was waiting for otters, not for him.
Right. Watch on. He managed to turn his attention back to the water rippling beneath them.
‘There...’ It was hardly a whisper. Jeanie was looking left to where a lower overhang shaded the water, and there it was, a sleek, beautiful otter slipping from the shadows, with a younger one behind.
‘Oh,’ Jeanie breathed. ‘Oh...’
She was completely unaware of him. All her attention was on the otters.
They were worth watching. They were right out from under the shadows now, slipping over the burn’s rocky bed, nosing through the sea grasses and kelp, hunting for the tiny sea creatures that lived there.
‘They eat the kelp, too,’ Jeanie whispered but Alasdair thought she was talking to herself, not to him.
‘They’re stunning,’ he whispered back. ‘Did you know their coat’s so thick not a single drop of water touches their skin?’
‘That’s why they’re hunted,’ she whispered back. ‘You will...keep protecting them? After I’ve left?’
And there it was again—reality, rearing its ugly head. At the end of this year, this castle would go to Jeanie’s creditors. He’d buy it and keep it—of course he would. He’d keep it safe. But he glanced at Jeanie and saw her expression and he thought, She’s not sure.
He’d promised—but this woman must have been given empty promises in the past.
She was resting her chin on her hands and he could see the gold band he’d placed on her finger two days ago. For a year they were required to be officially married, and officially married people wore rings.
But now... What worth was a promise? Jeanie didn’t trust him and why should she?
He glanced down at the otters, hunting now in earnest, despite the humans close by. They must sense their shadows, but they’d waited for almost an hour before resuming hunting. They’d be hungry. They’d be forced to trust.
As Jeanie had been forced to trust. She’d been put into an impossible situation. How to tell her...?
The ring...
* * *
One moment she was lying watching otters, worrying about their future, thinking would Alasdair really keep this estate? Would he keep caring for these wild creatures she’d come to love?
The next moment he’d rolled back a little and was tugging at his hand. Not his left hand, though, where she’d placed the wedding ring that meant so little. Instead he was tugging at his right hand.
At the Duncairn ring.
She’d seen this ring. It was in every one of the portraits of the McBride earls, going back in time until the names blurred and Eileen’s history lesson had started seeming little more than a roll call.
Each of those long-dead earls had worn this ring, and now it lay on Alasdair’s hand. It was a heavy gold signet, an intricate weaving, the head of an eagle embossed on a shield, with the first letters of the family crest, worn but still decipherable, under the eagle’s beak: LHV.
Loyalty, honour, valour.
Alan had mentioned this ring, not once, but often. ‘He’s a prig,’ he’d said of Alasdair. ‘And he’s younger than me. He thinks he can lord it over me just because he wears the damned ring...’
The ‘damned ring’ was being held out to her. No, not held out. Alasdair was taking her hand in his and sliding the ring onto the middle finger of her right hand. It fitted—as if it was meant to be there.
She stared down at it, stunned. So much history in one piece of jewellery... So many McBride men who’d worn this ring...
‘Wh-what do you think you’re doing?’ she stammered at last, because this didn’t make sense.
‘Pledging my troth.’
‘Huh?’ Dumb, she thought, but that was how she was feeling. Dumb. And then she thought: she shouldn’t be here. Her fragile control felt like crumbling. This man seemed as large and fierce and dangerous as the warriors he’d descended from.
Loyalty, honour, valour...
This was the McBride chieftain. He was placing a ring on her finger, and the ring took her breath away.
‘Jeanie, I have nothing else to show you I’m serious.’ In the kirk, Alasdair’s vows had been businesslike, serious, but almost...clinical. Here, now, his words sounded as if they came from the heart. ‘I’m promising you that at the end of this year of marriage I will make your life secure. As well, I will buy this castle for what it’s worth and Alan’s creditors will be paid. I’ll treat it as the last of Alan’s share of the estate. He was, after all, just as much Eileen’s grandson as I was.’
‘You don’t have to make me secure,’ she managed, still staring at the ring. ‘And Alan wasn’t worth—’
‘I’m not judging,’ he told her. ‘And I refuse to think of Alan after this. To be honest, it took courage to come here. I haven’t been back to this place since that day he hurt the otters. But I have come, to find life has moved on. But it needs faith to face it. So here’s my faith in you, and I’m hoping you can find that faith in me. At the end of the year I’ll take on this estate and I’ll care for it as Eileen would have wanted it cared for. And as I suspect you want it cared for. And I will ensure your future...’
‘I don’t want anything.’
‘I know you don’t. You don’t seem to put yourself into the equation at all, but I’m putting you there. It seems you canna keep the castle, Jeanie lass, no matter what Eileen’s will says, but you can keep the heart of it. As long as you wear this ring, this estate will be safe, our Jeanie. I promise you. Hand on this ring, I swear.’
He’d lapsed into broad Scottish, the voice of his ancestors, the voice of his people. He was lying full-length on a bed of moss over a rippling burn, he was looking at her as no man had ever looked at her, and the way he spoke... It was as if he were kneeling before a throne, head bowed, swearing fealty to his king.
Swearing fealty to...her?
‘Alasdair...’ It was hard to breathe, much less speak. She had to fight for the words. ‘There’s no need,’ she managed. ‘You don’t have to do this. Besides...’ She stared at the intricate weaving of gold on her finger and her heart failed her. ‘I’ll probably lose it in a pudding mix.’
He smiled then, but his smile was perfunctory, the gravity of the moment unchanged. ‘I know you won’t. I trust you with it, Jeanie, as you trust me with the castle.’ His hand closed over hers, folding her fingers, the ring enclosed between them. ‘I’m asking that you trust me back.’
‘I can... I can trust you without the ring.’
‘Why would you?’
‘Because...’ How to say it? There were no words.
And the truth was that until now, until this moment, she hadn’t trusted.
