The Winter Sea (Slains, #1)(147)
It might be that the king would come, and it might be that he would not. It scarcely mattered to her now, for she had Moray back. He’d promised he’d return to her, and so he had. He’d promised her that one day she would stand upon a ship’s deck, and she knew that she would do that too, and he would be beside her. And wherever that ship took them, and however far it carried them from Scotland and from Slains, she would be bound to both by memory.
She would see in dreams the dark red castle walls that rose so proudly from the cliffs, and hear the roaring of the sea below her tower chamber, and Kirsty’s bright voice calling in the morning to awaken her. She’d feel the warming sunlight spilling through the windows of the corner sewing room where she had sat so often with the countess, and the closer warmth of horses dozing upright in their stalls while Hugo kept his faithful watch beside the stable door.
She would no more forget these things than Slains itself would lose its memory of herself and Moray, for she knew that they had left their imprint there as well, and left it deep enough that one day Anna, walking on the beach, might hear the windborne echo of their laughter from the dunes, and glimpse their shadows on the shore, and wonder at the lovers who had left such ghosts behind. She would know little else except that they’d been happy. And in truth, Sophia thought, there would be nothing else to know.
Whatever might become of them, she knew that there was nothing that could rob them of that happiness. For they had lived their winter, and the spring had finally come.
CHAPTER 19
IT WAS COLD, BUT in the shelter of the dunes there was no wind, and for an hour I sat and watched the sunrise. It was beautiful—the first small glint of gold that split the dark clouds to the east above the water, growing steadily until the sky caught fire and flamed to brilliance for a breathless moment.
From here on the beach I could not see the walls of Slains, but I imagined them. I roofed the castle in my mind and gave it life again, and saw a couple strolling far off on the pathways of the garden, and the countess coming down the steps to greet her latest visitors who’d just arrived on horseback, riding hard to bring the hopeful word from France.
And if I turned my head I saw the phantom of a running sail against the grey horizon, as I’d seen so often in my childhood from a different shore. And now I understood why I had seen it, and why even now I felt the strange pull of the sea that drew me like an outstretched hand and called me back when I had been too long away.
My father had been right: the sea was in my blood, and had been put there by Sophia’s thoughts, her memories, all that she had sent to travel down through time to me. I felt the bond between us as I sat and watched the sunrise fade to morning light above the sea that seemed now to be casting off its winter face, the long waves rolling in to dance more lightly on the sand.
I sometimes felt a sadness when I’d reached the ending of a book, and had to bid the characters goodbye. But I could find no sadness in this story’s end, and I knew Jane would find none either, and be pleased with it, as I was. And that sense of pleasure stayed with me as, finally giving in to the demands of my half-frozen body, I got up and slowly walked across the beach and up the path to where my cottage waited on the hill.
It had looked glad to see me yesterday when I’d arrived back from Kirkcudbright, and I felt the same sense now of welcome when I came in through the door to find the Aga warmly burning and the papers spilling over on the table where I’d spent the long night writing. Though I knew I’d soon be moving down to Aberdeen to Graham’s house—our house, he had corrected me—I’d still arranged with Jimmy for the cottage to be here for us to use when we came down weekends. I’d come to think of it as mine, and while I would have gone with Graham anywhere, just as Sophia went to follow Moray, I felt comfort in the knowledge that I didn’t have to lose my views of Slains and of the sea.
And Graham seemed to understand my feelings, even though he didn’t know the reason for them, and he maybe never would. I hadn’t yet decided if I’d tell him what had happened to me here, for I felt certain if I did he’d only laugh and kiss my face and call me crazy.
Bad enough I’d have to tell my father that we might not be McClellands after all, but Morays. It was too early in the morning yet to place a call to Canada, he’d still be fast asleep, but I would have to do it sometime. He would read it in the book when it came out and be suspicious, and although it wasn’t something I could prove I knew him well enough to know that once he’d got his mind around the possibility, he’d do his best to find his own proof. He had always loved a challenge, had my father. He’d be hunting through the records of the Royal Irish Regiment, and tracking down descendants of the male line of the Abercairney Morays to compare their DNA with his.
I smiled faintly as I filled the kettle for my morning coffee, thinking that if nothing else, my father might uncover some new relatives a little less eccentric than the ones we had— Ross McClelland exempted, of course. I was keeping Ross, no matter what.
He’d seen me to the station yesterday, and sent me off with homemade fudge that I’d forgotten until now. Remembering, I rummaged in my suitcase, which was sitting where I’d dropped it just inside the door when I’d come in. I found the bag that held the fudge, and as I tugged it out the little auction catalogue that Ross had given me came with it, so I took it, too. I hadn’t had a chance to read it yet, to see what heirlooms our New York McClellands would be selling off this time. Nothing too terrible, obviously, or else my father would have called me to complain about it.