Page 44 of Wed to the Highlander
Even Fiona was more of a mother hen than usual.
“No lifting,” her sister-in-law ordered, taking the basket of linens out of her hands. “And no stairs unless necessary.”
“I’m expecting, not dying,” Maggie muttered under her breath, earning a consoling pat on the arm from one of the laundresses.
“Enjoy the pampering while you can, my lady,” she advised. “It dinna last after the bairn arrives.”
By midday, she’d received enough remedies, restrictions, and warnings to fill a midwife’s training manual. The attention—though well-meant—smothered far more than it soothed.
She might have taken a walk, but rain drummed on the roof and lashed against the windows, blurring the view of the hills. Instead, she excused herself and retreated upstairs.
Inside their bedchamber, welcome silence enfolded her. The fire was banked low, the air warm and still. Her gaze drifted to the bed, piled with soft wool quilts. It looked obscenely inviting.
“Maybe just for a moment,” she said, tossing her shawl on the back of a chair and kicking off her shoes. When she slid beneath the covers, she hugged Duncan’s pillow to her chest. Closing her eyes, breathing in the scent of sandalwood and safety, sleep quickly claimed her.
***
Thunder rumbled loudly. Maggie’s eyes flew open. The chamber was dim, cast in the silver-gray gloom of an afternoon storm. The fire had gone dark, and a chill laced the air—not the usual dampness of the stone walls and Highland weather but colder. Unnatural. It raised gooseflesh on her arms and stood the hairs at her nape on end.
She sat up when a flash of lightning lit the room.
Though she was certain it had been closed before sleeping, the window hung ajar. Rain spattered the floor, and the curtains flapped in the wind. Shivering, Maggie slid from the bed and padded over in her stocking feet, fingers fumbling with the latch.
With the storm outside where it belonged, she turned back to the room. Something was amiss. The quilts on the bed were bunched and twisted, as though she’d thrashed wildly in her sleep. If she had dreamt, she didn’t remember. Stranger still, her shawl, which she’d tossed over the chair, now lay folded neatly at the foot of the bed.
Had someone come in?
She scanned the chamber.
The door was still locked from the inside, and nothing else seemed amiss, but thewrongfeeling didn’t leave her. Neither did the chill.
She wrapped herself in one of Duncan’s tartans and walked the room looking for the source. At the writing desk, a steady waft of air brushed her ankles.
Frowning, Maggie crouched and peered beneath it. The back was solid, but she felt the rush of frigid air. She shoved the heavy desk aside; the legs scraped sharply against the floor. Behind it, she found a door. Only three feet high, it had no knob or handle. Just a seam.
“What in the world?” she whispered aloud, running her fingers along it.
She found a catch—small, metal, hidden.
Her hand trembled from more than the cold now. Did she really want to see what lay behind it, while alone?
Boldly, she pressed the metal catch, and the panel swung inward.
A blast of frosty air hit her as she stared into blackness.
Quickly, she retrieved an oil lamp. She crouched, lamp held forward, revealing a narrow room with a low ceiling. Cautiously, she entered and stood with only an inch to spare. Duncan would have to bend double.
There wasn’t much inside it: a stool, dusty candlesticks half burned, and a shallow shelf. Propped inside it was a leather-bound book, warped with age, its edges singed as if rescued from a fire.
Maggie opened to the first page.
At the top, written in a flowing script, wasThe Journal ofAnne MacPherson.The date of the first entry startled her– June 1688.
She angled the book closer to the lamp and began scanning the pages. It started out as a lady’s account of castle life—arriving as a bride, nervous and isolated, trying to make a new home among strangers. Four months in, Anne found herself with child.
“Dear heavens, I could have written this,” Maggie whispered.
From there, the entries darkened; even the handwriting changed.
