Epilogue

Loch Sloigh, Arrochar, three months later

Sakes, Muriella, are you daft? Why the devil did you not tell me this before now? What if—"

Murie put a fingertip to Rob's lips. It silenced him, but she eyed him nonetheless warily. They sat alone together on a wooded hillside above the long, oval loch that was Clan Farlan's ancient gathering place. She wore the new blue kirtle Lina had made for her, and Rob wore his plaid and his cap with eagle feathers in honor of Andrew Dubh's first clan gathering at his beloved loch in two decades.

Rob nibbled Murie's fingertip, and taking that as a sign that he would let her speak, she lowered the hand and said, "I would tell you that I just found out, love, but I promised always to answer you truthfully. In troth, though, I think you know why I waited. I was afraid you would not let me come and help celebrate this day."

"I would have brought you to Arrochar," he said. "I might have balked at letting you walk all the way up here."

She shook her head at him. "I am not ill, sir, or weak, or decrepit. And Father would be gey disappointed if we were not both here."

"He is having a grand day, is he not?"

She smiled. "He has earned it."

Below them, the water of the loch gleamed brightly in the summer sun. Its shoreline was alive with clansmen, women, and children. She and Rob were high enough on the steep hillside to hear only distant shrieks from children splashing in the water and someone singing. Above the trees, a hawk soared lazily on a breeze.

"Father is pleased that everyone came, because he feared that Ian might not get leave to return again in so short a time. Even Galbraith came, and Lizzie."

"Not Lady Margaret, though."

"Nay, but Liz told me that her ladyship means to move to Inch Galbraith. She says that Galbraith alone cannot keep Lizzie in hand. In troth, I think she has grown fond of Lizzie and that Liz will be pleased to have her there."

"Sakes, your father even let Dougal come."

"I know," Murie said. "I have not said so to anyone else, but I still don't understand why he did not just hang the villainous man."

Rob grinned at her. "Andrew said that hanging him would be letting him off too easily, that Dougal should have a finer understanding of his own behavior, and Pharlain's, toward their people and their ‘guests.' These days, apparently, Dougal is an oarsman on one of Andrew's galleys."

Murie chuckled. "I'll wager Mag is pleased about that, but surely Father does not keep Dougal in chains as they did with Mag."

"Nay, Andrew insists that Dougal volunteered," Rob said. "I shudder to imagine what other choices Andrew offered him. He said he is merely letting Dougal work his way back into the clan's good graces."

Murie laughed.

Rob loved her laughter, and when she put a fingertip to her lips again and sucked on it, his body reacted as it always did, and his memory flew back to the day he had seen her on the ladder in Mag's cottage, looking so childlike and yet not like a child at all. She had so many sides to her that he found new ones every day, and he hoped that he would discover more and more of them long into their future.

He glanced around the small clearing. They could see people below them, but if he spread his plaid, the shrubbery ought to conceal them.

She chuckled, and he looked at her and grinned guiltily.

"They won't see us," she said. "And I won't break."

He caught her in his arms then, kissed her, and pulled off his cap. A moment more, his plaid was on the ground, and he was helping her out of her kirtle. She untied her shift and opened the gathered neckline enough to let it slide down her arms to the grass. Now that he knew, he could see the soft rounding of her belly.

Flinging his tunic to join her kirtle, he told himself he would teach his son that everyone had a right to his or her own thoughts and opinions but that there were mysteries in their world that defied understanding. Meeting his love's twinkling, too-knowing eyes, he also decided that he would advise that laddie that the best way to manage such things was to accept the mysteries that pleased him and let the others be what they would.

"You know that I mean to tell a tale at the ceilidh tonight," she said.

"Not about Elizabeth Napier."

"No, you dafty. Kiss me again."

He complied thoroughly, pulling her down beside him and into his arms. Within minutes, she was in full heat and ready for him.

As he eased his way cautiously in, Murie said softly, "What make you think our bairn will be a son?"