Page 26 of Harrowing Hall
“What language is that?” Maude exclaimed when words were revealed. “Scottish Gaelic?”
“No.” He was utterly amazed. “Middle English.”
She deflated. “So, we cannot read it.”
He ran his fingers over the text, smiling at her. “As you well know, there was a reason I took to designing hedge statues in my spare time.”
“Because your father pressed you to educate yourself above and beyond.” Maude bit back a smile. “To the point, it drove you mad enough to find joy in the most unexpected places. That, as we well know, being hedge trimming.”
“Creating hedge statues, to be specific.”
“And howlovelythey are,” she murmured before dropping a kiss on his cheek. “Does this mean what I think it means, husband?”
“It does.” He eyed the text. “I can read this.”
“How wonderful,” Maude said softly, reverently. “So, what does it say?”
“It says little but so verra much,” he said just as softly before reading it to her. “It is dated our Lord’s year fourteen hundred and eighty.”
Dearest Lord and Lady MacLauchlin,
I debated whether I should write you but felt, in the end, it would be what my beloved, your son, Fergus, would want. Days before he rode off to battle, I discovered myself with child. Convinced he was a boy, we named him Gavin. Sadly, Fergus never learned that we were right nor got a chance to meet our precious Gavin before your son was lost to us.
There was no missing the smudge where a tear must have fallen before the writer continued.
To that end, I was going to try to find my own way with Gavin but could not help but hold fast to what our dear Fergus told me before he left. He felt if anything should happen to him, I should go home. To his home. MacLauchlin Castle. For he felt that you, his parents, would accept me, a mere commoner, and our beloved son, your grandson, Gavin, regardless.
While I hesitated to see through his request as you cannot be pleased by the situation, I am without means and have nowhere else to go. I can only beg you will not turn us away when we arrive in a fortnight.
Fondest Regards,
Blair Farthington
“Lady Annabel was never insane,” Blake exclaimed, astonished. “She was indeed waiting for someone. Not her son but hergrandson.”
“Yes,” Maude whispered, clearly shocked.
“What is it?” To hell with the parchment, Blake pulled her close when she appeared ready to swoon again. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Maude blinked away tears and shook her head. “Nothing at all.” She pointed at the signature. “Blake,Iam aFarthington. That is my mother’s maiden name. A commoner before she married into the peerage and had my sisters.”
He blinked, astounded. “You mean to say….”
“Yes.” She wiped away a tear. “I think I might very well be Blair’s great-great times too many to count granddaughter. That I might very likely descend from Fergus via Gavin. Therefore, from Lady Annabel herself.”
Fergus was not blood-related to the MacLauchlins, and Blake did not descend from Lady Annabel, so thankfully, that ruled out she and Blake being related, however distantly.
Equally shocked by the revelation and well versed in his clan’s history, Blake saw it just as clearly. “There is no record of a Gavin MacLauchlin nor of any woman named Blair.”
“Because they never arrived.” Maude looked at the portrait sadly. “Yet Annabel waited as did her laird. Not insanely for a son that had died but for a grandson who lived and was on his way. Coming home.”
“Yet he never did,” Blake murmured, glad to finally understand.
“No.” She shook her head and wiped away another tear. “Blair must have reconsidered last minute and vanished. Never brought the child they clearly already loved here.”
“A bairn they did not care was born out of wedlock or even to a commoner.”
“No.” Maude looked at Lady Annabel with her heart in her eyes. With understanding that warmed him in a way he could not put words to. “Yet she waited and waited, even in death, never giving up hope her grandchild would come home.”
