Page 83 of Beloved Enemy
Lachlan was presently held in the gaol beneath the keep, his imprisonment far from the comparatively gentle confinement Charlotte had endured in the tower. Reid had made certain of that. Reid would go through the motions of a trial—Lachlan was entitled that as much as any other—but the outcome was inevitable: Lachlan would hang for his treachery, for conspiring against Kingswood and the crown.
Fiona, even before she’d recovered fully from the arrow wound to her shoulder, had been sent far away, to a convent on Skye, where she would live out her days in penance, away from the machinations of power and the shadows of her past. Despite the pain of so deep a betrayal, there was no room for forgiveness, though even Reid hadn’t the heart to sentence his sister to death.
As Reid steered his horse toward the edge of the village, he couldn’t shake the disquiet that settled in his chest. The aftermath of the revelations had left him with a singular truth: Charlotte did deserve his trust. She had proven herself time and again, unwavering in her honesty and determination. Even now, as he recalled her steadfast demeanor during the harrowing encounter with Fiona, he felt a deep well of guilt for doubting her. While he’d initially entertained the time-traveling tale she spun as possible, given what he’d witnessed of Autumn and Marcus, he’d eventually dismissed it as a well-spun yarn to distract him from what he came to believe was the truth, that she was a spy.
She hadn’t said as much, but he imagined she would want to again return to Ben Nevis with the hope of returning home, to her time.
He’d seen little of her in the last few days. Over his loud objections, she’d returned to Una’s house and company. He had wanted her to stay with him, within the warmth and safety of the keep—in his bed—yet she had chosen to return to Una’s cottage. Though her decision should have come as no surprise after howhe’d doubted her, it had been a punch to the gut, advising that any chance he’d had with any kind of further and future connection with Charlotte had been killed by his distrust of her.
However, with her safety being a prime concern, Reid had taken precautions, placing a constant patrol near the small home, not entirely convinced they had uncovered all the conspirators lurking in the shadows. Lachlan's interrogation, which had been conducted by an angry Tavish, revealed that it had been only he and Fiona conspiring with the English. But Reid wasn’t willing to take any chances with Charlotte’s life.
His eyes darted to Una’s cottage now just as he came into the village, desirous as ever of even a faraway glimpse of Charlotte. He was rewarded immediately with just that, spotting Charlotte, alone, walking toward the woods away from the back of Una’s cottage. Curiosity piqued, he slowed his horse, watching her from a distance, realizing that she carried a small spade in her hand. He pulled at the reins, directing his horse to follow her. As he cleared the side of Una’s house, he spied Fergus and Clement meandering along behind her, leaving a wee bit of distance her and them, but keeping to their task of watching over her.
Reid gave a sharp, repeating rasping noise, replicating the chirp of a corncrake which effectively turned the soldiers’ head toward him. Jerking his thumb outward, he silently instructed that he would take over for the moment, and the two men held back. Reid dismounted, leaving his destrier with Fergus as he reached him, and without a word pursued Charlotte on foot, following as she entered the woodland flanking the village.
She did not go far into the woods, but soon knelt beside a fallen tree and cleared a small patch of earth, where she began digging into the ground with steady but unhurried stabs of the spade.
His brow furrowed as he watched her pull the amulet from around her neck, cradling it in her palm. She stared at thestrange stone, her thumb tracing over its smooth surface, before curling her fingers tightly around it, holding it close as if grappling with the weight of the choice she was about to make. For a long, silent moment, she sat there on her knees, frozen in thought, and then—decisively—she laid the amulet in the shallow hole she’d dug.
The gesture felt profound, as if she were severing ties with the life she once knew, the only thing that tethered her to her past. Her movements became jerky, her hands trembling, as if the decision pained her, as she hastily pushed the earth back over the small hole, covering the stone with the same ground she had disturbed, sealing away a piece of herself.
Stepping out from the cover of the trees, he spoke softly, “Charlotte.”
His voice barely disturbed the tranquility of the forest, but she turned, surprise flickering across her features.
“What have ye done?” he asked, walking around her to stand before her.
She dropped her green eyes to the freshly turned earth. “I buried it.”
“Aye, I saw that.” A hopeful knot tightened in Reid’s chest as he processed her words. “Ye... ye dinna want to return to your time?”
She took a deep breath, and using the spade as leverage, pushed herself to her feet, lifting her gaze to him, raising a skeptical brow. “You believe me now? Were you only pretending you did weeks ago?”
“I dinna ken what to believe,” he acknowledged. “Ye ken it’s...more than only a wee bit improbable. 'Tis farfetched. Implausible.”
“Unbelievable?” She offered.
“Aye.” He shuffled his feet a bit, knowing he needed to unburden himself, that he needed to earnhertrust. “Charlotte,I dinna ken how to apologize for so grave a crime as I’ve committed against ye, for... nae only having doubted ye—everything about ye—but for believing ye party to and capable of such treachery as my own kin committed.”
“And I don’t have any ideas for you,” she surprised him by saying. “I guess it’s something we will have to work on, the trust thing.”
Despite his discomfort, hope continued to rise, buoyed by her words, the use ofwe.
“Will we?” He asked, his mind spinning with possibilities.
Charlotte smiled, small and sweet. She nodded tremulously.
“Why did ye bury the amulet?” He asked, needing the answer to this.
Charlotte sighed but did not take her gaze from him. “When I saw Tavish take aim the other day in the courtyard, I thought he was going to kill me. And you were angry with me, thinking I was making that up about your sister—believing many things about me but what I said to you. And Una was,” she continued, melancholy weighting her words, “I have to tell you, completely indifferent to the trauma of that morning—she wanted to know if I was going to the loch to help with laundry or was I going to be detained in the tower again.”
Reid frowned, not sure what these obviously negative things had to do with the amulet.
Charlotte went on, “But Tavish shoots straight and did not strike me, and then he stopped by two days ago to see if I needed anything, and if I was getting on all right in the aftermath. And Una told me—with what I judged as genuine, heartfelt affection, mind you—that she was glad I wasn’t harmed.” Her eyes misted. “She said she was happy I was back home. She used the word ‘home’. And Eoin checked in on me as well, and your steward, Muirchertach, walked all the way from the keep to deliver some of cook’s mutton—and please don’t tell him that I really don’tlike the taste of mutton, it’s very gamey.” A lone tear fell and she shrugged, ducking her face, seemingly embarrassed by her visible emotions. “I...I don’t know, suddenly it just felt like I belonged and I...I’ve never known a feeling like it before.” Charlotte looked down at her feet, shifting her weight from one hip to another. She worried her hands in the skirt of her borrowed léine. “All my life I’ve yearned for connections, for home and family, and...and people who care about me. I’ve been so worried about trying to get back to my time, I nearly missed the truth, that I think I might have found it.”
“Ye ken ye might have found that,” he repeated, thoughtful. “Here?”
She nodded. “Here. At Kingswood.” She paused and bit her lip before adding, while she held his gaze, “And here with you.”
