Page 24 of A Promise of Love

" I 'll go," Judith said, when Granmere insisted they needed milk from the milch cow and eggs. Although she had no wish to savor the clan's displeasure, it was the only way to escape Malcolm .

Every communal meal had become a misery.

Malcolm watched her constantly, as though she were the embodiment of all things evil and English.

He rarely spoke, simply glaring at her over his plate as if he viewed the revelation of her past as a direct insult to him and to his choice of her as wife to his laird .

Judith could understand his anger, but she could do nothing about it, nor alter its cause.

The old Scot evidently felt she was as guilty of the atrocities committed by Cumberland's troops as if she had performed them herself.

What Malcolm did not know was that she had despised Anthony from the first, with a hatred and a loathing that only grew with time .

Her marriage to Anthony Henderson had been arranged by Squire Cuthbertson, barely six months after she'd returned home following Peter's death.

His regiment had been successful in putting down the food riots in Yorkshire, where her father had no qualms about selling his produce above market prices.

Judith had wondered, then, if she were being given as a prize to the soldier who had so helped her father.

Otherwise, it was unlikely that a man without property or prospects would have been an adequate candidate for a son-in-law.

Perhaps though, like her banishment to Scotland, her father simply hadn't cared about her bridegroom, as long as she was gone from his house .

She met her new husband on the day of their wedding and although her sisters had commented on his good looks, and military bearing, she had only seen the contempt in his eyes for the daughter of a tradesman.

A contempt that carried over to her wedding night and resulted in nothing less than his feral savagery.

She had been married before, but Peter's absent-minded, apologetic coupling had not prepared her for Anthony's cruelty.

Nothing would have. She had emerged from the small room at the inn the next day with a dawning horror in her eyes.

Nor had her lot improved from that day on .

The worst memories were from those long months when Anthony’s regiment had been billeted in London.

His dislike of his new assignment had been translated into daily abuse.

There were great blocks of time unset in her mind about those days, as if they had happened to another, or she had lived them from a distance .

When she was a child, Judith had rolled up a paper into a cylinder and peered through one end. The view seemed distorted, as though it were far away. Her life with Anthony seemed the same. Remote, as though someone else had lived it, and she were trespassing into their mind and their memories .

Nature had provided for her survival by cushioning those days in a dense fog, accessible only in bleak nightmares .

The revelations of her past had destroyed the camaraderie Judith was beginning to establish with the women of the clan.

She was not treated badly, she was simply ignored, in such a finite way that she felt invisible.

When one of the village women would call on Sophie, her eyes would simply slide though Judith, as if she were not standing there, a welcoming smile on her face.

If a chore took her from the confines of Tynan, it was to meet a silence so profound it seemed she could hear the whisper of the wind upon the moor grasses.

All activity in the weaving shed had ceased, as if her presence there soiled the very wool they carded and spun.

Stupid women. They were as foolish as they were stubborn, Judith thought.

Their actions would not hurt her, but only themselves .

Judith had thought she'd grown accustomed to feeling unwelcome, but the glacial treatment by the MacLeod women taught her that she was still capable of being hurt, after all .

Only Meggie continued with her unconditional friendship. Meggie's gentle smile was as welcome as her knowledge of farm animals, as she took Judith to the communal barnyard .

Judith relied on her friend's help to retrieve the eggs that Granmere requested. She’d been in such a hurry to withdraw her hand from their angry, pecking beaks that she’d pulled out the sitting stones, instead .

“They’re placed there to give the hens the idea of what to do,” Meggie said, chuckling as she replaced the stones .

"It was so much easier simply to go to the meat seller's stall in London and point," Judith admitted, smiling wryly. “I’m a poor farmer’s daughter ."

“Not so,” Alisdair said, smiling, “I remember a lass with a penchant for shaving my sheep ."

“Shearing,” she corrected, although she knew he teased .

Alisdair smiled at Meggie, thanked her and escorted his wife back to Tynan .

"Are you well?" he asked, noting her sudden flush with interest .

"Well enough, I suppose," she answered shortly .

"I have not seen you much in the last few days," he said, smiling at the fact that her eyes looked everywhere but at him.

"Have you been avoiding me?" She never left her room until he was in the fields, refusing to sup with him at night, creeping around his castle for days, as if to spare herself his presence. It was rare she ventured from Tynan's walls, and when his patience had finally been rewarded and he’d seen her, he’d left the other men, claiming the need to stretch his legs a bit.

He chose to ignore their disbelieving stares .

"Yes," she answered honestly. "I have been an unwelcome addition to your clan, MacLeod.

I'd thought to spare you and your people my presence.

" She did not tell him that she had spent the last few days alternating between faint hope and more confusion than she wished.

He had had ample reason to punish her, yet had not.

He had, instead, comforted her, holding her against his chest in the most tender of touches, like a parent would soothe a child .

"I regret that my countrymen are as stubborn as they are," he said, smiling. Judith wished his teeth were rotted, his skin mottled, or his hair falling out. Anything to make him appear less attractive and daunting in his good looks. They came to a rise in the hill, MacLeod holding the basket with the eggs as nonchalantly as a lady’s parcels on the streets of London.

She concentrated on the path, the dust swirling over her scuffed boots .

"It is to be expected," she admitted, finally. "They would no doubt receive the same treatment in England. But I would have thought that Malcolm would understand ."

"Is he giving you trouble ?"

She finally looked directly at him. He wanted to tell her that the shade of her eyes reminded him of the mists over the mountains just before sunset, deep and rich and mysterious. Instead he only smiled at her, thinking that he could restrain himself a little while longer .

"Malcolm thinks I am no better than Black Donald’s mistress, MacLeod .”

He laughed. "Aye, that sounds like Malcolm. He's an old bear of a man, a true Scot. Born to the land, tied to it for life, whether that life be long or short. He and a few others like him will find a way to keep the battle raging until he dies ."

"What would you consider yourself, then, MacLeod, if not a true Scot ?"

"Oh, I am one, at that. But I have had the blessings of seeing the world, Judith.

I know our paltry problems here are of no concern to others.

If they were, the Pope would have long since recognized the claims of the Bonnie Prince and his father.

What Malcolm and others like him would have us do is don our kilts and march proudly from glen to glen, summoning the clans until blood washed Scotland clean . "

"You speak as one who hates war, MacLeod ."

"I see no shame in admitting it. No, our industry is better used by preparing for the future, than for mourning the past ."

"Do you truly think your future lies with England? It seems a strange view for a Scot to take ."

"A practical approach, however. Did I not state that I was a practical person, also?

Trade with England is our only hope." He would have preferred another country’s coin, but was prevented not only by geography but by English ships which lay in wait off the coast of Scotland for just such enterprising commerce .

Alisdair did not tell her there were times he could not quite forget Culloden and the loss of friends and family, memories which galled at the thought of trade with England.

Memories, however, had become an impediment to the future.

Just as Judith’s recollections kept her awake at night, nearly screaming .

"No wonder you sought to buy sheep from my father. He is a great believer in free enterprise,” she said wryly. “Everything is a commodity to him. Even his daughters are only goods to be sold on the matrimonial market ."

"He is not the first father to want to profit from marriage, Judith," he reminded her gently. "How would you have it, if it were not so ?"

"I would be free, MacLeod. Free to do what I would, when I would, as I would." She did not mean for her words to sound bitter, but he thought he understood the reason for such a tone .

"Freedom. Do any of us have it?" He looked around the path they were taking, to the broad moors that slipped down to the sea. "I am not free," he said in explanation. "I have duties and obligations that will not cease even when I lie in my bed at night .”

"Because you are a man, you could never understand." The look she gave him was new and fascinating. He wondered if she knew her eyes flashed as if lighting lit their depths .

"I am a man with a brain." His grin was challenging. “Explain it to me. Any idea which makes you crinkle your nose with such disdain can surely be spoken .”