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Mhairi nudged me with her shoulder, jarring the needle out of place and making me lose my concentration for the fifth time in as many minutes. The first four had been because of Lydia, content at last in the basket near my feet. Since Lydia’s arrival over a month ago, Mhairi had been cold to me, parting quickly from the course of friendship I’d felt we were on. But purposely disrupting my knitting when I was already struggling with it— a fact she was well aware of— was simply mean.
“The laird wishes a word with you.” Mhairi lifted her head toward the doorway of the solar where Ian stood, taking in the scene with an air of satisfaction.
As well he might, I thought irritably, blaming him for my current predicament. The wool had long since been spun and the former spinners, myself included, had moved on to knitting. Or some of us had, anyway. Pity the poor soul who ends up with my socks.
He beckoned me, and I stood, only too glad to abandon my post. I scooped up Lydia and crossed the room.
We stepped into the hall, and he closed the door behind him.
“Yes?” I asked, bouncing the baby, wishing as I had before that I wasn’t reliant upon the nurse to feed her. If up to me she would be fed more often and not made to wait so long between.
“I wondered,” Ian began almost nervously, “if you might like to walk in the kirkyard with me. To visit your mother’s and grandfather’s graves? It isn’t as cold today, though possibly the last pleasant day we’ll have for a while. Clouds coming in.”
Shock delayed my answer by several seconds. Then concern over his motives was won over by the prospect of both leaving knitting for the afternoon and getting outside the gloomy castle. “Let me fetch my cloak and find someone to watch Lydia.”
“Bundle her up and bring her,” Ian suggested. “I can hold her, if you’d like.”
“All right.” I smiled, as much cheered by his presence as I was by his invitation.
When we were both bundled well, Ian with Lydia tightly swaddled against his chest, we headed outside. It was a beautiful December day, cool and crisp, with sun shining and high clouds.
“Were your tasks today as dreary as mine?” I asked, still finding it odd he had taken leave of his responsibilities in the middle of the day. No one worked harder than Ian. In the nearly five months he had been here, he had earned the respect of MacDonalds and Campbells alike.
“Not particularly. There is a matter I wish to speak to you about, and the kirkyard will afford us some privacy.”
Our room would have done so as well. Uneasiness nudged away some of my enthusiasm for our walk. “What matter?” I looked at him, expecting further explanation, and received only one of Ian’s rare smiles, usually reserved for Lydia.
“Patience,” he admonished, and we continued our stroll.
The kirkyard was quiet today, but not eerily so. Both Earnan and Gordon were at their posts on either side of the yard, visible only because I knew where to look for them. We would be safe here. Open fields surrounded fenced yard on three sides, with the kirk on the other. If Brann was to come, we would see him long before his arrival.
Instinctively I wandered toward the rowan. Ian followed, and when I paused beneath it, he stopped as well. Cradling the back of Lydia’s head carefully, he crouched to trace the carving near the base of the tree.
“Do you remember this?” he asked.
“Very well.” I tilted my head back, looking up to the high branches. “I’d been hiding in the tree for quite some time. Collin couldn’t find me. And when he did— when I at last alerted him to my presence— he refused to come up and get me, but began carving this instead.”
“It must have taken a long time.” Ian stood once more but continued to stare at the initials. “And much patience.”
“More with me. I’d given him a scare hiding so long and so well.”
“And so high,” Ian added, looking up to the limbs of tree.
“That too. Like you, Collin was very patient with me.” I touched the wedding band on my finger, the other symbol of Collin’s love that still remained, and one that had taken him much longer to create.
“I was thinking about patience the other day at the forge,” Ian said. “When young Jeremy Campbell spooked a horse, scalded three men in succession, and set a corner of the roof ablaze in his haste to be rid of the shoe he’d removed from the fire. All because he was afraid of getting burned.”
“What has that to do with patience?” In the knitting room I’d heard tell of the verbal thrashing Ian had unleashed on the boy and could only imagine a physical punishment had followed.
“Well, I did not kill him outright,” Ian boasted with a teasing smile. “I in fact kept his father from doing the same when I put a stop to the thrashing after a dozen strokes.”
“Good of you.” I rolled my eyes and turned away from him, showing I was less than impressed.
“The thing is,” Ian continued, “the boy was afraid of being burned. Because of his fear he hurt others and himself in the end.” Ian took my arm and gently turned me to him.
“I have been afraid— still am,” he admitted, “of hurting you more than I already have. Of bringing harm to the people who depend on us.”
On you, I silently amended. I had done very little. I loved our little lass fiercely, and she did depend upon me— if not for her actual nourishment, for me to at least see that she received it. Everything else I did for her, and I loved her for it.
I tugged the cap covering Lydia’s head a bit lower to cover her ears. She gurgled a complaint, apparently not caring for the wool pressing upon her head.
Ian bounced her gently. “I’ve been afraid for myself, what you will think— or not think of me— when all the truth is known. I’ve realized I’m no better than Jeremy at the forge. I’ve been swinging about wildly, as if with the hot tongs and shoe in my hand, and it’s you who has been hurt most.”
I failed to completely follow his analogy, but he had my attention and curiosity. For Ian Campbell to admit fear...
“Go on,” I urged.
“I don’t want to live separate lives. I want us to be more than cordial with one another. There are still things between us— secrets that need to be told. I’m prepared for the consequences of those.”
I wasn’t certain I was, but I’d been lonely enough to grasp at what he offered. “All right. Tell me.”
“I will. But first walk with me.”
We covered the short distance to Collin’s grave. I regretted that I’d not had time to gather a posy to lay over the top. The grass had not yet regrown, and the bare mound of dirt seemed a stark contrast to the rest of the yard. We stopped before it, and I started to kneel. Ian’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“Don’t.”
I frowned as I shrugged from his grasp, then knelt and pressed my lips to the ground.
Collin. I felt him here, in this place that had been dear to us both. We’d never lived in fear of the dead, only those living who would do us harm. I rose and looked up at Ian, chastisement ready. “I will always kiss his grave. It is a sign of respect. I think Collin is deserving of that much, at least.”
“Would that you feel the same an hour from now,” Ian said.
“What do you mean by that?” Did he think to convince me that Collin had done something to deserve his death?
“You’ll understand soon enough.” Ian sat on the ground beside me, careful to hold Lydia the way she liked. “I thought, with Hogmanay, it would be a fitting time for a new start for us as well.”
“That seems a good idea,” I said warily, still upset by his suggestion that I would somehow come to think less of Collin.
I settled more comfortably beside Ian and worked to cool my irritation. I wanted us to get along. Collin had been gone five months. Ian and I needed to figure this out. Lydia needed both a mother and father. As much or more than that, I needed Ian, and I believed he needed me. We were not each other’s first choice, but I had made peace with that.
I believed I could care for him— the man he had become. He had already shown he could care for me. But there was still something holding each of us back. Someone. Collin. Every time we gained a little ground he was there, his ghost between us. Maybe Ian was right and knowing the entire truth, all his secrets, was our only way forward.
“I told you how I burned my hands.” He held one out, and I took it, fearful suddenly, irrationally, for both of us. Whatever he was about to share with me had already happened. It is only how I react that matters now. The cost, Collin’s life, had already been paid.
“I need to tell you what led me to that barn, and why I risked my life— and yours— going inside.” Ian’s fingers curved over mine. “Hold onto me while I tell it. Please listen, and don’t let go.”
“I won’t let go,” I promised, enjoying the feeling of my hand in his. It was the comfort I had craved, the physical connection with another human being. Caring for Lydia had helped to fill some of that, but even the sweetest bairn could not replace the affection I had enjoyed with Collin. Was it so wrong that I was beginning to feel something similar for Ian? Collin had sent him to me, had bound him by oath to protect me. To care for me as well?
It seemed a hundred years had passed since I had declared to Collin, with all the giddiness of first love and newly discovered passion, that I loved kissing. How childish that seemed now. When what I felt for the man beside me was so much more.
More? With a start, I looked up from our joined hands. More, or simply different? Ian was my protector and the Campbells’ too. He was hard and stubborn, given to fits of melancholy and temper. But he was also kind, thoughtful, fair, and forgiving. He had been more than patient with me.
The last of my own stubborn pride gave way as I allowed his many acts of kindness to sift from the list I had catalogued in my mind, to fill the corners of my empty heart. A soft and subtle joy filled me with sweeter hope than I had believed possible.
I leaned forward and placed a hand upon Ian’s cheek before pressing my lips to his. “Whatever you must say to me, it will be all right. We will be all right.” When I pulled back, it was to see tears swimming in his eyes.
He squeezed my fingers, as if to say, “hold on,” then took a deep breath.
“The man in that grave is not Collin.”