Chapter 38
The ghost of Malcolm, the formless brollachan that had risen to Mary’s window and peered at her with burning yellow eyes, growled at her in a very Scots voice. The hand that clung to the window frame was broad, sunbaked, rough-skinned, and Malcolm’s.
Mary couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t be real, and yet . . .
Another snarl galvanized her. Mary lunged forward, caught Malcolm’s arms, and braced herself to pull in his bulk. Mal heaved himself up and over the windowsill and fell against Mary and into the room.
He took her down to the floor with him, landing full-length on top of her. The weight of him, the familiar feel of his body on hers, convinced her.
“Mal . . .” Mary struggled to speak. “Malcolm.”
Mal didn’t wait to say good evening, didn’t let Mary gasp out questions, offered no explanations. He bore her down into the carpet, his kisses landing on her face, hair, throat. He pulled open her dressing gown and nightdress, hands and mouth on her bare skin.
Malcolm was filthy, covered with mud and grime, his hair black, his face nearly the same color. Mary was dirty too now, dark smears across her breasts, stomach, thighs.
She didn’t care. Mary impatiently helped him open his clothes—no kilt now. Malcolm shoved everything out of their way, not waiting, and slid himself straight inside her.
Everything stopped as they came together. Tragedies and triumphs, hopes and fears, vanished, no longer mattering. They were Malcolm and Mary, face-to-face, body to body, the two of them against the world.
Mary said, “Malcolm,” this time in complete happiness. Mal was alive, whole, with her. What they had to face after this they could—they were together now.
Malcolm growled under his breath. He made love to her in a frenzy of passion, his body encompassing hers, Mary’s cries breathless. Mal came apart with her, pounding his balled-up fist into the carpet as he hoarsely whispered her name.
“My Mary.” Malcolm came down to her, his mouth warm. “Not Death himself, love. I promised ye.”
Mal hadn’t forgotten that Will waited outside for them, but he didn’t hurry. He carried Mary to the bed and made love to her again, taking his time. He got dirt on her pristine sheets, but then, it was a fitting metaphor. Mary was all that was clean and unsoiled, and he was . . . well, he was Malcolm Mackenzie.
As they quieted, Malcolm slid his hand to her abdomen and cupped the softness there. “Did I guess right?” he asked.
Mary hesitated, then she nodded, her look warm.
Mal’s heart swelled until his eyes moistened. Every hurt and sorrow he’d endured was eased in that moment. Here in this sanctuary with Mary, the wee babe under his hand, nothing mattered. Nothing in the world.
“Come away with me,” Mal said. “Ye can bring the bairn, if ye want. We’ll go someplace where men aren’t aching to drive a sword through anything Scots.”
Mary had started to smile at his joke, but worry returned to her eyes. “They’re hunting you, Malcolm. My father says they’re handing out little mercy to any who raised a hand against King George’s men. You need to get away . . .”
“Not without you, love.” Mal gazed down at her, tight with determination. “I’ll not be apart from ye again, understand?”
“I do, but—”
She broke off abruptly, her eyes widening at something behind Malcolm. Mal felt a presence there and spun around, not a stitch on, not even a blanket between himself and the world.
He found himself facing the dragoon captain he’d once unhorsed, Captain Ellis’s pistol pointed straight at Mal’s nose.
Ellis’s eyes flickered in surprise, and the corners of his mouth twitched down. He hadn’t expected the intruder to be Malcolm, but his shock quickly faded, and the pistol did not waver.
“I must be tired,” Mal said to him, “if I didn’t hear ye.”
Ellis kept the pistol trained on him. “You’re alive, then.”
“As ye see.”
Mary was covered with a sheet at least. Ellis carefully didn’t look at her, but his gaze took in the dirt-stained pillows, the wreck of the covers, the pile of clothes on the floor.
“It is my duty to arrest you,” Ellis said to Mal, his voice even. “In the king’s name, for bearing arms against him, for treason.”
Mary had lain utterly still, her chest barely rising, but at Ellis’s words, she flung up her hand, palm out. “No.”
Ellis’s eyes flickered again. He still would not look at her, the gentleman in him pretending Mary wasn’t even in the room.
He cleared his throat and directed his words at Mal. “But for Lady Mary’s sake, I will tell you to go. Quickly, before I change my mind.”
Malcolm rose from the bed, but slowly, not wanting to startle Ellis with any sudden moves. He didn’t trust the man not to shoot if Ellis decided that would be best.
Mal leisurely took up his grubby clothes and drew them on. “Mary,” he said. “Can I pack anything for ye?”
Ellis shot a quick glance at Mary as she sat up, holding the sheet to her chest. “You’re going with him?” Ellis asked her in a hard voice.
Malcolm held his breath, masking his sudden fear by carefully tying the laces of his shirt.
“Yes,” Mary said.
Ellis uncocked his pistol and lowered it, even as Malcolm masked his sigh of relief. Ellis gave Malcolm a resigned look, and in that glance, Mal understood exactly what letting them go was costing him.
Ellis loved Mary. The return of her crazed Highland husband had now put paid to any chance Ellis might have had of winning her.
Mal sympathized with the man, but at the same time, damned if he’d do the noble thing and step aside. Should Mal turn himself in and let himself be hanged, so that the brave English captain could be with the beautiful Englishwoman he loved?
He’d never do anything so daft. Mary was Malcolm’s, and there was an end to it.
Captain Ellis conceded to step outside the room for Mary to dress. He didn’t sound the alarm or rouse the house; he simply waited for them to emerge from Mary’s chamber, then escorted them downstairs to a side door, unbolting it so they could walk out into the night.
Mary paused on the threshold and rested her hand on Ellis’s forearm. “Thank you, Robert.”
Captain Ellis nodded once, always formal. “Lady Mary.”
He said nothing at all to Malcolm but sent him a severe look, then disappeared back into the house, quietly shutting the door.
“Robert, is it?” Malcolm said lightly as he led Mary away. “I’ve only been dead a few weeks.”
“Captain Ellis has been very good to me,” Mary said. Her melodious tones flowed over him, and Malcolm did not much care what she said, only that he could hear her voice again. “He brought me home safely. He’s a good man.”
“Aye, and I’m grateful t’ him,” Mal said. “But he didn’t do it t’ be good, ye know. He was hoping ye’d wed him to assuage your grief for your poor dead husband. And now I’ve risen from the grave.”
Mary glared at him, her eyes lovely in the starlight. “Stop talking like that. Thunder and moonbeams, Malcolm, I thought I’d never see you again.”
The tears in her voice cut Mal to the heart. He stopped near the hedge that marked the end of the gardens and took his wife into his arms.
“And I thought I’d never hear you say those maddening phrases again. Mary, love, getting back to you was the only thing that kept me alive. I missed ye . . .” Mal’s voice broke, the emotions he’d been suppressing in order to keep going threatening to overwhelm him.
Mal showed her how much he’d missed her without further words, loving the warmth of her against him again. She was both softness and steel, his Mary, a bulwark against the gruesomeness of the world. But the world couldn’t be an entirely bad place if it had created Mary.
“Ye took your time,” a voice sounded through the bushes.
Mary started, then her face flooded with surprise and joy. “Will!”
“At your service, madam.” Will helped her through the break in the hedge, growling in his bearlike voice. “The pair of ye could nae wait until we were safe before going at it, could ye? And me out here freezing in the damp.”
“Ye look dry to me, ” Mal observed as he took his brother’s offered hand and scrambled through to join them. Will’s coat, though dirty like Malcolm’s, had dried, and Will’s gloved hand was warm. “Find a place out of the night, did ye?”
Will shrugged, unabashed. “Aye, well, there was a lady in a house down the lane . . .”
Malcolm laughed out loud, not bothered for this moment about stealth. He clapped Will on the back and put his arm around Mary.
“Come on, love,” he said to Mary, kissing her cheek. “Ye’ll have t’ put up with him, but that’s the price ye pay with family.”
“It’s all right,” Mary answered, the happiness in her voice bolstering him. “I love every one of you.” She slid her arm through Will’s, and sank into Mal’s embrace, Mackenzies together. “Take me home, gentlemen.”
“Home” for now was a tall, narrow house in Paris, reached after an arduous journey, but was it was a journey Mary undertook with gladness. They’d traveled by back lanes to the coast in Lincolnshire, where Gair came for them in his ship.
Ewan was with Gair, the lad bursting into tears when he saw Mary. He’d been commissioned by the colonel, he told her, pointing at Malcolm, to find Gair and have him put in at Lincolnshire. Ewan had also brought a few treasures at Malcolm’s command—the painting of Mal’s mother, a bundle of Mary’s clothes, and a small cask of whisky. The whisky was something to sell to the Frenchies, Ewan explained, in case they needed money.
The voyage to France was rough, roundabout, and heart-pounding in places. Too many English frigates, both of the navy and those of the excise men, floated through the sea. They landed in a cove of a tiny place Mary never learned the name of, and traveled in easy stages to Paris.
The house they reached—belonging to the Mackenzies, Mal said—was already inhabited. Alec Mackenzie clattered down the stairs as they entered, a wee mite with curly red hair in the crook of his arm. Alec bounded down the rest of the way when he saw them, and Mal caught him, babe and all, in an exuberant embrace.
Mary had the treat of seeing her husband break down and cry. Mal held Alec, his closest brother, in a hug that threatened to break Alec’s bones and crush the baby. Mary rescued the child, bouncing little Jenny in her arms while Mal and Alec tried to occupy the same space at once.
Will rushed in from the street and joined the pile, the brothers laughing, crying, hugging, all of them jabbering at the same time.
The front doorway darkened, and the bulk of a man came inside. “What the devil is all the noise?” he shouted.
That voice broke a moment later when he saw Malcolm and Will. Mary stood aside with Alec, who was wiping his eyes, as the duke, moving in shock, went to Malcolm and gathered him close. They clung to each other, father and son, until the duke pulled back and put Malcolm’s face between his hands.
“I thought ye gone forever, runt,” he said. “Willie . . .”
“I’m hard t’ kill, Dad,” Mal said, stepping back as the duke drew Will to him. “I’m a brollachan, remember? I’ll always find a way to come back.”
The duke lifted his head and saw Mary. Alec had taken Jenny from her, and the baby looked on, fingers in her mouth, but in curiosity, not fear.
The duke took Mary’s hands. “Daughter,” he said. “Thank you for bringing him back t’ me.”
Mary dared to fold her arms around the duke’s large body, her heart full. “I am so very happy to see you, Father.”
“Well, now.” The duke’s usually brusque voice went soft.
More happiness was to be had when two visitors followed the duke inside. Audrey rushed to Mary, her extended abdomen reaching Mary first.
Mary held her sister, her tears coming as she once more felt Audrey’s slender arms around her. Jeremy wove in and out of the melee, shaking hands, thumping backs, looking embarrassed at this outpouring of emotion, but no less pleased.
Mal came to Mary as soon as her sister released her. “Here we are, then,” Malcolm said. “I brought the whisky. Anyone have a glass?”
Soon they stood in the drawing room, lifting tumblers full of amber liquid that matched the Mackenzie men’s eyes, lemonade for the ladies, milk for Jenny. They drank to Duncan, to Angus, and to Magnus, then to the fallen Highlanders, and all they’d lost.
“T’ the Mackenzies,” Mal said, his voice a little slurred after all the toasting. “And what the future might bring for them.”
They raised glasses again.
“To Malcolm and Mary,” Alec said. He bounced Jenny, who gave them all a wide, milky smile. “May their love ever grow, and may they fill the house with many wee bairns.”
“Aye,” Will said. “We love the bairns.” He chucked Jenny under the chin, and she gurgled, already charming.
“Ye won’t have t’ wait long.” Mal slid his hand to Mary’s abdomen. “We’ve already begun.”
After a moment of silence, the room filled again with laughter, congratulations, Scots voices rumbling.
Sunshine warmed the room, as did Malcolm’s arm around Mary. They might be far from their homes, from Mary’s beginnings in Lincolnshire, and Mal’s at Kilmorgan. But Mal and Mary were together, surrounded by family, surrounded by love.
And that, more than anything, meant home.
Mal and Mary lay together in bed that night, celebrating once more in their own private way. Mary held her husband close. “I love you, Malcolm Mackenzie.”
“I love you, sweet Mary.” Malcolm rested his hand between her breasts, over her heart. “There it is, your fire. I always knew ye had it.”
“You set it free,” Mary said. “Thank you, Mal.”
He smiled at her, the sinful grin that had first melted her in the shadowy hall in Edinburgh, when no one in the world had known where they were. No one again knew where they lay tonight, no one but family, and that was as it should be.
“Ah, Mary, ye are so very welcome,” Mal said. “I told ye that I’d always come for ye, remember? That ye’d never be rid of me that easy.”
“I know you will,” Mary said. “My fearsome brollachan.”
“But ye never have to fear me, love.” Mal touched her cheek. “Not you.”
“And I don’t. I love you, Malcolm, with all my heart.”
“And I you, me wicked lass.”
They ceased speaking then, receding into the place without words, where they gave each other love, and knew nothing but that.