by Merry Farmer
Ruairí watched as pleasure spread across her face near to what he saw when they coupled. He fed her another piece as she looked eager for what was clearly a favorite. He fed her several more bites until she sucked his finger into her mouth and released it with a pop.
“I shalln’t eat it all, though I could.” She fed him several pieces before cutting an apple into sections.
They were more than halfway through their meal before either of them spoke. Hunger of more than one kind kept them silent.
“I know you can’t remain below deck forever. I’m happy to bring you up to the deck and walk or stand with you, but I don’t want you to come above deck alone. You can without a doubt trust the man who guarded your door, Tomas, and my first mate Kyle. If I can’t be with you, you may go with them. No one else. Not yet.”
Senga leaned against his shoulder as she stroked the hair at his temple.
“I know what you and your crew do, Ruairí. I know what you are. I saw for myself what type of man sails for you, and they are the same type that frequent the tavern. I will be careful and use due caution, but I won’t break knowing I’m aboard a pirate ship. I came willingly.”
Ruairí captured her fingers and kissed each one before bringing her hand to his cheek. He leaned into her warm palm. “What a treasure I found,” he murmured.
“One that wishes to be plundered,” Senga had discovered she quite liked the various euphemisms she could use with her pirate lover.
“Of that you need not doubt. I will gladly do that morning, noon, and night. But I don’t want you to feel you are a prisoner here, or that you are little more than a bed slave. I may look like a Viking and at times act like one, but I don’t want you to feel trapped.”
“That you care and are trying to reassure me speaks to who I’m discovering you are. I’ve seen glimpses of the man I’ve heard so many rumors about. You’re fierce and could scare even the most hardened pirate, but I see a side I don’t think you show many others.”
“You see a side I have never shown anyone.”
“Do you fear your crew will think you’ve gone soft? Would you rather I not go above deck either so you don’t have to show your kinder side, or so I won’t see your Dark Heart side?”
“So you know of that moniker. I suppose most people do. I don’t worry that they will see me as soft. There should be little doubt in their minds as to my true nature.”
“And that true nature is ruthless?”
“Aye.”
Senga took in the statement said so flatly. She supposed he was right. He admitted that no one saw the kindness he showed her. His true nature was not the gentle lover whose lap she sat upon. His true nature was one that made him renowned for his merciless attacks on merchant ships and privateers. Senga hoped they could both come to terms with the opposite sides of his personality. She closed her eyes as she rested against his chest. Content where she was, she did not want further conversation to ruin it. Senga ran her fingers over the stumble on his jaw. She liked the prickle, but she forced herself to curb her desire to rain kisses along his throat. The man had just admitted he could be cruel. It did not seem the right time to show more affection.
Ruairí felt the shift in Senga as she became more reserved. She continued to run her hand over his face, but she seemed introspective where she had been playful moments ago. He was not sure what to say. He had been honest, but he had intended on reassuring her that he would not regret bringing her along. Instead, she retreated from him.
“I don’t want you to fear me.”
She sat up and cupped his face in both hands.
“I don’t. I told you, I know who you are. I understand what you do and how you must be.”
Ruairí gripped her wrists, but his touch was soft.
“Then why did you retreat from me? Why sink into a shell?”
Senga looked at him with genuine confusion.
“I didn’t retreat from you. I didn’t think it was the time to be overly affectionate when you reminded me moments ago that you are not soft nor weak, despite your kindness to me.”
“I find I desire your affection as much as I do your passion.”
“I feel the same,” Senga leaned in for a kiss.
“I want you to feel free to show affection. I crave it, in fact. It’s been so long since I’ve felt any,” Ruairí trailed off. He could tell from her face that she was eager to hear more, but he already knew she would not ask. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I suppose I should tell you how I came to be a pirate if you are to live with me. I don’t want you to feel as though I’m keeping secrets or am keeping you at arm’s length.”
Senga nodded and offered him an encouraging smile.
“You’ve heard me speak of my cousin Rowan. Perhaps you have met him, and I’m sure his reputation precedes him as well.” Senga nodded again but said nothing. “When we were six and ten, I went on a trading voyage with my father. He is Rowan’s father’s younger twin. Rowan’s father was the laird of the MacNeills of Barra.”
Senga nodded.
“While my father and I were away, Rowan’s father forced him to go on his semi-annual tour of their lands. They went twice a year to observe the planting and harvesting. Rowan had been before, but that spring the weather had been worse than usual. He argued with his father that it was too dangerous, since much of their journey would take them along rivers and inlets. Rowan relented after his father insulted him in front of their men. He called Rowan a coward, so my cousin had no choice but to save face.”
“I can’t believe his father would do that,” Senga murmured.
“Halfway into their tour, they made camp near what was once a stream. With the spring thaw and rains, it was a surging river. When the other men went out to scout, they left Rowan and my uncle arguing once more. Rowan walked away until he heard his father and his father’s horse scream. The embankment had shifted and fallen into the raging water, carrying man and beast away. Rowan ran to fish him out, but his father cracked his skull against a tree limb as Rowan pulled him to safety.”
Ruairí paused as if picturing the past.
“He got them both out of the water and collapsed next to the laird. He woke to arguing and someone kicking him awake. His father was dead, and they were accusing Rowan of patricide. They bound him and forced him to ride with his dead father’s body tied before him. It was a sennight’s ride before they made it home. His mother spotted them and fell apart when she saw her dead husband. She never even looked at Rowan.”
“I don’t believe that. A mother wouldn’t ignore her son like that.” Senga was quiet but adamant.
“Regardless, they threw him first into the dungeon, then into the oubliette. He spent a month down there before my father and I returned. We tried to convince the clan elders that the idea Rowan would kill his father was preposterous. It was to no avail. The council wanted my father to be the laird. They were mistaken to believe he would be malleable and weak, that they could force him to bend to their desires. My father was the softer spoken of the twins, but he was far wiser than his brother.”
Senga still held doubts about Rowan’s mother’s reaction, but Ruairí had continued on, and she did not want to miss any of the story.
“The night we returned, my father sent me to rescue Rowan. I pulled him from the oubliette and practically carried him to a birlinn. He was skin and bones after a month in the pit. We had been similar in size and build to what we are now. I almost didn’t recognize him. We sailed that night, intending to meet my father in a few days, but a storm blew in. Rowan became deathly ill, and I missed the meeting point with my father. We put ashore and found a tavern where the owner was willing to let us stay until Rowan recovered.”
The next part of the story was not one he wanted to tell the woman he had just begun bedding, but it was an important detail. He tried to hide his grimace.
“The woman who owned the tavern, really more a brothel, took good care of Rowan until he was well. I think we
both felt indebted to her, and we each developed a relationship of sorts with her.” Ruairí paused to see how Senga would react to him admitting he was with another woman. It was one thing for it to go unsaid, it was another to tell her.
“Ruairí, you weren’t a virgin last night. Neither was I. You’ve made no proclamations, and I’ve made no demands. I met you in a tavern where I know you’d been before, but I’d never seen you. I already figured out that was probably because you spent more time in a private chamber than the main dining room.”
Ruairí found all of a sudden that he wanted to make proclamations and would not have minded if she demanded fidelity. He wanted to offer it to her. He would have to revisit that notion later. He could only nod before going on.
“The woman recommended a merchant ship we could work aboard once Rowan was on his feet again. She not only ran a brothel, but she was a smuggler too. The merchant ship was a pirate ship. Rowan and I became indentured to the captain.” Ruairí tipped his head back as he looked at the ceiling. Those had been the hardest years of his life. He saw and did things he never imagined his conscience would allow. He was sure it was when his conscience died. “It changed both of us. Neither of us recognized the men we became, but we had each other and kept each other alive.”
Rauri tipped his head forward and looked into Senga’s eyes to see if she would ask for more details, but she nodded once and waited for him to continue.
“We sailed together for three years before the captain traded me to another pirate. I’d killed one of his men in a fight, and by rights, he could claim me as compensation for losing his man. I didn’t fare well on that ship, but I was a leader. I led a mutiny and killed the captain before the crew. I did it with such ease and cruelty, the name Dark Heart was born. No one aboard this ship has ever questioned my right to be captain. Not long after, the captain of the so-called merchant ship died. Rowan inherited it at the captain’s will, and the crew elected to make him captain. We have sailed together and apart for ten years.”
When he stopped speaking, Senga said nothing, so Ruairí was not sure if she was waiting for him to go on or was struck speechless.
“Are you repulsed to hear I killed two men in cold blood?” He was not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“Would you be sitting with me if you hadn’t?”
“Probably not.”
“Then I am relieved you did.”
“You are not at all how I expected. You don’t do or say the things I expect.”
“That’s good. It’ll keep you interested longer.”
Ruairí understood what went unsaid. He knew Senga assumed his interest would wane, and he would turn her out. He was not so sure, but he knew it was prudent not to make any false or rash promises.
“I am already very interested.”
“There is more to my own story.” She waited until Ruairí nodded before she went on. “My father was the laird of the MacLeods of Lewis. I was my parents’ only child. My mother nearly died giving birth to me and could not have anymore. My parents were a love match and doted on me. I told you my father carved the cradle before I was born, and he carved the cross for my baptism.”
Ruairí nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“When I was three and ten, a sickness ravaged our clan and weakened it. The MacLeods of Skye seized the opportunity and raided us. They killed my father while he tried to protect my mother and me. He had been fighting in the bailey but saw the old Skye laird rush into the keep. We had not always been enemies, and my father knew the laird was more familiar with the keep than most. My father knew the laird knew of the secret alcove in my parents’ chamber. My father fought his way to his chamber, but a Skye warrior ran him through as he tried to stab the laird who had just slit my mother’s throat.”
Ruairí was struck by the similarities in their stories, but while they both had the better father between two brothers, it was Senga’s father who had been killed. As far as Ruairí knew, his father was still alive.
“I tucked myself away and went unseen in the alcove. It’s the only way I survived, the only way they didn’t rape me. I stayed in the hidey-hole until the next morning, when my uncle ‘coincidentally’ returned from sailing to Canna. He returned with men willing to live and work for our clan until we were back on our feet. That is how I met Alex.”
It didn’t feel right to refer to Alex as her husband when she sat upon another man’s lap in his cabin aboard his ship. Her new circumstances did not change who Alexander was to her, but much like not wanting to hear about the brothel owner, Senga did not think Ruairí needed the reminder.
“I knew what everyone else did. My uncle coveted the lairdship because he had been my grandfather’s favorite. My father was born to my grandfather’s first wife, a woman he never wanted and refused to like. My uncle was born to the woman who was my grandfather’s mistress but became his wife less than a moon after my grandmother died. My uncle arranged the raid with the MacLeods of Skye in exchange for my hand. My aunt had little say, but she threatened to involve the church if my uncle dared hand me over at only three and ten. My uncle beat her for it, but he knew she would not bend. It is what saved me that time.”
Ruairí ran his hand over her back and gave her waist a small squeeze when she paused.
“I grew to know Alex when he was at our keep. He traveled quite a lot between Canna and Lewis. When I was five and ten, I was sure I was in love with him and he with me. And we were, if only in puppy love. Alex took me away from Lewis only days before I was supposed to sail for Skye. As I told you before, he posted the banns on Canna to hide it from my uncle. My uncle ruled much the way your uncle did. I remember hearing stories about him.”
Senga tried to hide her grimace, but it made her shiver instead. Ruairí wrapped his arm around her waist and rested his hand on her hip.
“It didn’t take long for me to get with child, and before I gave birth, my aunt had the cradle smuggled to me. Someone had tucked it away in an old unused chamber in an abandoned tower for years. I couldn’t believe it when I opened the door to see a man from my clan with it in his hands. He said, ‘From your aunt,’ and nothing else. He put it down and walked away. I haven’t seen nor heard from anyone else from my clan since then. It’s as though we don’t exist to one another. I suppose much as you and Rowan feel about your own clan.”
Ruairí was sure he and Rowan had a great deal more anger toward their clan, but he did not interrupt Senga.
“I wasn’t angry while I had Alex and then a bairn on the way. But once I lost both of them and had nowhere to go, I found bitterness eating away at my soul. I mourned the loss of everything. The family I made, the family I left behind, the clan I grew up with, the home that was no longer mine. All of it. It took me a year before I realized I would put myself into an early grave if I didn’t pull myself together. That was far harder than anything that came before it. I didn’t really want to, but if I wanted to survive, I had to. The charity of my neighbors and my uncle had nearly run out. I had to take care of myself, so I began working in the tavern. Not much changed after that until last night.”
Just as Senga sat quietly during Ruairí’s tale, he did the same for her. He wondered if she might cry, but when he looked at her, her eyes were dry. He realized she had resigned herself to her past, just as he had his. There was no more grief left but he had hung onto his bitterness, used it to fuel him every day he stayed alive. Ruairí understood that it was acceptance that drove Senga to keep going. They were as different as oil and water in that respect.
“You haven’t had it easy, little one. Tell me true, has any other man every attacked you before? Assaulted you?”
She shook her head but paused before speaking.
“They were not the first to try. Part of the reason Alex did ask for my hand was because my uncle cornered me once, and it was Alex’s appearance that saved me. Some men on Canna tried to proposition me, and when I refused, they threatened me. Those nights, I urged other women to distra
ct them and stayed near my aunt and uncle. I managed to go unmolested. Last night was the only night I was ever truly in danger.”
Ruairí exhaled air he had not realized was trapped within his lungs. He had felt the familiar sense of rage build within him as he waited to learn whether there were other men to kill. Senga ran her hands over his ribs and chest.
“Don’t be angry. There is no one else to avenge.”
Her soft smile eased the tension from between his shoulders as he handed her a cup of wine. She took a sip before passing it to him. He took a long draw, then eased her off his lap.
“I shall arrange a bath for you. It will be me who knocks but still lock and bar the door.”
Ruairí left before Senga could say anything. She went to her chest and pulled out the things she needed, and it surprised her how quickly Ruairí returned. She still did not trust a crew she did not know, so she asked who it was before she lifted the bar. A troop of men arrived with a large tub and several steaming buckets of water. It amazed her that there was hot water. It meant there was a flame somewhere on the boat.
“I detest cold food every day, so I allow one fire, and it’s in the galley,” Ruairí explained.
Senga did not care at that moment where the hot water came from. She wanted to strip and hop in. When the men departed, she shucked off the robe she had thrown on and was ready to climb in when Ruairí lifted her once again, and her legs encircled his naked waist as he slid inside her. He settled them in the tub where they coupled once more. Senga found the feel of the lapping water to be the most sensual experience she had ever had. They washed one another, and Ruairí poured fresh water over her hair to rinse out the suds. They dried off and chatted about the various places Ruairí had traveled and where Senga dreamed of going. Her knowledge of geography surprised him, but he reasoned that she had lived among sailors her entire life.