Scotland, 1809

 

There were things in life which were weightless. So devoid of the gruelling making existence seem not unbearable, but un-carriable. A waltz in the moonlight. Weightless. The laugher of a child in the sun. Weightless. Lips of a husband in your long hair. Weightless.

And then there were those impossible to carry. The past had that sort of unmeasurable heaviness which you bore like a dead body you dragged everywhere. It walked beside you on muddy roads. It sat next to you at meals. It lay by your side on cold nights. And it sank in your reminiscences—present and irretrievable at the same time.

The irretrievability weighed more than anything. Because you wish it alive here and now. And then you wish it never got engraved in your memory in the first place. The tons accumulated in the conflict of your tearing wishes hunched you. Day after day after day.

Freya’s mind rambled on about levity as she stumbled from the rushing river bank balancing two pails full of water in her once delicate hands. Usually, barrels around her isolated cottage provided rain water enough for years. Only, it had not rained in days, miraculously. Or not, if the weight on her shoulders had anything to say about it.

The weight on her shoulders had been immeasurable in more ways than one.

She struggled up the steep, sandy bank and looked up to her derelict cottage yards away. The robust wood used to make the pails were heavy when empty; full of water they added trice to the effort of hauling them.

“Mommy, let me help you.” Said Ewan, her four-year son, trailing close after her, his child’s voice echoing in the swishing trees around. 

Minding one arduous step after another and avoiding falling on the hazardous terrain, Freya answered her son. “No need, my love.” She managed in between laboured breaths. “It is not far.”

Except her hazel eyes lifted to her abode once more where it stood on top of a hill. The high ground favoured surveillance of the surrounding area whereas it offered a challenge when the need to carry anything up—or even down—arose.

River bank vanquished, she started up the rocky surface leading to the front door, not deaf or blind to the sound of rushing water, the birds, or the cool autumn breeze swirling among the yellowing trees as the sun inched towards west.

A too big step to transfer from the bank to the track made the content slosh in the pails with the consequent loss of precious drops. Freya halted to regain balance and focused on the uneven stone steps she had carved on the track to make transit easier.

Four years ago, in desperate flight, in the darkest night, she had come across this isolated and crumbling place. It had to be enough to hide from the world and the threats which inhabited it. But every single day brought a duel against fear. Fear of discovery. Fear for her son. Fear of loss. A loss that already resided in her heart for the self-imposed exile.

To wake up each morning and go to sleep each night with a void inside her had become the tune of her life. The only solace she found was on her son, who had always been the brightest beacon in this darkness. Her little boy remained the one thing no one, absolutely no one, could know about in this entire world.

Her feet overcame one slippery step after the other, followed by her son’s chatting and her puffy breaths. Mere five to go, she counted with a lengthy exhale. Mother and son approached the cracked front door and Freya slowly squatted to repose the pails on the muddy ground. Unfolding a body which had turned strong and resilient with daily chores, hazel eyes took in the slight building.

It had long been abandoned by the time she found it. But she made do, one repair here, an addition there to carve a home for Ewan and herself. The abode consisted of a room for sitting and cooking and a bedroom where she slept. A cot lay by the hearth in the sitting area for Ewan, made comfortable with threadbare blankets and the proximity to the fire.

As her torso bent to lift one of the pails, her auburn long hair set free from the careless bun that confined it to shine glorious in the late afternoon sun. Never mind, she was going to wash it soon enough. The water went into the massive cauldron hanging in the hearth. She would bathe her boy and use the water for her afterwards.

Warm water poured in a wooden basin, Freya turned to the four-year-old. “Ewan, undress and come to the basin.”

His little arms worked on ragged clothes, the sight prickling his mother’s eyes. Her son deserved so much more than a derelict home and over-worn clothing. The meagre produce she sold in faraway markets allowed barely for their subsistence. And she reminded herself safety would always come before everything.

Coarse homemade soap and washcloth in hands, Freya concentrated on caring for Ewan.

“I could bathe in the river, mommy.” He commented after she had cleaned his face.

“The water is too cold for you, my love.” His arms raised for her to wash his armpits. “And you are forbidden to—.”

“—go into the river. I know.” He had heard the rule a thousand times. Only this week.

“Exactly.” She rubbed his tiny feet. “It is dangerous. Especially when it rains, and the water rushes even faster than usual.”

The disgruntled expression on his lovely face did not move her this time. “Next summer, I will finish teaching you how to swim. Then you can try it. But only when it does not rain.” She reinforced. Though rain, as a rule, would be the pattern in this corner of the world. He nodded as she washed his hair.

She was rinsing Ewan’s hair when the pounding on the front door started. Her hazel eyes widened on the barred sturdy wood as her heart descended into a gallop stronger than this fierce pounding. Washcloth and soap fell in the water with a splash she did not hear due to the blood buzzing in her ears.

The pounding returned louder, so strong that the walls trembled.

Her frame stood in the room frozen, a million possibilities flashing in her mind. None of them optimistic. Fists curled, her attention ran around the modest room in search of a way out, something to use as a weapon. A magic spell to hide her son.

When it repeated yet for the third time, Freya gulped air at the same moment she steeled with courage. Cowardice would lead her nowhere. The intruder would have to leave by whichever means she might use.

On shaking legs, thrashing heart and valiant stance, she unbarred the door and opened a narrow crack enough for her face to peer out.

The adrenalin which had been pulsing with dread, now pulsed with…awe.

Hazel eyes widened anew, this time to take in the visitor. The one who never left her thoughts every minute of the day—or night, especially night. He, who she had avoided like the plague for the last four years. He, whom she would love to her last breath. He, her husband.

Drostan, her silent breath prayed.

Drostan, standing there with his six-feet-four of powerful male, wavy chestnut hair and eyes the colour of old-whisky, the most beautiful eyes in this entire planet.

Drostan, whom had bestowed on her one whole year of married bliss and then given her the most precious thing they could have made together.

The man she had loved long before the McPhersons and the McKendricks agreed on an alliance.

The husband she must leave, so he kept living while she died inside. And kept on dying every sunset since, her heart shrinking a bit more, drying a drop more. Giving up one last hope.

The early November sunset on the backdrop, designed his broad frame clad in that green, black and white tartan which made him even more magnificent, more impressive, fierier.

Never would she succeed in forgetting the fire. That which they ignited in their wedding night and kept blazing every single night and every single time their eyes crossed during the day. The one which had simmered during their too lengthy betrothal with stolen kisses in sun-drenched woods, forbidden caresses on foggy loch margins, whispered promises in darkened halls. The wrenching same one combusting her skin now as they stood inches apart, separated by a door that would burn to cinders should they touch.

 One memory followed by another killed her in her lonely hours and then they revived her, granting the necessary fuel to live another day, fight another day, insist another day. Until she wished she suffered from selective amnesia to hold these conflicting emotions at bay. To stop wishing for things she would never, ever have again. To stop her heart from shattering when her mind conjured him, which it did with exasperating frequency.

“Freya.” His deep voice emitted.

Her gaze snapped up to his to find him scowling at her as if she was the most unpleasant creature to crawl the Earth. And who could blame him? She had left him after all, regardless of her motives. Those she would not talk about, not to him, not to anyone. His life depended on it, their son’s safety depended on it.

 

Drostan stared at his wife as if she had transformed in a ghost come back to the living. A woman he had not seen in four long years. Someone who vanished—disappeared, abducted, dead?—in thin air, like she had never been there, never married him, never taken him in her… A woman who betrayed her wedding vows. Something not strange to a McPherson, let’s face it. Taran’s deceased wife had done the same, had she not? His brother-in-law had needed the firm touch of his sister to overcome the wreckage.

Until this moment, Drostan tried to understand what had happened. One day she had been in his manor, the next she had become a mere figment of his imagination. The McKendricks had looked for her tirelessly. For one year, he had assigned his men to follow any lead, any information, any scrap of vestige to find his wife. No one came back with her. Or with answers, for that matter. The questions abounded. The hollow nights multiplied. Worry turned to loss, turned to rage, turned to betrayal, turned to worry again. Four years and no cue, no solution, nothing.

Solely to ride to this god-forsaken cottage and have it reveal her whereabouts.

Two of his tenants planned to get married; and they came to him to request the use of this place. They said it had been abandoned for a long time and they intended refurbishing it and making it their new home. So, he decided to have a look at it and judge its conditions for himself.

And here she stood, safe and in one piece, albeit dressed in little more than rags, a leaner figure, huge eyes dominating a face so beautiful it shifted the ground under his feet. The fallen auburn hair where he had dived his nose countless times to inhale her scent, register its softness; and find the curve of her neck below with his hungry lips. The fragment of reminiscence scalded his blood like it had not been scalded in…four years. Or thirty-four. As she had been the only woman to turn him inside out with the slightest glance. Still was, by the looks of it.

Damnation!

He focused—or tried to—on her disappearance. If she lived here unharmed, it must be because she chose to abandon him without a word, an explanation, a confrontation. The coward’s way out in the middle of the night. And that was unforgivable!

“Mommy.” A child’s voice whimpered in the shadows inside. “I am cold.”

At this, his scowl deepened to a suspicious frown.

Mummy? Mummy! What the hell is happening here?

She had a child? Children? By whom? Whoever sired the brat, he would…

 

By now he realised she had shut him off to dedicate her full attention to a wee thing of three or four in a basin far into the darkened room. With swaying hips, she returned inside to stand between him and the child, preventing him from seeing the latter.

“Sorry, my love.” The jealousy which speared Drostan at her tenderness caused him to think himself a monster for resenting a child.

A big towel wrapped the small body, head and all, as the mother lifted it to her with loving care.

He prowled inside, not caring he might be trespassing. And he did not. This was his cottage and the woman in it occupied it unauthorized, anyway.

 Mother and child stood with their backs to him, but he reached them in two large strides. He must see the bairn, must know how it looked, must see whom it looked like, must…

 

His large hand grabbed the towel and yanked it from the child's head. A mop of chestnut brown hair greeted him; a pair of old-whisky eyes turned innocent to him.

 

And he froze.

 

Froze as if an instant frost had descended from the arctic. Froze with bunched muscles that refused to move. Froze hard as a highland lake in the height of winter.

 

Just to have it all melt in a heatwave of rage as uncontrollable as the ocean clashing against the cliffs.

His wife lifted her gaze to him, and in them he saw something resembling dread, apprehension. Pure terror. Freya? Afraid of him? Did she think he would harm either of them? The possibility made him angrier.

That she had abandoned him should be enough to raise his temper. That she had hidden a boy who was undeniably his son from him got him fuming.

His wife of five years, four at a distance, knew him, naturally. Her head shook slightly, surely sensing his reaction and bent on protecting her son from it. After he ogled her with an intensity prone to burn the old cottage to the ground, he nodded and gave his back to her, attempting to put his fury under control.

By the time he faced her again, the boy had dressed in clothes as ragged as hers, but clean. His mother stood behind him, her elegant hands on his shoulders.

“Drostan,” his name on her full lips unleashed an explosion of memories he had worked hard to erase for more than four years. “This is Ewan. He is four and is your son.” Though distant, her modulated voice still unbalanced him, it always had. Now, the sound came as sirens for seamen adrift for decades. Tantalising, worth drowning for.

Her shapely legs crouched beside his son, an arm on his shoulders. “Ewan, meet your father, Drostan, Laird McKendrick.”

His tiny copy turned a cherubic face up to his father and beamed with the light of ten suns. “I have a father!” And would go skipping all over the place if his mother had not stopped him.

“Remember what I taught you about being introduced to new people?” She reminded him with utter care.

The boy became instantly solemn, and bowed his tousled head to Drostan. “Nice to meet you, Laird McKendrick.”

Drostan came down to the boy’s level, not missing the fact that Freya stood up and put distance between them. He took the wee hand in his. “My pleasure, son.” He responded as a wave of tenderness washed over him. “Your great-grand-father called Ewan.”

“Really?” His son marvelled. And the Laird wondered what his father, Wallace, would say when he came to know the heir to the McKendrick had been right under their noses for all this time.

Wallace had gradually retired in the last few years, transferring most of his responsibilities to Drostan, who took his place as The Laird de facto presently. His brothers Fingal and Lachlan shared in the clan’s tasks and authority. Aileen, their youngest sister, had married Taran, The McDougal, quite recently.

“Ewan.” Freya’s voice broke into his musings. “Would you gather wood for me to make dinner?”

“Sure, mama.” And skipped to the entrance, happy to go back into the outdoors.

His boy must have taken all the light mood with him as Drostan’s enormous frame faced Freya, whisky eyes burning with renewed fury. “You will explain everything right away.” The command silky and fierce. “And it had better be very reasonable.”