Page 43 of Won By The Highlander

‘It is almost autumn and yet feels like mid-winter. Scorn me if you will, but I am constantly cold in your country, especially at Fort George. They tell me the walls are yards thick, yet the wind does not seem to know this and shrieks right over the top of them, night and day, bringing the ocean’s chill with it. And the fog rolls off the sea and settles its nip in my bones.’

‘You have young bones to complain so.’

‘You are right. I am but four and twenty. I should be more robust.’ He smiled, and it was like sunshine breaking from behind a cloud.

‘Four and twenty, and yet you are a captain in rank?’ asked Orla, suddenly a little curious.

‘Aye, I have risen quickly, for I have excellent family connections, and besides, there is ever a need for young men to be sacrificed to war.’

His bitter tone made Orla glance at him again. What a sad face he had, forlorn, almost despairing. There was no cunning or malice about it, as there had been with the redcoats who had sneered on her wedding day. For an instant, she pitied Giles Nash his posting to the far corner of a country that did not want him, and his homesickness too, for she still felt her own keenly.

‘Forgive me rattling on when you are clearly tired. Ah, there we have it,’ he said, pointing to a faint path visible through the trees. ‘I think the deer use this, but if we follow, I am sure we can soon get lower, out of this wretched mist and drizzle, and find our way.’

He said ‘our’ as if they were somehow allies, almost friends. Unlike Wolfric, her husband, who joined with her body yet kept her at arm’s length. Nothing penetrated her husband’s armour of indifference, yet this young man, Nash, exposed his doubts, his weakness, and there was no artifice about him. His gentleness made Orla’s heart clench for something she had never had but somehow missed.

His eyes met hers and held. For a moment, some kind of understanding passed between them. It was as if the Captain’s grey eyes saw straight into her soul and read her sadness there. A low rumble of thunder from the high peaks broke the spell.

Nash coughed. ‘We should press on. I fear a storm is coming, and I must get you back safely.’

After that, Orla tried to avoid speaking to Nash, and he seemed similarly inclined. The trees thinned, and the brooding darkness of Blackreach rose in the distance. Dread rolled about Orla’s stomach like a rock. It was almost dark, and her absence would have been noticed by now. The last thing she needed was to be seen in the company of a redcoat, no matter how gentlemanly his manner.

‘I can go on alone from here,’ she said in a rush.

The Captain sighed and hung his head. ‘Aye. That is for the best, I think.’

‘I bid you good day, Captain Nash, and you have my gratitude for seeing me safely home.’

‘Please, might I beg the courtesy of your name one last time, and then I can claim to have at least one friend in the Highlands to assuage my homesickness.’

‘Very well. My name is Orla Munro since my recent wedding into that family. I am Lady of Blackreach.’

‘Lady of Blackreach, you say?’ There was a flicker of some emotion crossing his face - confusion or surprise, or was it disappointment? She could not say which, but he quickly recovered his composure. ‘I have heard of Blackreach. It is home to the crusty, old Laird Rufus Munro if I am not mistaken. And he has a son recently returned, does he not?’

‘Wolfric, my husband.’

‘Then may I congratulate you on your union and wish you every happiness in your marriage.’

Orla could not look in his face and pretend what she did not feel. ‘Aye, you may, but wishing does not make it so,’ she said, walking off before she said anything else so horribly indiscreet.

‘Lady Munro,’ he called after her. ‘Do you often ride to that glen?’

‘I am seldom permitted to.’

‘I try to visit late every day, when my duties allow. I go to the same vantage point where we met today. It boasts a magnificent view out the the ocean and ‘tis but a short gallop from Fort George. I sincerely hope we might meet there again one day.’ He bowed gracefully and turned away.

Soon, he was lost to her, and the rain began pelting down in icy sheets. Orla plodded homewards, cold to her marrow and with a heart as heavy as lead.

Chapter Sixteen

Wolfric stood in the shelter of an arch watching the rain as worry twisted his gut. The yard at Blackreach was deserted, with just a few folk hurrying to find shelter. Orla had been gone for hours, according to the servants, and darkness would soon descend. There was nothing else for it. He would have to send out a search party.

He was about to call for a man to bring his horse when Orla appeared through the murk, walking beside Midnight, and the horse was limping. Relief that she was safe was soon driven out by anger at her disobedience. He struggled to control the beast and not let it loose in front of his wife, but he longed to throttle her with his own bare hands. When she brought her horse to a standstill, Wolfric ran out and dragged her inside out of the rain, ordering a lad to take Midnight’s reins.

‘What are you doing,’ she cried. ‘He is hurt and needs tending.’

Wolfric turned on Orla. ‘Because of you. You went out alone, against my orders, and now you have come to grief,’ he shouted.

‘I don’t need your permission to go riding.’

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