“A rider just arrived bearing a missive from your father.” Dillon hurried into his chambers, then stopped in midstride to savor the view of his wife, seated in a chair by the fire, holding the tiny infant to her breast.
He crossed the room and knelt beside them, lifting his hand almost reverently to stroke the small round head covered with a thatch of dark auburn curls.
Leonora smiled and Dillon was reminded of a portrait of a Madonna and Child in Father Anselm’s chapel.
“Shall I read the missive?”
“Aye.”
He unrolled the parchment and began to chuckle. “It says that your loving father will be arriving within a fortnight to welcome Modric Alec Waltham Campbell, his new grandson. He carries greetings, as well as many gifts, from a grateful king, and looks forward to a long visit.”
“I am glad that summer has come to our Highlands,” Leonora said. “I want my father to see this land at its loveliest, so that he will love it as I do.”
Dillon smiled at her use of the term “our Highlands,” and wondered again at this wondrous gift he had been given. The lad who had been stripped of home and family, and taken in by monks, had never dreamed of finding such happiness. All he had wanted was justice. Instead, he had been given so much more. A place of his own in this proud, free land. A clan who trusted his leadership, and in return gave him unquestioned loyalty. Family and friends who returned his affection. And most of all, this woman who had given him his most precious gift of all—a son named after the one whose death had begun his long, arduous quest. This woman, who had turned her back on her own proud heritage to embrace his, owned his heart and soul, and filled his life with a love that would endure beyond the grave, beyond time, into eternity.
~ The End ~
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Ruth Ryan Langan
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