“My father wasn’t Scottish.”
“Your mother was.” Niall pushed the woolen fabric into Trick’s arms, along with a wide leather belt. “Wear it in her honor. Just this once. She’d have been proud to see you in it.”
A long silence stretched between them while Trick shifted the cloth in his hands, a range of conflicting emotions playing across his face. “I don’t know how to wear it,” he said at last.
His brother’s smile managed to look sad, pleased, and relieved, all at the same time. “That I can help you with.” He placed the belt on the floor and crouched beside it, his own kilt skimming the wooden planks as he folded the tartan into pleats and arranged it on top of the leather. “Lie down on this,” he instructed.
Trick’s lips quirked. “You’re jesting.”
“Nay. The only way to get it on properly is to lie down.”
Kendra squelched a laugh as her husband looked askance at his brother, then sighed and lowered his long frame to the floor.
“Nay, move up,” Niall said. “The belt must be at your waist.” After Trick scooted higher, his brother went about wrapping the pleated material around him and belting it securely. “Now you can stand,” he said, offering him a hand up.
Trick flexed his knees experimentally while Niall took the large expanse of fabric above the belt and tucked it into the front, crisscrossing it to make what was essentially two big pockets. Then he drew up the extra cloth in back and draped it over Trick’s shoulders.
Trick took a few steps, watching the kilt sway around his knees.
“Feels odd,” he said. “As if I’m wearing a dress. What is worn underneath?”
Niall glanced down at his own kilt. “Nothing is worn. Everything underneath is in good working order.” He looked up with an impish grin.
Kendra’s gaze drifted over to her husband, who looked mildly scandalized. He also looked devastatingly handsome. Better even than he had in his black highwayman garb, or maybe it was just the intriguing knowledge that there was nothing underneath.
The very thought of that brought heat to her cheeks.
“Well?” Niall asked, and she glanced up to find both men focused on her. “How does he look?”
She felt her cheeks burn even hotter. “F-fine,” she managed.
“I cannot wait to get it off,” Trick grumbled.
THIRTY-NINE
LED BY A PIPER with a black pennant tied to his pipes, Trick and Niall headed the eight bearers carrying their mother’s coffin from the castle down to the little kirk. Behind them, family, friends, and castle staff followed along in a rather informal procession.
“Why aren’t there more women?” Kendra asked in a low voice from where she walked beside Trick, modestly wrapped in a simple brown shawl she’d borrowed from Mrs. Ross. Her hair was constrained in a plaited bun.
“Most of the women usually remain at the home,” Niall explained. “They’ll be preparing for the return of the mourners. And keeping my father company. It’s not customary for a husband to attend his wife’s burial.”
“And she was his wife in his heart, I’m sure of it.”
Her romantic sigh set Trick’s teeth on edge. “Hamish couldn’t have come along, anyway. Not in his state of health.”
“Well, it’s nice to know his illness isn’t keeping him from something he’d regret missing later.” She leaned close to Trick. “Hardly anyone is wearing black,” she observed beneath her breath.
“We don’t think it necessary to wear black in order to pay your respects,” Niall said, obviously overhearing her. “Not everyone can afford special clothes for mourning.”
After that, she kept quiet. The bagpipe music was loud, the notes sad and lingering. All too soon they were gathered in the small graveyard, and the solemn tune came to an end. The single wreath of heather was removed from atop the oak coffin, and the lid was lifted for one last time.
Stepping closer, Trick peered inside, trying to memorize his mother’s features and reconcile them with his faded childhood memories. Had she been the kind, caring woman he sometimes saw in his dreams, or the deceitful one Father had told him about? What had they said, those letters he’d never read? Had they been written out of duty, or had the pages been spattered with her tears?
Knowing this was his last chance, he reached to touch her.
Her body felt cold and unreal, and touching it did nothing to banish the ghosts of her from his mind, as Niall had said it was meant to do. A shiver ran through him. Their painful rift would always stand between him and what should be happy memories.
Others came forward to pay their respects and touch his mother, then two men moved to replace the lid. Trick bent down with it as it was lowered into place, catching a final glimpse of her face.
“Farewell,” he whispered, and Kendra squeezed his hand.
He hadn’t even realized she’d been holding it.
A short service was read, but he didn’t hear what was spoken. His mind was numb, the words filtered through a haze. He shuffled his feet on the soft green grass, his gaze wandering the gentle mounds that marked where bodies lay, many of their headstones rendered smooth and unreadable by the ravages of weather and time.
A bell was rung; then the mourners filed past the tree where it hung, dropping coins into the plate below as they went. Burial silver. For form’s sake, he imagined—surely the Dowager Duchess of Amberley wouldn’t need help to defray her funeral expenses.
Or would she? He admittedly knew nothing of his parents’ financial arrangements. Upon his father’s death, he’d clearly failed in his duty as a son. And now it was too late.
He cursed himself roundly, if silently.
The mournful whine of the bagpipes rose again, and people began drifting out of the little cemetery. As he turned to leave, Kendra came around to face him and took both his hands. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He shrugged. “It’s not that I’ll miss her, precisely.”
“But you’ll miss what could have been.”
She was wise,
