“I loved ye as Jamie.” His voice rumbled through the quiet room, bouncing off the dark paneling and the books crammed into every nook and cranny. “But I’m here tae tell ye right now—I love ye as Eilidh, too. The lass I’ve come to know over the past few weeks is every bit as fiery and brave and courageous as Jamie, just in different ways. Ye are not two people,mo chridhe. Ye have always, ever, only been yourself—the woman I love.”
“Kieran . . .”
“Marriage was never a whim for me, Eilidh.” He shook his head—a sharp slice of motion. “I could have married any number of women. But I waited for you. Because in yourself, I found the missing half of my own soul. Ye accepted me with open arms. We raced into our marriage, hand in hand, eager to begin the rest of our lives together.”
A tear spilled down her cheek.
He leaned forward and caught it with his finger, holding it between them. The teardrop sparkled in the light, reflecting both their faces back to him.
“But here is my final, barest truth.” He shook the teardrop free. “If you’re trying to choose between myself and Simon, Iwantye to choose him. Because if ye truly loved me, there would be no other choice. I dinnae want a crumb of our love. I dinnae want a ghost of it. I want the whole brightness. And if I cannae have that—”
His voice broke at the end.
He swallowed and then continued, tone coarse with emotion.
“If I cannae have that, then I want to be free.”
He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out her gold wedding ring on its chain.
The one he had purchased for her, believing her dead.
The one he had kept warm with his body for nearly five years.
The one she had never worn.
He held the chain aloft, the ring slowly spinning between them, gold glinting in the low light.
Her eyes fixed on it.
“Ye asked me if I could let ye go?” His voice was the barest whisper. “And the answer is . . .yes. Yes, lass.”
He reached for her hand and lifted it, cupping it in his, coaxing her fingers open. Her hand felt so slight, so fragile, her pulse fluttering.
Very slowly, very gently, he deposited the ring on her palm.
He coiled the chain, round and round, atop it.
Then, one by one, he closed her fingers around the ring.
He looked at her fisted hand. And then raised his gaze to hers.
“Yes,mo chridhe, I love you enough to set ye free.”
32
Eilidh was in a shambles.
She drifted through the midsummer festival in a daze, Simon and his mother at her side.
The entire county was in attendance, it seemed.
There were booths of local merchants set up on the south lawn. The haberdasher had yards of silk ribbon and lace collars from Ayrshire. The two local inns were competing to see who could sell the most whisky and steak-and-ale pies. An enterprising pair of widows were raking in the coppers with delicious wedges of clootie dumpling wrapped in paper.
Beyond the booths, children screeched in delight at the scarecrow contest, each effigy more scandalous and terrifying than the last.
The men were gathered around a large, roped-off stretch of lawn, participating in a time-honored Scottish tradition—trying to impress one another by lifting and/or throwing absurdly heavy things. To that end, someone had attached a chain to an enormous stone, and the men were now seeing who could spin fast enough to send the chained boulder sailing. Their calls and shouts of encouragement rang out in sharp bursts of sound.
And through the lot, the never-ending thrum of bagpipes reverberated. A group of elders took it in turns to play, calling out tunes in an attempt to stump one another.
