Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

she hadn’t made a sound, Laird’s shoulders stiffened and squared.  He lifted his head and cocked it to the side.  His hands tightened on the railing before him as he pushed himself to his feet and then finally he turned.  His silvery eyes piercing her with wonder and joy.  Shining with the glint of tears reflecting off of them.

Her own vision blurred and a tear splashed against her cheek.  Scarlett dashed it away as he rushed to her, dropping to his knees before her.

“I felt ye.  I couldnae hope… Ahh, mo chroí!” Laird wrapped his shaking arms around her hips as he rested his cheek against her belly.  Scarlett combed her fingers through his hair, too overcome to speak.

“Ne’er leave me again.  Ne’er,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her belly.  Scarlett fell into his arms, burying her face in his neck as the their tears of joy streamed together.

“I won’t.  I won’t!  Never again.”

The promise was sealed in a kiss.

EPILOGUE

December 1518

Dunskirk, Scotland

“Are ye certain ye should be reading that to our bairn?” Laird asked, brushing his lips across his wife’s forehead as she cradled their toddler daughter in her lap.  A lap that wasn’t given too much space as her belly was already well-rounded with their next child.

“Absolutely,” Scarlett said firmly, her amber gaze warm with love and contentment as she smiled up at him.  “We love it, don’t we, Hermione?”  She dropped a kiss on their daughter’s auburn curls and the two shared a satisfied nod.

He was outnumbered.

With a grin, Laird tucked his Hepburn plaid more tightly around his two ladies and moved to throw another log on the fire.  The winter was a cold one this year.  The wind was whistling through the stone walls of Dunskirk.

Five years had passed since the Battle at Flodden.  Since their bloody defeat at the hands of the English.  As Scarlett’s brochure had said, King James had died on the field along with most of the nobles of the land, including his father, two of his young brothers and several uncles.  Even more cousins.  Dozens of titles in the Highlands and Borders transferred to young boys, bairns or in several cases laid dormant until the next heir could be born.

He’d been very lucky to survive, to have been able to save Rhys’ life, who had in turn saved Patrick’s during the retreat.   All because one young woman had been sent to save him.

The years since then had changed his Scarlett.  She’d put on weight though she was still slender and willowy.  Her auburn hair had grown past her shoulders in long, winding curls though she preferred to leave it down or wear it in a ‘ponytail’ rather than sporting the popular fashions of the times.

She was a fish out of water, Scarlett would often say.  She would never truly be able to blend in completely.  It wasn’t her way.  These were not her times.  Laird wouldn’t have wanted her to.  It was her unique character that captured his heart from the beginning.

Laird felt the rigid scarring that scored his palm and the fingers of his right hand.  A reminder of the loss he’d felt when she’d disappeared.  He would never forget that or the torture he endured in those long weeks when he thought he’d lost her forever.  He’d worked at Dunskirk from before dawn until long after the sun had set just so he might find sleep from exhaustion.  Laird would never take her presence in his life for granted.

It continually humbled him utterly that Scarlett would give up the advantages of her time to be with him.  That she would choose to live outside of her element simply to share the remainder of her life by his side.  Still, it was his hope that she would never find regret in staying with him that had prevailed rather than her fear that he might regret her doing so.

He would never regret a moment of his life spent with her.

“Leave her be, Laird.” Aleizia protested, rocking her own babe near the fireplace.  Her third thus far in just five years.  “I want to hear the rest of the tale.”

Patrick nodded his agreement.  “I maun agree wi’ my wife, Laird.  Dinnae spoil it for us all.”

“Here, here,” Rhys said, emptying his cup of whiskey and pouring another cup for Willem for a change, who was seated by his side.

“You should all just have her teach you to read the words,” Aileen laughed, sitting close to her young husband, Dickie Sutherland, in a cozy, upholstered loveseat of Scarlett’s design.  “Then you’d be able to read them for yourself as I already have a dozen times over.”

“You only have time to read them, Aileen, because you haven’t a child of your own yet to occupy your time,” Aleizia protested.

No, she didn’t, but only because Laird and Patrick – who welcomed Laird’s counsel, given by the promise he had made Scarlett – had delayed her wedding day until she was of a more mature age to wed.  Scarlett had lobbied for eighteen but they’d settled on sixteen.  The couple had been wed only a year.  “Soon, my sister, soon!” Aileen grinned and blushed as her husband heartily kissed her in front of them all.

Five years had brought laughter and love to Dunskirk and even to Crichton during the visits Laird and Scarlett made there on their way to court each winter.  Though not this one, not with the birth of his next child looming.  The summers they spent at Dunskirk, building on the castle from the hundreds of sketches Scarlett made, adding the mini castle on the island out in the pond and a vegetable garden behind the castle.  Raising a family together.

It had been five years so far of peace and bliss with Scarlett at his side.  Laird had never seen hide nor hair of auld Donell again in all that time.  If he had he would have felt compelled to shake his hand.  Bluidy hell.  He’d probably kiss the auld bastard