Chapter Ten
Though she had not been to the cottage in many months, she could find the way with her eyes closed. Even the horse beneath her seemed to remember it, for it had carried her many times. The blacksmith let her borrow his horse when she had the need of it and never asked why. Other than Lachlan, his friend and Davina, no one knew where they met.
This morn, as she crossed the miles south towards the coast, she ached. Her body ached in places she’d forgotten could feel such a thing. Her head throbbed from so little sleep these last days. And her heart hurt for what she must do now.
This stranger, this man called Iain, had been some kind of catalyst for her since his arrival. She’d been mired in pain and grief. Her whole life had spun down around that. Ailis knew she shouldn’t treat her father and friend as she had, but it seemed out of her control. For all his real or imagined similarities to Lachlan, something about Iain had given her true comfort, providing a chance to break with the grief and the past. She could move forward, to be the woman she was meant to be. The woman Lachlan would have expected of her, a woman of honor, a woman who didn’t waste love when it came to her.
And now she was ready for the next step.
After more than an hour of riding, she turned down a path. It led to the place that held both happiness and complete sorrow for her. The cottage hadn’t been much, just a place where drovers would shelter as they took their herd to the south for the winter. Over the years, it had been built up from a simple shelter to more of a cabin with a real roof and walls and a door. Ailis tugged the reins and slid off the horse’s back.
Now, only a blackened area of destruction and death with some strewn remnants of the wood that had not been burned to ashes sat where the cottage used to be. It had been a fast fire. She saw the first flicker of it and then the whole cottage was engulfed in flames before she could reach it … reach him.
She’d tried to get to the door, to get to him, but her sleeves had caught fire and the pain had driven her back. What must he have suffered within this place when it became Hell on earth?
Ailis didn’t try to stop the tears. She walked around the perimeter of the clearing and sat on a large rock under the trees.
“I have come to beg yer forgiveness, Lachlan,” she said aloud. “If it werena for me, ye would be alive now.”
There. The truth of what lay at the bottom of her soul. If not for her, Lachlan would be alive this very day. That truth and her own guilt in his death had kept her from being able to let it go and live the life she had. Mayhap if she confessed to him, to his eternal soul as the priests taught, she could begin to live once more.
Oh, she would never, could never, forget him or their love. But if she accepted her part in bringing him here to his death, could she forgive herself someday?
“I admit it to ye and confess my guilt, Lachlan. If I hadna pressed the matter, if I hadna lied about my father’s knowledge about us, ye would be alive today.”
She let the words out and the wind carried them away. Ailis had thought it time to announce their intentions to their families. Lachlan thought it best to wait until the matter of his brother’s marriage and the rising conflicts between their clans had been settled. Then, when word came of his brother’s and mother’s deaths, she’d sent word for him to come. She’d lied in her note to him that her father knew.
“I beg yer forgiveness, Lachlan. For lying to ye. For bringing ye here when it was not safe. For … all of it.”
Ailis closed her eyes and waited. She was not certain that she expected a reply or a sign he’d heard her words. Truly, just speaking them had lightened her soul. There was more within her, but the only thing she could do was go on without him. She must move on from the stubborn daughter she had been to a more mature woman who thought on the cost of her actions before she acted.
She wiped the tears away from her eyes and took a breath before standing. Walking towards the horse, Ailis understood she’d never return here. Lachlan was gone and nothing could bring him back. She managed to mount using the rock. As she rode down the path, she turned back for one last look. And one last moment of regret.
If only …
The storm clouds gathered ahead of her as she made her way back to Dun Ara. She still had to speak to Davina before this was all settled. Then it would be done.
He was Lachlan MacLean.
Not Iain the Unknown.
Lachlan MacLean, the second son of Dougal MacLean, chieftain here on Mull.
He knew it now. He knew it even if his memory hadn’t returned. HewasLachlan MacLean and he had died on this spot almost nine months ago.
He was the man Ailis claimed to have loved and lost.
He was the same man she had just confessed to having a part in his death.
Lachlan walked from the shadows of the forest that surrounded the burnt cottage and pulled his hood back. Removing the mask, he let the cool breeze soothe his skin. He glanced around this clearing, studying the landscape and recognizing it.
It would take him almost two hours of hard riding to get here from … Aros Castle down the coast. He stared off in that direction trying to will more memories to come. Only the simplest ones did. Nothing that would explain her confession or her role in killing him.
Or how he’d survived the inferno that had destroyed the cottage. He walked to the edge of the ashes and moved some of them with his foot, hoping it would make something happen within his mind. Surely, facing the place where he’d nearly died would elicit some strong reaction?
Something, a trick of the light mayhap, caught his gaze. He made his way through the ashes and lumps of wood to the very center. He waited to relive the fire that destroyed this place and him, but it didn’t happen. No flash of memory. No feelings.
Then his foot snagged on something under the ashes.
