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A sense of urgency prevailed the next morning. Though Brann, Donaid, Father Rey, and the council had been safely deposited in the cells belowstairs, there was the threat of the roaming English patrol soon to arrive and the price on Collin’s head. The keep was a flurry of activity, both inside and out, with almost all packing to leave for some destination.
A dozen or more families had gone already, choosing a life in the towns or elsewhere in Scotland over a long ocean voyage to a new land. I wondered if the idea would have tempted Collin or I, had there not been Ian, and Grandfather’s knowledge of where our future lay, to consider.
The pile of coins on the table grew steadily lower as each family came forward and declared their intentions. Those remaining in Scotland were given two guineas, no matter how large their family. It wasn’t exactly a fair distribution, but it was more than either the Campbells or MacDonalds would have received under past circumstances.
Those going with us received nothing today, as those bags containing sovereigns exclusively had been set aside for provisions on our journey and crossing the ocean. We would spend them carefully as needed for all on our way. We did not yet know what the passage would cost, or even when we might sail. Only that we would and would live to see the new land, this new Scotland Grandfather had written of on the back of the stone in the kirkyard.
Per mare per terras, I had learned last night, was the MacDonald clan motto. Had I known that earlier, or had Collin seen the stone himself, we might have guessed it as both a message from and the hiding place of my grandfather.
“By sea or by land, we will go,” Collin had declared, after telling his clan that what little land they’d had left had been forfeit.
The stone itself rested on the table in front of the piles of coin, so each who came before us might see for himself my grandfather’s last edict, that our people remain together and strong— not here, as we had believed— but across the sea in a New Scotland, ùr na h-alba, Nova Scotia.
It wasn’t the castle or even the land that Grandfather had wanted us to preserve, but the people themselves. He’d not bothered to restore the keep but had fortified the members of his clan instead, instilling within them knowledge and a deep, abiding faith that good would prevail and that God had a hand in their lives— and not the hand Father Rey had preached of.
Between bouncing Lydia, I recorded the ledgers while Collin— still known as Ian to most everyone else— distributed the coin. Alistair and Finlay were on hand to assist as well, lest anyone become insistent about taking more than his share.
“My family and I will not be joining you.” Brian MacDonald stood before the table, battered hat in his hand, his motherless children huddled around him.
No. I had come to love this little family, especially the youngest two, who seemed to visit our room as eager for my attention as they were to see their little sister. Lydia will not know her siblings.
“My parents’ and now my wife’s bones lie in Scotland,” Brian said. “I’ll not leave them to risk a journey across the sea.” He paused, then looked over at me. “Neither will my daughter.”
It took me a few seconds to realize what he meant, before his pointed stare at the squirming bundle in my arms finally reached me.
I stepped back, clutching Lydia to my breast. “You gave her to me. You can’t possibly care for her along with your other children too.” I glanced at Collin, his expression grim as he stood.
“Think carefully what is best for the bairn,” he said to Brian. “Katie loves her fiercely, as do I. We will see that she is safe and raised well. Lydia needs a mother.”
“She’ll have one.” Brian plunked the hat back on his head. “We’re to be married as soon as we can, by proper clergy, which is a mite better than your own arrangement.”
“Ian and I will marry,” I said. Keeping Lydia was worth false witness before God. Considering our circumstances, I felt certain he would both understand and forgive.
“No need,” Brian said. “My wife will take care of the bairn. We’ll go to the coast and work the kelp.” Brian didn’t make it sound any better than it was— an arranged marriage born of need, and perhaps desperation. But who here felt desperate enough to agree to staying and taking on the care of another woman’s five small children?
“Whom are you to marry?” Collin sounded as dazed as I felt.
“Me.” Mhairi moved from her brother’s side, farther back in the line, to stand at Brian’s. Her gaze met mine, challenging.
I stepped back and sat down hard in the chair, startling Lydia. She began to cry, and I bent my head close to hers, whispering soothing words.
“Why would you do this?” The back of Collin’s hands grew white as he leaned forward, pressing into the table. “For spite? It’s cruel to bring a bairn into it, and Katie’s done nothing to you. Your quarrel was with me, and it has long passed.”
Mhairi edged closer, speaking low so only we could hear. “Nothing— Collin? Your wife has everything I ever wanted, and she doesn’t even appreciate it. She didn’t even recognize you when I did. She can’t love you as I do.” Mhairi made to come around the table. “Hand me the child,” she said more loudly.
“Her name is Lydia.” I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek close to Lydia’s, inhaling her sweet baby scent. This can’t be happening.
“Katie.” Collin’s voice was choked. He knelt beside me and placed a hand on the back of Lydia’s head. “I’m so sorry.”
Our eyes met, each bright with tears. “She’s ours,” I whispered. “He can’t simply take her back— not after all this time.”
“I’m afraid he can.” Collin stroked Lydia’s soft curls. “To try to stop him would mean a fight— bloodshed, either his or mine. Either way it would only hurt all of his children more. You know as well as I we’ve little time as it is to get everyone safely away. Better Lydia is away with them, than delayed here in harm’s way.”
“We love her. He hardly knows her at all— never comes to visit. Mhairi won’t care for her either.”
“That is not for us to judge.” Collin reached to take Lydia from me.
“We love her,” I repeated. Tears coursed down my face as he pulled her from my arms.
“We always will,” Collin said. “It is because we love her that we must let her go.”
“Wait.” I leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
Collin pressed his own to mine. “Courage.”
* * *
My hands shook as I unpinned Lydia’s clothes from the ever-present line in our room. I held each to my chest, the tiny garments I had sewn for her, imperfectly made, but created with a perfect love. It had never mattered that she’d not been born of me. She’d been my baby, my daughter. The idea of a world without her in it was incomprehensible. I ached to hold her already.
Can I have no happiness?
“I am beginning to think you really do love Collin. He tells me you have forgiven his deceit.”
I didn’t need to look up to know that Mhairi stood behind me. I hadn’t bothered closing the door, certain I would fall to pieces the second I was alone.
“You really don’t love him,” I threw back. “Or you wouldn’t hurt him like this.”
“You both needed to know what it feels like to love someone you can’t have.”
“You think we don’t understand loss and yearning?” I ripped a nappie from the line. “When did your mother die— a few months ago? I lost mine when I was four. I’ve wanted to be with her my whole life. I can’t because she was murdered in front of me by the man who has now returned to lead this clan and who would happily kill us all. Knowing this, Collin and I came here and faced him— and nearly lost each other and our lives in the process.” I tossed the clothes on the bed and marched across the room, stopping only when I was toe-to-toe with Mhairi.
She had Lydia with her wrapped snuggly, more so than she liked to be these days. Mhairi stood with feet planted wide, one hand on her hips as if ready for battle. I was too.
Doing my best not to look at Lydia— and cry— I forced my attention to Mhairi’s face.
“Collin’s father gave his life for him. I left my family behind in England to come here, to be with Collin and to try to help. I know what it is to love— and lose. Collin and I both do.”
Spent from my speech and all else from the past few days, I sank into the rocker and brought a hand to my throbbing head.
“This isn’t just about that,” Mhairi said. “About a cost to you and Collin. You lived only months believing he was Ian, with the constant reminder of the man you loved and believed dead. I have lived years watching Collin, hoping, having him right here in front of me but unable to claim his as mine.” Her eyes were bright as she shook her head. “I can’t spend the rest of my life watching you both, seeing what I can never have. Leaving Scotland was never an option for me.”
“So stay.” I kept my head down, not wanting to see Lydia or the hurt reflecting from Mhairi’s face. She was hurting us— and Lydia. I brought my clasped hands to my mouth and breathed deeply, battling both sorrow and anger as I had the night Collin confessed his deception.
“Why marry Brian? There are other men here.” Those who weren’t mourning a wife and who didn’t have five children already. “I thought you liked Earnan.”
“I do. But he is leaving to go with you, and I’ve just told you why I cannot.”
“Five bairns, Mhairi. Do you realize how much work that will be?” I faced her again. “Caring for Lydia takes all my time, and she is but one.”
“Took all your time,” Mhairi corrected. “Now you will have more to devote to your husband. While I fill my days caring for Lydia and her siblings. God willing, they will exhaust me. I ask nothing more of my new situation than to be able to fall asleep at night without thinking of your husband.”
She was throwing her life away. Caring for motherless children was noble, but Mhairi wasn’t doing it for them or their father or even for herself. It was to make Collin and me suffer as she did and with the hope that she’d work herself into oblivion. I hoped she would.
I sniffed loudly and brushed the tears from my cheeks— a pointless effort, as more followed. Perhaps if I begged, her heart would soften. “Four children will be plenty to both occupy your mind and exhaust you. Lydia knows only me as her mother and Collin as her father. We love her. We would do anything for her.”
“Anything?” Mhairi’s voice was unusually high. “Would you give each other up for her? If I said you could have Lydia, would you leave Collin and return to England?”
My breath caught, lungs refusing to expand or contract. I’d been wrong about Mhairi’s reasons. There was one more. She’d come up here to force me to a choice. It was her last chance, some ill-thought, absurdly planned attempt at winning Collin. No matter that I was already married to him and that she, too, had given her promise to another man.
I closed my eyes, tears squeezing from them. Lydia would probably be resented, or at the least ignored because I had loved her. How could I let her go, knowing this?
An innocent child.
I stood and moved close to Mhairi once more. I pulled back the corner of the blanket and touched Lydia’s soft cheek, remembering the night Collin had first brought her to me.
“You were the one spreading rumors— calling me the barren bride.”
“Aye,” Mhairi admitted easily. “And frigid. We all knew you wouldn’t let Collin touch you. He deserves more. He deserves me.”
“It’s true that I wouldn’t let the man I believed to be Ian touch me. But the few times he did, it was as if a flame leapt up between us. The same that existed between Collin and me. I didn’t want to feel that for anyone else. I didn’t want to be disloyal to my husband, no matter that we’d been married only three weeks and I believed him dead.”
Mhairi scoffed. “You did not even recognize your own husband.”
“You knew Collin years to my weeks. Little wonder you recognized him first.” I touched the soft curls beginning to show on Lydia’s head. “You could give her to someone else,” I suggested. “Someone who wants a child.”
“You want a child. You want her,” Mhairi insisted.
“I do.”
She pushed Lydia toward me. “Take her then. And go.”
Lydia. Collin. The imaginary scale in my mind would not equal. Just as he must always consider me first, I had promised the same to him.
My eyes fastened on Lydia’s innocent face one last time. Tears blurred my vision as I stepped back and shook my head. “My love for Collin began before either of us walked this earth.” I still could not imagine my life without him. I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t. Ever. We were meant to be together. “I would never do anything to hurt him.”
Bless Lydia and keep her safe. “I will never leave him. My answer is no. A thousand times no. I will never give up Collin.”