Page 35 of The Scot Who Loved Me (A Scots Through Time #3)

The camp bustled with activity as he approached. Men gathered in groups, recounting their exploits, their voices growing louder with each telling. Captured English officers sat under guard, their faces pale with shock at how quickly their army had broken before the Highland charge.

In the center stood the prince, resplendent in his tartan finery, his face alight with victory. Charles Edward Stuart had the look of a man who believed destiny had finally embraced him, who saw the hand of God in the day’s triumph.

He doesnae ken what waits at Culloden, William thought, filled with grief. None of them do.

Except Harper. And now himself.

“Ah, MacGregor!” The prince’s voice carried across the gathering. “Come join us! Your men fought like lions today. Scotland thanks you!”

Bowing, William accepted the praise with outward grace while his mind continued its tumultuous churning. How could he reconcile what he now knew with his oath to this man?

“We make plants to press into England itself,” Lord George Murray was saying, his finger tracing routes on a map spread across a makeshift table.

William’s stomach tightened. This was it, the exact strategy Harper had described, the path that would ultimately lead to Culloden and destruction. Around him, officers nodded eagerly, their faces flushed with victory and possibility.

“Your thoughts, MacGregor?” the prince asked suddenly, those Stuart eyes fixing on him with uncomfortable perception. “You seem troubled for a man on the winning side.”

He chose his words carefully. “Victory is sweet, Your Highness. But the English will regroup. They always do.”

“Of course they will,” Murray agreed impatiently. “Which is why we must press forward while they’re disorganized.”

The prince studied William’s face. “You counsel caution, then?”

“I counsel remembering that one battle doesn’t win a war,” William replied, aware of the delicate line he walked. “The Highland charge served us well today, but we cannot rely solely on it against prepared positions.”

Several officers frowned at what sounded dangerously like criticism of their traditional tactics, but the prince nodded thoughtfully.

“Well spoken. Courage we have in abundance, but wisdom must guide our steps as well.” He raised his glass. “To Scotland’s freedom!”

The toast echoed around him, but William barely tasted the whisky. Freedom, yes, but at what cost? And for how long?

Listening as they outlined plans that matched exactly what Harper had described — the march south, the crossing into England, the fateful decision to turn back that would eventually lead them to Culloden Moor and to disaster, William felt the weight of knowledge pressing upon him.

Could he alter that path? Should he try? What right did he have to change the course of history itself?

Yet what choice did he have, knowing what waited if he did nothing?

The council continued, strategies discussed, maps consulted. He participated enough to avoid suspicion, but his thoughts remained with Harper and the impossible choice before them.

As the sun began its descent, the meeting finally dispersed. Officers returned to their men, and orders were given for the prisoners and the burial of the dead. The business of war continued, inexorable as the tide.

Making his way back through the camp, he acknowledged the greetings of his men with nods and brief words of praise.

Callum caught his eye and raised an eyebrow in silent question.

The younger man had clearly noted his distraction during the battle’s aftermath.

William shook his head slightly. That conversation would have to wait.

Harper was waiting for him, as promised, sitting outside their small tent with her journal open on her lap. The sight of her, head bent over her writing, hair falling forward to curtain her face, struck him with its simple intimacy.

She looked up as he approached, closing her journal with a snap. “How was the council?”

“Just as ye said it would be.” Sinking down beside her, the exhaustion of battle and revelation finally caught up with him. “They plan to march south into England.”

“And you? What do you plan to do?”

The question hung between them, weighted with implications. Gazing out over the camp, at the men celebrating their victory, at the smoke rising from cooking fires, at the flags snapping in the autumn breeze, he saw it all so vivid, so alive, and all of it doomed, if her history unfolded unchanged.

“I dinna ken,” he admitted, the Gaelic slipping out in his weariness. “My oath binds me to the prince, to the cause. Yet how can I lead men to destruction, knowing what awaits?”

Harper’s hand found his, her fingers twining with his own. “You don’t have to decide everything tonight. We have time.”

“Do we?” Turning to her, searching her face. “How much time? When does the path become fixed, leading only to Culloden?”

“I don’t know. History says the army reaches Derby by December, then turns back. After that... I think the course becomes harder to change.”

Nodding slowly, considering. “Then we have months, not days. Time to think, to plan.”

The thought still staggered him, but the evidence was undeniable. This remarkable woman had somehow crossed centuries to reach him, bringing knowledge that might save not just his life but the lives of countless Highlanders.

“I still have so many questions about your world, about how ye came to be here. But they can wait.” His expression grew serious. “For now, I need ye to tell me everything ye know about what’s coming. Every detail, no matter how small. If we’re to change our fate, we must understand it fully.”

Harper nodded solemnly. “I’ll tell you everything I can remember.

But William...” She hesitated, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture he’d come to recognize.

“Changing history, I think it’s like pulling a thread in a tapestry.

You think you’re just fixing one small section, but suddenly the whole pattern shifts in ways you never expected.

We could make things worse without meaning to. ”

“Aye.” The thought had occurred to him as well. “But can the future be worse than what ye’ve described? The destruction of our way of life, our culture, our very identity?”

She had no answer to that, and in her silence, his resolve hardened. Whatever the risks, whatever the cost to himself, he could not knowingly lead his men to slaughter. Not when there might be another way.

“Tonight,” he said, his voice low but determined, “we’ll rest. Tomorrow, we begin planning how to change history.”

Harper’s smile was like a sunrise after the longest night, beautiful and full of promise. “Together.”

“Together,” he agreed, sealing the vow with a kiss.

He reached for her then, pulling her against him with a sudden fierce need to confirm she was real, that she wouldn’t vanish back to her own time as mysteriously as she had appeared in his.

His fingers tangled in her hair as he breathed in her scent, this lass that had become as essential to him as air.

She melted against him, her hands sliding up his chest to rest over his heart, as if reassuring herself it still beat. “I was so afraid,” she whispered against his throat. “When the battle started, all I could think was that you might die believing I’d lied to you.”

“I’m here,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. “We’re both here.”

Her lips found his, a kiss tinged with desperation and relief that quickly deepened into something more.

For a moment, the weight of history fell away, leaving only this.

A man and a woman clinging to each other in the gathering dusk, finding in each other’s arms a sanctuary against the chaos surrounding them.