Chapter 20
The wind rushed pastCharlie’s face, cool and sharp. She held tight to Niall, one hand gripping the saddle horn but the other gripping the arm he held around her waist, feeling the solid strength of him beneath her fingers. Around them, the landscape flashed by in a kaleidoscope of purples and browns, and Glennoch was already disappearing behind them.
They began passing through a wilder, more rugged landscape with little evidence of human habitation. Instead, sheep were their only companions as Niall guided the horse along a path that only he seemed to know.
Neither spoke, but Charlie could feel the urgency boiling in him. She shared it. After what they’d discovered in those letters...
She knew they were walking a tightrope, that if this went wrong, it could get grim for the both of them. Her heartbeat went up a notch whenever she thought about it. She was just a potter from Cardiff. How had she gotten embroiled in seventeenth century Scottish politics?
She glanced over her shoulder at Niall. His brows were pulled into a frown, his gaze like a raptor’s as he stared ahead. The urgency of their mission was a steady pulse in her veins, but still, she couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened between them at the loch. The way he had looked at her. The way he had touched her, as though she was something precious.
She had never thought she could love someone like this. Never thought she could feel this fiercely, this completely. And yet here she was, holding on to him as if letting go was impossible.
Is this what you meant, Irene?she thought.Is this my story? Ishemy story?
Niall shifted slightly in the saddle. “We’ll be there soon,” he murmured against her ear, the heat of his breath sending a rush of warmth through her. “The path through the glen will save us time.”
As they crested a gentle rise, the land sloped down toward a vast, moonlit expanse of water. The loch stretched out before them, its surface rippling with the wind, catching the silver gleam of the quarter moon. The air smelled different here—fresh, tinged with the scent of the water and the faintest trace of woodsmoke drifting from the castle that loomed on the shore.
Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat as her gaze settled on the Campbell ancestral home.
The castle was immense. Towers rose high against the sky, their stone walls pale and imposing. A fortified curtain wall wrapped around the castle, its gate standing open but flanked by two watchful guards. The building itself was a far cry from Glennoch—this was power and history woven into stone, a place built to withstand centuries of conflict and rule over the land.
“Youlivedhere?” she asked, her voice hushed with awe.
“Aye,” Niall said, his tone unreadable. “Dun Haymore. It’s where I grew up.”
She glanced at him, catching the flicker of something she couldn’t quite name in his expression. Nostalgia? Regret? Perhaps both.
He clucked to the horse and they began moving again. As they descended from the rise, the landscape became softer, more tamed. The wild heather and rugged hills gave way to rolling pastureland, dotted with the occasional stone croft and small fields enclosed by low, moss-covered walls. The loch stretched beside them, vast and dark, its surface rippling beneath the night breeze. The air smelled fresh—earthy from the damp soil, with the faintest tang of peat smoke drifting from unseen hearths.
The road took them through a small village nestled at the foot of the castle walls. It was quiet at this late hour, but lights still burned in some of the cottages, warm and golden against the dark. As they rode through, a few villagers stepped out of their homes, drawn by the sound of hooves on the packed earth.
“Lord Niall!” A man called out from the threshold of a thatched house, his voice carrying in the still night air. “Back at last, eh?”
A woman further down the lane peered out of her window and gasped. “Saints above, itishim!”
