“I’m sorry,” he gasped out to her, reaching his hand to grip her face, smearing blood along her cheek. “I… I should have told ye.”
He winced, groping at his wound, trying to find the words even as the pain rose to consume him.
“I should have told ye the moment ye showed me that letter. Malric… he still holds some sickening grudge against my family. His father sold my clan spoiled grain. He caused an outbreak of disease that had taken the lives of a few of his people. Callum could have spread that news far and wide if he’d wanted to, but… he just cut off their trade route quietly; made sure that others knew what to look out for in the bad batch that he had been trying to pass off. But Malric and his father…”
“They took this as a grand slight against their people,” Ailsa added for him.
“Aye. In the months since his father died, Malric picked up that grudge and ran with it, as though seeing it through would go some way to saving his father’s memory. He lured Callum out to their Keep to meet with him about making amends. When Callum came back in a casket, Malric’s smirking gaze over the coffin told me what had happened. There was no doubt about it in my mind. This bastard had taken my brother from me, and God knows what else he would do given the chance…”
He stroked her golden hair caringly, his eyes glinting as he tried to keep his tears in control. This was real. Ailsa was alive.
“I was afraid of losing ye,” he confessed. “Like I lost Callum.”
“No,” she murmured, her eyes filled with tears, smoothing her hands over his cheeks. “I should… I should have trusted ye. I thought I knew better. I thought I could make things right for ye. But then…”
She bit her lip.
“I thought he would kill ye, Tavish,” she confessed. “After all ye’d done for me, all ye’d done to protect me, I thought I had lostye. And I could never have lived with myself if I had lost ye like that. If I had lost… the man I loved.”
He took a moment to make sense of her words. But then, it struck him.
She loved him. She truly loved him.
“I love ye, too,” he murmured, and he pressed his lips to hers, not caring for the blood on their skin, not caring for anything other than her.
“Come,” she breathed against his lips. “Ewan will handle them. We must get back to the Keep.”
And, as she drew him to his feet, despite the pain, he could not help but smile. Because the woman he loved was at his side. And that, he reasoned, was worth all the pain in the world.
Epilogue
The cool airwhipped through Ailsa’s hair as the two of them rode together, the smell of the falling leaves filling her senses.
She had her arms wrapped around Tavish, careful to avoid touching his wound where it was still fresh against his side. He had insisted that he was well capable of making the journey today, and she knew better than to argue with him on the matter.
It had been nearly a week since she had ridden out to meet with Malric, but, if she was to be honest, it felt like a lifetime ago. She could still not believe she had been so quick to fall for the stories that he had tried to spin to her.
But then, she had not known the truth then.
Tavish had feared that his bloodthirsty past would render him incapable of seeing things clearly. And, if she had to be honest with herself, maybe he was right. When they had first been married, she had seen him as little more than a brute. But now that she had a better idea of what lay underneath, she could see the man he truly was, and that man was one she wanted to understand deeper and deeper.
Now that Malric was dealt with, the matter of the battle that had been due to unfold had been shelved. His clan was stillrepairing itself after the loss of its leader, and that gave Tavish a chance to rest, not that he had taken much of it.
It didn’t seem to matter what he had been through, he had still been going out of his way to make sure that the Keep was in order. He had reached out to Martha personally, he had told Ailsa, to assure her that she would not be in trouble for aiding her. Any ally to his wife was an ally to him, he had promised her, and she had seemed relieved beyond words that he had not turned against her as he might once have done for her misdeeds.
Today, she had insisted that he take some time away from his study so he could get some fresh air, and he had, mercifully, agreed. In fact, he had revealed to her a small token that he had been working on for his brother; a leaf carved from a small log that had been destined for his fireplace, and she had suggested that they ride out to leave it on his grave together.
It was bittersweet, of course, the knowledge that her old friend was gone. But she hoped he would have taken some comfort in knowing that his death had brought the two of them together. His brother had stepped up to take his place, and now, as his wife, she could provide him with all the support he needed to make a life of what had been left behind after Callum’s loss.
Tavish drew the horse to a halt as they reached the small cluster of stones that made up the marker for Callum’s grave. He had not been buried in the chapel, as with most of the other Lairds of the clan, but on one of the hills that overlooked what had once been his kingdom; so that he would always be watching over his people, that’s what Tavish had explained to her.
Tavish climbed down from his horse and offered her a gentlemanly hand to do the same. As she dropped to the ground opposite Callum’s grave, she felt a stab in her chest and stooped down, laying her hand on the earth.
“I’m sorry ye’re no’ here to see the man yer brother has become, Callum,” she murmured, and she meant it.
He would have been so proud of Tavish; the man he had become, so confident and sure of himself, so proud of the status he took up as Laird of the Keep, so willing to do whatever it took to make sure that his people were taken care of.
“What are ye saying to him?” Tavish asked, his voice a little gruff.
