They walked toward the wilder edge of the garden, where the formal beds gave way to something less managed. Bluebells were pushing up in drifts of soft violet-blue beneath the trees, and Isobel stopped at the edge of them without quite meaning to.
“My mother would lose her mind entirely over these,” she said.
“Is she a woman for flowers?”
“She’s a woman for anything that grows without being asked to. She has a windowsill at home so crowded with propagated cuttings that my father has given up trying to use it for anything else.” Isobel looked at the bluebells with a smile she couldn’t quite contain.
Lady Branwen laughed, and the sound of it transformed her face entirely. “I’d like to meet this woman.”
“She’d like you enormously. When we used to visit the Highlands, my mother would spend days walking through gardens and glens…feeling the flower petals with soft fingertips…whispering to the plants…telling them her secrets and willing them to grow.”
“Tell her the rowan tree is here when she’s ready to visit.” Lady Branwen was still smiling. “I’ll make sure Sarah doesnae cook it.” Lady Branwen’s eyes moved to Isobel. “She’s Highland-born? Yer mother?”
“Yes. MacLeod, before she married my father.” Isobel’s voice was tinged with wistfulness as crouched at the edge of the bluebells, gently touching one of the small bells. “We stopped visiting this part of the country years ago but my mother continues talking to the plants at home and she never ceased telling me stories from her own childhood.”
“The Highlands have a way of stayin’ in people,” Lady Branwen said. She tapped her cane on the ground sharply, as if to emphasize her words. “Even the ones who leave.”
Isobel straightened up. Something in the old woman’s voice had shifted slightly. She could detect a shade of melancholy now coloring Lady Branwen’s tone. “You say that as though you know it from experience.”
“I say it as a woman who’s watched a great many people try to leave this land and never look back but they never succeed.” Lady Branwen met Isobel’s gaze and held it. “They cannae forget their roots.” Her words echoed around them for what seemed like an age, then Lady Branwen turned from the bluebells, and began moving back along the path, her walking stick finding the stones with quiet certainty. “Ye said yer maither used to bring ye north. In the summers? Was that before… things changed?”
“Yes, when I was younger. I barely remember the journey or the adventures we had here. More feeling than memory.” Isobel fell into step beside her. “The smell of heather. Cold river water. Running until my legs gave out.” She shook her head. “I used to wonder sometimes whether I’d dreamed it. Those summer days feel nothing like anything else in my childhood.”
Lady Branwen was quiet for a moment. “Good,” she said finally. “Some things ought to feel different from everythin’ else. It means they were real.”
They walked back through the garden in comfortable silence, pausing once more at the yarrow bed while Lady Branwen explained the difference between the first spring leaves and the summer ones with a specificity that suggested she had very strong opinions about it. Isobel listened, asked questions, and realized she was genuinely interested in the answers. She made a mental note to share all this new information about the plants at Dunalasdair Castle with her mother, and perhaps with her friend Margaret too, the next time she sent letters.
“The gardens have been without a mistress for a long time,” Lady Branwen said as they drew nearer to the stone bench where they’d started their walk. “They’ve managed. But they’d do better when someone pays attention to them.” She glanced at Isobel sideways. “Ye strike me as someone who kens how to nurture a bud until it grows into somethin’ more robust.”
“I do not have the gardening skills my mother possesses, but I will tend this garden with care.” Isobel tilted her chin high and met Lady Branwen’s gaze. Something told her that the Laird’sgrandmother had not merely taken her on this tour of the garden and tasked her with tending the flowers and shrubs for that sole purpose. She could read more in Lady Branwen’s words and see more lurking behind those critical stares. So, Isobel smiled broadly, then vowed, “I will cherish what was planted here long ago but also try to make something new flourish.”
* * *
Later that evening, Alasdair was sitting at his desk when his grandmother entered the study without knocking. He was bent over some correspondence, his jaw clenched, but he smoothed his expression once he saw her.
"I expected to find ye here," she said with a disapproving tone.
"Granny." Alasdair acknowledged her presence but completely dismissed her comment. He had no time to go over this conversation again.
“Ye look tired.”
“Ye say that every time ye come in here.”
“Because every time I come in here, ye look tired.” She settled into the chair across from his desk without being invited. “What weighs on yer mind, me boy? The Elders’ decree?”
“Among other things.” He set the quill down. “Malcolm is pushin’ for an additional garrison at the northern pass. Theharvest projections are worse than last month’s. And the Elders sent another letter that arrived just moments ago. They want confirmation that the marriage is proceedin’.”
“That is yer intention, isnae it?.” She leaned forward and rested one hand on the edge of his desk. “I passed Young Hamish in the hall, and he said ye havenae been closeted in here all day as I suspected.” Her eyes darted toward the bundle of witch hazel and wildflowers that rested on the corner of his desk. As soon as he and Hamish had returned to the castle an hour ago, he had been greeted with a stack of post. The letter from the Elders had sat atop the pile and once he saw the seal, he had not hesitated to rip it open and read the contents.
When Alasdair offered no information nor begged his granny to share what Hamish had told her, she added, “Yer friend seems to think yer movin’ forward with this marriage heedlessly. He says, for the first time in yer life, yer bein’ injudicious.”
Alasdair guffawed and his grandmother matched the sound by letting loose a delighted cackle of her own.
“That was my reaction too.” Her eyes glittered with jubilation.
“Hamish doesnae understand,” Alasdair said as he leaned toward his grandmother and propped his own elbow on the table, mirroring her pose.
“He cannae,” Granny agreed. “Ye and Miss Graham are bound to one another now. Ye will marry soon. Ye cannae defy the decree.”