Page 60 of To Love a Scottish Lord (Highland Lords #4)

“I ’m not as young as I once was,” Leitis said, “and I feel it in every single bone in my body. It’s not fair that you look so hale and hearty in return.” The hill in front of them looked a great deal steeper than it had when they’d begun this walk.

Ian only grinned at her and held her hand more tightly. “I remember you as a child, running over these hills,” he said. “You beat me at every foot race, I remember.”

“That was a very long time ago.”

“It seems like just yesterday, though, doesn’t it?”

She smiled. “I don’t feel one year older inside, Ian. It’s outside where I’ve changed.”

“You look the same to me, my love.”

She stopped and studied him, thinking that he was the one who appeared unchanged by time.

Aging suited him somehow. His face had mellowed with the years, but if she narrowed her eyes just so, she wouldn’t think him any different from the English colonel who’d once captivated her heart.

Or the boy she’d loved even as he bedeviled her.

They walked in silence up to the cairn stones. He found the one he wanted unerringly, as if decades hadn’t separated the visits. A three-sided stone structure protected a shard of wood in front of the grave. As a boy, he’d carved the cross for his mother, but now there was little left to it.

Kneeling, he paid his respects, and she turned, granting him the privacy to do so. She looked out over the landscape. In front of them was Gilmuir, restored to its former glory. No, she thought looking at it with a mother’s pride, better than it had been before. Alisdair had created a monument.

Below, Hamish unerringly led the sleek and beautiful Moira MacRae into the firth.

He’d looked so happy to be going to sea again, and Mary appeared filled with awe as they’d rowed out to the ship.

Even Douglas had lost his remote expression, showing an interest in something for the first time in months.

What would become of him? She sighed, thinking of the untenable situation he’d left in France.

She watched the ship for a while, sails full-bellied, eager for the ocean and the rest of the world.

A song she hadn’t heard in years occurred to her as she stood there. The MacRae Lament.

We are an island, a people of pride.

We are a past never to die.

In good times or bad we’ll always endure

In the home of our hearts—Gilmuir.

She knew something now that she hadn’t known as a girl. Gilmuir would always link them, but love would bind them together.

“Are you weeping?” Ian said, coming to stand at her side. “I thought you were done with that.”

“I thought I was,” she admitted.

“They’ll be fine,” he said, extending his arms around her. “Hamish is an exemplary captain, and Douglas could have no better mentor.”

“I know.” She nodded against his chest. “I like Mary, too. She’ll be a good influence.”

“On both of them,” Ian said, smiling.

“I like all their wives. I didn’t expect to, isn’t that strange? But I would have them as friends, each and every one of them.”

“It’s a good thing you feel that way,” Ian said, amusement coloring his voice. “I doubt any of our sons would give his wife up because you disapproved.”

“They love as fiercely as their father, I think.” She pulled back and smiled up at him.

“Or their mother,” he countered.

The sun was low on the horizon, casting shadows over the hills.

In a few hours, night would come to Gilmuir once again.

But there would be no sadness in the darkness.

Only the sound of laughter as candles were lit and voices rose in teasing toasts.

The wind would blow across the headland and carry the scent of the sea over the hills, ruffling the grasses and sighing through the pines.

If ghosts were disturbed, they would be temperate ones.

Their heads might turn in the direction of the old fortress made new again.

Some might momentarily grieve that they were no longer living and couldn’t participate in earthly joy.

But most would smile in remembrance, and feel a last, lingering pride in their descendants before slipping away into eternity.