Rowan’s eyes bulged open in disbelief.
“Mo ghaol,” Caragh realized it was the first time she ever used an affectionate term for Rowan; she’d been too nervous in the past. “We’re at our best when we come together.”
“I don’t want you to think that’s all we have together now.”
“I know it isn’t, but I think it would go a long way to healing our rift.” As Rowan rolled on top of her, she brushed the hair from his forehead and twirled it around her finger as her other hand traced his tattoo. “It hasn’t been just about the physical since nearly the beginning. At least not for me.”
“Me neither,” Rowan breathed as he slid into her. “I love you, mo Caragh.”
“And my a’th kar, mo bhris.” Caragh blended Cornish and Gaelic to say she loved her Viking.
“I’ll gladly be your Viking if you allow me to plunder your heart along with your body.”
“Pillage away.”
Their bodies moved together in a way only practiced lovers could. As they watched one another, their souls wrapped together, binding them once more. Neither believed making love would solve all their problems, but it was a step toward reconciliation.
Caragh cried out Rowan’s name as he roared hers, pulling out just in time.
They lay in one another’s arms until a knock on the door brought them back to the present.
“Captain?” Keith called through the door. “Are we going ashore or casting off? Your cousin’s boats sailed last night. I imagine the villagers are in a panic since they can see us.”
Rowan groaned before looking over his shoulder at the door.
“Going ashore. Send Skinny with the tub and buckets of hot water.”
He turned back to Caragh, and she lifted her head to rub noses.
After they both bathed, and Caragh requested someone bring one of the chests taken from the cave, they dressed and went above deck. Rowan was in fresh leggings, shirt, and surcoat while Caragh wore a gown she remembered spotting in the chest. Rowan descended into the dinghy before Caragh and helped her down, since the long skirts made it difficult. It was Skinny who rowed them ashore. Ever since the showdown on the deck, Skinny had become Caragh’s unspoken protector. He’d been beside himself when he sounded the alarm the night before.
“I’m sorry about your brother, ma lady,” Skinny whispered.
“Thank you. I appreciate your kind words,” Caragh responded just as softly.
She was tucked against Rowan’s side, ostensibly to shield her from the wind, but she found she needed his support as they drew closer and closer to shore. When the bow lodged against the sand, Rowan lifted Caragh and carried her to the base of the path. Caragh drew back as she looked up and saw people beginning to gather. She spotted her mother, father, and older brothers, who stood with their wives. She couldn’t see their expressions, so she had no idea whether they were happy to see her, especially since she hadn’t been there to save her brother.
Rowan slid her hand into his and wrapped his fingers around hers before giving them a squeeze. She looked to him and smiled as they began the hike up the path. She’d done her best to make herself look presentable, and she knew the gown was more lavish than anything she owned, but the thought of seeing her family again in her salt-encrusted clothes from the night before made her shudder. When they reached the crest of the path, Caragh paused, causing Rowan to bump into her. He wrapped his arm around her to steady her, and they were greeted with an almighty bellow.
“Get yer bluidy bleeding hands of ma wee lass.” Rowan expected to be greeted by an enraged father, but it was a woman with flame-colored hair charging toward them. She was spewing curses no Englishwoman would know, since they were a blend of English and Gaelic.
“Mama!” Caragh broke free as she rushed into her mother’s arms. They embraced as four men approached, the oldest prying Caragh from her mother only to engulf her in their own hug. He lifted her off the ground as he twirled her about.
Rowan watched the reunion between Caragh and her family. While he was relieved they welcomed her back, sadness descended knowing he would never receive a similar reception. As her family tried to lead her away, Rowan watched her shake her head and break away. She lifted her skirts to her knees and ran back to him as quickly as she’d rushed to her parents. She flung herself into Rowan’s arms and squeezed him until he was sure his spine cracked.
“They’re so happy to see me,” she bubbled, but as she pulled away, her excitement dimmed. “Why weren’t you right behind me? Why are you still all the way over here?”
Rowan watched her face blanch, and he worried she would collapse. He pulled her against his chest and held her up. “Caragh? Caragh, what’s wrong?”
“Were you going to leave me here? Slip away and return to your ship without me?”
Rowan struggled to hear her; her voice meek for the first time since he met her.
“Of course not. I was trying to give you time with your family before I intruded.”
Caragh fisted his surcoat as she pulled him down to her eye level.
“Don’t leave me again. Please. My family may be happy to see me, but I don’t know about the rest. I’m scared to go back to the village. Rowan, I need you.”
There were those four words again, this time, finally, not uttered in the throes of passion.
“I’m not going anywhere that doesn’t keep me by your side.” Rowan kissed her forehead before setting her down. He took her hand in his once more as they walked across the cliff top back to her family and the villagers who continued to gather. They were nearly to her parents when the flame-haired woman gasped, and her eyes widened. Her husband’s arm came around her as she swayed.
“Rowan MacNeill? Is that ye, lad?”
Rowan immediately saw that, except for her hair, Caragh was a mirror image of her mother. Something about the dark red hair niggled at his memory, but he couldn’t place it.
“I havenae seen ye since ye were a wee lad of mayhap five or six.”
“You know me?”
“Och, aye. I kenned yer mother since we were bairns. Her mother was ma mother’s best friend. We were inseparable until she left MacLeod land. When yer mama left to marry the MacNeill laird, she only consented if I could visit from time to time. I did until I met ma Henry and moved south.” Caragh’s mother stepped forward and peered at him. Tears sprang to her eyes as she shook her head. “Ye are the vera image of him, but ye are naught like him, are ye?”
Rowan stiffened, knowing exactly who she meant. He might have fled his clan, but he could never change how much he looked like his father. His father was Ruairí’s father’s twin brother; the older of the two. It was why the two of them looked so much alike.
“We all believed ye were dead,” she murmured as she continued to look him over. “Ye dinna remember me, do ye?”
“I remember your hair.”
She ran a hand over her hair self-consciously.
“It does tend to stand out a bit. I’m Catriona MacLeod, or I was until I married.”
Rowan felt as if a poleax felled him. He suddenly remembered how happy his mother was when this woman came to visit. Then he remembered her despondency after her friend left. He recalled being a young boy trying to cheer his mother when she would stand looking out over the water. He only conjured memories of his mother being happy the rare times he thought of her. He’d forgotten all the times he found her crying, even before his father turned on her.
“Rowan, ye’re remembering, arenae ye?” Catriona’s voice was soft, and he looked down to see Caragh peering up at him. Her concern was etched in the two deep lines between her brows. He reached out to smooth them away before he looked back at Catriona.
“I am.”
“Have ye heard aught of how yer mother fairs since ye left?”
Rowan shook his head as anger resurfaced, just as it did every time he thought about the night Ruairí rescued him.
“She didna do well losing ye. She hasnae been the same si
nce.”
“I’m sure you mean after she lost my father. She barely noticed the day they brought me home. She never tried to see me when I was in the dungeon, and she certainly never came to the oubliette.”
“Is that what ye think?”
“What else is there to think?”
“I was there that day. In fact, so was Caragh, but I kept her tucked away once the commotion started.”
“I was?” Caragh looked surprised.
“Dinna ye remember our trips to Barra? We would often go twice a year while the laird was away. We didna get along.”
“Barely. I hadn’t thought of them till now. Not even when I figured out Rowan was from there. I would’ve been barely ten that year.”
Catriona turned back to Rowan and continued.
“Laurel fought with yer father before ye left. She didna want ye to go with them. She feared something would happen while ye were away. When she saw ye enter the bailey with yer hands bound and tied to the horse with yer da’s body before ye, she lost all sense of reason. Ye were pulled from yer horse and taken away, but I was there for what happened next.”
Catriona looked between her daughter and Rowan, not missing the way Rowan clung to Caragh for support.
“Rowan, I have never seen a woman so crazed as yer mother was then. She pulled a dirk from her belt and was the one to cut yer father’s body loose before anyone could catch him. He toppled from the horse and the shroud came apart. She plunged her dirk into his throat. She did it over and over until one of the men carried her away, ranting the entire time that he deserved his death for putting ye in danger. By the time she calmed down, they’d already locked ye in the dungeon. She tried to see ye. She argued with the clan elders, bribed guards, and sneaked aboot, but someone always intercepted her. When she learned ye’d been thrown in the oubliette, she sent ma Henry to find yer uncle Angus. She believed he would be able to talk sense into the council, and he did try, but to no avail. It was the night he returned that he pled yer case, and when he got nowhere, he sent Ruairí to rescue ye. Angus thought ye two would meet him where he’d told Ruairí to take ye, but do ye remember the storm that blew through? I dinna ken if ye went there and didna find Angus or ye never made it, but he couldnae get there in time for when ye were supposed to meet. After that, none of us ever heard from either of ye. Rumors have floated around over the years that ye both turned pirate, but there were also rumors that said ye both were dead. Yer mama hasnae stepped outside the keep since ye disappeared. She refuses. She says she canna see aught but ye riding into the bailey tied to yer horse. Rowan, she hasnae been right in the head since ye left. Ruairí’s mother is barely any better.”
Rowan’s world was spinning around him, and the only thing anchoring him was Caragh’s death grip on his arm. He looked down to her, but his vision was hazy as everything Catriona told him swirled about in a confusing array of new facts and details. Everything he’d believed for the past ten years had been wrong. The mother he adored but thought abandoned him had lost her mind to grief. Grief he caused when he ran away.
“Lad, dinna do that. Dinna think that way,” Catriona cooed. “She doesnae blame ye. Ye are nae the one who caused her grief. Yer da did that, even in death.”
Caragh listened to the tale in horror as she recalled the story Rowan told her, what he’d believed to be the truth for so long. She watched as he took in this new version, and she didn’t know what to do to help him.
“Mama, Da, can we just go home? I need to get Rowan inside.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rowan looked up but saw little as Caragh led him to her family’s cottage. He entered and took the seat Caragh showed him. He didn’t notice that no one else entered with them. He watched in numbness as Caragh kneeled between his knees. She rubbed her hands against his to warm the skin he didn’t even realize had grown cold. In a repeat of the night when he told her his version of the past, she didn’t say anything. She kissed the backs of both his hands, but otherwise remained silent. He watched her for a long time until he couldn’t bear the distance between them. He scooped her into his lap and rested his forehead against the crook of her neck. She held him and hummed as he tried to work through revelations that changed everything about his life. Everything except for the fact that he loved Caragh, and she loved him.
He didn’t know what to do. He’d been set adrift, and he didn’t know if he should go to his mother or continue on as if he’d never learned the truth. “Whatever you decide, I’ll be by your side,” Caragh murmured as she kissed his temple over and over.
While the events of the evening before were still not forgotten and were still a wound that needed healing, it seemed insignificant in that moment. He pulled her tighter against him, and they stayed that way until the sun moved past the zenith, and Catriona poked her head around the door.
“They should come in. It’s their home,” Rowan whispered, and Caragh nodded her head to her mother. Her family filed in quietly, and it was a subdued afternoon and night. Rowan’s grief over discovering the truth to his past, and the family’s grief in losing their youngest son made it a solemn gathering.
Caragh convinced him that they should remain in the cottage rather than return to his ship. She had her own sleeping quarters as the only daughter. She shot her parents a warning glare as she led Rowan to the curtain that separated her alcove from the rest of her cottage. Her parents stood together and nodded.
Once they were tucked into the bedroll, Rowan ran his hand over her hip. “What do we do, mo chridhe?” Rowan whispered.
Caragh caught the word “we” and tension eased from her. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“I’m not sure. For the first time in years, I don’t have a plan or a path set. I feel cast adrift with you as the only anchor keeping me from floating into the abyss.”
Caragh inched closer, so they lay on their sides, chest to chest. “Then we remain here at the cottage or on your ship until we know what you want to do.”
“It’s not just about what I want anymore.”
Caragh remained quiet because she wasn’t sure what he meant. Did he mean he felt a duty to go to his clan? Or did he mean he would consider her wanted?
“I meant I’m not making these decisions alone. I’ll listen to you and your wishes.”
“My only wish now is for us to find somewhere safe while we think about these choices.”
“Your parents are kind, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome. And I won’t make love to you in your parents' home. Not yet at least.”
Rowan knew her brow scrunched together, even though he couldn’t see it. He rubbed the grooves until they smoothed. “This isn’t how I thought I would ask you, but will you marry me? Caragh, I love you. I know I have much to atone for, but I want to show you that I’m committed to us.”
“You don’t have to marry me to do that.”
“Perhaps not, but I want to, nonetheless. I want to pledge myself to you, binding us once and for all. I want to plan a life together, perhaps even a family, if you’re willing.”
“That all sounds very typical, and you’re not remotely typical.” Caragh chuckled in the quiet chamber.
“But you are practical. I love you, and you love me. We want to be together; we are together. I would make it official so the rest of the world might know. I’m yours from now until the end. That sounds like marriage to me, but I want to make that pledge to you, to speak those vows. I don’t want either of us to ever doubt again that we belong together.”
Caragh pushed onto her elbow as she considered what he said. His voice didn’t sound as though he spoke out of guilt nor did it sound overly excited with wishful thinking. It sounded as it usually did, solid and serious.
“I am practical. I want a family, and I want you. That must mean I want a family with you, but I don’t know that I want to raise a family aboard a ship. And I know I don’t want the life my mother has. She’s happy and content with my father coming and going, but I coul
dn’t live that way. At least not as your wife. I don’t know that we want the same things, Rowan.”
“Do you fear I’ll pick the Lady Grace and raiding over you?” He didn’t need to feel her head nod or hear words spoken to guess at her fear. “They stopped holding their appeal once I fell in love with you. Why do you think I steered us away from the Spanish carracks? I could’ve maneuvered to force the last boat off-course, then boarded it. I had no intention, no interest, in doing that while you were onboard. Your life and safety far outweigh what I could commandeer from some boat I would later sink. I still love sailing, but I don’t need the pirating anymore.”
“This is a lot of change in the space of so little time. In a day, we have nearly driven each other away, reconciled, learned your family isn’t entirely as we believed, and now you’ve asked me to marry you. In the space of a moon, we’ve met, bedded each other countless times, argued, and fallen in love.”
“When you put it that way, it does seem overwhelming. I see it far more simply. I love you and you love me. We want to be together; we are together. Marriage is what comes next.”
“You said that already.”
“I was appealing to your practical nature the first time, but now I’m telling you my priorities.”
“And this isn’t an emotional and rash decision?”
Rowan chuckled.
“You know me far too well for me to try to deny I can be emotional, though I would deny it to anyone else, but this isn’t a rash decision. I intended to ask you when we came ashore this morning, but my plans changed with your impetuous swim last night. I brought you home, not only so you could see to your family, but to give you a choice. You haven’t had one up until now.”
Caragh swallowed the lump in her throat before she hoarsely whispered, “You would risk me deciding to stay here? I thought that was what caused our rift last night.”
“That was when I thought you meant to escape, that you couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”
“Before last night, did you think I would choose my home over you?”
The Blond Devil of the Sea: The Highland Ladies Book Three Page 10