Highlander’s Frozen Heart by Shona Thompson

Chapter Three

The journey had been long and tiring for Magnus and his men. They had been traveling for what seemed to him like eons, spending day after day on horseback, night after night sleeping in camps and inns that weren’t nearly as comfortable as his chambers in the castle—though he realised it was hardly a hardship compared to what other people with little privilege went through daily—and by the time they had reached their destination, a part of him wondered why he had ever left the castle in the first place.

They were officially in England, having travelled out of the Highlands, past the Lowlands, and across the border, though they were still close enough to home that the surroundings didn’t seem strange or completely foreign to him.

The town where Magnus knew he would find Adelleine was small, even smaller than the towns at the edges of his clan’s territory. There was a tavern there, one that also served as an inn, that was big enough for only a few guests to rent per night, and old, decaying houses, which hadn’t seen repairs for years.

It didn’t surprise Magnus that Jacob had come from such a town, even though neither he nor his sister had been born or raised there. He had always known that Jacob was no wealthy man and that, unlike himself, he hadn’t chosen the life at sea because he enjoyed it or because he was looking for adventure.

No, Jacob had chosen that life for himself, and he had stayed on that ship for so long because he and his family needed the money.

What did surprise Magnus was just how poor the entire town seemed to be. Even his guards were looking at their surroundings with disdain.

“Living in a castle has made ye soft,” he teased them, and the men laughed, but they couldn’t disagree. Magnus himself had gone soft, he knew, ever since he had returned to land.

“How will ye find her, m’lord?” Duncan, one of his men, asked, “All these houses look the same to me.”

“It’s hardly a town where ye cannae find someone, Duncan,” Magnus pointed out, “All we need to do is ask.”

The people around them seemed happy to stare, after all, and Magnus was quite certain that they would be just as happy to talk. It wasn’t every day that the little town of Dalelry saw such an entourage. The locals were bound to be interested in Magnus’ arrival.

“Excuse me,” Magnus said, as he inserted himself in a local woman’s way, stopping her dead in her tracks, “We’re lookin’ for the Gresham residence.”

The woman, a young one, whose beauty was obscured not only by the rags on her back, but also by the dirt that covered her hands and parts of her face, looked at Magnus and his men with wide eyes, glancing back and forth among the four of them. For a while, she neither spoke nor moved, but once she did, she rushed away from the men, glancing at them over her shoulder with every step that she took.

“Hmm . . .” Magnus turned to look at his guards, who seemed to be just as clueless as he was.

“Perhaps they dinnae like strangers here, m’lord,” Duncan said, “A small place like this, they cannae get many visitors.”

“What do you want with the Greshams?”

The voice came from behind Magnus before he or his men could finish their conversation. The woman who had spoken was an older one, tall and plump, with greying hair, her hands resting on her hips as she looked at them.

“Lookin’ for Adelleine, the Gresham’s niece,” Magnus explained, “I’m here after her brother’s request.”

“Jacob’s dead,” the woman said, and even though many would have missed it in her tone, Magnus could tell that she was affected by his death too, just as he knew that everyone else in that town was mourning his passing.

Jacob was the kindest man he had ever met. Magnus could only assume that he had touched the lives of many.

“Aye, I ken,” Magnus said, “That’s why we’re here.”

The woman looked at him in silence for a few more moments, her gaze searching for something in his eyes. In the end, she seemed to be satisfied, having found whatever it was that she had been looking for.

“They live just over there,” she told Magnus, pointing at a house down the path, “Were you his friend?”

“Aye, good friend.”

The woman nodded, giving Magnus a small smile before she turned around and left, and within moments, Magnus saw a crowd forming around her. Undoubtedly, they were asking about them, the newcomers, he thought.

“Come, lads,” he told his men, as he began to walk to the house where the woman had pointed, eager to avoid drawing any more attention to himself than he already had.

He knew that rumors spread like wildfire in small towns, and though a part of him was curious to see what strange theories the locals would come up with, another part of him was reluctant to deal with such things.

When they reached the house, Magnus took a good look at the building in front of them. While it wasn’t nearly as run down as some of the buildings that surrounded it, he could see some rotten planks in the walls and a window hanging off its hinges, and he knew that Jacob’s death—and the lack of money that it would cause—would only serve to make the Gresham’s lives even harder.

Magnus knocked on the door, and as he waited for it to open, he glanced behind his shoulder, only to find his guards looking behind them as well. The crowd that had formed around the woman was now standing closer to them, all of them curious to see what would happen.

Magnus would disappoint them; his visit was nothing but a courtesy to Jacob, after all.

When the door opened, Magnus saw a woman that bore some resemblance to his long-lost friend, her hair black as coal and her gaze stern. She must have been the aunt, he thought, the one that Jacob spoke of every now and then back when they were both sailing the seas.

“Good afternoon,” Magnus told her, “I’m lookin’ for Adelleine.”

The woman looked at Magnus from head to toe, in a way that left him feeling as though he was being scrutinised. Then she looked at his guards, and for a moment, she didn’t seem pleased at all.

“And who are you?” she asked him.

“I am Magnus, Laird of the MacRestus clan.”

And just like that, the woman’s frown turned into a bright smile, one that lit up the entire room.

“Come in, come in,” she said, as she ushered all of them into the house, “May I ask . . . what do you want with Adelleine?”

Magnus walked into the house, gazing at his surroundings as he did. From the inside, he could see that it was well-kept, clean and tidy, though just like on the outside, it showed signs of decay. It was also decorated sparsely, with only a few things that had any real value.

But then, his gaze fell on a woman who could only be Adelleine. She looked just like Jacob, with hair black as coal and a pair of green eyes that glowed against her pale skin. Jacob was a handsome man, a man who would have all the women around them fawning over him, there was no denying that. Magnus had never understood the full extent of his appeal until he laid eyes on Adelleine, though.

Now, he was awestruck, and though he couldn’t see his own expression, he was quite certain that he looked entirely idiotic as he stared at her, if her own expression was anything to go by. Adelleine was frowning at him, head slightly tilted to the side, and all Magnus could think of was just how beautiful she looked in the little sunlight that managed to enter the house through the small windows.

“I’m Jacob’s friend,” Magnus explained, “We sailed together for a long time, and before his unfortunate passin’, he asked me to visit ye . . . to visit Adelleine and see that she is weel.”

At the mention of Jacob’s name, Magnus couldn’t miss the way that Adelleine retreated into herself, her gaze falling to the floor as her lips pursed into a thin, unpleasant line. It didn’t surprise him, of course. The wound was still raw in all of them, in everyone who had known Jacob and had come to love him.

Magnus heard Jacob’s aunt gasp then, her hand coming up to clutch at her chest as she looked at him with the fondest gaze he had ever received from a stranger.

“How kind of you to come all this way for our Jacob,” she said, and then immediately slapped her thigh with her hand, before she approached him and began fussing over him and his three men, “Where are my manners? Forgive me, my lord, I’m Victoria Gresham. I’m Jacob’s and Adelleine’s aunt.”

“Aye, I figured so,” Magnus said with a small, amused smile at the woman’s antics, “Please, call me Magnus, Mrs. Gresham. There isnae a need for titles between us.”

“Then I insist that you call me Victoria,” she told him, looping her arm around his own and all but dragging him to the table that stood by the other end of the room, “I’ll make you all some tea, and a bite to eat. You must have had a long travel.”

“Och, it’s quite alright,” Magnus assured her, “Ye dinnae need to go into any trouble for us.”

“Weel . . . I for one would like something to eat, m’lord. That is, if it’s nay trouble for ye, m’lady,” Duncan said, rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet as he looked at Victoria with a big, charming smile on his lips.

If the flush on Victoria’s cheeks was any indication, he had surely managed to charm her.

For a while, Magnus stayed silent, as did Adelleine, while Victoria was preparing the tea and the food, and his men talked among themselves. Though neither of them spoke, Magnus would catch Adelleine’s gaze every now and then, but every time that their eyes met, she would look away.

He didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t know how to begin a conversation about Jacob, not when he knew that how she felt was much worse than his own grief. She had lost her only brother; there were no words to change or fix what had happened to her.

Adelleine spent much of the evening in silence, but Magnus took advantage of that—as well as the fact that his men were too busy gorging themselves on Victoria’s food—to learn more about Victoria and her family. After all, the reason for his trip was to ensure that Adelleine was in good hands, and that she was being cared for.

Magnus wasn’t disappointed. Though he had had his doubts at first, seeing as the house where they lived was old, run down, and too small for Adelleine, Victoria, and Victoria’s two out of six daughters who still remained in Dalelry—about whom Magnus found out while he was speaking to Victoria—he soon came to realise that Victoria was a charming woman. Surely, she had been taking good care of Adelleine, and she would continue to do so while Adelleine lived under her roof.

The sky was rapidly darkening when Magnus decided that it was finally time to speak to Adelleine, and he wished to do so in private. While they had exchanged a few words, it was little more than pleasantries, and Magnus wanted to find out more about the girl, and to hear about her aunt from her own lips.

“Perhaps Adelleine and I should go for a walk,” Magnus suggested, catching the attention of both women. His men immediately stood, ready to follow him, but he waved a hand at them, gesturing at them to sit back down. “Alone,” he added, “I’d like to speak to her in private.”

His men hesitated, and so did Victoria, but Adelleine seemed happy to go with him. “As you wish,” she said, and stood, making her way towards the door.

“I’ll bring her back soon,” Magnus promised Victoria, just to soothe the worried frown on her face.

Victoria simply smiled at him and let him know of her agreement with a sweeping movement of her hand, grand and graceful.

With that, Magnus and Adelleine made their way out of the house and into the streets, which had begun to become empty as the night crept over the town. There was still plenty of light, though, for them to navigate the small town, and Magnus wanted to have Adelleine alone for a while, away from her aunt’s influence.

“Jacob spoke about about you, you know,” Adelleine said all of a sudden, breaking the silence between them, “He wrote about you, too . . . he would often tell me about his friend, the Laird of a powerful clan, and . . . well, I didn’t believe him, not at first. I thought, what kind of Laird befriends a sailor like my brother? But he spoke so fondly of you that I had to believe him in the end.”

“Weel . . . what kind of Laird spends his youth on a ship?” Magnus said with a small shrug.

“That is precisely what I thought,” Adelleine said, giving him a small, teasing smile. It was lopsided, her lips curving more on the right side than they did on the left, just like Jacob’s own smile, and in that moment, Magnus was overcome by grief. He didn’t want Adelleine to see it, though. He didn’t want her to be reminded of such things. “But here you are, and you’re real, I can see as much.”

“Aye, I’m real,” Magnus assured her, “And if yer wonderin’ how I could have been Jacob’s friend, then I can tell ye that I didnae have much of a choice. He approached me one day on the ship, and declared that I would drink with him all night . . . and so I did, and, weel, here I am noo.”

Adelleine laughed, soft and tender, giving Magnus a small nod. “That does sound like my brother,” she confirmed, “But tell me . . . did he really ask you to come here for me? All the way from the Highlands?”

“Aye,” Magnus said.

“And you came,” she said, more of a statement than a question, “You came all the way from the Highlands.”

“Aye.”

“For me?”

“For both of ye,” Magnus said. The truth was, he couldn’t have truly known what Adelleine was like before he had met her, even though Jacob had told him several stories involving her. But he had made the trip for several reasons, including her and Jacob. “I couldnae ignore his verra last wish. I had to come. It didnae matter how far I had to travel, I had to come, because it was what he wanted. I’d do it again and again for him if he had asked.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Adelleine said, sounding so sincere that Magnus couldn’t help but feel a strange tightness in his chest.

“Weel . . . I ken that if the roles were reversed, he would’ve visited me own sister,” he said.

“You have a sister?”

“Aye . . . her name’s Isla,” Magnus informed her, “And ye wouldnae believe it . . . she’s verra much like Jacob, in some ways.”

“Stubborn and chasing the next adventure?” Adelleine asked.

“Aye, and drinkin’ too much wine,” Magnus joked, drawing a soft laugh out of Adelleine, “I suppose that’s what pulled me to Jacob in the first place. He reminded me so much of her.”

“If she’s anything like Jacob, then she must be a person worth knowing,” Adelleine said, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and chewing on it, as though the thought of her brother was too much to bear, “He was . . . he was like that. He was a good man.”

“Aye, he was.”

Adelleine fell silent then, and her gaze dropped to her feet, watching them move as they walked. She didn’t speak a word for a long time, and Magnus gave her some space.

That was, until he couldn’t take the silence anymore, at least.

“So?” he asked, “Are ye alright here?”