by Laura Frantz
Ye were my choice.
She forgot the storm. Larkin’s fretting. Her own rolling innards and urine-soaked lap. Even the imminent peril of capsizing. Was he jesting? Or was she simply dreaming? She looked at him, stunned and a bit shy. His heart seemed to be in his eyes. The storm had stripped away all pretense, all distance, paring them down to a few impassioned, soul-stirring words.
He naysayed the match.
Tears blinded her. If Magnus had had his way, there’d have been no crime. No conviction or banishment or indenture. No Bonaventure. No facing such a storm.
But the former laird, forceful and unbending, had had his customary, iron-willed way.
“Ye need to ken, Lark. I’ll not let it go unsaid any longer.” He let go of the hammock after another long, hard look at her, then made his way to the open door and disappeared.
She stared after him, unseeing. Her heart felt too big for her chest. Did he tell her such because he believed they would perish? Did he think it would comfort her at the last?
So Magnus had gone to his father about making her his bride. The sweetness of it was as sharp as her surprise. Never had he acted besotted. Never had he spoken about love.
Yet . . . there had been some fine feeling. ’Twas almost too tenuous to pin down, this bond, muted by circumstances, stretched thin by absence. Yet still there, if only fragile as spiders’ webbing. She’d not allowed herself to think of it—till now.
Who was to pinpoint a time when childish affection turned more tender? When a mundane look became more? Had her simple croft existence blinded her to the possibilities at the castle? Did it even matter?
The years of sweeping aside her feelings, of confining them to a tiny corner of her mind and heart, began to shift. Dare she admit her own heart?
She wiped her face, unsure if the damp was from the storm or her tears. Larkin howled despite another biscuit, and then, with another heave of the ship, emptied his stomach across her wet bodice. She followed suit, leaning over the hammock and missing the bailing bucket. The lantern Magnus had hung up went black as another onslaught of water came from above—and below.
Despite her misery and their bleak future, not even a raging storm could dim the awe and honor she felt at being once wanted. Or deny the overwhelming evidence that always, always, something had come between them. This time a roaring, fearsome storm.
24
I find as I grow older that I love those most whom I loved first.
Thomas Jefferson
He’d told her. Unburdened his heart. Spoken the words that had lodged in his soul for so long he couldn’t mark the beginning of them. His confrontation with his father stood tall in his memory. He’d faced Kerrera’s formidable laird in the castle library that afternoon long ago, shutting the door behind him to make sure no servants overheard the intimate exchange.
“Ye look deep in thought,” his father said, rising from the ancient mahogany desk that separated them. As a lad Magnus had played beneath that desk, fascinated and half afraid of the desk’s massive legs carved into the likeness of lions.
Now he stood before it, hands fisted behind his back, fully kilted as was his father. Once again, fear tried to take root deep inside him. He had his mother’s blessing, at least. And Saundra’s. Saundra loved Lark like a sister. But now, face-to-face with the one whose judgment mattered most, he sensed a fight. Had they already told his father whom he wanted as his wife?
“’Tis time to take a bride,” Magnus stated. Between each word was woven a prayer. He’d asked God’s blessing first. “I have decided to wed none other than Lark.”
“Lark. A MacDougall?”
“Aye.” Magnus countered the stern resistance in his father’s tone. “None fairer than she.”
“And ye would make her a MacLeish?”
“With yer blessing.” Or without it.
Their eyes locked. The battle had begun. If silence was a weapon, Magnus knew its power. He moved not a muscle besides.
His father rubbed his jaw, the whiskered stubble silvered, his weathered face a map of wrinkles. “She has no dower to speak of.”
“That matters little to me.”
“I would have grandchildren from a worthier line.”
“She descends from Somerled himself. Aside from that, I would have the mother of my children be Lark and none else.”
His father turned his back and stared out a tall, rain-smeared window. “Ye disappoint me, Magnus. Mayhap I erred educating the girl alongside ye. I ne’er thought it would cause ye to lower yer sights.”
Magnus had expected a fiery outburst. An impassioned denial. Not this. Wallace MacLeish seemed tired. Worn. Full of regrets.
“I am growing auld and have seen many things. Betimes I ken I will not live to see many more. Let yer father have his way, aye? Allow me to make so weighty a decision as one who knows ye best. A decision that will benefit us both—and Kerrera—for generations to come. Ye are my only heir. The future of the island rests on yer shoulders, remember. Let me die proud.”
Magnus studied his father carefully. He had in mind a wealthy bride, no doubt, one whose fortune would profit more than them. Magnus turned away, letting the unwelcome words hang in the winter air.
They had been at an impasse over this bride business till spring. Then, leaving Edinburgh and Parliament Square amid the turbulent talk of impending war, Magnus returned home for an extended stay. There’d been precious little time to speak with Lark, to declare his intentions, to determine if she was willing. Swept up in the Jacobite cause, he’d traveled to Culloden alongside his father, proudly if a bit reluctantly, in Cameron of Lochliel’s large regiment. All were hungry and exhausted from days of hard riding and incessant rain. Soon they would come face-to-face with the English who seemed intent on denying the Scots even the right to breathe.
There amid the sulphurous yellow smoke of battle, the desperate wail of bagpipes, the furious clash of swords and Lochaber axes and grapeshot, his fallen father had grabbed at Magnus’s leine with a bloodied hand. “Magnus . . . promise me . . .” His words came hard, all life ebbing out of him.
Magnus knelt in the slick grass of Drumossie Moor, tearing his plaid free to bind the gaping chest wound. “Dinna speak, Father. Save yer strength.”
All around them fled those in full retreat, the very ground shaking beneath them.
He stared in horror as the old, umber-colored eyes closed then reopened with effort. “Promise me ye’ll marry none . . . but the daughter of Erskine-Shand.” With a low groan he let go of Magnus’s shirt, leaving a scarlet stain. “My son . . . promise me.”
Though his entire being screamed nay, Magnus ground his back teeth and uttered the binding word he had no wish to say. “Aye.”
A final nod and then—nothing. Torn with anguish, he’d carried his father’s lifeless body off the field, past writhing men who lay wounded, frantic horses, and overpowering smoke. How had he himself emerged with only three balls through his garments in so vicious a battle, with so many dead?
For months after, both waking and sleeping, he recalled the binding, irreversible moment, caught in an ominous stranglehold of memories. Equally memorable was the day he’d told Lark he was to marry Isla. That had cut just as deep.
And now this heartfelt confession on a beleaguered ship in the teeth of a storm. Never would he forget the look on Lark’s face when he’d confessed his hopes of years before. Wanting to make her his bride, mistress not of the stillroom but of Kerrera Castle. Thunderstruck she was. Not even working the pumps or bailing with buckets in a gale could subdue her image. Not even the guns that had been jettisoned and the valuable cargo thrown overboard. Lark’s lovely, stunned face stayed foremost.
His reverie ended as the sea washed across the deck, slamming into them and sweeping away everything not lashed down. ’Twould almost be comical if it wasn’t so perilous, all of them slipping and sliding and wrestling with wind and water. Exhaustion benumbed him. Tethered about the waist like every other man in s
ight gave him little security when the gray waves climbed to mountainous walls on all sides. ’Twas blowing forty knots or better, the wind shoving him about at every turn. Sea and sky turned from foamy gray to black as daylight eroded. Airborne spray blinded him, leaving a salty, stinging aftermath.
Gathered around the capstan was the captain and second mate with Surgeon Blackburn. All a sodden mass of blue, their tarred hats streaming water, their hemp lifelines lashed to stanchions.
Throughout the storm, Blackburn seemed to shadow him. Or was it only his overwrought imagination? Shrugging off the concern, Magnus resumed his frantic bailing in the gathering gloom of night. The sea seemed to spread itself out and away from the Bonaventure as if gathering for another assault. How much more could the vessel stand? Each swell seemed more violent than the last.
He braced himself as the ship rose and crashed downwards. More seawater poured across the deck, sweeping Magnus off his feet. He braced for the tight tug of his lifeline, but it never came. Toward the foredecks he went on a foamy, iron-fisted wave, senses stung as salt water flooded his eyes and nose. But ’twas his shoulder, shoved against the lanyard, that screamed with pain. He fought for a hold on something—anything—as frantic seconds ticked by toward a greater danger.
Lord, help Thou me.
On the knife’s edge of washing overboard, he collided with the anchor chain. Dazed, torn with pain, he held on to the rusted metal as the ship plunged into a trough then rose again with a shudder.
Sick, completely spent, he opened his eyes to find Rory a stone’s throw away.
“Yer lifeline’s been cut!” the former captain shouted.
The rope’s hemp end lay between them like a dividing line. Cut? Magnus’s head swirled with the implications. Did someone mean to send him overboard? Aye. He felt it to his sodden shoes.
Dropping to one knee near him, Rory hung his head, his face the color of sailcloth. Blood soaked the trews of one leg, his torn pants revealing a terrible gash.
“Go below!” Magnus shouted, pulling himself upright.
Rory looked up at him and then to the boiling cauldron that was the sea. No matter that the foamy spray washed the wound clean, it bubbled up again and again like a scarlet spring, just like his father’s that fatal day at Culloden.
Magnus fought his way forward to where Rory now lay, then all but dragged him to the hatch. They couldn’t waste another man. Not with one already overboard and his own close call.
Rory’s weight was formidable, Magnus’s own shoulder anguished as he lifted him. But it was go below or die, the both of them.
At last the sea was spent. An almost eerie calm ensued. A warm breeze caressed Lark’s face as she sat on the storm-washed deck near the ship’s rail the next day, Larkin on her lap. A porpoise made a graceful leap into the water, now a settled cerulean blue without even a hint of a lacy wave. The calls of sailors and the ship’s carpenter as they repaired the Bonaventure and its tattered sails sounded at her back, punctuated with sawing and hammering.
Her stomach had finally settled as well. Larkin was dry, full of goat’s milk and porridge. More than a few plants had perished, drowned in the storm below deck, and all but two hives. Overnight her duties had lightened, but all seemed of small consequence given they’d survived one of the most harrowing happenings of their lives.
Rory limped about, making her wonder why. Magnus’s shoulder was set in a sling pulled tight to his chest. Had he broken it or merely dislodged it? The black crepe ribbon on his forearm stayed intact.
She lowered her chin and kissed Larkin’s sun-warmed head. His little cap had disappeared, mayhap washed away. She would make another, having begged needle and thread. His bedding was airing, his wee wooden box bed beside her. No one seemed to mind that she sat on the quarterdeck with what remained of the plant cabin. After a busy morning cleaning up straw skeps and returning plants back to their place, mayhap this was her due.
“Allow me to escort you to the captain’s table tonight for a small celebration of our having survived the storm.” Blackburn stood near her, casting her in shade.
Would he never cease trying to sway her? Her response was quiet, a nay tucked within.
“And how would yer wife feel about that, I wonder?”
A tight smile touched his surprised expression. “Very well then. I shall ask another.”
No sooner had he left than Rory appeared, speaking to her through the ornate railing that separated the quarterdeck from the main. “He’s a bad one, Blackburn.”
“And how goes it with ye?” she asked, unwilling to discuss the surgeon’s faults.
He winced. “Glad the gale is o’er.”
“I pray we’ll not repeat it.” Even the thought made her shudder. “’Tis a miracle we didna founder.”
“Yer and the laird’s prayers likely kept us afloat.”
She’d not naysay that. Only an outright miracle had kept them from the bottom of the sea. Her gaze traveled to his bandaged leg. “I’ll pray for yer wound.”
He shrugged. “Ye’d best pray for the laird. His lifeline was cut clean through. Someone wanted him overboard.”
Her gaze fastened on his haggard face. “Who?”
“Yer doting surgeon, no doubt. He’s fixed his eye on ye and the laird is in his way.”
“The laird is in mourning. And Surgeon Blackburn is very married.”
He snorted. “There’s neither one much observed aboard ship.” He released his grip on the railing, limping back to light duties given his injury.
Blackburn had likely set Magnus’s shoulder. But had the surgeon meant to kill him? Or had the rope been cut another way? Magnus was respected here in this strange floating kingdom. Even liked. She was not ignorant of the nods and deferential treatment given him. Despite the MacLeish temper that sometimes flared, he had an easy, affable way with people. A natural dignity and kindness just as he’d had on Kerrera. And here he remained more laird than indenture, no matter what British law had to say. Pondering it, Lark kept her eyes on the cavorting dolphins, her fingers worrying a crease in Larkin’s gown.
By nightfall ’twas whispered the rope that tethered Magnus to deck had indeed been cut in the worst of the storm. Knowing it gnawed at her. Casting blame was not her way, but the fear remained.
Be his defense, Lord. Please.
That night she ate a simple supper on deck as the setting sun painted the sky a jolly pink. Larkin had sprouted a new tooth, his lower gum now bearing two tiny pearls. She tickled and made over him, his belly laugh a delight.
Laughter lifted from the captain’s quarters below, reminding her she’d missed a bounteous supper. When the officers and their ladies finished dining, they fanned onto the deck, Mrs. Ravenhill and Captain Moodie leading. All began to walk about.
Lark had purposely positioned herself in a corner, nearly hidden. She tried not to gawk at Mrs. Ravenhill’s colorful gown. Seven officers paired with their chosen partners, all but Surgeon Blackburn, still missing a mate, as they were called. Magnus hadn’t joined them but had eaten on deck with the crew, as had she and the other convict women. The fare coming out of the galley kitchen was a far cry from that of the captain’s table, but she was free of any matchmaking seamen.
Pressing her back against a crate, she breathed in the unmistakable odor of rum and perfume in the warm breeze. Her senses filled with the party’s exaggerated speech and movements, their boundless laughter. When a sailor brought out a fiddle, Lark pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from laughing as a tipsy officer bowed to his partner and then tripped over a coiled rope. Larkin let out a shriek as the fiddle screeched and began a reel. Sitting him on her lap facing her, she clapped his dimpled hands as the moon rose and silvered his smile with gentle light. Soon they were both yawning, still recovering from their sleepless night in the storm.
She went below and gave him a bath. A kindly sailor had brought her a partial tub of rainwater warmed by the sun. Larkin splashed, tasted, blew bubbles. She ran a soapy c
loth over him, smiling at his antics then frowning at the beginnings of a saltwater rash. A bit of salve would end the aggravation, surely. After drying him off, she applied both salve and clout, then eased him into a linen nightshirt made from one of her clean petticoats.
“Ah, wee one, ye’ve stolen my heart completely, both now and forevermore.”
Taking a comb, she swept his damp hair into a little russet wave atop his head before bundling him in a blanket against the damp and coaxing him to sleep with a lullaby.
Hours later, having traded the hammock for the narrow bunk, she came awake, Larkin’s even breathing preferable to the ship’s incessant creak and the call of the watch. The sound of the sea was a whisper tonight as if worn out from the recent storm. She kissed the back of Larkin’s head, breathing in his beloved baby scent. Gradually she drifted, caught in the after-terrors of the gale and feeling queasy all over again before the solace of Larkin’s warmth reminded her all was well . . .
Had the door come open? She pushed up on one elbow, blinking at a sliver of candlelight and a silhouette. The door closed. The light snuffed.
Fear sank cold claws into her, raising gooseflesh. “Who is there?”
Silence. Shadows.
She waited for the answer but only heard the scrape of a chair across the planked floor, as if it was being positioned against the door. Sitting up abruptly, she bruised her head on the bunk’s low oak ceiling. Pain yanked her fully awake. Cradling Larkin, she pressed her back against the ship’s side.
“I beg ye—leave!”
In answer, cold fingers grazed her bare arm before shackling her wrist, causing her to spill Larkin. He rolled onto the bunk, snatched from sleep, the thud of his skull against the bunk’s hard edge making him cry out.
“Quiet!” Blackburn hovered, so close she smelled sour port.
Recoiling, she tried to shove him away. Uttering an oath, he tore at her nightgown with a quick hand. The rip of fabric collided with Larkin’s cry.