Our Shared Horizon (Kaitlyn and the Highlander Book 10) Read online

  She added, “Dost ye hae any questions on your wedding night? Are ye prepared for it?”

  I sat up again. “No, I am prepared, but thank you for asking, this is exactly what Katie would have done, talked me through my worries.”

  “I was verra frightened on m’first wedding night. I had heard the stories of what would happen tae me, but twas a verra rude beginnin’.” She made a sound that was like an ugh. “My second husband is a much better husband.”

  “You mean he’s better in bed?”

  “Och, he is much better. I daena want tae speak ill of the dead, but my Liam is much kinder.”

  “That is literally half the battle. I’m glad he’s kinder, I really am, you deserve it.” I lay back down. “Do you think Fraoch will be a good husband?”

  “When ye watch him ridin’ dost ye like the look of him?”

  “Oh yes. The thighs, hoo wee.”

  “Then I think ye will like him enough tae bear him.”

  I giggled

  She said, “Good night tae ye, Madame Hayley.”

  “Good night, Madame Lizbeth.”

  Nine - Hayley

  There was a nudge on my shoulder and Lizbeth whispered, “Tis time tae rise, Madame Hayley, Fraoch has come for ye.”

  I was bleary and confused. “Fraoch?” Lizbeth had a flashlight on, I had given it to her, but the rest of the room was very dark. I had to look around to understand — that’s right, my wedding.

  I swung my feet over the side of the bed and Lizbeth helped me get my bodice on. She was wearing her shift with a wool shawl and on her feet... “You’re wearing your Uggs.”

  “I do like them, they are keepin’ m’toes verra warm.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  She pulled my laces tight. “Now ye will want yer arisaid.” She draped the plaid over my shoulder, cinched a leather belt around my waist, and draped the end of the plaid across my other shoulder and tucked it into the back of my belt.

  I pinned my hair back, my bun low at the nape of my neck. Using selfie-mode on my phone, I applied mascara. Lizbeth said, “What is this?”

  “It makes my lashes long, see?” I batted my eyes. I smeared some foundation on my skin and a little concealer around my eyes. “See how cool this is?”

  “Tis nae as pale as ye might want tae look in formal company.”

  “All these products are so I look natural, like I’m not wearing any makeup at all.”

  “Tis a great deal of work tae look as if ye’ve done nothing.”

  “The important thing is do I look beautiful?”

  “Aye, Fraoch will think ye verra bonnie, as he should.” She followed me to the door of her room.

  The hallway was completely, oppressively dark. My flashlight’s small beam settled on Fraoch, right there, waiting.

  “Good morn, Hayley.”

  “Hi.”

  Liam stood beside him, holding a candle, doing nothing more than flickering tiny little speckles of light about six inches around. It was so dark we spoke in hushed voices. Liam asked Fraoch, “Dost ye need some of us tae accompany ye?”

  “Nae, tis rainin’. Nae one else needs the drench of it.”

  I asked, “It’s raining?”

  Lizbeth said, “Aye, ye daena hear it?”

  Now that she mentioned it, I could, but the downpour was so steady I had tuned it out.

  She added, “Tis nae matter in it, ye will be so happy tae be married ye winna mind ye are wet as a trout at the bottom of a stream.” She passed a stack of thick wool blankets to Fraoch. He carried those in one arm, and with the other he carried my bags. I carried my satchel and we said goodbye to Liam and Lizbeth.

  Our horses were waiting at the door at the bottom of the steps with their heads down, dejected and forlorn. I couldn’t blame them, this weather was wet: soaking, down-pouring, promising to be unrelenting. This would be an all week rain.

  The sun was on the verge of coming up, but the clouds menacingly warned us we might never see the sun again.

  Fraoch mumbled, “Chan eil an t-sìde cho math an-diugh ’s a bha e an-dé. Tis dreich.”

  I took it to mean: “This is some sucky weather.”

  He tied our bags to the horses. Then he unfurled a blanket and wrapped it over my head and around my shoulders. He helped me to my horse. In that couple of minutes my skirts became sopping wet. He draped another blanket across my lap and wrapped it around my thighs, tucking it up into the saddle. My boots were going to be sopping wet by the time we got there, but really everything was going to be wet — we were crazy to go out in it.

  Fraoch wrapped his shoulders in another blanket and climbed on his horse. He didn’t seem that worried about the rain. His face held his easy smile, he swung Thor toward the gate. “Ye ready, Hayley?”

  “Yes.”

  Gatorbelle followed his horse from the courtyard.

  The ride was slow-going and miserable because our visibility was terrible, the puddles were deep, and the mud patches were difficult to navigate. I became very complainy. It was also cold, shivering-chilly, a hard-to-believe-it-was-summer kind of chill. I pulled the blanket down over my face and let Gatorbelle do the driving, while I watched rain pour into my lap, wondering if I was superstitious enough to believe this was an omen.

  It wasn’t, rain happened. It was Scotland after all. Plus it rained like crazy the day of Emma and Zach’s wedding.

  But they hadn’t been outside in it.

  I watched Fraoch through the drips of rain in front of my face. His back was wide, wrapped in wool, swaying side to side with his horse’s pace. Then, as if he sensed I was watching, he slowed, turned Thor, and pulled alongside. He leaned across, up close: damp skin, drips on his eyebrows and lashes, wet beard and warm breath. He kissed me. “We are almost there.”

  I smiled.

  He put his arms out and announced to the wet world, “We are about tae marry! Madame Hayley means tae be mine!”

  “Aye, if we don’t drown first,” I joked.

  He laughed, turned his horse back into the lead, and picked up our pace to the village and down the lane to the church.

  Ten - Hayley

  The village was pale gray, with no difference between the stone and sky. The wet made it so I could barely see, but Fraoch had been here often enough. He led us down a lane of mud and puddles and up to a small wooden door within a stone wall. He tied our horses and then helped me down. I dropped into his arms, splashing to the ground, wetter than if I had taken a shower. He hustled me through the door, both of us laughing, to the interior church foyer, where I immediately went quiet. It was stone walls, stone floor, freezing cold, and oppressively echoing-quiet.

  Fraoch dropped the blanket that was wrapped around his shoulders to the ground by the door and pulled mine off to leave there too. He whispered, “Tis a good thing we dinna get wet.”

  Soggy blankets lay around our damp feet. I whispered back, “I’ve never been this dry in my life.”

  He held my face and wiped water from my cheeks. “Ye have some of the dark here,” he wiped his thumbs under my eyes rubbing off my smudged mascara.

  “It was to make me beautiful.”

  He wiped the soggy hair that was plastered on my cheeks. “Ye are beautiful enough.”

  I joked, “If you talk this romantically you might make me cry and then I really will be wet.” I wiped his cheeks dry and finger-brushed his hair back from his face, less unkempt, while he finger-combed his beard.

  I asked, “Will you let me take a photo, for Kaitlyn?”

  “What tis?”

  I pulled my iPhone from my bag. “Just go with it. It’s like having your portrait painted but only takes a moment and it won’t hurt, I promise. Smile.” I turned around, leaned back against his chest, and held my phone up and took about twenty selfies.

  I showed him, scrolling through the phone.

  “Tis the way I look? Och.” He winced and ran his fingers through his beard even more.

  I thought we both look
ed very very wet. I made my hair a little better and said, “Let’s take one more.”

  When I held the phone up this time I noticed he kept his lips closed over his teeth. I took ten to get one perfect one. His eyes open, an easy, albeit closed smile on his face.

  “There, you’re very handsome.” I dropped my phone into my satchel and brought out my small cloth bag. “Hold open your sporran.” I dropped a handful of gold coins into his sporran and then repacked all my things.

  He took my hand in his as the shuffling footsteps of the minister sounded through the church.

  This was our wedding. We stood in the middle of the darkened church. The minister was robed for the occasion, but acted a little like he had been woken up. He didn’t even look at me as he was so stooped over he only saw my skirts. He was very very old. He spoke to Fraoch with a wavering voice.

  Fraoch said, “I am Fraoch MacLeod, Madame Greer sent me.”

  The minister cupped his hand behind his ear so Fraoch bellowed, “I am Fraoch MacLeod, Madame Greer sent me!”

  He seemed to understand, so Fraoch and I faced each other. He took my right hand. His hand was big and strong and fully enclosed mine. There was a tremble to it.

  I shivered.

  “Are ye cold?”

  “A little.”

  “Are ye scared?”

  “Yes.”

  The minister spoke to Fraoch, and then Fraoch spoke to me, repeating what he had been told to say. “I Fraoch, take ye, Hayley...” there was a pause where the minister spoke again. Fraoch’s voice rumbled through me when he said, “…tae be my wife, till death us part. I plight ye m’troth.” He yelled at the minister, “I have said it.”

  The minister nodded towards the ground by our feet.

  Fraoch’s expression was all serious earnestness when he said, “Now ye say it in turn.”

  “I, Hayley, take ye, Fraoch... um...?”

  “Tae be yer husband…”

  “To be my husband…”

  “Until we are parted by death.”

  “Until we are parted by death.”

  “Now ye say, ‘I plight ye m’troth,’ tis the most important part.”

  “I plight you my troth.”

  He smiled down at me nodding, “Tis done.”

  “Is it? Wow, that was easy.”

  To the minister he said, “We are finished with it.”

  The man looked confused, so Fraoch bellowed, “We are finished!”

  He reached in his sporran for a coin, and with his back straight, paid for our wedding. The minister clasped Fraoch’s hands in his own gnarled old hands and spoke long and unrecognizably about something important in a monotone voice. Then whatever he was saying turned into a long prayer while I stood with my head bowed beside him. Then the minister let go of Fraoch’s hands and waved us to be gone before he turned and shuffled away.

  Fraoch and I went to the front door of the church and peeked out — torrential downpour.

  “What now?”

  “Now we have tae make it from here tae our lodgin’ without drownin’.”

  Eleven - Hayley

  We climbed on the horses again, sopping underneath our covering of wet wool blankets, and made our way to the inn. Fraoch and me. Two half-drowned newlyweds. My skirts were mud-covered. I was fully shivering.

  Fraoch had me sit on a chair beside the fire in the tavern. “Let me see tae the horses and get our room.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Long enough for the time tae care for the food and our lodgin’.”

  “Fraoch Macleod, I can’t believe I didn’t bring you a watch. First thing we are both going to have watches and we will synchronize them.”

  He kissed my forehead. “Twill take me a few moments, I will be fast on it.”

  I sighed and then sat by myself in a chair going through my mental list of things to bring next time: more Uggs, a mattress, a watch.

  The tavern was opening for a breakfast of sorts, continental style, someone was in and out of the kitchen, there were some loaves of bread on the table, but I wasn’t sure I was allowed to eat. No coffee of course. My coffee was in one of my bags on Thor, I hoped Fraoch remembered it. I knew I would need to learn to live without coffee eventually but this was not the time. My wedding day.

  I was so cold my jaw was clenched.

  Finally the front door opened and Fraoch pushed into the room. He dropped all of our bags to the ground and wiped drips off his arms onto the floor.

  He strode toward me, “Are ye warm?”

  “No, I’m really cold.”

  He crouched down and ran his hands up and down my arms briskly. Then wrapped a damp wool blanket around me. “Dost ye want some bread or a warm room?”

  I pouted. “I want both.”

  “Aye.” He grabbed a loaf off the table, a pot of jelly, a dish with butter, and called into the kitchen, “Madame Mary, we are taking this tae our rooms. M’wife is verra cold. There is a fire?”

  A chubby woman emerged from the back rooms. “Aye, Master Fraoch, the fire has been built. This is your wife?” She took my hands in her’s. “Och, ye are cold, ye need tae get tae the room.” She led us up the tall creaky wooden single-file stairs to the top floor, down a narrow hallway, to our door.

  It was a small room with whitewashed walls, a rug on the floor, and a four poster bed covered in wool blankets. There wasn’t a lot of furniture: the bed, a table, and a chair in front of the fireplace. But it was warm.

  The thick walls barely dampened the loud torrential downpour outside. This whole room was a sensory overload: smoky, warm near the fire but freezing at the edges, wood-fire scented, noisy. Ancient feeling. And looking. And it was mine. I was in the eighteenth century and had just procured shelter. I had come to the 1700s and had scored a husband, a room, and food. I wasn’t just visiting, I lived here now, I was settling. It was a hotel, but still, mine for the next few nights. On my honeymoon.

  Michael and I had been planning to honeymoon in Hawaii.

  Fraoch said, “Dost ye want tae remove your wet clothes?”

  I joked, “I can’t, I think I’m frozen like a statue.”

  He crossed the room, stood in front of me, and fumbled with my laces, pulling and loosening. The top went loose, but the bottom didn’t.

  I glanced down. “Do you know how to do this?”

  “I daena ken, and m’fingers are cold.”

  We moved closer to the fire and then, while he briskly clapped his palms together for warmth, I worked on my laces, now frustratingly too tight. “Would you be a good boy and get me the coffee bottle from the main bag?”

  He laughed. “I am a good boy now? As if I am a young man and nae the auld man afore ye?”

  I laughed. “Yes, you are a good boy. And you’re definitely not old. How old are you?”

  “I have been married and have lived another life a second time, I daena ken, thirty years?”

  “So old,” I teased. “But you aren’t doing the math right, compared to me you’re almost three hundred and fifty.”

  “Och, ye are a bairn.” He dug through the main bag for my jar of Starbucks latte.

  “Get the other one too, it’s black, I think you’ll like that better, old man.”

  He joked, “I prefer ‘good boy’.”

  “Me too, but both will work, depending on my mood.” I loosened the last of the laces and struggled my bodice up over my arms and off. He stopped still and his breathing quickened.

  “What? Because I have my bodice off? Ah. I see.”

  His expression was rapt, taking me in, though I was still wearing the blousy shift and big wet wool skirts.

  “Hand me the coffee.” I unscrewed the lid, drank, put the lid back on, and placed the jar on the floor beside me. I unlatched my belt, dropped it to the floor, and pushed down the heavy, muddy skirts and stepped out of the middle of them.

  I was down to my shift. “Are you going to try the coffee?”

  “Aye,” but he didn’t mov
e. He stood looking at me as if he couldn’t pull his eyes away.

  “What do we do now?”

  He broke from his spell, took a drink of the cold brew coffee, and smacked his lips as he admired the label. He took another drink then placed it on the floor beside mine.

  He ran his hands through his hair. “We consummate our marriage.”

  “That sounds important.”

  “Tis.”

  “What if we don’t like it, I mean, what if you don’t like me?”

  “Och, I already like ye verra much.”

  “And I’m still in my shift.”

  “Tis almost nae thing at all.”

  “If you saw what I’m used to wearing Fraoch, you would freak out.” I drank some more coffee and we both stood by the fireplace warming ourselves. “Your boots are wet, you want me to take them off for you?”

  He sat down in a chair and I knelt in front of him, untied his boots, and peeled them off his damp feet. His eyes were on me hard. He was watching me like he wanted to devour me. It was incredibly hot. Like he wanted me so so so much.

  I picked up his wet boots, scooped up my bodice and skirts, and placed them all spread out in front of the hearth. At the table I tore off two hunks of bread and smeared them with butter and jam, the way I knew he liked, and brought him a piece. Then I stood there eating mine, standing in front of him.

  “Dost ye want tae sit down?”

  “No, I want you to keep looking at me just like you are. Think of it, this is our first time together in a room, Fraoch. In a private room. I’m going to stand here and you’re going to enjoy the view.”

  “Och.” He chewed slowly. I was impressed how hot he was for me — he couldn’t look away.

  It was gloomy, a gray cast from the rain outside. The sound of the torrential rain filled the room. The shadows and noise enclosed us, like being in a cave, only enough light for us, by the fire, not to be overheard. Our voices were whispers, our focus right here, between us. This was all we could see and hear.

  After a few moments, drinking some coffee, eating my bread, I teased, “You know what this means?”