Page 5 of The Wild Rose of Kilgannon (Kilgannon #2)

The days passed very slowly and I feared that the winter would never end, that we would always be imprisoned by the rain and snow, waiting.

I tried to keep spirits up and keep everyone busy, but I was not Alex and I was not the leader that Kilgannon needed.

I had never realized how effortlessly he led the clan, and how difficult it was to make the many necessary decisions with the sure skill and good humor that came so easily to him.

Nor had I realized how invaluable Angus was.

Alex’s first cousin was Alex’s war chieftain, responsible for the training of the men.

Angus was several years older, but they acted like brothers, for they’d grown up together.

Alex trusted Angus more than any of the other clansmen, and Angus, gruff, loyal, and a man of few words, returned the trust. Both had lost their wives in the last five years, Angus his Mairi to childbirth and Alex his Sorcha to illness, and both had been left with sons to raise alone.

Angus’s Matthew, grown now, was off at war with his father, and Alex’s boys were with me.

With both Alex and Angus gone, our lives could not hope to be normal.

Dougall tried to fill the void and he did well if one did not look too closely. And none of us was looking too closely.

The news from the east was not good. The Loyalist forces far outnumbered the Jacobites now, and Mar’s troops had retreated to Montrose. And then, the last day of January, Thomas MacNeill, Alex’s factor, came home.

They arrived on Gannon’s Lady and for a few splendid moments I thought Alex was with them.

Thomas’s son Liam burst in with the news of a ship in the loch, one of ours, and we all ran to see.

Gannon’s Lady came around the last bend, her rail in the water in the stiff wind, her decks crowded with men.

A cheer rose from those behind me as we waited for her to land, and when she came closer the boys strained to see their father.

Or Angus. Or Matthew. Ellen stood at Ian’s side, her hand to her throat.

As she drew to the dock we all realized who was missing.

“Da’s no’ there,” said Ian, his tone hushed.

Dougall, standing on my left, let out a curse and then apologized as I looked at him. “I feared this would happen, Mary. Ye ken our Alex. He’ll no’ come home until everyone’s safe. He’s probably making sure the Clonmor men got home aright.”

I nodded, understanding the words but not the reason why Alex would not let them go home with Malcolm.

We waited in silence while the ship docked and the men poured from her, washing past me like a stream, flooding into the arms of their wives and children.

The boys turned to me, their faces grave.

Their father had not come home. Nor wee Donald, and at my side Ellen sobbed.

I put an arm around her and waited. Thomas found me after only a few moments.

“Mary,” he said, his tone quiet. “I must talk with ye.” I nodded up at him, noting how Alex’s factor had aged, his face now lined. He met my look with weary eyes.

“Thomas, tell me. Is he alive? Is he well? Is he free?”

“Aye. Alex is alive and free and Angus and Matthew as well.”

“And wee Donald? And Gilbey?”

“Aye. They are all well.” Ellen took a ragged breath.

“And together?” I asked.

His eyes met mine. “Aye, Mary. They are together.”

“Where are they?”

He shook his head. “I dinna ken. We saw them last at Montrose, standing on the dock as we left.”

“I see.” I took a deep breath. “Thank you. Go and see Murreal and your family, Thomas. It is enough for now that I know he is not with you. I know you will soon tell me the rest.”

“Aye, Mary, and I thank ye.” He pulled a ragged letter from his plaid. “From Alex. I will come to ye soon.”

It was scrawled on the back of a map, filthy and torn. I took the letter and held it to my breast, then opened it there on the dock.

My dearest Mary , Alex had written. I am sending this to you with Thomas as we part.

I pray it finds you all well. We are truly lost here and I am trying to save as many men as I can.

Take the Mary Rose and flee now. Go to safety in England if you can or Skye if ye cannot and ask Morag for shelter.

Please forgive me for this disaster. Take care of my sons and tell them their father loved them.

Flee now, before the English descend on Kilgannon.

I love you, Mary. If I’m alive I’ll find you. Alex .

I will never ask Morag Maclean for shelter, I thought, remembering her lingering glances at Alex during our wedding celebrations at Kilgannon, and the furtive caresses she’d thought I’d not seen every time they’d been together since.

Alex had not responded to her, but he’d have noticed.

And no doubt had remembered what had once been between them.

Morag, then Morag MacLeod, had been the girl Alex had fallen in love with when he was sixteen and she fifteen, the girl he’d been willing to defy his parents for and abandon the arranged marriage with Sorcha MacDonald.

Morag was the girl he’d been sent to France for a year to forget.

The first woman he’d made love to. And Morag had waited for Alex even after he’d married Sorcha, not marrying Murdoch Maclean herself until Alex had made it abundantly clear to her and to the world that ours was a love match and a happy one.

But Morag had never forgotten their romance. Nor did I.

I read Alex’s letter three times, holding the paper against the wind that threatened to tear it from my hands, then looked at the wedding ring gleaming on my finger.

No, I would not ask Morag for shelter, and I would not go to safety in England.

I would stay at Kilgannon despite Alex’s instructions.

We’d argued about it enough before he’d left.

“This is my home,” I’d told him when he’d asked me to go to France with his aunt Deirdre and the MacDonalds.

“If you need me, Alex, I will be here. I can come to you. Anywhere in Scotland,” I’d said, and then tried to explain that he was not the only one who felt responsibility for the clan.

I had been raised with a strong sense of duty toward the people I’d known at Mountgarden, and in the short time I’d lived here I’d assumed the role of Alex’s partner.

The mantle of leadership was not one I could shrug off when it suited me.

I would stay at Kilgannon as long as I could to be with its people.

And to be as close to Alex as I could, for as long as I could.