Chapter Thirty-Three

Jasper left the gloom of the tavern and squinted in the bright sunshine. Spring gave a sweet warmth to the Marches, and Threave’s bustling market day smelled of fresh bannocks mingled with the stench of livestock and a fresh green perfume of ripe grass and budding trees sweeping off the glens.

He went in search of Rowenna. Surely, she had run out of coin by now, though he was inclined to give her more, for he loved spoiling her. He moved through the market crowd easily. His bulk and reputation tended to make folk step away from him. He was drawn to a group of well-dressed folk mounted on fine horses near the Market Cross. One was a woman – petite yet voluptuous. The sun caught the sheen of her brown hair and the bloom to her cheeks before her horse turned, and he was left staring at her back. He frowned. There was something familiar there – a feeling, a memory. He moved through the crowd towards the woman, but then the riders trotted away, leaving him with a sense of unease as if the past was reaching out a hand to him.

A flash of bright hair nearby had him smiling. He had found Rowenna. He rushed to her and tapped her shoulder, but when she turned, he found himself staring down at Brenna Bannerman.

‘Forgive me,’ he mumbled.

‘Jasper?’ she gasped.

Her eyes were wide and fearful. Hadn’t they always looked that way around him?

‘I thought you were someone else,’ he said, like a fool.

Brenna had not changed. She was still achingly lovely. Her gaze darted around in search of Seaton.

‘Is he here?’ said Jasper.

‘Seaton, no. I came with Grimm,’ she said with a nervous smile.

Ah, Seaton’s manservant was with her. She had not been sent out unprotected. ‘You look very well,’ said Jasper with all sincerity.

‘I am well. I thank you.’

‘Seeing you is unexpected.’ The sun was uncomfortably warm on the back of his neck. He reached up a hand to rub it. He was suddenly gripped with an urge to put the past to rest and to make amends for the man he had been. ‘I am glad to have met you this day, for there are words I would say, Brenna.’

Her smile faded. ‘Jasper, please don’t.’

He shook his head and laughed, feeling light and unmoored. ‘Do not think I stand here to repeat my past distasteful sentiments. I mean only to say that…what I mean is…I loved you. I can say it without shame because I love you no more. ‘

She frowned.

‘I do not mean to insult you by saying that, lass, but it is time to release you from your burden.’

‘What burden?’ said Brenna.

‘That of pitying me,’ he said.

‘Jasper, I do not pity you.’

‘Aye, you do. It was always there, for you have a soft heart. Far too soft for the Marches, I’ve always thought. But my burden and yours is over. You should not feel guilty for jilting me. It saved us both from terrible misery.’

‘I never meant to hurt you, Jasper. I know you cared for me in your way.’

He grimaced. ‘Aye, but ‘twas a kind of dogged devotion, twisted by greed and the idea of ownership, along with a fair measure of pride. How could you not love the great Jasper Glendenning, I thought? What a fool I was.’

‘We are all fools for love.’ She bit her lip and said, ‘Does this mean you forgive Seaton?’

‘I forgive you. Him, never. When a man strikes at another man’s heart, it is a perpetual rift, a wound that will not heal.’ He shrugged. ‘I regret it, but it cannot be undone.’

She looked down at her feet. ‘I wish that were not so.’

Jasper wanted to be away from her and from the past. ‘I must not keep you prisoner here, talking to me. I have said my piece, and now I’d better go before Grimm comes in search of you.’

She took hold of his arm to stop him. ‘What has changed in you, Jasper?’

He grinned. He could not stop it. ‘I have found another heart to join with mine, a far harder one than yours. But I am in love.’

‘So you are a new man?’ she said with a smile.

God, that smile had once brought him to his knees, but not anymore. ‘In the essentials of my character, aye, maybe I have been reborn, Brenna.’

‘Then you would not know anything about the twelve head of cattle taken from Bannerman land last week.’

In reply, he shrugged, and Brenna smiled at him - warm and beautiful with the sun striking her hair. He had always loved that hair. In the old days, he would have lingered, trapping her in conversation and trying to steal a kiss. But now he wished to be far away from her. Looking at Brenna was like being confronted with his old self – the humbled fool holding out his heart to be spat on. He despised that man.

‘I must go. So I bid you good day,’ he said, knowing those were the last words he would ever say to Brenna Bannerman. There was no sadness in his heart at the thought. He had once felt that a shadow of his love for Brenna would always lie over his heart. But now he was free, and all he wanted was to find Rowenna and stop on the way home to Kransmuir to lie her down in the spring grass and make love to her with the sun on his back.

Sometime later, he found Rowenna and kissed her so hard that she was left breathless.

‘What was that for?’ she said.

‘For being the most beautiful lass in all the Marches,’ he replied with a choke in his voice.

‘Is it my new plaid?’ she said, whirling it around. ‘Does it please you so much?’

‘It pleases me, aye, as do you. Let us go. I have an urge to be home.’

She smiled brightly, and they went in search of the horses.

After a long ride, as they were about to pass by Fallstairs, he bid her stop. Jasper stared down the hillside at the house.

‘Why are we stopping,’ she said. ‘I have no wish to visit with my father after his treachery.’

‘Nor I. But do you remember when I brought you home from the market that day?’

‘Aye. You forced me to accept your escort.’

‘I forced you to do many things, Rowenna, to my eternal shame.’

‘What is wrong, Jasper? You seem distracted.’

He let out his breath in a great heave. ‘I am happy with you.’

‘Yet you look grave, my love.’

‘That is because happiness is fleeting.’

‘It is. And don’t you have to hand me back to my father at year’s end if I am not with child?’ she said, teasing.

His love burned in his belly. With great certainty, he said, ‘Bairn or not, I will never hand you back. I will never let you go, Rowenna. You must know that by now.’

She gifted him a little smile. Rowenna was achingly lovely when she smiled. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But saying it more often would not hurt.’

Jasper swallowed hard, overcome with great tenderness. ‘When I brought you home that day…’ He stopped and looked down at his hands. ‘I should not tell you this, but I thought, ‘I wonder if I can get her to lie down with me in these woods and have my way with her.’

‘And I thought, ‘What a villain is this Jasper Glendenning.’

They both laughed. ‘You were right about that, at least. What fools we were,’ he said.

Rowenna slipped off her horse. ‘Aye. And I suddenly have need of a villain. Well? Are you coming or not?’

They were so as one together that she had begun to read his mind. Jasper tethered his horse. He took her hand, and they walked into a thick stand of trees. He pushed Rowenna up against a wide oak under the golden sky. She bit her lip, and desire sparked in her nut-brown eyes. Her lips were cold, but her tongue was hot as it teased his. The tang of heather in bloom swept off the hills, and he breathed in its sweetness.

‘I love you. Now and always,’ he said.

The unease of the day slid sideways, and Jasper let happiness settle on him like a warm, comforting plaid.