Prologue
Anno Domini 1192. April
The spring insects buzzed peaceably, and the evening sun promised a glowing sunset. Madeline Crawford had watched many sunsets, hoping that the warm rays would heal her broken heart. Aye, her heart was finally healing, because in this moment, she could breathe in and out and appreciate the beauty without the sadness that had plagued her for so long, threatening to kill her simple joy. In this moment, she felt content. The first time she had felt so in many months. She looked down, smiled, and adjusted a blanket, then picked up her book of Aesop’s Fables again and continued reading.
“And so, the wise astrologer walked, gazing upward at the heavens”—how she also enjoyed looking at the night sky and contemplating the patterns of stars—“only to then fall into a well. The townsfolk gathered around him, hearing his calls of distress, only then to scold him. ‘Wise astrologer,’ they said. ‘Whilst you were staring upward at the sky, trying to divinate the meaning of the stars, you failed to see the very things here on earth that surround you…’”
The very earth beneath her began to rumble as she finished the sentence. Madeline paused. The guardsmen on the wall were clattering down the walk, their arms clanking and chain mail jingling. She looked out through the open gates, down the meandering path that led along the valley between the hills.
The beating of horse hooves was growing stronger, as if the army of England were descending upon her simple stone tower to raze her home. She saw two horsemen barreling down the road toward her, both dark haired. The one in the back, as wild as the Highlands from which he had come, wore his MacGregor great kilt proudly. The horseman in front wore a dirty Irish leine, the white of it having seen brighter days, with boots lacing up his legs. His hair was shaggy, longer, his beard unmanaged. Over his shoulder was a haphazardly pleated plaid, the same color as the other man’s tartan.
Madeline snatched up her bundle of blankets, allowing the book to tumble from her hands and splay open in the dirt. Two of her servants, Fingal and the young lass Joselyn, raced for the door of the tower to hustle Madeline within.
Yet a wary tingling was coursing through her blood. She knew the man propelling toward her gate. It didn’t seem real, didn’t seem possible. It couldn’t be him. After all this time. After so many months, after she had finally resigned herself to accept Rabbie MacGregor’s marriage offer. After she had given up hope that this man would ever return. It had to be a marauder, intent on rape and pillage.
It couldn’t be him.
“Madeline!” the man called in a voice with a rich timbre, galloping through the wooden gates and pulling back on the reins of his mount. “Madeline, stop!”
She whirled around in the doorway and finally saw him as he threw himself from the saddle. The sight was a shock. She froze. It was him. It was Teàrlach MacGregor, in the flesh, in an Irish leine and boots, as if he were the fabled Fionn incarnated. His hair had always been shaggy, but he could tie it back now, if he wanted. She remembered so vividly the feel of his curls as her fingers laced through them, combing them in gentle pets as he lay upon her breast by the nighttime campfire surrounded by insect cadences and silence. Her heart ached anew.
The late sun set his eyes aglow, eyes that had aged considerably in the span of these past months, but were as handsome as they had always been. She remembered them so vividly, eyes like amber, tinted with the warmth of whisky, gazing into her own eyes lovingly as he caressed her tresses behind her ears, kissed her… He was still as broad and tall, a bit thinner than he used to be, with a waist belted in thick leather. She remembered another belt she had once undone, tugging on the leather, pulling free the clasps with the shaking hands of a young woman on the verge of losing her heart forever—letting it fall, letting his trousers fall, letting those arms of his collect her in his embrace as he lay her down on his tartan among the leaves, his callused fingers brushing her legs, her thighs, as he settled between her knees…
Now here he stood, every bit as beautiful, as if he could just walk back into her life after turning heel in front of Edinburgh Castle and striding out of her world forever, leaving her to her own devices, tears in his eyes that he had tried to withhold. Her hand flew to her mouth now to cover the sob that jumped into her throat. Teàrlach had been gone for so long, she had thought him dead. They all had. She had thought her heart dead. Once she had come to terms with the anger, with the confusion of his absence, she had finally found a way to move on, to live on, and had resigned herself to marry Rabbie, Teàrlach’s second oldest brother.
He jogged to her, wild desperation evident in his eyes, but slowed to a walk, then stopped a mere foot from her. He could have touched her but he didn’t. His confused stare darted back and forth between her and the blanket she clutched nervously to her breast. He held stone still. Tears were streaming down Madeline’s cheeks. She couldn’t feel a thing and yet felt everything at once. Her heart was hammering with such force, it was all she could do to keep it from popping out of her chest.
“Maddie,” Teàrlach croaked, his voice gruff, and suddenly, the warrior man before her lost the battle of his own tears. Water bubbled over his lids and cascaded down his cheeks into his beard. “Sweet Maddie,” he whispered, and collapsed to a knee before her. “I’m so sorry.”