From LAIRD OF THE MIST

"Ah, Carrick," Morag soothed him as she stroked his auburn hair. "Ye ken the runes ha' rarely failed me. And poor Molly is worried sick for ye. Tis true I ken the tale of yer loss and yer sorrows. Now ye come to see if I can ease yer pain as I did when ye were young and I was nanny to ye all."

She gestured toward the sack of stones. "Aye, the runes ha' spoken to me, and I ken it well. How ye fought at Culloden Moor and saved many of yer clan. How the Sassenach butchered ye all and gave no quarter. And how ye lost yer Jenny at their hands."

Morag sat next to Carrick and reached a gentle hand to his. "I am told ye sleep no more, but walk the hills all night. Ye haunt the forests in search of yerself and a meaning to yer life. Still ye find no relief for the loss of yer love. All this tis true, is it no?"

With a sigh that could have broken him, Carrick nodded and, taking his hand from hers, dropped his head into his hands.

"Tis true, all of it," he whispered. "And more. I fought at Culloden, aye. I fought well, but no well enough. I saved no enough of the clan. And in the end, Jenny was taken by the Sassenach and rudely used. She came to the moor to tend my wounds after the battle. The grass was no to be seen for the blood that day, and the stench of it thick in my throat. The filthy foul bastards took her by force as I lay in the mud nearly dead, watching them."

His jaw tightened at the memory. "I could do nothing to stop it--nothing. The cut in my shoulder too deep and I couldna move. When they finished wi' her, they held her by the hair and put a knife across her chest. I lay helpless, watching the life flow from her." Carrick took a deep breath, recalling how, at the last, Jenny had managed to put her gold wedding ring, a circle of celtic knots, into his palm and close his fingers around it. He still had the ring. He kept it safe with him always. It comforted him and kept her close.

"Her last words were 'Please, forget me never,'" he said at last. "I watched the shine of her eyes turn dull. I could bear no more and the good Lord let me pass into sleep for days on end. They brought me home and ye saved me. I didna wish to be saved. I wished to die with Jenny on the moor. And I wish to die now."

His voice dropped to a near-whisper. "They never found her body. Buried in the mass graves, they think. No even a proper grave..." he trailed away. A single tear flowed down his cheek and onto his tattered kilt; he could not go on without his wife. He wanted to die, end it all, for days now. Had he been a more courageous man, he would have given himself the coup de grace by his own hand. Instead, he had wandered aimlessly around the estates, leaving the management of them to his younger brother, Ian.

He should have been a real Laird to those left of the clan, but the pain was too unbearable. He could not think, he could not eat, he could not sleep. He was turning into nothing, and it suited him fine.

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