Black Raven's Lady: Highland Lairds Trilogy (23 page)

“Well, then,” Keir demanded, “just who were the sweets for if not for the two of you?”

“We—we took them for Lady Raine,” Ethan answered with a noisy gulp. His brown eyes grew enormous in his tanned face. “We put them in her cabin secretly.”

“Why in the hell would you do a damn thing like that?” Keir asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

Apparently he wasn’t the only one thoroughly entranced by the
Black
Raven
’s charming female passenger. When Raine first came on board, Keir had sent silk pillows, an embroidered down comforter, and gilded lanterns to brighten the Spartan quarters she’d inherited from Macraith.

“We knew the beautiful lady was fretting about the terrible storm that’s coming,” Robbie explained earnestly. He blinked, pausing to lick his lips before continuing. “We wanted to make Lady Raine happy again. We don’t want her to go on looking so sad and worried.”

Standing beside Keir, Macraith appeared to be trying his best not to grin. Rocking back on his heels, he folded his burly arms and pressed his lips flat in a failed attempt to conceal his mirth. “Och, a douce, admirable sentiment for a pair of untried weans,” he offered in his gravelly baritone.

But the young midshipmen’s innocent summation pricked Keir’s already overburdened moral code. He was the cause of the beautiful lady’s unhappiness. Everyone present knew it, though no one was rash enough to put it into words.

“There’s no storm coming,” Keir stated unequivocally. “The summer weather holds.” He pointed to the stern windows at the rear of his cabin. “Look outside. Do you see a storm?”

They both shook their heads.

“Any black rainclouds out there?” he prodded.

They made no audible reply, not daring to contradict their captain but clearly not convinced either.

“And if we ask Lady Raine about the pilfered food, will she corroborate your story?” Keir demanded. At their puzzled expressions, he added, “Will she tell us someone’s been leaving sweets in her cabin?”

They nodded their heads in tandem, looked at one another in obvious relief, then nodded vigorously again. “Aye, sir,” they answered in perfect unison.

Keir glanced at Barrows and gave a quick jerk of his chin toward the door. Their gray-haired sea-daddy hurried out to fetch the beautiful lady in question.

In a matter of minutes Lady Raine swept into the cabin, Barrows at her heels. With her dark hair braided and wound into a coronet on the top of her head, the tall, willowy lass looked every inch a princess. She wore the bright rose-colored gown she’d acquired during their last visit to Dùn Bheagain.

When they’d first reached Laird MacLeod’s castle four weeks ago, Keir had given Lady Jeanne’s seamstress a handful of farthings to sew new items of clothing for Raine. They’d been coins well spent.

Moving to the center of the rug, Raine folded her hands, smiled warmly at Macraith and the two lads, then turned a curious face to Keir and waited politely. He assumed Barrows had explained the reason she was needed in the captain’s quarters, since she’d deigned to enter the previously scorned premises at all.

“Has anyone been leaving food in your cabin, Lady Raine?” Keir inquired.

“Oh, indeed,” she replied. Tilting her head, she looked at Ethan and Robbie expectantly. “Were the sweets from you?” she asked. “How kind!”

“Then, for the record, I take it you’ve received their offerings,” Keir stated.

Her sloe eyes sparkling with amusement, Raine nodded. “My favorites, too! Plum duff and sugar buns.”

Keir addressed the brothers with the stern demeanor of an Edinburgh magistrate. “From now on, Mr. Ethan Gibson and Mr. Robert Gibson, there’ll be no more taking food from the seamen’s galley amidships,” he pronounced. “Is that understood? If Lady Raine would like an extra portion of dessert in the evening, she merely has to tell Cook and he’ll be happy to supply it. I’ll see to that.”

“Aye, sir,” Ethan said, the relief on his youthful face almost comical.

Beside him, Robbie nodded. “Aye, sir,” he agreed. “No more plum duff,” he promised, shaking his head vigorously for emphasis. “And no more sugar buns.”

“Very well,” Keir stated, “you are all dismissed.” He glanced at his uncle and Barrows to include them, then turned back to Raine. “If you’ll be so kind, Lady Raine, please stay a few moments longer. I’d like to speak with you in private.”

Her delicate features suddenly wary, Raine shrugged a reluctant assent. “As you wish, Laird MacNeil.”

After the others had filed out and Macraith had shut the door behind them, Keir stepped closer to Raine. He started to reach for her hand, then thought better of it. She’d been avoiding him since they’d left Dùn Bheagain.

“If you’ll permit me,” he said quietly, “I’d like to beg your forgiveness for what happened.”

She lifted her brow in puzzlement, her long, thick lashes framing her wide-set eyes. “I must apologize as well,” she confessed. “I should have told you sooner that the lads have been leaving gifts of food in my cabin these past few evenings. To tell you the truth, I didn’t realize ’twould be considered such a grave offense and nearly bring a whipping down upon them.”

“I wasn’t apologizing for that,” he clarified, his low words thick with remorse. The ache of regret for what he’d done tortured him like a prisoner stretched on the rack. “I meant what happened between us, Raine. What I caused to happen through my abysmal lack of self-control.”

She glanced to the large bed at the rear of his cabin, then met his gaze once again. Her ebony eyes grew solemn in her heart-shaped face. “If you are speaking of the night we spent together, Keir,” she said, “there is no need to beg my forgiveness. I was a willing, even eager, participant.” The corners of her lips curved in a hesitant smile. “As I’m certain, you must be aware.”

“Nay, lass,” he insisted, fighting against the memory of her lithesome body pinned beneath his far greater strength. Of her wearing his shirt for a nightdress, her long shapely legs bare beneath its hem. “I took advantage of your youth and inexperience. And your naïve belief in faery enchantments.”

Frowning, she stepped back, clearly dismayed at his choice of words. “Well, of course I’m inexperienced,” Raine replied, her cheeks blooming. “But I’m not naïve nor particularly young either. Many become brides long before they turn nineteen.”

“Dammit, I didn’t mean to upset you, lass,” he assured her. “I only hope you can set aside your anger, and we can go on as friends just as before.”

“Set aside my anger?” she exclaimed, her face mirroring her apparent shock. “Keir, I’m not angry at you for seducing me. Our fate was sealed the evening we visited the stones of Calanais. Oh, no! I’m furious because you refused to heed my warnings about the coming storm.”

“Jesus, Raine!” he said, his patience ebbing at her impossible stubbornness. “Are we back to that again?” He grabbed her elbow and dragged her over to the cabin’s tall windows. “Where is that storm you saw in your dreams? Tell me that, will you, because I certainly can’t see it.”

She didn’t even bother to look out on the calm sea or up at the clear sky overhead. Her dark eyes sparking with wrath, she glared at him. “The storm is coming, Laird MacNeil,” she said, her jaw clenched, her words low and clipped.

“Eventually, aye, there will be bad weather,” he agreed, trying to keep a tight rein on his own mounting ire. “It can’t stay perfect forever, lass. But in the meanwhile, my crew is riddled with superstitious terror because of your ridiculous claim to be a seer.”

“Why?” she cried, lifting her hands in exasperation and looking up at the ceiling. “Why did the Tuatha De Danannn bind me to such an impossible dolt?”

Jabbing her elbow into his belly, she tried to shove past him and run for the door. Keir caught her before she’d taken two strides. Finally reaching the end of his patience, he brought her up fast against him and caught her chin in his hand.

“You tell me, Raine, why I have to lust after a female so pig-headed and willful she’d turn any man into a raving lunatic.”

Their faces mere inches apart, they gazed into each other’s eyes and the vexation between them slowly melted away, to be replaced with an unspoken, nearly palpable hunger. The carping voice inside Keir’s head reminded him that this was not to be allowed, while his entire body throbbed with an erotic need that refused to be ignored. ’Twas as though the outside world and all its restraints disappeared, leaving only the two of them and their insatiable longing to touch each other in the most primitive way possible.

The desire Keir had struggled to tamp down for the last four days flared like a slow-match held to the loaded cannon’s breech. Hard and hot, more taut with sexual excitement than he’d ever been in his life, Keir knew, without a doubt, that this unquenchable thirst for Raine would never end. Not in his lifetime.

Inhaling the perfume of roses that drifted from her hair and skin, he bent over her. “God Almighty, Raine,” he whispered as he grazed her soft lips with the calloused pad of his thumb. “How I want you.”

Keir slid his fingers down to caress the fragile bones at the base of her throat. Intoxicated by the delicate feminine scent of her, he brushed his mouth across her smooth cheek and along the elegant column of her neck. Through the pulsing sexual need that enveloped him, he could feel Raine tugging on his side-braids, trying to draw his mouth closer to hers.

“Keir,” she whispered impatiently, “kiss me.”

He raised his head and touched his tongue to the seam of her closed lips. In response, she threw her arms about his neck and returned his kiss with her open mouth. Holding her rump in his palms, Keir lifted Raine higher and rocked her against the thickened bulge at his crotch.

A sharp, insistent knocking penetrated Keir’s haze of lust. He allowed Raine’s supple form to slide down the length of him. “Enter,” he called, releasing her but keeping his hand at her waist.

Macraith opened the door just wide enough to stick his head inside. “Storm’s here, Captain,” he said and just as quickly closed the door.

Chapter 19

K
EIR AND
R
AINE
whirled to look out the high stern windows. The morning sunshine had disappeared and dark rainclouds scudded across the gray sky. Together they ran out onto the quarterdeck where Macraith and Adam Wyllie, the tall bosun, stood waiting for them. The wind was already gusting and raindrops pelted the oak planking at their feet.

“All hands, all hands,” Keir shouted. “Clear the decks.”

The bosun’s shrill whistle rose above the mounting wind, bringing the entire crew up to the main deck. The seamen spilled out of the hatchways and raced to their stations as Wyllie supervised the removal of all unnecessary items from the decking.

“Looks like ’tis going to be a big one,” Macraith cried over the rising crash of the waves. “She’s blowing south-southwest. We’re double-binding the boats to the booms now.”

“Reef the topgallants, Macraith,” Keir ordered. “We’ll run straight before the wind with only the sails she’ll bear.”

Keir looked up at the spread of canvas above him. In the sudden violent force of the wind and rain, ’twas already too late to bring the topgallant masts down safely to the deck. He could only pray they’d hold against the storm’s power.

Macraith hurried away, signaling Wyllie to send the men into the rigging. At the sound of the bosun’s piercing whistle, the able seamen swarmed up into the shrouds, fighting against the blast of the gale to reach the highest yardarms where they would close-reef the topgallants, making the area of the uppermost sails as small as possible.

Al-Rahman and Apollonius, who’d been standing on the forecastle as the storm roared in, joined Keir on the quarterdeck.

Keir turned to the Moor first. “We’ll point her toward the Atlantic and try to outrun the storm beneath all feasible sail. We must get away from these islands and inlets. If we can’t reach open water, at least we’ll be as far from land as possible.”

Nodding his understanding, the ship’s navigator raced across the main deck and down the companion ladder to fetch his charts. Other than a ship foundering in the high seas, nothing could be worse than running aground where the waves would dash the vessel to pieces on the rocks. The
Black
Raven
’s helmsman, Simon Ramsay, would need all the guidance the brilliant Moor could give him to leave the Sea of the Hebrides safely in their wake.

Next Keir addressed Apollonius the Greek. “Take your men and double-breech the cannon, then lash them tightly against the side. Make certain all gun ports are securely shut.” The swarthy master gunner touched his fingers to his forehead in a quick salute and went in search of his skilled gun crews amidst the crowd of men on deck.

Keir reached out and caught Raine’s hand. “Go below,” he told her. “You’re already soaked.”

She shook her head and her long braid which had torn loose from the coronet flew behind her in the powerful gusts. “I want to stay with you!” she cried over the sound of the rain pounding on the wooden deck at their feet. Her lovely rose gown was drenched and raindrops cascaded in rivulets down her nose and chin.

In an effort to shield her from the worst of the storm, Keir brought her tight against him and turned his back to the wind. She clung to his shirt, holding on as though she were afraid she’d be blown away.

“Go below, Raine,” he ordered, speaking close to her ear, “or you’ll be just one more problem I have to worry about. Right now, I need to attend to my ship and my crew.”

She tightened her grip on his shirt, her fingers trembling. Her dark eyes looked huge in her pale, frightened face. “Keir, I can’t leave you now. Not in this storm. I can’t. I can’t.”

“Go below, sweetheart,” he repeated insistently. He could feel her shivering in his arms. “The
Raven
has been in weather as rough as this before. She’ll swim through it, never fear. And you’ll be more help in sickbay than up here on deck.” He looked over the top of her head and found Barrows hovering close by, ready to help with his female charge. “Escort Lady Raine below,” Keir called to the gray-haired bosun’s mate over the roar of the wind.

Raine must have recognized the determination in Keir’s voice for she nodded halfheartedly and turned toward the hatchway. Her grizzled sea-daddy clasped her hand in his gnarled fingers and pulled her along the gangway to safety.

The sea around the
Black Raven
churned and roiled as the gigantic waves crashed over the main deck in mountains of foam. In order to keep moving in front of the storm, they had to maintain the galleon’s forward speed even throughout the lulls inside the huge troughs. Flying before the wind, they needed to spread as much canvas as ‘twas safe, which meant a constant changing of sails and ropes to control the ship’s direction.

The sailors strung lifelines from fore to aft, crisscrossing the main deck, forecastle and quarterdeck. Other crewmen stretched tarpaulins across the open hatchways, battening them down to keep the sea from flooding the cabins, galley, and hold below.

Keir cursed under his breath. How could he have let the storm race up on the
Raven
so unprepared? Yet there hadn’t been a glimpse of dark clouds on the horizon before he’d gone into his cabin for the midday meal. The thought of Raine’s warning came to the fore, and he quickly brushed it aside.

B
ELOWDECKS IN
THE
cockpit, Raine worked alongside Jasper Barrows in the faint light of two lanterns swinging from beams overhead. One by one, injured seamen stumbled through or half-pitched themselves down the small opening in a canvas-covered hatchway, where Ethan met them. Showing amazing maturity for his twelve years, the young midshipman calmly helped the wounded men make their way through the darkened passages and into the
Raven
’s small surgery.

Meanwhile, Robbie had fetched Raine’s sailor outfit and her leather satchel from her cabin. She slipped behind a bulkhead and changed from her sopping wet gown into the dry shirt and trousers. Then the red-haired middy helped her pull out bandages and salves and set them on a sea chest.

Whistling calmly under his breath, her sea-daddy laid out his few sharp instruments on another available chest. Raine said a quick prayer there’d be no need for his saw today. An amputation on a ship in the middle of a storm would be a gruesome matter.

Together Raine and Barrows treated a seaman with a broken arm, taped up another’s cracked ribs, and applied a plaster to a third man’s bruised skull. Robbie held a jar of salve for her while she smoothed it over an ugly abrasion on Cook MacMillan’s forearm.

They worked in an ever-shifting, ever-moving space, doing their best under the cramped conditions and meager light. But the raging storm over their heads grew steadily worse, and the vessel bucked and rolled and shivered around them. Enormous booms of thunder rattled their already lacerated nerves.

During a break in their work, Barrows glanced up at the beams overhead. He appeared to be listening to the timbers creaking and groaning. The look on his seasoned face confirmed what Raine already suspected. The violent turbulence that raged above them was growing worse.

“Don’t worry, my lady,” he told her, with a reassuring grin. “As long as our feet our dry, we’ve nay a care in the world.”

Raine tried to hold her hands steady, for her trembling fingers threatened to interfere with her work. Her stomach churned with each roll of the ship, and she fought the sensation of smothering in the dim, confined space. The thought of the sea slowly rising up around them as the vessel sank to the bottom terrified her.

Like an invisible hand tearing at her throat, desperation took hold and—in spite of all her resolve to be brave—Raine felt the tears running down her cheeks.

The memory of her vision flashed before her.

Keir shouting orders to the men above in the shrouds, unaware of the enormous wave approaching . . . the gigantic wall of water crashing over the
Raven’s
deck and Keir vanishing from sight. . .

Raine never doubted her visions. She remained convinced that Keir would be lost at sea. Dear Lord above, she had no wish to live without him. Her only thought was to be with Keir in their last moments on earth.

As she started to rush out of sickbay, Barrows reached for her sleeve. “Wait! Wait, my lady,” he called. “ ’Tisn’t safe for you above deck!”

Torn between the responsibility to remain safely in the cockpit and help the injured or try to save Keir’s life, Raine fought the confusion and fear that clouded her mind. Without a conscious decision, she found herself hurrying through the darkened passageways till she came to a small opening in a hatch and climbed up the ladder into the swirling chaos above.

I
N THE MIDST
of the gale, Keir felt his uncle’s hand on his shoulder. Macraith was pointing toward a hatchway in the ship’s waist. Keir squinted against the brutal wind, peering through the pouring rain and the dense white haze of spray. His heart slammed against his ribs at the sight of Raine clinging to a lifeline strung near the starboard rail.

Dressed in soaked shirt and loose sailor’s trousers, she was trying to pull herself hand over hand along the rope toward him, but the deluge impeded her progress. The
Raven
’s prow plunged into the high seas and rose again, pouring water off her decks and pointing the carved wooden raven on her bowsprit upward to the heavens.

“Stop, Raine!” he roared, his throat torn raw from shouting orders over the incessant scream of the wind. “Stop! Go back, Raine, go back!” But she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the crashing waves and the pounding rain.

Taking advantage of a temporary lull as the
Raven
slid to the bottom of an enormous trough, Keir started toward her. He’d discarded his boots and socks earlier so he could move about on the slippery, constantly moving deck. Tearing along the gangway, he reached Raine just as the ship started to ride the crest of another wave, up, up, up into the wild, screeching howl of the storm. Holding fast to the man-rope, Keir clutched Raine to him as a wave of foam and water six feet high washed over them.

Brilliant streaks of lightning flashed, followed by an explosion of thunder. The galleon labored beneath the turbulent elements, caught in a savage cross-sea that tossed her about like a rowboat. A change in the wind had caused the waves to smash together from different directions. Gigantic rollers broke over the
Raven
’s prow, covering the forecastle completely. Still, still, they were flying straight through the storm under close-reefed topsails and courses.

With an ear-splitting crack overhead, the fore-topgallant mast catapulted to the deck. As it fell two seamen were knocked from the mainmast’s yardarm into the raging sea. Adam Wyllie’s piercing whistle barely penetrated the fury of the gale, and five sailors raced to the starboard railing, trying vainly to see through the blinding rain.

“Man overboard,” someone called again and again, the words coming faint and soon blown away.

With Raine clutched in his arms, Keir looked over the top of her head to see a monstrous wave coming toward the
Raven
on her larboard bow. Too late to reach the security of the hatch, he held Raine tight in his arms. As the wave broke over the galleon, the lifeline snapped off at both ends and the two of them sailed over the main deck’s gunwale and into the wicked, raging sea.

P
LUNGING UNDER
THE
roiling green water, Keir kept Raine locked fast in his arms, his hand covering her mouth and nostrils to keep the water out of her lungs. By brute strength alone he kicked his way to the top and took his hand away from her face. She sputtered and gasped but didn’t struggle against his hold. And blessed of all—she didn’t panic.

“Get ready to pinch your nose and cover your mouth,” he croaked, his throat so inflamed from shouting he could hardly speak. “Keep your head pressed against me, tuck your elbows in tight and wedge your arms between our bodies. I won’t let go of you, sweetheart. Watch out. Another one’s coming.”

The wave crashed over their heads and Keir, his lungs bursting, his muscular limbs straining, fought to bring them back to the surface and air once again.

Another wave came and at the bottom of the trough that followed an empty barrel floated beside them. Thankfully the safety line which had severed under their combined weight was still with them, caught between their bodies. With sheer determination, Keir caught the storm’s refuse with one hand and pulled it toward them.

“Here,” he gasped, “hold onto the barrel while I tie us together.” She nodded and clung to the wooden staves, too short of breath to utter a word. “Brave lass,” he said in encouragement.

He quickly wrapped the man-rope around Raine’s waist and lashed her to him, then tied his left forearm to the buoyant flotsam just before the next wave rolled over them. This time, thanks to their improvised raft, they rode on top of the swell.

“Why did you come back on deck?” he shouted through the downpour. “Goddammit, I told you to stay below!”

“I . . . couldn’t let . . . you . . . be washed . . . away,” she said, coughing and spitting and struggling for air. “I . . . had . . . to save you!”

“You should never have risked your life like that!” Keir told her, not bothering to hide his wrath.

She rested her head on his shoulder, catching her breath, then lifted her face close to his. “Don’t . . . be afraid,” Raine reassured him, her words coming in quick, ragged pants. “We won’t . . . die, Keir. Aunt Isabel promised . . . as long as I stayed with you, I’d be safe. That’s when . . . she gave me the magic rune. I have it tucked . . . in the pouch . . . tied to my waist.”

Unable to cling to his anger knowing they might be only moments from death, he shook his head in resignation at her foolish beliefs. “Well, then,” he shouted, just before another roller washed over them, “we have nothing to fear, do we?”

“R
AINE.
R
AINE,
WAKE
up, lass.”

Raine could hear Keir’s insistent words through the fog that surrounded her. She tried to ignore the command and slip peacefully back into oblivion.