse instead, as I was the one doing all of the work.”

  “It was to have been yours.” Collin’s voice fell serious again. “It was what your grandfather intended for your sixth birthday, providing your behavior improved. But I couldn’t tell you that and spoil the surprise, so I convinced you it was to be mine, and you would only get to ride if you worked for it.”

  “What about you? You weren’t to have your own horse as well?” This couldn’t have sat well with a fifteen-year-old boy. Why should some snippet of a girl have such a privilege and he not the same?

  But Collin was shaking his head. “I wasn’t promised one of the spring foals. Your grandfather hadn’t planned to trust me with a horse so soon, not when I’d planned to steal one and make my escape shortly after I arrived— a plan you foiled, I might add.” He spoke lightly of the event, though I could only imagine it must have been anything but.

&
nbsp; “A little over a year had passed since I’d been there, and though we had each made great progress in our relationship, I still had fourteen years as a MacDonald weighing against just one with the Campbells.”

  “And this didn’t make you angry— or jealous?” He was a good man. Much better than me.

  “It probably would have,” Collin admitted. “But I never had the chance to find out. You were taken by your father before your birthday.”

  Taken. I hadn’t gone willingly?

  “Your grandfather felt bad for me, I think,” Collin said. “I’d been injured... Collin’s voice trailed off, and I recognized the distant look in his eyes once more, as he revisited the past.

  “Anyway,” he continued after a moment, “Liam decided to trust me. I never betrayed that trust. Never left Campbell land until your grandfather sent me away.”

  I needed to learn about those years, too, but my mind was already full of the morning’s revelations. I needed time to think. And I just wanted to be held. Feeling bold, I reached for Collin’s hand that I’d swatted away earlier and pulled it around me again. Collin leaned forward, his face close to mine.

  “We were each gone, and now we’re both coming back— together. We’re going home, Katie, and we’re going to help your people, and mine, too. It’s all right to doubt right now, but know this. Your grandfather saw us. He saw our day, too.”

  I took the evening meal at the far end of the main table, with the lass, who alternated between making faces at me and signaling to her grandfather, trying to gain his attention.

  “What is it, Katie?” he said at last, when she’d taken to standing on her seat and waving her plaid about like a banner. Thankfully, I was responsible for her safety and not her behavior.

  “Collin is thinking to escape this night,” she announced loudly.

  Conversation in the hall ceased as the laird and the other Campbells turned sharp eyes on me. Beneath the table my hands clenched into fists. Meddlesome little brat. Not even my thoughts were my own anymore. I was going to kill her.

  “He’s figured out how to get past the guards, and he knows which horse he plans to take,” Katie said.

  Hers would be a slow, painful death. If mine wasn’t first.

  “Thievery, too, in the bargain?” Laird Campbell frowned at me.

  Katie gasped. “Now he’s wishing he could put his hands around my neck and strangle me.” She jumped from her chair, even as her hands went protectively to her throat.

  To my astonishment Laird Campbell threw his head back and laughed. “I don’t imagine it’s the last time Collin will think such a thing about you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The next days passed in a haze of happiness— at our budding relationship— and worry over the problems awaiting us. By the fourth day of our travel alone I came to realize that Collin was not only prolonging our journey, but showing me some of his favorite places in the Highlands and leading me toward one of mine, though I had only ever seen it in my painting. This morning we meandered through the Forest of Atholl.

  “You’ll find the best and worst of the Highlands all right here,” Collin explained. He held my hand as we picked our way over boulders and between stately trees. Ian’s horse trotted along obediently, grateful, I supposed, for relief from riders. I, too, was relieved to walk, especially now that Collin had used the last of his coin to purchase shoes for me during a brief stop at Blair Castle the previous evening. I’d spent a nervous hour alone in hiding while Collin had gone on his errand, believing it safest for me if the Murrays didn’t realize there was a Campbell among them. Apparently there was some truth to the concern Alistair had voiced days earlier.

  When Collin had returned he’d apologized that he’d been unable to obtain a gown for me as well. The shoes were enough, though, allowing for this detour.

  “Much of the Highlands is moorland, pretty in its own way. But you cannot deny there is something about a forest.” Collin smiled with delight. “Were I to have my choice, I should like to build a home surrounded by trees such as this, Scotch pine with its fresh scent, silver birch, and larch.”

  “There are no forests on MacDonald land?” I lifted my skirt and stepped over a fallen tree trunk.

  “There is very little of anything on MacDonald land anymore,” Collin said. “I fear that soon we will have nothing.”

  I tugged on his hand and stopped so that he was forced to do the same. “Should we not be getting home, then? Should we not go straight to the MacDonalds, or to the Campbells at least and begin to work out what must be done?” I didn’t like the idea any more than I had a few days ago, but the possibility that Collin’s family might be suffering while I was enjoying a pleasant tour of the Highlands did not sit well with me either.

  “We’ll be there soon enough,” Collin said. “These hours and days of travel my mind has not been idle. I’ve been thinking on a solution to the troubles of our clans— both of them.”

  “And have you come up with anything?” I tilted my face toward his, eager to hear what he might have thought of, what solution there might be to his continuing as laird of the MacDonalds while being married to me and keeping Brann from doing more harm.

  “If it comes to it... there is something that may work, something your grandfather said in passing long ago.” Collin made as if to walk again, but I refused to move.

  “Will you share it with me?” I asked hopefully. He had spoken of wanting someone to confide in.

  Collin stood unmoving for several seconds, as if considering my request. When he spoke it was with words carefully measured. “Someday I will, Katie. But not now. It is for your own good, as well as mine and our people. I need you to trust that I will act as I see best for all, but most especially for you.”

  I swallowed the hurt his words caused. I did trust Collin, but could he not say the same of me? Was my gift of sight no use to him after all? Thus far it had been the only thing I had to offer for our assistance, and it pained me to think he did not even need that. Or me. With effort I nodded my agreement to his request, and we continued on our way.

  We were in a deep glen now, the solemn pines more sparse here, but the plentiful stone making me once again thankful to be wearing shoes. Ahead I could hear the rushing of water growing closer.

  A roe deer darted across our path quite suddenly, spooking both Ian’s horse and me. Collin seemed unfazed by its appearance and merely remarked that venison would have been a nice change from fish.

  The river was roaring now, and a few minutes more brought us in view of a lovely waterfall cascading over stone like that on which we stood. The gorge below the falls was quite narrow, giving the impression that it was the water itself that had cut the rock away and formed its path over the centuries.

  “I present to you The Falls of Bruar.” Collin bowed gallantly in front of me, as if presenting me at court.

  “Beautiful.” I clapped with sincere delight.

  “Only the best for my lady fair.”

  I was not at all certain I was looking so fair, after days in the sun without any sort of hat, and with only fingers to comb out my hair. But I had washed it, and my dress, the previous day, when I’d taken my own, involuntary swim while making yet another attempt to catch our supper. The accident had turned out to be a happy one, as I’d discovered— once my garments were dried and I had put them on again— that wearing my shift backward took care of the most pressing of my modesty problems. Collin had further solved them by carefully cutting holes on either side of the front of my torn dress, then using my old corset laces, previously tied in my braids, to lace the front of my gown together. I was not likely to start any new fashion, but at least I had been able to shed the blanket during the warmer daylight hours.

  “Is something wrong?” Collin’s lips pressed together with concern. “Do you not like the falls?”

  “I love them.” To prove my point I sat on the ground right where I was. “I think we should take our luncheon in this very spot.” I was no
t particularly hungry, for either oats or fish, yet I would eat both to appease Collin’s worry. He had enough troubles without thinking his wife ungrateful or unhappy. Especially when I was neither.

  He settled beside me and opened his sporran.

  Oats then. He’d replenished his supply when purchasing my shoes. But instead of our usual fare Collin withdrew a tied cloth, inside which were a few slices of cheese and the end piece of a loaf of bread. A veritable feast.

  “Where did you get those?” I did not attempt to hide either my smile or eagerness.

  “They came with the shoes.” He wouldn’t quite meet my eye as he said this, alerting me to his falsehood.

  “Is that so?”

  “Aye,” he insisted, handing me two slices of cheese. “Slipped right away from the table and into the shoes did they.”

  “In the shoes?” The cheese suddenly did not taste quite as good.

  Collin laughed. “Not to worry. They were in the cloth the whole time. And it wasn’t really stealing. They charged too much for the shoes, anyway.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “I must say that I feel a bit like Maid Marian, traipsing about Sherwood Forest and married to the outlaw Robin Hood.”

  “Be sure not to write that to your sister.” Collin broke the bread in two pieces and handed the larger one to me.

  “When and how am I to write her at all?” I asked, surprised that he had mentioned Anna or even remembered I had a sister.

  “When we’ve reached the Campbells’ of course,” Collin said. “They’ve the post there, though it’ll take some weeks, if not a month or more, for a letter to reach London.”

  “I hadn’t thought on that.” My life in England seemed so far away now. “I must write Timothy first. He is the one I miss the most. I shall tell him of your outlawish behavior. He will find it quite thrilling.” I smiled encouragingly at Collin. “I suppose I should write to Anna and Mother as well.”

  “You can tell your sister of the falls.” Collin looked past me to the rushing water. “And the moorlands and lochs. After today you can tell her that you have been to the place in your painting. That you have stood atop Bealach Druim Uachdair and seen the grass of the sloping hills bending in the wind, that you’ve tasted the rivers running on either side. You’ve climbed the path as near to the heavens as one can get here, and you’ve felt the power of them in the grand stones planted in the earth.”