Page 86 of Sinbound to the Highlander
Epilogue
When Laird and Lady Lobhdain were summoned the next day, both were equally relieved and disgusted by Elspeth’s actions. When Freya had asked why, they told her that they were relieved that Elspeth was alive, because she had gone missing the third day of Yuletide. The Laird had scoured the countryside, day and night for her, but had not in the least expected that she would go back to Ruthven.
When Evan had called her into the room to hear Elspeth’s confession, she had admitted that the numerous misfortunes—the fires, well poisoning, and cattle slaughter—that had beset Evan’s people were all planned out.
“Because I wanted to hurt ye like ye hurt me,” Elspeth had spat cruelly. “Ye kent I’d be here with healers for so long and nae ask a thing or two? Once I got the herbs I need, it was so easy.”
Nervously, Freya had looked to Evan, noting that though furious, Evan had held back his rage before he asked the most crucial question, “How did ye get back into me castle?”
“Misdirection,” Elspeth had spat. “I got a horse to run past the guards at the curtain wall gate, they ran after it, and I slipped in. I sent me maid to poison yer Maither because that would have hurt ye deeply, and then when Freya was dead, ye’d be destroyed—like I was when ye broke off the engagement,” she ended harshly.
Cold fury encased Evan’s chest. He’d then turned to Laird Lobhdain, who was beside him, “Attempted murder, conspiracy, poisoning, arson, betrayal…is there anything I am forgetin’, Laird Lobhdain? Is there anything that can save her from being hanged?”
A flash of pain crossed the man’s face, “I kent she’s done some horrible deeds Saunderson, but I ken of a worse fate for her than death…” he turned to Elspeth, “exile.”
“It’s all in yer hands, Laird Lobhdain,” Evan had replied, “Now if ye’ll excuse me, Mister and Mister Crushom will be arriving soon. They’ve heard the worst of it, and now it’s time for us to tell them the best of it.”
That was when he led Freya—a thoroughly sickened Freya—out of the room and into their bed chamber so she could cry out her pain on his shoulder. When they did meet her adoptive parents, Caitlin had taken one look at her daughter and embraced her tightly.
That First Footing had been a horrible day; one Freya was determined to put at the back of her mind as the days and weeks that passed away. For five months, Freya had watched the land change from a frozen wasteland into the warm, green, fragrant land it was in April.
She saw the little things; the thin shoot of green poking out of the melting snow, the tiny chirp of morning birds, the cracking ice on the streams and lochs, all that told her that real spring had come at last.
The ill-fated Jacobites had come back to Scotland, resolute on restoring the Catholic King to his throne, but were denied—again. The Duke of Cumberland had blown the troops to smithereens with English cannons, on a flat moor outside Inverness, nary a week before her wedding. Before the battle, the Clan had lived under the constant fear of being under siege, but now their worries were rendered moot.
The day finally came, and Freya was gazing out at the countryside, filled with vibrant, ruby, orange, and cobalt flowers, blanketing the hills. A smile played on her lips as her mind went to last night. She was not sure if Evan had recovered from his blackening, but she laughed at the memory.
They had been having the first meal in the Great Hall when five men, along with her birth father Laird Lobhdain and her adopted one, Balthair Crushom, had come in, and wrestled Evan out of his seat, sticking a sack on his head and carting him off like chattel.
I wonder if he’ll laugh or scowl when I bring it back up again.
Freya had not escaped either the pre-wedding traditions either, as the women had taken her for her foot washing. She turned around and spotted the wedding dress, a simple but elegant, square-necked emerald dress, and over it was a tartan sash of Evan’s clan. News had reached them about the ban of clan’s plaids and kilts, but Freya was not going to be wed without a mark of her husband’s clan on her.
“Nay nervous, are ye?” Lady Grace said as she came in with a tray of pie slices on it.
“I am,” Freya said, pulling away from the window. “Only a little, though.”
“Ye have naythin’ to worry about,” Lady Grace took Freya’s hands, “Evan loves ye down to the ground ye walk on.”
“I ken,” Freya nodded. “It's just…I wished it could be happier.”
Lady Grace’s eyes tightened at the indirect inference to Elspeth, her disgraced sister. That night she had tried to kill Freya, Evan had been all for sending her to hang, but Freya had talked him out of that sentence. Her crimes did merit execution, but he had relented and sent her off with her parents, letting them decide her fate.
Elspeth, however, had taken it into her hand and left in the dead of night. Her co-accused, her maid and driver, had been caught at the border of Scotland and England, running to save their lives, not too long after. The woman committed suicide, and the driver was sent off to labor in the mines. The last Lady Grace had heard of her daughter was that she’d become a servant in a lowland clan, feeding pigs. They could have called her back home, but decided to let it be—she had made her bed.
Freya forced a laugh, “Have ye seen Evan? Has he recovered?”
“I believe so,” her mother smiled as the uncomfortable moment passed. “He’s lucky they dinnae creel him.”
Wincing at the image of her husband-to-be walking around the village with a large basket filled with heavy stones on his head, Freya giggled, “They wouldnae dare.”
“Ye dinnae ken yer Faither too well,” Lady Grace smiled. “He can be a real task master when he wants to be. But on happier news, the kirk at Cillock is prepared, and so are the people there.”
Freya looked around. “I suppose we should get ready then?”
“For the first day of a happier life,” Lady Grace looked around. “I ken we should.”
In retrospect, Freya should have expected a royal welcome. The road to her village’s kirk was lined with every man, woman, and child in the village, and they were all cheering. She felt the need to shrink away, but felt, deep within herself, she would be shaming herself and Evan. After all, they’d been through, and what tests of being the Lady of Clan Ruthven that would come, she better started being bold.
