“It’s all right, she would have been pleased to make you laugh. She delighted in being eccentric and shocking my father.” He smiled. “One of my childhood memories is watching my father storm after her when she put a live chicken in his library.” He smiled. “She wanted to annoy him, and she succeeded.”
“What happened to her?” she asked, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The last thing she wanted to do was to make Montgomery sad again.
His smile faded. “When I was thirteen, she took one of the boats out on the river and drowned.”
She lifted his hand and linked her fingers with his. “I’m sorry.”
“I used to go and visit her grave and talk to her. I always had the feeling she could hear me.” His smile was self-deprecating. “One of the reasons I miss Virginia.”
“For the graves?”
He studied their linked fingers.
“For the memories.”
“Memories are in your heart,” she said softly. “My parents are there. Not in that black spot of earth we saw.”
Both Elspeth and Robbie looked uncomfortable, and she couldn’t blame them. She’d not meant to reveal so much. Nor had Montgomery, from his quick look at her.
The journey from Inverness had taken longer than she’d planned. They’d traveled at night, but halfway to Perth, they’d stopped on the siding and remained there for hours. She’d slept with her head against Montgomery’s shoulder. Consequently, their arrival in the city had been at dawn, and after a hasty breakfast, they’d opted to travel to Elspeth’s grandmother rather than rest in one of the city’s hotels.
The hired carriage made the steep climb with some difficulty and, more than once, she wanted to simply change her mind about this errand and return to Doncaster Hall. The carriage wouldn’t be able to turn around on such a narrow road, however, so she simply sat back, gripped Montgomery’s hand tightly, and focused on what she was feeling from the inhabitants of the carriage.
Both Elspeth and her husband were radiating contentment. The love she felt from each of them for the other was uncomplicated and direct. She had no doubt the happiness Elspeth had seen for herself in the Tulloch Sgàthán would come true. As for Montgomery? As always, she felt a confluence of emotions from him: curiosity, relief, irritation, and a happiness so unexpected that she smiled.
Thankfully, they turned to the west, traveling away from the fortress for a few moments until the carriage stopped.
She stared out at the scenery, unsurprised to see a lone cottage in the middle of what looked to be a plateau. As if the top of the hill had simply been scraped flat and Old Mary’s home placed in the center of it. Not quite a cottage but more than a hut, the structure reminded her of an upside-down cup. The walls curved outward, no doubt because of the volume of thatch on the roof.
As they left the carriage and slowly walked toward the house, she counted three birds’ nests in the middle of the thatch. A red squirrel crossed their path, rose on his hind legs to chitter angrily at them, then disappeared.
“I’ll go ahead, Your Ladyship, if you don’t mind,” Elspeth said. “Warn her she has visitors.”
Veronica nodded. After a whispered conversation, Robbie retreated to the carriage. Montgomery looked as if he would like to do the same, but he resolutely remained at her side.
“You needn’t stay,” she said. She wasn’t sparing him as much as wishing privacy with Old Mary. She’d never mentioned the vision she’d had in the mirror and was a little embarrassed to do so now.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
She nodded.
He didn’t argue the point, evidently grateful to escape a meeting with a wisewoman. What else could Old Mary be? She watched as he retraced his steps. Instead of joining Robbie, however, Montgomery veered left, heading for an adjacent hill.
“Lady Fairfax?”
She turned to see Elspeth peering out the door at her. “Granny is ready for you.”
She took a deep breath and entered the house.
Montgomery strode to the top of the nearest hill, looking over at Kilmarin and its surroundings. He needed not only the exercise but the solitude. At the top, the vista before him was awe-inspiring.
Cool blue skies topped deep green hills, accented by a sliver of river sparkling in the distance. This land, with its beauty and its history, didn’t shine with the promise of a new country or reveal the still-bloody wounds of its growing pains. Scotland endured, as if it were filled with a quiet acceptance of all that had come before and would probably come again.
The strength of the land appealed to him; the stalwart nature of its people impressed him. When disaster occurred, they simply began again, resilient and resigned.
Could he do the same?
He closed his eyes, deliberately summoning his ghosts. James appeared dressed as he’d seen him last, a man intent upon his duty, excitement overlaying the look of worry inhis eyes. Alisdair was next, dressed as a prisoner, a role Montgomery had never witnessed but that his imagination furnished only too easily. Alisdair was thin, his beard scraggly, stubbornness gleaming in his sunken eyes. Caroline, darling Caroline, was next, her image that of a girl newly married, desperately in love with James, her laughter trilling up and around the oval staircase of Gleneagle.
