The Handfasting (5 page)

“You can’t take me
with you.   Not really,” Emma said sadly, her fingers trailing over his
pectoral muscles.

“Aye.  Ye are
here,” Gavin said, reaching up and clasping her hand over his heart.  “I’ll
remember how ye smile when yer nervous, biting yer lip just so like yer doing
now,” Gavin whispered, green eyes staring intensely into Emma’s.

Emma promptly
released her lower lip.

“And I’ll remember
how ye have a faint spray of freckles just here,” Gavin whispered as he trailed
a finger lightly over the bridge of Emma’s nose.  “And how when ye smile, when
ye really smile because ye are laughing, that there’s these two lines just
here,” he said softly, tracing his index finger over the creases beside Emma’s
eyes.

“I think those are
called crow’s feet,” Emma said, rolling her eyes.

“Nay.  Not tae me. 
Tae me they mean that yer happy, and therefore they are beautiful,” Gavin said
sincerely as he trailed his fingers over the sensitive skin next to Emma’s blue
eyes.

“Did ye ken that
ye have two indents just at the base of yer spine, right over yer bum?” Gavin
asked.

“No,” Emma said
sheepishly, color flooding her face.

“Well ye do. 
Right here,” Gavin said as his fingers slid down her naked flesh and settled at
the base of her spine, just above her bottom.  “And one of my other favorite
parts of ye, and I have many ye ken,” he said, chuckling softly now as he ran
his fingers up her ribcage and playfully cupped her left breast, “one of my
favorite parts of ye is right here,” he said softly as his fingers slid into
Emma’s silky blonde hair and his thumb brushed over the heart shaped birth mark
beneath her ear.  He placed a light kiss on her birthmark and breathed in her
sweet feminine scent.  “I think this just might be my favorite part of ye.”

Emma giggled as
his stubble brushed over the sensitive skin of her neck.

“Why?” she asked,
still giggling.

“Because I think
this was made for me,” he confessed, kissing her softly atop her birthmark. 
“It’s my heart,” he said shyly.  “And when I kiss ye here, I can smell ye, and
ye smell sae good.  And I love how it makes ye laugh because yer ticklish. 
This place was made just for me,”

Emma giggled and
captured Gavin’s face between her hands.  “I’ve always hated that birthmark,
but you just changed my mind about it, Gavin Mackinnon.  I think you’re right. 
It
was
made for you.”

“Aye,” he whispered
as he looked into her blue eyes.  “Ye were made for me, Emma Mackinnon.  “And
when I go, I’ll take all of these little pieces that I love about ye with me,”
Gavin said reverently.

Emma looked deeply
into his green eyes.  “Do you think that anyone has ever loved another person
as much as I love you?” she asked, her finger tracing the line of his firmly
set lips.

“Aye.  I ken that
they have because I love ye in the same way,” he said softly as his hands
settled on her sweet bottom as she straddled him.

“Do you think that
this has just happened to us?  Are we the only ones this lucky?”

“Nay.  I hope not,
anyhow.  This feeling that is between us is tae beautiful, tae perfect.  I can
only hope that others have felt such a wonderful thing as well.”

“I hope so too,”
Emma said.  She brought her lips to Gavin’s and kissed him with all of the love
that was overflowing her heart.

“I will wait for
you Gavin MacKinnon.  I won’t give up home that you’ll return to me.  Ever,”
she vowed as she looked into his soul.  “God does not put two people on this
Earth that love each other this much to tear them apart.  I will wait for you
forever if I have to.”

Emma sealed her
vow with a kiss, and hoped against hope that her love would return to her.  She
steeled her heart in preparation for the time that they would be separated and
forced herself to believe that Gavin would return to her.  He had to.

Chapter Four

Gavin hardened his
heart and detached himself from the gut-wrenching aspects of war.  Death
surrounded him.  Men who were not immediately killed in battle often succumbed
to their injuries hours later.  Their agonizing screams plagued Gavin’s fitful
sleep and haunted his waking thoughts.  Those who did not die quickly suffered
the agony of a slow death from infection.  There were no healers and no
medicine to treat their wounds. Gavin found these deaths more painful to
watch.   His mortally wounded clansmen knew that they hovered on death’s door
and yet they lingered on, suffering horribly.  Most slipped away in the night,
succumbing to the grips of death after days of torturous suffering.             Never
had Gavin imagined that he would stand-by helplessly as so many that he loved
died. These were men that he had grown up with.  Many were people that he had
known his whole life. He fought with everything he had, wielded his claymore
expertly and dispatched many of the English bastards to their graves.  And yet,
no matter how fiercely he fought, no matter how many English he killed, it was
not enough.  It was never enough.

Surrounded by the
horrors of war, Gavin clung to Emma’s memory as if she was a talisman in the
darkest of nights.  He turned his memories of her over and over in his mind,
clinging to them in an effort to remember what it felt like to be away from war
and death.  He remembered Emma’s enchanting laugh, high and melodic in its
perfection.  He remembered how her hair fell around him when she leaned above
him and kissed him.  To him, she stood for everything that was beautiful and
pure in the world.  He remembered holding her securely in his arms and talking
into the wee hours of the morning about nothing in particular.

The makeshift
battlefields on which the supporters of Prince Charlie fought the English were
completely absent of beauty.  They were like hell on Earth, littered with dead
and dying men, their blood staining the Scottish countryside. 

It was at these
moments that Gavin needed Emma the most.  He thought of her as he buried his
fallen clansmen.  He focused on her when he held the hand of his cousin,
Dougal, knowing full well that his kinsman was only a few breaths away from
death.  He thought of Emma when there was not even a glimmer of hope left
inside of him.  Her vision brought him sunlight in the darkest of moments, and
he clung to her.  She was all that he had left.

In the darkest of
moments, alone and desperate in the black shroud of night, Gavin found what
comfort he could in the memory of loving Emma’s body.  He took his cock in his
hand and thought of how glorious it had felt to kiss her, to caress he soft
skin, to spill hiss seed deep in her womb.  He whispered Emma’s name into the
night as he pleasured himself, seeking solace that only the memory of her love,
her body could bring him.

Gavin was not a
man who was used to being scared.  As his clan was gradually cut down by the
English, as those that he loved were now mostly dead and buried, Gavin felt
fear with its sick and putrid reek settling deep within the pit of his
stomach.  He worked hard to push this fear aside.  He struggled to remain
strong and hopeful and yet still the fear crept in, usually in the silent
moments that he spent alone in thought.  Gavin’s greatest fear was about Emma. 
He fought to push these thoughts from his mind, but his efforts were futile. 

Lord keep her
safe through this.  Let me make it back tae her.  Let me see her just one more
time.  Lord, let her want me still after what I have become.  Forgive me for
all that I have done.

..ooOoo..

Each passing day
wore more heavily than the last upon Emma.  She thought of Gavin constantly,
never was he far from her mind.  They had been handfast for almost a year now
and she still had no word about Gavin’s welfare.

Reports from the
field were infrequent.  Emma had heard that the Jacobite supporters of Prince
Charlie were fighting mightily, but that many had died at the hands of the
English loyalists. 

“Emma!” Aubrey
burst into the solar, her face flushed from running up the stairs.

Emma jumped
visibly, startled from her thoughts by Gavin’s youngest cousin’s abrupt
intrusion.

“What is it?” she
demanded, searching the girl’s young face for clues.

“Archie’s back! 
He’s just arrived at the keep!”

“Does he have
news?” Emma asked excitedly, her heart hammering in her chest.

“I doona ken…he’s
taken upstairs with Lady Mackinnon.  They’re in the Laird’s study now.”

“Did you see him?”
Emma asked, casting aside her sewing as she stood.  “Could you tell if he had
good news or bad news?” she asked, brushing her skirts off and beginning to
pace the floor of the small room.  She was desperate for news of Gavin.

“Nay.  I mean,
yes, I did see him.  He’s lost his arm!  But nay, I couldna tell if he had good
news or bad,” Aubrey said, her eyebrows knitting together.  “He lost his arm,
Emma,” she said solemnly.  The horrors of the war on the mainland were evident
now on the Isle of Skye.  Archie MacKinnon, mischievous trickster that he was
now had only one arm.

“Oh my Lord,” Emma
said, shaking her head.  Poor Archie.  He was lucky to have survived such a
serious injury.  “I need to go up there,” Emma said with conviction.  She
walked purposefully to the door of the solar, and then stopped abruptly in her
tracks.

What if Archie
tells me that Gavin’s dead?

Emma’s hand froze
on the door knob.  She jerked it back as if the door had burnt her.  Her trembling
fingers rose to her lips and she swallowed hard, fighting against the lump that
had lodged itself in her throat.

Was this the
moment in which her entire world would come crashing down around her?  Was this
the moment that she had been dreading?

..ooOoo..

Archie MacKinnon
had returned home to the Isle of Skye after losing most of his right arm in
battle and miraculously surviving.  Being of little use without his sword
wielding arm, he had traveled home.  Emma had taken an entire day to work up
the courage to go see Archie and ask him if he had news of Gavin. 

She found him
sitting in the great hall, staring blankly into the fire.  Cautiously, she sat
down on the bench next to him.  She could not help but glance at his missing
arm.  Feeling guilty for looking, she forced her eyes away.

Swallowing hard,
she forced herself to voice her deepest fears aloud.

“Is he alive?” she
asked Archie, her voice trembling.

“Last I saw him,
he was,” Archie said, patting her knee reassuringly with the hand he had left.

Emma’s heart
soared. 

Gavin’s alive! 
Thank you Lord!

“I’ll no lie tae
ye and tell ye that things are well with the Jacobite cause,” Archie said, his
brown eyes clouded with pain.  He had seen so much.  He had witnessed such
horrors at the hands of the English and of his own clansmen.  “It’s been six
months since I saw yer man alive.  I’m sorry tae tell ye lass, but much could
have changed in those months,” Archie said, his heart heavy as he spoke his
fears aloud to Emma.

Emma’s initial joy
was snuffed out by Archie’s dour words.  He wasn’t sure if Gavin was alive. 
She shook her head from side-to-side involuntarily, not able to believe
Archie’s insinuation.

“The Laird took a
group of the Mackinnon men north, towards Inverness.  Gavin was with his Da.  I
went south with Lachlan and William.  We ran intae trouble.  I watched William
die,” Archie said, swallowing harshly.   “I held him when he took his last
breath,” Archie said hoarsely, his eyes hollow as he recounted this horrible
memory.

“Archie,” Emma
whispered as the tears began to stream down her cheeks.  The horrors of war had
just hit too close to home.  Gavin’s dear brother, his middle brother who he
thought the world of was dead.  Gavin’s bull-headed, rakish and funny brother
had been killed by the English.  William was dead. “Gavin doesn’t know?” she
whispered, searching Archie’s face. 

“Nay.  There’s no
way that he could.  We had nay way tae get word tae them,” he said, looking
away from the pain that he saw on Emma’s face and focusing on the fire.  “This
wasna all that the English took from me,” he said, voice shaking with emotion
as he held up what was left of his right arm.

“I’m so sorry for
what you saw, Archie,” Emma said sincerely, and she leaned over and kissed him
on the cheek.

Archie nodded, and
kept his gaze intently focused on the dwindling fire.  Tears welled in his
eyes, and he struggled to keep them from falling.

“I wish that I had
more news for ye, lass,” Archie said sincerely as he looked at Emma’s troubled
face.

“I’m glad you’re
home safe,” Emma said, smiling softly.  “You’ve given me some hope.  The last
time you saw him, he
was
alive,” Emma whispered solemnly.  Despite her
valiant effort, she felt as though she was going to lose her composure.  Archie
had seen Gavin months ago, but was not sure if he was still alive.

“Thank you,
Archie,” Emma said as she leaned over and squeezed his hand.

Archie nodded and
turned his attention back to the fire.

Emma stood and walked
briskly from the room.  She left Archie alone with his demons, knowing that if
she fell apart in front of him it would only make things worse.

She said a silent
prayer for the Mackinnon men and one for William in particular. She closed her
eyes and leaned back against the cool stone wall of the hallway.  She prayed
for Gavin’s safety and asked the Lord to protect him, to watch over him so that
he might return safely to her.

 She had often
wondered if Gavin was killed, would she know?  Surely she would feel something
if her soul mate left this Earth?  She nodded her head confidently, seeking to
bolster her uneasy spirits.  She would most certainly know if Gavin Mackinnon
left this Earth.  She felt so close to her husband, her lover that she would
most certainly know.