“The sails are catching, Captain! She’s moving.”
Rourke felt the pressure on his chest give way as fog rolled across his ship. They were not going to founder upon the rocks after all. He watched the two sails fill with wind, at last.
“Rourke!” Hegarty’s voice carried over the hurrahs of his crew.
He turned to see the woman streak onto his deck, red brown hair glistening like silk in the patchy sunshine, his shirt a white billow around her.
Bloody hell. He was barely free of one disaster. The last thing he needed was a woman topside. Not with this crew.
As he started toward her, she glanced his way. Their gazes caught and in that instant, he understood. She meant to jump. He saw in her eyes the utter determination to escape him, even if it meant her death.
“Nay!”
But even as the word left his mouth, she leaped atop the rail. She stood there, poised for one fleeting moment like a finely carved masthead, her exquisitely sculpted face lifted to the sky. Then with a powerful, graceful arc, she dove into the frigid waters of the North Sea.
FOUR
“Man overboard!”
Rourke lunged for the rail, tearing off his weapons. God’s blood. He’d not risked life and sanity to skirt the coast of Scotland only to have the woman extinguish her own life the moment Hegarty found her.
But as his sword clattered to the deck, she surfaced and started toward the fog-shrouded shore with long, clean strokes. The woman could swim. But for how long? The coast appeared much closer than it was. She would drown before she was a quarter of the distance.
“Daft wench.” He should turn and walk away. Let her drown. She was naught but a tribulation he’d be well rid of.
Even as the thought went through his head, his hands tore the boots from his feet.
Aye, he should let her drown.
Instead, he hoisted himself onto the rail and dove into the sea to save her.
The cold slammed into him like a twenty-stone seaman, knocking the air from his lungs, stealing the strength from his limbs. He had to reach her before her strength gave out.
Over the rolling, cresting waves, he spotted her and set out. But as he raced toward her, the distance between them did not close as quickly as he’d expected. It didn’t close at all. He knew himself to be a fine swimmer, yet the lass was keeping apace. Amazing, considering she’d nearly bled to death less than a day before.
Rourke pushed himself to his limit, ignoring the briny sea spray in his mouth and nose, the icy water numbing his limbs. Not until they neared the shore did he finally begin to gain on her. But not soon enough.
Rocks jutted menacingly from the surf between them and the shore. If a wave dashed her against one, she’d sink like a stone. She’d be dead before he could reach her.
“Wildcat!”
She turned her head, meeting his gaze for one fleeting moment. Then she pushed forward as if unaware of her looming death. Or uncaring.
Cold. So cold.
Brenna forced her arms to stroke and prayed her legs were still kicking, because she couldn’t feel them. And she knew the pirate was behind her. The salt water stung her eyes. The taste of it strafed her lips and tongue with each painful breath. But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let him drag her back to that hell ship.
In front of her lay an obstacle course of jagged rocks she was going to have to maneuver between if she hoped to survive. Just a fun day at the beach, boys and girls.
“Wildcat!”
Her heart skipped a pounding beat at the closeness of the pirate’s call. A surge of adrenaline born of pure fear set her arms to stroking at twice her previous speed until she felt herself lifted on a wave. With a burst of panic she knew the next moments would spell the difference between her death . . . and escape.
Using the bodysurfing technique she’d learned at the beach at home, she steered her frozen form around first one rock, then another, until at last she was in the surf. Her toes stubbed loose rocks along the bottom and she nearly wept with relief.
As she stumbled on stiff, numb legs through the shallow water, Brenna looked back in time to see the pirate pass between the rocks, swimming with the wave that would carry him right to her feet.
Terror lent strength to her freezing, exhausted body, and she pushed forward. She was so cold, so tired. But she had to keep moving.
Ahead, a tiny, deserted wedge of beach lay tucked into the curve of the rocky coastline. Beyond it, a steep, grassy path led to freedom, her only avenue of escape. She fought her way out of the grasping surf and lurched toward it.
At the sound of splashing behind her, her heart began to thud. I’m not going back with him.
Her only chance of escape now lay in outrunning him. Or reaching help in the form of a big man with a bigger gun. Anyone else would be powerless against the pirate. He was too muscular, too strong. And way too determined.
Brenna lunged for the hillside, leaping onto the grass, but that first tuft gave way to ankle-deep muddy water. She growled with frustration and scrambled up the boggy path, feeling like the devil himself was on her heels. Halfway to the top, a strong hand snared her ankle.
“No!” The word croaked through her frozen lips as she clawed at the grass, desperately scrabbling for a hold. Her attempt to kick free only made her captor yank harder, knocking her face-first onto the grassy slope. Before she could push herself up, the pirate’s rough hand clamped over her mouth. His knee pressed into the small of her back, immobilizing her, bitterly stealing her brief hope of escape.
But not her fight. Never that. She slammed her elbow back, colliding with a rock-hard arm.
He snagged her wrist, holding her still. “I dinna wish to harm you.” The pirate’s voice, low in her ear, was as thin with cold as her own.
She tried to bite the fingers covering her mouth, but his salty hand was pressed too tightly.
“Cease! If ye draw the guards upon us, they’ll kill you.”
He didn’t make any sense. She’d been captured by a madman. Tears clouded her vision as she struggled against his impossible hold, but he only increased the pressure on her back until she could hardly breathe.
“Wildcat, you must understand the danger we’re in. You’ll not make a sound, aye?”
The last thing she wanted to do was give in, but she nodded, willing to do just about anything to make him release her.
Slowly, he took his hand from her mouth.
“Get off me.”
“If you try to unman me as ye did Cutter, I’ll let them kill you.” The brittle softness of his voice told her he wasn’t kidding, but the sharp pressure on her back finally disappeared.
Brenna pushed to her feet, soaked and muddy. The man’s large hand clamped around her wrist and she looked up, meeting cold eyes.
“Not a sound, lass.”
“Look, Pirate, if you let me go, I won’t tell anyone about you or your ship. I promise. I swear I’ll catch the next flight back to the States and never, ever come back.”
The man’s eyes narrowed with confusion. “Wildcat, you aren’t . . .” He broke eye contact and glanced around as if surveying their surroundings. When he turned back, his gaze pinned her with keen intensity. “Where do ye think ye are?”
Brenna stared at him, a sudden uneasiness undermining her certainty. Had they sailed to Ireland overnight? Denmark?
Her gaze skimmed what she could see of the cliffs and coast until it snagged on a large edifice in the swirling mists. A castle, perched high on the cliffs above them.
The mists broke and reformed but not before she caught a clearer glimpse. She knew that place.
Castle Stour.
Thank God. She might not be welcome there, but at least she knew where she was.
But even as relief filled her, the sun broke through and the mists parted again, illuminating a whole and vibrant stronghold that couldn’t be Stour at all.
She stared at it in confusion. The restored tower looked almost exactly like the one sh
e’d toured two days ago. But that’s where the resemblance ended. Stour’s recently restored keep had looked strangely out of place among the crumbling ruins of its sixteenth-century ranges, like a knight in finest armor trailed by tattered servants.
There was nothing ruined about this castle. Its ranges stood as solid and impregnable as the tower itself, their crenellated ramparts rising like teeth against the misty blue sky. Teeth spotted with helmeted and armed sentries.
This was not Stour. A twin, perhaps, built by the same architect. And not destroyed by fire in the seventeenth century.
She met her captor’s gaze. “Where am I, then? I thought I was in Scotland.”
“You are in Scotland, lass. On the lands belonging to the third Earl of Slains.”
Brenna’s eyes narrowed. “How many castles does the earl own? Is he cloning them now?”
“Cloning?” That same look of confusion crossed his face. “The earl resides at Castle Stour, though I ken he’s set his sights on others aplenty.”
“Then which castle is this one?”
“Stour.” He said the word slowly, forming it carefully as if she were an idiot.
Brenna opened her mouth, then shut it again with a roll of her eyes. Good grief, just how far was he going to take this? “Listen, Pirate, I need you to let me go. I promise, you’ll never see or hear from me again.”
“Ye dinna believe me.” His pale eyes bore into her, sending an unwanted shiver of awareness tingling through her thawing limbs. “That is Castle Stour.”
She huffed with frustration. “I toured Stour two days ago. Most of the castle’s in ruins.” Her fisted hands found her hips. “This. Is. Not. It.”
He stared at her for several heated seconds, then shook his head as if to clear it. “ ’ Tis no matter what name ye wish to call it. The earl will kill us both if he catches us. We must be away, and quickly.”
Brenna stared at him. He was taking this reenactment way too far. It was almost as if he believed it. Why did all the interesting ones have to be insane . . . or married?
“Look . . . Rourke.” Maybe using his name would tap a thread of sanity. If Rourke was his name. At least he wasn’t calling himself Blackbeard or Captain Hook. “I know you think I’m in danger.”
The quick flash of annoyance in his eyes unnerved her. Crazy people weren’t supposed to be quite so quick, were they? She broke eye contact to make this easier and glanced back toward the castle.
“But . . .”
The sun, burning through the morning mist, revealed the castle in its entirety, stealing the words from her throat as her mind catalogued every eerie similarity to the one she’d visited. Even the cliffs looked the same right down to the . . .
A dull roar started in her ears as her gaze locked on the upside-down Hershey’s Kiss barely visible within the folds of the rock.
No way.
Her gaze darted over the rest of the castle, frantically seeking an answer—any answer—as her pulse began to pound in her ears.
The earl might have duplicated his castles, but he couldn’t have reproduced the cliffs and the rocks. And the cave. And if he hadn’t duplicated them . . .
She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone dry. If he hadn’t duplicated them . . . She swayed, but the pirate’s grip held her tight.
“How can this be?” she whispered. Two days ago it had been a ruin. Today it was whole.
Foreboding rose, thudding against her chest as her mind darted about like a drunk roadrunner, crashing into the walls of her brain. Castles did not mend themselves overnight!
Neither did legs.
“Hegarty,” she whispered. “He’s behind this, isn’t he?”
“Aye. He is the one who brought ye here.”
And he’d already answered the question of where here was. You are in Scotland. On the lands belonging to the third Earl of Slains.
Her scalp tingled, the hair rising on her arms as she heard his words fully this time. The third earl.
The words suddenly took on an ominous ring. She remembered the tour guide discussing the theories behind the fire that destroyed the castle in the late seventeenth century. In 1687, during the time of the third earl, the castle was destroyed. The tour guide’s voice rang in her head like a death knell. During the time of the third earl. 1687.
Her breath turned ragged, her pulse racing through her veins.
No. It couldn’t be.
But she thought of the meticulously authentic pirate ship. There had been nothing anachronistic aboard that ship. No errant can of Coke. No cell phone going off in the middle of the night. No muffled sound of a soccer match over the radio. Just pirates in tattered rags as if the past had come roaring to life.
She looked up at the man who held her tight in his grip, his expression grim. If all this was somehow real, if she’d truly tumbled through time, then she was being held by an honest-to-goodness pirate.
Oh. My. God.
Her legs refused to hold her and she sank to the grass, dizzy with denial. This could not be happening. Chaos whirred in her ears as it hadn’t since she was a child being pushed and shoved from one foster home to another.
How is this possible?
The pirate squatted in front of her and put his hand on her shoulder, his face etched with concern even as his eyes flashed with impatience. “This is no time to swoon, Wildcat. We’re in great danger. We must be away before they find us.”
“This is Hegarty’s doing.”
“Aye.”
Magic. She wanted to scream, “There’s no such thing!” But her leg said otherwise. Everything said otherwise.
She stared at the castle, glistening silver. “Why? Why did he bring me here?”
“You must ask him yourself.”
Her head snapped up and she gazed out at the sea. “We have to get back to the ship.” But through the breaking mist, she could see nothing on the water but a few bobbing seagulls. “Where did it go?”
“She was put to sail just before our ill-timed swim.” His voice deepened with a rich vein of annoyance. “ ’ Tis a muckle shame ye didna stay in my cabin as I bade ye, aye?”
The truth of his words slammed into her. In escaping, she’d lost her only ticket home. Hegarty.
“My crew will drop anchor and await us once they’re out of sight of Stour. Shouldna take more than a day to reach them.”
“A day? How fast can they sail that thing?”
“How fast do ye walk, lass?”
Walk? Brenna groaned. If this was really the seventeenth century, then of course they’d be walking. She glanced down at her bare feet, one of which was already bleeding from the rocks, and sighed. Could this day get any worse?
“Come.” Rourke started up the embankment, clearly expecting her to follow. Ten minutes ago she’d been hell-bent on escaping him.
She glanced back at the empty sea, then scurried to catch up. He might be a pirate, but he was her only way back to Hegarty. And it seemed the dwarf was the only one who could send her home.
As they neared the top of the steep path, the pirate motioned her to wait. Slowly, he rose above the level of the ground, his movements as furtive as a spy’s.
A shout rang out and the pirate ducked. He met her gaze, his eyes wide and disbelieving. “Bloody hell.”
“They saw you?”
“Aye.” His eyes turned piercingly intense. “Stay here while I engage them. I’ll lead them away from you. Run and dinna stop.”
“What about you?”
“I can look after myself.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
He stood, hands up, and climbed to the top of the slope. “I mean no harm,” the pirate shouted. “I fell from a passing vessel and was forced to swim ashore. I wish only to rejoin my crew.”
“That will be for the earl to decide,” a deep voice answered.
Brenna’s heart thudded. How was she supposed to know when to run when she couldn’t see a thing? And just where was she supposed to go? She didn’t even know
which way the ship was heading. Every time she’d been on board to notice, it had been at anchor.
Damn. Damn. The insidious helplessness she’d known as a child tightened around her like a straitjacket. She thought she’d finally shed it once and for all when she reached adulthood and was no longer at the mercy of others for her food and shelter. Yet here she was again.
Wrong. She wasn’t helpless this time. She might not understand what was going on, but she knew what she had to do. Find Hegarty.
And to do that she needed the pirate.
She crept slowly up the hillside until she could see him. And, hopefully, not be seen herself. As her gaze crested the top of the hill, she sucked in her breath at the sight that met her eyes. Stour in all its prefire glory. She’d thought she understood the size of the place as she’d wandered the restored keep in her own time, but the castle in its prime was a sight to behold.
The pirate stood with his hands up, his clothes plastered to his muscled body as two men joined him. Her eyes widened at the sight of them.
The pair looked as if they’d just stepped out of a Shake spearean play, give or take a century. They wore heavy blue coats and tight black pants. One appeared to be sporting a wig, unless he genuinely had a massive head of long, curly black hair. Each wore a gun on one hip—long unwieldy-looking pistols—and a sword on the other.
Either the whole place was one giant reenactment or she was really and truly in the past.
As she watched, one of the guards moved too close to the drenched pirate. Rourke plowed his fist through the soldier’s face, flattening him. But as he turned to mete out the same punishment to the second guard, the man pulled his gun and pointed it at Rourke’s head.
“On your knees.”
Brenna’s heart went to her throat. The bluecoat was about to shoot her ticket home. She had to do something—attract the guy’s attention and fast.
Sapphire Dream (Berkley Sensation) Page 5