A Promise of Love (3 page)

He turned back to watch the track behind him. Even though they were only steps away from Tynan, it would not do to forget the threat of mounted English patrols. They crisscrossed the Highlands constantly, seeking violators of the Disarming Act. Malcolm touched the dirk hidden in his boot, well aware he was breaking the law. Yet, only an idiot would have made the journey he'd just finished without being armed. Nor would it be the first time he had broken that lunatic decree. Inside his shirt, pinned next to his heart, was a shred of plaid he had torn from his kilt before he had buried it in the secret place.

They entered the narrow opening of the keep-gatehouse and into a large courtyard shadowed by approaching night. The stone of the castle had mellowed to a deep rose and not the black Judith had originally assumed. The lofty curtain walls, with their flanking towers of massive masonry, rose high above her head. Only one tower was intact, the other pitted and scarred, rubble mounded around its base. At the entrance, stone steps rose four deep to a bronze portal marred by smoke stains that licked around it in memory of hungry flames.

There was an air of decay here, and ruin.

A figure shuffled from the shadows, her passage marked by the imperious click, click of her cane. She was tiny, her stooped frame clad in black, her shining white hair wound into a regal crown on top of her head.

She reached Judith's companion first, tapping his knee with the tip of her cane. He remained mounted, looking down at her; his craggy face might have been wreathed in a smile. Except that Judith was certain her companion of the past weeks never smiled.

"Malcolm MacLeod," the old woman said, her voice sounding rusty and unused, like a gate not often opened, "have you no sense than to come riding in at gloaming? How would we know that you're not the Devil's henchman, or the English come to pay another call?"

"Sophie," he said gruffly, but not unkindly, "All you have to do is look out yon gate and see those damn bleatin' sons of Satan."

Despite her fatigue and her anxiety, Judith almost smiled.

At that moment, the old woman noticed the stranger. She peered through the gloom and then turned to Malcolm with a questioning look. He chuckled and dismounted, bent down and kissed her swiftly on the cheek.

"Peace, Sophie," he said, pulling her tiny, bent frame into a hug. "Ye're still me only love."

"Malcolm, be still," she said brusquely, but Judith could see that she was pleased by the gesture. "Well," she said, addressing her question to Judith, "who are you?"

"In a moment, Sophie, ye'll find out soon enough." When Judith made a motion to dismount, he waved her back into position. She stifled a groan. If she were to travel any further tonight, she didn't think that she could manage it. As it was, she felt permanently welded to the saddle. Riding astride might have been safer during their journey, but weeks of it would no doubt have lasting consequences upon some portions of her anatomy better left unmentioned.

The bronze door opened with a bang, and a white shirted figure bounded down the steps. He hugged Malcolm with pleasure, gripped his arms and pulled away as if inspecting for damage.

"You did well, Malcolm. I saw them from the battlements. Well done!" He noticed the direction of the other man's gaze and followed it.

The twilight shadows had deepened in the courtyard; the only way Judith knew he turned in her direction was that the shirt moved as if it belonged to a disembodied ghost.

Judith tensed as the white shape moved closer.

Malcolm quickly strode between them. With one hand, he gripped his laird’s well filled sleeve. With another, he grasped the hem of Judith’s riding habit. He grinned, which should have given Judith some indication that all was not well. Unfortunately, either she was too bemused by the sight of those teeth gleaming in the darkness or too exhausted from the long trip to feel much anxiety.

However, Malcolm managed to shock her from fatigue with his next words.

"Judith, meet the Lord o' Tynan, Alisdair MacLeod, yer husband. An'," he quickly amended, before either of them could say a word, "Alisdair, meet Judith, yer wife."

"Wife?" Alisdair roared.

"Husband?" Judith’s grip upon Molly’s reins was so tight her hands felt burned by the leather.

"Did ye hear that, Sophie?" Malcolm asked calmly of the old woman.

"Yes, Malcolm, I did at that." Her thin lips were pursed in a smile.

"Well, I did, too. Congratulations, ye are now wedded according to the laws o' Scotland."

CHAPTER 2

"Are you all right, child?" Sophie asked kindly. Judith nodded, bemused. How could she explain that she was teetering between incredulity and a certainty she was dreaming?

"That was simply a farce, was it not? Some odd Scottish greeting? I cannot truly be married." Her face was too white; Sophie wondered if the girl was about to swoon. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, the knuckles so bony it was as if no flesh covered them at all.

Sophie passed Judith a candle from its perch inside the double bronze doors. The pitifully small wick did little to illuminate the deep, shaded corners of the Great Hall, merely danced wildly in the draft, casting unfriendly shadows against already blackened walls. Whoever had burned the castle had done a fine job of it.

The older woman led the way to the rear of the main floor, waved Judith to a chair close to a fire burning brightly in the hearthstone fireplace. She leaned heavily on her cane and studied the young woman. There was a studied lack of expression in those dark eyes and she held herself too tightly, elbows pressed against her sides, hands clenched together.

Terrified, that was plain to see.

Sophie bent laboriously, thrusting a long twig into the fire, using its burning tip to light more candles on the mantle, playing for time while her thoughts raced.

“There are four ways to wed in Scotland, my dear,” she said finally. “To be wed in the Kirk, by promise of marriage followed by coupling, by living together as man and wife.” Sophie looked over at the young girl made luminous by candlelight. Her midnight blue eyes betrayed no emotion, yet she trembled like a foal new born. In that instant, Sophie made her decision. “And by announcing legal ties in front of two witnesses.”

A pale face gave way to one suffused by red.

Surely the Scots were not so barbaric as to indulge in this heathen custom. Her wedding to Peter had been held in the small village church; her vows to Anthony had been spoken in her family home. Both ceremonies had been presided over by clergy, duly sanctified unions, blessed by man and supposedly by God.

It was a nightmare, wasn’t it?

Judith looked down at her hands. There were scratches on the backs of them and dirt beneath her nails. She was aware of her unkempt appearance, the fact that she'd not bathed in so long she smelled like sheep. Hardly a bride. And yet, if she believed this sweet looking woman, that’s exactly what she was.

“I’ve been here a scant two minutes and in that time, I’ve acquired a husband?” Surely, this was one of her nightmares. Except, of course, that Judith could feel the chill air upon her skin. Her lashed lids were too heavy, her eyes felt filled with sand, her fingers trembled even as she clutched them tightly together. And the incongruous smell of turnips. You didn’t smell turnips in your dreams, did you?

“I must admit,” Sophie said kindly,” it’s a strange welcome we give you. Perhaps as odd as your presence here.” It was a softly coaxed invitation, one subtly offered. Later, Judith wondered why she said anything, let alone spoke the truth. Perhaps it was due to the fatigue of her journey, or the feeling of being abandoned in a strange country, subjected to odd customs. Or perhaps it was even the sudden wish to cry. This woman with her strange, lyrical accent, her face lined with a hundred small wrinkles despite her face being heavily rouged and powdered, and her lively, sparkling blue eyes seemed only kind, not censorious. The story of her father’s barter poured from Judith like water from a pitcher.

“Yet, what did you think would happen to you here?" Sophie asked Judith when she’d finished her tale.

It was not something she’d allowed herself to contemplate. Each day, she’d occupied herself with what needed to the done, focusing on ignoring the discomforts, enduring the endless rain, living each day as something whole and complete, as if the journey itself were more important than the destination. She’d not allowed herself to think of the future; it was an interminable pit of blackness into which she could not inject one small spark of hope.

"I had thought to be employed, if nothing else,” Judith said finally. “As it is," she said, looking at the pots piled high in the corner, at the crumbs of food scattered over the kitchen table, adorning the floor and every other available surface, "it seems as though I have found work aplenty. I do not have to be married to accomplish it.

“Is there no way to undo this?”

Her eyes appeared like deep pools, Sophie thought, through which one might glimpse the soul. Again, she listened to the voice of her heart before she spoke.

“I’m afraid my dear, that the only way to rid yourself of a healthy spouse is to either be an adulterer, or dessert your husband for four years.”

Sophie extended her hand, with its wriggling blue veins and horrid brown spots and placed it on the Judith’s young, unlined hand. She looked down at the contrast in their skin, the differences fifty years can make. She was ancient, Judith was only at the beginning of her life. Yet, how like this young girl she had once been, so sure of what she wanted that she did not allow room for fate.

Fate had a way of making things happen.

Especially if it was prodded a bit.

****

"You old fool, how dare you meddle in my life!"

Alisdair MacLeod wanted to hit something, quickly, and although Malcolm was twenty years his senior, he would do. The fact that Alisdair had to struggle in order to best his old tutor in hand to hand combat added another fillip to the situation. He was in the mood for a good fight, a brawl, a skin tearing, flesh bruising, bone- crushing bloody melee.

Malcolm eyed the MacLeod warily. Although they were both only long shadows in the courtyard, there was enough light to see the look on the MacLeod's face. It was intent, single-minded, and madder than hell.

Malcolm had thought long and hard before doing what he did. The past two years at Tynan had not been pleasant ones. At first, they’d been too busy trying to survive to spare the time to grieve. But then, memories had a way of seeping in through the cracks of everyday life, hadn’t they? He could not help but remember Anne. The laird’s young wife was a sweet girl, but had none of the fire a young, healthy man needed. Hadn't he seen the lad, tight lipped, with a warning glint in his eyes each and every time Alisdair had gone for a long, cold soak in the cove? And hadn't there been too many of those nights?

Of course, the MacLeod would be angry - Malcolm knew there would be repercussions, and although Alisdair wasn't a hothead like his brother, Ian, he was still a MacLeod. Every member of that illustrious branch of the clan had a stubborn streak as wide as the glen.

Malcolm had time over the last weeks to take the mettle of the Englishwoman. Time to realize that maybe she wasn't as English as she thought, with her way of scenting the air like a young doe, of her resilience each morning when they'd awakened on the cold wet ground, her and the twins and himself all crabby with the cold and his bones stiffening up on English soil. Maybe they could make a match of it, these two. The MacLeod with his stubbornness in the face of the English threat and the English woman who didn't act English at all.

"I could wring that scrawny neck of yours, Malcolm," Alisdair said, watching as the old man remained at least five feet away from him, despite his advance. Inside his castle, or what had once been a castle before the Duke of Cumberland's troops had paid a visit, was a woman to whom, thanks to the Machiavellian maneuvering of his old friend, he was now legally bound.

The very last thing he needed right now was a wife. He preferred a contingent of armed English soldiers, a bout of the plague or an attack of French pox to marriage.

"Why don't you sleep on it, lad?" Malcolm suggested, the long years of friendship warming his voice.

"Why, Malcolm? Do you lack excitement in your life? Do you miss battle so much that you would bring war to Tynan? Why, man?"

"She's a wee thing, Alisdair."

"She's as tall as me, Malcolm!" Which was only a slight exaggeration. After Malcolm’s announcement, he’d pulled his new bride from her saddle. The top of her head came to his nose, a fact he’d discerned only after she’d turned abruptly at the steps and nearly broken it.

"She needs protection."

"Let her hire an armed guard." Alisdair speared his hands through his hair. Malcolm was taking this entire farce too lightly.

"She's been sore used, Alisdair. She's a poor widow."

"Good God, man, now there's something to recommend her! If you must wed me without my consent, at least find me a virgin!"

"Virgins are overrated, MacLeod. Besides, what could I do, post a handbill for a willing English virgin?"