“I didn’t think about it because I didn’t believe you would try. So let me ask you another question, perhaps the most important one. Why did you want to find me?” She turned to face him, holding his gaze bravely. Looking him in the eye was something she had not been able to do when they first met, he remembered. Martha had come a long way since then. “Is it because I am carrying your child?”
“That was certainly part of my reason,” he said, his voice grave.
“When did you know?”
“The night before Culloden I knew it for sure. I know your body as well as you do yourself, my love—” her eyelids fluttered briefly at the endearment, “—and I’d noticed the changes in you, but the hours before battle did not seem to be the time to talk of a new life. When Cora told me you’d not be returning to Derbyshire, that was when I knew it was true beyond doubt. I knew ye’d believe to do so would bring shame to your family.”
“The nuns have agreed to let me stay here. In return for teaching the children of the orphanage, they will allow me to keep my own child with me. I told you I would care for your child, Fraser.” She turned her head away.
“I don’t want that.” He tried to get into her eye line so that he could read her expression, but she would not look at him.
“You already have what you wanted. You took my dignity in revenge for that kiss.”
He grabbed hold of her by her upper arms and swung her round to face him. “Ye think I’m so low as to do that to you?”
“You admitted it,” she whispered. “You told me yourself it was so.”
“I was half-mad with the fever. The words I spoke were a memory of what was once true, Martha.” He ran a hand through the copper of his hair. “Yes, in that cellar, when you kissed me and said you hated me, I’ll admit I had thoughts of revenge. Then. Not later. And not now. It must have been some remembrance of that while the fever was upon me that made me utter those words. Do you really believe I’m capable of that? Of using what we have between us against you? My God, Martha. You have me on my knees with lust every time I’m near you. I’ve no thought beyond that.”
“Oh.” She cast him a sidelong glance. A slight, reminiscent smile lifted one corner of her mouth. “But you look at me sometimes as though…oh, I can’t explain it! As though the very thought of me angers you.”
It was his turn then to look out over the darkening landscape as he searched for the right words. “Yes, I’ll admit I’ve looked at you that way. But out of frustration, not anger. Because the days of war are not the time for deep thoughts or promises. I was stranded in an enemy’s land and then on my way to fight a battle where I might lose the life that my people have held dear for centuries. It was a fine bloody time to find out I couldn’t live without a certain skinny, crabbit Englishwoman.”
He wasn’t looking at her, but heard her sharp, indrawn breath. “It’s the truth, Martha. Child or no child, I’d have come for you this day because there is something in you that cries out to something in me. My soul craves you every bit as much and exactly the same way as my body does. And my body, as you well know, craves you a great deal.” She didn’t respond. “Say something. Tell me in return what’s in your own heart.”
She gave a little laugh that broke in the middle and became a sob. “I love you, Fraser Lachlan, you big Scots fool. How can you hold me in your arms every night the way you do and not already know that?”
He caught her up in his arms, crushing her to him so fiercely that she cried out. Then she couldn’t speak at all because she was being kissed with an urgency that drove every thought except those of Fraser from her mind. The nun who had been watching the scene from a corner of the shady garden gave a sigh of satisfaction and tiptoed quietly away. It was some time before either of them spoke again.
“It will be desperately hard on the highlanders over the coming months and years, and I will have a high price on my head. Perhaps the highest of them all. You are tying yourself to a wanted man, Martha.” Fraser smoothed Martha’s hair back from her forehead as her head rested on his shoulder. They were seated on the bench where she had been reading to the children.
“What can we do? I came so close to losing you at Culloden, we won’t—our child and I—part with you again.”
“I fought for the prince as I promised I would. His was the right, and his claim was true. But good men and dear friends have died in his name.” She reached up a hand to touch his cheek, knowing his thoughts were of Jack. “Even if the prince had the means to fight on, I’d not be with him any longer. To see more men die for a cause long gone would be to dishonour those we lost at Drumossie. So what can I do?” He took her hand and pressed a kiss into its palm. “I can talk to friend Edwin and swear allegiance to the king. It will hurt me to do it, but if ’tis what is needed to bring peace to the clan, then I will swallow my pride. As one of the few surviving chieftains of the Great Glen, I am the man Cumberland needs, even though he will posture and pretend he does not. If he has my cooperation, it will go a long way toward repairing relationships. At first I suspect he will be looking for examples to make of the chieftains, but sooner or later, he will have to meet with us. It will cost me dear in coins as well, if I want to talk. The king likes gold, he’ll not let this opportunity for a hefty fine to pass by. If it comes to it, and we must go to France, then we’ll leave together, hand in hand, you and I. But—” he tilted her chin up so that he could press his lips to hers, “—I’m not going to the gallows or the colonies, nor will my head adorn Tower Bridge. Not now when I’ve got you beside me.”
“You would do that? You would bow your knee to the king or leave Scotland…for me?”
“Ah, d’ye still not get it, Englishwoman? I would do anything for you.”
“Even make a Scotswoman of me?”
“That,” he said, sliding from the bench and onto one knee before her, “was going to be my next question.”
All of the remaining servants were gathered in the great hall of Castle Lachlan when the laird returned. Fraser paused in the doorway, looking about him with a slight frown in his eyes. It appeared he was alone, and the hearts of those observing him fell at the thought that his mission must have been in vain. Then he stepped into the room, and the slender figure that had been hidden by the voluminous folds of his cloak could be seen. She put back the hood of her own cloak with a shy smile, and her curls tumbled free about her shoulders.
“Miss Wantage.” Cora hurried forward to greet her.
“No.” Fraser paused, holding up her hand to show everyone the ring on her finger. “I present to you all…your lady. My lady. Martha Lachlan.”
Then he kissed her. In front of everyone. It was so sudden and unexpected that Martha gave a soft gasp into his mouth. The kiss was slow and loving, and his hands drew her close into a lover’s embrace. Martha was drowning in their mingled breaths, intoxicated by the taste of him and the pressure of his hard chest pressing her breasts flat to the front of her dress. She was lost, drunk on the sensual pleasures of his mouth, his exploring tongue, his knowing fingers and his hard-muscled frame. She melted against him. The cheers and shouts around them faded to nothing in comparison to what she felt in his arms. When Fraser released her and she saw the blaze of love in his eyes, her own eyes filled with tears of joy.
She was home at last.
Epilogue
The beach was in darkness when they hauled the boat ashore. The bedraggled group of men who clambered out of the vessel looked around them in some confusion. One of the French fisherman peered into the prow of the boat, where the nets were piled.
“Il est mort,” he said, prodding the body that lay there. “This one is dead, m’sieur. Of a certainty.”