He’d had those thoughts, indeed, but they weren’t the ones that he now held foremost in his mind. Everything would change if she could read what he was truly thinking, and they would change in a thousand strange and heartbreaking ways. Still, he couldn’t help himself. He mind-spoke those three words again, over and over, distinctly and undeniable, to the woman at his feet staring with increasing desperation.
He whispered, “Try again, Cairenn.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The truth hovered on the tip of Cairenn’s tongue: Lachlan, Lachlan, I can read all minds—except yours.
She felt his doubts pulse in the silence around them, broken only by the crackle of the peat in the hearth. Yes, she’d expected a measure of disbelief when she’d admitted the truth, but her fears had focused on alarm, suspicion, or even horror. Against that, she’d prepared herself to prove that her gift was not witchery or the devil’s work.
But Lachlan had just dismissed her confession out of hand.
His doubt put a clamp upon her tongue and tightened the growing knot in her chest. If she persisted, he would keep looking at her in this terrible way, a way that made her feel like a poor, lonely little girl willing to say anything out of desperation. She hated how the corners of his lips tilted in a smile that held no joy. Perhaps this was the kind of rueful look that men gave to women to whom they wouldn’t make a vow.
Darkness hazed the edges of her vision and with it came a rush of determination. She shot up to her knees and rasped her palms over his unshaven cheeks as she tried to delve into his thoughts. On her tongue danced a dozen explanations. My family, they all have gifts, you must have noticed. Her father’s face flashed in her mind, his frown of disapproval as she broke the one rule pounded into them since they were old enough to understand why they kept apart from the world.
I can prove it, Lachlan. I can.
But whatever magic had torn through the black cloud of his mind while they were making love had long dissipated. Holding his beautiful face between her palms, she sensed nothing.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
His hands gripped hers. She could barely see his expression through the moisture filling her eyes. He gently peeled her fingers away from his face.
She must have stood up. She must have turned toward the door. She waited for him to say something, call her back, whisper her name, but silence echoed in her ears as, suddenly, she stood outside the sickroom in the fading of the day, barefoot with her leather slippers in her hands.
The wind cut through the woven fibers of her linen kirtle and turned the trails of tears on her cheeks cold. She stumbled two steps across the courtyard toward the kitchens, the golden glow of light spilling out from around the wattles of the door. Then she stopped.
Her mother’s terrible prophecy rang in her ears.
Death.
So she headed barefoot for the gate, flinging it shut behind her. Her feet swept her to the lonely places, to where the bones of the island poked out from scrubby grass. She let the breeze pound her clothing against her as she raised her face to the clouds tinged pink from the sunset.
Why, why, why? What kind of fate would bring such a man to these shores only to send him away before she understood why his thoughts were hidden? What senseless urge had made her fall in love with him?
She climbed over the rock-pile stiles and strode past the cows, searching the sea for the galley anchored among the other ships. How many years had she raced across the height like this, watching the ships from Galway unfurl their sails to slip out of the bay to places unknown, places she yearned to see, places she could never see? All those dreams were futile, for in the crowded towns and villages of the world, the minds of thousands would pierce hers like a thousand iron lances. The old terror shuddered through her. She stumbled as she continued her charge across the patchwork of fields.
This island was her home, but she was a prisoner upon it.
Tomorrow, Lachlan would sail out of her life on that galley moored beyond the reef. She imagined herself standing beside him on the deck while the wind whipped her hair. She imagined him drawing her into his arms, kissing her. She remembered how the world had dissolved around them when they lost themselves in the touch of their bodies and the rushing current of their thoughts.
Then suddenly she noticed a familiar cluster of thatched-roofed houses. She’d run far, farther than she’d thought, far ahead of her own thoughts. For in one of those thatched-roofed houses lived a special young man, a true and loyal friend whose mind rang in simple notes like the sound of a plucked harp string.
Her heart beat in time to her thoughts.
Do I dare?
Do I dare?
Do I dare?
***
At the break of day, Lachlan stepped outside the sickroom wearing his borrowed clothes. The doctor and his family were gathered in the courtyard. Lachlan clasped the doctor’s hand and thanked him for saving his life. The man shrugged as if he’d done nothing more than a simple kindness. The mistress of the house offered up a sack of food and he took it with gratitude. Cairenn’s brother Niall, looking like he’d just returned from a night’s carousing, nodded a woozy farewell. The younger siblings leapt and played around him, but Dairine clung to his leg. Her shock of hair was baby-soft beneath his palm.
He sought the shadows for Cairenn.
“She’s not here,” her mother said, intuiting his look. “She’ll likely be waiting to say farewell to you upon the shore.”
She would not, Lachlan was sure of it, and he deserved no better. So he slung the sack of food over his good shoulder and trudged out the gate, taking the worn, winding path down to the strand. Whirlwinds kept pace with him, dancing their way down the narrow path like the regrets he could not shake.
Once upon the shore, he roused one of the islanders who slept above the waterline to look after the boats and the fishing gear. The man agreed to bring Lachlan to where the galley was anchored. Lachlan climbed into the little boat and sat so that he faced the island. With every pull of the oars, the sailor propelled him into the choppy bay, through a herd of seals barking mournfully, and farther away from Inishmaan.
He told himself, with an ache in his heart, that he’d done the right thing when he sent her out of his room last night. He should have left this island the moment he could stand on his own two feet. His duty lay in Scotland, where he would grip a claymore once again and wield it with justice. He would heed the call of his duty, even if he’d responded too late to save his father.
But not without one deep, implacable yearning, and a hundred thousand regrets.
The coracle bumped up against the hull of the galley, now bustling with sailors roused to unfurl the sails. As he climbed the rope ladder and stepped over the gunwale, he scanned the men aboard.
Strangers, all of them.
The captain approached, one questioning brow raised. “Brochan?”
“Aye.”
“The doctor said you’d pay your passage with work. Sail or oars?”
He rolled his bad shoulder and said, “Sails.”
The captain nodded and tossed him the end of a hemp rope to wind about one of the davits. Lachlan settled the clove hitch knot and then a sailor tossed him another rope to secure. Soon the wind caught the canvas as the boat swelled free of her anchorage. The ship tacked away from the island toward the open sea, piloted by the sleek, black bodies of seals rolling in its wake.
As he watched the island diminish, a tale came to mind, a tale Cairenn’s brother had sung one evening while the wind whistled through the thatch. It was a story of a man who, while wandering unfamiliar fields, stumbled into a strange place. Drawn by its music, light, and beauty, he stayed to drink the wine and taste the berries and dance in a cloud of happiness. When he finally stumbled out, disoriented and confused, he found that months had passed in what seemed like days.
Lachlan grabbed another rope and turned to a sailor beside him. “Tell me, what is today?”
“It’s Sa
int Brendan’s Day. The luckiest day of the year to set sail.”
St. Brendan’s Day. A month since he’d left his father. Weeks since he’d first seen her looming over him on the strand with the sun haloing her hair.
Not enough time. Never enough time.
***
On a small merchant boat, where every sailor knew one another and most were related by blood, Lachlan understood that a stranger was an object of dangerous curiosity. Fortunately, Derry loomed into sight on the fifth day of the voyage, just as Lachlan’s glib story about being stabbed in an alehouse began to wear thin.
He helped furl the sails as the men rowed the galley into the River Foyle. The stone monastery of Doire that formed the heart of Derry stood on a rise surrounded by the oak groves that gave the town its name. Clustered against the shore were the usual thatched warehouses and ale stands, a canvas-covered market, and wagons hitched to nags ready to pull casks of Spanish wine and barrels of fish straight to the monastery. His gaze drifted to one of the finer houses on the outskirts, the abode of his distant cousin, Angus O’Donnell of the northern O’Neill.
Angus was the man Lachlan had been sent to contact before an assassin with a sharp blade put an end to his mission. O’Donnell hadn’t known Lachlan was coming, so he should be innocent of the whole affair…but that was a reedy guess, full of assumptions and suppositions. The only way Lachlan could be sure Angus was truly an ally was to surprise him. Only by looking into his eyes at the precise moment when he found his cousin alive could Lachlan tell whether Angus was thrilled—or distressed.
“So, Brochan.” A sailor—Ruari by name—slapped Lachlan on his good shoulder. “What’s first for you, an alehouse or whorehouse?”
“It won’t be an alehouse,” Lachlan said. “In the last one I got a knife in the back.”
“It wasn’t the alehouse that did that to you.”
“Aye, but the ale had something to do with it.” Lachlan jerked his chin toward a peddler on the far end of town. “I’ll be visiting the ragman. I’m tired of wearing another man’s ill-fitting clothes.”
“When you’re done with that, come to The Goat’s Horn. I’ll buy you a pint and try to pry a story from you.”
“I’ll take you up on that another time.” Best not to show his face at The Goat’s Horn. He’d spent many a rowdy evening there with his cousins whenever he was in Derry on his father’s business. “I’ve got other business in town today that’ll keep me sober.”
“The only business I know that’s better when a man’s sober is the kind you’ll find at The Good Plough. Ask for wee Maura. She’s plump as they come, it’s like pounding on a pillow.”
“I’ll remember that.”
He wouldn’t, though, because his mind was filled with the memory of Cairenn stretched across his lap, her slender body going tight as he stroked her.
The captain’s shout brought him back to the moment. The rowers had eased and men were readying the anchor for dropping. He glanced to the shore and saw two deep-bellied boats shooting off from the quay to meet the ship and take on the cargo. He followed Ruari toward the hatch to haul up the casks of Spanish wine, despite the stress this would put on his twinging shoulder. The hatch gave him a quick place to duck and hide, just in case he recognized any of the Derry men in the oncoming boats.
Suddenly a frightened yelp came up from the hold. The men on deck cackled, because unpacking the wine casks below decks often rousted a herd of rats from their nests, rats that in their panic ran heedlessly over toes and sometimes up legs. Lachlan laughed with them while Ruari, hanging on the hatch ladder, ducked his head to see what was happening.
Ruari gasped, “Holy Mother of God.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
When she first grasped the iron welding of one of the wine casks in order to pull herself to her feet, Cairenn felt the shock wave of the sailors’ thoughts: She looked like a ghost shimmering up from nowhere.
While the closest sailor juggled his shock along with the barrel he was balancing, she flattened her hands on the casks to try to maintain her footing. She’d drunk the last sip of her water over a day ago, so her tongue was swollen and dry. Her muscles were cramped from the small space she’d fitted herself into. Her legs felt as wobbly as rope.
“Captain, we’ve got a stowaway,” the sailor shouted. “And it’s a girl.”
The men’s thoughts above deck had been burbling at a lowly simmer, but at the word girrrrrrrrl those thoughts shot to a boil. She winced at the surge, a cacophony that swelled above the rumbling hum of the town of Derry where they’d just anchored.
A second sailor dropped from the ladder and approached. Backlit by the sunshine pouring through the hatch, his face was in shadow, but she knew his name was Ruari. Before she’d made her appearance, Ruari had been dreaming of a fleshy woman that worked in The Good Plough.
Now she made herself concentrate on his thoughts and only his thoughts. She had discovered, after five excruciating days trapped in the belly of this ship, that focusing on one man’s thoughts helped dim the noise of the twenty-two others. It was like focusing on the chatter of Dairine sitting across from her at the dinner table while her parents and siblings prattled heedlessly all around her—except on ship it was twenty-two times worse. She could only hope that this hard-earned lesson functioned just as well against the threatening hum of the hundreds of inhabitants of Derry, not so far away.
“Come on, girl, you can’t stay here anymore.” Ruari held out his hand. “Climb over and let the captain take a look at you.”
She tried to get a knee on the cask in front of her, but she was weak and her balance uncertain, and she couldn’t coax words from her dry mouth. The sailor didn’t notice her attempts because his mind was alight with questions. He was wondering who on board would think to hide a wench in the hold for swiving. It’s got to be Brochan. I knew he was hiding something.
The mention of “Brochan”—Lachlan—made her whole body go prickly with anxiety.
After she made another flailing attempt to climb on top the casks, the sailor finally mustered the sense to roll the barrels away to make a path for her. She stumbled her way out. He grasped her arm to keep her upright. She winced against the light as the men urged her up the ladder onto the deck. She stumbled on the highest rung, but was saved from falling by the grasp of a strong hand. Hauled bodily out of the hold, she closed her eyes against the light until her feet found the deck.
“What the hell?!
She didn’t hear the mind but she knew the voice. She looked up into Lachlan’s beautiful face, dark across the jaw with unshaven scruff. At the sight of him so close, all the blustering bravery she’d mustered buckled, along with her knees.
“Water.” Lachlan’s words were clipped. “Don’t just stand there, Ruari, fetch a ladle.”
She sagged against the grip of his hand. Black spots winked before her eyes. Her knees just brushed the deck. A gentle hand eased her head back as a ladle full of water wobbled before her.
The water tasted sour like vinegar but she drank it deep. As she wiped her lips, into her sight came a pair of well-shined boots just as into her mind came the thoughts of an Irish captain who was supremely annoyed to discover a stowaway.
“Brochan,” the captain barked. “You know this woman?”
“Aye.”
“I take you on my ship,” the captain said, “and you betray my trust by stowing—”
“I didn’t stow her.” He tightened his grip. “She’s the daughter of the doctor who took me in at Inishmaan. I don’t know why she’s here.”
Because I love you, you stupid fool, and I’m trying to save your life.
She searched for something in his expression—a glimmer of tenderness, an expression of regret—but any warmth was subsumed by shock and a growing fury.
The captain swiveled on a heel, barking, “Who was on watch the last night outside of Inishmaan?”
Ruari and another sailor came forward, babbling their surprise and ignorance. L
achlan drew her upwards until she stood on her own two feet.
He pressed his lips against her ear. “What,” he said in a biting whisper, “were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I could help.”
“Your father and mother will be mad with worry.”
“My mother knows. I didn’t tell her, but she knows.” She met his eye and dared to break a promise. “She’s like me, just with a different gift.”
Lachlan’s jaw tightened. He straightened up.
“Captain,” he said, interrupting the man berating the sailors, “when is your next trip back to Galway?”
“Two weeks.”
“I’ll pay for her return.”
“You have no coin,” the captain said. “If you did, you wouldn’t have worked that wounded shoulder—”
“I’ve got resources.”
“Do you plan to conjure coins out of your arse?”
“Will you take her or not?”
The captain shook his head. “A woman on a ship is bad luck.”
“I’ll pay well. In advance.” He jerked his head toward the shore. “I have a cousin in Derry. He’ll give me coin.”
The captain sidled her a look. She could read his thoughts shifting between greed and suspicion.
“The captain won’t take me,” she blurted, seizing the idea before she lost courage. “No captain will sail on a ship with a witch.”
***
The silence that followed her declaration was so leaden that Lachlan could hear the wine barrels in the hold scraping against one another in the roll of the tidal river. Yet she just stood with her chin raised like she hadn’t just confessed to cavorting with the devil.
“She’s out of her wits,” Lachlan said into the silence. “She was crazy enough before I even left the island.” She gasped but he spoke over her. “That’s why her father kept her close. Now she’s as mad as anyone would be after five days in the hold.”
Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3) Page 9