Page 82 of Wed to the Highlander
One afternoon, a few weeks after all the drama, she returned to the chamber to lay Jamie down for a nap and sneak one in herself, but the furniture was pushed to one side of the room to make room for bricks, trowels, and buckets of mortar.
“What’s this?” she asked the workmen.
“By order of the laird, my lady,” one said as he removed the framing of the short door with hammer and chisel.
“There’ll be no napping in there this day, my love,” she told her wide-eyed, quiver-lipped son as she whisked him back down the hallway.
She met Duncan at the top of the stairs. He immediately took Jamie from her, putting him on his shoulder. A firm patting on his back had him settling as if by magic, which his father uniquely possessed.
“They’re sealing the door to the hidden room,” she told him.
“I advised you of the plan.”
“Yes, but not today.”
He hooked her by his arm and pulled her close. “I moved it up on the list, to help you sleep,” he said, brushing her cheek with a kiss. “And to help me focus on more pleasant things.” When their lips met and the kiss went from chaste to passionate in two seconds, Jamie let out a wail of protest.
Duncan half groaned, half chuckled. “The lad has the world’s worst timing.”
Maggie stared up at him, breathless and a little dizzy from his kiss. “My regrets, truly, but it’s time for his nap. Between the tower demolition, bricklaying up here, and two dozen people under this roof, where am I going to find a quiet place to lay him down?”
“I can help you with that.”
He took her hand and led her past the bustle of the great hall, beyond the hammering and shouted orders, down a narrow passage she hadn’t noticed before. When they arrived at an unfamiliar stairwell, the winding steps stirred memories she’d rather forget. But Duncan’s hand was warm and steady, and her trust in him unfailing. She followed, up fifty steps at least, emerging at the top in a room bathed in brightness.
This tower was newer with arched windows that overlooked the loch, the light making it feel as though the sky had come inside. The sun warmed the stone and the air and cast shadows across the floor, but they didn’t reach for her—not anymore.
A bright tartan rug stretched in front of a navy velvet settee, plush pillows in red and gold grouped at the ends. A shelf of old books lined the curved wall: clan histories, Gaelic poetry, and a few volumes so worn their titles had faded.
A tapestry hung opposite the bed, depicting a mystical wood with a stag in moonlight. Not the one from the north tower, withbloody horns and silver eyes that followed her across the room. She shivered at the memory.
“Are you cold? Even in sunlight?” Duncan asked, stretching out on the bed and settling a yawning Jamie on his chest. He extended his arm to her in invitation.
How could she say no?
She curled up against his side, pulling the coverlet soft and thick over them, then snuggled close, her head on her husband’s shoulder and her hand resting on Jamie’s diapered bottom.
“Why isn’t this our chamber?” she asked, voice drowsy already.
Duncan smiled, pressing his lips to her temple. “I can make it happen. If you don’t mind the climb.”
“Up and down fifty steps countless times a day,” she hummed, already drifting. “Maybe it’s not our chamber. Maybe it’s our escape.”
Her eyes closed. Jamie sighed. Duncan stayed wrapped protectively around them both. And because peace had come to the High Glen, the three of them napped blissfully.
The feeling of being haunted had faded, but not entirely. Duncan had explanations for everything—the whispers were wind through the stones, the woman in white a hallucination brought on by too much wood betony, the white heather a gift from well-meaning clanswomen who believed in its protective powers. But they never found Anne’s miniature when they tore out the second floor. And Duncan couldn’t explain how Maggie had known where to find Isla and Jamie that stormy night.
“A mother’s intuition,” he eventually concluded.
Maggie believed in that—she felt it, and it strengthened every day. But she also believed in Anne’s gentle spirit guiding her that night. She believed in the warmth that lingered in the hallways at times, in the way Jamie smiled at nothing at all, and in the way she felt at home living in an old relic made of stone.She hadn’t felt Anne’s presence since the night of Isla’s death. She hoped not to again, not because she feared it but because it would mean her spirit was finally at rest.
***
Although spring had settled over the Highlands—buds unfurling, loch waters warming, and laughter returning to the castle halls—everyone felt the stirrings of rebirth, except three forlorn boys and their mother. Their uncle, bound to see the spark of childhood and adventure in their eyes again, roused them early one morning in late April and took them on a nightcrawler hunt then to the loch to catch their supper.
While they were occupied, their step a little lighter as they followed Duncan down the path to the water, Maggie searched out Fiona. The courtyard had been abandoned since the rebuilding began. Stone dust settled in the corners, and the raised beds—once Lachlan’s pride—stood bare, their wooden frames weathered and leaning. That’s where she found Fiona, paused beside one, her fingers trailing over the rough edge.
She looked up when Maggie approached, offering what fell well short of a smile. “He used to plant in spirals,” she murmured. “Said it made the herbs grow better.”
