Mother Blair had found it on the green and returned it to him without meeting his eyes. “I thought you might want this,” she’d said gruffly, and then snatched her shawl tighter over her chest and left him staring at the wedding brooch given to Ina by Andrew Carson. Given to Lachlan by Finley.
Were any of the people of Town Blair happy he’d returned? Marcas and Dand said they were, but Lachlan thought perhaps Dand was the only one who claimed it with any truth. Marcas…Marcas was tired. Tired and bitter from his struggle with and against Lachlan, his troublesome foster son. Perhaps he was more than a bit humiliated, too; defeated by the role that was taken from him not once, but twice. Was Lachlan only a reminder of the dark clan secrets that had been aired before all the valley to their great shame? Were they happy to have Lachlan as chief?
Am I happy to be chief?he asked himself suddenly. He’d sought justification for so long that, once he’d gained it, he’d never thought to question it before that night, sitting alone in his grandfather’s house, wearing his grandfather’s shawl. This was the future he had secured for himself—fought and nearly died for. Leading these people, living in this house, this town, for the rest of his life. He’d won.
But rather than victory, why did it feel like he’d sentenced himself to a long, cold mourning for what could have been?
Lachlan drained the cup, then blew out the lamp to hide his shaking hands in the dark.
* * * *
A pounding on the door woke Marcas Blair from his sleep. His head ached from too much mead, too many bad dreams of death and fire and blood. He pulled himself from the bed in the early dawn light and trudged to the door, his flesh prickling with the chill. He opened the door and saw one of the old wives, the hem of her skirts wet with dew.
“Marcas,” she panted. “It’s the Blair.”
“Lachlan?” He rubbed his eyes.
“Aye, look!” The woman pointed a thick arm over the green.
Marcas squinted and then saw the blurry outline of a fluttering cloth on the side of the Blair’s longhouse. It was like looking into the past, only months ago, when Archibald had died.
Marcas ran from the house in his bare feet, across the green toward the flapping cloth. It was the shawl, of that there could be no doubt. He crashed against the door, throwing it open and bursting inside.
“Lachlan!” He looked around the long, wide room. Everything was as it should have been, except there were no boots on the floor, no satchel on the peg. No knives on the table, no fire in the center hearth. The room was cold.
Marcas walked back outside and stood before the old, threadbare shawl nailed to the longhouse wall. It was a clear message: Lachlan didn’t care who the Blair was anymore. He didn’t want the law of it. He didn’t want them. He was gone.
Lachlan had gone home.
Marcas leaned his forehead against the old shawl, the rough wall beneath poking through the thin material into his flesh, but he didn’t care. He wept bitter tears of regret.
* * * *
Finley came out of the house in the misty morning light, pulling her shawl more tightly around her. She wobbled in her slipper, realizing she hadn’t put it on properly, and stood in the dooryard, bent over, fighting with it. There.
She raised up, but froze in place as she heard the echoing clatter of metal on metal coming from the barn. She sighed. It was either Da, changed his mind about letting her take over all the chores in truth, which he’d promised not to do—again—or it was yet another of the townsmen, intent on wooing her with work. She’d found a Blair lad, at least five years her junior, in there last week.
Finley trudged up the path wearily. Taking care of the farm would be a lot less work if everyone would just let her get on with it.
She walked into the barn and saw a man in the shadows, turned away from her and bent at the waist, propping the fork against the wall. He straightened, and Finley noticed that he was missing his shirt. Her heart skipped, recognizing at once those shoulders, the line of his spine. He turned.
“Lachlan,” she breathed.
“Good morning,” he said. “How’s your arm?”
“As if you care. What are you doing?”
He looked around the aisle pointedly, then back to her. He shrugged. “Working.”
“Why are you here?” she demanded.
“I left Town Blair.” He put his hands on his hips, blew out a breath while looking at the ground for a moment, then raised his eyes to her again. “I’m sorry. I made a terrible mistake, Finley.”
She nodded vaguely. “Aye. That you did. Several.”
He took a step toward her. “I love you—”
“Stop.” Finley held up a hand. “You stop right where you stand, Lachlan Blair. I doona want to hear another word. You can just…you can just put your shirt back on and go home.” She turned and stalked from the barn, hot tears leaking from her eyes. She flung them away with her fingertips.
