Lady Miracle (39 page)

“Her life is owed to the grace of angels, as Sorcha said,” Michael insisted.

“Either way, I thank you for your help,” Ranald said. “Much has happened in my absence.”

“There is something else, too,” Sorcha said. “Diarmid was here earlier—he and Mungo are out on the sea today. Ranald, he said that Anabel died a while ago—did you know that?”

Ranald gave the child back to Sorcha, and slid a glance at Michael. “I did not know,” he said precisely. “How sad.”

Michael narrowed her eyes and watched him warily. She nearly spoke, knowing his bold lie, but Sorcha’s tremulous smile kept her silent. But Sorcha’s hands, fluttering nervously over the babe’s swaddling, revealed Sorcha’s own trepidation.

“Now that he is a widower, Diarmid took Michael to wife,” Sorcha continued. “They said their own vows, and now are wed by grace of God and their own wishes. Though we will call in a priest as soon as we can, both to oversee their vows again and to baptize the child once more.” She looked up at her husband, then glanced quickly at Michael. Her grim gaze somehow communicated, as effectively as words, that she had told Ranald about the marriage to deflect his anger and blame to herself, and away from Michael and Diarmid.

Ranald grew pale, his mouth a grim line. “Married?” His voice was even and far too smooth. Michael’s heart slammed with dread. “Married?” he asked again.

Michael felt a cold frisson of fear whirl through her, as if danger radiated from Ranald suddenly. He turned to look at her with narrowed, darkened eyes. The stormy anger in his gaze made her gasp silently.

He looked down at Sorcha, hands fisted on his hips. “What greetings I get when I come home. First a daughter—by God, if you were to bear a healthy infant, it should have been a son! And then this news—do you realize what this means? Michaelmas holds the charter to Glas Eilean! It reverts to her husband’s possession!”

“Surely the king will grant you property for your loyalty in holding Glas Eilean,” Sorcha protested.

Ranald seemed not to hear her. “Diarmid Campbell covets whatever I hold! He will not have Glas Eilean!” he snarled. The child startled in her mother’s arms and began to cry, loud and reedy. Ranald scowled and spun on his heel to stomp toward the door. “He will regret his actions against me! You say he is out on the ocean? My birlinn can go out again, no matter how weary my oarsmen claim to be!” He yanked open the door.

With a frightened glance in Sorcha’s direction, Michael ran after him. “Ranald!” she cried. “Ranald!”

He whirled as she approached. “I will gain my revenge!”

“You must not do this,” she said. “Diarmid has done nothing malicious to you.”

“He wed you,” he snarled, and took a long step toward her. She faltered, backing away as she saw the fierce expression in his dark eyes. As he advanced, she retreated, until her heel struck the wall behind her.

“Our marriage is no threat to you,” she said. “Diarmid never thought to harm you when he said vows with me.”

“He must have planned all along to wed you and take this castle from me. You have been used.” Ranald came closer, until Michael pressed her back against the cold stone wall. “Just as he took Anabel from me!” He hovered over her, his eyes wild, truly frightening. “I have long owed Diarmid revenge for that—and now he has done this! I swear to you, he will not have Glas Eilean!” He took her by the shoulders in a hard grip. “I would not give it up to Gavin Faulkener, and by God I will not let Diarmid Campbell take it by right of marriage. If he had a thousand men at my gates I would not give up this place! Do you understand?” He shook her violently. “Do you?”

Her head slammed hard against the wall. For an instant, pain and nausea swamped her. “I—I understand,” she gasped. “But Ranald—consider what you do.”

“I have considered it. I mean to kill Diarmid Campbell. He has made it an easy task. I will find his birlinn and sink it.”

“The Gabriel is far too hardy,” she said. “You could not destroy it.”

“Watch and see,” he said, taking her by the upper arm and dragging her along the corridor with him. “Come with me. I want your new husband to see that I now have what he wants most. I have you. Once he sees you with me, he will not dare to fight.”

Michael stumbled along after him, resisting, protesting. Ranald growled and slapped her face hard enough to make her fall to one knee. He dragged her to her feet, but she pulled away. He snatched at her and got a grip of her linen veil, ripping its folds from her head. Her braids tumbled down and he grabbed again, yanking her hair, forcing her to come forward. When she fell toward him, he gripped her arm painfully.

“The seas are rough today,” he said, as he pulled her down the turning steps toward the sea entrance. “Nearly anything could happen out there, my lady. A challenge for a sturdy boat and a strong master. I know you are eager to go out with me to see just who shall take the day.”

“The winds are getting stronger!” Mungo called to Diarmid. “We should turn back!” A blast of air tore the words from his mouth, but Diarmid nodded in understanding.

As the birlinn rolled precariously with the cresting waves, Diarmid cautiously made his way toward the prow where Mungo stood, walking between the two rows of oarsmen and stepping over coiled ropes, around barrels, and past the creaking mast spar where the square canvas sail bellied in the wind.

Mungo pointed toward dark clouds heaped high overhead. “There’s a gale coming for certain,” he said. “We are foolish to stay out here longer. The Gabriel is a fine birlinn, but her merits will be tested in a gale.”

Cold, vigorous air pummeled Diarmid, blowing his hair back from his brow, flattening his shirt against him. He nodded at Mungo. “No point in sailing further south—no English ship would sail in this direction once they see those clouds.”

“Nor will the king be sailing,” Mungo added. “He’ll wait out the storm in some Highland hall.”

Diarmid shouted an order to the man at the tiller to turn the birlinn back toward Glas Eilean. The man sat on a wooden chest in the stern, gripping the handle of a wooden rudder. He nodded to Diarmid and called out to the oarsmen to veer the boat’s course.

Diarmid rested a hand on the high upsweep of the prow and watched the rocking ocean and its empty horizon. They had headed south that morning out of Glas Eilean’s sea entrance looking for ships that might approach from English waters, but so far had sighted only a few fishing boats.

An hour, heading northeast, brought them close enough to see the high, pale cliffs of Glas Eilean, crowned by its castle of golden stone. Soon he would see Michael again and hold her in his arms. The desolate, wild ocean and the chill winds made him long for her comfort, and the warmth of a fire and hot food.

He smiled to himself, remembering the voyage he and Michael had taken from Dunsheen to Glas Eilean. Much had happened since that day to change his life. He was not the same man he had been even a few weeks ago. The love he felt for Michael, and the new measure of contentment that she had brought into his life, had cleansed him, strengthened him. Only his anger toward Ranald MacSween lingered, bitter and heavy.

A sudden blast whipped past him, and he looked up at the sail, now overfull. If the winds grew stronger, the sail would have to come down or the birlinn could be blown off course. He turned to signal a few of the men to pick up the oars they had shipped earlier. The winds and strong currents carried the ship northeast too swiftly; unless the winds slowed, every hand was needed to prevent them from being swept past Glas Eilean.

He turned as he heard Mungo shout, and saw him point toward the island of Glas Eilean, closer now. Diarmid saw a birlinn coming from that direction, sleek and graceful, though its sides dipped dangerously as it cut recklessly across the wind. Several pairs of oars rose and dipped in a steady rhythm. Diarmid narrowed his eyes.

“That’s Ranald!” he called to Mungo. “What the devil—”

“By the saints!” Mungo shouted. “Look there, in the stern!”

Diarmid had already seen. Hunched low in the stern of the other birlinn was a small form with pale golden hair. After another moment, Diarmid saw her face and slender shoulders above the rim of the hull. He swore aloud.

Mungo stepped close to Diarmid. “Knowing how little your lady loves sailing, I doubt she is a willing passenger.”

“Ranald is a fool,” Diarmid growled, watching the birlinn speed toward them. Even from this distance, he could see that some of the men aboard the other birlinn were armed with bows and arrows.

“Jesu! He’s come in pursuit of us,” Mungo said.

“Tell six men to drop oars and take up arms. There are bows and arrows in those chests over there. I thought to be prepared in case the English attacked us. I never expected this.”

“But Michael is on board! She could be hurt!”

“I have no other choice!” Diarmid bellowed. His fear mounted rapidly, heart pounding harder than the helmsman’s drum. The thought of endangering Michael cut into him like a blade. Yet if he did not order a counterattack, Ranald would kill his men or himself, even sink the ship, while Michael watched.

“I am sorry,” Mungo said quietly. “I know you have no choice.” He walked toward midship, calling out the orders.

Diarmid turned back, squinting as he watched. Several moments passed before Mungo returned to hold out a bow and a thick bunch of arrows. Diarmid took them wordlessly. Grim anger filled him, as frigid and dangerous as the coming gale. His left hand trembled, and he made a fist, pounding it white-knuckled against the prow. Then he swore vehemently as he saw Michael lurch forward to grip the low-lying rim of the hull. “She’s sick,” he said.

“She’s a poor sailor,” Mungo said. “Ranald will have a task of it if he wants her to do anything but hang over the side.”

Diarmid crammed the arrows into his belt. “At least she’ll stay low and out of the way.” He never shifted his gaze from the birlinn that rode closer through the waves. Michael curled in the stern, her hair glinting bright and blowing loose, her face deathly pale. She looked up then, and seemed to see him. Even at this distance, he could tell that her eyes were filled with fear. She raised a limp hand and gestured to him to flee.

His gut wrenched and his heart thundered as he watched Michael. The need to take her from that birlinn burned within him like a fire, capable of consuming his reason. He drew a deep breath to summon control and glanced away; if he looked at her longer, he might act too impulsively. He needed his battle sense intact just now.

MacSween stood in the prow of his ship, glaring defiantly at Diarmid, still too far away to shout or waste an arrow shot. “Eighteen men,” Diarmid told Mungo. “Seven of them with bows held ready.”

“But that is a twenty-six oar trading boat,” Mungo said. “He does not even have enough men to man the oars in these winds. He may attack us, but he cannot defeat us!”

“Pray that you are right, my friend,” Diarmid said grimly. He nocked an arrow in his own bow and held it down and ready. “Tell the men to avoid striking Michael once I give the order to shoot.”

The open oarlocks in the stern of the birlinn spouted cold salt water in her face every time the hull dipped. Michael wiped the moisture away weakly and struggled to resist the awful sensations roiling in her stomach and head. Dizzy, ill, and deeply frightened, she gripped the carved rim and thought longingly, ridiculously, of Diarmid’s slice of dried ginger.

She raised her head, shoving her hair out of her eyes, and watched Diarmid’s birlinn approach. The high, graceful prow and the flaring sides undulated over the wild swells, coming ever closer. She saw Dunsheen’s insigne, a streak of red lightning, clearly marked on the ballooned sail. Twenty-six oars stirred the waves in a fast cadence.

For a moment, her dazed mind saw a great dragon flying forward over the wild seas, the high curved prow its head, the sail its wings, the oars its legs. And standing beside the head of that dragon, she saw Diarmid, tall and wide-shouldered in the prow, his hair tossed back, his plaid and shirt flattened against him, his stance unyielding, his gaze fierce. She felt the pure force of his presence as keenly as if he stood beside her.

Watching him, she drew strength from the sight. She roused herself enough to raise her hand and signal him to turn back, beg him to turn back. But he looked away as if he had not seen—or chose to ignore—her attempt to warn him.

A series of rolling waves pitched Ranald’s birlinn violently up and smacked it down again, over and over. Michael cried out, grabbed for support on a free oar locked in an oarhole, and felt her stomach heave. She leaned over the side as the boat rocked precariously in a trough, and was drenched in wash.

She looked up, wiping her streaming hair back, to see Ranald standing over her. “Get up,” he said. “Come with me.” He leaned down and yanked her to her feet.

Weakened by sea sickness, she wobbled and sank back down. Ranald grabbed her under the arms and dragged her the length of the boat toward the prow.

“Stand there and let Dunsheen see you,” he said, pushing her forward. “I want him to know that I have what he most wants.”

She gripped the flared edge of the prow with shaking hands. Diarmid stared at her, motionless, fearsome. Ranald stood behind her and held her shoulders. She jerked away from his grip and stood on her own, refusing to let her legs give way.

Wind whipped at her, cold and violent, and the heavy beat of the oarsman’s drum thundered through her body. But she stood firm and straight, remembering that Diarmid had once told her to stand and sway in rhythm with the motion of the boat; look far out to sea, he had said that day. She widened her stance as she held the high side of the prow, and held her head high.

But she could look no farther than Diarmid. His gaze was like a beacon. She held herself proud and fearless, for she did not want him to fear on her behalf. A fountain of love poured forth from her, her own heart streaming out a silver light to touch his. That invisible strand of feeling anchored her to him, her stalwart rock. He supported her with his gaze, with his steadfastness, with his love.