A Highlander’s Love: Highlands Ever After Page 14

What the third man had reminded his friends was the reason Tyra’s heart thudded in her ears. Now, the English soldiers were out for blood, furious that they’d been unable to capture the prince. They knew this escape would be taken as a victory for the Jacobite cause, the escape of their leader.

  The Jacobites might have been defeated, but the spirit behind their rebellion lived on so long as its leader did. Rumors of him having abandoned the cause at Culloden were rampant, but Dougal refused to believe it. “There must have been reason for him to do as he did,” he’d insist. “Perhaps we shall never know the reason, but it had to exist.” Tyra wished for this to be so.

  What she wished much more as they made their way to the harbor was for their safe escape. It had been days of riding, sleeping in the open air, but none of that had mattered. She’d been through it before, as had he.

  She’d never traveled under such secrecy, however. Riding through the night, sleeping during the day. Dougal had laughed at this more than once—he tended to find humor in the strangest things, she noted. “I spent weeks looking for signs of trespassers,” he’d explained once she’d asked why he found this so amusing. “Now, I am behaving as I expected them to behave.”

  Tyra did not see the humor in their plight. While it was indeed a thrill to have made it as far as Edinburgh without attracting attention, the entire plan could fail at this point. It might have all been for naught.

  “We travel separately,” he’d made her promise. “As far as the English will be aware, at any rate. Ye are sailing to meet your sister and her husband in Boston. I shall ride the King’s Highway from Boston to Philadelphia. Dinna allow them to suspect we are together or have ever met.”

  She repeated this to herself time and again as they fought their way through the many bodies pressed together, moving slowly thanks to the sheer number of them. Merchants set up stalls along the edge of the harbor, selling any sort of good imaginable to those arriving and taking their leave. Men carried great wooden crates, shouting orders back and forth, their voices adding to the sense of frenzy.

  Were this any other voyage, Tyra might have found it invigorating. Such life. Such energy. It made the harbor in Lindisfarne look miniscule in comparison.

  Perhaps she would enjoy the adventure, the thrilling aspect of this, once they were safely away. Preferably once they’d docked in Boston Harbor. That would be weeks from this day, when Tyra fought her way through the crowd, praying many times over that they would both make it onto the ship without difficulty.

  “Dinna react if they detain me,” he’d urged before dawn, while they’d waited on the outskirts of the city and spoken a few soft words of love. He’d held her beneath the cover of the woods, holding her tight while she’d trembled with apprehension.

  “I cannot go without you,” she’d confessed, tears staining his tunic. “I cannot. How can I go on? What will I do without you?”

  “Ye carry gold in your purse,” he’d reminded her. “Enough to provide for ye once ye have arrived. Dinna allow anyone to see the purse at any time, for ye shall lose it soon after.”

  She was aware of this, having journeyed on her own before this, but she would not have pointed this out for the world. Not when he spoke so tenderly, eager to offer advice that might spare her a great deal of trouble.

  “Find a likely tavern after docking,” he’d continued, stroking her hair as he liked to do. “Dinna stop to speak to any man in the harbor, no matter what he offers or what he says to pull ye in. That kind all but lives in places such as that, waiting for a likely lass to come along.”

  “I understand.” Yet she had been unable to let him go, knowing they could not touch or even admit having met until they were safely on the ship.

  The ship, up ahead. Massive, seeming to stretch as high as the sky. He’d warned her quarters would be cramped and uncomfortable, that she would suffer countless indignities as so many passengers sailed all at once.

  He would be with her. He simply had to be. She could not, would not go through this alone.

  But she would, if need be, because he wished it so.

  The knowing of it caused her to lift her chin, defiant. Of whom? She could not say. Her own fears, perhaps. They were nothing. She’d come through storms before. She would come through this.

  Because he wished for her to do it. Because if he were taken from her as they presented proof of having paid for passage—which Dougal had acquired the previous evening under the cover of darkness—she would not leave him with the memory of her weeping and protesting.

  Nor would she place herself in harm’s way, which admission of knowing him would most certainly mean. There would be no hope of explaining away the fact that they’d plotted to flee Scotland together. They would brand her a traitor as he’d been branded.

  She would not have him carry that on his conscience, either.

  What was Iona doing now? Strange, the thought of her at a time like this. Perhaps because it was not lost on Tyra that had she not become so lost on the way to Iona’s, none of this would have taken place.

  They might be working in the kitchen now, the two of them and Janet McDade. Or in the garden. Perhaps they would wash the bedclothes or prepare a grand supper to celebrate the upcoming wedding. Colin might ride out to the manor to spend a few precious moments with his intended, and Tyra…

  Tyra would dream of knowing such happiness one day. Of finding the man she was meant to love, to cherish and fight alongside through life’s battles.

  She’d found that man, of this she had no doubts. If only their journey might be an easier one.

  “I am happy for you,” Iona had assured her in hushed whispers moments before Tyra and Dougal rode from Beauly. She’d ridden with them as far as the jail, where they’d met with Colin hours before dawn. “Truly, I am. Be happy. Build a new life together. I will pray for you.”

  “As I will for you,” Tyra had wept before embracing her dear friend. “Every evening, I shall pray for your safety and health, that you and yours know nothing but the best in life.”

  “Could you ever have dreamt of this coming about? For either of us?” Iona had asked, laughing and crying at once.

  No. Tyra never could have, yet here they were. With Colin promising to spread rumors of Dougal having ridden north, hiding himself somewhere in the highlands. “Perhaps in the mountains,” he’d suggested. “Perhaps even further, to the coast. The more versions of the story, the better for all involved.”

  It was quite a risk, yet he was willing to take it. Tyra knew as she rode out of the village that Iona had indeed found a man worthy of her. Perhaps the only man living who could claim such an honor.

  The end of the line came into view. Only a handful more waited to present their papers and board the ship. Dougal had fallen in line behind her, two men between them. She pretended to look about herself, to look behind her as if eyeing the length of the line.

  Their eyes met for only an instant before hers swept away, taking in everything else beyond him. So long as she knew where he was, and he knew she was bearing up well under the strain.

  He might have been anyone, waiting in that line with so many others. He wore an expression of mild irritation, as any man would after nudging and elbowing his way into place. Looking forward to reaching his destination, if not precisely to the sailing.

  There were soldiers ahead, men who wore anger as if they’d dressed in it that morning. They scowled, glared, snickered, asked rude questions, intimidated an old woman waiting two places before Tyra. She remembered Dougal’s warnings and pretended not to notice, praying she did not attract attention.

  “And you?” One of the soldiers approached her, leading a large dog on a leather strap. He reminded her of Prince and Royal, though she doubted he’d be as friendly as they’d proven after a while. She would see to it Dougal had dogs again once they’d settled in their new home.

  If she survived this. Thrusting her ticket toward the soldier, she murmured with downcast eyes, “Good morning to you
.”

  “Hmm. English?” he asked, a note of intrigue in his voice.

  “From the isle of Lindisfarne,” she explained. “Edinburgh is the nearest harbor from which one might obtain passage to the colonies.”

  “Indeed.” There was a moment of silence, painfully long. Tyra held her breath while forcing herself to be calm, to sound as if this were nothing more than an inconvenience. Waiting in line to board among so many Scotsmen.

  “On you go.” He handed her the papers and continued down the line, allowing her to step forward and begin the climb up a steep plank leading to the ship’s upper deck.

  She’d done it. She’d done it!

  But her joy was not complete—in fact, it was the act of walking with her head held high, without turning back to see whether Dougal would make it through, that strained her nerves worse than anything had strained them to this point.

  She had to do it. She simply had to.

  Until voices rang out, shouting, all mingling together until she could make no sense of who spoke nor of what they said. Even the man and woman walking in front of her turned, eager to find what had happened.

  Tyra did not dare. She could not. Not if she hoped to maintain an air of uncaring. Not if she hoped to leave Dougal with the memory of anything but her grief at watching him being taken away.

  Let him remember her this way. Walking to the ship, boarding, prepared to start a new life. Let him take heart in her courage, regardless of how hard her knees knocked together, no matter how close she was to breaking down.

  “Welcome,” one of the crew grunted, helping her onto the deck before turning his attention to the next passenger. That was it. She was on board. She was safe—at least, she would be once the ship set sail.

  What of Dougal? Now was the time to panic, to worry, to chew her lip and wring her hands and pray harder than she ever had in her life. What if it was he who’d fought with the soldiers? What if he never joined her? What if she never saw him again?

  The sight of his face as he stepped onto the deck was like the sight of an angel sent from on high. She ran to him, weeping with joy, and he caught her in his arms. “My love,” he whispered, his voice choked with emotion.

  “I thought… I believed…” She could scarcely see him for her tears, but his smile shone through.

  “I know.” He kissed the backs of her hands, her cheeks, her eyelids. “It was the man waiting before me. They questioned him. He grew belligerent, one of the soldiers struck him.”

  “What did you do?” she gasped.

  “I slipped past them and onto the ship.” He then kissed her, making her forget anything she’d been about to ask. None of it mattered now. They found a quiet corner of the deck, behind a mass of coiled rope, and awaited their departure.

  It was not long before a great deal of shouting back and forth all but deafened Tyra, and Dougal chuckled. “They are readying the ship to set sail,” he smiled. Be that as it might, they were terribly loud about it, their voices playing on her already frayed nerves.

  Not until the harbor began to slip away was she able to smile. To breathe. “This is it!” she squealed, turning to Dougal. “We’ve done it!”

  “Indeed.” He stood, taking her by the hand, leading her across the busy deck and out to the ship’s bow. Men called from their nests above while others darted this way and that. Dougal wove between them without trouble until they reached the front of the ship.

  “See?” he asked, his arms closing about her waist. “The entire world before us, waiting.”

  Yes, and they were sailing toward it, and she felt not so much as a twinge of fear or regret. Only hope, and relief, and joy at the thought of starting out with Dougal beside her. They faced endless opportunities now, the chance to build something that belonged to them. Just them, and then to their children and their children as well. How it thrilled her.

  “Would that I could give ye the entire world, lass,” he murmured against the top of her head. “Ye deserve nothing less.”

  She looked away from the sea which spread before them, turning her gaze upward until she met his. The love in his eyes, she knew, was reflected in hers.

  “Do you not know?” she asked with a smile, stretching up on tiptoe that she might kiss him. “You have already given me the world.”

  And indeed, he had.

  I hope you enjoyed A Highlander’s Love. !

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