by Paula Quinn
Andersen nodded.
“Very good. Then I’ve one last condition before I allow ya aboard me ship.”
“What is it?”
“Pay fer our drinks. Do ya agree to these conditions?”
“Aye, Captain.”
Alex grinned at him. “Then welcome to Poseidon’s Adventure. We sail at dawn.” He cut his dark gaze across the room, to the woman who had waved at him earlier. She crooked her finger at him now. He sprang to his feet with the grace of a great cat and smoothed back any stray strands of chestnut hair that had fallen over his forehead. Tonight was a good night. He felt redeemed, released from a weight he’d carried for years. He wanted to celebrate. “Andersen,” he said on his way. “Ya’re in charge of me coat and hat. Guard them well, or ’twill cost ya a finger.”
He grinned, turning fully to address his crew. “I’ll meet ya all in an hour to stock the ship. Until then, enjoy yarselves. Who knows when we’ll be ashore again?”
He smiled at the woman rising from her chair at his approach. She was eager to be pillaged and he was willing to oblige.
Chapter Two
Caitrina Grant hurried toward her father’s solar, her blood thrashing like a storm through her veins. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Her father would never have consented to a marriage between her and Hugh MacDonald, and never without telling her!
She paused a moment in her tracks. What if her father was tired of her refusing every offer of marriage that came to her? What in blazes would she do if it was true?
She came to the solar door and heard her parents laughing inside. She knocked and then, without waiting for an invitation, she plunged inside.
Her parents were locked in each other’s embrace and came apart slowly upon seeing her. Caitrina was used to seeing them showing their affection for each other. She hated to be the one to ruin their evening but they needed to talk.
“Tell me it isna’ true,” she pleaded, moving like a rushing wind toward them. “Tell me ye havena’ promised me to Hugh MacDonald.”
When her father looked away, guilt plaguing his vivid blue eyes, she knew it was true. “How could ye?” she demanded. “Ye know I dinna’ want to wed anyone!”
“Cait, sit doun,” her mother offered. “Let us speak of this like—”
“I dinna’ wish to sit,” she insisted, desperation marring her voice. “Mother, we have spoken of this already. I want more than to be a wife and a mother. I want to know what else is oot there fer me!”
“Daughter,” her father tried a bit more soothingly. “Ye don’t know what the world is like beyond Skye.”
“I wish to find oot.”
“There are dangers at every turn,” he continued over her. “I cannot… I will not take the chance of any calamity befallin’ ye. We love ye and we don’t want to see ye alone. Ye need a good, strong man to see to yer comfort and yer protection. Ye’ve turned down everyone who has asked fer yer hand, but ’tis time—”
She shook her head and went to her father. “Papa, please,” she begged him, taking hold of his sleeve. “Dinna’ sentence me to a life of such tedium. Ye know I dislike sewin’. I canna’ cook. I dinna’ want to read aboot other peoples’ adventures. I want to live them fer myself.”
Connor Grant let out a long sigh and turned to her mother. “She’s just like ye, Mairi.” His wife nodded her head, which did little for Caitrina’s cause since, if all the tales she heard were true, Mairi MacGregor had once been an active spy with a group of militia who hunted down those who tried to maintain their doctrine as sole religion in Scotland.
“We’re proscribed, Caitrina,” her father reminded her. “The instant ye leave Camlochlin yer life would be in danger. I’m sorry, but I cannot allow ye the life ye desire.”
Her eyes filled up with tears and she looked toward her mother for help. None came. No! She loved her parents but she would not obey them in this. Not this.
She ran from the solar and out of the manor house. She would figure something out, think of a way to convince them that she would be safe away from Skye. She had to, or she would go mad.
Sometime later, she stood on the rocky shore of Loch nan Leachd and set her gaze over the water toward Loch Scavaig in the distance. Beneath the late setting sun her eyes matched the tumultuous blue depths swelling and breaking before her. The song of the waves crashing against sheer walls of rock played like a hypnotizing symphony to her ears. She closed her eyes and slowed her breath to rein in her riotous heart. It wouldn’t do to begin her night aching for something indefinable and unrealistic.
It wasn’t the water that pulled her in but what lay beyond it. Directions. So many of them, it made her head spin thinking of the different paths her life could take. Oh, she couldn’t marry Hugh, or anyone else for that matter. She sought adventure, felt curiosity burning through her veins. She wanted to meet new people, learn new customs, live vicariously without the net of home to guard her. But her father would never let her leave.
No one left Camlochlin. Not for good. Nor would she. It was home, a mother’s love, a promise of safety in a treacherous world. Caitrina loved it as much as anyone else. But she wanted more. She might even want a little danger.
“Dinna’ smile at the water lest ye tempt jealous sirens to swim ashore and kill ye.”
She opened her eyes and sighed at her cousin, who wasn’t there a moment ago. “Kyle, ye really must learn to announce yerself. Ye’re too quiet.”
“I thought ye might have heard Goliath and Sage barking up the slope,” he answered. When she shook her head and looked over her shoulder at the giant mixed wolfhounds racing up the side of Sgurr na Stri, he offered her a knowing look. “Ye lose yerself too deeply to yer thoughts, Trina.”
“Kyle,” she said, ignoring his warning, “did ye hear aboot my betrothal to Hugh MacDonald?”
“Aye,” he said softly, not pushing her as to whether or not she would go along with it. He knew her, perhaps better than anyone else did.
“Do ye think my faither will allow me to travel to France if I agree to wed Hugh upon my return?” One adventure. Was that asking too much? “To see our grandparents,” she added after he began shaking his head.
“What’s in France, Trina? And dinna’ say our grandparents. Ye’ll be seeing them in a month.”
She shrugged, turning toward the loch. No sense in lying to Kyle. He could see right through deceit. Besides, she loved him too much to lie to him. “The same thing that’s in England, I suppose. Stuffy nobles and feigned smiles. But I dinna’ want to spend my last free summer before I’m forced to be someone’s wife hunting deer and rabbits, or embroidering, or even reading!”
They looked at each other, Trina expecting the scandalous arch of Kyle’s brow. Most of her cousins adored books as much as swords. Not her, unless the books were about adventure—or archery. She loved arrows; the height and the distance they reached on the wind. The precision achieved by dedicated practice.
She quirked her mouth at him. “Come now, Kyle, ye know how I feel aboot living nestled away in the mountains while the world—which I learned aboot from books—goes on withoot me? And now I’m to be saddled doun with babes…”
A veil of mist passed across his cerulean gaze, briefly transforming him into the cool, calculating performer who could sniff out the truth better than a hound on the trail of its prey. “Ye’re trouble fer some poor sot oot there, Caitrina Grant, and I dinna’ believe ’twill be Hugh MacDonald. Ye’ll go to France and not return fer a year or two.” He wouldn’t tell her parents her plans. Kyle would never betray her. Even as children he had protected her, though she had brothers who were more than happy to do so. Kyle had kept all her secrets, even when she practiced swordplay with the boys when she was supposed to be learning to sew.
The veil lifted; his smile on her was soft, indulgent. “Come now, the others are waiting.”
She nodded and followed him on the path behind the mountain as the mist began to roll in from the Cuillins to the north.
“Speak to yer faither, Kyle. Please.”
“Aboot what?”
“Aboot speaking to my faither aboot me going to France to see our grandparents. I’ll return. I promise.”
He shook his head as he made his way over the steep rocky incline. His steps were sure and silent enough not to disturb the others waiting for them… or the deer they meant to hunt. “Yer faither willna’ let ye go alone, Trina. No matter who speaks to him.”
“Come with me then,” she offered, holding back his wrist before they reached their hunting party. “He’ll let me go if ye’re with me. He knows that ye’re clear-headed and confident, and ye could fight us oot of trouble if ye need to.”
He laughed, cutting her off. “He also knows that I’m Colin’s son, driven as my father was to discover the secrets in men’s hearts. I’m the last person yer faither wants traveling with ye to France. Who the hell knows what we would get ourselves into before we even reached Brittany and our grandparents?”
She sighed rather than give voice to the endless possibilities his query stirred. She had no doubt that they would find adventure on their journey together. Kyle was the reason for her sanity. He spoke true about his desire to learn everything there was to learn about everyone in Camlochlin. He did it well, and without truly letting them know everything about him.
But she knew.
She knew he was bored playing his wee games with the same minds. There was nothing left to learn, not here.
“Think of the interesting people we will meet.”
He blinked at the gossamer mist descending on them. “If tragedy befell ye I would no longer wish to live. And yer faither would see my wish fulfilled.”
“Ye insult me.” She brooded instantly and pushed ahead of him. “Ferget my offer. I dinna’ want to journey with someone who believes my life is in anyone else’s hands but God’s and my own.”
“Fine,” he called out, staring after her. “I didna’ want to go with ye in the first place.”
She let her mouth fall open since she wasn’t facing him. She snapped it back shut before she pivoted around and marched back to him.
“Because ye dinna’ want to have to protect me. Is that it?” Before he answered she poked him in the shoulder. “’Twould more likely be me protecting ye, Kyle MacGregor!”
He smiled, either afraid of her or confident enough not to laugh right in her face. No one in Camlochlin fought like Kyle. He’d mastered every weapon he put his hands to and practiced with his father every day without fail. Why? She wanted to ask him many times… especially now. What was his purpose at becoming the best? Who was he planning on fighting on Skye?
“Kyle.”
“What?”
“Help me with this endeavor!” she pleaded, knowing no one but him would offer to go with her. “I will go mad if this is all there is to my life! I’ll be married by next summer and fat with bairns by the summer after that! Help me, please. I will not allow myself to be injured. I vow it. Dinna’ fret over me.”
She wasn’t certain if he was smiling or not. The mist was thick and the moon was behind them, over the water.
“I’ll always fret over ye. But I’ll do what I can to help ye.”
She squealed and flung her arms around his neck. “Thank ye, cousin.”
“Och, Kyle,” a voice called out from a few feet away. “What did ye promise her now?”
Caitrina released Kyle and turned to offer her younger brother a smug grin—one that he couldn’t see in the dim light. “Mayhap, Cailean, if ye were more willing to assist me in my endeavors, I would not have to rely solely on Kyle.”
“If yer endeavors continue to shock no’ only our clan but the other four clans we share this island with, then I fear my aid willna’ be forthcoming.”
“If by shock,” she said, pushing him out of her way so she could reach the others, “ye mean my refusal to marry Kevin MacKinnon last winter, I—”
“And Alistair MacDonald the summer before that.”
“And dinna’ ferget Jamie MacLeod the spring before that.”
Caitrina turned around to glare at Kyle for jumping into the fray.
“Should I wed men I dinna’ love?”
“Nae, ye should not,” Kyle answered her, his smile audible in the fog. “Now quit fretting over it and let us show these lads who the better hunters are.”
“We already know, Kyle,” said Braigh MacGregor, youngest son of the MacGregor chief. “They are ye and Edmund.”
“Nae,” Tamhas, Braigh’s paternal sixteen-year-old twin, argued. “The best are Malcolm and Cailean. Uncle Connor and Aunt Mairi made certain they practiced weaponry every day.”
“And I was there with my brothers at the end of each day,” Trina reminded them. “’Twould do well fer ye both not to underestimate any lass in this holding. Fer if ye do, ’twill be doubly difficult to accept the next clan chief.” She said nothing more but left them to whatever they thought of her prediction. She stepped through the frail curtain wall and disappeared in the mist.
She knew she was fortunate to live with men who, because of women like her grandmothers, Claire and Kate, and Mairi, her mother, respected women. But there were still restrictions, like not being able to travel off Skye without escort, and having to marry men their fathers chose for them because their fathers thought they needed protecting.
She heard Kyle’s footsteps behind her. Even he didn’t think she could protect herself. Was that why he always seemed to be tailing her? She clenched her teeth, wanting to prove to him that she was no defenseless maiden in need of a champion. Och, those books about knights in armor, courtly love, and butterflies and unicorns were ruining her life!
She moved left, then backtracked a dozen silent steps, passing her brother and her cousins on their way to the hunt. She’d scouted the braes and glens all day yesterday and tracked deer prints. She knew where to go. She would bring home the biggest prize on her own.
Soon, she heard the call of the sea in the distance, beyond Loch Scavaig. She listened only for the sound of movement in the fog, ignoring everything else. She had a point to prove. She couldn’t track prints presently but she’d memorized the path, and raced farther up the craggy slope. The chill of an early spring numbed her face and slapped her dark hair behind her. It wasn’t that she didn’t love this place. She loved it with her all heart. In its vast, wide-open magnificence she’d learned to run, to fly.
It was only natural to want to fly away, wasn’t it?
She slowed, trying to concentrate on her task. She heard a sound and stopped. She remained silent, waiting… waiting. When no other sound came, she continued on. Reaching the crest, she paused again at the odd sound of creaking wood reaching her from what seemed another plane. She turned toward the loch and the mist rolling over it beneath her. She blinked at the sight of something dark drifting across the shallows, its high peaks—were they masts?—piercing the fragile mist.
A ship? What in blazes…? She inched forward. It couldn’t be what she thought it was. Ships didn’t come to Camlochlin without invitation, and never at night, unless they meant harm.
Whatever it was, it disappeared in the fog. Should she alert the others? To what? A shadow? They would tease her and accuse her of creating a distraction because she hadn’t caught anything. She wanted to continue on and win but she should investigate. She began to descend the slope, doing her best to do so as quietly as possible. No reason to frighten away any potential game she could hunt later.
A movement along the shoreline caught her eye. Immediately, she nocked her arrow and raised her bow. Taking aim, she waited with a pounding heart. It could be a deer, or it could be something else. Her heavy breath thundered in her ears and she fought to control it. She kept her eyes on the shoreline and her ear inclined for any sound of her kin returning. She couldn’t lie; part of her wished they were there, at her back.
Being afraid caused her no shame. Acting on it would though.
She braced her legs and na
rrowed her eyes against the brisk wind. A moment passed with the parting of clouds and the full, milky moon spreading its light upon the darkness, and for an instant, on a man prowling along the rocks.
He was dressed in breeches and a long coat; she knew he was no inhabitant of Camlochlin. Neither did the long, curved cutlass dangling from his hand and catching light from the moon prove him a Highlander.
He looked up, but Trina didn’t have time to catch sight of his face beneath the wide brim of his hat. Heart pounding, she released her arrow, wishing she could look upon him and either recognize him or kill him.
His tricorn flew off his head, stabbed by her arrow and carried off into the loch. Mist shrouded him when Trina looked again. He disappeared. Her breath came hard and heavy. This was no deer she was hunting. Who was he? What should she do? Did he come by ship? Dear God, her kin could be under attack right now and here she was wasting moments on questions.
She leaped a few feet down the slope and landed on bent knees and legs ready to fly her to where she wanted to go.
“What kind of coward seeks to kill at such a distance?” A deep, downy male voice called up to her. “Meet me on less foggy ground and let us draw swords on more equal footin’.”
His challenge was issued with arrogance, as if he feared nothing. Not even MacGregors. Fool.
She moved forward, nocking another arrow in place. “Who are ye?” she called out.
“Ah, a woman,” he said, his smile evident behind the silvery curtain that concealed him. She didn’t need to see him to feel the effect his rich voice had on her. He wasn’t Scottish. English perhaps. His clipped cadence was softened by a slow, deep drawl that coursed through her and down her spine like heat on a sultry summer night.
“A dead man,” she countered, ignoring how he sounded, “speaking but saying nothing that will convince me not to shoot him in the face this time.”
He laughed and the heat returned for a moment.
“We have a law at sea.” His warm breath fell against her lobe, causing her to twist around, stunned to find him right there behind her. She hadn’t sensed his movement. Now, he was so close she could see the contours of his face, the shape of his mouth over her as he came in close and took hold of her bow. “If ye’re goin’ to kill a man, look him in the eyes when ya do it.”