| |
I turned a slow circle, taking a last look around the room... the fireplace where the man I’d believed to be Ian had shattered a pitcher in a fit of rage, the bed I had slept in mostly alone, my mother’s paintings and my own. I appreciated them for what they were now, not so much perfected works of art, but glimpses of the future, given to us for guidance in a tumultuous world. So much had taken place here these past months. Much of it had been fraught with tension, yet I still felt a sorrowful tug at leaving.
Then there was Lydia. I fingered the soft wool cap in my hands. My first attempt at knitting had not been spectacular, but she had looked darling in it, and I had been sad when it no longer fit her growing head. It was all I would have to remember her by, the first child of my heart, if not my womb.
“Udal Cuain,” Collin remarked, casting a dark look at the ocean painting.
“What?” I took a careful breath and tucked the hat inside my satchel.
“To be tossed about or have distress at sea. It is what I would call this painting,” Collin said. “I wonder, will you ever paint a picture of good things to come?”
“I painted Bealach Druim Uachdair,” I reminded him. Our afternoon on that mountainside had been one of the sweetest of my life.
“So you did,” Collin said, a thoughtful expression on his face. “We should go. Alistair will have everyone in ranks by now. I want to leave ahead of them.”
We were not going to be traveling with the others, given the price on his head. Nearly everyone here still knew him as Ian, and Collin worried about endangering them with his presence as well as the temptation the offered reward presented for those in desperate circumstances.
Alistair, Finlay, and Gordon had been entrusted with the rest of my dowry, with Collin and me keeping enough for our own passage as well as for necessary funds when we arrived.
He headed for the door, and I followed, pausing for a last lingering glance from the hall.
The room looked much as it had when we’d arrived, save for the addition of the rocker— and the envelope mostly hidden beneath it. “My letter,” I exclaimed, rushing back into the room.
“From your family?” Collin asked, joining me.
“From my sister.” I’d had no hope of her ever writing to me, parting on poor terms as we had. But that didn’t lessen the pain of our estrangement. I broke the seal and unfolded the parchment. My eyes eagerly scanned the lines, then stopped at the unexpected news of my stepmother’s death.
“Oh no.” I brought a hand to my mouth, unable to speak what I had read out loud. Collin took the letter from me, looked over it quickly, then pulled me into his arms.
“I’m so sorry, Katie.”
On top of everything else from the past few days, I found this news made me simply numb. I’d no more tears to cry; I’d spent them all on Lydia.
“Anna wants me to come.”
“Aye. I read her words,” Collin said.
“I’ll have to send a letter explaining when we get to Glasgow.”
“A letter would be a good idea,” Collin said. “So she’ll know when to expect us.”
I leaned back to better see his face.
“Anna lives near London.”
Collin shrugged. “Ships leave from England as well.”
“We would have to cross the border.” With the price on his head— or Ian’s, as it were—we needed to avoid any confrontation with the English. “We wouldn’t be sailing with the others?”
“Probably not,” Collin said. “If we are fortunate enough to enter England undetected, I shouldn’t want to risk another trip north. Alistair, Finlay, and Gordon are capable. They will do well enough without us for now.” He pulled me close again, his hand stroking the back of my head. “Besides, if we can sail across an ocean and traipse through the Colonies in search of my brother, a week or two to visit your sister seems more than fair.”